posted 12-06-2013 10:39 AM               

Jay Gallentine, author of "Ambassadors from Earth: Pioneering Explorations with Unmanned Spacecraft," remembered Schurmeier as follows:

He's not a household name, but Bud was a critical engineering and management figure at JPL for many years from the 1960s to the 1980s.

He took over leadership of the troubled 'Ranger' program which led to America's first close-up pictures of the lunar surface. He also worked on many other JPL projects, with Voyager arguably his biggest. Bud led Voyager from its inception up until about six months before launch and laid the groundwork for its success.

Harris 'Bud' Schurmeier served as the first Project Manager for the Voyager mission. In 1976, just before the twin spacecraft launched, he became Assistant Lab Director at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

In November 1985, Schurmeier retired from JPL, but not from his passion for planetary exploration. He then went on to serve as Project Manager for Mars Balloon in the 1980s and Mars Rover in the 1990s, two major projects of The Planetary Society (TPS).