Named in honor of George Alexander, soon to retire from the Jet propulsion Laboratory as public-affairs manager. He has spent almost 40 years communicating science and space exploration to the public. After seven years as a reporter for
Aviation Week magazine, he went to
Newsweek in 1967, writing all the cover stories about the Apollo moon program. Alexander left
Newsweek to become science writer for
The Los Angeles Times, and he won several major awards for excellence in science writing. He became very well acquainted with JPL through his coverage of the Viking, Voyager and other missions, and he joined the staff in 1988. He was president of both the National Association of Science Writers and the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing in the 1970s and 1980s.