Bermudian scientist Gregory (John) Outerbridge says it's just a matter of time before scientists find life in other solar systems.

"It's not IF but when," said Mr. Outerbridge who is here as a lecturer for Corange Science week on at the Bermuda College from Monday to Friday of this week.

"The recipe for life is all throughout this universe," said Mr. Outerbridge. "The biggest thing would be finding life in our own solar system.

"Scientists are looking at probing one of Jupiter's moons which has frozen water on it. It is very icy. They want to stick some probes down into it and go swimming."

Mr. Outerbridge said it is possible because we have already found life on Earth in very hostile environments.

Mr. Outerbridge, 31, was born in Bermuda and raised in Crawl Hill, Hamilton Parish. He left the Island when he was nine years old to live in Huntsville, Alabama.

He is currently pursuing his doctoral degree at the University of Huntsville at Alabama in optical engineering and engineering (OSE).

He has a Bachelor of Science in optical engineering and a Master's degree in physics.

"I can actually attribute a lot of my success to being born here in Bermuda, since I spent my formative years here," he said during an interview with The Royal Gazette. "When I was young here, the very first movie I saw in the theatre was 'Star Wars'. That captured my imagination. I loved 'Star Wars'. I saw all of the movies several times."

Mr. Outerbridge was the son of a Bermudian mason who taught him the value of hard work.

"My father instilled a good work ethic," he said. "He didn't make it as though it was work, he made it a part of the development of boy to man.

"As soon as I could pick up a concrete block, he put one in my hand. He was always building on to our house, so I was always involved in that."

Knowing the value of hard work was something that has helped Mr. Outerbridge over and over again in the pursuit of his dreams.

After high school, he was supporting himself at the age of 18. He worked in a car dealership to launch himself into university. He started off at J.F. Drake State Technical School.

"I didn't come from money," he said. "So I would be at school by 8 a.m. Then I would stay on campus until 3 p.m. Then I worked from 4.30 p.m. until 3.30 a.m."

While working at Motorola on a modem assembly line, his work ethic caught the attention of his supervisors.

"I started off at the back of the line putting a modem in a box," he said. "Then I moved up to sticking a label on a box.

"Then one night the test person didn't show up. So I was working at the test station.

"There was another test station that was right next to it, but that was for someone else. The line was getting backed up, so I worked on that one too."

After working with his father, he considering the testing which consisted of sticking a card into a machine, easy work.

Eventually, Mr. Outerbridge was taken off the floor altogether and put to work in the Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) department working with $90,000 computer equipment.

"One year of experience with that and I was getting phone calls offering me jobs with $100,000 salaries," he said. "It was just because I had learned the software at Motorola, which was considered the most sophisticated software there was at the time. Anyone who knew anything about it got paid a lot of money."

From Drake Technical, he enrolled at the University of Alabama at Huntsville which just happened to have the only accredited optical engineering programme at an undergraduate level in the entire country."

"I was working full time 50 hours a week as a process engineer, while attending university," he said.

Despite the long hours he was able to join two honours societies Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi. He graduated with honours.

"There were times I didn't sleep," he said. "There were times when I worked straight for 37 hours."

After he graduated, he stayed at the same University to obtain a Master's degree in physics and is now nearing completion of his doctoral degree in optical science engineering.

"I couldn't do it without the Bermuda National Training Board," said Mr. Outerbridge. "They are funding me."

He has been doing work in evaluating very thin solar optics.

"I also worked in the atmospheric science department for one of the first scientists to show that the ozone was repairing itself," Mr. Outerbridge said. "He built a lidar. That stands for light detection and ranging. I was the principal operator of that. Then I moved into autonomous rendezvous and docking which was to support the mission to Mars. And that is what I am doing now."

He explained that currently, the space shuttle is aligned to the international space station with essentially a joystick and a huge ground support group.

"In 1997, there was a mishap when a cargo ship slammed into MIR the Russian space station," said Mr. Outerbridge. "That really emphasised the danger of manual docking.

"To go to Mars a lot of those crafts will initially be unmanned. There is a need for a craft to be able to look at another craft, be able to identify it and determine its orientation so that it can be docked with."

The fact that Mars is so far away from Earth also means a signal delay so docking has to be autonomous.

Mr. Outerbridge's advice to other young Bermudians considering science is to take advantage of the scholarship money available in Bermuda.

"You will not find that monetary opportunity in many countries," he said. "The educational opportunities are there."

He also said Bermudians shouldn't try to pick careers based on the availability of jobs in Bermuda.

"They can have a UK passport which will entitle them to work anywhere," he said. "So I would advise them to think big and consider their options and to remember what it is they are supposed to be fighting for. "Education is supposed to be something you do for you. It isn't supposed to be some gift you are giving to society.

"This is something you should want for yourself. The fight is not supposed to be in the street. It is supposed to be applied to life. You don't let anyone take fundamental things away from you. Education is one of those things. "

Corange Science Week is put on by the Division of Liberal Arts at the Bermuda College. It is named for a pharmaceutical company now known as Roche International that donated a million dollars to the Bermuda College to encourage science studies.

Through the grant, the college brings a science lecturer to Bermuda every year.

Mr. Outerbridge will be giving a lecture, 'Optics and Its Role in the Future of Technology' at the Bermuda College tonight in the North Hall in room G301 at 6.30 p.m. Refreshments will be at 6 o'clock.

"I want people to know that there will be lots of pictures and no equations," he said. "I don't want people expecting something boring."

He will also be giving a master class to Bermuda high school and middle school students on Wednesday from 12.30 p.m. to 1.30 p.m. in New Hall N100. That day there will also be a demonstration day for the public and students to look at the various disciplines, chemistry and biology at the Bermuda College from 9.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.