"Challenges in Space Exploration" is Free Public Lecture on 25 January 2003

6 January 2003 — A free public lecture titled "Challenges in Space Exploration" will be given on 25 January by Pat Dasch, an author, consultant on space exploration, and former executive director of the National Space Society. The lecture is the first in the 2003 Penn State Lectures on the Frontiers of Science, an annual series designed to be a free minicourse for the enjoyment and education of residents in Central Pennsylvania communities. The theme of the series this year is "Beyond Earth: Living on Other Worlds." The lectures take place from 11:00 a.m. to about 12:30 p.m. in 100 Thomas Building on the Penn State University Park Campus.

Dasch will discuss some of the technological, social, economic, and political hurdles that would need to be overcome for human habitation on other worlds. Her lecture also will include a review of the past 50 years of space exploration, an assessment of the current state of space exploration, and some predictions about the future of space exploration, including the prospects for additional space stations and manned missions to the Moon, to Mars, and beyond.

Dasch is a consultant on space policy and public-outreach issues. She also is a writer who publishes on a wide variety of space-related topics. Her most recent writing projects include development of the content for a Public Broadcasting System program on the future of human space flight, preparation of strategic positions related to the future of internationally coordinated space missions for the 2002 Space Policy Summit, and articles on new results from Mars exploration and a discussion of NASA's NEXT program.

She was executive director of the National Space Society from 1997 to 2001 and was editor-in-chief of the society's "Ad Astra" magazine from 1994 to 1998. She worked for SAIC as a planetary science analyst in the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA headquarters from 1988 to 1994. She was director of the Dial-A-Shuttle program at the Johnson Space Center and a research associate at the Lunar Planetary Institute in Houston Texas from 1983 to 1987, where she worked on Earth-observations imagery for the Space Shuttle.

She is editor-in-chief of a four-volume encyclopedia titled "Space Science," published in September 2002 by MacMillan Reference USA, and editor of "Icy Worlds of the Solar System," to be published by Cambridge University Press. She has authored numerous articles on space exploration, has presented testimony to Congress, and has compiled a number of educational slide sets, the most recent being "Ancient Life on Mars ???," published by the Lunar and Planetary Institute in 1997, and "Asteroids," published by the National Space Society in 1999.

The remaining events in the 2003 Penn State Lectures on the Frontiers of Science include:

• "Mars on Earth: Polar Research and the Human Exploration of Mars" on 1 February by Pascal Lee, chairman of the Mars Institute, planetary scientist with the SETI Institute (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence), and principal investigator and project leader of the NASA Haughton-Mars Project
  
• " 'Water Found on Mars' . . . the Story Behind the News" on 8 February by Christopher Shinohara and Heather Enos, managers with the Gamma Ray Spectrometer Odyssey Team in the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona
  
• "What Price a Martian? Human Limits to Exploring the Red Planet" on 15 February by James Pawelczyk, assistant professor of physiology and kinesiology at Penn State and a NASA astronaut;
  
• "Settling the Moon: The Challenges and the Possible Rewards" on 22 February by Jim Burke, an aeronautical engineer with the the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and an advisor to the Planetary Society; and
  
• "Mars Direct: Humans to the Red Planet within a Decade" on 1 March by Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society.
  

The Penn State Lectures on the Frontiers of Science are sponsored by the Penn State Eberly College of Science. Additional financial support for the Penn State Lectures on the Frontiers of Science is provided by Pfizer Inc.

Thomas Building is located at the intersection of Pollock and Shortlidge Roads on the Penn State University Park Campus. Free parking is available in the Eisenhower Parking Deck behind Eisenhower Auditorium on Shortlidge Road. For more information or access assistance, contact the Eberly College of Science Office of Public Information by telephone at (814) 863-8453, by e-mail at science@psu.edu, or click on the web link at<http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/frontiers/>

[ B K K ]