CANCELLATION NOTICE
The meeting on Friday, February 5, 2010 is cancelled because of the winter storm warning. The Philosophical
Society regrets the inconvenience, and will endeavor to reschedule the meeting when possible.
CANCELLATION NOTICE
The meeting on Friday, February 5, 2010 is cancelled because of the winter storm warning. The Philosophical
Society regrets the inconvenience, and will endeavor to reschedule the meeting when possible.
Using a recently completed map of the universe, this lecture will discuss the promising propulsion concepts that would enable us to visit successively further regions of our neighborhood in the Milky Way. A revolution in space travel will undoubtedly depend on having cheap access to space. The discussion will start with launch technologies that may decrease the launch cost for deep space travel from about $100,000 per kg to a few hundred dollars per kg. The lecture will then cover the most promising plasma propulsion concepts for taking us cheaply to the Moon and quickly to Mars. The propulsion options for inter-stellar flight and the feasibility of inter-galactic travel will also be discussed.
Edgar Choueiri is Chief Scientist and Director at Princeton University's Electric Propulsion and Plasma Dynamics Laboratory (EPPDyL). He is Professor of Applied Physics and Astronautics and Director of Princeton's Engineering Physics Program.
Prof. Choueiri is the author of more than 145 publications on advanced space propulsion, plasma physics, space physics and applied mathematics. He is the present President of the Electric Rocket Propulsion Society, whose members include hundreds of scientists working on plasma propulsion for spacecraft in more than 15 countries. He is also the President of the Lebanese Academy of Sciences and the recipient of a number of honors and awards including a knighthood of the Order of the Cedar. He was recently elected Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He holds a PhD in Plasma Science (1991) from Princeton University.