Recording the History of Space Weather: How We are Learning to Live with a Star

Motivated by the question of how Space Weather has coalesced into a recognized research and enterprise community, the American Institute of Physics (AIP) aims to capture the history of this field in formation through the collection of oral history interviews with scientists and engineers.

Although serious study of solar-terrestrial interactions first took off in the 19^th century as part of the study of “terrestrial magnetism,” there was little apparent urgency to understanding this complex of phenomena before the mid-20^th century. Since the launch of Explorer I in 1958, research in solar processes, solar wind, the impact of solar plasma and radiation on the Earth’s magnetosphere, as well as efforts to understand the effects of solar variability on the Earth, technology, and humans working in space have provided critical information for day-to-day life on Earth and to our exploration of the solar system. In the last fifty years, not only have many discoveries been made, but scientists, engineers, and policy makers have come together to address the many different kinds of issues arising from the natural phenomena and its interactions with the technological environment we have built.

Over the next three years, AIP is undertaking a systematic series of oral history interviews in order to capture the story of the next important techno-scientific-natural challenge after climate change.