Scott Hubbard inducted into Kentucky Aviation Hall of Fame

Consulting Professor Scott Hubbard (Photo: L.A. Cicero)

SCOTT HUBBARD, consulting professor of aeronautics and astronautics in the School of Engineering, has been inducted into the Kentucky Aviation Hall of Fame.

Before coming to Stanford in 2007, Hubbard worked at NASA for 20 years, including directing the Ames Research Center for four years. He played a leading role in conceiving the space agency’s long-term plans for exploring Mars, which earned him the nickname “Mars czar.”

Hubbard founded NASA’s Astrobiology Institute, conceived the Mars Pathfinder mission with its airbag landing and managed NASA’s highly successful Lunar Prospector Mission. He represented NASA on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board and received the Distinguished Service Medal from NASA in 2004 for demonstrating the physical cause of the shuttle accident.

Hubbard is the author of Exploring Mars: Chronicles from a Decade of Discovery and editor-in-chief of New Space, a journal on the entrepreneurial space industry.

“My induction to the Kentucky Aviation Hall of Fame meant a lot to me as a native son,” he said. “There have been Hubbards in Kentucky since 1792. My father was a B-17 tailgunner and flight engineer on a PBY [a type of amphibious military aircraft] in World War II, and two of my uncles were in aviation as well, so there’s a family aerospace legacy.”