A Scientific Peak: How Boulder Became a World center for Space and Atmospheric Science
By Joseph Bassi (MAstroPhys)
(American Meteorological Society, 296 pages; 2017)
Scroll through a list of the latest incredible scientific discoveries and you might find an unexpected commonality鈥擝oulder, Colorado. Once a Wild West city tucked where the Rocky Mountains meet the Great Plains, it is now home to some of the biggest names in science. Research centers, including the National Center for Atmospheric Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are based there, while IBM, Lockheed Martin, and Ball Aerospace would come to reside alongside a dynamic start-up community.
A Scientific Peak chronicles Boulder鈥檚 meteoric rise to eventually become 鈥淎merica鈥檚 Smartest City鈥 and a leader in space and atmospheric sciences. In just two decades following World War II, a tenacious group of researchers, supported by groups from local citizenry to the State of Colorado, managed to convince the US government and some of the world鈥檚 scientific pioneers to make Boulder a center of the new space age. Joseph P. Bassi introduces us to the characters, from citizens to scientists, and the mix of politics, passion, and sheer luck at the start of Boulder鈥檚 transformation from 鈥淪cientific Siberia鈥 to the research mecca it is today.