Freeman Dyson

(1923 - 2020)

After serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II, Freeman Dyson joined the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, to research quantum theory under J. Robert Oppenheimer. In 1958 he began working on Project Orion, an effort to develop a spacecraft propelled by nuclear detonations; the project was abandoned five years later. In a 1997 speech, Dyson discussed the possibility of finding life on Mars and on Jupiter’s moon Europa, where he hoped “we shall find our habitats already growing…waiting for us to move in.”