17 February 2003 -- A free public lecture, titled "Mars Direct: Humans to the Red Planet within a Decade," will be given on 1 March 2003 by Robert M. Zubrin, founder and president of the Mars Society and the former senior vice president of the National Space Society. The lecture is the sixth and final event during the 2003 Penn State Lectures on the Frontiers of Science. The series this year, titled "Beyond Earth: Living on Other Worlds," is designed to be a free minicourse for the enjoyment and education of residents in Central Pennsylvania communities. 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.

During his lecture, Zubrin will discuss a plan known as "Mars Direct," which was devised under his leadership by a team at the Lockheed Martin company to send a group of American astronauts to the Red Planet. The plan has attracted both international attention and broad controversy. "President Bush, on the 20th anniversary of the Apollo Moon landing in 1989, called for America to renew its pioneering push into space with the establishment of a permanent Lunar base and a series of human missions to Mars, but many said that such an endeavor would be excessively costly and would take many decades," Zubrin says. "Our Mars Direct plan uses Martian resources to support a human exploration program on Mars at a cost one-eighth that previously estimated by NASA, and it could send a group of American astronauts to the Red Planet within ten years," he explains.

In addition to his work with the Mars Society, Zubrin is president of Pioneer Astronautics, an aerospace research-and-development company located in Lakewood, Colorado. Formerly a staff engineer at Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver, Zubrin was a member of Lockheed Martin's "scenario development" team, which was charged with developing broad new strategies for space exploration, including Mars Direct. He won two Inventors awards from Lockheed Martin for the Mars Direct mission plan and for his design of a nuclear rocket engine that could use CO2 as propellant, allowing a vehicle to have optimum mobility on Mars.

Zubrin, who is known internationally for his creative engineering work in the aerospace industry, has been featured in major newspapers and magazines and in numerous television documentaries in the United States and abroad. The inventor of several unique concepts for space propulsion and exploration, he has been invited to brief NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and other influential individuals and organizations on his ideas. Prior to his work in astronautics, Zubrin was employed in areas of thermonuclear fusion research, nuclear engineering, radiation protection, and as a high-school science teacher. Zubrin is the author or co-author of over 100 published technical and nontechnical papers as well three books: "The Case for Mars: How We Shall Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must," published by the Free Press division of Simon and Schuster, “Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization,” published by Tarcher Putnam, and “First Landing,” published by Ace Putnam.

Zubrin was honored by NASA as one of eight Advanced Concepts Research Fellows in 1996. He was elected a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society in 1994 and was awarded the National Space Society's Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award for his "lifetime achievement in promoting the goal of a free spacefaring civilization" in 2002.

He received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of Rochester in 1974, a master's degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1984 from the University of Washington, and a doctoral degree in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Washington in 1992.

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/>

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