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Quest 8.2 10/10 For I NTERNATIONAL To Venture Beyond the Atmosphere The Foundation of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics And the Roots of West Geman Space Research BY ULF von RAUCHHAUPT German: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur verwaltung) in Munich serves them Förderung der Wissenschaft - or MPG administratively. in short). Therefore, a rough sketch of The MPG constantly tries to adapt The Max Planck Institute for its most important features during the itself to changes in the world of science. Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE1) in period covered here may be appropri- One way of adaptation is to open up Garching, a small town 35 kilometers ate.2 new institutes when and where promis- north of Munich, ranks among the most Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser ing new fields of basic research are important space research facilities in Wilhelm Society (Kaiser-Wilhelm- opening up. As outlined below, this was Germany. It contributed to most of the Gesellschaft or KWG) and re-founded certainly the case for space research in scientific space missions in which the after the Second World War as the West Germany at the beginning of the country participated: from early sound- MPG, this organization devotes itself to 1960s. The autonomy of the institute ing rocket programs; the HEOS-1 satel- basic research which cannot, or not yet, directors -- dubbed the “Harnack lite in 1968 and the first German easily be pursued within the framework Principle”3 -- has a considerable impact national satellite AZUR in 1969; to of universities. To insure independence, on whether or how new Max Planck present missions such as XMM Newton the MPG is legally a private institution Institutes are founded. The policy is to and CLUSTER-II. To the general pub- but funded almost entirely by public establish them in a tailored fashion lic the MPE became best known for money. Officially, it is not part of specifically for some distinguished, developing and operating the ROSAT Germany’s educational system, though not necessarily established sci- satellite, XMM’s glorious predecessor, although almost all directors of the entist. which scanned the X-ray sky from 1990 MPG’s institutes hold professorial titles At first glance, this is also what to 1999. and supervise theses of students from happened in the case of the MPE. On One of the reasons for the MPE’s nearby universities. All directors of May 15, 1963 the senate of the MPG importance, if not prevalence, for the MPG institutes hold the status of “sci- bestowed upon a small research group West German space research communi- entific members.” Although the posi- of some 15 people the status of a third ty is the fact that it was founded at the tion of the president of the MPG is one Institute within the Max Planck very moment when space technology of the most influential (not only within Institute for Physics and Astrophysics became available for Germany. the MPG but also in German science (MPIPA) in Munich. Before that the Therefore, by telling the story of the politics), the MPG is actually con- research group had operated for 18 MPE’s birth, this paper also deals with trolled by the collective of scientific months as a division of one of the two the birth of West Germany’s space members. Control is executed by a sys- other sub-institutes of the MPIPA. This research in the wake of Sputnik. The tem of committees, such as the senate group had been headed by Reimar Lüst, intention is to describe the historical sit- and the scientific council. The MPG who was now also appointed director of uation which called for the foundation runs research institutes (some 80 at the newly founded MPE. Lüst was an of such an institution and to examine in present) of various sizes and disci- internationally renowned scientist, who some detail the dynamics which finally plines, distributed all over Germany. had just turned forty. However, as will shaped it. The individual Max Planck Institutes -- become clear in the course of this nar- One important part of the story is that is to say, their directors -- are inde- rative, the foundation of the MPE in something rather peculiar for the (West) pendent in the sense that they are many ways deviated from the Harnack German research system: MPE’s moth- almost completely free to decide on Principle, with Lüst’s role being con- er organization, the Max Planck Society their own research programs. The siderably more complex. In this context for the Advancement of Science (in MPG’s central headquarters (General it is interesting to note that for Lüst the Q U E S T 8 : 2 32 foundational directorship of particles interacting with the terrestrial the country’s first genuine (or solar-terrestrial) magnetic fields, an space science facility was just area of research which traditionally one step in one of the most belongs to geophysics. Extraterrestrial splendid careers in German physics therefore contributes to both science. In 1969 he became astronomy and geophysics. chairman of the National Science Council (Wissen PREHISTORY schaftsrat), in 1972 president of the MPG and in 1984 direc- The Birth of Space Science tor general of the European Space Agency (ESA). While Extraterrestrial physics is determined the dominant role of Lüst (and by its means of research rather than its some other individuals) for the objects. A few years before the MPE foundational history of the came into being, those means suddenly MPE requires some focus on experienced a qualitative improvement human protagonists, due refer- beyond measure with the launch of the ence to the relevant political Sputnik-1 satellite by the Soviet Union and scientific contexts is on October 4, 1957. Despite the pletho- essential. In the case of the ra of political and military implications, MPE this context especially the official setting for Sputnik was a features the beginning of the scientific one (as it was for its ill-fated Space Age and the European American rival Vanguard).5 In the years efforts to join it.4 around 1957/58 a maximum of solar Reimar Lüst in the mid 1960s. Image courtesy of Jahrbuch de MPG 1968 activity was expected to increase the DEFINING EXTRATER- intensity and variety of phenomena in RESTRIAL PHYSICS the plasma and magnetic fields around Earth’s atmosphere that are not the Earth. Only a few of them can be accessible by ground-based obser- In 1998 the MPE employed 335 peo- detected from the ground, such as auro- vations alone. ple, 183 of whom were scientists of all ras in high latitudes or perturbations of levels. There are six research depart- long-distance radio transmissions. The instrumentation -- much more ments, four of them headed by a direc- Now, in the wake of the Second World than the subject -- distinguishes the tor and scientific member of the MPG. War, a new technology was becoming MPE from other institutions with One is devoted to theory, another to lab- available that promised a new dimen- research interests in the sky. This oratory investigation of astronomy- sion of both warfare and science: rock- instrumentation is flown on a variety of related physical processes. However, etry. platforms: balloons; sounding rockets; the bulk of MPE’s scientific work is in After 1945 both the US and the Earth-orbiting satellites; and space the observational domain. The space USSR had exploited the know-how of probes. plasma department is active in various the rocket makers of Peenemünde.6 Because “extraterrestrial’’ is such a types of space-borne measurements of Among the first scientific aims of rock- tongue-twisting word, it will often be the physical properties of the particles etry was to gain knowledge about the used synonymously here with the word and field pervading the Solar System. higher layers of the atmosphere, the “space research’’ (Weltraumforschung), The remaining three departments are ionosphere and the region where the although this term is ambiguously used. engaged in instrumentation develop- atmosphere merges with space. This Sometimes “space research’’ applies to ment and astronomical observations in knowledge was badly needed to keep space-borne in-situ measurements only, the gamma, X-ray and infrared/submil- ballistic missiles on their prescribed tra- sometimes to all sorts of research done limeter range -- i.e. all those parts of the jectories. Even before the war was over, in space. Extraterrestrial physics, how- electromagnetic spectrum that are not Erich Regener, Germany’s leading ever, comprises both measurements of accessible from the ground. upper atmosphere researcher at the the immediate environment of the From this account one may readily time, had built the first rocket-borne instrument (“in-situ’’) and observations infer a definition for “extraterrestrial instruments for the V2 rocket. They of objects that may be as far away as physics.” It is were designed to measure densities, quasars. Many of those in-situ measure- pressures and temperatures as well as ments are aimed at charged subatomic physics of processes beyond the ionization and UV radiation, but never Q U E S T 8 : 2 33 flew before the end of the war. In the equip France with an independent COSPAR Space Science Symposium early 1950s rocketry had made consid- nuclear capability. Great Britain, unlike took place in Nice in January 1960, erable progress. To promote the “peace- Germany, France, the US and the space scientists eventually had their ful application’’ of the new technology USSR, was a nation without any pre- international platform. during the next solar maximum, the war tradition in rocketry. Nevertheless, International Geophysical Year (IGY) the British soon began the development The Situation In West Germany was proposed for 1957/58 by a group of of their own ballistic missile, the infa- Before 1959 scientists and welcomed by the govern- mous Blue Streak, in support of their ments of the Cold War rivals.7 In 1955 nuclear weapons program.
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