Peter was born in San Francisco. A father of three teenage girls and a husband to a yoga teacher,
he has spent most of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area.
In 1987 he received a BA in Computer Science from University of California at Santa Cruz (go Banana Slugs!)
In 1988 he began his tenure at NASA Ames Research Center.
Peter’s technical work is the application of  model-based reasoning methods to “check engine light” for rockets.
Such technologies have long been in movies such as 2001 and Terminator 2 and are now slowly making their way into real spacecraft.

From early on as a small child, Peter loved space and its great mystery.
It began as a little boy watching grainy black and white television images of astronauts walking and hopping around on the moon.
It was followed by many sleepless nights pondering the illogic of an infinite universe.
When Voyager spacecraft pictures from Jupiter came back with the red eye looking at him, he asked “how did they get the film back?”
When the Viking lander took pictures of the setting sun with the red rocks all around,
he felt the loneliness of the lander about to spend a winter on Mars.

From early on as a small child Peter also loved the arts including poetry, photography and music.
He began playing bassoon in 7th grade when the music teacher said that there are too many clarinets
and no bassoons. The bassoon always provides the conductor with an instrument that can either be extremely serious
or also be a joke. It very nature has always provide Peter guidance that has continued to this day.

The opportunity to play music with the International Space Orchestra, to play
some low bassoon notes deep into space is an honor! Emily Dickinson has a quote:
“Nature is a haunted house–but Art–is a house that tries to be haunted”
The opportunity is to integrate the nature of outer space with music is truly a gift.
Let the haunting begin!