William Borucki is a space scientist at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. He first worked on the development of the heat shield for the Apollo Mission in the Hypersonic Free Flight Branch. After the successful Moon landings, he transferred to the Theoretical Studies Branch where he investigated lightning activity in planetary atmospheres and developed mathematical models to predict the effects of nitric oxides and chlorofluoromethanes on the Earth's ozone layer. Currently he is the Science Principal Investigator for the Kepler Mission that will determine the frequency of Earth-size planets orbiting in the habitable zone of other stars. See also article/interview.