Boeing continues to help our aeronautical students receive practical "hands-on" experience which provide such an important part of our students' academic program. To express our gratitude to The Boeing Company for its generosity over the years and to honor the memory of its founder, Purdue University established the William E. Boeing Distinguished Lecture Series.

Administered through the School of Aeronautics & Astronautics the first lecture took place on September 30, 1999 and the series features an internationally-known speaker from the aerospace or air transportation industry.

The 2010 lecture entitled “Our Nation’s Future in Space” took place on September 7at Fowler Hall, Stewart Center and featured Maj. General Charles F. Bolden Jr. who was named NASA’s 12^th Administrator in July 2009. As an astronaut, he flew four Space Shuttle missions, two as commander, from 1986 to 1994, including deployment of the Hubble Space Telescope and the first joint U.S-Russian Space Shuttle mission.  Bolden was named to the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2006.

During his visit, General Bolden visited the Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering and met with the participants of a poster session and 4^th and 5^th grade students who were taking part in an activity put on by FIRST Robotics. Poster participants from AAE included were Prof. Stephen Collicott, Prof. Kathleen Howell, Prof. Wayne Chen and Professor by Courtesy H. Jay Melosh, Distinguished Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Physics.

He later met Prof. Stephen Heister and Prof. Bill Anderson the Zucrow lab for a tour of the facilities and a tour of the Aerospace Sciences lab by Prof. Steven Schneider.

Dr. Tom Shih introduced Purdue president Dr. France Córdova who graciously introduced her former colleague Gen. Bolden at the start of the lecture which was broadcast live via webcast on the College of Engineering web page.