Cameron Smith last joined us just over a year ago with an essay on human interstellar migration in the context of biological evolution. Here he turns to issues of culture and change over time. An anthropologist and prehistorian at Portland State University in Oregon, Dr. Smith brings insights he has gained in the study of the early human experience on Earth to the manifold problems confronting us as we head for the stars. His current work on interstellar issues is part of his engagement with Project Hyperion, an attempt by Icarus Interstellar to develop parameters and reference studies for a multi-generational worldship. Be aware of Dr. Smith's excellent recent volume Emigrating Beyond Earth: Human Adaptation and Space Colonization (Springer-Praxis, 2013), and ponder the synergies that occur between the study of past human migrations and the ongoing cultural and biological evolution of a species aspiring to leave the world that gave it birth. by Cameron M. Smith, PhD 1. Biological...

Nick Nielsen's new essay follows up his speculations on interstellar infrastructure with a look at the kind of starships we might one day build. The consequences are profound. What if we master interstellar technologies without needing the Solar System-wide infrastructure many of us assume will precede them? A civilization's interstellar 'footprint' would be radically altered if this is the case, and evidence of mega-engineering among the stars sharply constrained. Then too, how we view what is possible could be transformed by breakthroughs in biology and longevity, all part of the mix as we look at what Nick calls 'undetermined nodes in future history." by J. N. Nielsen In my previous Centauri Dreams post, The Infrastructure Problem, I sought to make a distinction between fundamentally different forms that a spacefaring civilization might take, one tending toward primarily planetary-based infrastructure, and another tending toward primarily space-based infrastructure. I am always...

Today begins Heath Rezabek's survey as we look at the curation of a booklist on interstellar flight, using as basis a list of books I've gradually accumulated over the years. Before Heath introduces the survey, a few words about my methods: Many of the books listed below are ones that I used in preparing my 2005 book Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration. But in the time since, I've added a number of more recent titles. I'm hoping this curation project will reveal other books that may be useful as we flesh out the list. Please glance over the entire list and be thinking of additional possibilities as you engage with Heath's survey. As to the choices made, these are non-fiction science books, although several recent titles contain a mix of non-fiction and science fiction stories. Feel free to suggest SF titles that specifically broaden our thinking about interstellar flight -- we can either integrate them into the main list or develop a second list focused...

As a librarian with a futuristic bent, Heath Rezabek has developed the Vessel Project as a way of studying how we can preserve our knowledge and culture against future risk. That work -- and Heath's ongoing engagement with the Long Now Foundation -- asks what we might put into a long-term archive housing the essence of our community. Finding the answers involves 'community curation,' asking varying interest groups to develop and discuss their choices. We're going to run such a survey with the Centauri Dreams readership, helping to firm up a shortlist of books on interstellar topics that I've been wanting to return to for some time. That list will appear tomorrow, but today Heath explains strategies for building archives to represent communities like the one that clusters here around interstellar flight. by Heath Rezabek In my first Centauri Dreams installment, I noted that I had recently begun an Internship with the Long Now foundation, assisting and advising in their initial...

We last heard from Karl Schroeder in his essay Creative Constraints and Starflight, published here back in March. Schroeder was describing his new novel Lockstep, whose ingenious plot is in the service of a daring idea: If we are limited to speeds well less than that of light, can we still find a way to achieve the kind of deep space civilization we've seen depicted in so much science fiction? That would include travel to far places within single human lifetimes, trade with colony worlds, and much of the panoply of what is sometimes called 'space opera.' Schroeder's solution is ingenious and challenges the preconceptions most of us bring to interstellar flight, which is why I want to return to Lockstep this morning. I had read a pre-publication copy late in 2013 and found that it triggered some incipient thoughts on how we relate to time that I needed to work out. In particular, not only in Karl's work but in Neal Stephenson's and, to an extent, in Alastair Reynolds', I've found a...