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Who is Larry Klaes?
From time to time you will see the name "Larry Klaes" pop up in various places
on this web site. Larry is a member of The Planetary Society and is the Vice President of the Boston Chapter of the National Space Society. He is an ardent supporter of The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)
and is the Northeastern U.S. Regional Coordinator for The
SETI League as well as being the coordinator for The
Columbus Optical SETI Observatory. He is also the former editor of SETIQuest magazine as well as the co-founder and
former editor of the Electronic
Journal of the Astronomical Society of the Atlantic (EJASA). He has written many
articles for various publications; among them are: Alien Spaceships, SETI, and Public
Perceptions; The Soviets and
Venus Part I , II & III; Astronomy and the
Family; The Rocky Soviet
Road to Mars; and The One Dream Man:
Robert H. Goddard, Rocket Pioneer. He also has a web page covering the
"Jan Brady" of the American space program, Project Gemini.
I first became acquainted with Larry Klaes in 1991, when I received an
email from him inviting me to contribute an article on Optical SETI to the EJASA.
He had been reading my Radobs postings to the Ohio State SETI
Group bulletin board, which from time to time I also copied to NASA-Ames and various news
groups, such as sci.space and sci.astro. The result of that invitation was the six-part EJASA article that was published in January
1992. The EJASA article, which was widely distributed on the Internet and by floppy
disk, led in turn to me being asked by SPIE and
Monte Ross to organize a conference on
Optical SETI (1993). Around the same time that Larry first contacted me, Carl Helmers of Helmers Publishing, Inc., also made contact via
email, again after reading my Radobs postings to the news groups. In 1993, I put
Larry and Carl in touch with each other, which resulted in Larry becoming the first editor
for Carl's new enterprise, SETIQuest, first published in
September 1994. My OSETI activities had convinced Carl that the time was right for a
magazine devoted to all things "SETI". Larry can be considered to be the
catalyst for the 1993 and 1996 OSETI
conferences and my acquaintance with OSETI pioneer, Monte Ross.
In turn, this "connection" may have led to Monte's new
Laser Museum/OSETI Observatory.
Over the years, Larry has remained in regular contact. It was in May
1995 that I first met Larry on my way back from a trip to England while I waited at
Boston's Logan airport for a connecting flight to Columbus. I met Larry for the
second time last November (see photograph above) when I was in the Boston area on business
and attending SPIE's Photonic East Symposium/IEEE's LEOS. It afforded me the
opportunity to meet his wife Lorena and his small son Alex for the first time. One
of the things I discussed that evening with Lorena was a logo for
The COSETI Observatory. Ideas from that meeting have been incorporated into the logo
on this web site, though this logo is still under development. Larry continues to
give me helpful comments and information for this web site, and assist in the general
promotion of the optical approach to SETI. See Larry's review of the film Contact and his comments on the Oscar
Nominations.
Adam Jacob Klaes, born on November 6, 1997 at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, weighing
9 lbs, 10 oz and 22" long.
Boston Museum of Science, September 5, 1998
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