Space tourist, financier to speak at Purdue
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. —Businessman, rocket scientist and space traveler, Dennis Tito, will spend the day at Purdue University and wrap up his visit with a talk Thursday (April 27).Tito will tour College of Engineering and Discovery Park facilities and give a presentation, "Flight to Station Alpha and Beyond," at 7:30 p.m. in Forney Hall of Chemical Engineering Lecture Hall, G140. The talk is free and open to the public, but seating is limited.
Tito became the first space tourist when he paid the Russian space program $20 million for an eight-day trip into space. On April 28, 2001, Tito joined a Russian crew as they launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, in a Russian Soyuz capsule for a trip to the International Space Station.
He worked for five years in the 1960s as a rocket scientist in NASA's jet-propulsion laboratory where he applied computer technologies to plot the spacecraft's path for the Mariner missions to Mars and Venus. He then plotted the course for the Mariner 4, the first spacecraft to photograph another planet. Tito also collaborated on the design of the Mariner 9, the first spacecraft to orbit another planet.
In 1972, Tito left NASA to begin a career in finance. He went on to become the founder and CEO of Wilshire Associates Inc., a global investment technology, consulting and management firm located in Santa Monica, Calif. In 1974, he created the stock index now known as the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Index, which is used by the Federal Reserve as a barometer of the U.S. stock market. He also is credited with helping to develop quantitative analysis, which uses mathematical tools to calculate market risks.
Tito earned a bachelor's of science in astronautics and aeronautics from New York University College of Engineering. He earned a master's degree in engineering science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. RPI also presented him with an honorary doctorate in engineering.
Tito's tour of campus will include a visit to the wind tunnel and flight simulator, as well as a tour of the Birck Nanotechnology Center in Discovery Park and the Envision Center, located in the Purdue Memorial Union.
Writer: Kiersti Kjonaas, (765) 494-2081, kkjonaas@purdue.edu
Source: Michael Stitsworth, director, College of Engineering Advancement, (765) 494-0164, mstitsworth@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu
Note to Journalists: Dennis Tito will be available from 1:30-2 p.m. in Purdue Memorial Union, Room 118. Media interested in interviewing Dennis Tito should contact Kiersti Kjonaas at (765) 494-2081, kkjonaas@purdue.edu.
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College of Engineering Advancement
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