Biography
Richard E. Young
NASA Ames Research Center
Dr. Young received a B.S. in Engineering Physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Planetary and Space Physics from the University of Califronia, Los Angeles. During his undergraduate career he tried to take as general a scientific and technical major as possible since he wasn't sure what specific field he wanted to enter. After graduating from Berkeley he worked for NASA at the Ames Research Center for a period of 18 months, working on advanced planetary mission concepts. Always intending to go back to school, he learned that UCLA had a program in planetary and space physics and decided to enroll in that program. After receiving his Ph.D., he spent a year at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado in their Advanced Study Program. In 1974 he returned to Ames Research Center in a post-doctoral research position, and was hired in 1976. During his career Dr. Young has been involved in a number of planetary exploration missions as a researcher, concerned mostly with the structure and dynamic meteorology of planetary atmospheres. Since 1988 he has served as the Project Scientist for the Galileo Probe Mission to Jupiter. The Galileo Mission consisted of a Jupiter orbiter and entry probe. Ames had the primary responsiblity for developing and constructing the probe, and Dr. Young led the science team for the probe part of the mission. Both the orbiter and probe arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, conducting the first orbital reconnaissance of a giant planet and the first ever direct sampling of the atmopshere of a giant planet.
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