AIAA LA-LV 2018 Neil's Day & July Meeting

"Sci-Fi vs Sci-Tech”

-Dialogues between the Two Realms-

(with Celebration for Apollo 11/Vikings Anniversaries)

The Event

            Rod Pyle............................Rick Sternbach........................Harriet Brettle

         Aldo Spadoni

  
Prof. Madhu Thangavelu...........Dr. Rostislav Spektor...............Allan Grosvenor

The Speakers/Panelists

Rod Pyle
Space Author, Journalist, and Historian

Rod Pyle is a space author, jounalist and historian. He has authored eleven books on space history, exploration and development for major publishers that have been published in seven languagaes. His frequent articles have appeared in Space.com, LiveScience, Futurity, Huffington Post and WIRED. He has written extensively for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech, and authored the Apollo Executive Leadership Program for the Johnson Space Center with The Conference Board. His most recent book release is "Mars: Making Contatct." Rod is currently writing Space 2.0: The New Space Age" in association with the National Space Society, and "Technology Highlights" for NASA/JPL. He appears frequently on national radio and television, with regular slots on KFI/Los Angeles, and WGN/Chicago. He was recently featured on PBS's "Between the Lines" and C-SPAN's "Book TV." Rod holds an MA from Stanford University and a BFA from the Art Center College of Design, and lives in Pasadena, CA.

Rick Sternbach
Space and Science Fiction Artist
Illustrator, Artist, Visual & Special Efforts (Star Trek, Cosmos, Star Trek: Next Generation, Solaris etc.)
Emmy & Hugo Awards Winner
Founder and Fellow, IAAA

Rick Sternbach has been a space and science fiction artist since the early 1970s, oftencombining both interests in a project. His clients include NASA, Sky & Telescope, DataProducts, Random House, Smithsonian, Analog, Astronomy, The Planetary Society, andTime-Life Books. He is a founding member and Fellow of the International Associationof Astronomical Artists (IAAA), which was formed in 1981. He has written andillustrated articles on orbital transfer vehicles and interstellar flight for Science Digest.Beginning in the late 1970s Rick added film and television illustration and special effectsto his repertoire, with productions like Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The LastStarfighter, Future Flight, and Cosmos, for which he and other members of theastronomical art team received an Emmy award, the first for visual effects. Rick alsotwice received the coveted Hugo award for best professional science fiction artist, in 1977and 1978. In 2006, after fifteen years with the Star Trek franchise, Rick producedphysical terrains and globes of Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Saturn’s moon Iapetus for theGriffith Observatory in Los Angeles, for their Gunther Depths of Space exhibit. Digitalrenderings of the Cosmos 1 solar sail were done for the Planetary Society, along withcomposited images of a sixteen square foot scale model of their revised Lightsail 1. Hehas also built a scale model of a proposed asteroid retrieval spacecraft for the KeckInstitute for Space Studies. Most recently, Rick was included as a member of the specialcommittee overseeing the restoration of the original U.S.S. Enterprise eleven foot filmingminiature by the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Harriet Brettle
Planetary Sciences graduate student, CalTech
Strategic Partnerships Team coordinator, Space Generation Advisory Council

Harriet Brettle is a Planetary Sciences graduate student at the California Institute of Technology. She is also the Strategic Partnerships Team coordinator of the Space Generation Advisory Council, supporting its mission to represent students and young professionals to the wider space industry. As an avid science-fiction fan Harriet loves talking about science fiction and it's ability to inspire the next generation of scientists.Harriet is a keen science communicator; she has performed at Nerd Nite LA and Astro on Tap as well as appearing on a number of podcasts talking about the relationship between science tech and science fiction.

"Can science fiction predict the future? - Star Trek promised us teleportation. Back to the Future promised us hover boards. The ‘future’ we’re living in now might not have panned out exactly like a lot of sci-fi planned but there is hope! In this talk I’ll run through some examples of how sci-fi got things very right (and very wrong). I'll also showcase why we should be excited about particular sci-fi predictions of the past becoming the science technology of today."

Aldo Spadoni
Aerospace Engineer & Artist, IAAA

Aldo Spadoni is an MIT graduate with an aerospace engineering career spanning over 35 years. He has made significant technical contributions to numerous advanced aircraft, missile, and spacecraft programs for NASA, DARPA, and the U.S. Armed Services. He began his engineering career at Hughes Space & Communications Group as a spacecraft configuration design engineer working on the Galileo Jupiter spacecraft. Later, he joined TRW Defense & Space Systems as a navigation systems engineering specialist working on ICBMs and spacecraft programs. Aldo joined Northrop in 1985, supporting the advanced design team in the area of advanced avionics system integration and project management. He created and managed an award-winning creative simulation team at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems. Aldo is a recipient of NASA’s 2004 Turning Goals Into Reality team award for Reusable Launch Vehicle Development. He is an accomplished self-taught artist and concept designer with four U.S. patents to his credit. He is a Fellow of the International Association of Astronomical Artists (IAAA) and is currently serving on its Board of Trustees. Aldo’s consulting company, Aerospace Imagineering, specializes in the conceptual design, visualization and prototyping of advanced technology products and concepts. His visualizations have appeared in numerous magazines and television documentaries.  He has worked closely with hard science fiction authors such as Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle to bring their technological visions to life. As an aerospace concept designer and technology consultant to the entertainment industry, he supported the production of APOLLO 13, SUPERNOVA, STEALTH, IRON MAN 1 & 2, and other movie projects. He helped produce the 2009 National Geographic Channel documentary called HITLER’S STEALTH FIGHTER. Aldo’s personal goals are to promote STEAM education and create compelling visions of humanity’s spacefaring future.

Madhu Thangavelu
Director, Lecturer, and Faculty Member, Cal-Earth Institute, ISU, USC

Madhu Thangavelu, MSc is space projects director of the Cal-Earth Institute and a fellow at NASA’s Institute of Advanced Concepts. He is an advisory board member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics with a focus on the design of complex space projects, including space stations and exploratory missions. He also teaches at the University of Southern California. Madhu’s educational background is in Architecture (Masters in Building Science, USC School of Architecture) and in Engineering (Bachelors in Science and Engineering, India). Versions of Madhu’s masters thesis (conceived during ISU ‘88 at MIT) entitled “MALEO: Modular Assembly in Low Earth Orbit. An Alternate Strategy for Lunar Base Establishment” were published in several journals worldwide.  He is a creative consultant to the aerospace industry in the newly evolving field of space architectures complex concept synthesis. His concepts have been reviewed and appreciated by NASA, the National Research Council, the National Space Council, and his work has been presented before the National Academy of Sciences. Madhu is on the visiting faculty of the International Space University (ISU) and lectures to Space System Architecture students at ISU and at USC. He continues to present and publish original concepts in Space System Architectures and chairs related sessions at conferences. He is a coauthor of the book The Moon: Resources, Future Development and Colonization and is Vice Chairman for Education, Los Angeles Section of the American Institute Of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Dr. Rostislav Spektor
Manager / Preoject Leader / Research Scientist, Aerospace Corp., AIAA Distinguished Lecturer

Rostislav Spektor is the Electric Propulsion and Plasma Science section manager in the Propulsion Science Department at the Aerospace Corporation. He is also the current chair of the AIAA Electric Propulsion Technical Committee (EPTC) and the technical chair of the International Electric Propulsion Conference, which will be held in Atlanta, Georgia in 2017. Dr. Spektor holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering, with emphasis on electric propulsion and plasma science, from Princeton University. He also has a BS degree in Nuclear Engineering as well as in Materials Sciences from UC Berkeley. Dr. Spektor joined The Aerospace Corporation in 2004 as a Member of Technical Staff and participated in the design, construction, launches, and orbital support of multiple Air Force satellites. In his role as a laboratory section manager he is responsible for coordinating the efforts of a dozen PhD scientists and supporting stuff. He has helped to develop and implement multiple commercial contracts, design and improve innovative diagnostics technics and is an author of multiple journal and conference papers.

Allan Grosvenor
Senior Engineer / Aerodynamics Lead, Masten Space Systems

Allan is a highly driven engineer with a passion for invention and advancing state-of-the-art. He has focused on aerodynamics, high performance computing, and artificial intelligence techniques. Worked on a number of different ‘hard tech’ projects in such areas as experimental supersonic turbomachines, and space launch and reentry vehicles. His Bachelor degree in Mechanical (1998), and Master in Aerospace (2000) Engineering from Carleton University gave him a great foundation to go after these endeavors.

Exhibitors

Rick Sternbach
Space and Science Fiction Artist

Aldo Spadoni
Aerospace Engineer & Artist, IAAA

Doug Forrest
Visual Effects Compositor & Artist, IAAA
I

"I was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland. As a very young child, I was enthralled watching the Apollo astronauts walking on the Moon, which formed the foundation of a life long fascination for those missions. Ever since I could hold a pencil, I have liked to draw and I have always felt that creating art, and really concentrating on the detail, is the best way, that I can get close to the subject, without actually being there. I was fascinated by the equipment built for the Apollo missions, and drawing them with as much detail as possible, is my way of getting closeand touching them. I love the complexity of the plumbing, the details and lines in the launch structures and vehicles. I look at them and can appreciate them as works of art in themselves. I try to capture the texture of the materials used to build them in my drawings and I hope that anyone that sees my art will somehow feel that they have touched them too. With my drawings, I hope to preserve this incredible chapter in our history, as accurately as possible, with the hope that it inspires others, in the same way that I was." Doug Forrest  (www.apollo-arts.com)

AIAA Orange County (OC) Section

Bob Welge, ROBERTS ENGINEERING DEVELOPMENT

National Space Society (NSS) Los Angeles Chapter (OASIS) &
Aerospace Legacy Foundation (ALF)
 

Lisa Kaspin-Powell, Arlene Busby, and Matthew Monahan