Richard Hoover is a distinguished American astrophysicist and astrobiologist. Professor Hoover’s work focuses on the composition of meteorites, icy moons of planets, comets, and other celestial bodies within the field of astrobiology. In 1966, Dr. Richard B. Hoover left his teaching position at the University of Arkansas to join von Braun’s team at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He is the author of 15 inventions. The optical instruments and systems he created are still used in space missions. He developed diffraction-limited telescopes and Laser Range Retroreflectors (LRRRs) for tracking the Apollo Saturn V lunar rockets. Astronauts on Apollo 11, 14, and 15 deployed the LRRR array on the Moon. The experiments are still active today and continue to provide precise data on the lunar orbital parameters, which are important for future lunar missions as well as for studies of general relativity and string theory. Dr. Hoover was a co-investigator for the SKYLAB Apollo Telescope Mount S-056 experiment and led the Multispectral Solar Telescope Array (MSSTA) observatory that produced simultaneous soft x-ray/EUV images of the Solar Photosphere, Chromosphere and Corona using his advanced multilayer telescopes. He analyzed the solar data and published papers on coronal loops, plumes and x-ray bright points. He patented numerous novel x-ray telescopes, microscopes, collimators and spectrometers and was named the 1992 NASA Inventor of the Year for the Water Window Imaging X-ray Microscope.

In 1986, Dr. Hoover collaborated with Sir Fred Hoyle in a study that revealed a close correspondence of the measured infrared properties of diatoms and the infrared spectra of interstellar dust as observed in the Trapezium Nebula and the galactic center source GC IRS-7. The researchers hypothesized that diatoms and similar microbial life forms might inhabit and be spewed into space from oceans of icy moons Enceladus or Europa and from aqueous cavities or pools just beneath the dark crusts of comets as they are heated near perihelion. This research resulted in his selection in 1997 to establish the Astrobiology Research Group at NASA/MSFC.

Professor Hoover has led scientific expeditions to many of the most hostile environments on Earth. He has explored ice caves in Antarctica and discovered microbial life in deep ice cores above Lake Vostok. He has led expeditions across Antarctica, Siberia, Alaska, South Africa, Patagonia, Iceland, Canada, and the Austrian Alps. His research in Antarctica and other regions has identified one new bacterial family, six new genera of extremophile bacteria and archaea, and fifteen new species previously unknown to scientists. Dr. Hoover was elected a Fellow of the Explorers Club for these achievements.

Professor Richard B. Hoover is the author and editor of more than 50 books and more than 400 scientific papers on X-ray optics, solar physics, diatoms, bacteria, microfossils, and meteorites.

His scientific expeditions and research have been featured on wide range of television networks and media platforms, including the History Channel, Fox News Channel, NBC Lx, Ancient Aliens, The Science Channel, NASA’s Unexplained Files, NHK Japan Television, the US National Science Foundation’s Science Nation: Extremophiles project, BBC, Discovery Channel, and National Geographic.

In 2023, he was awarded the title of Honorary Professor at Ilia State University.