Belcourt Theatre Nashville, TN
Tracie Prater
Technical management, Space Habitat Systems Development at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
2001: A Space Odyssey— Engineering life in space
Program Description
In this pre-recorded talk, Tracie Prater of NASA's Space Habitat Systems Development team shares how agency engineers make life in space possible.
Presented At
Belcourt Theatre Nashville, TN
Film Synopsis
Humanity finds a mysterious, obviously artificial object buried beneath the Lunar surface and, with the intelligent computer HAL 9000, sets off on a quest.
Dr. Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) and other astronauts are sent on a mission to discover the origin of a mysterious monolith discovered beneath the Lunar surface. As the team heads toward Jupiter, their ship's computer system, HAL, begins to display increasingly strange behavior, leading to a tense showdown between man and machine that results in a mind-bending trek through space and time. Director Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's best-selling book is a landmark production, perhaps the most respected science-fiction film of all time. The groundbreaking special effects and trippy visuals offer a mix of imagination and science, and the film itself serves as a profound commentary on man's relation to machines, the universe, and life itself.
About the Speaker
Tracie Prater supports technical management in the Habitat Systems Development organization at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Prior to this role, she was a materials engineer serving as the laboratory lead for the in-space manufacturing project and a subject matter expert for NASA’s Centennial Challenges prize competition program. She has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Vanderbilt University and is a senior member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Her hobbies include travel, reading, and watching movies.