Seminar: Engineers Build the Best Bridges. Some Reach the Stars.

Dr. John Horack, Teledyne Brown Engineering

All dates for this event occur in the past.

E525 Scott Lab
E525 Scott Lab
201 W. 19th Ave.
Columbus, OH 43210
United States

Abstract

Dr. Horack's career has spanned nearly 30 years in aerospace, with a focus on the engineering development of numerous spaceflight hardware programs and projects, ranging from High-Energy Astrophysics to Human Spaceflight. Each of these engineering spaceflight programs has been a bridge, to help humanity explore, to reach new frontiers, and to learn more about the Earth and the Universe we call home. During this seminar, Dr. Horack will share his experiences in aerospace engineering flight hardware development, from his leadership history in Academia, NASA and the private sector. In particular, he will highlight in detail his work on NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO). Launched in April 1991 aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, CGRO was a 17-ton satellite built to bridge our knowledge the high-energy Universe, including accidentally-discovered phenomena known as gamma-ray bursts. Through the integration of space-flight hardware engineering and academic research, we now know that these daily bursts are actually the Cosmos' most powerful explosions, releasing more energy in ~10 seconds than the Sun will emit in its entire 10-billion-year lifetime. The spaceflight hardware engineering of CGRO built a bridge, literally from Earth to the edge of the Universe - originally thought to be moderate explosions from within our own Milky Way galaxy, gamma-ray bursts are instead measured to originate from the deepest recesses of space, at redshifts of z ~ 8 or more. The CGRO and subsequent flight hardware projects are exquisitely engineered tools, developed to enable study of these prodigious blasts of radiation, as probes of early star formation, galaxy composition, and the blue-print structure of the Universe itself.

About the Speaker

Since receiving his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Alabama, Dr. Horack has been involved with the space program. He joined the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville early in his career as a research scientist where he led the experimental and theoretical research on high energy astrophysics. He moved on to the position of Assistant Mission Scientist, where he was responsible for optimizing the Astro-2 Space Shuttle mission return. He moved on at NASA to the Space Sciences Laboratory, where he was Assistant Director for Science Communications. There he developed processes to communicate research to non-scientific audiences. His next position at NASA was as Manager of Space and Mission Systems office where he was responsible for advanced space flight hardware development, overseeing a yearly budget of $300m and 300+ people.

Dr. Horack left NASA in 2009 to assume the position of Vice President for Research at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He helped grow the research enterprise to over $85M and built a strong cooperative alliance with DOD. In 2012, he moved into Teledyne Brown Engineering as Vice President of Space Systems and Vice President of Global Commercial Space. He is leading the international space effort in commercial space. Dr. Horack has served on a multitude of scientific boards and belongs to a host of professional societies.

Hosted by Dr. Mike Benzakein