Tony Spear, center and slightly to the right, with glasses, celebrates a mission triumph: the Mars Pathfinder, in 1997. Anthony “Tony” Spear, a legendary project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory whose team on NASA’s Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997 found a new way to land safely on the Red Planet, has died.Spear was remembered this week as a leader who thrived on adventure, a key trait for the nascent Mars treks his teams would audaciously embark on.
Robert Staehle, 69, of Altadena, worked with Spear at JPL for about five years. Both were project managers passionate about NASA’s Discovery program of faster, cheaper, better missions. Spear focused on Mars and Staehle on Pluto. Born and raised in Martins Ferry, Ohio, Spear joined the U.S. Air Force right out of high school, serving the military from 1954 to 1958. He attended Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1962. Spear later earned a master’s degree in engineering from USC.
“As project manager, Tony Spear created an environment that combined healthy critique and skepticism with deep passion, an insistence on excellence and a sense of fun,” he said. “Together these fostered a wonderful esprit de corps in his team that directly led to the amazing success of Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner Rover in 1997.”
“He was a great supporter of people, especially people who have had a difficult time in life,” Phelps said. “He would take on people who were perhaps not easily accepted, including women who had a bit of a struggle working at JPL. He was loyal and smart and he was a hard worker. He always said he was driven by fear of not working hard enough.”And Tonyspear 6487 is an asteroid. Appropriately enough, its course crosses the orbit of Mars.
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