Number wise, New Zealanders are among the smallest collection of people on earth. But historically, we've changed the world with our ideas. Over the next few weeks in Independent Women we will be looking at female Kiwis who should be a source of inspiration for us all. These heroes are proudly brought to you by THE NEW ZEALAND EDGE, a website dedicated to a new way of thinking about our identity, our people, our stories, our achievements and our place in the world.
The launch of Sputnik in 1957 forced the United States into the space race. Fighting in the Cold War the Americans needed to show the world they too could launch a rocket into space - and they had to do it quickly. Less than three months later Explorer 1 was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The man behind it: William Pickering from Wellington, New Zealand.
In the next ten years Pickering went on to be a central figure in the American space race. Once he and his team conquered the earth’s orbit, the sky was, literally, the limit. He worked at marrying the possibilities of technology with humanity’s wonderment of outer space and, by sending spacecraft to the far edges of the solar system, made us more aware of the galaxy we live in.
William Hayward Pickering was born in Roxburgh Street, Mount Victoria, Wellington in 1910. His mother died when he was six and he was sent to live with their grandparents in Havelock, in the Marlborough Sounds at the northern tip of the South Island. Here Pickering attended Havelock Primary School, the first school of the greatest New Zealand scientist Ernst Rutherford.
The Road to Caltech
In 1923 he started boarding at Wellington College. His father, a pharmacist, had left New Zealand to work in the tropics; an environment he didn’t believe was a healthy one for his sons. Pickering was inspired by his maths teacher, AC ‘Pop’ Gifford. Mr Gifford founded the school’s observatory, the place where young Pickering first looked through a telescope towards the heavens.
Pickering’s ability to marry practical and theoretical science was coached at Wellington College. With schoolmate Fred White (later Dr F. White CBE, CEO of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) Pickering built an early radio station. The two communicated using Morse code with others around the world.
After high school Pickering studied engineering at Canterbury University. He completed one year before an uncle, who divided his time between living in New Zealand and California, encouraged him to apply to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
Although a new university, Caltech already had an excellent reputation for science and engineering.
He completed a bachelor degree in electrical engineering in 1932, and returned to New Zealand hoping to work as an engineer. Unable to find satisfactory employment he returned to education and to California. He completed his masters in 1933 and a PhD in Physics in 1936, the same year he joined the Caltech faculty.
He returned to Caltech to teach electrical engineering, was made professor in charge of radio and electronics and also appointed to the Scientific Advisory Board of the United States Air Force. As the cold war unfolded the link between academic and research organisations, and the military grew. Caltech, along with MIT, Berkeley, University of Chicago and other notable American institutions, was no different.
JPL and Explorer 1During World War II Pickering had also become involved in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Jet technology was comparatively new to Caltech, but war was to quickly advance jet technology from theory to reality. The American military knew it and enlisted the aid of academic institutions. Pickering initially became involved with the Lab through his studies into telemetry, the science of radio control.
In 1950 he finished lecturing and began working with JPL full time. By 1954 he was the Lab’s Director. His rise to the top was to do with both how well he knew science and how well he knew scientists. His role of director was a multifaceted one: not only was his scientific and technical expertise to the fore, but his antipodean diplomacy was required to lead not only volatile and brilliant scientists, but also work with politicians and military hierarchy during the pressure-cooker political environment of the Cold War.
The Cold War Heats Up
Working with Pickering were cosmic ray expert from the University of Iowa, Dr James Van Allen, and Dr Wernher von Braun, the German rocket scientist who was the mastermind behind the deadly V2 rocket that devastated London during World War II. Pickering was the Lab Director; he had to bring these two geniuses together for a common goal, in an incredibly short time frame, while breathing down their necks was the Government, the Pentagon and the patriot demands of the American people.
Washington DC was cold and wet the night of February 1st, 1958, hours after the successful launch of Explorer 1. Pickering, Van Allen and von Braun drove through the windswept, deserted streets between the Pentagon and the National Academy of Sciences knowing the importance of what they had achieved, but uncertain about how much interest, outside of scientific circles, it would generate.They needn’t have been concerned.
Despite the inclement weather and the fact it was after midnight, a press gang had turned out in force to question the trio. A photo from the press conference of the men holding a model of Explorer 1 represents both the entry of America in the space race and William Pickering’s proudest moment.Explorer 1 made the discovery that a radiation belt circled the Earth. This would become known as the Van Allen Belt. A later satellite, Explorer III, launched in December 1958, discovered a second radiation belt at a much higher altitude. Yet Explorer’s scientific discoveries were secondary in the minds of the American public. What they felt was equal parts fear and wonder: Explorer’s launch was the starting shot of the space race. The Cold War had immediately become more intense. The conquest of space, the last frontier, had, for America, begun. Venus and MarsIn 1958 Congress passed the Space Act that established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This divided space development research into civilian (NASA’s area) and military, which became the Air Force’s territory, and this allowed Pickering and JPL a far freer hand in their work. They were given a contract containing three broad categories for their space missions.
These were:
1.Near Earth Satellites. To make measurements of: the Earth from space; to explore the near Earth space environment; and explore the cosmos from observing points above the Earth’s atmosphere;
2. Deep space missions to explore the solar systems; and
3. The development of manned space travel.
From Wellington to Venus
Despite the aggressive approach taken by the US Government at the time, and continued after John Kennedy’s election in 1960, American progress in space was slower than the Soviets who were sending more powerful rockets into space and orbiting the moon. It wasn’t until 1962 when the JPL-designed Mariner II to Venus that America could claim a significant ‘first’. With Explorer I, Pickering helped America take its first tentative steps towards the darkness of space. With Mariner II he and his team were sprinting hard into the great unknown. The American public, bubbling over with optimism and confidence during the prosperous Camelot days, were enthralled.Pickering was pictured on the cover of Time Magazine on March 8, 1963 and again in November 28, 1964. William Pickering – Rocket Man!
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Number wise, New Zealanders are among the smallest collection of people on earth. But historically, we've changed the world with our ideas. Over the next few weeks in Independent Women we will be looking at female Kiwis who should be a source of inspiration for us all. These heroes are proudly brought to you by THE NEW ZEALAND EDGE, a website dedicated to a new way of thinking about our identity, our people, our stories, our achievements and our place in the world. 
The launch of Sputnik in 1957 forced the United States into the space race. Fighting in the Cold War the Americans needed to show the world they too could launch a rocket into space - and they had to do it quickly. Less than three months later Explorer 1 was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The man behind it: William Pickering from Wellington, New Zealand.