 Later, he would become NASA Langley's Chief Environmental Scientist, leading work on remote sensing by satellite as well as laboratory experiments, ground-based measurements, and theoretical models.After concluding his work with Viking, Soffen became the director of Life Sciences at NASA Headquarters in 1978.In this position, Dr. Soffen was responsible for the agency-wide program to monitor and maintain the physical well being of NASA astronauts in space, as well as the Biomedical Program, the Space Biology Program, and the Exobiology (also sometimes called the Astrobiology) program.