The Star: May 30, 2019

fOUR UC SCIENTISTS
HONOURED ON NZ SPaCE
PIONEERS STaMPS
10
living
life
AcHieveMent
Alan gilmore and Pamela Kilmartin with 1m telescope.
Sprinkled in star dust, four University of
Canterbury (UC) scientific alumni and staff have
been honoured, featuring among six Kiwis chosen
to appear on new ‘New Zealand Space Pioneers’
postage stamps.
Professor Beatrice Tinsley and Sir William
Pickering were, respectively, instrumental in
modern astronomy theory, and in helping to
launch the United States space programme.
Astronomers Alan Gilmore and Pamela Kilmartin
are still actively conducting research. All four
space pioneers are considered leaders in their
respective fields.
aLaN gILMORE & PaMELa
kILMaRTIN
Long-serving staff members of UC Physics and
Astronomy, Gilmore and Kilmartin have been
observers at UC’s Mount John Observatory,
Tekapo, since 1980. Fellows of the Royal
Astronomical Society of New Zealand, they
track Near Earth Objects such as asteroids and
comets which may be a long-term threat to Earth.
Together they have discovered 41 minor planets, a
comet and a nova.
They work with the country’s second-largest
telescope, the one-metre McLellan reflector,
which was built in UC’s workshops and installed
at UC’s Mount John Observatory in 1986.
BEaTRICE TINSLEy
‘Queen of the Cosmos’ Beatrice Tinsley was one
of the most creative and significant theoreticians
in modern astronomy. She graduated from the
University of Canterbury with an MSc in Physics
with First Class Honours in 1961. She then
completed her PhD on the evolution of galaxies at
the University of Texas in just two years.
After a one-year fellowship at the Lick
Observatory of the University of California
she took up an assistant professorship at Yale
University, before becoming Yale’s first female
Professor of Astronomy in 1978. That year she
was diagnosed with melanoma. She continued to
publish until shortly before her death in 1981. Her
academic career spanned only 14 years, but she
produced 114 scientific papers, had an academic
prize and a visiting professorship in astronomy
named in her honour.
SIR WILLIaM PICkERINg
Sir William Pickering was one of the world’s
leading space scientists; a titan of the US space
programme. He was a senior NASA luminary,
who pioneered the exploration of space.
Born in 1910 in Wellington, he developed an
interest in stars at high school and studied
engineering at UC before moving to the
California Institute of Technology. After finishing
his degree in electrical engineering and unable to
find work in New Zealand, he returned to Caltech
to complete a Master’s degree followed by a PhD
in Physics in 1936.
Made a professor in charge of radio and
electronics, he was also appointed to the Scientific
Advisory Board of the United States Air Force.
During World War 2 he worked in their Jet
Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). By 1954 he was the
lab’s director where his scientific ability and sense
of diplomacy enabled him to work with scientists,
politicians and military officials. He remained
there for 22 years.
He had success with various unmanned
spacecraft, appeared on the cover of Time
magazine twice, and saw his work with Ranger
VII spacecraft confirm the moon is not covered in
dust. He retired from JPL in 1976 and kept close
New Zealand ties. New Zealand awarded him an
honorary knighthood, which would sit among
personal messages from five US presidents. UC
presented him with an honorary doctorate in
2003, before his death in 2004.
aBOUT THE STaMPS
The NZ Post ‘New Zealand Space Pioneers’
stamps celebrate six New Zealand astronomers,
cosmologists, and rocket scientists: Beatrice
Tinsley, Alan Gilmore and Pamela Kilmartin,
Charles Gifford, Albert Jones OBE, and Sir
William Pickering. Together, the stamps form
a rocket-shaped strip. The stamps are sprinkled
with star dust collected from a meteorite found in
Morocco.
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