NASA History Listserv Readers:

 

Please join us tomorrow, Wednesday July 15, 2020, 12:00pm Eastern time, for our History Brown Bag talk entitled “NASA, the Search for Life and Missions to Europa” by Dr. Michael Neufeld (Senior Curator, NASM)—bio and full abstract below. 

 

Click the link below to join the meeting:

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Please contact Nadine Andreassen (202) 358-0087 or Catherine Baldwin at (202) 358-4397 if you experience any technical issues.  

 

Dr. Michael J. Neufeld – “NASA, the Search for Life and Missions to Europa”

 

Abstract: Sometime in the mid-2020s, NASA plans to launch Europa Clipper, a major “flagship mission” to explore one of the Galilean satellites of Jupiter. By then, it will have been more than a quarter century since the agency first discussed a flight to enigmatic Europa, a cracked ice ball that appears to hide a massive, subsurface ocean. In his talk, Michael J. Neufeld will discuss the history of Europa science and the long and torturous path to an approved mission. Without the rise of astrobiology and the life-bearing potential of the Jovian moon, it never would have been possible to sustain that level of interest and expenditure. But the story of Europa is also a window on the politics of NASA planetary exploration in the 21^st century.

 

Michael J. Neufeld is a Senior Curator in the Space History Department of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, where he is responsible for the rocket collection and for Mercury and Gemini spacecraft. He is the lead curator of the Destination Moon exhibit project, including the national tour of the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia and the permanent exhibition that is to open in 2022. Born and raised in Canada, he has four history degrees, including a PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1984. Dr. Neufeld has written or edited nine books, notably The Rocket and the Reich (1995), Von Braun (2007) and Spaceflight: A Concise History (2018). Since 2013 he has also been researching the history of NASA planetary exploration after 1989. In 2017 Secretary David Skorton gave him the Smithsonian Distinguished Scholar Award, the highest research award of the Institution. 

 

Regards,