[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 48 (Tuesday, April 22, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S3459]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 HONORING THE LIFE OF LYMAN SPITZER, JR

   Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute 
to an outstanding scientist and visionary, Mr. Lyman Spitzer Jr., who 
recently died in Princeton, NJ at the age of 82. Mr. Spitzer was one of 
those rare individuals who not only made history, he actually changed 
history.
  Spitzer was a theoretician of astrophysics and plasma physics who 
inspired the Hubble Space telescope and a myriad of orbiting 
observatories. His scientific contributions began decades ago, when he 
played a leading role in the development of sonar during World War II.
  After World War II, Spitzer's attention turned to what would become 
his lifelong dream and his lifelong work, the Hubble telescope. The 
most complex undertaking in unmanned space study, the telescope can 
peer into the deepest reaches of space. And it was only Lyman Spitzer's 
vision, advocacy and tenacity which made this dream a reality. He 
shepherded the project from, as the New York Times noted, ``a glimpse 
in his own eye in 1947,'' to its liftoff in 1990.
  Mr. President, Mr. Spitzer's interests included all aspects of 
astronautics. He was the catalyst of the Copernicus Orbiting 
Astronomical Observatory, an ultraviolet predecessor of Hubble that 
NASA launched in 1972. He was also a pioneer of the effort to use 
nuclear fusion as a clean and limitless source of energy. And Spitzer 
was the founding director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, 
where he worked until the day he died.
  Lyman Spitzer enhanced our vision of the universe, increased our 
knowledge of the stars and expanded our own horizons. He is an 
outstanding example of the difference a single individual can make. 
Others may continue his work in Princeton, but no one will ever be able 
to replace him.

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