By Peter Griffin • 13/10/2015 • 3

His name adorns medals, roads and even a mountain. Now NASA has paid Kiwi rocket scientist, the late Sir William Pickering, a significant tribute, dedicating an auditorium at its iconic Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pickering’s name.

In July a ceremony at JPL in Pasadena including staff, dignitaries, former JPL directors and Sir William’s daughter, Beth Pickering Mezitt, celebrated the naming of the auditorium on Building 321 at JPL as the William H. Pickering Auditorium. Apparently its rare for a federally-funded building to be named for a person.

Sir William ran the JPL for 22 years from 1954 to 1976, a period that spanned the height of the space race.

According to the latest edition of JPL’s newsletter Universe: When the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite in October 1957, Pickering quickly organized a team to design and build Explorer 1, America’s first satellite, launched Jan. 31, 1958. When NASA was created later that year, JPL became the agency’s only center staffed and managed by an educational institution. Under Pickering’s leadership, robotic missions to the moon, Venus and Mars cemented JPL’s reputation as the preeminent institution for deep-space exploration. JPL Director Charles Elachi told Universe that Pickering had been under intense pressure during his tenure as the Cold War and President Kennedy’s pledge to send astronauts to the moon by 1969 put huge expectations on JPL to deliver. Universe notes: