Mason Peck is an
associate professor
Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''.
In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a position ...
at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...
and former
NASA Chief Technologist.
His immediate predecessor in the NASA position was
Bobby Braun.
Peck has published in various
aerospace sub-disciplines including;
air-bearing spacecraft simulation,
,
hopping rovers,
and
Lorentz-augmented orbits.
Peck was awarded $75,000 in 2007 by NASA's
Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) to study how a large fleet of
microchip
An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...
-size
space probes
Space is a three-dimensional continuum containing positions and directions. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions. Modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless f ...
in
Earth orbit might propel themselves into the
Interplanetary Transport Network
The Interplanetary Transport Network (ITN) is a collection of gravitationally determined pathways through the Solar System that require very little energy for an object to follow. The ITN makes particular use of Lagrange points as locations whe ...
; and thence as far as
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...
's moon
Europa. This was to be achieved by exploiting the
Lorentz Force
In electromagnetism, the Lorentz force is the force exerted on a charged particle by electric and magnetic fields. It determines how charged particles move in electromagnetic environments and underlies many physical phenomena, from the operation ...
, enabled by using
photovoltaics
Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commerciall ...
to maintain an
electrostatic charge while orbiting in
Earth's magnetic field
Earth's magnetic field, also known as the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from structure of Earth, Earth's interior out into space, where it interacts with the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emanating from ...
.
Peck has served on the advisory board of
Mars One since February 2014.
References
External links
Space Systems Design StudioMason Peck, MAE, Ralph S. Watts '72 AwardTau Beta Pi Professor of the Year Award (2009)*
Dr. Mason Peck (USA) - Advisers - About Mars OneMason Peck (@spacecraftlab) on Twitter
Cornell University faculty
American roboticists
NASA people
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
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