Explorers Club Annual Dinner To Celebrate Next Generation Exploration: Frontiers, Technology, Innovators

NEW YORK, Feb. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- What is fueling the next generation of exploration? Is it insatiable curiosity, new technologies, enduring spirit, or an extraordinary and exciting combination of all three?

These are some of the challenges that will face more than 1,000 of the world's foremost explorers and guests at the 114th Explorers Club Annual Dinner at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square New York, on Saturday March 10, 2018.

Headlining the Dinner and joining the world's leading explorers, scientists, and researchers will be 2018 Award Recipients Captain James A. Lovell, Jeff Bezos, Dr. Edith Widder, and "new explorers" Dr. Gino Caspari and Trevor Wallace; plus world-renowned entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari, the first female private space explorer, will provide opening remarks on the future of exploration.

• Captain James A. Lovell, whose groundbreaking spaceflights include Apollo 8 — man's maiden voyage to the Moon — and the legendary voyage of Apollo 13. His heroic efforts to maintain the command module after an oxygen tank exploded would later be portrayed by Academy Award-winner Tom Hanks in the 1995 film, Apollo 13. Lovell carried an Explorers Club Flag on both Apollo Missions and will receive the coveted Explorers Club Medal.
  
  
• Jeff Bezos, best known as the founder of Amazon.com, will receive The Buzz Aldrin Space Exploration Award for the accomplishments of his aerospace company Blue Origin, which has increased safety and accessibility of space travel. In 2015, Blue Origin's reusable rocket, New Shepard, made history with the first-ever vertical soft landing of a booster rocket from space. In 2014, Bezos and his team received The Explorers Club Citation of Merit for recovering the F-1 engines of the Saturn V rocket that sent Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon.

Honoring the Next Generation of Exploration

Also being honored by The Explorers Club: Edith A. Widder, Ph.D., winner of the Citation of Merit for her passionate study of oceanic bioluminescence which led her to develop new ways of exploring the deep sea, and David A. Dolan, winner of the Edward C. Sweeney Medal for combining his passion for exploration with humanitarian service, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya to raise funds to fight poverty.

Additionally, Gino Caspari, Ph.D., and Trevor Wallace will receive the New Explorers Award for making archaeological exploration and discovery accessible to a broader audience, and raising awareness of the destruction of cultural heritage caused by looting and the illegal art trade with their documentary Frozen Corpses Golden Treasures. 

Ticket and table purchasers for the Annual Dinner on March 10 may also be eligible to attend other Annual Weekend events. For more information or to purchase tickets, call The Explorers Club at 212-628-8383 x.13 or visit www.explorers.org.

The Explorers Club was founded in New York City in 1904. It is a multidisciplinary, not for profit (501c-3) organization dedicated to scientific exploration of the oceans; land; the air; and space by supporting research and education in the physical, natural and biological sciences. The Club's members have been responsible for an illustrious series of famous firsts: first to the North Pole, first to the South Pole, first to the summit of Mount Everest, first to the deepest point in the ocean, and first to the surface of the moon. With 3,400 members worldwide, the organization has its headquarters at 46 East 70th Street, New York, N.Y. 10021. Tel. (212) 628-8383; www.explorers.org.

SOURCE The Explorers Club

Related Links

http://www.explorers.org