NASA Ames Research Center director Pete Worden has announced that he will retire at the end of the month after nearly nine years at Moffett Field overseeing the use of the center’s wind tunnels, research labs, simulators and supercomputers.
Worden told the Voice that now that he’s reached age 65, he’s decided to retire from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and is “considering some opportunities in the academic/philanthropic area.”
“I have enjoyed almost 40 years working for the United States in many capacities, but none have been more rewarding and exciting than the almost nine years as a NASA center director,” Worden wrote in his retirement announcement. “The men and women of NASA are simply the greatest on earth (and off it!).”
Worden’s strange mix of military sensibilities and colorful behavior made him stand out. Worden is known to dress up in costumes for fun, suiting himself up as Darth Vader, a wizard, and even posing for a photo as a goatherd, complete with goats, on the Moffett Airfield. Before joining NASA in 2006, he was a member of the Air Force for 29 years, serving as commander and director of various space-related programs and departments managing satellites and missiles, among other things.
In 1992 Worden wrote an article called “On self-licking ice cream cones” which was a sharp critique of how NASA is treated by Congress, calling NASA’s bureaucracy self-perpetuating, with sacrifices made to the quality of NASA’s missions in order to provide jobs in certain Congressional districts. He wrote that NASA is actually controlled by the senior staff of Congressional appropriations committees “who have little interest in space or science. NASA officials’ noses are usually found at waist-level near these committee staffers.”
Mountain View city officials are lamenting the loss of Worden, as they recalled that other center directors weren’t always so understanding when residents and city staff had concerns about Ames operations, like flight traffic noise, the possibility of cargo flight operations on the airfield, or the long-stalled plan for a massive new research park at Ames, with over 1,000 homes and a major college campus.
“Whether it was council members or city staff, he never made any of us feel like any of our local concerns were either trivial or unimportant, and that’s not easy to do,” said former city manager Kevin Duggan, who regularly met with Worden for four years after working with several other Ames directors. “Worden never gave the impression that the concerns were parochial or inconsequential or unimportant — he was very good about that.”
Last week, City Council member Lenny Siegel described Worden in a similar way when the council discussed what sorts of topics would be raised with federal officials in a visit to Washington, D.C., saying that it would be important to advocate for the hiring of a new director who would also be a good partner with the city.
While it may not have been evident to the public, Duggan recalled that Worden and his office staff worked hard to preserve the iconic Hangar One at Moffett Field, which Navy officials had wanted to tear down instead of simply removing toxics-laden siding after leaving the 200-foot tall Hangar One, along with the rest of Moffett Field, to NASA in 1994.
Under Worden’s watch, a controversial deal was made in 2008 with the founders of Google to allow the use of Moffett’s airfield and Hangar 211 for the the executives’ private fleet of business jets, two Boeing airliners, a helicopter and a Dornier fighter jet.
Around the same time, Google subsidiary Planetary Ventures also got permission under Worden’s watch to build a 1.1 million-square-foot campus at Ames. The controversial partnership — for which NASA faced accusations of favoritism — may have paid off for the public when Google’s founders submitted a winning bid to save and restore Moffett’s Hangar One as part of a deal to lease and operate Moffett’s entire 1,000-acre airfield, saving NASA millions of dollars annually in airfield operation costs.
Environmental sustainability appeared to be a focus under Worden at Ames. During his time there the “Sustainability Base” office building was constructed at Ames using NASA technology to create the federal government’s most environmentally-friendly building. In 2009, Worden was named “Laboratory Director of the year” by the Federal Laboratory Consortium for his “GreenSpace” initiative at Ames that brought remote sensor technology developed at Ames to use on the study of climate change. The initiative put data-gathering sensors to work on NASA aircraft, as well as on the Google planes and the Zeppelin Eureka airship, the commercial airship based at Moffett for several years until owner Airship Ventures closed its doors for financial reasons.
Worden said he was proud of Ames’ work on the International Space Station, its pioneering work in quantum computing and the launch of dozens of small satellites, some based on smart phone compents, which has created a small industry of startups along with many other private businesses that have partnered with NASA and are housed at Ames.
“Most important of all” the accomplishments during his tenure, Worden says Ames helped inspire a new generation’s interest in space, with “more than 1,200 students at Ames in 2014!” In a 2009 tweet, he expressed similar interest in inspiring youth: “Great MoonFest today at NASA Ames – 10K people – many kids. They are our future – their faces tell me – we WILL settle the solar system!”
Settling the solar system doesn’t seem to just be a dream to Worden, but a real possibility.
“Ames’ people have revitalized space biology and begun to apply the new field of synthetic biology,” he said in an email. “The latter will enable us to live and thrive on other worlds.”
“Our current course (at NASA) promises to answer mankind’s greatest questions: Are we alone? How did life begin? And most importantly, what is our future?”
“Our human exploration programs will result soon in an expansion of humanity into the universe with people living on Mars and elsewhere in our solar system,” Worden wrote. “NASA people and programs have immeasurably improved life on earth. Our airlines fly safer and better with NASA technology; we understand the earth’s environment better now than ever. And, we have developed technology that has enabled us to lead the global aeronautics industry and begin a vibrant space economy.”
Email Daniel DeBolt at ddebolt@mv-voice.com
