Space on Tap

Academy of Science - Zoom

FREE and OPEN to ALL. Junior Academy members, middle and high school students welcome and encouraged to attend. Space is limited. Registration required! Click the Event Information button below to register for the Zoom link to attend this event.

Speaker: William B. McKinnon, Ph.D., Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis

You may have heard that certain icy moons of the outer Solar System harbor hidden oceans of liquid water. Well, it’s true! We have excellent evidence, if not proof, that there is such an ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa and on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Dr. William McKinnon describes how this evidence was discovered and shares NASA's exciting plans to explore these exotic — and potentially habitable — realms.

FREE and OPEN to ALL. Junior Academy members, middle and high school students welcome and encouraged to attend. Space is limited. CLICK the Event Information button below to register. Registrants receive the Zoom link to join via a confirmation email immediately after registering..

Featured Speaker: Vijay Ramani, Ph.D., Roma B. & Raymond H. Wittcoff Distinguished University Professor of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, McKelvey School of Engineering; Director, Center for Solar Energy and Energy Storage; Faculty Fellow for Entrepreneurship, Washington University in St. Louis

There is increasing interest from NASA and others on manned missions to Mars, which raises the question of in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) to minimize what needs to be carried on board the spacecraft at launch. Recent reports have suggested the presence of deposits of regolith brines (salt water) on Mars. Chemical engineer, Vijay Ramani, shares a novel approach to fuel and oxygen generation on the Martian surface through brine electrolysis.

FREE and OPEN to ALL. Junior Academy members, middle and high school students welcome and encouraged to attend. Space is limited. Registration required. CLICK the orange Event Information button below to REGISTER! Zoom link to join sent with confirmation email immediately after registering.

Featured Speaker: Jeff Gillis-Davis, Ph.D., Associate Research Professor of Physics, Department of Physics, Washington University in St. Louis and the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences; Principal Investigator, The Interdisciplinary Consortium for Evaluating Volatile Origins (ICE Five-O), NASA Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI)

How did Earth get its Moon? Why does its surface brightness vary? We've been to the Moon, why should we go back? For 50 years or more, people have asked these questions. Data and samples from the Apollo missions helped solve many of these mysteries. However, there are still questions that have been left unanswered—and even many more that arose as a result of the Apollo samples and subsequent robotic mission to the Moon. Astronomer and physicist, Jeffrey Gillis-Davis, presents some of these novel questions and describes how he and faculty at Washington University perform research to answer them.

FREE and OPEN to ALL. Junior Academy members, middle and high school students welcome and encouraged to attend. Space is limited. Registration required. CLICK the orange Event Information button below to REGISTER! Zoom link to join sent with confirmation email immediately after registering.

Featured Scientist: Jekan Thanga, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, Space and Terrestrial Robotic Exploration (SpaceTREx) Laboratory, Asteroid Science, Technology and Exploration Research Organized by Inclusive eDucation Systems (ASTEROIDS) Laboratory, Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, The University of Arizona

The exploration and development of Cislunar Space and beyond will be pivotal in securing and sustaining human civilization in the centuries to come. University of Arizona space robotics engineer Jekan Thanga and colleagues are leveraging small teams of university researchers and students to take on ambitious, high-risk, high-reward exploration missions that use multiple spacecrafts, or robots, working in teams that are analogous to colonies of social insects. Jekan's and colleagues' studies point to multiple promising pathways that produce new architectures and
robust solutions to some critical challenges that await space exploration and development. You won't want to miss this fascinating look at space exploration in service to sustaining human civilization and the solar-powered lunar ark concept to store cryogenically frozen seed, spore, sperm and egg samples from 6.7 million Earth species.