[meteorite-list] Three From JPL on Time Magazine 'Most Influential' List

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 11:01:31 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201304181801.r3II1VLt013094_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-141

Three From JPL on Time Magazine 'Most Influential' List
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
April 18, 2013

PASADENA, Calif. -- On a new list of the 100 most influential people on
Earth, three work at the same California address, where they've led
projects to study things that are not on Earth. The list announced today
by TIME Magazine includes Don Yeomans, Pete Theisinger and Richard Cook,
all at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Yeomans manages NASA's Near-Earth Objects Program Office at JPL, which
coordinates the search for and tracking of asteroids and comets passing
into Earth's neighborhood to identify possible hazards to Earth.

Since 2004, Theisinger and Cook have alternated managing NASA's Mars
Science Laboratory project, which landed the highly successful car-sized
Curiosity rover on Mars last summer. Both previously managed NASA's Mars
Exploration Rover project with its twin rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.

The TIME 100, as the magazine's Managing Editor Richard Stengel has
explained, is "a list of the most influential people in the world.
They're scientists, they're thinkers, they're philosophers, they're
leaders, they're icons, they're artists, they're visionaries. People who
are using their ideas, their visions, their actions to transform the
world and have an effect on a multitude of people."

"We are honored to have three distinguished individuals from JPL on the
TIME list of most influential people," said JPL Director Charles Elachi.
"Their contributions in the fields of asteroid research and Mars
exploration is representative of all the exciting and important work
being done at NASA and JPL on behalf of the American people."

Yeomans grew up in Rochester, N.Y., and now lives in Glendale, Calif. He
graduated from Middlebury College, Vt., with a bachelor's degree in
mathematics and earned a doctorate in astronomy from the University of
Maryland, College Park. He has worked at JPL since 1976. In addition to
managing NASA's Near-Earth Objects Program Office, Yeomans is supervisor
for JPL's Solar System Dynamics Group. He was a science team member for
the Deep Impact/EPOXI mission, which deployed an impactor that was "run
over" by comet Tempel 1 in 2005 and flew close to comet Hartley 2 in
2010. He was also the U.S. project scientist for the Japanese-led
Hayabusa mission that returned a sample from near-Earth object Itokawa
in 2010, and a team chief for the Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission
that orbited, then landed on the asteroid Eros in 2001. The first images
of the return of comet Halley in 1982 were also obtained based on
Yeomans predictions.

Theisinger is a native of Fresno, Calif., and lives now in La Crescenta,
Calif. He graduated from the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena, with a degree in physics. His career at JPL began in 1967 with
the Mariner 5 mission to Venus and now includes contributions to
missions including the Voyager mission to the outer planets (launched in
1977 and still going) and the Galileo mission to Jupiter (launched in
1989 and concluded in 2003). His Mars experience dates back to the 1971
Mariner 9 orbiter mission to Mars.

Cook is originally from Bismarck, N.D., and now lives in Santa Clarita,
Calif. He earned a bachelor's degree in engineering physics from the
University of Colorado, Boulder, and a master's degree in aerospace
engineering from the University of Texas, Austin. Cook joined JPL in
1989, working first on the Magellan mission to Venus. He was the Mars
Pathfinder mission manager responsible for operating the first rover -
Sojourner - on the surface of Mars in 1997. He held several roles on the
Mars Exploration Rover project, which landed the Spirit and Opportunity
rovers in 2004, including flight system manager and project manager.

The NASA Near Earth Objects (NEO) program at the agency's headquarters
in Washington manages and funds the search, study and monitoring of
NEOs, or asteroids and comets, whose orbits periodically bring them
close to Earth. NASA's study of NEOs provides important clues to
understanding the origin of our solar system. The objects also are a
repository of natural resources and could become waystations for future
exploration. In collaboration with other external organizations, one of
the program's key goals is to search for and try to mitigate potential
NEO impacts on Earth. JPL conducts the NEO program's technical and
scientific activities.

For more information about asteroids and near-Earth objects, visit:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/asteroidwatch .

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory project is using Curiosity to investigate
the environmental history within Gale Crater, a location where the
project has found that conditions were long ago favorable for microbial
life. Curiosity, carrying 10 science instruments, landed in August 2012
to begin its two-year prime mission. JPL, a division of Caltech, manages
the project for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more about the mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/msl and
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl .

More information on the Time 100 can be found at:
http://www.time.com/time100 .

Jia-Rui Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook at jpl.nasa.gov

2013-141
Received on Thu 18 Apr 2013 02:01:31 PM PDT