Obituary

It is with great sorrow that we have learned of the passing of Götz Paschmann on the 23^rd of February, at the age of 84. 

A student of professor Reimar Lüst, at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and other places, Götz’s scientific career concentrated on the study of physical processes in the magnetopause, probed by the NASA Wind and the Cluster ESA satellite missions, and on the magneto-sheath current sheets using plasma and field measurements of unprecedented resolution with the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission. The database of these measurements allowed him to address key unanswered questions concerning the structure and other extraordinary dynamics of magnetic reconnection and further processes in current sheets.

Well aware of the necessity to publish, and for debate in his scientific discipline, Götz was a key participant in the ISSI Forum in March 2009 led by Gerhard Haerendel, on the future of magnetosphere studies which is still exiting, so long after of the launch of Sputnik 1. The conclusions were published in the COSPAR Space Research Today magazine in 2009.

From 1997 to 2005, Götz was a Director at ISSI and a frequent visitor at ISSI, participating in more than ten Teams and Workshops, while also spending time at ISSI as a Visiting Scientist some twelve times (making him the record holder in this respect). Furthermore, Götz served ISSI as a Science Committee member between 2008 and 2012.

His remarkable smooth character and his manners in dealing with his colleague Stein Haaland and the whole ISSI Staff, will remain legendary! He was a true gentleman, an admirer and lover of Bern, and was always welcome.

Roger-M. Bonnet on behalf of ISSI

1. Passing Away

Doctor Vittorio Manno, born on 31 July 1938 in Cuneo in Italy, passed away on 1 February 2022 in Brussels where he lived, after a long series of health problems. With his decease, we have certainly lost a fine colleague and a very dear friend.

His loyalty was unequalled.  His perfect and tasteful elegant silhouette, his sense of style, his kindness, his sense of humor, are still present in many memories of all those who had the pleasure and the luck of having him as their most valued colleague, their server and their friend. 

Vittorio had his roots in an old and noble family in Sardinia, his great-grandfather was a long-lasting collaborator of Charles Felix (Savoy Dynasty) King of Sardinia.

2. A True Space Science Hero

Vittorio completed his studies and conducted his early scientific research in Milano as a member of the Occhialini group. In 1967 he joined the European Space Research Organization (ESRO), as a research fellow working with Edgar Page. His research post was in the European Space Laboratory ESLAB at ESTEC in Noordwijk (the Netherlands), then under the leadership of Ernst Trendelenburg, who was very impressed by his scientific baggage, his appearance and elegance. He started as study scientist of the COS-B gamma-ray astronomy mission in 1968 and carried it through the study phases in the late 60s until its approval by the ESRO Council, and then became project scientist on the mission. Moreover, he also acted in the beginning as study scientist for the HELOS X-ray astronomy mission (Highly-Eccentric Lunar Occultation Satellite), that later evolved in the first European X-ray Observatory EXOSAT. One of us (JB), being a member of the mission definition team of European scientists, remembers him as being very active and instrumental in pinning down the mission performance characteristics by putting them on a solid and quantitative basis.

Succeeding Trendelenburg as ESA Director of Science in 1983, Roger Bonnet nominated him without any hesitation as “Deputy Science Director”.  In that essential capacity, Vittorio`s main achievements will certainly remain famous in history owing to his role in the elaboration, and then early management, of the Horizon 2000 program. His attraction to programmatic innovation, supported by an impressive enthusiasm and a remarkable courage in confronting difficult and challenging tasks, were crucial to the success of that program. In particular, his skills in dealing with human emotions and smoothly solving managerial problems were unprecedented. His drive for a successful implementation of the Horizon 2000 significantly contributed to the ESA science program becoming second in magnitude in the world only behind NASA.

In building the Horizon 2000 program set-up, one of us (JB) as chair of the Survey Committee met numerous times with Vittorio in his office in Paris to discuss how to handle a potential successful approach after previously failed attempts. The best start seemed to try and define several levels of space science projects with respect to scientific timeliness, scale size and budget. On the white board in his office, Vittorio originally tried to visualize this in terms of a number of concentric annuli representing different classes or scales of projects, each class then being segmented in parts representing various scientific disciplines. The emerging geometrical picture which remained posted on the white board in his Paris office long after he left ESA in 1989 gave a funnel-like appearance which, according to Vittorio had a strong resemblance to Dante’s Inferno and both of us, confronted with this visual concept, contemplated extensively whether such an ‘Infernal Approach’ could eventually lead to a ‘Hell of a Program’. And eventually it did: in a Benedictine Convent on the Isle San Giorgio in the Venetian lagoon, a splendid accommodation arranged of course by Vittorio, we arrived at a consensus and the rest is history.

Without any hesitation we clearly recognize that we were very lucky to have a friend of this quality and faithfulness to support both of us in that essential team-work.

3. The Diplomat

The success of Vittorio’s career can be attributed in no small way to his genetic sense of diplomacy. Following the unilateral decision by NASA in 1981 of the cancellation of their own spacecraft on the joint ISPM (International Solar Polar Mission) without any consultation of their European partner, legally captured in a Memorandum of Understanding signed by both ESA and NASA, saw ESA delegating Vittorio to Washington to most diplomatically but also most adamantly express ESA’s and the International space science community strongest disappointment. As a result, following long negotiations, the ISPM remained part of NASA’s program under the name Ulysses.

Still 40 years after that interagency crisis, Vittorio remains as the man beyond the scenes in many international space science endeavors.

His strong involvement in the creation and activities of the IACG (Inter Agency Coordination Group) in Padua, together with Beppi Colombo, assembling ESA, NASA, IKI, and ISAS in the study of Comet Halley in 1986 was essential for all 4 agencies remaining active in IACG until 2002. The foundation during the cold war era of a group committed to fostering cooperation between the world’s main space agencies, was a remarkable achievement whose success can in no small part be attributed to Vittorio’s highly developed gift for diplomacy and his organizational abilities. His connections within Italian society were very instrumental in the preparation and organization of the IACG and the presentation to Pope Jean-Paul II in 1986 of Halley space observations with all IACG heads of agencies being present.

In 1989, the Italian Government nominated Vittorio as Scientific attaché at the Italian Embassy in Vienna, which he left in 1995 following the invitation by Johannes Geiss (who passed away exactly two years-minus one day before him) to become the first science program manager of the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) in Bern. He was succeeded by Giacomo Cavallo, also Scientific attaché (Tokio), who implemented the continuation of Horizon-2000 and its extension Horizon 2000-Plus from 1994 on.

4. The Coordinator of Multidisciplinary Science at ISSI

At ISSI, the two of us, in our respective responsibilities, benefited from Vittorio’s remarkable eclectic scientific intuition, his management abilities and unique social skills. Those qualities greatly contributed to ISSI in becoming after nearly 15 years of his presence, a worldwide attractive destination for a total of 2059 new space scientists, Academicians and young scientists, leading the ISSI international teams, workshops and visitors. He was always a very gentle, helpful and hospitable host for all of them. Today, many will undoubtedly remember the tours around Bern that he organized and during which they could experience his very knowledgeable and experienced talent as a precious guide.

Johan Bleeker (SRON) and Roger-Maurice Bonnet (ISSI)

Jean-Marie Luton passed away on 16 April 2020 at the age of 77. He was ESA’s fourth Director General, serving from 1990 to 1997. In that capacity, he was fully involved in the setting-up of ISSI. 

He was born on 4 August 1942, in Chamalières, near Clermont-Ferrand, France. After graduating in engineering from the Ecole Polytechnique in 1961, he joined the aeronomy department of the French national research institute, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). Here he worked in geophysics research and on an experiment for the NASA OGO-6 satellite, launched in June 1969 and designed to study the various interrelationships between, and latitudinal distributions of, high-altitude atmospheric parameters during a period of increased solar activity.

He was appointed special research advisor at the French space agency CNES in 1971, and then seconded to the French Ministry of Industrial and Scientific Development. There he participated in the European negotiations that took place in the framework of the European Space Conference which led to the establishment of ESA in 1975, emerging from its predecessor organizations ESRO and ELDO.

As French delegate to the ESA Council, he also served as the Chairman of ESA’s Administrative and Finance Committee. In February 1989, he was named Director General of CNES, a position he left in October 1990, to take up duty as ESA Director General, succeeding Prof. Reimar Lüst who passed away this year on March 31^st .

During Jean-Marie Luton’s terms of office as Director General, ESA conducted several successful space science missions. The Ulysses mission, the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and he first servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, were all carried out in the 1990s. During this period, Ariane 4 also successfully launched Meteosat-5 and -6 as well as ERS-1 and -2. He was of great help in resurrecting the Cluster mission which was destroyed during the launch of the first Ariane5 launcher.

When he joined ESA in 1990, he was fully involved in the negotiations with Switzerland to create ISSI, and had frequent meetings with Johannes Geiss, Peter Creola then Swiss delegate to the ESA council and Hans-Peter Schneiter President of the Pro ISSI Foundation. His very positive support to the concept of ISSI and the friendly relationship he developed with his scientific colleagues and administrative Swiss friends until he left ESA in 1997, when he becomes President and Director General of Arianespace, were crucial to quickly create and develop ISSI in its very early days.  

Through his important role in the establishment of ISSI and his long-lasting involvement in the development of European space and Earth science, Jean-Marie Luton has offered to the European and International space research community an essential support, allowing them to take full benefit of ISSI, in a broad field of scientific disciplines, in Solar System exploration, astronomy and Earth sciences.

Roger-Maurice Bonnet, International Space Science Institute

Reimar Lüst, of German nationality, astrophysicist, and well known for his work on cosmic rays, plasma physics, hydrodynamics and nuclear fusion, and a pioneer of European space research, passed away during the night of 31^st March, in Hamburg where he lived, one week after his 97^th birthday. He was the son of a Lutheran Pastor and born into a pious household in the town of Wuppertal-Barmen on 25 March 1923. He attended school in the Kessel gymnasium from 1933 until 1941 when he had to rejoin the Kriegsmarine in the cold water of the Bay of Biscay, serving as a submarine officer. His U-boat N° 528 was severely damaged, bombed and destroyed by a British depth-charge and was going to be sunk to prevent it from getting into the hands of the enemy, drowning eleven men on board. From a depth of 320 m, thanks to his physical strength and some luck, he was able to make it up to the sea surface and then swam for several hours to an English frigate which had attacked the U-boat, before being heaved onto the deck and sent as a prisoner-of-war in a camp, first in England and then in the US at Mexia, Texas, where he stayed until 1945. This was long enough for him to be appreciated by his guards for his mathematical talents, solving calculus problems on toilet paper. That is how he started his brilliant and extraordinary career.

In 1946, he returns to destroyed Germany and is a student at the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe Frankfurt University where he gets a Diploma in 1949, and in 1951 he becomes assistant of Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, brother of the future President of Germany, and Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Prize, 1932) of the Physics Max Planck Institute in Göttingen where he gets his doctorate in theoretical physics under the direction of his two prestigious professors. He then worked in theoretical plasma physics and astrophysics for the next ten years. In 1955, he gets a Fulbright fellowship and rejoins the United States and the Institute Enrico Fermi at the Universities of Chicago and then Princeton, where he worked with John Simpson, Eugene Parker, and James van Allen in Iowa.

In 1956, he becomes the father of Dieter Lüst, well known physicist and cosmologist, presently Director of the Max Planck Institute of physics created by Heisenberg in 1958. He obtains his habilitation in physics in 1959 at the University of Munich, and in the same year his wife gives birth to his second son Martin, Nokia Head of Technology. He then spent several years in the USA as visiting professor at New York University (1959), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1961) and Caltech (1962). In 1964, he becomes Professor at the University of Munich.

In 1960, following a suggestion of one of his early collaborators, Ludwig Biermann, he realized the potential of space research for astrophysics and Earth sciences. Biermann proposed to directly probe the just-discovered solar wind, using alkali metals ionized by solar radiation creating an “artificial comet” which would then trace the magnetic field carried by the solar wind, and reveal its structure and behavior into interplanetary space, as they would become visible in optical wavelengths and therefore observable from the ground. In 1961, he is committed by the Max Plank Society to leading a working group in charge of founding what would be the future national space program of Germany. Two years later he founds the Max-Planck Institute for extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching and started developing rocket experiments together with Gerhard Haerendel.

In the post-war context, the development of rockets in Germany was a delicate and sensitive idea. Looking for a possible cooperation with scientists from the war allies, Lüst became a frequent visitor of space science meetings and was able to attract the attention of COSPAR participants, in particular Jacques Blamont, Director of the Service d’Aéronomie near Paris whose program was the study of the Earth upper atmosphere and of the Sun. With Blamont, he developed a true friendship which allowed him to launch from the Ile du Levant in the south of France and from Hammaguir in the Algerian desert, between 1962 and 1966, a series of sounding rockets of the French outfit, including the Centaure and the Véronique (French version of the V2). Both him and Gerhard Haerendel could then test the idea of Ludwig Biermann and were the first to send barium clouds in the upper atmosphere and measure the extension and dynamics of the Earth magnetic field. In the post-war context these experiments would not have been possible without the French hospitality and Lüst’s intelligence, and the attraction he exerted on his colleagues.

These years determined Lüst future involvement in the European space program and opened the door to the future involvement of Europe in space science. In 1962, he becomes the President of the European Preparatory Commission for SpaceResearch(COPERS), which gave birth to the European Space Research Organization, ESRO (the ancestor of ESA), founded by Pierre Auger and Eduardo Amaldi, the fathers of CERN. 

In 1972, he became the youngest President in the history of the Max Planck Society, at a time of social and political upheaval. Nevertheless, Reimar Lüst succeeded in mastering these challenges with sustained effect. In 1984, the ESA Council, chaired by French physicist Hubert Curien, assigned him the responsibility of General Director, a position he will leave in 1990. As early as 1985, at the ESA Council of minister in Rome, he was responsible for presenting and managing the initiation of major successful decisions, which his successors and the whole European space community are still benefit from: Ariane 5, Europe’s participation to the future International Space Station, and the Horizon 2000 long-term plan which elevated ESA to the second rank of all scientific space agencies in the world. Many of the structures and instruments introduced by him during his term of office still characterize ESA to this day.

In 1990, still at ESA, he started discussions with his friend Johannes Geiss to develop an International Space Science Institute (ISSI) and convinced of the genuine value and originality of that concept, took the seminal decision to finance ISSI from ESA’s space science budget, under the conditions that the Institute should be directed by a prominent scientist of interdisciplinary international reputation, and that it should be attached to the Inter-Agency Consultative Group (IACG), which was created in 1982 to coordinate the science missions planned by ESA, USSR, Japan and NASA, to Halley’s comet at its 1986 return to perihelium. This condition is still in effect today, materialized by the presence of representatives of these four agencies in the ISSI Board of Trustees.

Between 1989 and 1999, he becomes president of the Foundation Alexander von Humboldt and under the initiative of the Bremen City, he founds the Jacobs University Bremen (IUB), which, as chairman of the board, he shaped towards excellence.

Reimar Lüst has been one of the most versatile drivers of German and European science policy. His numerous responsibilities led him to meet several heads of States and Governments. He and his wife Nina Grunenberg, Die Zeit journalist, became very close friends of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. He was a great friend of France and was awarded by Hubert Curien the distinction of Officer de la Légion d’Honneur, one among many others such as the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. All those who have met him during his long and extraordinary career will never forget this great scientist, great manager of big institutions, certainly very demanding and very efficient, of immense political talent, and totally faithful in his friendships.

Roger-Maurice Bonnet, International Space Science Institute