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Sir Harold Spencer Jones KBE (29 March 1890 Kensington, London – 3 November 1960)[1] was an English astronomer. Although born "Jones", his surname became "Spencer Jones". In 1913 he became Chief Assistant at the Royal Greenwich Observatory. In 1933 he became Astronomer Royal. He was president of the International Astronomical Union from 1945 to 1948. He determined the solar parallax from observations of 433 Eros during its close approach in 1930–1931. Spencer Jones had a strong disbelief in the practicalities of space flight, a notion he shared with Richard Woolley, his sucessor as Astronomer Royal. While Spencer Jones famously said "space travel is bunk" only two weeks before the Sputnik launch in October 1957,[citation needed], Woolley had dismissed space travel as "utter bilge" a year earlier.
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Categories: 1890 births | 1960 deaths | Alumni of Jesus College, Cambridge | Astronomers Royal | English astronomers | Fellows of the Royal Society | Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire | Royal Medal winners | Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society | People from Kensington | 20th-century astronomers | 20th-century English people Questions for article: |
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