Board of Advisors
Let’s introduce here our Board of Advisors:
Dr. Buzz Aldrin
Selected by NASA in 1963 into the third group of astronauts, Aldrin was the first with a doctorate and became known as ‘Dr. Rendezvous’. The docking and rendezvous techniques he devised for spacecraft in Earth and lunar orbit became critical to the success of the Gemini and Apollo programs, and are still used today. He also pioneered underwater training techniques, as a substitute for zero gravity flights, to simulate spacewalking.
In 1966 on the Gemini 12 orbital mission, Buzz performed the world’s first successful spacewalk, overcoming prior difficulties experienced by Americans and Russians during extra-vehicular activity (EVA), and setting a new EVA record of 5.5 hours.
On July 20, 1969, Buzz and Neil Armstrong made their historic Apollo 11 moonwalk, becoming the first two humans to set foot on another world. They spent 21 hours on the lunar surface and returned with 46 pounds of moon rocks. An estimated 600 million people—the world’s largest television audience in history—witnessed this unprecedented heroic endeavor.
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Dr. Penelope Boston
Dr. Penelope Boston is Director of the Cave and Karst Studies Program and Associate Professor in the Earth & Environmental Sciences Dept. at New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology, in Socorro, NM. Boston is also Associate Director for Academics to the National Cave and Karst Research Institute in Carlsbad, NM. She received her PhD from the University of Colorado, Boulder, in 1985 in Microbiology and Atmospheric Chemistry.
Her current research areas include geomicrobiology and astrobiology in extreme environments (caves, hot and cold deserts, high latitudes and altitudes, etc.); human life support issues in space and planetary environments; and use of robotics to assist exploration and science in extreme Earth and extraterrestrial environments. Boston is author of over 110 technical and popular publications, editor of 4 volumes, and author of two upcoming popular books. Her work has been featured in over 120 print and broadcast media outlets over the past several decades. She is a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts Fellow and a member of the Planetary Protection Subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council.
As a student at the University of Colorado in the early 1980s, she co-founded the Case for Mars project and series of conferences. An eventual permanent human presence on Mars is one of the driving passions of her life.
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Sam Burbank
Sam Burbank is a multiple award-winning filmmaker, writer, and host with over two dozen television productions to his credit. His films, focusing on space science, ecology, and exploration have allowed him to travel the world. Burbank has joined the Haughton Mars Project for three field seasons on Devon Island, and crewed in the Mars Desert Research Station in 2003, with each stint becoming a program for National Geographic Television. His series The New Race for Space broke the story of the X-Prize nationally.
While studying writing at SFSU, Burbank co-founded a championship motorcycle roadracing team. He’s an advanced scuba diver, swing dancer, and loves to cook. Soon after marrying, he and wife Linda rode a motorcycle to the arctic circle.
Burbank contributes to numerous space groups, frequently appears as a speaker at science conferences and universities, and is the president of the Association of Mars Explorers, also known as the Mars Club, a group promoting links between explorers of Mars analog environments. Burbank is the founder of Inverse Square Films (www.i2films.com). He lives in San Francisco, California, and Venice, Italy.
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Andrew Chaikin
Award-winning science journalist and space historian Andrew Chaikin has authored books and articles about space exploration and astronomy for more than 25 years. Writer-director and explorer James Cameron (Titanic, Aliens of the Deep) called him “our best historian of the space age.” He is best known as the author of A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts, widely regarded as the definitive account of the moon missions. The book became the main basis for Tom Hanks’ Emmy-winning HBO miniseries, From the Earth to the Moon. Among his many books is A Passion for Mars, published in 2008, which conveys the human as well as scientific aspects of Mars exploration.
Chaikin is a frequent commentator on space on radio and television. He has been an advisor to NASA on space policy and public communications. A former editor of Sky & Telescope magazine, Chaikin has also been a contributing editor of Popular Science and has written for Wired, Newsweek, Air & Space/Smithsonian, World Book Encyclopedia, Scientific American, and other publications. From 1999 to 2001 Chaikin served as Executive Editor for Space and Science at SPACE.com, the essential website for all things space. He was also the editor of SPACE.com’s print magazine, Space Illustrated.
A graduate of Brown University, Chaikin served on the Viking missions to Mars at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and was a researcher at the Smithsonian’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies before becoming a science journalist in 1980. He is an amateur musician and songwriter; he has also been an occasional space artist, and is one of the founders of the International Association of Astronomical Artists.
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Dr. Chris McKay
Dr. Christopher P. McKay, Planetary Scientist with the Space Science Division of NASA Ames. Chris received his Ph.D. in AstroGeophysics from the University of Colorado in 1982 and has been a research scientist with the NASA Ames Research Center since that time.
His current research focuses on the evolution of the solar system and the origin of life. He is also actively involved in planning for future Mars missions including human exploration. Chris been involved in research in Mars-like environments on Earth, traveling to the Antarctic dry valleys, Siberia, the Canadian Arctic, and the Atacama & Sahara deserts to study life in these Mars-like environments. He was a co-Investigator on the Huygens probe to Saturn’s moon Titan in 2005, the Mars Phoenix lander mission in 2008, and the Mars Science Laboratory mission for 2011.
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Miles O’Brien
Miles O’Brien is a 26-year broadcast news veteran who has successfully melded a talent for telling complex stories in accessible terms with a lifelong passion for aviation, space and technology. Since leaving CNN Miles has been involved with Space Flight Now streaming live webcasts of the remaining shuttle launches.
For nearly 17 years he worked as a correspondent, anchor and producer for CNN based in Atlanta and New York. At various times he was CNN’s science, space, aviation, technology and environment correspondent. O’Brien may be best known for his coverage of the US space program. In February of 2003, he led the network’s acclaimed coverage of the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia. He was on the air live for 16 solid hours helping guide a shocked and saddened country through a national tragedy.
O’Brien has covered every major space story in the past seventeen years: the repair missions to the Hubble Space Telescope; the shuttle dockings at Mir; the launch of the first space station crew from Kazakhstan; several robotic landings on Mars and the private sector endeavors of Burt Rutan and others.
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Sam Scimemi
Mr. Scimemi is the Deputy for International Space Station at NASA Headquarters within the Space Operations Mission Directorate.
Mr. Scimemi has 25 years experience in human space flight, earth and space science missions as both a contractor and civil servant. He has been employed at four NASA centers; Johnson Space Center, Ames Research Center, Goddard Space Flight Center, and Headquarters. His career has encompassed real-time operations, flight software development and testing, International Partner negotiations and integration, system engineering, end-to-end testing, and policy and programmatic management.
Mr. Scimemi is a native of Lake Charles, Louisiana. He graduated in 1984 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from McNeese State University.
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Dr. John M Grunsfeld
Dr. Grunsfeld is a Research Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University. His previous academic positions include that of Visiting Scientist, University of Tokyo/Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (1980-81); Graduate Research Assistant, University of Chicago (1981-85); NASA Graduate Student Fellow, University of Chicago (1985-87); W.D. Grainger Postdoctoral Fellow in Experimental Physics, University of Chicago (1988-89); and Senior Research Fellow, California Institute of Technology (1989-92). Dr. Grunsfeld’s research has covered x-ray and gamma-ray astronomy, high-energy cosmic ray studies, and development of new detectors and instrumentation. Dr. Grunsfeld studied binary pulsars and energetic x-ray and gamma ray sources using the NASA Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, x-ray astronomy satellites, radio telescopes, and optical telescopes including the NASA Hubble Space Telescope.
Dr. Grunsfeld was selected by NASA in March 1992, and reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1992. Dr. Grunsfeld was initially detailed to the Astronaut Office Mission Development Branch and was assigned as the lead for portable computers for use in space. Following his first flight, he led a team of engineers and computer programmers tasked with defining and producing the crew displays for command and control of the International Space Station (ISS). As part of this activity he directed an effort combining the resources of the Mission Control Center (MCC) Display Team and the Space Station Training Facility. The result was the creation of the Common Display Development Facility (CDDF), responsible for the onboard and MCC displays for the ISS, using object-oriented programming techniques. Following his second flight, he was assigned as Chief of the Computer Support Branch in the Astronaut Office supporting Space Shuttle and International Space Station Programs and advanced technology development.
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Rich Phillips
For more than 20 years, Phillips has worked with our nation’s leading companies and political leaders to help build leadership positions for companies, products, issues and ideas.
Phillips is president of Phillips & Company, a management consulting firm that helps leading companies achieve sustainable revenue growth through strategic communications and business development campaigns. With a focus on space technology, homeland security, mobile computing, telecommunications and green technology, Phillips & Company helps organizations own the issues driving their respective markets through public relations, integrated marketing, business development, brand positioning and public affairs. Phillips is currently Executive Director of the Next Step in Space Coalition and founder of the Space Economy Leadership Summit series.
Prior to founding Phillips & Company, Phillips served as Chief Communications Officer of Simplified Development Corp., an Austin-based provider of telecommunications software, where he led marketing and communications strategy for North America, Asia and Europe.
Prior to Simplified, Phillips served as Director of Corporate Communications at NIC, a leading provider of eGovernment services. In that capacity, Phillips worked directly with state CIOs and other state and local government leaders and associations including the National Governors Association to launch the eGovernment Web Privacy Coalition aimed at ensuring the protection of private data and information. Phillips also directed the first benchmark study on citizen and business demand for eGovernment services.
Before that, Phillips served as Vice President of the Next-Generation Communications Practice at Cunningham Communication, a communications consulting firm, where he managed accounts for global leaders in telecommunications and Internet technologies, including Sprint Corporation.
Phillips has also served as Director of Public Affairs for the Reason Foundation, a national public policy think tank where he was responsible for strategic planning and communications with national media and federal, state, and local government officials. Phillips successfully built strategic coalitions with both opinion leaders and associations in order to advance public policy programs and solutions in transportation, education and environmental policy.
In 1991 and 1992, Phillips served as Director of Information Services at the Bush/Quayle campaign in Washington D.C. under Ari Fleischer. Phillips also served as a technical advisor for media and information management at the Republican National Convention in Houston, Texas.
Prior to joining the Bush campaign, Phillips served as policy development assistant in the Office of Policy Planning at the White House under Jim Pinkerton, Deputy Assistant to the President for Policy Planning.
Phillips was appointed to Texas Governor Rick Perry’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Advisory Council with the Texas Office of Homeland Security.
He is an adjunct professor at St. Edward’s University New College and a 1997-98 Graduate of Leadership Austin.
Phillips moved to Austin in 1996 and is a proud Texas business owner with deep roots in national service. He married his wife Michelle in 1994 and they have three children. Phillips earned a Bachelors degree in Economics with Distinction from Boston University and a Masters in Public Policy from Georgetown University.
