|
A distinguished panel of advisors offers extensive scientific, engineering, and operational expertise.
Buzz Aldrin, Ph.D.
On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong landed their Lunar Module on the moon’s Sea of Tranquility and became the first two humans to walk on the moon. This unprecedented heroic endeavor was witnessed by the largest worldwide television audience in history. He was presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor amongst over 50 other distinguished awards and medals from the United States and numerous other countries. Since retiring from NASA, the Air Force, and his position as Commander of the Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, Dr. Aldrin has remained at the forefront of efforts to ensure a continued leading role for America in manned space exploration. To advance his lifelong commitment to venturing outward in space, he founded his rocket design company, Starcraft Boosters, Inc., and the ShareSpace Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to opening the doors to space tourism for all people. Buzz and his wife, Lois, live in Los Angeles. Visit his website.
Ray Bucklin, Ph.D.
Dr. Bucklin is a professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Florida with both a PhD and PE. He is an advisor on agricultural concepts of Mars settlement design.
Christopher E. Carr, Sc.D.
Dr. Carr is a scientist-engineer involved in instrument development of a life-detection instrument for Mars in conjunction with planetary scientist Maria Zuber at MIT and Gary Ruvkun at the Massachusetts General Hospital. His doctorate in medical physics focused on space suit design and the bioenergetics of locomotion.
Marco Chacin Robotic, Automation, Sensor and Control Systems
Marco is a Student Member of the IEEE (USA). He was born in Maracaibo, Venesuela. He recieved the B.S. and M.Sc degrees in Electronics Engineering and Control Engineering, with a concentration in robotics, from Dr. Rafael Belloso Chacin University. His master thesis addressed the use of DES and Subsumption Architecture for modeling robots and its application to robotic behavior. In 2001 he joined the Dr. Rafael Belloso Chacin University as Professor conducting and directing research as director of the Robotics Research Laboratory.
In 2003, he moved to Japan to pursue a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering at Tohoku University under the sponsorship of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science & Technology. During this time he attended the 2005 IEEE-RAS/IFRR International School of Robotics Science, the Space Generation Congress 2005 and the International Space University (ISU) Summer Session Program (SSP06) under the sponsorship of ISU and the Japan Alumni Society for the ISU (JASI), becoming the first non-japanese person to be sponsored by the organization.
Currently hs is a member of the Rover Team at the Space Robotics Laboratory at Tohoku University responsible for Surface Mobility / Navigation Planning of JAXA’s Next-Generation Rover for Future Asteroid Sample Return Mission.
Melanie Correll, Ph.D.
Dr. Melanie Correll is an associate professor in the Agricultural and Biological Engineering Department at the University of Florida. Her research uses the latest tools and technologies to study plant and environmental interactions. She has studied plant growth and development in challenging environments including plants that were grown on the International Space Station. She has applied molecular techniques to identify gene expression changes in plants to varying levels of gravitational acceleration and to identify biochemical pathways that are regulated in spaceflight. In addition, she studies the effects of low pressure on plants since plants will likely be grown in low pressure on the Moon and Mars for space colonization. Her Earth-based research focuses on improving crop models by incorporating more genetic information to predict how different genotypes of plants will respond to different environments. She has received awards for her research from the European Space Agency (ESA), NASA, and the Florida section of the American Society for Agricultural and Biological Engineering. Her research has been supported by grants from NASA, NSF, and the Florida Space Grant Consortium. She serves as a councilor for the Institute of Biological Engineering. She teaches courses in Biological Engineering and has developed workshop materials to bring computational biology into the biology curriculum. She graduated with a B.S. from Clemson University and a Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
Vaclav is currently a visiting researcher at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Research Laboratory for Nuclear Reactors and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Fluid Dynamics and Power Engineering, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Czech Tehcnical University in Prague. His primary interests are reactor thermal hydraulics and plant design. As a doctoral student at MIT, he participated in a design project developing nuclear power and propulsion systems for a manned mission to Mars. This design project concerned both the spaceship nuclear reactor and the Mars surface reactor.
Michael Duke, Ph.D.
Michael Duke, Ph.D. has a PhD in Geochemistry and a masters degree in geology. He worked with NASA for 25 years in multiple leadership roles including principal investigator for the Apollo Lunar Sample program, has won multiple honors including the Presidential Meritorious Award, and is one of the top experts on lunar material refining. His most recent position was director of the general research laboratory in the Center for Commercial Application of Combustion in Space at Colorado School of Mines. He provides technical guidance and advice on Mars material refining processes.
Edward Ellegood
Ed spent over 15 years developing commercial, government and academic space programs for the State of Florida. His career in space began as a space industry economist for the Florida Department of Commerce. He later supported the creation and operation of the Spaceport Florida Authority and the Florida Space Research Institute, serving on various commissions and boards. Mr. Ellegood’s responsibilities have included business development, government and public affairs, and university and educational program development.
Anita Gale
Anita is a Systems Engineer with over 30 years of experience on the Space Shuttle program. Her area of expertise is Payload and Cargo Integration; her specialty is simplification of processes for future space vehicles, payloads, and ground operations. She holds three U.S. patents for technologies related to payload interface standardization. With husband Dick Edwards, she has conducted Space Settlement Design Competitions for high school students for over 20 years, now involving teams on six continents; Anita prepares background information and establishes design challenges for participants. She is a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Space Colonization Technical Committee; she and Dick co-authored papers on space settlement requirements and technologies, and co-chaired sessions on Space Colonization at technical conferences. Anita lives in Nassau Bay, Texas, near Johnson Space Center in Houston. She advises 4Frontiers on space settlement requirements development.
James Harris
James is a staff supervisor at Austin Community College in Austin, Texas. His current area of specialization includes network communications, server hardware, data storage, and mutli-user operating systems. Other areas of knowledge include electrical power supply, distribution, and control systems; building trades (electrical and plumbing primarily); heavy equipment operation; and emergency response. He holds various certifications in these areas. A lifelong student, James is currently pursuing a graduate degree in data communications. He is also an active member of The Mars Society where he participates in their analogue studies program at many levels.
Andrew Kadak, Ph.D.
Andrew Kadak, Ph.D. was Professor of the Practice for the MIT Department of Nuclear Engineering. His research focused on new advanced reactor plant designs that are competitive while at the same time are safe using melt-free cores, do not contribute to proliferation, and produce waste forms that are directly disposable. He and his research assistants worked on a modular high-temperature gas-cooled pebble-bed nuclear reactor, which could be used as a demonstration of its practicality and competitiveness with natural gas. Dr. Kadak provides advice on nuclear energy systems.
Anthony Kendall
Anthony is currently a PhD student at Michigan State University studying hydrogeology. He has undergraduate degrees in both Mechanical Engineering and Astrophysics. His current research focuses on understanding groundwater systems using large computer models along with geophysical tools such as ground penetrating radar.
During the summer of 2005, Anthony spent a month on Devon Island in the High Canadian Arctic with the Mars Society at the Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS). While at FMARS, he and other volunteers simulated Martian exploration under realistic environmental constraints. Anthony served as engineer and hydrologist for the six-person crew.
Anthony has begun a project studying Martian groundwater that involves modeling hypothetical Martian aquifer systems. These models will be used to try and pinpoint the role, if any, in the formation of water-related surface photographic features. Additionally, ground penetrating radar data from ESA and NASA spacecraft will be used to better describe the Martian subsurface within the models.
Chris McKay, Ph.D.
Chris McKay, Ph.D. is a planetary scientist with the Space Science Division of NASA’s Ames Research Center. His current research focuses on the evolution of the solar system and the origin of life. He is actively involved in planning for future Mars missions including human settlements. Dr. McKay is also one of the world’s leading researchers studying Titan, and has been involved in numerical modeling of planetary atmospheres. He has been involved with polar research since 1980, traveling to the Antarctic dry valleys and more recently to the Siberian and Canadian Arctic to conduct research in these Mars-like environments. He received his Ph.D. in AstroGeophysics from the University of Colorado in 1982 and has been a research scientist with NASA Ames since that time. Dr. McKay is a recipient of the prestigious Kuiper Award from the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society.
Anthony C. Muscatello, Ph.D.
Anthony C. Muscatello, Ph.D. is an In Situ Resource Utilization Chemist at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the Engineering and Technology Directorate. His current work is focused on prospecting for lunar water ice, carbothermal reduction of regolith for oxygen production, and production of rocket propellants from the Martian atmosphere. He formerly held a position at Pioneer Astronautics in Colorado as an ISRU senior scientist. He also ran Mission Support for the Mars Society’s Analog Station Program from 2000 to 2007, plus he commanded two Mars mission simulations. He received his Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from the Florida State University in 1979 and held positions at Argonne National Laboratory, the Rocky Flats Plant, and Los Alamos National Laboratory in the areas of heavy element separations chemistry, nuclear process safety, and non-destructive assay of nuclear materials.
John Pearson Well Drilling
John brings with him 16 years of experience in the offshore drilling industry, working in deep-water locations around the world. He contributed to the Generation I Mars settlement programming study, and has experience in the installation, use and maintenance of high tech equipment in very remote locations. His experience is complemented with a keen interest in planetary science and a scientific background.
Georgi Petrov
Georgi Petrov is a specialist in high-performance architecture, particularly in the area of architecture for human space exploration on the surfaces of other planets. He holds graduate degrees in civil engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For his architectural thesis he designed a permanently inhabited settlement on Mars, considering the design from a combined architectural, planning, and engineering points of view. Subsequently he tested some of the ideas at the Mars Society’s Desert Research Station. Mr. Petrov is also an engineer and designer at Synthesis International. Professionally, Mr. Petrov has experience as an engineer at the structures group at the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, where he worked on high-rises and specialty glass and steel structures. Currently he is an architect at Laguarda Low Architects, specializing in mixed-use projects in European countries. Georgi was born in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Jane Poynter
Ms. Poynter is co-founder of Paragon Space Development Corporation, a leader in thermal control and life support in extreme environments. She has served as SPACEHABs Chief Scientist for its Ecosystem in Space experiment on the International Space Station, and three experiments with ants, bees and fish, which flew on STS-107, the Space Shuttle Columbia. Ms. Poynter holds a patent for the Autonomous Biological System. She is Chief Scientist for Carbon Sequestration for the Seawater Foundation, a non-profit that is developing untreated seawater-based agroforestry projects in coastal deserts. She developed carbon sequestration models and ground truth methodologies for carbon credit trading, and documentation for the World Banks BioCarbon Fund and the United Nations. Prior to her work with Paragon, Ms. Poynter was a member of the original team to live and work inside Biosphere 2, for which she led the design and implementation of the Intensive Agriculture. Her book, The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2, is now in stores.
Eugene Shwageraus, Ph.D.
Eugene Shwageraus, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. As a doctorate student at MIT, he participated in a design project developing nuclear power and propulsion systems for manned mission to Mars. Dr. Shwageraus advises the team, leveraging his considerable experience in nuclear reactor physics and engineering.
Sanjoy Som
Sanjoy has been fascinated by space exploration for as long as he can remember, and this fascination has been his main academic driver. After completing his BS (Florida Institute of Technology) and MS (University of Washington), both in Aerospace Engineering, he is now pursuing a doctoral degree at the UW in Planetary Sciences and Astrobiology. He strongly believes in a manned mission to Mars due to the international cooperation such an endeavor will promote, in addition to being a potential path towards human unification. Sanjoy has been trained in motorized exploration in the Swiss military. He holds a private pilot license and particular enjoys outdoor activities.
James Waldie, Ph.D.
James Waldie was a Research Scholar at the University of California San Diego’s Space Physiology Laboratory, completing his PhD in Aerospace Engineering at RMIT University in 2005. He was involved in a NASA/Honeywell project to develop experimental flexible spacesuits, using mechanical counter pressure (MCP) technology. James is the Project Manager of MarsSkin at the Mars Society of Australia developing MCP simulation suits, and has been on the crew of Jarntimarra-1 (Australian Outback), Expedition One (MDRS, Utah), Expedition Two (Arkaroola, South Australia) and Leonardo (MDRS, Utah). James attended the International Space University Summer School in Adelaide in 2004 and the Next Generation Exploration Conference at NASA Ames in 2006. For the last 4 years James has also been working on the design and operations of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) at BAE Systems in Melbourne.
|
