While earning his BA in Information Science at UC Santa Cruz, in 1978 Al’s roommate was hired to clean out someone’s garage.  He was given, and brought home, a stack of Co-Evolutionary Quarterly issues, including one on
space settlement.  It blew Al’s mind.  He knew we just had to build these things, so he went to NASA Ames Research Center to write software, eventually working on the Hubble Space Telescope, the International Space Station, the effect of zero-g on bone, visualization of fluid flows around launch vehicles, molecular nanotechnology, and much else. See this site for details, including full text of most of his research papers.

In the early 80s Al conducted research into teleoperation of lunar rovers and in the early nineties designed the Lewis One space settlement. He’s published on space settlement, space solar power, asteroid mining and more. In the mid-90s, he initiated the annual NASA/NSS Student Space Settlement Design Contest, which continues today with over 1,000 kids a year.  Early in 2006 he was invited to be chairman of the National Space Society’s Space Settlement Advocacy Committee and sits on the board.  See this site for his space settlement work.

Mr. Globus is currently a Senior Engineering Associate for Human Factors Research and Technology at San Jose State University at NASA Ames Research Center. He’s been a visiting research associate at the Molecular Engineering Laboratory in the chemistry department of the University of California at Santa Cruz, his alma mater. He has won many awards, including NASA Software of the Year and the 1997 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology for Theoretical Work.