Jack Hartung

August 28, 2015

Service Details

Jack B. Hartung, a native Iowa son, passed peaceably early in the morning on August 28th in Ames. Jack held a unique perspective on space and time and often challenged conventional thinking. Growing up in east Des Moines, he attended East High School where he was a multiple sport athlete and valedictorian in 1955. Afterwards, he attended Iowa State University where he was graduated with a degree in physics in 1959. At the time, the world was fascinated with the advent of space exploration and Jack was equally enamored. Pursuing his love of space, that same year he took his first professional job in Langley, Virginia with NASA less than a year after it was formed. He worked alongside other gifted scientists and engineers in the Space Task Group planning the first missions into space. In 1962, NASA moved to Houston, and he followed. There, he found time to pursue numerous other activities including sailing, flying, and founding and leading the Bay Area Unitarian Fellowship. He also completed his doctoral degree at Rice University in geophysics in 1968. He put his degree to work the next year as part of the research team to investigate the first lunar samples. While most would marvel at the composition and origins of the samples, his interest lay in their craters, not the big ones with which most of the world knows. Instead, he had a fascination with the very small microcraters and the dust they contained. For the next two decades with academic posts in Germany, New York, and Virginia, he investigated the samples and became one of the world’s foremost experts in his field. He returned to Iowa in the 1990s to lend his expertise in proving the origins of craters in Manson, Iowa. Throughout his professional career Jack offered unique theories to the patterns and origins of many astronomical and geophysical phenomena. From postulating that the Michigan Basin was in fact an ancient meteor crater to tracing the lineage of craters on the moon, he became celebrated as a maverick in his field.

While his professional career fulfilled his intellectual passion, his family, friends, and community completed him. Jack was always available to listen and counsel with inestimable patience and a wry brand of Iowa humor. He always stepped in to help others with boundless energy and infectious enthusiasm. He touched so many lives and will be dearly missed. He was the son of Robert and Edythe Hartung and is survived by his wife Yvonne, brother, Roger, former wife Ann Daniel, daughter Robin Richardson, son Jack Jr., and grandchildren Michael, Beth, Marshall and Ryan.

To honor and remember Jack, the family asks that any contributions to be made to either the Bay Area Unitarian Universalist Church, 17503 El Camino Real, Houston, TX 77058 or the Boone YMCA Camp, 1192 166th Drive, Boone, IA 50036.

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