(September 26) The Case for Nukes with Dr. Robert Zubrin

When: Sep 26, 2023 from 17:30 to 21:30 (PT)

Associated with Los Angeles Section

RSVP and Information: https://conta.cc/45eRzWN

(Updated Schedule / Location.)

(This site/posting is only for information. Please visit the RSVP link above or below to purchase the actual admission tickets. Thank you very much.)

(You do not need to be a member of AIAA to attend the event.)

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

The Case for Nukes

How We Can Beat Global Warming and Create a Free, Open, and Magnificent Future

with

Dr. Robert Zubrin

President and Founder of the Mars Society

AIAA Distinguished Lecturer (2018-2022)

moderated by

Dr. Jeff Puschell

AIAA Region VI Director of Education, AIAA Fellow, SPIE Fellow

Consulting Engineer in the Office of the Chief Architect for OPIR & Geospatial Systems

Northrop Grumman Corporation | Space Systems

RSVP & Information

Who?

Robert Zubrin, formerly a Staff Engineer at Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver is now president of his own company, Pioneer Astronautics. He holds Masters degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics and a doctorate in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Washington. He is the inventor of several unique concepts for space propulsion and exploration, the author of over 200 published technical and non-technical papers in the field, as well the non-fiction books "The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must" (Simon and Schuster 1996), “Entering Space” (Tarcher Putnam 1999), “Mars on Earth” (Tarcher Penguin 2003) and “Energy Victory” (Prometheus Books, 2007), "Merchants of Despair" (Encounter Books, 2012), the novels “The Holy Land,” (Polaris Books, 2003) and “First Landing,” (Ace 2001), the science-humor immigrant guidebook, “How to Live on Mars” (Three Rivers Press, 2008), "The Case for Space: How the Revolution in Spaceflight Opens Up a Future of Limitless Possibility" (Prometheus Books, 2019), and most recently "The Case for Nukes: How We Can Beat Global Warming and Create a Free, Open, and Magnificent Future," (Polaris Books, 2023). He is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society and former Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Space Society. Most recently, he founded the Mars Society; an international organization dedicated to furthering the exploration and settlement of Mars by both public and private means. In that capacity, he personally led the construction and operation of a human Mars exploration training station on Devon Island, an uninhabited island in the Canadian Arctic 900 miles from the North Pole. Prior to his work in astronautics, Dr. Zubrin was employed in areas of thermonuclear fusion research, nuclear engineering, radiation protection, and as a high school science teacher.

What?

(Cited from Amazon.com)

World-renowned nuclear and aerospace engineer Dr. Robert Zubrin explains how nuclear power works and how much it has to offer humanity. He debunks the toxic falsehoods that have been spread to dissuade us from using it by variously the ignorant, the fearful, the fanatical, and by cynical political operatives bought and paid for by competing interests. He tells about revolutionary developments in the field, including new reactor types that can be cheaply mass produced, that cannot be made to melt down no matter how hard their operators try, that use a new fuel called thorium far more plentiful than uranium, and still more advanced systems, employing thermonuclear fusion - the power that lights the sun - to extract more energy from a gallon of water than can be obtained from 300 gallons of gasoline. He tells about the bold entrepreneurs - a totally different breed from the government officials who created the existing types of nuclear reactors - who are leading this revolution in power technology.

But there are broader issues involved in the nuclear debate than technology alone, and Zubrin is not shy about addressing them. He makes clear the critical difference between practical environmentalism, which seeks to improve the environment for the benefit of humanity, and ideological environmentalism, which seeks to use instances of human insult to natural environment as evidence for a prosecutorial case against human liberty. He shows how the latter school of thought is wrong, not only with respect to the catastrophic harm it would do to humanity, but to nature as well. He also exposes the masters of mercenary environmentalism, who deploy troops of dupes to shut down companies or whole industries in order to eliminate competition in return for being suitably rewarded by the beneficiaries of such efforts. He shows that when it comes to environmental improvement, freedom is not the problem; freedom is the solution. He makes clear both the possibility and necessity of a nuclear-power-enabled revolution in the human condition by putting it in a broader historical context of the overall process of development of civilization, whereby new technologies create new resources and new knowledge, which in turn make possible still more technological advance.

Finally, Zubrin brings all this to bear to address the greatest threat facing humanity today.

- which is the possibility that we will turn on each other, as we did in the 20th century, under the spell of the false idea that resources are finite.

Only in a world of unlimited resources can all men and women be brothers and sisters.

Only in a world of freedom can resources be unlimited.

That is the world we can, and must, create. In The Case for Nukes, Zubrin shows us how.

Where?

Hawthorne Memorial (Community) Center, Venus Room,

3901 W El Segundo Blvd

Hawthorne, CA 90250

(South of 105 Hwy, North / East of 405 Hwy, and West of 110 Hwy)

(Next to SpaceX and Hawthorne Airport (Jack Northrop Field), near LAX, Northrop Grumman, Compton Airport, Millennium Space Systems, Da Vinci Schools, Hawthorne High Schools etc.)

(Google Maps link: https://goo.gl/maps/1JJinXYKZSpgM1Ck6)

Parking and direction: Parking in the front (enter from W. El Segundo Blvd.), and more on the back (enter from Prairie Ave.)

When?

Tuesday, September 26, 2023, 5:30 PM - 9:30 PM PDT (GMT -0700) (add to calendar)

Presentation starts at 7:00 PM PDT.

(Please register/RSVP at your early conveniences for logistics arrangement. RSVP will end after Sunday, September 24, 2023, or whenever all seats are filled.)

Tentative Agenda (All time PDT (Pacific Daylight-Saviing Time), US and Canada (GMT -0700):

05:30 PM PDT: Check-in, Networking
06:00 PM PDT: Dinner (for those who order dinner boxes or bring own dinner); Networking
07:00 PM PDT: Welcome and Introduction
07:05 PM PDT: Presentation and Q&A
08:35 PM PDT: Networking, Wrap up
09:30 PM PDT: Adjourn (Need to leave the Hawthorne Memorial Center by 10 PM PDT)

Dress Code

Business Casual

Contact:

contact@aiaa-lalv.org