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Planetary scientist and former JPL director Bruce Murray died Thursday:

http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me-bruce-murray-20130830,0,1122170.story

Those of us who rely on pictures of other worlds sent back by space probes - and that's a lot of us - owe him a debt of gratitude. He was one of the key people who pushed for including "television experiments" on the early Mariner Mars probes of the
1960's, opening the door to the fantastic pictures we're now getting from Mars and Saturn. Rod Pyle's book "Destination Mars" includes an interview in which Murray tells how he, a geologist, taught himself enough engineering to explain to the spacecraft
designers what could really be done. He was JPL director during the dark time of the post-Apollo, post-Watergate slump, but he kept the spark of planetary exploration alive. He also pushed for development of the Deep Space Network, without which
interplanetary flight would be impossible.

Steve Fentress, Director
Strasenburgh Planetarium
Rochester Museum & Science Center
657 East Avenue
Rochester, NY 14607 USA
e-mail [log in to unmask]
www.rmsc.org



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