Obituary for Jerry Morse, inventor of RTG

["Michael Stabin" <michael.g.stabin@vanderbilt.edu>]

The following from Susan Gawarecki:



> Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2001 02:05:21 -0500

> From: Susan Gawarecki <loc@icx.net>

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> Subject: Obituary for Jerry Morse, inventor of RTG

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> From THIS IS TRUE (www.thisistrue.com) e-mail newsletter for Dec 9.

> 

> THIS WEEK'S HONORARY UNSUBSCR|BE goes to Jerome "Jerry" Morse. A physics

> professor at the Colorado School of Mines, Morse previously worked for

> the Martin Co., in Baltimore, Md., where he helped develop a tiny

> nuclear-powered electrical generator. The top-secret project was made

> public on January 16, 1959, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower

> demonstrated the 5-pound, 5-watt generator on television. "We were

> dumbfounded," Morse said in an interview more than 40 years later.

> "Apparently the president wasn't told the project was classified. Or he

> did it to show up the Russians. I couldn't even tell my wife about it."

> His "System for Auxiliary Nuclear Power" radioisotope thermoelectric

> generators have been used on many deep-space missions to power

> spacecraft far from the sun, where solar power cannot be used. The

> devices are secure enough to survive an explosion of the rocket

> carrying them; the first time that happened, the RTG was recovered and

> rebuilt for another mission. Before he died, Morse worked to bring war

> veterans to schools to talk to students. "Kids are learning about this

> aspect of our history through textbooks written by people who heard

> about it but never experienced it," he said. "Teachers should invite

> these guys to reflect on what the war was really about by people who

> experienced it." He died December 10 from lymphoma at age 90.

> 

> --Susan Gawarecki



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