Dr. John S. Lewis

John S. Lewis is Professor Emeritus of Planetary Sciences and Co-Director of the Space Engineering Research Center at the University of Arizona. He was previously a Professor of Planetary Sciences at MIT and Visiting Professor at the California Institute of Technology and Tsinghua University, Beijing. His research interests are related to the application of chemistry to astronomical problems, including the origin of the Solar System, the evolution of planetary atmospheres, the origin of organic matter in planetary environments, the chemical structure and thermal history of icy satellites, the hazards of comet and asteroid bombardment of Earth, and the extraction, processing, and use of the energy and material resources of nearby space. He has chaired several conferences on the economic development and colonization of space. He served on the Board of Directors of American Rocket Company (AmRoc) during the development of hybrid rocket motors for the private launch business, a process that culminated in the use of an AmRoc-designed motor to propel SpaceShipOne to an altitude of over 100 km and win astronaut’s wings for its pilots in 2004. He has served as a member or Chairman of a wide variety of NASA and National Academy of Sciences (NAS) advisory committees and review panels. He has written, edited, or translated 19 books, including graduate and undergraduate planetary science texts and popular science books, and has authored over 150 scientific publications. He has given invited lectures at M.I.T., Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Columbia, and Brown Universities, Dartmouth College, the University of Maine, Wellesley College, Smith College, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, Williams College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University, Old Dominion, University of Maryland, Wheeling Jesuit University, Georgia Tech, the College of Wooster, the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, the University of Minnesota, the University of Iowa, Washington University (St. Louis), the University of Colorado, Western Louisiana State University, Maharishi International University, Utah State University, Brigham Young University, Northern Idaho State University, the University of Arizona, Pima Community College, Arizona State University, the University of Washington, the University of Oregon, the University of California campuses in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Berkeley, San Diego State University, the University of San Diego, California Institute of Technology, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Stanford University, NASA Headquarters, NASA Ames, Goddard, and Johnson Research Centers, the University of Paris, the University of Istanbul, Kyoto University, Peking University (Bei Jing Da Shue), the Centers for Space Science and Applied Research and for Lunar Missions of the Chinese Academy of Science, and Tsinghua University (Qing Hua Da Shue). He is a regular commentator on Chinese civil space missions on China Central Television CCTV9, Including the Shenzhou 6 & 7 manned missions and the Chang’e 1 & 2 lunar missions. Dr. Lewis is the author of the well known, respected and popular book, Mining the Sky: Untold Riches from the Asteroids, Comets, and Planets. He is presently retired and living and writing in Anacortes, Washington.