Arthur Kantrowitz

Arthur Robert Kantrowitz (October 20, 1913 – November 29, 2008) was an American scientist, engineer, and educator.

Kantrowitz grew up in The Bronx, and graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School. He earned his B.S., M.A. and, in 1947, his Ph.D. degrees in physics from Columbia University. During his studies at Columbia, Kantrowitz started working as a physicist, in 1936, for the NACA, work he would keep for ten years. He went on to teach at Cornell University for the next ten years, meanwhile he founded the Avco-Everett Research Lab (AERL) in Everett, Massachusetts, in 1955. He developed shock tubes which were able to produce the extremely hot gases needed to simulate atmospheric re-entry from orbital speeds and thereby solved the critical nose cone re-entry heating problem which accelerated the development of recoverable spacecraft. He was AERL's director, chief executive officer, and chairman until 1978 when he took on a professorship at Dartmouth College. From 1956 to 1978 he also served as a vice president and director of Avco Corporation.

Kantrowitz's interdisciplinary research in the area of fluid mechanics and gas dynamics led to contributions in the field of magnetohydrodynamics and to the development of high-efficiency, high-power lasers. He first suggested a system of laser propulsion to launch bulk payloads into orbit, using energy from ground-based lasers to increase exhaust velocity and thereby reduce the propellant-to-payload mass ratio.

His early research included supersonic diffusers and supersonic compressors in the early 40's, which has since been applied to jet engines. He invented the total energy variometer in 1939, used in soaring planes, and is the co-inventor of an early scheme for magnetically contained nuclear fusion, patent application, 1941. In 1950, he invented a technique for producing the supersonic source for molecular beams [1]; this was subsequently used by chemists in research that led to two Nobel Prizes.

In the 1960s and 1970s, he led the design and development at AERL of the first intra-aortic balloon pump. The balloon pump is a temporary cardiac assist device which has been used worldwide on three million people. The device was used on his own failing heart.

Another contribution to science was the stagnation-point flow experiment in which processes of initial interaction of fresh flowing blood with an artificial surface can be directly visualized under a high-power microscope. This technique has become an important method for experimentally studying this vital interaction and led to a variety of circulatory prostheses, including the artificial heart.

Kantrowitz, as an advocate of the separation of science and technology from political or ideological concerns, first proposed in 1967 the creation of an Institution for Scientific Judgment, commonly referred to as the Science Court, to assess the state of knowledge in scientific controversies of importance to public policy. He further developed the Science Court as its Task Force Chairman in President Ford's Advisory Group on Anticipated Advances in Science and Technology, 1975-1976.

According to Jerry Pournelle "We could have developed all this [i.e. large scale commercial space development] in the 60's and 70's, but we went another path. Arthur Kantrowitz tried to convince Kennedy's people that the best way to the Moon was through development of manned space access, a von Braun manned space station, and on to the Moon in a logical way that left developed space assets. That didn't work, because Johnson's support of the Moon Mission was contingent on spending money in the South: the real objective was the reindustrialization of the South. The Moon mission itself was a stunt."

Kantrowitz was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Astronautical Society, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (honorary), American Physical Society, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and member of the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences and International Academy of Astronautics. In 1953-1954, he held both Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellowships at Cambridge and Manchester Universities.

Kantrowitz was an honorary trustee of the University of Rochester, an honorary life member of the Board of Governors of The Technion, and an honorary professor of the Huazhong Institute of Technology, Wuhan, China. Kantrowitz also served on the Board of Advisors for the Foresight Institute, an organization devoted to preparing for nanotechnology.

Kantrowitz held 21 patents and wrote or co-authored more than 200 scientific and professional papers and articles. He also co-authored Fundamentals of Gas Dynamics, 1958, Princeton Univ. Press.

Kantrowitz died at age 95, November 29, 2008, while visiting relatives in New York. He had suffered a heart attack on the previous day.

References

• "Biographies of Aerospace Officials and Policymakers, K-N". NASA History Division. http://history.nasa.gov/biosk-n.html. Retrieved 2006-08-15. 
• Johnson, John, Jr. (December 15, 2008). "Arthur R. Kantrowitz, 1913–2008: Noted physicist and inventor". Los Angeles Times: B5. 

External links

• The Weapon of Openness
• Brief biography of Arthur Kantrowitz
• Arthur Kantrowitz, Founder of Laser Propulsion, article by Andrew Pakhomov, AIBEP President
• The Papers of Arthur R. Kantrowitz at the Dartmouth College Library