Palo Alto Colloquia
March 7, 2013
THE SHIRTSLEEVE INVENTION
Mrs. Gloria Beasley Lausten and Dr. Chuck Packer
Robert Martin Beasley was the inventor of the Thermal Protection System for the Space Shuttle. His work at Lockheed in Sunnyvale, California was in high temperature ceramics and he had an idea that pure silica could be used for a lightweight insulation instead of heavier ablative materials.
The Shirtsleeve Invention is the story of Robert Beasley who was the Father of LI900, the material that kept the Space Shuttle astronauts in comfortable shirtsleeve weather inside their craft when the temperature was 2400°F outside. He was also a shirtsleeve inventor, liking to get his hands dirty working on his ideas. The events in his personal life finally led him to Lockheed where the idea of a practical solution for the safe return of men from space finally came to fruition. He was not a genius, but was a listener to creative ideas and then followed them. He was proud of his inventions but not of himself as the inventor.
Gloria Beasley Lausten always told her husband, Robert Martin Beasley, who invented the thermal protection for the Space Shuttle that she would write a book about him one day. Though she graduated with an Art degree from Stetson University in DeLand Florida, writing was her second love. When Bob passed on in 1997, she asked several science writers in Silicon Valley for help with no results. So she honed her craft and wrote it herself. Gloria thinks Bob would like this one.
Future Colloquia
Note, the following are TENTATIVE, subject to change
Mar. 7 – Mrs. Beasley, Dr. Chuck Packer: THE SHIRTSLEEVE INVENTION, THE THERMAL PROTECTION SYSTEM FOR THHE SPACE SHUTTLE
Mar. 14 – Dr. Audrey Ellerbee, Stanford University: TBA
Mar. 21 – Dr. Charlotte Thornton, Stanford University: TBA
Mar. 28 – Dr. Michael A. Pelizzari, LM/ATC: Freefall
Apr. 4 – Dr. Martin Griss, CMU: TBA
Apr. 11 – Dr. Mohamed B. Trabia, Associate Dean for Research, Graduate Studies, and Computing and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering, University of Nevada, Las Vegas: TBA
Apr. 18 – Mr. Sukru Burc Eryilmaz, Stanford University, Electrical Engineering Dept: Nanotechnology
Apr. 25 – Ms Jenni Neubert, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin: Neuroscience with application of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles
May 2 – Dr. Gultekin Cakmakci, Stanford University: Communicating Science
May 9 – Greg Edwards, Photographic Fraud
May 16 – Dr. Mike Sholl, Lawrence Berkeley Lab: BigBOSS, a Stage IV Dark Energy Experiment
May 23 –
May 30 --
June 6 –
June 13 – SUMMER BREAK, START SERIES AGAIN IN MID to LATE SEPTEMBER 2013
