Lecture: A National Space Society Perspective on our future in space

The Florida Space Institute is hosting a Distinguished Lecture Series on Tuesday, Oct. 30, with a presentation by Lt. Col. Paul E. Damphousse, Ret. USMC, who will speak on “Ad Astra: A National Space Society Perspective on our Future in Space.”

Damphousse currently serves as the executive director of the National Space Society (NSS) headquartered in Washington, DC. The NSS is an independent, educational, non-profit organization dedicated to the creation of a spacefaring civilization.

Celebrating its 25th year, and tracing its roots back to Werner Von Braun and Gerald O’Neill, the NSS was formed in 1987 from the merger of the National Space Institute and the L5 Society.

NSS is widely acknowledged as the preeminent citizen’s voice on space and supports several promising on-going efforts to encourage human settlement beyond the Earth and utilizing space for the betterment of humanity – commercial spaceflight, space technology, in-space/in-situ resource utilization, and aggressive roadmapping. Damphousse will talk specifically about decisions being made now that will define the human presence in space (or lack thereof) in the future.

The lecture is free and will be held in the Harris Corporation Engineering Center on the UCF Campus, Room 125, at 7:30 p.m.. Questions or more information contact Sreela Mallick at 407-823-6176 or Sreela.Mallick@ucf.edu. 

In 2012, FSI was re-chartered to allow the Institute a broader portfolio of research and education activities, as well as to simplify its governance and increase the authority of the FSI Director. Also in 2012, FSI relocated from near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cocoa to Orlando offices in the Central Florida Research Park, adjacent to the University of Central Florida (UCF) where it can play a larger role in advancing UCF’s growing space efforts.