Teleconference Delivers Info on International Space Station
Published 02.21.1999
An exciting opportunity to learn more about the International Space Station is coming to Pennsylvania College of Technology. A live, interactive, satellite teleconference will be held from 1 to 3 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 25, in the College's Academic Center Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.
"International Space Station: Make It Your Business" is the sixth annual teleconference conducted by NASA and its Space Station partners. The outreach effort is designed to provide a unique opportunity for interactivity with Space Station experts.
Current government, industry and university International Space Station research partnerships will be covered, as well as research opportunities and how to participate. Engaging viewers from across the world, the forum also will discuss the global implications of commercialization of the space industry.
The session will be moderated by Dr. Bernard Harris Jr., a former NASA astronaut/mission specialist who flew on the Space Shuttle in 1993 and 1995. Other experts participating in the teleconference will be: Kathryn Clark, Space Station senior scientist in NASA's Office of Space Flight; Frank DiBello, vice chairman of SpaceVest, a venture capital firm that invests in privately-held space industry companies; W. Michael Hawes, chief engineer for the International Space Station; David Klaus, a research associate with Bioserve Space Technologies, a NASA-Commercial Space Center, and Frank Schowengerdt, director of the Center for Commercial Applications of Combustion in Space and a professor of physics at the Colorado School of Mines.
Also joining the panel will be David Weitz, professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania and principal investigator for three experiments on MIR; Weitz has a major experiment planned for the International Space Station to investigate the potential of microgravity for improved synthesis. The diverse panel of experts will take questions and comments on the air.
The International Space Station will be a permanently orbiting laboratory where long-duration materials, life sciences and commercial research will take place in a nearly gravity-free environment.