Director of Rice Space Institute available to comment on final launch of Atlantis

David Ruth
713-348-6327
druth@rice.edu

Jade Boyd
713-348-6778
jadeboyd@rice.edu

Director of Rice Space Institute available to comment on final launch of Atlantis

Patricia Reiff, director of the Rice Space Institute at Rice University in Houston, is available to comment on the final launch of Atlantis and the end of the historic space shuttle program.

Atlantis is scheduled to launch at 11:26 a.m. EDT Friday from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.; according to some predictions, up to 1 million people will travel to Florida to witness the launch firsthand.

Reiff has conducted numerous media interviews regarding space travel and has been a live ”play-by-play” commentator for a space shuttle launch. She is available this week for pre- and post-launch interviews.

Reiff’s research focuses on space plasma physics, mostly in the area of magnetospheric physics. Her research interests include studies of the interactions between the solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field. She has been involved in data analysis for a number of spacecraft, including NASA’s Apollo moon missions.

She was the first person to propose radio sounding of the magnetosphere, a key element of the IMAGE mission launched by NASA in 2000. Reiff has also led dozens of public education and public outreach projects over the past 20 years. Her “Space Update” software has been used by more than a million museum visitors, and CDs of the software and its companions, “Earth Update” and “Space Weather,” have been distributed free to more than 220,000 science teachers and students. In 2009, she received the American Geophysical Union’s Athelstan Spilhaus Award for her lifetime commitment to public education and public science outreach.

Members of the news media who want to speak with Reiff should contact Jade Boyd, Rice University science editor and associate director of News and Media Relations, at jadeboyd@rice.edu or 713-348-6778.