Iván ALMÁR

Hungarian Astronautical Society (MANT) • Former President

Iván Almár was born in 1932 in Budapest, Hungary. In 1954 he graduated from the Eötvös Loránd University (Budapest, Hungary) in mathematics and physics. He started to work in variable stars research at the Konkoly Observatory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and earned his PhD in 1959 in the spectroscopic study of stellar atmospheres.

Already in 1955 he started to inform the Hungarian public on astronautics. He became co-organizer and secretary of the Astronautical Committee of the Hungarian Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge in May 1956. This Committee later developed into the Hungarian Astronautical Society (MANT), which is proud member of IAF since 1959. He was co-author of the first Hungarian scientific book on astronautics in 1956.

In 1957 he was charged to organize the Hungarian visual satellite tracking network, later belonging to the Intercosmos cooperation. He headed this network of four stations until 1972. In this period, it developed into a small, but very effective group studying density changes of the neutral upper atmosphere using the observed decay of several satellites. In early 1957 Almár already published the first space research communication from Hungary.

In 1972 Dr. Almár left the Konkoly Observatory after an invitation to organize the Satellite Geodetic Observatory - the first space research oriented institution in Hungary. He developed it, as its first director, into an internationally acknowledged center with photographic, laser and radio tracking instruments. He also introduced the use of satellite images for different practical purposes in Hungary. Since 1980, when he earned a DSc degree in space research, he became honorary professor at the Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Astronomy - giving lectures regularly on different astronautical topics. Dr. Almár has published some 150 scientific papers and has written or edited 10 books in Hungarian on space research and SETI. He has also contributed to several English and Russian science books.

After 1972 he became president of the Hungarian Astronautical Society (KASZ, later MANT) for 25 years. Since 1997 he is honorary president of MANT. He is continuously active in outreach programs on space. He has published several books and many articles in science magazines and has appeared frequently on radio and TV programs. In 1969 he was an invited expert in the TV studio covering live the first Apollo landing on the Moon. He was editor-in-chief of a very detailed Hungarian Space Encyclopedia, published in 1980.

In 1982 Almár returned as deputy director to the Konkoly Observatory. He was also chairman of the Committee on Astronomy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

In 1983 he was local organizer of the IAF congress in Budapest and vice president of IAF.

He received a NASA Diploma for International Cooperation for his achievements.

Dr. Almár has been member of IAA since 1984. He was very active in different bodies of the IAA: since 1980, a member of its SETI Committee, and from 1985 until 2001 co-chairman of the Committee. In 2008 he received the Giordano Bruno Memorial Award of the SETI League for "technical excellence in the service of SETI". His other field of activity was in the IAA Multilingual Terminology Committee, where he was chairman and guest editor of the IAA Multilingual Space Dictionary from 1992 until 2002. The Dictionary received the IAA Book Award. He organized the first symposium on space terminology within IAC.

In 1989 he presented his first paper on the topic “environmental protection of celestial bodies” in an IAC symposium. He continued to give presentations and publish papers on this important topic. After a reorganization of the IAA commission system, he became president of Commission VI on Space and Society: Culture and Education in 2003. He organized the first stand-alone IAA Symposium on this topic in 2005 in Budapest.

After the reorganization of the Hungarian Space Organization, in 1992 he became a member, then between 1997 and 2008 chairman of the Hungarian Space Research Council. From 1997 until 2008 he was a member of the Hungarian delegation to UN COPUOS as well. After his retirement in 2000 he spent two years as a fellow in the Budapest Institute for Advanced Study. In 2010 he was invited by the Royal Society to present a paper in London on the search for extraterrestrial life. Later he chaired in England a discussion on the same topic, also organized by the Royal Society.

In 2011 he was the winner of the annual science communication award of the Hungarian science journalists: an asteroid was named after him (191856Almáriván). Since 2018 he is a honorary member of IAA.

Events