Career
After receiving his doctorate at Brown University, Landis worked at the NASA Lewis Research Center (now Nasa Glenn) and the Ohio Aerospace Institute before accepting a permanent position at the NASA John Glenn Research Center, where he does research on Mars missions, solar energy, and interstellar propulsion. He holds eight patents, and has authored or co-authored more than 300 published scientific papers in the fields of astronautics and photovoltaics. He was a member of the Rover team on the Mars Pathfinder mission, and named the Mars rock, "Yogi". He is a member of the science team on the 2003 Mars Exploration Rovers mission.
Landis was a fellow of the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts ("NIAC"), where he worked on a project investigating the use of laser- and particle-beam pushed sails for propulsion for interstellar flight. In 2002 Landis addressed the annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on the possibilities and challenges of interstellar travel in what was described as the "first serious discussion of how mankind will one day set sail to the nearest star". Dr. Landis said, "This is the first meeting to really consider interstellar travel by humans. It is historic. We're going to the stars. There really isn't a choice in the long term." He went on to describe a star ship with a diamond sail, a few nanometres thick, powered by solar energy, which could achieve "10 per cent of the speed of light". He was selected again as a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts fellow in 2012, with an investigation of a Landsailing rover for Venus exploration.
Landis has commented on the practicalities of generating oxygen and creating building materials for a future Moon base in New Scientist, and on the possibilities of using readily available metallic iron to manufacture steel on Mars.
Read more about this topic: Geoffrey A. Landis
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