MN Space Grant Consortium

Augsburg College - Sverdrup Visiting Scientist Lecture

Augsburg College held the 2001 Sverdrup Visiting Scientist Lecture Program in April, featuring Dr. Christopher P. McKay. Dr. McKay is a Planetary Scientist with the Space Science Division at the NASA Center in Ames. His lecture was titled “From Antarctica to Mars: The Search for Life in Cold and Dry Places.”

Concordia College

Concordia College located in Moorhead, Minnesota is home to one of the world’s four and the United States’ only hypervelocity microparticle accelerators. This machine was brought to Concordia in 1975 by NASA scientist Otto Berg, Concordia College physics Professor, Heidi Manning, and California Institute of Technology graduate student, Daniel Austin, hope to use the accelerator to study dust— planetary dust that is. Manning describes this dust as “tiny, talcum-powder-sized bits of cosmic dust constantly encountering the planets and moons in the solar system.” This cosmic dust, presumably left over from our solar system’s creation, has enough force to churn soil and create craters.

Mars Madness!

The 5th Annual Space Science Across the Curriculum Conference was a success! The conference, Mars Madness! A Conference for K - 12 Educators, was held at the Science Museum of Minnesota in March, 2002. The Mars Pathfinder, Mars Global Surveyor, and Mars Odyssey probes mark the first wave of the Planet Earth’s coming invasion of the red planet, changing our views of the past and future of the planet and the possibilities of life. This year, the conference keynote speaker was Geoffrey Landis, a physicist in the Power and On-Board Propulsion Technology Division from NASA John Glenn Research Center.

The NASA Aeronautics Blueprint - ATechnology Vision for Aviation:

This new NASA blueprint primarily addresses the challenges that confronted aviation in the United States before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Safety and security have taken on a whole new perspective since that event and technology solutions are presented in the Aeronautics Blueprint. It is recognized that the issues that were facing air travel prior to September 11 will return and require innovative technology solutions. The Blueprint addresses how new technologies can be brought to bear on these issues.

Read these and other happenings in 2001-2002 on the Minnesota Space Grant Consortium web site at: /msgc/north_star/.

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