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"Viking mission overview (mission highlights, stories, and significance in future missions) AND historic preservation"
Rachel Tillman, AIAA Associate Fellow, Director and Founder of The Viking Mars Missions Education & Preservation Project (VMMEPP) a 501c3 nonprofit, is a business development leader and inventor with streaming media and clean tech patents, that has been problem solving and driving innovation in computing since the late 80s. From the first internet travel reservation product to the first web conferencing and streaming media technologies she has been delivering disruptive innovation with a long list of “firsts” since 1990, earning her the prestigious Intel Achievement award and others for flawless execution, risk taking, and quality, among others. Today, with VMMEPP, Rachel leads the preservation of the Viking archives and artifacts, as well as collecting the oral histories of all contributing individuals and companies of the Viking mission, and developing educational exhibits and activities.
In 1990-1992, she was part of a collaboration of IICS and IEEE engineers, academics, educators, and media experts defining the next generation of “multimedia”, just as it became a driving force in much of the technology and media explosion of the 1990s. She partnered with United Airlines, Fodors, Intel, and Microsoft delivering bleeding edge media ‘first of their kind’ products including Better Homes and Gardens Cookbooks, National Parks of America, and award winning iTravel web/CD hybrid Experience Hawaii, and Warren Miller's Ski World. This resulted in her designing and building some of the first content media databases in the 1990s, using SGML to support the emerging needs of this rapidly growing digital media sector.
Intel recruited Rachel in 1996 into their R&D Labs where she continued to initiate media technology strategies, defining internet and mobile device usability standards and best practices, and creating strategic projections for B2B and consumer technologies. She continued her consulting career with startups and seed funders, identifying and creating technology integration channels, licensing and defining product roadmaps, and helping to evolve the overall internet and e-publishing industry from its government and academic origins to the inclusive network-for-all we use today. She led projects for small nonprofits, multinational Fortune 500 companies, and government contracts.
Rachel’s passion for Mars inspired her to save the third flight-ready Viking Mars Lander (VL3) from scrap for historical and educational purposes when she was just a pre teen in the 1970s. Her experience growing up with the Viking Mission hooked Rachel – on technology, on communicating complex STEM concepts simply, and on the importance of space exploration to humankind. She assisted her father, Viking Scientist, James E. Tillman, developing the user interface content for the first internet-served exhibit in the world in 1981, at The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, “The Viking View of Mars”. She later designed the exhibit for the VL3 at the University of Washington which was then built by grad students, UW staff, and her father. She has conducted hundreds of Viking oral history interviews, mentors youth, leads and contributes to events around the world, and creates curriculum based on Viking science, engineering, computing, aerospace workforce, leadership and other soft lessons. She designed concepts for digital interactive exhibits, winning the Digital Signage (DSE) Industry’s sponsorship, and is a Speaker/Trainer consulting on tech integration in education. In 2020 she was the first non male individual to be awarded the Fred Ordway for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History, in 2020, by the American Astronautical Association, and serves on the AIAA, AAS, and IAA History Committees.
Rachel has a multidisciplinary degree in Biology, Art and Japanese from Occidental College, graduating in 1988, and has been a leader in community projects since the early 80s, bridging the scientific and academic. She has served on Boards, consulted for City and community projects focused on alternative energy infrastructure, diversity, equity, and cultural competance. Throughout her academic and professional career, she has remained committed to equity, education, leading and volunteering efforts to support the inclusion and immersion of computing and communications technology into schools and education programs such as the Boys & Girls Club, from whom she received an award for her leadership in establishing cutting edge web program for staff and youth. She has been a speaker at STEM events for Intel, Microsoft, Portland Public Schools, and at aerospace conferences such as AIAA SciTech, Cities In Space, The Mars Society, and others, and continues to devote her time to supporting equitable access to education and inspiration to youth of all ages. It is this persistent undercurrent that led Rachel back to the arena of education and inspiration of youth through the critical lens of the Viking missions “to preserve the artifacts, history and original documents of Viking, and to inspire future leaders and thinkers”
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