NASA Ames Center Director Receives Arthur C. Clarke Award
The director of NASA’s Ames Research Center, S. Pete Worden, was recognized Tuesday by The Arthur C. Clarke Foundation for his leadership in space exploration.
Worden has written or co-written more than 150 scientific technical papers in astrophysics, space sciences and strategic studies. He also served as a scientific co-investigator for two NASA space science missions. Before becoming Ames center director, he was a research professor of astronomy, optical sciences and planetary sciences at the University of Arizona. His primary research was on the development of large space optics for national security and scientific purposes, and near-Earth asteroids.
“I am truly honored to receive the 2010 Arthur C. Clarke Foundation’s Innovator’s Award,” Worden said. “This prestigious award recognizes technology trailblazers whom I personally admire, and I am proud to be considered among them.”
The award recognizes initiatives or new inventions with recent impact or particular promise for satellite communications and society. “Like Sir Arthur, Pete Worden was ‘in at the beginning’ of countless courageous departures – among them the Strategic Defense Initiative, the revitalization of civil space exploration and Earth monitoring, and programs to get mankind at a working distance from Near Earth Objects,” The Arthur C. Clarke Foundation’s Chairman Tedson J. Meyers said.
Worden was instrumental in locating the NLSI Central Office at Ames Research center. Ames not only has experience managing the highly successful NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) , which serves as a template for the NLSI, but there is also considerable recent lunar mission experience at Ames. Pete Worden was responsible for the Air Force Clementine lunar orbiter, launched in 1994. Ames managed and operated the first NASA lunar mission since Apollo, Lunar Prospector, which was launched into lunar orbit in 1998. The Center developed the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) impact mission, and is working on a small orbiter to investigate the lunar atmosphere and dust (LADEE – Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer).
For Worden’s biography, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/about/centerdirector.html
For more information about NASA Ames, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ames
For more information about The Arthur C. Clarke Foundation, visit:
http://www.clarkefoundation.org
Posted by: Soderman/NLSI Staff
Source: NASA
