Bruce
Churchill Murray (November
30, 1931 – August 29, 2013) was an American planetary scientist. He was a
director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
and co-founder of The Planetary Society. Murray
received his Ph.D. in geology from Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1955 and joined Standard Oil of California as
a geologist. He served in the United States Air Force as
a geophysicist[and the U.S. Civil
Service[ before joining California Institute of
Technology (Caltech) in 1960. At Caltech, Murray became an
associate professor in 1963, a full professor in 1969, and a professor emeritus
in 2001. He would later become professor emeritus of planetary science and geology. Murray began working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory(managed
by/affiliated with Caltech) in 1960, and served as its director from April 1,
1976 to June 30, 1982. He was an important force in promoting the recruitment
and hiring of female engineers at the lab, where more women are employed today
than any other NASA facility. Murray became JPL's director at a time when space
exploration budgets were shrinking; among other achievements, he saved
the Galileo mission
to Jupiter from the budget axe. Murray worked out the
geologic history of Mars using photographs taken
by Mariner 4 in 1965; he worked with Bob Leighton to
accomplish this task. He applied similar photographic analysis when he served
as chief scientist of Mariner 10. As he took
over management of JPL, he expressed reservations about the Viking lander program, pointing out that the biological
experiments included with the spacecraft were not sufficient to accomplish
their stated goals.
With Carl Sagan and Louis Friedman, Murray founded The Planetary Society. He
also served a term as its chair.