Goldfarb Visiting Fellows April 28-May 2

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Dr. David H. DeVorkin, one of the world's leading experts in the history of astronomy and space science, is senior curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum. His many research papers, books, and monographs have provided a detailed, scholarly and yet interesting history of twentieth century space science and astrophysics and the roles of the military, religion, government, the world wars and the power brokers in the development of these fields. His 2000 biography of Henry Norris Russell was critically acclaimed and resulted in two major exhibitions as well as several smaller ones. Based upon a wide variety of well documented sources, including archival correspondence and oral histories, this landmark biography illuminated much of the history of astrophysics in the first half of the 20th century. His popular historical articles have engaged the public, and through his curatorial role at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum he has made astronomy come alive for millions of interested museum visitors.  This year the American Astronomical Society awarded him their history prize for "his seminal work in illuminating the origins and development of modern astrophysics and the origins of the space sciences during the twentieth century."

David earned a Ph.D. in the history of science from the University of Leicester, M. Phil. and M.S. degrees in Astronomy from  Yale University and San Diego State University, and a B.S. in Astronomy/Physics from UCLA. His works have appeared in leading journals including the Journal for the History of Astronomy, Sky & Telescope, Isis, Scientific American, Minerva, Science, and Physics Today.

Major books include:

Beyond Earth, National Geographic Society, 2002,

Henry Norris Russell: Dean of American Astronomers. Princeton, 2000.

The American Astronomical Society's First Century. American Institute of Physics, 1999.

Science with a Vengeance. Springer, 1993.

Race to the Stratosphere. Springer, 1986.
 

Roger D. Launius is senior curator in the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Between 1990 and 2002 he served as chief historian of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A graduate of Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa, he received his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, in 1982. He has written or edited more than twenty books on aerospace history, including Robots in Space: Technology, Evolution, and Interplanetary Travel (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008); Critical Issues in the History of Spaceflight (NASA SP-2006-4702, 2006); Space Stations: Base Camps to the Stars (Smithsonian Books, 2003), which received the AIAA's history manuscript prize; Reconsidering a Century of Flight (University of North Carolina Press, 2003); To Reach the High Frontier: A History of U.S. Launch Vehicles (University Press of Kentucky, 2002); Imagining Space: Achievements, Possibilities, Projections, 1950-2050 (Chronicle Books, 2001); Reconsidering Sputnik: Forty Years Since the Soviet Satellite (Harwood Academic, 2000); Innovation and the Development of Flight (Texas A&M University Press, 1999); Frontiers of Space Exploration (Greenwood Press, 1998, rev. ed. 2004); Spaceflight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership (University of Illinois Press, 1997); and NASA: A History of the U.S. Civil Space Program (Krieger Publishing Co., 1994, rev. ed. 2001). He served as a consultant to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in 2003 and was presented the prestigious Harmon Memorial Lecture on the history of national security space policy at the United States Air Force Academy in 2006.   Among his many honors are election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Astronautical Society and the NASA Exceptional Service Medal. He is frequently consulted by the electronic and print media for his views on space issues, and has been a guest commentator on National Public Radio and all the major television network news programs.

Public Schedule at Colby:

4/28, Monday

2:30 pm cookies with the Physics and Astronomy Department, Mudd 311 hallway

3:00-4:15 pm, Keyes 105 (Physics and Astronomy Seminar). David H. DeVorkin, "The Changing Place of Red Giants in the Evolutionary Process, 1890-1955"

4/29, Tuesday

2:30-3:45 pm, Miller 14. David H. DeVorkin and Roger D. Launius, Preserving, displaying, and interpreting technical artifacts: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

4/30, Wednesday

7:30 pm, Olin 1, Roger D. Launius, Celebration of Research Keynote Address,  "Looking Backward/Looking Forward: Spaceflight at the Turn of the New Millennium"

On March 16, 1926, reclusive Robert H. Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket at Auburn, Massachusetts. It traveled only a few feet but represented the "Kitty Hawk" of rocketry and the beginning of what would eventually become one of the most significant endeavors of the twentieth century. After a brief discussion of Goddard and his attempts to reach "extreme altitudes," this presentation will survey fifty years of space exploration. Using this historical base as a jumping-off point, the presentation assesses five core challenges for the future of spaceflight in the twenty-first century: (1) political will, (2) inexpensive, reliable access to space, (3) smart robotics for exploration, (4) protecting this planet and this species, and (5) human exploration of the Moon and Mars.

5/1, Thursday

2:30-3:45 pm, Miller 14. Roger D. Launius, "Robots and Humans in Spaceflight: Technology, Evolution, and Interplanetary Travel"

This presentation is based on my recent book with Howard McCurdy wherein we explore the history and possible futures for human/robotic spaceflight. While writing Imagining Space: Achievements, Possibilities, Predictions, 1950-2050 (Chronicle Books, 2001), we realized that the one area where all spaceflight visionaries failed to make meaningful predictions was in the rapidly advancing capabilities of robotics and electronics. For example, when Arthur C. Clarke envisioned geosynchronous telecommunications satellites in 1945 he believed that they would require humans working onboard to change the vacuum tubes. In such a situation, it is easy to conceive of the motivation that led people like Clarke and Wernher von Braun to imagine the necessity to station large human crews in space. Some of the most forward-thinking spaceflight advocates, in this instance, utterly failed to anticipate the electronics/digital revolution then just beginning. Humans, spaceflight visionaries always argued, were a critical element in the exploration of the Solar System and ultimately beyond. Human destiny required our movement beyond this planet, ultimately to the colonization of the galaxy as a means of assuring the survival of the species. With the rapid advance of electronics in the 1960s, however, some began to question the role of humans in space exploration. It is much less expensive and risky to send robot explorers than to go ourselves. This debate reached saliency early on and became an important part of the space policy debate by the latter twentieth century. This presentation offers a history and analysis of how we came to the point that we have in human spaceflight, as well as a discussion of the relative merits of human versus robotic space exploration. In essence, I shall suggest that the old paradigm for human exploration-ultimately becoming an interstellar species-is outmoded and ready for replacement. I will specifically look to the future of humans and robots in space and suggest that the possibility exists that perhaps a post-human cyborg species may realize a dramatic future in an extraterrestrial environment.