Why Space Plasma Physics?

• I started out as an experimentalist in high school (with the box of disassembled Timex watches…)

• I switched from pre-med to physics at Wheaton College.

• In grad school, the prof with the MBE (molecular beam epitaxy) machine had too many students, so instead I worked on a Time-Of-Flight Mass Spectrometer for space.

• Space MS led to launching on a rocket & an Earth orbiting satellite, NASA/AMPTE/CHEM.

• Plasma physics theory was needed to explain the data.

• A lab experiment was needed to explain the theory.

• Moral: Follow the Physics, not the method