Forging the Future of Space Science: The Next 50 Years (2010)
Chapter: Wesley T. Huntress, Jr.
WESLEY T. HUNTRESS, JR., is a scientist and director emeritus at the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington where he is a spokesman and strategist for the scientific exploration of space. Dr. Huntress began his career in at the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as an astrochemist specializing in chemical processes in the interstellar medium, comets, and planetary atmospheres. After he moved to NASA, Dr. Huntress was responsible for getting Chandra and Cassini to the launch pads and for initiating new missions, including SOFIA, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Mars Exploration Program, beginning with Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor. He is also known for starting programs to search for extra-solar planets, creating the interdisciplinary science of astrobiology at NASA, and for establishing the Discovery program of low-cost, high-flight-rate, community-defined planetary science missions. Dr. Huntress has received the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the U.S. Presidential Distinguished Executive Award, NASA’s Robert H. Goddard Award, the Carl Sagan Award from the American Astronautical Society, and a National Endowment for the Arts/Federal Design Achievement award for the Mars Pathfinder mission. Asteroid 7225 has been named after him. Dr. Huntress is former president of the Planetary Society, an academician in the International Academy of Astronautics, a lifetime associate of the National Academies, an associate of the Royal Astronomical Society, and a distinguished visiting scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
