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Schedule including this lecture.
Goddard Space Flight Center Engineering Colloquium
Date: Monday, February 26, 2001
Although travel to the stars is the domain of dreams and science fiction novels, there is also a scientifically compelling argument for this quest. For more than 20 years, an "Interstellar Precursor Mission" has been discussed as a high priority for multiple scientific objectives. As part of a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) investigation we identify a mission concept that adequately addresses the required science, desired instruments, and spacecraft engineering within current fiscal and technological realities.
Dr. McNutt was educated at Texas A&M University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Author of more than 60 publications, Dr. McNutt served on the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories and has been both an Assistant Professor and an Associate Professor of Physics at MIT, a Senior Project Scientist at Visidyne, Inc., and a Research Associate Professor at Boston University (1991-1992). Dr. McNutt joined the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University in 1992. He is the Project Scientist and a Co-Investigator on the MESSENGER program.
Dr. McNutt has been a Co-Investigator on Voyager, Cassini Orbiter spacecraft, and NEAR. He is the principle investigator on an Interstellar Probe study funded by the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC), and previously was PI on various NASA Supporting Research and Technology grants. He has worked on the physics of the magnetospheres of the outer planets, physics of the outer heliosphere including solar wind dynamics, properties of Very Low Frequency (VLF) radiation, Pluto's atmosphere, pulsars, physics of high current electron beams, the physics of active experiments in the mesosphere/thermosphere (artificial aurora), and the solar neutrino problem.
Colloquium Committee Sponsor: Robin Mauk
Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov