(Left to right) Kathryn Thornton, Eric Anderson, and Gregory Olsen

A space tourist, an astronaut, and a businessman who makes space travel possible presented three different viewpoints about extraterrestrial visits during a lecture on November 18 as part of the Distinguished Lecturer Series.

Gregory Olsen, only the third civilian astronaut to travel into space, Kathryn Thornton, a NASA astronaut, and Eric Anderson, president and CEO of Space Adventures, a company which provides commercial space flights, talked about the subject in a discussion moderated by Gordon Schmidt, professor, exercise and movement sciences.

While Thornton, a veteran of numerous space fights, provided a look into the ongoing NASA space program, Olsen related the details of his October 2005 trip into space and his reasons for pursuing a space flight.

“During the flight I performed various experiments,” Olsen says. “But now that I’m back the real work starts and that’s trying to get young people interested in science and space.”

Anderson, whose company arranged for Olsen’s flight, believes that commercial space flight is in its earliest days. “Only a few people can afford commercial space flight now, and it’s people like Olsen who make it possible for others to fly later on.”