<DIV>Astrophysicist and space pioneer James Van Allen (1914&ndash;2006), for whom the Van Allen radiation belts were named, was among the principal scientific investigators for twenty-four space missions, including <i>Explorer I</i> in 1958, the first successful U.S. satellite; <i>Mariner 2</i>&rsquo;s 1962 flyby of Venus, the first successful mission to another planet; and the 1970s <i>Pioneer 10</i> and <i>Pioneer 11 </i>missions that surveyed Jupiter and Saturn. Although he retired as a University of Iowa professor of physics and astronomy in 1985, he remained an active researcher, using his campus office to monitor data from Pioneer 10&mdash;on course to reach the edge of the solar system when its signal was lost in 2003&mdash;until a short time before his death at the age of ninety-one. Now Abigail Foerstner blends space science drama, military agendas, cold war politics, and the events of Van Allen&rsquo;s lengthy career to create the first biography of this highly influential physicist.<BR><br> Drawing on Van Allen&rsquo;s correspondence and publications, years of interviews with him as well as with more than a hundred other people, and declassified documents from such archives as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Kennedy Space Center, and the Applied Physics Laboratory, Foerstner describes Van Allen&rsquo;s life from his Iowa childhood to his first experiments at White Sands to the years of <i>Explorer I</i> until his death in 2006.<BR><br> Often called the father of space science, James Van Allen led the way to mapping a new solar system based on the solar wind, massive solar storms, and cosmic rays.<i> Pioneer 10 </i>alone sent him more than thirty years of readings that helped push our recognition of the boundary of the solar system billions of miles past Pluto. Abigail Foerstner&rsquo;s compelling biography charts the eventful life and time of this trailblazing physicist.<BR></div>