World-famous guest of honour

Press, 9 March 1988, Page 29

World-famous guest of honour

The Canterbury Technology Park is getting off to an auspicious start. It will be opened officially today by a man who is amongst the most widely honoured of all New Zealanders, Sir William Pickering. As director of N.A.S.A.’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, he directed a staff of about 4000 scientists and aerospace technicians in the research which put the first United States satellite, Explorer I, in orbit.

Sir William and his team were also responsible for the first lunar photographic and soft landing missions and the first planetary missions to Venus, Mars and Mercury, paving the way to send Neil Armstrong to the moon.

Sir William’s work is perhaps better known internationally than it is in his own country. He has received the British Interplanetary Society's Special Award, the Columbus Gold Medal of Italy, the Galabert Award of France, the James Wyld Memorial of the American Rocket Society, and

the Robert H. Goddard Memorial Trophy of the National Space Club. He has appeared twice on the cover of "Time" magazine, and in 1975 he was awarded an honorary KBE for services to science and technology. He was born in Wellington in 1910, and grew up in Havelock at the head of the Pelorus Sounds. After a brief time at Canterbury University, he attended the California Institute of Technology, where he later became Professor of Electrical Engineering.