Richard B. Hoover established the Astrobiology Research Group at the NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in 1997. He is currently Astrobiologist at Athens State University and Visiting Research Professor with the Centre for Astrobiology at the University of Buckingham in the United Kingdom. Richard B. Hoover joined the NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center in 1966 and began his scientific research in astrophysics and solar physics. He was co-investigator for the SKYLAB S-056 Grazing Incidene X-Ray Telescope that produced high resolution x-ray images of the Sun from America’s first Space Station.
He developed the Multilayer X-Ray Telescope that produced the first High-Resolution image of the Sun (Cover of Science, Sept. 30, 1988) ever obtained with a telescope using Normal Incidence X-Ray Mirrors. He holds 12 US Patents for novel X-Ray telescopes, spectrometers and microscopes. He was NASA Inventor of the Year in 1992 for his invention of the Water Window Imaging X-Ray Microscope. Richard B. Hoover is internationally known for his work on diatoms; the discovery of several important microbial extremophiles; and his research on microfossils in meteorites.