Hinners moves to Goddard

Abstract

Noel W. Hinners, president‐elect of AGU's Planetology Section and director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, has been appointed director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. He succeeds A. Thomas Young, who left Goddard in late March; Leslie Meredith, AGU General Secretary, is serving as acting director until Hinners' appointment becomes effective in mid‐June.Looking back at his 3 years as director of the museum, Hinners told Eos that he believed one of his most important accomplishments was to increase the historical and archival programs. His aim was to ensure that the histories of space physics, astronomy, and aeronautics will not be lost. Documentation on the evolution of ideas in these areas was scattered, improperly indexed, or nonexistent, Hinners explained, so he brought to the museum several professional historians to organize the existing information and to glean additional information through oral histories from scientists involved in such events as the International Geophysical Year.