William Hayward Pickering immigrated to the United States and received his education in the sciences at the California Institute of Technology, obtaining bachelors and masters degrees in electrical engineering, and a PhD in physics. Having a passion for flight, his labors turned exclusively to aerospace related programs starting in 1936. He performed early investigations into new electronic telemetering techniques, which have become the basis for all that was to follow in the transmission of data from space. With Pickering's appointment as director of the prestigious Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1954, full responsibility for the United States unmanned exploration of the planets and the solar system was ultimately placed in his hands. Among these missions were the Mariner spacecraft to Venus and Mercury, and the Viking mission to Mars. Under his direction, the successful Voyager craft sent back magnificently detailed photographs that depicted the character of the planets Jupiter and Saturn. By sending spacecraft to the far edges of the solar system, Dr. Pickering made us more aware of the galaxy we live in. He and his team were instrumental in the dramatic advances made in space research, from the management of earth resources, to the character of near and deep space, and onward to the hidden secrets of the far planets of our Universe.
Inducted in 1979.
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