Colloquium September 10 Dr. John C. Sommerer (hosted by Rigden) Johns Hopkins University Director, Science & Technology Chief Technology Officer Head, Space Department Fire and Ice: Exploration of the Solar System from the Atmosphere of the Sun to Pluto and Beyond The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, with a relatively small space department of 600 staff, continues to expand humanity’s understanding of the solar system. APL landed a spacecraft on an asteroid for the first time in 2001, and is currently managing for NASA the MESSENGER mission to Mercury and the New Horizons mission to Pluto, having built both spacecraft. The former is only the second human exploration of Mercury, and the first orbital mission to that planet. The latter represents the first human exploration of Pluto and the Kuiper belt. Finally, APL has been assigned responsibility for Solar Probe, which will take a spacecraft into the outer atmosphere of the Sun, coming within a few solar radii of the sun’s surface. These remarkable achievements are underpinned by clear science goals, but are enabled by teamwork involving many different organizations, staff in diverse disciplines, and careful system engineering. Today’s scientists are likely to succeed professionally not just through their personal scientific acumen, but by developing their "softer" skills, and by clearly understanding the disciplines surrounding their own. The MESSENGER, New Horizons, and Solar Probe missions will be discussed (and current results outlined) to illustrate how "big science" depends on much more than science. Coffee: 3:30 PM, 245 Compton         Lecture: 4:00 PM, 204 Crow