The Foundation Freyberg Lecture Series
a knight in space D
ouglas Mudgway (1936-40) was guest speaker at the second bi-annual Foundation Freyberg Lecture held at Wellington College on 14 October, 2009. A former student, Douglas later graduated with a BSc in Mathematics and Physics at Victoria University. He joined the staff at the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research as a physicist engaged in radar development. From 1948, Douglas spent 15 years in Australia and England working in the field of guided missile research and testing.
In 1962, he moved to the United States to work at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. He was Manager for the Deep Space Tracking and Data Acquisition of the Surveyor Moon landing spacecraft (1966), the Viking Mars Landens (1976), and for the Galileo Mission to Jupiter from its inception in 1978 until his retirement in 1991.
The topic for Douglas’ Freyberg lecture was ‘Dr William H Pickering KCB’ America’s Deep Space Pioneer’. Dr Pickering was also a student at Wellington College (1923-27).
Douglas Mudgway was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for his work on Viking in 1978, a second award for the Exceptional Achievement Medal for his contribution to the Galileo Mission in 1991.
Paddianne W Neely, College Archivist
Who better to give this Lecture than Douglas Mudgway, good friend, fellow Old Boy, colleague and author of the biography of Pickering.
[Even though William Pickering was awarded with a KCB, his title of Doctor is acknowledged in the USA]
Events
To mark William Pickering’s outstanding achievements, Time Magazine honoured him with a cover picture for the Venus fly-by in March 1963, and again in 1965 for the first Mars fly-by. William is only one of a handful of notables to be featured on the cover of Time, twice.
Headmaster, Roger Moses points out William Pickering’s name on the Honours Board in the Assembly Hall, with Douglas Mudgway alongside
William Pickering, Wellington College Prefect, 1927
Dr William Pickering, Cosmic Ray Researcher, CIT, 1937
If you would like a copy of the booklet on William Pickering, produced in conjunction with the lecture given by Douglas, please send $5.00 to the WCOBA Office. The booklet is an abridged version of the biography written by Douglas and contains many photos and text. THE LAMPSTAND, 2010 • 37