You’ll want to bookmark the 100 Year Starship Initiative‘s new site, which just came online. From the mission statement:
100 Year Starship will pursue national and global initiatives, and galvanize public and private leadership and grassroots support, to assure that human travel beyond our solar system and to another star can be a reality within the next century. 100 Year Starship will unreservedly dedicate itself to identifying and pushing the radical leaps in knowledge and technology needed to achieve interstellar flight while pioneering and transforming breakthrough applications to enhance the quality of life on earth. We will actively include the broadest swath of people in understanding, shaping, and implementing our mission.
And check here for news about the 2012 public symposium, which will be held in Houston from September 13-16. Quoting from that page:
This year, 2012, DARPA gave its stamp of approval to and seed funded —100 Year Starship (100YSS)—a private organization to achieve perhaps the most daring initiative ever in space exploration: human travel beyond our solar system to another star!
Meeting the challenge of 100YSS will be as or even more transformative to our global world as Sputnik or DARPA’s commercialization of the ARPA net that became the Internet. Make no mistake; this is not your grandfathers’ space program. 100YSS—An Inclusive, Audacious Journey Transforms Life Here on Earth and Beyond.”
Join us in Houston, September 13-16, 2012 at the 100YSS Public Symposium as the journey begins!
This is fantastic. I will try to be at this event too. I thought the last one was great. Thanks for the link.
I certainly would like to go also at this event, but going every year across the Atlantic would be quite expensive if there is not a strong incentive.
IMO what is at stake for the new 100YSS is to spawn hobbyists clubs similar to what existed for micro-computers in the 70: People tinkering with real stuff.
Among things that what would attract me would be more demos (last year there was only one, very interesting but not related to interstellar travel), visits to Houston NASA premises, conferences on topics aiming at educating people like me who is enthusiast but not a scientist, possibility of meeting people with a focused interest and aiming at concrete results and less grand concepts such as entanglement, exotic matter or mirrors the size of the solar system. For example post Notario warp drive type demos using meta-material, scale down model of fission fragment rockets, a Woodward effect demo. It would be also nice to have a library of selected modern books about interstellar travel. If possible some hardware exhibition such as Polywell, Vasmir and many other things!
Jean-Pierre
I attended Orlando–a short drive from my home in Naples, and managed to meet the Benfords, Sheila Kanani, Adam Crowl, a gaggle of SF writers, and other famous personages, not the least of which was our own Paul Gilster.
I surely wish that the talks I missed were made available, though; every presentation was video-recorded. Nary a whisper about those videos, although there are a few interviews by Ms. Kanani available.
Too bad. Perhaps Paul has some insight into the situation?
The event was exceptional, I must say. I’ll be there in Houston and can’t wait to see who presenting.
It was a pleasure to meet you in Orlando, Michael! Re those videos, I have had no further word on when they will be made available, but maybe someone in the 100 Year Starship organization can weigh in on this. I had heard they would be on the Net not long after the symposium, but that obviously hasn’t happened.