Preface: William Pickering first came to the attention of the world in 1958 when the media triumphantly announced the successful launch of Explorer 1, the American response to the Soviet deployment a few months earlier of the first Earth-orbiting satellite Sputnik. Along with Wernher von Braun and James Van Allen, William Pickering shared the limelight and the accolades. In that instant of time the Space Age was born, and with it the professional reputation of William H. Pickering.

By that time, he had already been the Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for more than three years, and had been associated with the Laboratory for about ten years prior to that time as the head of one of its principal engineering divisions engaged in secret guided missile tests for the U.S. Army.

Shortly after the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) was established in 1958, Pickering became responsible for carrying out NASA’s Ranger program, a bold step to return live, close-up video images of the lunar surface in the last few moments before spacecraft impact. Although the program got off to a discouraging start, Pickering remained confident of ultimate success and, soon enough, the world saw its first close-up pictures of the Moon. These were followed by more sophisticated lunar missions that expanded our knowledge of the Moon and paved the way for the Apollo manned landings on the Moon.

When he retired in 1976, Mariner spacecraft had visited Mercury, Venus, and Mars, and Jupiter had been reconnoitered by each of the two Pioneer spacecraft and two massive Viking spacecraft were in orbit around Mars, each preparing to release a robot Lander to explore the surface of Mars. JPL teams were also preparing to launch two Voyager spacecraft both of which would conduct an amazing 20-year odyssey of all the major planets of the solar system that came to be known as the Grand Tour. This was the legacy that Pickering left for others to build upon, in mankind’s relentless pursuit of scientific knowledge and understanding of its place in the “grand scheme of things.”

In the years that followed, JPL continued to advance NASA’s program of planetary exploration with great success. From time to time Pickering’s name appeared in the local newspapers and, those of us at JPL who were interested, learned that he had been invited to Saudi Arabia to setup an institute of technology for the Saudis. A few years later, we heard that he was back in the U.S. and had become involved in development of an alternative fuel for domestic home heating applications. Of the details we knew nothing.

Later, in retirement I found occasion to reflect on what kind of person William Pickering really was and how he had suddenly appeared on the national scene, just when a man like him was needed most. As part of his engineering work force at JPL, I had seen our Director only as a reserved, well-informed man of academic manner whose legendary achievements were a matter of public record, but the persona of this taciturn, tight-lipped man remained hidden from my view.

Early on a brilliant fall afternoon just before Thanksgiving 2002, I called on William Pickering to seek his concurrence and cooperation in writing the story of his professional life. With the passing years, the need to do that had become more imperative and I finally resolved to make the effort. “It might be an interesting idea to kick around,” he said in response to my proposal. We chatted back and forth for the rest of the afternoon until it was, obviously, time for me to go.

For the next year, in intensive oral interviews, Pickering generously recalled the personal and professional details of his remarkable life, spanning 93 years from childhood in New Zealand to his retirement years in California.

In the following pages I have embedded what he told me in the context of the major events in the American space program in which he played a significant part, significant indeed. In a 1965 article that spoke of Pickering’s career at JPL to that time, a leading New York newspaper suggested that his greatest contribution may have been his positive efforts to influence government and public attitudes toward support for the space program, and his determination to rally public confidence in the nation’s power to recover from the shock of Soviet dominance in space engendered by the Sputnik affair and subsequent Soviet Moon shots. More than 30 years later, Thomas Everhart, a former president of Caltech, would write, “More than any other individual, Bill Pickering was responsible for America’s success in exploring the planets. . . .” These would become his legacies in the American record of space exploration and endeavor.

As in all large enterprises, the top executive gets all the credit despite the obvious fact that the ultimate result is the outcome of the integrated efforts of the thousands of individuals involved. It is also true that the top executive gets all the blame when the outcome turns unfavorable. This was never more true than during Pickering’s tenure as Director of JPL. Pickering understood this and thought of himself and JPL, that is, the people of the “Lab” as he called it, as synonymous.

Thus, in recalling his story of success and failure, he found it difficult to separate his individual contribution from that of the Laboratory as a whole. The media attention that focused the public spotlight on William Pickering, the individual, tended to overlook the enormous infrastructure that produced the space spectaculars for which he received the credit—or the blame.

Nevertheless, Pickering believed there were two areas for which he was solely responsible. First, he believed that it was his job to create a work environment at the Laboratory that would attract, and retain, the very best engineering and scientific talent to work on its programs. And second, he believed that it was his job to use his public image to foster public support for the U.S. space program and its preeminent position in space exploration. In achieving these ends he engendered strong critics at NASA Headquarters, for his hubris in the former case, and his inordinate expenditure of government time and effort to public speaking. and the advancement of professional societies in the latter case. Undeterred by the criticism, Pickering nevertheless forged ahead to realize the ultimate vindication of his responsibilities as he saw them.

After he became Director, William Pickering published little in the way of technical material, preferring rather to make use of his outstanding skills as a public speaker, to present his views and opinions on space and, later, the human condition, to professional and public audiences alike. I have made frequent use of his public speeches to afford a window on his inner thoughts on these topics as they caught his interest over the 20-year period of his involvement with the space program. The archives of both the JPL and Caltech contain much additional material about Pickering and his tenure as Director that remains to be mined by future researchers.

In a life spanning most of the 20th century, William Hayward Pickering rose from the most humble beginnings to achieve worldwide recognition by the highest institutions in the field of science and technology. The institutional story of JPL during Pickering’s tenure has been well told elsewhere. This is the personal story of William H. Pickering the man, before, during, and after that climactic period of his life.

Sonoma, California
October 2007

Download William H. Pickering: America's Deep Space Pioneer

PDF version, 3.2MB, 268Pages. Provided by NASA History Division.

Douglas J. Mudgway
The NASA History Series
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NASA History Division, Office of External Relations
Washington, DC, 2007
NASA SP-2007-4113

Foreword:

The Institute of Professional Engineers New Zealand (IPENZ) Foundation is delighted to have this opportunity to make some remarks in support of this most commendable and authoritative biography of William Pickering by his colleague and friend Douglas Mudgway.

The IPENZ Foundation is a charitable trust formed by the IPENZ in 2002 for the promotion of the engineering profession in New Zealand and to assist in the welfare of its members. William Pickering, one of our most distinguished New Zealanders and an Honorary Fellow of IPENZ, was invited to become the Foundation’s inaugural patron. He accepted with alacrity, met with the trustees on his many visits to New Zealand, and maintained a lively interest in the Foundation until his death. He is sadly missed.

In the course of researching the feasibility of sponsoring a biography of William Pickering, the Foundation became aware that preparation of this book was well under way under the auspices of the NASA History Division. We are pleased therefore to be able to perpetuate the memory of William Pickering in New Zealand by our association with this biography, which we see clearly as part of our mission to promote the engineering profession.

William Pickering was a modest man, but his achievements were legion, as the reader will learn from this wonderfully illustrated and very readable biography. He was a spaceflight and rocket engineer and the revered leader of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Pasadena in the early heady days of space exploration. The author had the inestimable advantage of knowing Bill and being able to interview him and subsequently, after his death, having full access to his papers.

Douglas Mudgway, also a New Zealander by birth, graduated from the University of New Zealand before moving to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1962 following a 15-year career in Australia in the field of guided missile research.

The IPENZ Foundation is thus doubly proud to be associated with this prestigious NASA publication about a former New Zealander by a former New Zealander. We commend this book to readers in the United States, New Zealand, and around the world who remain in awe of the achievements of the early pioneers of the Space Age. Who can forget the photo (reproduced in the book) of William Pickering, James van Allen, and Wernher von Braun holding aloft the model of Explorer 1 following the successful launch of the first U.S. satellite in 1958?

John Cunningham
Chair, IPENZ Foundation
Wellington, New Zealand

About William H. Pickering:

William Henry Pickering (February 15, 1858 – January 17, 1938) was an American astronomer, brother of Edward Charles Pickering. Not to be confused with William Hayward Pickering, former director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

He discovered Saturn's ninth moon Phoebe in 1899 from plates taken in 1898. He also believed he had discovered a tenth moon in 1905 from plates taken in 1904, which he called "Themis". Unfortunately "Themis" does not exist.

He led solar eclipse expeditions and studied craters on the Moon, and hypothesized that changes in the appearance of the crater Eratosthenes were due to "lunar insects". He also constructed and established several observatories or astronomical observation stations, notably including Percival Lowell's Flagstaff Observatory.

In 1919, he predicted the existence and position of a Planet X based on anomalies in the positions of Uranus and Neptune but a search of Mount Wilson Observatory photographs failed to find the predicted planet. Pluto was later discovered at Flagstaff by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, but in any case it is now known that Pluto's mass is far too small to have appreciable gravitational effects on Uranus or Neptune, and the anomalies are accounted for when today's much more accurate values of planetary masses are used in calculating orbits. When the planet was named, he interpreted its symbol as a monogram referring to himself and Lowell by the phrase "Pickering-Lowell".

He spent much of the later part of his life at his private observatory in Jamaica. He produced a photographic atlas of the Moon: The Moon : A Summary of the Existing Knowledge of our Satellite — New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1903.

Pickering crater on the Moon is jointly named after him and his brother Edward Charles Pickering.

(From wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

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