Charles Simonyi Discusses Trip to International Space Station

Space flight is still a very rare and exotic experience that has only recently been open to "tourists," officially known as spaceflight participants. Dr. Charles Simonyi, Trustee of the Institute for Advanced Study and President and CEO of Intentional Software Corporation, was the fifth of these and the 450th person in space. On Thursday, October 25 at
4:30 p.m., he will present "Space Tourist," a public lecture on his experience that will be held in Wolfensohn Hall on the Institute's campus.
Under a contract with Space Adventures and the Russian Space Agency, Dr. Simonyi traveled in a Russian-built Soyuz spacecraft to visit the International Space Station (ISS), and returned on another Soyuz, landing in central Kazakhstan after a 14-day stay in space. Parts of the Soyuz system date back to the beginning of the Space Age 50 years ago with the launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957.
In his talk, Dr. Simonyi will describe the six-month training process and the flight itself from the point of view of a knowledgeable civilian, with particular emphasis on the issues of system reliability, traditions, and health aspects. The lecture will be followed by a question-and-answer period.
A Trustee of the Institute since 1997 and President of the Corporation since 2003, Dr. Simonyi will become Chairman of the Institute's Board of Trustees in October 2008. The Hungarian-born Dr. Simonyi earned a B.S. in engineering and mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1972, and his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University in 1977. He worked at the renowned Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) from 1972 until 1980, where he did most of the design and the critical implementation work on Bravo, the first WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editor, and led the team that built it. In 1981, Dr. Simonyi joined Microsoft to start the development of microcomputer application programs, and was responsible for hiring and managing teams who developed such well-known programs as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Multiplan and others. For this work, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and the Hungarian Academy of Science. He left Microsoft in 2002 to start the Intentional Software Corporation, which aims to improve software productivity.
Dr. Simonyi's involvement with the Institute began in 1996, and over the years, he has supported a range of academic activities, including endowing the Charles Simonyi Professorship in Theoretical Physics in the Institute's School of Natural Sciences, currently held by Edward Witten. Dr. Simonyi has also provided substantial funding for the Institute's School of Mathematics, helping to ensure the School's financial independence to select the very best Members, many from abroad. Simonyi Hall, which houses the School of Mathematics, was dedicated in May 2000 in recognition of Dr. Simonyi's participation in the life of the Institute community and his commitment to the work that takes place here.
In 2005, the Institute received an unrestricted cash gift of $25 million from the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences, which was the largest donation since the founding of the Institute. The gift was named The Karoly Simonyi Memorial Endowment Fund, in honor of Dr. Simonyi's late father, an esteemed professor of electrical engineering.
For further information about "Space Tourist," which is free and open to the public, please call (609) 734-8175, or visit the Public Events page on the Institute website, www.ias.edu.