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James Barney Pollack (July 9, 1938 – June 13, 1994) was an American astrophysicist who worked for NASA's Ames Research Center. Pollack was born on July 9, 1938, in New York City, and was brought up in Woodmere, Long Island by a Jewish family that was in the women's garment business.
A key scientist in every major planetary mission mounted by NASA since 1971, including Mariner 9, Viking, Voyager, Pioneer Venus, Galileo, Mars Observer, and Cassini, Pollack did seminal work on all of the planets visited by these craft.
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James Pollack (1938-1994) was a leading expert on Mars and Venus atmospheres, terraforming, and giant planet formation. He received the Kuiper Prize and a crater on Mars was named after him.
Jul 9, 2018 · James B. Pollack, born on July 9, 1938, was one of the most accomplished and established astrophysicist associated with NASA. His contributions in nuclear physics have helped generations of physicists with their discoveries in this field.
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- acknowledgement
- author’s note
- A Mars General Climate Model
- Stardust Properties
- The Truth Is In the Numbers
- Out of the Blue
- Terms and Approach Defined
- The History of Mars
- Disturbances in the Cosmos
- Disturbances in the Cosmos
- The Right and Left Sides of the Brain
- Spacecraft Experience
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This document is dedicated to the planetary scientists whose efforts produce such amazing results for NASA, our country – and in par-ticular, Ames Research Center. We look forward to their guidance to sustain a healthy planet Earth.
The author wishes to acknowledge and thank the many scientists and colleagues who either helped with the manuscript, or took a moment to share their experiences, when asked “what was it like?” to work with Jim Pollack: Thomas Ackerman, Astrid Albaugh, David Atkinson, Jim Bell, David Black, Peter Bodenheimer, Jack Boyd, Ginny Pollack Breslauer, Cla...
It has been my honor and privilege to have worked at two of the world’s greatest institutions: The Library of Congress and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, but especially NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. For such a tiny place, it has produced extraordinary successes in science and technology. It has been, and is ...
To explain the unknown, theorists sometimes engage nature by first imagining a phenomenon and then creating simulations, or computer models, to work out the consequences of its physical principles. Astrophysicists build models that represent an aspect of the universe, then manipulate the model to show phenomena predicted by that model. If the model...
Pollack’s studies of the origin and early history of the Solar System and outer planets were centered on the primordial stuff of the universe, namely “stardust.” According to some theories, after the Big Bang, thin clouds of mostly hydrogen and helium gases started to form in the cold, dark universe. The first stars contained only hydrogen and he...
The Pioneer Venus mission was triumphant in the amount of new information it brought back from Venus. Once the data were in-hand, Pollack and other scientists started analyzing it and publishing reports. Jim was a cautious and meticulous scientist. Imagine his surprise when he thought he found a discrepancy in one of his earlier reports. He immed...
All interdisciplinary scientists were expected to attend the Galileo steering committee at NASA headquarters in Washington D.C. For Pollack, going to headquarters was anything but a desirable occasion. In the past, he had dificulty convincing NASA administrators of the merits of some research efforts, or new projects. No one appreciated detail quit...
Jim started his comparative analysis of the terrestrial planets by defining his terms and approach. The term “climate” was the “average time it takes for a planet to smooth out the significant short term fluctuations that characterize the more instantaneous state of the atmosphere, or its weather.” He decided there were five categories that determ...
Similar to Earth at times, Mars has had its own history of climate changes. Pollack thought that Mars was like Earth in that it experienced less sunlight in the days of the “faint young sun.” That is, stellar evolution models show that after a star is born, it slowly but steadily becomes brighter throughout time. Thus our sun must have been about ...
Another comparison Pollack made between Mars and Earth was their similar solar and planetary perturbations. These similarities caused quasi-periodic variations in their orbital eccentricity, sometimes stretching their orbits beyond circular into an elliptical shape; axial tilt, exposing the poles to more solar radiation and orientation. These vari...
Another comparison Pollack made between Mars and Earth was their similar solar and planetary perturbations. These similarities caused quasi-periodic variations in their orbital eccentricity, sometimes stretching their orbits beyond circular into an elliptical shape; axial tilt, exposing the poles to more solar radiation and orientation. These vari...
After Pollack’s death, Sagan was still sought after for speaking engagements. At one point, he was invited to deliver the Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology at the University of Glasgow; lectures that he later compiled into a book titled The Varieties of Scientific Experience: a Personal View of the Search for God. In one lecture, Sagan said, “...
Member of the imaging teams for the Mariner 9 orbiter of Mars, the Viking Lander on Mars, and Voyager for Saturn, Uranus and Neptune encounters Interdisciplinary scientist for the Pioneer Venus, Galileo probe and orbiter, Mars Observer and Cassini missions
A tribute to James B. Pollack, a theoretical astrophysicist and planetary scientist who worked on almost all of the NASA unmanned missions in his lifetime. The document covers his life, career, achievements, and publications in the field of planetary exploration.
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Jun 15, 1994 · James B. Pollack, the senior research scientist in the space science division of NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., died Monday at his home at San...
