The Mars Society is pleased to announce that Dr. David Poston, leader of the Compact Fission Reactor Design Team at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, will give a virtual plenary talk during the 23rd Annual International Mars Society Convention, scheduled for October 15-18.
Dr. Poston’s research team at Los Alamos is responsible for the design and development of nuclear fission reactors for NASA, civilian and defense applications in space. As part of this, he serves as the Chief Reactor Designer for the NASA Kilopower Project, including the DUFF and KRUSTY reactor experiments.
Dr. Poston’s 25 years of space reactor experience has been primarily focused on near-term concepts for solar system exploration (including designs for missions to the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune). In addition, Dr. Poston has developed several Nuclear Thermal Rocket (NTR) design concepts for NASA over the past several years.
Prior to his experience at Los Alamos, Dr. Poston worked at GE Nuclear Energy for four years on advanced reactor design. Dr. Poston received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, an MS in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley, and a PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Michigan.
This year’s global Mars Society conference will be free of charge (although donations are welcome). For full registration details, please click here. Regular updates, including a list of confirmed speakers, will be posted in the coming weeks on the Mars Society web site and its social media platforms.
