PULLMAN, Wash. - Roger Myers, who oversees development and production of next-generation space propulsion systems and vehicles for Aerojet Inc., will present a free, public lecture on space exploration at 10 a.m. Friday, Oct. 5, in the Engineering, Teaching and Research Laboratory (ETRL) 101 at Washington State University Pullman.

 

Myers will discuss Aerojet’s ideas for a human mission to Mars by 2033 in "Toward an Affordable Space Exploration Architecture.’’

For distant space exploration, Aerojet is developing ideas for high-powered, solar-electric propulsion freighter vehicles that would pre-position supplies and habitats for a human crew. The crew eventually would be transported to distant sites in a more conventional, liquid hydrogen-powered rocket. Such a system of freighters would minimize risks to crew and allow sharing and reduction of exploration costs.

 

Prior to becoming executive director of electric propulsion and integrated systems at Aerojet, Myers served as deputy lead of space and launch systems and general manager of the company’s Redmond, Wash., operations. Aerojet is the world’s leading supplier of spacecraft propulsion systems and components; Aerojet-Redmond, with more than 400 employees, generates more than $100 million in annual sales.

 

Myers has held various supervisory and research positions at NASA’s Glenn Research Center and Princeton University. He has authored more than 70 publications on spacecraft propulsion and advanced mission architectures. He was chairman of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Electric Propulsion Technical Committee 1998-2000 and an associate editor of the Journal of Propulsion and Power 1993-2008. 

 

Myers serves on the board of directors of the Electric Rocket Propulsion Society and the GenCorp Foundation, which focuses on supporting education initiatives in science, engineering and math. He is an AIAA fellow and was elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences in 2012.

 

He holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University and a bachelor of science in aerospace engineering, summa cum laude, from the University of Michigan.

 

His presentation is sponsored by the WSU College of Engineering and Architecture as part of the Lanning Lectures, established in 1988 and funded by civil engineering alumnus Jack Dillon, '41, to honor his late wife Frances Lanning Dillon. The lecture series aims to augment students' knowledge of the profession beyond the academic dimension.