The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens a Future of Limitless Possibilities 22 February 2023 12 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. (Pacific Standard Time) Online
Hosted by the AIAA Orange County Section, via Zoom.
The Orange County Section is hosting a talk by Robert Zubrin, President of Pioneer Astronautics, an aerospace R&D company located in Lakewood, Colorado; and is the Founder and President of the Mars Society. Uniting the entrepreneurial genius of Silicon Valley with the hard-won technological expertise of the old aerospace industry, a new generation of space companies has been born whose upstart members are revolutionizing our prospects. In this talk, Zubrin will examine the possibilities. Starting with a discussion of the present-day breakthroughs, Zubrin will take a deeper look at where it leads: to ultrafast global travel through suborbital space, to new industries on orbit, and to human settlement of the Moon, Mars, the asteroids, the outer solar system, and ultimately the stars.
Featured Speaker
Robert Zubrin is President of Pioneer Astronautics, an aerospace R&D company located in Lakewood, Colorado. He is also the founder and President of the Mars Society. Formerly a Staff Engineer at Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver, he has a Master's degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics and a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Washington. Dr. Zubrin holds 20 patents and is the author of over 200 published technical and non-technical papers in the field of space exploration and technology. In addition to his many technical publications, Dr. Zubrin is the author of nine books, including "The Case for Mars", the humorous “How to Live on Mars: A Trusty Guidebook to Surviving and Thriving on the Red Planet”, “Merchants of Despair: Radical Environmentalists, Criminal Pseudoscientists, and the Fatal Cult of Antihumanism”, and most recently, “The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility.” Since founding Pioneer Astronautics in January 1996, Dr. Zubrin has served as the Principal Investigator of over fifty research and development projects in areas including spacecraft and launch vehicle propulsion systems, Mars and Lunar in-situ resource utilization technology, EVA life support and propulsion, and robotic exploration systems. As leader of the Mars Society he led the construction of two Mars analog research stations – one in the Canadian high Arctic in 2000 and the other in the American desert in 2001 - and has overseen a program involving over 200 simulated Mars exploration missions at those stations during the period since. Prior to working at Lockheed Martin he worked in a number of areas, including thermonuclear fusion, nuclear power plant safety, and as a high school science teacher.