BANQUET and KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Saturday night's banquet featured William K. Hartmann as our keynote speaker. Dr. Hartmann is known internationally for planetary research as well as for his writing and painting. He served on NASA's Mars Global Surveyor imaging team (1997-present) as well as the Mariner 9 Mars mapping team (1971-73).

With Dr. Don Davis of PSI, Hartmann is credited with originating the

  William K. Hartmann - Photo courtesy Amy Hartmann
modern theory of the  origin of the moon (1975) and asteroid number 3341 is named after him in recognition of his planetary research. His astronomical paintings have been in many books and exhibitions. He was the first winner of the Carl Sagan Medal of the American Astronomical
Society for communicating planetary science to the public (1997), was elected a Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science (2001) and is a co-winner of the Rucorn-Florensky Medal of the European Geophysical Society for work on cratering (2002). He has published numerous popular science books, including Grand Tour: A Traveler's Guide to the Solar System, a novel about Mars (Mars Underground, 1997) and a novel about the southwest (Cities of Gold, 2002). Dr. Hartmann returned to CONTACT as a veteran of our first conference over 20 years ago.