Lyman B. Spitzer Jr_sandb1935.jpg

Lyman B. Spitzer Jr. (S&B 1935)

Theoretical Physics. Physicst. Astronomer and Mountaineer. Phillips Academy. Yale University. Skull and Bones. Yale Daily News. Phi Beta Kappa. Cambridge University. Princeton University (M.A. under Henry Norris Russell). American Alphine Club.

Trustee of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and President of the American Astronmical Society.

“I have a weakness of character - a fascination with the spectacular,” Dr. Spitzer liked to say. “But then I have a sort of theory about our weaknesses being our strengths.”[4]

1979, President Jimmy Carter awarded Dr. Spitzer the National Medal of Science.

1972 - NASA Hubble Telescope Launch. His crowning legacy was the Hubble Space Telescope, which can peer into the deepest reaches of space. His advocacy won over his peers and buoyed the $2.1 billion project through repeated delays.[4]

Served as the catalyst and principal investigator of the Copernicus Orbiting Astronomical Observatory, an important ultraviolet precursor of Hubble.[4]

Founding Director of the Project Matterhorn, Princeton University’s pioneering program in controlled thermonuclear research for the Atomic Energy Commission, renamed in 1961, as Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.[4]

1947 to 1882 - Charles A. Young Professor of Astronomy, Princeton.

WW2 - Scientist with the division of War Research at Columbia University and director of a sonar analysis group.

1942 to 1947 - Faculty, Yale University.

1 Year, Cambridge University where he was influenced by Arthur Eddington and the young Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (pictured).

1935 - Graduated Yale, Skull and Bones Patriarch

Died 31 Mar 1997, from Not Known at Home. Age 82.

Note: Through his paternal grandmother, he was related to Eli Whitney. Descendants include:

William Collins Whitney (S&B 1863)
Harry Payne Whitney (S&B 1894) - son of former Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney (S&B 1863)
Payne Whitney (S&B 1898) - son of former Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney (S&B 1863)

Eli Whitney - His 1817 marriage to Henrietta Edwards, granddaughter of the famed evangelist Jonathan Edwards, daughter of Pierpont Edwards, head of the Democratic Party in Connecticut, and first cousin of Yale’s president, Timothy Dwight, the state’s leading Federalist, further tied him to Connecticut’s ruling elite. In a business dependent on government contracts, such connections were essential to success.

[1] - America’s Secret Establishment. An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones by Antony C. Sutton (2004)

[2] - Fleshing Out Skull & Bones - Investigations into America’s Most Powerful Secret Society 2008 by Antony Sutton, Howard Altman, Kris Millegan, Dr Ralph Bunch, Anton Chaitkin and Webster Griffin Tarpley

[3] - Skull and Bones Membership List by David Luhrssen

[4] - NYTimes, 2 Apr 1997 - Lyman Spitzer Jr dies at 82 inspired hubble telescope

[5] - FYI - Wiki - Whitney Family