One of the first Dutch-born astronauts, Lodewijk van den Berg, passed away at the age of 90.
The death of Van den Berg was reported online by the Association of Space Explorers.
Van den Berg wanted to be a teacher. NASA invited commercial and research organizations to fly experiments on the space shuttle in order to get a chemical engineer into space. The Vapor Crystal Growth System was designed by van den Berg and his colleagues and was going to be flown by NASA.
The 137-hour experiment, which involved the growth of a mercuric iodide crystal, required that someone watch the crystal's progress from on board the shuttle.
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"NASA decided at some point that it was more cost effective to train a scientist who knows the ins and outs of crystal growth to become an astronauts, then it is to take an astronauts and try to train that person in all the classical science and so on."
There are pictures of the space shuttle program.
A list of candidates was solicited by NASA. Van den Berg was added to the list as a joke.
NASA wants to know if you're interested in doing that. You say, "Oh, why not?" in the beginning. With this or the first selection step, I'm out because I'm so old and I have bad eyes. It makes a good impression on NASA.
Van den Berg was still alive. He became NASA's prime choice to fly as a payload specialist even after undergoing a very thorough physical exam.
Van den Berg was a member of the crew that flew on the space shuttle Challenger. The Spacelab science module was launched for the first time and the seven-person crew split into two shifts to work around the clock.
Norm Thagard and Fred Gregory were part of the "Silver" team. The "Gold" team included mission specialists Don Lind and Bill Thornton, as well as Taylor Wang and commander Bob Overmyer.
Van den Berg had concerns about launching on the shuttle, but he was able to put them aside to study the effects of microgravity.
"You get seated on top of a big rocket with a lot of high explosives and then you tell the people on the ground, 'Fire it up,'" he said. How come that decision is so irrational, which anyone in their right mind would say you never want to do, and how do you still want to do that?
He said that he could lose his life or a finger if he participated in the event.
Van den Berg focused on the growth of a mercuric iodide crystal, which is used in the fabrication of sensors to detect X-ray and gamma ray radiation for medical applications, the defense industry and for the International Atomic Energy Agency. Van den Berg found that the stability and structural quality of the space-grown crystal was better than ground-based ones.
Van den Berg only had one mission. He and his crewmates spent 7 days and 8 minutes in space after landing at the California base.
Van den Berg was born in the Netherlands. He received a masters degree in chemical engineering from the university. He received a master of science in applied science and a doctorate in applied science from the University of Delaware.
van den Berg became a naturalized U.S. citizen after working for a defense contractor. The first Dutch citizen to fly into space was Wubbo Ockels.
van den Berg became the lead for its material science division after returning to Earth. After moving to Florida, he became the chief scientist at the company.
A short documentary about Van den Berg's experience in space was released in 2004.
A school in Terneuzen is named after him. In 2007, van den Berg was named for a main belt asteroid that was first discovered in 1960.
The couple married in 1968. They had two children together.
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