It’s hard to believe that the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences has been going strong now for nearly 50 years! In fact, we will be holding a 50th Anniversary Symposium next year, May 20-22, and preparations are already underway. In addition to great science presentations, this will be a fantastic opportunity to visit with colleagues and old friends. We are planning a group dinner at the McDonnell Planetarium for attendees.

The Center has grown! We now have over 100 members and affiliates, including faculty fellows, research scientists and staff, postdoctoral scholars, graduate student fellows, and summer interns. The science being done by our members is phenomenal.

Owing to our growth, we have made two important additions. Mike Nowak has been appointed as our new associate director, bringing his tremendous expertise in astrophysics. He will play a vital role in keeping us up to date with Physics activities and contributing to our long-term planning. Another is our communications specialist, Alison Verbeck. Alison is working to promote the achievements of our members and raising awareness about MCSS-related events. She also produces the MCSS Messenger and works hard to keep our website up to date.

Mission involvement is a major area of opportunity for us. Our members are involved in design and development of instruments for flight opportunities, high altitude and orbital experiments, payloads for lunar and planetary exploration, proposing Probe-class astrophysics and New Frontiers planetary science missions, and on science teams for flagship missions. Our researchers and laboratories are busy studying the wide range of planetary and astromaterials brought to Earth. And our theorists are engaged in improving our understanding of the origin and evolution of our solar system and its planets as well as other solar systems, the characteristics of high-energy astrophysical phenomena and multi-messenger signals, the nature of dark matter, and tests of quantum field theory and the standard model of particle physics. MCSS supports these kinds of activities which bring recognition to our departments, the School of Arts & Sciences, and the University. We live in a truly exciting time for space science and must convey this excitement to our students, the University, and the general public.

I leave you with this quote from Victor Hugo, which has been for many years a motto for the McDonnell Center: “Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the grander view?” Nearly 50 years after the inception of the Center, we continue to be inspired by these words and amazed at what we see.