Obituary of Edmond M. Reeves

Edmond (Ed) M. Reeves, a former leader of solar space research projects at the Harvard‑Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), and astrophysicist at High Altitude Observatory and NASA Head Quarters, died on August 8, 2008, after a long and heroic struggle with cancer.

Ed was born in London, Ontario, Canada. During his undergraduate and graduate years at the University of Western Ontario (UWO), he was also a Lieutenant, Royal Canadian Navy (Reserve). He received a Ph.D. in 1959, in atomic and molecular physics. After postdoctoral research in ultraviolet atomic spectroscopy at the Imperial College, London, England, Ed joined the HCO Solar Satellite Project, (SSP), working with Leo Goldberg, Director.

In 1968, Ed was appointed Senior Research Associate, and in 1973 he received a joint appointment as Physicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) when the CfA was formed. During his years at the Observatory, Ed led a vibrant group of engineers and scientists in the SSP, developing a series of space missions to explore the extreme ultraviolet emission from the Sun.

Ed also maintained his vigorous involvement in the HCO Shock Tube Laboratory. In the early 1960s, in the area of molecular spectroscopy, Reeves and Parkinson photographed the VUV absorption spectrum of CO produced at high temperature in a shock tube. This spectrum led to the discovery of CO as an important source of opacity in the solar ultraviolet when Goldberg and they recognized the prominent CO features around 180nm in the shock tube spectrum and in the solar spectrum. The identification was confirmed by comparing the laboratory spectra with published solar spectra taken by the Naval Research Laboratory with a rocket‑borne spectrograph.

Ed’s work for the SSP included setting the requirement that the spectroscopic instruments have radiometric calibrations in the VUV, traceable to a laboratory standard.

The space missions began with rocket experiments in the early 1960s, progressed to the Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO) program, and culminated in the Extreme Ultraviolet Spectroheliometer on the Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) of the Skylab mission in 1973 and 1974. Ed received NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 1974. These space experiments laid much of the early groundwork for current understanding of the outer solar atmosphere. The OSO observations revealed for the first time coronal holes, which we now know are the seat of the fast solar wind.

Another important experiment resulted from the launch of a rocket‑borne objective grating spectrograph into the path of a total solar eclipse from Wallops Island, VA on 03/ 07/ 70. This lucky rocket group included Ralph Nicholls (York University, Canada); Reg Garton and Bob Speer (Imperial College, London); Bob Wilson, then from Culham in the UK; and of course Goldberg and colleagues from HCO ‑ a group of mentors, advisors, teachers, and friends of Ed’s. The eclipse spectrogram revealed strong emission from neutral hydrogen (Lyman‑alpha) in the solar corona and inspired the idea of a space‑borne Lyman‑alpha coronagraph. At a Symposium for Nicholls in 1992, Ed recalled that about twenty years earlier, during the Skylab program at Houston, he, Bob Noyes, and Bob MacQueen outlined the need to develop a rocket‑borne Lyman‑alpha coronagraph. Later, at the CfA, Ed, Bob Noyes, and Bill Parkinson planned a rocket‑borne spectrograph to image the extended corona, expecting to use a circular occulter. John Kohl joined the fledgling coronagraph project, and realized that a linear external occulter would be better and also would match a spectrometer slit. This project became the origin of the Lyman‑Alpha Coronagraph series of rocket and Spacelab experiments under Kohl’s leadership, culminating in the still‑operating Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer (UVCS) experiment on the SOHO spacecraft.

In 1978, Ed joined the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder, CO, as Head of Administration and Support. He moved to NASA HQ in 1982. There he became Director of the Flight Systems Office in the Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications, with responsibility for integrated planning and science operations using the Spacelab, Spacehab, and The Russian Mir space station. He led the activities for the research requirements and planning for the International Space Station and served as the Space Station Senior Scientist, the Executive Secretary of the Space Station Utilization Advisory Subcommittee and Executive Secretary of the Space Station Utilization Board at NASA Headquarters. He was also NASA’s representative to the international Users Operations Panel which coordinates the utilization planning for the Station. Ed retired from NASA in 1998.

He is survived by his wife Vivian, of 52 years, son Geoffrey Reeves, who is Group Leader for Space Science and Atmospheric Science at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, daughter Laurie Webster, and three grandchildren.

Edmond M. Reeves Astrophysicist

The Washington Post