Bill Emrich

Background

About Bill Emrich

Dr. Bill Emrich is a retired senior researcher at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center where he worked from 1987 until 2021 on various advanced propulsion concepts such as solar thermal propulsion, fusion propulsion, and nuclear thermal propulsion. He was the developer and principal investigator of the Nuclear Thermal Rocket Element Environmental Simulator (NTREES) which is a facility used to test the performance of prototypic nuclear rocket fuel elements in representative non-nuclear environments. Bill is a registered professional engineer and a fellow in the ASME and an associate fellow in the AIAA. He was also named the AIAA 2015 Engineer of the Year for his work in nuclear rocket propulsion. In honor of this achievement, the city of Huntsville Alabama designated July 27, 2015 as Dr. Bill Emrich Day and the Alabama legislature presented him with a special citation celebrating his work in the field of nuclear rocket propulsion. Currently, Bill works as an adjunct instructor at the University of Alabama Huntsville where he periodically teaches a graduate course on nuclear rocket propulsion based on a textbook he has written on the subject entitled “Principles of Nuclear Rocket Propulsion”.