"The Exoplanet Sleuth Behind NASA's Kepler Mission"
Bill Borucki is the man behind NASA's decision to build and launch the first spacecraft capable of finding Earth-size planets orbiting other stars, Kepler. Of course Borucki was part of a team of scientists, computer scientists, engineers, and educators at the SETI Institute; however, he was the man steering the Kepler mission through navigating the maze of changing requirements, reallocated funding, technical issues, and political challenges.
Borucki grew up in Delevan, Wiscosin as a budding young scientist- he was president of the school's science club- and progressed from there. After earning both a B.S. and M.S. in physics, Borucki applied and earned his dream job at NASA. Then he worked at the Theoretical Studies Branch where they studied the atmospheres of Earth and other planets and built theoretical models of the atmosphere to understand how mankind's influence would change it. His interests emerged and he wrote two papers on his thinking about how photometry and spectrometry could be used to find other planets.
Finally, in 2000 he proposed a planet-finding mission to NASA, in response to a call for Discovery mission proposals, and the Kepler Mission was selected as the 10th Discovery Mission in December 2001. Although the mission encountered plenty of obstacles before finally launching, Bill Borucki and his team worked together to overcome them and successfully embark on a mission that could change our view of our world (and others) as we know it.
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