There has been a lot of ink spilled on the fact that Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) graduate Gregory “Reid” Wiseman (Class of 1997) is commanding NASA’s Artemis II mission.

But my alma mater, RPI, has an even earlier pioneer who not only attended RPI but presided over it for several years.

George M. Low (1926–1984) was one of the most influential engineering managers in the early U.S. space program and later a transformative president of RPI. His career bridged cutting-edge aerospace engineering, national space policy, and higher education leadership.

Low was born in Austria, near Vienna, in 1926. After the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, his family, of Jewish background, emigrated to the United States. He attended high school in New York and entered RPI in 1943. His studies were interrupted by service in the U.S. Army during World War II (1944–1946), after which he returned to RPI and earned his B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering (1948) and M.S. in Aeronautical Engineering (1950).

Low was also a member of the Delta Phi fraternity and, from 1943 to 1948, served as secretary, treasurer, and then president of the RPI chapter. While here, he married a Troy native, Mary Ruth McNamara, in 1949.

Low began his career at the National Advisory........

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