Lodewijk van den Berg (; March 24, 1932 – October 16, 2022) was a Dutch-born American chemical engineer. He studied crystal growth and flew on a 1985 Space Shuttle Challenger mission as a payload specialist.

Van den Berg was born in the Netherlands and was an astronaut; he was a naturalized American and not a Dutch citizen when he flew on the Challenger. He was married and had two children. He lived in Florida and worked as a chief scientist at the Constellation Technology Corporation.

Education and early career

Van den Berg was born in Sluiskil, Netherlands. He was educated in the Netherlands and attended the Technical University Delft from 1949 to 1961, where he graduated with an MSc degree in chemical engineering.

Van den Berg easily passed the first round of tests. The final four candidates had to pass physical and mental exams while two of the other candidates failed the exams due to possible heart issues. He was now part of the final two; NASA always trains two astronauts, a prime and a back-up. In 1983 he started to train as an astronaut and six months before the launch he was told that he would be the prime astronaut, much to his own surprise. He was 53 years old when he went to space becoming one of the oldest rookie astronauts.

While a co-investigator of the Vapor Crystal Growth System (VCGS) experiment, Van den Berg supervised crystal growth aspects of the VCGS experiment.

During the mission Van den Berg traveled over 2.9 million miles orbiting Earth 110 times and logged more than 168 hours in space. are used to make precision detectors for nuclear radiation. The detectors are used in medical applications, by the defense industry, and by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Van den Berg died on October 16, 2022, at the age of 90.

Selected academic publications

  • "Fabrication of mercuric iodide radiation detectors", Lodewijk van den Berg and Ron D. Vigil, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 458, Iss. 1–2, February 1, 2001, pp. 148–151
  • "Improved yield of high resolution mercuric iodide gamma-ray spectrometers", Vernon Gerrish and Lodewijk van den Berg, Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 299, Iss. 1–3, December 20, 1990, pp. 41–44
  • "Vapor growth of HgI2 by periodic source or crystal temperature oscillation", by M. Schieber, W.F. Schnepple, L. Van den Berg. Journal of Crystal Growth, Volume 33, Issue 1, April 1976, Pages 125–135

Notes

References

  • Constellation Technology Corporation
  • Spacefacts biography of Lodewijk van den Berg