Pete Klupar, Chief Engineer of the Breakthrough Initiatives, will lead a talk on the work the Breakthrough Foundation is doing to help humanity investigate the possibility of life forms on other planets, and how scientists can get involved.
The Star Shot initiative — a plan to send a spacecraft to another star system in the next 25 years — will be the main topic of the presentation. Mr. Klupar will also discuss the foundation’s other major initiatives: Listen and Watch. Listen is the search for extraterrestrial intelligence using RF (1 GHz to 30Ghz) and visible light. Watch is the search for earth-sized planets in the habitable zone of nearby stars.
Prior to his role at the Breakthrough Foundation, Mr. Klupar was Director of Engineering at NASA’s Ames Research Center. While at Ames he helped develop the Aquila, LADEE, TESS, Pharmasat, OREO and other small spacecraft missions while aiding in the development and operations of Kepler and SOFIA projects.
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