Where
Northern Star Council Base Camp201 Bloomington Road
Fort Snelling, MN 55111
Facilitating the introduction and Q & A with Dr. Schmitt will be Minnesota-based Dr. John Olson, Vice President, Sierra Nevada Space Systems. Dr. Olson is responsible for space exploration and advanced development of the Dream Chaser program, including international, interagency and commercial relationships as well as government affairs.
He previously served as the Assistant Director for Space and Aeronautics in the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President where he was accountable for civil, commercial, and national security policy in space and aeronautics. Prior to serving at the White House, Dr. Olson held senior executive positions at NASA Headquarters including Director of the Strategic Analysis and Integration Division in the Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate and as Exploration Transition Manager in the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. As an Air Force Reserve officer at the Pentagon he also serves as the Director of the Joint Reserve in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.
Dr. Schmitt visit being rescheduled - watch for updates!
Due to the unfortunate impact of the government shutdown on participants involved with Friday's event, AirSpace Minnesota is rescheduling Dr. Harrison Schmitt's visit. The new date will be communicated as soon it's finalized.
You may be interested in this piece that appeared in the Star Tribune on October 8: http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/226822601.html
Watch for updates coming soon!
Minnesota vision launched the most audacious engineering challenge in history.
The Minnesotan who advised President Kennedy to put a man on the moon led the Apollo program and built a great space center in a pasture to do it. Known as the “Father of America’s Human Space Flight program”, Bob Gilruth was born in Nashwauk, Minnesota on October 8, 1913. He graduated from high school in Duluth and earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Minnesota.
In 1962, Mr. Gilruth was named head of the NASA facility which ran the newly created Apollo program, the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC), now the Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas. As director of the MSC until 1972, he oversaw 25 manned spaceflights, from the suborbital Mercury-Redstone 3 flight in May 1961 to the Apollo 15 lunar landing mission in July 1971.
AirSpace Minnesota honors the centennial of Bob Gilruth's birth by welcoming Dr. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt - astronaut, pilot, geologist, academic, businessman and U.S. Senator - the only scientist and last of 12 men to step onto the Moon.
Author of Return to the Moon: Exploration, Enterprise, and Energy in the Human Settlement of Space, Dr. Schmitt can both illuminate Bob Gilruth’s impact and help us see new possibilities for Minnesota vision and innovation.
Date: Friday, October 11th
Public Lunch/Keynote: 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
See registration site for option to participate in a Leader Dialogue from 10:00 – 11:30 a.m., which includes photo and autographed book opportunities.
About Dr. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt
Dr. Schmitt served as the Lunar Module Pilot for Apollo 17 – the last Apollo mission to the moon, and on December 11, 1972, landed in the Valley of Taurus-Littrow. 
Born in New Mexico, Dr. Schmitt received his B. S. from Caltech, studied as a Fulbright Scholar at Oslo, and attended graduate school at Harvard. Geological field studies in Norway formed the basis of his Ph.D. in 1964. As a civilian, Schmitt received Air Force jet pilot wings in 1965 and Navy helicopter wings in 1967. Selected for the Scientist-Astronaut program in 1965, Dr. Schmitt organized the lunar science training for the Apollo Astronauts. After election to the U.S. Senate in 1976, where he chaired the Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space, Dr. Schmitt served as co-chair of NASA’s Human Planetary Landing Systems Capabilities Road-mapping effort and chaired NASA’s Advisory Council.
Dr. Schmitt’s numerous prestigious honors include induction into the Astronaut Hall of Fame and the International Space Hall of fame and honorary degrees from eight universities. The U.S. Department of State established the Harrison H. Schmitt Leadership Award for U.S. Fulbright Fellowship awardees, and he is the first recipient of the National Space Society’s Gerard K. O’Neill Memorial Space Settlement Award. In 2010 he was awarded the inaugural Columbia Medal by the Aerospace Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Today he consults, speaks, and writes on policy issues of the future, the science of the Moon and Planets, history of space flight and geology, space exploration and space law and serves as an Honorary Fellow in the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Please join us for what promises to be an extraordinary conversation!