Lodewijk van den Berg

Van den Berg died on October 16, 2022, at the age of 90.

On September 28, 2007, a main belt asteroid 11430 (9560 P-L) was named after him; it is now known as 11430 Lodewijkberg. The asteroid was discovered on October 17, 1960, by Cornelis Johannes van Houten and Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld at Leiden Observatory. They were studying photographic plates taken by Tom Gehrels using the Palomar Observatory's Samuel Oschin telescope.

Van den Berg visited the Netherlands every two years, and was the subject of a short 2004 documentary by Netwerk called The "Forgotten Astronaut". In Terneuzen, which is a city five miles from Sluiskil, a middle school was named after him: Lodewijk College.

Van den Berg was a payload specialist on STS-51B Challenger (April 29 – May 6, 1985). STS-51B, the Spacelab-3 mission, was launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, and returned to land at Edwards Air Force Base, California. It was the first operational Spacelab mission. The seven-man crew aboard Challenger conducted experiments in crystal growth, drop dynamics leading to container-less material processing, and atmospheric trace gas spectroscopy. Solar and planetary atmospheric simulation, cosmic rays, and laboratory-animal, and human medical monitoring experiments were performed.

Van den Berg easily passed the first round of tests. The final four candidates had to pass physical and mental exams while two of the other candidates failed the exams due to possible heart issues. He was now part of the final two; NASA always trains two astronauts, a prime and a back-up. In 1983 he started to train as an astronaut and six months before the launch he was told that he would be the prime astronaut, much to his own surprise. He was 53 years old when he went to space becoming one of the oldest rookie astronauts.

He then was offered a job at EG&G Corporation Energy Measurements in Goleta, California, working in crystal growth. EG&G was a defense contractor of the United States government and their business handled sensitive information in the field of science. Van den Berg was required to become a naturalized US citizen and became a US citizen in 1975. Van den Berg worked many years in research and acquired management experience in the preparation of crystalline materials—in particular, the growth of single crystals of chemical compounds, and the investigation of associated defect chemistry and electronic properties. He became an international authority on vapor growth techniques with an emphasis on mercuric iodide crystals and its application in the nuclear industry as gamma ray detectors. While working at EG&G, Van den Berg asked NASA for permission to conduct crystal growth experiments in space and NASA agreed.

Van den Berg was born in Sluiskil, Netherlands. He was educated in the Netherlands and attended the Delft University of Technology from 1949 to 1961. He earned a degree in chemical engineering. He moved to the United States and went to the University of Delaware getting an MSc degree in applied science which was followed by a PhD degree in applied science in 1974.

Lodewijk van den Berg (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈloːdəʋɛik fɑn dəm ˈbɛr(ə)x]; March 24, 1932 – October 16, 2022) was a Dutch-born American chemical engineer. He studied crystal growth and flew on a 1985 Space Shuttle Challenger mission as a payload specialist.