[Deathwatch] William H. Pickering, space race titan, 93

[Deathwatch Central]

Space Race Titan William Pickering Dead at 93
By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - William H. Pickering, a central figure in the
early U.S. space race who as director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
played a key role in launching America's first satellite into orbit,
has died at age 93, NASA said on Tuesday.

Pickering, affectionately known as "Mr. JPL" and one of the few
scientists to appear twice on the cover of Time magazine, died of
pneumonia on Monday at his home in La Canada Flintridge, California,
not far from the laboratory where he helped lay the groundwork for
robotic exploration of the moon and planets.

"Dr. Pickering was one of the titans of our nation's space program,"
said Charles Elachi, the current director of JPL, the NASA facility
managed by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
California. "It was his leadership that took America into space and
opened up the moon and the planets to the world."

Added Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for space science, "His
pioneering work is the very foundation we have built upon to explore
our solar system and beyond."

A native of New Zealand who immigrated to the United States in 1929 as
a student, Pickering obtained bachelor and master's degrees in
electrical engineering, then a PhD. in physics from Caltech before
becoming an engineering professor there in 1946. He became a U.S.
citizen in 1941.

"William Pickering was one of New Zealand's most distinguished sons.
His passing is a tremendous loss," New Zealand Prime Minister Helen
Clark said in a statement.

Pickering began working on guided missile research for JPL in 1944,
when the laboratory was administered by the U.S. Army, and was project
manager for Corporal, the first operational missile system developed
there. The Sergeant solid-fuel missile was later developed under his
direction.

Pickering was named JPL director in 1954 and three years later faced
perhaps his greatest challenge as the Soviet Union stunned the world by
successfully launching Sputnik into orbit on Oct. 4, 1957, ushering in
the dawn of the space age and the U.S.-Soviet space race.

The following month, JPL and the Army Ballistic Missile Agency were
assigned to put the first U.S. satellite into orbit. Pickering directed
the JPL effort, which in just 83 days provided the satellite,
telecommunications and upper rocket stages that successfully lofted
Explorer 1 on Jan. 31, 1958. That triumph followed the embarrassing
failure the previous month of the first U.S. attempt to launch a
satellite, Vanguard 1, a separate project managed by the Naval Research
Laboratory.

Instruments carried by Explorer 1, and its successor, Explorer 3,
provided evidence that the Earth is surrounded by intense bands of
radiation, named the Van Allen belts, one of the first major scientific
discoveries of the space age. It was considered Pickering's greatest
achievement and set the stage for future space exploration.

"The event was symbolic of the mixing process between engineering and
science, between the world and the research laboratory," Pickering
later said of the feat.

That year, after JPL was transferred from the Army to the newly created
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Pickering was given the
choice of leading either human or robotic space exploration for NASA.

He chose the latter, and went on to oversee an extensive series of
unmanned space probes, including the Ranger and Surveyor missions to
the moon and the Mariner missions to Earth's closest planetary
neighbors.

His team achieved the first fly-by of another planet, Venus, by Mariner
2 in December 1962 and obtained the first close-up pictures of Mars
from Mariner 4 in July 1965. Four more Mariner missions reached Venus
and Mars before Pickering retired from JPL in 1976. He received the
National Medal of Science from President Gerald Ford in 1976.