A. Thomas Young

A. Thomas Young
Portrait in 1979
4th Director of Goddard Space Flight Center
In office
1979–1982
Preceded byRobert S. Cooper
Succeeded byNoel W. Hinners
Personal details
Born1938 (age 87–88)
Wachapreague, Virginia, U.S.
EducationUniversity of Virginia (BS)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MS)
Awards
 NASA Distinguished Service Medal

A. Thomas "Tom" Young (born 1938) is an American aerospace engineer and executive. He served as the fourth director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center from 1979 to 1982.

He was mission director of NASA's Viking program Mars landing program and director of the Planetary Program at NASA Headquarters. In 1977, he received NASA's highest honor, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal for his work. After leaving NASA, he became president and chief operating officer of Martin Marietta and executive vice president of Lockheed Martin.

Early life and education

Young was born in 1938 in Wachapreague, Virginia, on Virginia's Eastern Shore.[1] He received a Bachelor of Science in aeronautical engineering and a second in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia in 1961.[2] He later earned a Master of Management degree in 1972 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which he attended on a Sloan Research Fellowship while employed at NASA's Langley Research Center.[1]

Career

NASA Langley Research Center

Young joined NASA's Langley Research Center in 1961, where he began developing attitude control systems and trajectory designs for sounding rockets and space vehicles.[3] He subsequently moved to the Lunar Orbiter Project Office, where he led the mission study group. The group's risk assessment produced a distributed photographic strategy that imaged a large portion of the lunar surface rather than a select few sites, providing candidate Apollo landing zones. Five successful Lunar Orbiter missions launched between 1966 and 1967 photographed 99 percent of the Moon's surface.[4]

Viking lander

Young was assigned to the Mars Viking program, serving first as science integration manager and then as mission director.[5] He established the Mission and Science Working Group, which spanned the full length of the Viking project from 1968 to 1976 and brought Langley's engineering capabilities into direct collaboration with the planetary science community. The two Viking landers and orbiters successfully reached Mars and the project laid much of the technological groundwork for subsequent Mars exploration.[6]

Leadership at NASA

In 1976, Young was appointed director of the Planetary Program in the Office of Space Science at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., where he oversaw budget management and strategic planning and contributed to the Voyager program and the Venus Orbiter Imaging Radar project.[7] In 1978, he was appointed deputy director of Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California.[8]

Young was appointed the fourth director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland in 1979, succeeding Robert S. Cooper.[9] He served until 1982 and was succeeded by Noel W. Hinners.[10][11]

Martin Marietta and Lockheed Martin

Young left NASA in 1982 and joined the Martin Marietta Corporation as vice president of aerospace research and engineering. He subsequently served as president of Martin Marietta Electronics & Missiles Group in Orlando, Florida, and as senior vice president of the corporation before becoming president and chief operating officer from 1990 to 1995.[12] Following the merger of Martin Marietta with Lockheed, he was appointed executive vice president of the newly formed Lockheed Martin Corporation, a position he held until his retirement in 1995.[2][13]

Post-retirement advisory work

Following his retirement from Lockheed Martin, Young became a prominent independent reviewer of major space programs and national security space policy and has testified before Congress numerous times.[14][15] He chaired the NASA Mars Independent Assessment Team (2000), the International Space Station Management and Cost Evaluation Committee (2001), and a joint Defense Science Board and Air Force Scientific Advisory Board review of the acquisition of national security space programs (2003).[16] He also led a congressionally mandated review of the organization and management of national security space (2008) and an independent review of NOAA's weather satellite enterprise.[2][17]

He has served as president of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science Foundation and as a member of the Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Virginia Academy of Science.[18] He has also been a member of the NASA Advisory Council and a director of the Virginia Engineering Foundation of the University of Virginia's School of Engineering and Applied Science.[19] He is a member of The University of Virginia's Raven Society.

He also served as chairman of the National Business Committee for the Arts. He sits on the board of directors for BFGoodrich, Cooper Industries, Henkel North American Consumer Goods, and Potomac Electric Power Co.[20]

Young was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1992.[21] He is an honorary fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and a fellow of the American Astronautical Society, Royal Astronomical Society, and the International Academy of Astronautics.[19] The AIAA offered the A. Thomas Young Undergraduate Scholarship from 2001 to 2012.[22]

Awards

Personal life

Young was born and raised on Virginia's Eastern Shore. He has maintained ongoing ties to Virginia through his work with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "A. Thomas Young". NASA. Archived from the original on March 29, 2026. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "A. Thomas Young Receives 2014 General James E. Hill Lifetime Space Achievement Award". Space Foundation. May 21, 2014. Archived from the original on September 8, 2025. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  3. ↑ Wright, Rebecca (June 10, 2013). "Oral History Transcript: A. Thomas Young" (PDF). NASA Headquarters Oral History Project. Greenbelt, Maryland: NASA Headquarters. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 15, 2025. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  4. ↑ "Lunar Orbiter". airandspace.si.edu. National Air and Space Museum. Archived from the original on September 13, 2025. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  5. ↑ NASA's Mars Program After the Young Report, Parts I & II: Hearing Before the Committee on Science, House of Representatives, One Hundred Sixth Congress, Second Session, April 12 and June 13, 2000. United States Government Publishing Office. April 12, 2001. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-16-064899-1. LCCN 2001330593. OCLC 46670203. OL 3992614M. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  6. ↑ Team, Viking Lander Imaging; Mutch, Thomas A. (1978). The Martian Landscape. Scientific and Technical Information Office, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. p. 157. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  7. ↑ "A. Thomas Young". NOAA. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  8. ↑ Applications, United States Congress House Committee on Science and Technology Subcommittee on Space Science and (1979). 1981 NASA Authorization (program Review): Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Space Science and Applications of the Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, Ninety-sixth Congress, First [-second] Session ... U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 449. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  9. ↑ "NASA Senior Leadership Oral Histories - NASA". NASA. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  10. ↑ "NASA Goddard Dedicates Auditorium to Former Center Director Hinners". NASA. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  11. ↑ Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1979-1984: A Chronology. Scientific and Technical Information Division, National Aeronautics and Space Administration. 1989. p. 222. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  12. ↑ "A. Thomas Young" (PDF). The White House. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  13. ↑ Smart, Tim (May 5, 1999). "Panel to Review Lockheed Failures". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. ProQuest 408484130. Archived from the original on August 28, 2017. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  14. ↑ Smith, Marcia (March 1, 2013). "Tom Young: NASA on Declining Trajectory, Beware Unintended Consequences of SLPA". Space Policy Online. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  15. ↑ Young, A. Thomas. "TESTIMONY TO THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS NOVEMBER 13, 2019 A. THOMAS YOUNG" (PDF). republicans-science.house.gov. House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  16. ↑ "Young will head Mars inquiry". FlightGlobal. January 11, 2000. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  17. ↑ "Statement of A. Thomas Young Chairman, ISS Management and Cost Evaluation Task Force Before the House Science Committee". United States House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. November 7, 2001. Retrieved May 1, 2026 – via SpaceRef.
  18. ↑ "Dr. Thomas Young". irginia Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  19. 1 2 "A. Thomas Young" (PDF). U.S. Congress. Retrieved April 27, 2026.
  20. ↑ "A. Thomas Young". NIST. June 2, 2009. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  21. 1 2 "Mr. A. Thomas Young". National Academy of Engineering. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  22. ↑ "A Thomas Young Undergraduate Scholarship (No Longer Available)". AIAA - Shaping the future of aerospace. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  23. ↑ McGraw, Carol (January 28, 2014). "Former NASA executive to receive Space Foundation's lifetime achievement award". The Gazette. ISSN 1531-2607. ProQuest 1492139580. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  24. ↑ "Space Foundation will Present the 2014 General James E. Hill Lifetime Space Achievement Award to A. Thomas Young". Space News. January 28, 2014. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
  25. ↑ "Remarks on Awarding the Rank of Distinguished Executive to Certain Members of the Senior Executive Service". Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum. Retrieved May 1, 2026.
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