Karl Gordon Henize (; October 17, 1926 – October 5, 1993) was an American astronomer, space scientist, NASA astronaut, and professor at Northwestern University. He was stationed at several observatories around the world, including McCormick Observatory, Lamont–Hussey Observatory (South Africa), Mount Wilson Observatory, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and Mount Stromlo Observatory (Australia). He was a member of the astronaut support crew for Apollo 15 and Skylab 2, 3, and 4. As a mission specialist on the Spacelab-2 mission (STS-51-F), he flew on Space Shuttle Challenger in July/August 1985. He was awarded the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 1974.
He died in 1993, during a Mount Everest expedition while testing equipment for NASA.
Early life and education
Karl Henize was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on October 17, 1926. He grew up on a small dairy farm outside Cincinnati, and his boyhood heroes were Buck Rogers and Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
His hobbies included home computers, stamp collecting, mathematics, and astronomy, and he also enjoyed racquetball, baseball, skin diving, and mountain climbing.
Henize attended elementary school in Plainville and Mariemont, Ohio. The school was small, three or four rooms, and did not contain a library.
Experience
Henize was an observer for the University of Michigan Observatory from 1948 to 1951, stationed at the Lamont–Hussey Observatory in Bloemfontein, Union of South Africa. While there, he conducted an objective-prism spectroscopic survey of the southern sky for stars and nebulae showing emission lines of hydrogen.
In 1954 he became a Carnegie post-doctoral fellow at the Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadena, California, and conducted spectroscopic and photometric studies of emission-line stars and nebulae. From 1956 to 1959, he served as a senior astronomer at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. He was in charge of photographic satellite tracking stations for the satellite tracking program and responsible for the establishment and operation of a global network of 12 stations for photographic tracking of artificial Earth satellites.
Henize was appointed associate professor in Northwestern University's Department of Astronomy in 1959 and was awarded a professorship in 1964. In addition to teaching, he conducted research on planetary nebulae, peculiar emission-line stars, S-type stars, and T-associations. During 1961 and 1962, he was a guest observer at Mount Stromlo Observatory in Canberra, Australia, where he used instruments ranging from the Uppsala 20/26-inch schmidt to the 74-inch parabolic reflector.
thumb|Henize, then an employee at Dearborn Observatory, discussing the Ultraviolet Astronomical Camera Experiment with the Gemini 11 astronauts (1966)
Henize also engaged in studies of ultraviolet optical systems and astronomical programs suited to the crewed space flight program. He became principal investigator of experiment S-013 which obtained ultraviolet stellar spectra during the Gemini 10, 11, and 12 flights. He also became principal investigator of experiment S-019 in which a 6-inch aperture objective-prism spectrograph was used on Skylab to obtain ultraviolet spectra of faint stars.
From 1974 to 1978 Henize chaired the NASA Facility Definition Team for STARLAB, a proposed 1-meter UV telescope for Spacelab. From 1978 to 1980 he chaired the NASA Working Group for the Spacelab Wide-Angle Telescope. Since 1979 he had been the chairman of the International Astronomical Union Working Group for Space Schmidt Surveys and was one of the leaders in proposing the use of a 1-meter (3 ft) all-reflecting Schmidt telescope to carry out a deep full-sky survey in far-ultraviolet wavelengths.
He authored or co-authored 70 scientific publications dealing with astronomy research.
NASA experience
thumb|left|The crew assigned to the STS-51F mission (1985)
Henize applied for the first scientist-astronaut group, but was denied because the age limit was 35 and he was 37. In 1967, NASA abolished the age limit, and Henize was selected as a scientist-astronaut by NASA in August. Astronauts that did not already know how to fly had to complete a 53-week jet pilot training program at Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma. He intended to test the Tissue Equivalent Proportional Counter (TEPC) at different altitudes: , , and . The TEPC would reveal how people's bodies would be affected, including the way bodily tissues behaved, when struck by radiation, which was important for the planning of long duration space missions. The data would be shared with NASA and BVI. He was buried near the Changtse Glacier. He was survived by his wife, Caroline, and four children.
Organizations
Henize was a member of the American Astronomical Society; the Royal Astronomical Society; the Astronomical Society of the Pacific; the International Astronomical Union; and Phi Beta Kappa.
Special honors
He was presented the Robert Gordon Memorial Award for 1968, and was a recipient of NASA Group Achievement Awards in 1971, 1974, 1975, 1978. He was also awarded the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 1974. The paper references many objects which bear his name, such as the Superbubble Henize 70 and the planetary nebula Henize 3–401. He discovered over 2,000 stars. In total, he published 75 papers.