The World of Scientific Ballooning

• WATCH the recording of the same lecture given the night before at JPL

Human flight began with the balloon; today, it is the last bastion of guerilla science. Scientific ballooning provides a well-tested, reliable, low-cost, moderate-risk platform that helps prepare the next generation of scientists, engineers, and instruments. This talk will take a look at how our oldest flight technology actually paves the way for the future.

This is a free event; no tickets or reservations are required.

Speakers:

Jose V. Siles, PhD: RF Engineer, LO Subsystem Lead and Antarctic Flight Campaign Team Leader (STO-2, Stratospheric Terahertz Observatory)
Laura Jones-Wilson, PhD: Systems Engineer (Europa Clipper); former Project Systems Engineer (STABLE: Subarcsecond Telescope and Balloon Experiment)

About the Series

The Theodore von Kármán Lecture Series, named after JPL's founder, and presented by JPL's Office of Communication and Education, brings the excitement of the space program's missions, instruments and other technologies to both JPL employees and the local community. Lectures take place twice per month, on consecutive Thursdays and Fridays. The Thursday lectures take place in JPL's Theodore von Kármán Auditorium and are streamed live via Ustream, and (beginning in July 2018) Friday lectures take place at Caltech's Ramo Auditorium. Both start at 7:00 p.m. Admission and parking are free for all lectures, no reservations are required, and seating is limited.

Caltech manages JPL for NASA.