Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
102 Natural Science Bldg.
University of Louisville
Louisville KY 40292
(502) 852-6790
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Dept. of Physics and Astronomy |
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This
year we
will have a unique double speaker format, to highlight
lunar exploration past and future -- and beyond. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first manned landing on the Moon, we feature a lunar theme this year. Speakers: Ferenc Pavlics (Apollo Lunar Rover Team) and Phillip Abel (NASA Glenn Research Center)  Ferenc Pavlics was born in Hungary in 1928, graduated in 1950 from the Technical Univ. of Budapest as a mechanical engineer, and left Hungary in 1956 after the uprising against the communist regime. From 1957 he worked at the General Motors Research Laboratory in Detroit as a researcher on high mobility off-road vehicles. In 1961 he was transferred to the GM Defense Research Laboratories at Santa Barbara, CA. His work included research on soil properties and surface mobility on the moon under several NASA contracts. Between 1968 and 1972, he was the engineering director responsible for the design, development and manufacturing of the Lunar Roving Vehicle for the Apollo program, which flew on Apollo 15, 16 and 17. In the 1980s, he received a European assignment from GM to develop joint venture programs with the Eastern European countries and to start up a new factory in Spain to produce the Opel Corsa cars.After retiring from GM, he participated as consultant in the development of the Mars Pathfinder and Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity). Mr. Pavlics received a NASA award for his participation in the Apollo program and on the 100th anniversary of car production in Hungary, he was the honorary guest of celebrations at the Technical Univ. of Budapest where he received a Golden Cross Award of the Republic of Hungary. Mr. Pavlics has published numerous technical papers with SAE, AIAA, Science and the Journal of Geophysical Research and other publications. Phillip Abel was born in Kansas in 1956, graduated from the Univ. of Chicago in 1978 with a B.S. in Mathematics, and returned to school in 1980 to Case Western Reserve Univ. in Cleveland, Ohio, to complete his Physics Ph.D. in 1985. Dr. Abel upon completing his degree immediately joined the Tribology & Surface Science Branch in the Research & Technology Directorate of the (formerly named) Lewis Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in Cleveland. His research included studying fundamental aspects of friction and wear processes (tribology), and afforded Dr. Abel the opportunity to successfully build a Scanning Tunneling Microscope before they were commercially available. His early interest in nanotechnology led to an R&D 100 Award in 2004 and related patent in 2005. In 2001 Dr. Abel was selected to serve as Tribology & Surface Science Branch Chief at the (renamed) John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland, Ohio. Since 2006 he has co-led Glenn Research Center participation in the NASA Human Robotics Systems project led out of the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, including re-creating exact replicas of Apollo Lunar Rover Vehicle wire mesh wheels for current testing purposes. Supporting current and future exploration goals, Dr. Abel's branch has built the Simulated Lunar Operations (SLOPE) facility at GRC for mobility research and design investigations. As a researcher, Dr. Abel published in numerous journals, including those of the STLE, AVS, MRS, and APS, contributed book chapters to tribology handbooks, and co-edited a volume on atomistic material modeling. He currently is a member of the American Vacuum Society, American Society for Testing & Materials (now ASTM International), and American Physical Society. They will be interviewed on WFPL 89.3FM's "State of Affairs" at 1pm on Oct. 8, with a re-broadcast at 9pm. We will record the lecture for our permanent talk archive. The Physics & Astronomy Department’s Bullitt Lecture is a free lecture aimed at the general public. Since 2001, the Physics & Astronomy Department’s Bullitt Lecture has presented a distinguished astrophysicist to a Louisville audience in the Gheens Science Hall and Rauch Planetarium. Gale Christianson, Hubble's biographer at Indiana State, Fred Espinak, an eclipse expert at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, stellar astrophysicists James Kaler of U. Illinois, C. R. O'Dell of Vanderbilt and Caty Pilachowski of Indiana U, and cosmologists Fang Li Zhi of Arizona, J. Richard Gott of Princeton and Alan Dressler of the Carnegie Observatories have been Bullitt Lecturers. College
and high school students, teachers, and many others from the community
interested in
the impact and excitement that astrophysics has generated have attended Bullitt Lectures in large numbers. The public and members of the University community are warmly invited! The Lecture is endowed through a grant from the family of William Marshall Bullitt, the Solicitor General of the United States under President William Howard Taft. Here is a brief biography and description of his connection to the University of Louisville. If you would
like further information about the Bullitt Lecture, please e-mail
Dr. Gerard Williger at this email address: williger* where *=@physics.louisville.edu The 2006 and 2007 lectures are available in streaming (.asx) format in the UL astronomy talk archive. Posters for all of the current and previous Bullitt Lectures are available: 2001 Gale Christianson, "Edwin Hubble: An Astronomer's Life" 2002 Fred Espinak, "Solar Eclipses and Mysteries of the Sun" 2003 James Kaler, "The Life and Death of Stars" 2004 Fang Li Zhi, "Dark Energy in the Universe" 2005 J. Richard Gott, "A Map of the Universe" 2006 Alan Dressler, "Galaxies, Stars, Planets and Life: the Birth of the Modern Universe" Dr. Dressler was interviewed on Louisville's WFPL (NPR) radio on April 20, 2006 on State of Affairs, which has an archive edition of the radio interview. 2007 C.R. O'Dell, "Creating the Hubble Space Telescope" 2008 Caty Pilachowski, "The Star Cities of the Milky Way" flier Dr. Pilachowski was interviewed on Louisville's WFPL (NPR) radio on October 29, 2008 on State of Affairs, which has an archive edition of the radio interview. 2009 Ferenc Pavlics and Phillip Abel, "40 Years: Lunar Exploration" flier Mr. Pavlics and Dr. Abel will be interviewed on Louisville's WFPL (NPR) radio on October 8, 2009 on State of Affairs, which has an archive edition of the radio interview. Links to other Bullitt Lectures and Bullitt book collections: Bullitt Lecture in Mathematics Bullitt Lecture in Fine Arts William Marshall Bullitt Collection of Rare Mathematics and Astronomy Books More on the Bullitt Collection of Books at UofL |
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