Lasting Memories

David Wayne Lozier
March 11, 1943-Sept. 1, 2024
Pleasanton, CA
Submitted by Dione Hoover

“Life is just a voyage that’s homeward bound.”

David is on his homeward voyage. A space cadet, a rocket man, a NASA employee for 40 years, he witnessed the Golden Age Of Space Exploration. With a mere Bachelor of Arts degree and the computer programmer “right stuff”, he landed the job of a lifetime. From the beginning, in 1966, he was at the right place at the right time.

After attending college at Washington State University, David entered on the ground floor of Solar System Exploration as an aerospace engineer on the Pioneer Project, at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. The Pioneer Project would eventually send four spacecraft around the Sun and two to Jupiter and Saturn, a Venus orbiter and four probes into the atmosphere of Venus down to the surface. He was part of the Launch Operations Team of four Pioneer spacecraft at Cape Canaveral and witness to the launch of Pioneer 10, the first man made object to leave the Solar System and send back data from 80 astronomical units away from the Sun. Acclaimed physicist, Doctor James Van Allen, known for scientific discovery of the early space age and the Geiger Tube Telescope, praised the project for its “pioneering efforts”. All of the Pioneer Spacecraft exceeded operating lifetimes and surpassed all expectations of mission success.

David’s start as a trajectory engineer led to work in Mission Design, Navigation, Launch Operations and Mission Operations. David’s intelligent contributions at NASA earned him the title of Pioneer Flight Director until the end of the Pioneer Project, in 2002. His aerospace career’s final role as the Mission Design and Navigation Team leader facilitated NASA’s successful return mission to the Moon by the Lunar Prospector, a spacecraft resembling the visual look of the Pioneer 6. Launched in 1965, Pioneer 6 may still be operating but tracking was lost in 2000. Solar System Exploration had returned home.

David is survived by his wife, Nani Lozier, a former Polynesian dance and ukulele instructor, who always supported him in his career. Nani pushed his creative boundaries and made his fantasies come true. David and Nani”s travel journey made multiple trips to the Hawaiian Islands of Maui, Kauai and Oahu. Further travels to Asia included Nani’s origins in the Philippines, Hong Kong and Macau in China, onward to Osaka and Tokyo in Japan.

Additional adventures led their exploration to visit European monuments in Paris-France, Barcelona-Spain, Tossa De Mar on the Mediterranean and Lisbon-Portugal. On business to Aericibo, they visited San Juan, Puerto Rico. Stateside, travel brought them to the Pacific Northwest, Canada and the New England states. Their excursions were made with a mutual belief that,“books impart knowledge but only travel imparts wisdom”.

David is also survived by his stepdaughter, Tara Bell and his buddies, Cassius and Angelo Bell. And last, but not least, Dione Hoover. Retirement and grandkids made his life happier than he had ever experienced before.

“To infinity and beyond”