Upon his return from Asia to the US and a hasty completion of his interrupted high-school education, the young Ron Hubbard entered George Washington University. There, he earned his wings as a pioneering barnstormer at the dawn of American aviation. He also earned a place in free-flight record books for the longest sustained flight above Detroit. Moreover, as a roving reporter for the Sportsman Pilot, he further helped inspire a generation of pilots who would take America to world airpower.

Immediately beyond his sophomore year, Mr. Hubbard embarked on the first of his several ethnological expeditions, initially to then-untrammeled Caribbean shores. Several months later, he returned to the West Indies for the Puerto Rican Mineralogical Expedition, culminating in one of the first complete surveys of the island under American jurisdiction.

There was many another adventure along this vein: As a lifetime member of the famed Explorers Club, L. Ron Hubbard charted North Pacific waters with an experimental radio direction finder, and so pioneered a long range navigation system universally employed until the late-twentieth century. While as yet another facet to a uniquely adventurous life, Mr. Hubbard held a rare Master Mariner’s license to pilot sailing vessels in any ocean.

The overriding point, as he himself explained:

“Only a being with the highest possible sense of adventure and dedication would ever attempt to solve the riddle of Man’s being and destiny.”