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Dr. Louis Lanzerotti is Distinguished Research Professor of Physics, New Jersey Institute of Technology. In 2004 President George W. Bush nominated Dr. Lanzerotti to the 24-member National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation. Dr. Lanzerotti chaired the blue-ribbon panel to study whether to prolong the mission of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Dr. Lanzerotti has spent more than four decades contributing to research that includes studies of space plasmas and geophysics, and engineering problems related to the impact of atmospheric and space processes on terrestrial technologies, and those in space.

He has been principal investigator or co-investigator on several NASA interplanetary and planetary missions including Voyager, Ulysses, Galileo, ACE, and Cassini. NASA has recognized Dr. Lanzerotti’s contributions to space science with the agency’s Distinguished Scientific Achievement Medal.

In our March 25, 2005 interview, Dr. Lanzerotti discussed

• The Hubble Space Telescope’s long-term mission
• NASA budget considerations
• The four-year Cassini mission to Saturn, Titan, and Saturn’s other moons
• The Ulysses mission which conducted the first-ever survey of the Sun’s environment in space from the equator to the poles, and over a wide range of solar activity conditions

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Dr. John Bahcall (1934-2005) had a long and prolific career in astronomy and astrophysics, spanning five decades and the publication of more than 500 technical papers, books, and popular articles.

Dr. Bahcall’s original calculations of the expected neutrino output from the sun led to a long, experimental, and intellectual adventure that continues today. The “solar neutrino problem” has yielded new insights in astrophysics and into the most basic forces of nature. Dr. Bahcall led a major effort to exploit the capabilities of the Hubble Space Telescope in elucidating the properties of quasars, and is recognized for his theoretical work in many different areas of astrophysics, including models of the Galaxy and studies of dark matter.

Dr. Bahcall was Richard Black Professor Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study. He joined the Institute in 1968. He was a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and Member of the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and NASA Advisory Council.

Dr. Bahcall was the recipient of the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal (1992), National Medal of Science (1998), Hans Bethe Prize (1998), Dan David Prize (2003), Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal (2003), Benjamin Franklin Medal (2003), Enrico Fermi Award (2003), and the Comstock Prize in Physics (2004).

In our 2-23-05 interview, Dr. Bahcall discusses

• Present and future contributions of Hubble Space Telescope
• The use of solar neutrinos to do astronomy
• Dark matter
• Dark energy
• Manned space flight
• The possibility of other intelligent life in the universe

Dr. Lisa Randall is Professor of Theoretical Physics at Harvard University and author of Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimension (2005). Warped Passages was one of The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2005.

Professor Randall was recently named winner of the 2007 Julius Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society for her seminal work in particle physics and cosmology, and her “tireless efforts to engage both specialists and non-specialists” regarding advances in these fields.

In our terrific SCIENCE AND SOCIETY interview on 4-5-06, Professor Randall discusses

• How is gravity connected to the geometry of space-time
• The overall concept of warped geometry
• Evaluation of the hierarchy problem – an unsolved element of the Standard Model
• Kaluza Klein particles
• The concept of “time evolution”
• The concept of locally localized gravity
• Why is it necessary, ultimately, to resolve quantum mechanics and general relativity at small distances

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