December 1982
From The Space Library
George B. Kistiakowsky, 82, a developer of the first atomic bomb who later became a leading opponent of nuclear weapons, died of cancer at his home in Cambridge, Mass. In 1944 he headed the explosives division at Los Alamos Laboratory of the Manhattan project, where he designed the arrangement of conventional explosives needed to detonate the atom bomb, receiving the Presidential Medal of Merit for his work. After he saw the first nuclear bomb explode at Alamogordo July 16, 1945, he said "I am sure that at the end of the world-in the last millisecond of the earth's existence-the last human will see what we saw" ( W Post, Dec 9/82, C-17)
Jack Swigert, the former astronaut elected to Congress by Colorado's 6th district voters, who knew he was fighting cancer, died December 27 at the age of 51 a week before he was to be sworn into office. He had flown on the aborted Apollo 13 Moon mission in April 1970, substituting at the last minute for Thomas K. Mattingly who had been exposed to German measles and was not immune. Swigert left NASA in 1973 to become executive director of the House committee on science and technology and had worked for two energy firms in Denver before resigning to run for Congress. (Mi Hrld, Dec 29/82, IA)
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