The next lecture on the Oak Ridge Isochronous Observation Net (ORION) will be on Wednesday, August 18th at 7pm via Zoom.
The speaker will be Thomas Harrison of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the title of his talk will be “NASA’s Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Program and ORNL”. The lecture is public. If you would like to attend this talk, the Zoom Meeting ID is (885) 2873 5960 and the passcode is 716689. You can also follow this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88528735960?pwd=KzY4bnBHcjlhTzg3L3pOcjY0TFovUT09.
Harrison will provide an overview of the work the ORNL is doing for NASA’s Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) program. ORNL conducts research on materials, fuels, instrumentation and control components and techniques, and systems analysis, all of which, according to the press release, are critical to the successful use of NTP. During the presentation, Harrison will outline some of the challenges facing the technology and the methods that ORNL researchers are using to overcome them.
Harrison is currently the head of the Advanced Nuclear System Safety and Licensing Group at ORNL. He has been with ORNL since May 2010. While at ORNL, he has worked in a variety of roles on several different projects including non-proliferation, nuclear fuel cycle analysis, advanced reactor analysis, advanced reactor licensing and nuclear safety. His current responsibilities include Harrison as project manager for ORNL’s work in the National Nuclear Security Administration’s International Nuclear Security Program and for ORNL’s work in NASA’s Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Program. Prior to ORNL, Harrison worked in nuclear criticality safety engineering at Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS) in Erwin, Tennessee, and as a nuclear reactor design and analysis engineer at the Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory.
Harrison holds BS, MS, and Ph.D. Studied nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee. He is a registered professional engineer and associate professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at UT.
ORION is an Oak Ridge-based amateur science and astronomy club founded in April 1974 by a group of scientists from the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge facility. The purpose is to promote learning and research in the cities of Oak Ridge and Knoxville, as well as Anderson, Knox and Roane counties. Topics covered include physics, solar system astronomy, and education.
Comments are closed.