Engineering Colloquium Home
Schedule for this lecture.

Goddard Space Flight Center Engineering Colloquium

Date: Monday, November 23, 1998

Title: Are Comets and Asteroids a Real Danger?

Speaker: Robert D. Chapman

Abstract

This talk will review very real past dangers, such as the fear of poisonous gases from Comet Halley in 1910, and the Tunguska, Siberia Event of June 30, 1908.  It will discuss imagined fears caused by the fact that comets have been in the sky during or preceding some significant events in history, such as the Norman Invasion of England in 1066, and the Great New Madrid Earthquake of 1811.

The talk will finish with a discussion of the pros and cons of a direct relationship between impacts by comets or asteroids on Earth and periods of mass extinctions.

Speaker

Dr. Robert D. Chapman has worked for AlliedSignal Technical Services Corporation (ATSC) since 1990.  He has held a number of positions including Manager for the HST MOSES and FS&S Programs, and is now on the Goddard Programs Staff pursuing new business.

Bob has worked in three different sectors: he was a professor of astronomy at UCLA, a civil servant working for NASA, and a program manager working in industry.  At UCLA, he taught astronomy classes and did research on the Sun and stars.  At NASA he was a research scientist, continuing studies of the Sun and other stars; a manager, leading groups of increasing scope, and was study scientist on several NASA missions, including the Solar Coronal Explorer, which led to TRACE.  Bob was a Co-Investigator on several NASA scientific satellites including OSO-7 and SMM, and a frequent Guest Observer on IUE from its inception until about 1985.

Bob was detailed for eighteen months by NASA to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he provided support to the Assistant Director for Space Science and Technology.  This support included activities relating to the reconstituting of the Nation's launch capability, the Presidential response to the National Commission on Space Report, the launch of nuclear systems into space, and the Fiscal Year 1988 R&D budget.

Bob has had a long standing interest in comets, with numerous publications on the topic.


Colloquium Committee Sponsor: Dave Beyer


Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov