David S. McKay

David Stewart McKay (September 25, 1936 – February 20, 2013) was Chief Scientist for astrobiology at the Johnson Space Center. During the Apollo program, McKay trained the first men to walk on the Moon in geology. McKay was the first author of a scientific paper postulating past life on Mars on the basis of evidence in Martian meteorite ALH 84001, which had been found in Antarctica. This paper has become one of the most heavily cited papers in planetary science. The NASA Astrobiology Institute was founded partially as a result of community interest in this paper and related topics. He was a native of Titusville, Pennsylvania.

As a graduate student in geology at Rice University, McKay was present at John F. Kennedy's speech in 1962 announcing the goal of landing a man on the Moon within the decade. Inspired by Kennedy's speech, McKay as a NASA scientist trained the Apollo astronauts in geology. He was a chief trainer for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during their last geology field trip in West Texas. On July 20, 1969 in Houston McKay was the only geologist present in the Apollo Mission Control Room when Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the Moon, serving as a resource. He was named principal investigator to study the samples which they brought back from the Moon.

McKay studied lunar dust since the return of the first Apollo 11 samples in 1969, and contributed over 200 publications on this topic. As a result of this effort, McKay contributed to major discoveries, including:

McKay published numerous papers and abstracts relating to planetary materials and space resource utilization: lunar regolith, cosmic dust, meteorites, Martian soil analogs, and technologies for producing oxygen, water, and building materials from lunar soil.

The engineering simulant JSC-1 was developed by McKay, James Carter of The University of Texas at Dallas, and others.

McKay's team published their findings in 1996 regarding possible microfossil structures in Martian meteorite ALH 84001. McKay presented more than 100 talks at scientific and public gatherings on the possibility of life on Mars and the implications of that possibility.

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