"It  IS  Rocket Science"

WILLIAM E. "Bill" CUTLIP
A Lifetime of Reaching for the Stars 

Our March speaker takes “working remotely” to the extreme. The project he worked on for 15 years is 200 million miles away and the commute takes 2 years.

William E. ”Bill” Cutlip is the proverbial “rocket scientist” who will tell us about an incredible 7 year mission to collect rocks from a tiny asteroid and about how a boy who wanted to be a mechanic helped build and launch some of the most complex machines ever made.

Launched on Sept. 8, 2016, the OSIRIS-REx (pronounced “oh-SIGH-rus rex”) mission used the Earth’s gravity to slingshot it 1.2 billion miles to meet a near-Earth asteroid that is just the width of 4 football fields. After orbiting the asteroid for over a year, it descended to the surface, scooped up some rocks and material, and then returned to orbit. This month it is preparing to fire its rockets and return to Earth in September of 2023. The mission has already returned important data including observations of other asteroids that might threaten Earth, and evidence of water, and the discovery of unexpected ejections of solid particles from the asteroid’s surface.