下面这一段引自1959年《时代》周刊的报道：

In 1950 an event occurred that began small but was to affect the future of Van Allen and all his countrymen. In March, British Physicist Sydney Chapman dropped in on Van Allen [and] remarked that he would like to meet other scientists in the Washington area. Van Allen got on the phone, soon gathered eight or ten top scientists (Lloyd Berkner, S. Fred Singer, and Harry Vestine) in the living room of his small brick house. ‘It was what you might call a pedigreed bull session,’ he says. ... The talk turned to geophysics and the two ‘International Polar Years’ that had enlisted the world’s leading nations to study the Arctic and Antarctic regions in 1882 and 1932. Someone suggested that with the development of new tools such as rockets, radar and computers, the time was ripe for a worldwide geophysical year. The other men were enthusiastic, and their enthusiasm spread around the world from Washington DC. From this meeting Lloyd Berkner and other participants proposed to the International Council of Scientific Unions that an IGY be planned for 1957-58 during the maximum solar activity). ... The International Geophysical Year (1957-58) stimulated the U.S. Government to promise earth satellites as geophysical tools. The Soviet government countered by rushing its Sputniks into orbit. The race into space or Space Race may be said to have started in Van Allen’s living room that evening in 1950.

——著名的英国空间学家Chapman（现在的国际空间物理系列学术会议就是以他命名的）给Van Allen打了个电话，Van Allen找了几个华盛顿地区的空间科学家在他家客厅开了个“小会”，人类的空间时代就这么开始了。。。

      ——影响人类生存发展的科学发现和科学进步，好多都是从这样非正式的“聊天”开始的！

第一步，是Van Allen主持的美国的V2探空火箭计划。

这个计划并非一帆风顺。

最初的探空方案是把火箭绑在探空气球下面，升到一定高度（16公里）后点火。Van Allen把这种运载工具叫做“Rackoon”——Rack-et+Ball-oon，与他的家乡Iowa常见的小动物raccon谐音。但是开始的实验并不成功——火箭在16千米的高度打不着火！因为在这样的高度上，点火的clockwork被冻住。怎么办呢？传说是Van Allen把橙汁（不知为什么用这种“液体”）加热后灌到绑在气球下面承载火箭的“小舟”里，然后用热绝缘材料包好，再把Rackoon升空——一次成功，并探测到了辐射带的最初迹象。