The National Space Society announces that physicist Dr. Kip Thorne is the recipient of its 2015 Space Pioneer Award for “Mass Media.” This award will be presented at the National Space Society’s 2015 International Space Development Conference (http://isdc.nss.org/2015/). This will be the 34th ISDC and will be held in Toronto, Canada, at the Hyatt Regency Toronto (downtown). The conference will run from May 20-24, 2015.
NSS is honoring Dr. Thorne with a 2015 Space Pioneer Award in the Mass Media category for his work on the movie Interstellar and his related 2014 book The Science of Interstellar. The visual effects in the movie have greatly improved our concepts of what a black hole might look like and the weird but real physical effects associated with it. Even though we are many decades away from being able to seriously start the technical design work for a practical interstellar vehicle, cinema productions like Interstellar keep the public aware of the vast cosmos with a literal plethora of planets waiting outside our world and the potential and challenge it presents to us.
About the Space Pioneer Award
The Space Pioneer Award consists of a silvery pewter Moon globe cast by the Baker Art Foundry in Placerville, California, from a sculpture originally created by Don Davis, the well-known space and astronomical artist. The globe, as shown at left, which represents multiple space mission destinations and goals, sits freely on a brass support with a wooden base and brass plaque, which are created by Michael Hall’s Studio Foundry of Driftwood, TX. NSS has several different categories under which the award is presented each year, starting in 1988.
About Dr. Kip Thorne
Dr. Thorne has had a very long and distinguished career as a physicist, Caltech physics professor, and author. Physics is the bedrock of space science, and what he has taught is vital to professionals working in the space community. Dr. Throne co-authored the landmark physics textbook Gravitation. He held the position of the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech from 1991 to 2009, when he left the position to work outside of the university. His work in Interstellar is one of the results. Dr. Thorne is good friends with world-famous physicist Stephen Hawking, prior recipient of the National Space Society’s prestigious Heinlein Award.
