Jump to Content

Media Release

November 8, 2004

Spacecraft guru at UniSA to give the low down on “extreme” travel

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) attaché to the US embassy in Australia, Neal Newman, is in SA this week to talk about travel. And while he won’t be foreshadowing personal-use space vehicles – he will be exploring the incredible systems engineering leaps that are making the notion of regular human missions to the Moon and Mars much more tangible.

Newman will address a crowd of almost 400 at UniSA’s City West campus tomorrow (November 9 2004) at 6.30 pm in a free public lecture guaranteed to attract devotees of the mission to Mars and other “extreme” travel enthusiasts.

Newman began his current assignment as NASA’s representative to Australia and Southeast Asia in May 2002. Today he is lead liaison for NASA’s interests in Australia and the region, including NASA’s Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex located outside of Canberra.

He also served for five years as a Space Shuttle Launch Services Manager in NASA’s Office of Space Flight and was responsible for coordinating shuttle launch services for a variety of complex flight missions, including the dedicated Shuttle flight of the German Spacelab D-2 research mission and the European Eureca spacecraft deploy and retrieval missions.

In his lecture, Newman will give a progress report on the new planetary exploration spacecraft and the complex systems being designed to support the goal of human space travel – including new spacecraft features, the timetable for the project and the potential role for national and commercial partners in the project. He will also look at what a trip to Mars might include – the data gathered and the goals of such exploration.

In his time at NASA Headquarters Office of External Relations in Washington DC, Newman was responsible for establishing international agreements with foreign space agencies ranging from the joint development and launch of various scientific spacecraft to the training and flight of international astronauts on the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. His lecture will include a look at the roles that might be played by other nations through the development of international space science collaboration.

His lecture at UniSA has been sponsored by the Sir Ross and Keith Smith Trust, the 2004 Systems Engineering and Test Evaluation Conference, Engineers Australia, and UniSA’s Systems Engineering and Evaluation Centre.

Interviews

Media contact

top^