Huachuca Astronomy Club—Speakers

Dr. Alan Binder

Short Bio
Alan Binder, PhD, is a space scientist with over 43 years of
experience as a lunar and planetary scientist, a spacecraft design
and systems engineer, and a lunar base and manned Mars mission
designer. He has worked in both the American and European space
programs and was a Principal Investigator on the Lander Camera Team
of the 1976 Viking Mars Lander Missions. He was the Principal
Investigator of the Lunar Prospector mission and was responsible
for all of its phases--mission definition, spacecraft design,
construction, testing, and mission operations. The Lunar Prospector
orbital mapping mission provided the first complete, global maps of
the compositions of the Moon's surface and its gravity and
magnetic fields--as well as discovering and mapping the polar
hydrogen deposits that are believed to be water ice. He is also the
author of Lunar Prospector: Against All Odds, his account of Lunar
Prospector from its beginning in late 1988, as a private effort, to
its successful conclusion, as a NASA supported mission, in July
1999. He lives in Tucson with his wife Rebecca and is the Director
of the Lunar Research Institute and the CEO of Lunar Exploration Inc.

Extended Bio
Dr. Alan Binder is a Lunar and Planetary Scientist with over forty years of experience working in the NASA and European Space Programs. He was a Principal Investigator on the 1976 Viking Mars Lander Missions which made the first successful unmanned landings on Mars. He was the Principal Investigator of the NASA-sponsored Lunar Prospector Mission, which was launched to the Moon on January 6, 1998 and conducted a 19-month orbital mapping mission of the Moon and was the Principal Investigator of the Lunar Prospector Data Analysis program that was conducted under his leadership. This unmanned lunar mapping program started by Dr. Binder in 1989 as a philanthropic effort when he founded the Texas-based, non-profit, tax-exempt company, Lunar Exploration, Inc. (LEI), whose charter was to define, promote and find support for the Lunar Prospector Mission. This goal was reached in 1995 when NASA chose Lunar Prospector to be the third mission in its new, low-cost Discovery Program of Lunar and Planetary Missions, after which, LEI was dissolved. Dr. Binder then formed Lunar Research Institute (LRI) in Arizona to carry on with the flight and scientific phases of Lunar Prospector and to expand the research program beyond the limited charter of LEI.

Dr. Binder taught and did lunar research for ten years in Germany at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, the University of Kiel and the University of Muenster (he speaks German fluently and some Spanish). Dr. Binder has a BS in Physics and Mathematics from Northern Illinois University, a Ph.D. in Geology and Planetary Science from the University of Arizona, and Habilitated (became qualified to be a Professor in the German university system) at the University of Kiel. He is a Member of the Board of Space Education Initiatives, Inc., and the Board of Governors of the National Space Society. Dr. Binder has published over eighty scientific papers in the open literature, mainly in the areas of lunar and Mars geology, geochemistry, petrology and geophysics.


“Observing Double Stars with a 1600s Telescope.”

Fri., Jan. 29, 2010

Dr. Alan Binder will give a talk about observing double stars with a 1600s telescope at the Jan. 29, 2010 regular meeting of the Huachuca Astronomy Club. The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in room 305 A/B at the Sierra Vista Campus of Cochise College.


"Observing Through a 17th Century Telescope"

Sat., June 2, 2007

Alan Binder talked about designing a 17th century telescope and then described the surprising observations made through it. Dr. Binder designed and built a long focal-length refractor telescope using only 17th-century technology. Binder designed and built his telescope based on historic drawings to determine what astronomers of that era could see through their instruments. The results were surprisingly good.

Dr. Binder also had a couple of his books (on different topics) available for sale at the meeting. Dr. Binder has also invited members of the Huachuca Astronomy Club to come to his house to view the actual telescope (it's too big to move around easily) and view through it.

Binder is a space scientist who, after being the successful principle investigator for the 1976 Viking Mars Lander, proposed, designed, and saw the Lunar Prospector probe successfully accomplish its mission to explore the moon from lunar orbit after 13 years of hard work. Binder is author of the book, “Lunar Prospector: Against all Odds,” which documents the sometimes frustrating process that goes into designing a space probe within the NASA protocol.


Books by Dr. Alan Binder

Lunar Prospector: Against All Odds
Lunar Prospector: Against all Odds is the Principal Investigator’s highly personal account of the triumphs, defeats, dirty politics, and ultimate success enjoyed and endured during the 13 years it took to accomplish the Lunar Prospector mission. Like the mission, Lunar Prospector: Against all Odds answers to the American taxpayer, but this time spotlighting the incompetence and self-serving activities of the NASA bureaucracy and accompanying aerospace industries. Together, they waste a large portion of the $13 billion yearly federal government budget to execute America’s space program.

The Lunar Prospector mission was the only NASA-funded space project that was conceived and managed by a scientist rather than a NASA bureaucrat or engineer—a venture initially developed outside NASA that proved when missions are properly conceived and managed, the cost of space exploration can be cut by a factor of 10.