An Explorer Dies

Each, in his separate way, Drinks to a bygone day. The Explorer, in truth, Was part of our youth, And not only orbits decay.

In the years since that limerick was written by one of the Caltech scientists who built Explorer I, the men involved in the project matured and moved on to more ambitious space programs. But Explorer I, the first U.S. satellite, remained steadfastly in orbit, a seemingly immortal reminder of one of the most important discoveries of the Space Age.

Launched on Jan. 31, 1958, more than three months after the Soviet Union's 184-lb. Sputnik I, the 30.8-lb. Explorer had at first seemed a puny competitor for the huge Soviet satellites. But, equipped with a Geiger counter and two radio transmitters, it sent back evidence that had escaped the Russians --the data that enabled State University of Iowa Physicist James Van Allen to discover the radiation belts that bear his name.

Ultimately the laws of nature caught up with the little satellite. Gradually slowed down by the braking effect of the upper atmosphere, Explorer I drifted steadily and almost imperceptibly downward. Last week, after more than half a million revolutions around the earth, it perished over the Pacific in the fiery heat of re-entry--a victim of orbital decay.

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