AIAA Los Angeles Section Town Hall Meeting 4/26
Aerospace Engineering to Cool the Earth
The Planetary Sunshade Foundation’s Technical Director Jeff Overbeek and Executive Director Morgan Goodwin were the featured speakers at the AIAA Los Angeles Section Town Hall Meeting on 4/26/2025.
Speakers:
Jeff Overbeek
Technical Director, Planetary Sunshade Foundation
Chief Operating Officer , Ethos Space Resources
Dr. Marty Bradley (Moderator / Brief Introduction)
Sustainable Aviation Consultant & Fellow of the AIAA,
Adjunct Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Practice at USC.
Jeff Overbeek
Technical Director, Planetary Sunshade Foundation
Chief Operating Officer, Ethos Space Resources
Jeff was the driving force behind the founding of Ethos. Jeff is a leader in operations and safety who is passionate about minimizing the impacts of climate change. He sees the eventual necessity of a planetary sunshade and is now working to accelerate it.
Jeff previously spent 12 years at SpaceX as one of the first test operations engineers at the propulsion test site. He went on to the Launch team to build each SpaceX Falcon 9 launch site and was in the launch control centers for the initial 5 years. He later founded the launch reliability group, which put in place the tools and processes that support how SpaceX launches rockets every 3 days.
Jeff has also worked with Boeing, Firefly, Relativity, and Vast. He holds a Certificate in Aviation System Safety & Security from USC, and a BS in Aerospace Engineering from California State University, Long Beach. He holds a Navy Achievement Medal for his environmental cleanup efforts as a Sergeant of US Marines.
Aerospace Engineering to Cool the Earth
A planetary sunshade could reduce solar radiation, offsetting the impact of global warming on the earth. There are many advantages to this form of solar radiation management, but historically this concept has been dismissed as infeasible. Not anymore. Meet Jeff Overbeek, Technical Director for the Sunshade Foundation. Jeff is also the COO of Ethos Space Resources and previously worked for SpaceX for 12 years, building the launchpads for falcon 9.
Jeff will present the latest thinking on the architecture for a Sunshade constellation and how it could be built with current technology. By using space resources, the 75 megaton structure could be constructed at Sun-Earth Lagrange 1 at a fraction of the cost of an earth-launched system.
Dr. Marty Bradley
(Moderator, Introduction speaker)
Sustainable Aviation Consultant & Fellow of the AIAA,
Adjunct Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Practice at USC,
Senior Technical Fellow for electric aircraft and sustainability at Electra.aero,
Retired Boeing Technical Fellow for advanced technology concepts and propulsion
Dr. Marty Bradley, Sustainable Aviation Consultant and Educator, (mkbradle@usc.edu). Dr. Bradley is a AIAA Fellow with 39 years of aerospace experience and is now a consultant and educator focused on sustainable aviation. He is an Adjunct Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Practice at USC and teaches AIAA short courses in Sustainable Aviation and Electric Aircraft.