| |
BOARD MEMBERS
- Marc G, Millis, Tau Zero Founder and President
Cleveland OH, USA
Day job: Propulsion Physicist, NASA Glenn Research Center
Marc Millis is a leading international authority on the search for breakthrough methods of spaceflight. Much of this work is comparing various approaches, although Millis has initiated some theoretical work of his own, both inside and outside his day-job. He has produced over 30 technical and management papers, an award-winning website ("Warp Drive, When?"), and recently published: "Making the jump to light-speed" in the National Geographic book: Star Wars - Where Science Meets Imagination (Rodley 2005). In addition to propulsion physics, Millis has designed ion thrusters, electronics for rocket monitoring, cryogenic propellant equipment, and even a cockpit display to guide free-fall aircraft flights. Millis's degrees include a Masters of Science in Physics Entrepreneurship from Case Western Reserve University (2006) and a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Georgia Tech (1982). He is also an alumnus of the International Space University Summer Session (1998). In his free time, Millis enjoys craftsmanship; building award-winning scale models, Halloween costumes, and other mischief. Amidst all this, he enjoys time as a husband and father.
- Walter de Brouwer, PhD, Tau Zero Fundraising and Entrepreneurial Advisor & 1st Benefactor
Brussels, Belgium
Day job: "Serial Entrepreneur," Turing Industries
Time and CNN have called him a 'serial entrepreneur'. The Sunday Times nicknamed him a 'collateral thinker'. INSEAD identified him as a key entrepreneur for Europe. The Financial Times first referred to him as the Ubernerd, and for the 20th Anniversary of The Wall Street Journal Europe, the paper tapped the brains of four “guru’s” to depict the World in 2023: John Naisbitt (Global Paradox), Bill Ghitis (Dupont), Shai Agassi (SAP) and Walter De Brouwer. In 2005 he earned his Doctorate with a dissertation entitled: The Biology of Language: The Post-Modern Deconstruction and Denarration of Modern and Pre-Modern Grand Narratives. To date Walter De Brouwer is a member of the Licensing Executives society, the Mathematical Society and the National Writers Union (USA). He lives in Brussels and is married with three children.
- Paul Gilster, Tau Zero Lead Journalist
Raleigh NC, USA
Day job: Independent technology writer
Paul Gilster is a writer who focuses on technology and its implications. He is the author of seven books, including Digital Literacy (John Wiley & Sons, 1997) and Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning for Interstellar Flight (Copernicus, 2005), a study of the technologies that may one day make it possible to send a probe to the nearest star. Gilster actively tracks ongoing developments in areas of interstellar research from propulsion to robotics on his Centauri Dreams website, which is the news forum for the Tau Zero Foundation. In past years, he has contributed to numerous technology and business magazines, and has published essays, feature stories, reviews and fiction in a wide range of publications both in and out of the technology arena. He has for the last twenty years written a weekly column on technology that has appeared in a variety of newspapers and is now based at The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC). Gilster is a graduate of Grinnell College (IA). His six years of graduate work were spent at UNC-Chapel Hill, specializing in medieval English literature.
- Frank P. Nagorney, Attorney, Tau Zero Legal Council
Cowden, Humphrey Nagorney & Lovett
Cleveland OH, USA
|
| |
PRACTITIONERS
In the course of the initial grass-roots collaborations that led to Tau Zero it became evident that finding the best practitioners was as challenging as securing funding. Just as the term practical can take on different meanings depending upon objectives, the term best is also dependant on one's priorities. For this high-gain/high-risk topic, a combination of self-critical rigor with risk-taking vision is paramount. To have rigor and credibility, without risky vision, does not take you into the regime of high payoffs (Anderson, J.L. 1996). Conversely, imagination and risk-taking without rigor might be entertaining, but lacks the self-checking upon which to build reliable progress. When both imagination and honest rigor are present, reliable and revolutionary progress becomes possible. A condition to be considered as a Foundation practitioner is to have published risk-taking or unique, leading-edge contributions via a credible outlet. Furthermore, practitioners must display the kind of impartiality and self-criticality needed to put the good of humanity above self-promotion.
By linking trustworthy practitioners across complementary professions, each can accomplish more. Journalists can have direct access to leading scientists, while the scientists benefit from how the journalists convey their scientific work to the public. Documentary producers gain easier access to leading researchers, while these researchers gain access to the animation and story-telling tools of video. And further, science fiction venues provide the scientists, engineers, anthropologists and sociologists the means to safely toy with outrageous speculations. |
| |
|
|
|
|
