Stewart Homer Credit - NASA

Personal: Male. Born in USA.

Homer J. Stewart earned his doctorate in aeronautics from Caltech in 1940, joining the faculty there two years before that. In 1939 he participated in pioneering rocket research with other Caltech engineers and scientists, including Frank Malina, in the foothills of Pasadena. Out of their efforts, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) arose, and Stewart maintained his interest in rocketry at that institution. He was involved in developing the first American satellite, Explorer I, in 1958. In that year, on leave from Caltech, he became director of NASA's program planning and evaluation office, returning to Caltech in 1960 to a variety of positions, including chief of the advanced studies office at JPL from 1963 to 1967 and professor of aeronautics at Caltech itself.