Oral histories in meteoritics and planetary science: III. Robert M. Walker

In this interview, taped in 2000 August, during the meeting of the Meteorit ical Society in Chicago, Robert Walker recalls that he began studying meteo rites when he realized that they should display particle tracks caused by t heir bombardment by cosmic rays. Walker was much intrigued by the idea of f inding fossil tracks from old cosmic rays. Among his more important accompl ishments, he lists the discovery of tracks of extremely heavy cosmic rays i n meteorites and those of very low-energy solar flare particles in lunar sa mples. He has played a leadership role in research on interplanetary dust p articles and on presolar grains in meteorites in an effort to learn more ab out the origins of the elements. Walker has spent most of his career at Was hington University in St. Louis where he established the McDonnell Center f or Space Science. In 1993, the Meteoritical Society presented him with the Leonard Medal.