NASA astronaut and geologist James Reilly will discuss the history and the future of exploration of the planet Mars in a presentation at Hamilton College on Sunday, May 1, at 7:30 in the Chapel. The lecture, which will be aimed at both the college community and the general public, is free.
Reilly will provide a retrospective on efforts to learn more about the Red Planet over the last three decades and will discuss why he believes that humans must one day travel to Mars in order to fully explore the planet. He will discuss the formidable challenges of a manned Mars mission, including how to outfit the explorers and how to deal with long-term isolation that crew members would experience on such a trip. He will explain how NASA is beginning to gear up now for possible future voyages to Mars and will provide details of a field exercise in which he participated last fall outside Flagstaff, Ariz., whose purpose was, in part, to develop training protocol for such missions.
"Although robotic missions have proven to be astoundingly capable in many areas, the best explorer still remains the human examiner," he said. "With the ability to adaptively reason at relatively high speed, a human explorer on the surface of Mars will give us the best capability to rapidly examine, theorize, re-examine and refine the theory to best fit the available data, then respond to the next decision, which is, 'What is next?'"
Reilly has logged over 517 hours in space on two Space Shuttle missions (STS 89 and 104), and is currently assigned to STS 117, which will fly sometime in the next year. He is a veteran of three space walks, totaling 16 hours and 30 minutes. In addition to his current mission assignment, he is designated as Payloads and Procedures Operations lead for the Astronaut Office, International Space Station Branch.
During STS 104 in 2001, Reilly took a Hamilton College Department of Geosciences banner on board the Shuttle with him. He will present the banner to the Department when he visits in May. Reilly has had a long-standing connection with Hamilton College geology. During 1977-78, Reilly and Hamilton College geology technician Dave Tewksbury spent an austral summer research season together in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica.
Reilly was awarded a master of science degree from University of Texas-Dallas, and a doctorate in geosciences from University of Texas-Dallas, 1995.
Reilly will provide a retrospective on efforts to learn more about the Red Planet over the last three decades and will discuss why he believes that humans must one day travel to Mars in order to fully explore the planet. He will discuss the formidable challenges of a manned Mars mission, including how to outfit the explorers and how to deal with long-term isolation that crew members would experience on such a trip. He will explain how NASA is beginning to gear up now for possible future voyages to Mars and will provide details of a field exercise in which he participated last fall outside Flagstaff, Ariz., whose purpose was, in part, to develop training protocol for such missions.
"Although robotic missions have proven to be astoundingly capable in many areas, the best explorer still remains the human examiner," he said. "With the ability to adaptively reason at relatively high speed, a human explorer on the surface of Mars will give us the best capability to rapidly examine, theorize, re-examine and refine the theory to best fit the available data, then respond to the next decision, which is, 'What is next?'"
Reilly has logged over 517 hours in space on two Space Shuttle missions (STS 89 and 104), and is currently assigned to STS 117, which will fly sometime in the next year. He is a veteran of three space walks, totaling 16 hours and 30 minutes. In addition to his current mission assignment, he is designated as Payloads and Procedures Operations lead for the Astronaut Office, International Space Station Branch.
During STS 104 in 2001, Reilly took a Hamilton College Department of Geosciences banner on board the Shuttle with him. He will present the banner to the Department when he visits in May. Reilly has had a long-standing connection with Hamilton College geology. During 1977-78, Reilly and Hamilton College geology technician Dave Tewksbury spent an austral summer research season together in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica.
Reilly was awarded a master of science degree from University of Texas-Dallas, and a doctorate in geosciences from University of Texas-Dallas, 1995.
