Bruce C. Murray
| Bruce C. Murray | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
November 30, 1931 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | August 29, 2013 (aged 81) Oceanside, California, U.S. |
| Fields | |
| Institutions | |
| Alma mater | MIT – Ph.D. geology (1955) |
| Notable awards |
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| Spouse | Joan O'Brien (divorced; 3 children) Suzanne Moss (2 children) |
Bruce Churchill Murray (November 30, 1931 – August 29, 2013) was an American planetary scientist. He was a director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and co-founder of The Planetary Society.
Murray received his Ph.D. in geology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1955 and joined Standard Oil of California as a geologist. He served in the United States Air Force as a geophysicist, and the U.S. Civil Service before joining California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1960.
At Caltech, Murray became an associate professor in 1963, a full professor in 1969, and a professor emeritus in 2001. He would later become professor emeritus of planetary science and geology.
Murray began working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory(managed by/affiliated with Caltech) in 1960, and served as its director from April 1, 1976 to June 30, 1982. He was an important force in promoting the recruitment and hiring of female engineers at the lab, where more women are employed today than any other NASA facility. Murray became JPL's director at a time when space exploration budgets were shrinking; among other achievements, he saved the Galileo mission to Jupiter from the budget axe.
Murray worked out the geologic history of Mars using photographs taken by Mariner 4 in 1965; he worked with Bob Leighton to accomplish this task. He applied similar photographic analysis when he served as chief scientist of Mariner 10. As he took over management of JPL, he expressed reservations about the Viking lander program, pointing out that the biological experiments included with the spacecraft were not sufficient to accomplish their stated goals.
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