The quickening pace of interstellar conferences in the past couple of years has been an encouraging surprise. If one necessary goal is to energize the public about the human future in space, then these meetings and their media coverage are surely part of the picture. I'm thinking about adding a calendar feature for conferences and other interstellar events to Centauri Dreams. Until then, here are some upcoming items, presented in chronological order. "The Starships ARE Coming" Peter Schwartz, writer, futurist and co-founder of the Global Business Network, will present a talk about starships and the scenarios that could lead to them on September 17th at 7:30 in San Francisco. Coordinated by the Long Now Foundation, the talk will track Schwartz' presentation at the recent Starship Century conference in San Diego. From the Long Now site: Participants included scientists such as Freeman Dyson and Martin Rees and writers such as Gregory Benford and Neal Stephenson. The professional...

How do we ensure the survival of our civilization over future millennia? Yesterday Heath Rezabek discussed installations called Vessels that would contain both archives and habitats to offset existential risk. Today Rezabek's collaborator, author Nick Nielsen, broadens the view with an examination of risk itself and three possible responses for protecting our culture. Nick is the author of two books, The Political Economy of Globalization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000) and Variations on the Theme of Life (Trafford, 2007). In addition to his recent talk at Starship Congress in Dallas, he presented "The Moral Imperative of Human Spaceflight" in 2011 at the 100 Year Starship Symposium in Orlando, and "The Large Scale Structure of Spacefaring Civilization" at the 2012 100YSS conference. In addition, he authors two blogs: Grand Strategy: The View from Oregon and Grand Strategy Annex, focusing on the future of civilization and the philosophical implications of contemporary events. Mr. Nielsen...

At the recent Starship Congress in Dallas, writer, librarian and futurist Heath Rezabek discussed the Vessel Archives proposal -- a strategy for sustaining and conveying Earth's cultural and biological heritage -- which was directly inspired by Gregory Benford's idea of a Library of Life. Working with author Nick Nielsen, Rezabek is concerned with existential risk -- Xrisk -- and the need to ensure the survival of our species and its creations in the event of catastrophe. Rezabek and Nielsen's presentation was the runner up for the Alpha Centauri Prize awarded at the Congress, and it was so compelling that I asked the two authors to offer a version of it on Centauri Dreams. Heath's work follows below, while we'll look at Nick's in tomorrow's post. Both writers will be returning on a regular basis for updates and further thoughts on their work. by Heath Rezabek Some challenges are too daunting to approach alone. Existential risk is certainly one; bringing a comprehensive strategy to a...

Neil McAleer is probably best known in these pages for his fine biography Visionary: The Odyssey of Arthur C. Clarke (Clarke Project, 2012), but this is just one of his titles. In fact, his book The Omni Space Almanac won the 1988 Robert S. Ball Award from the Aviation and Space Writers Association, and his work has appeared in magazines from Discover to the Smithsonian's Air & Space and in many newspapers. A recent note from Neil reminded me that August 25th marked one year since the death of Neil Armstrong. This reminiscence of the astronaut brings Armstrong wonderfully to mind and gives us a bit more of Clarke, leaving me to wonder only how time has gone by so quickly in the days since the death of both men. McAleer's article also gives me a chance to pause in Starship Congress coverage as I begin to collect papers from many of the presenters, the first of which we'll be looking at a bit later this week. by Neil McAleer From the great deep to the great deep he goes. -- Alfred Lord...

With the beginning of a new week it's time to ponder how best to move forward with coverage not only of the recent Starship Congress in Dallas, but the upcoming 100 Year Starship Symposium in Houston. For that matter, I still have material from the Starship Century event in San Diego, a gathering I was unable to attend but which continues to be available online. The Starship Congress videos are also up for those who missed Dallas, and I'm going to assume the Houston conclave will likewise be recorded. Watching online can't match the interaction and conversation of being there, but getting to hear the presentations is a major plus. What I'll be doing as Houston approaches is continuing to reflect on the conferences I've attended so far this year while also trying to keep up with ongoing news. In the days since Dallas I have continued to speak with a number of presenters who will be joining us, as Charles Quarra did on Friday, with reports on their own work. Several have also agreed to...

Starship Congress, toward which I am headed as you read this, begins on Thursday. In the nine years and counting that I've been writing Centauri Dreams, I've been happy to see how many conferences have taken to archiving or, even better, streaming their proceedings so that those who can't attend can follow along. Live streaming from Starship Congress will be available here, according to Icarus Interstellar. And if you're a Twitter person, the tag for the conference is to be #starshipcon, which should be an active place to watch. Further information here. I'm posting this automatically because today is a travel day, and another conference brings up the inevitable question about how best to cover it. I've tried every method in the book but have learned that so-called 'live blogging' just doesn't work, at least for me. I can crank out constant updates but I wind up with a muddled notion of the big picture and my notes aren't as detailed as I would like. I tried to tweet my way through...

As we approach Starship Congress in Dallas, the Institute for Interstellar Studies has announced the creation of the Alpha Centauri Prize Awards, the first of which will be the 'Progenitor Award,' to be bestowed at this year's Starship Congress on August 18. The winner will receive a certificate and $500 cash award donated by Icarus Interstellar, the organization behind the Dallas meetings. The winner is to be chosen from among those presenting at the Starship Congress. The Dallas gathering that convenes this Thursday will be the third major interstellar conference so far this year, following conclaves in Huntsville (Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop), San Diego (Starship Century) and preceding September's 100 Year Starship Symposium. In addition, a conference on The Philosophy of the Starship was held by I4IS in London in May. In that suddenly quickened climate for interstellar studies the judges for the Alpha Centauri Prize Progenitor Award are being asked to make their...

If you can get your head around the idea that architecture can 'grow' by using the tools of synthetic biology and 'smart' chemistry, you'll see that what goes on inside a starship may be radically different from anything we've imagined before. Rachel Armstrong has done outstanding research in the area of sustainable solutions for both natural and engineered environments, and works daily on design issues raised by new materials. It's not surprising to find Dr. Armstrong involved with Project Persephone, the attempt by Icarus Interstellar to model environments aboard a long-duration starship that might spend centuries or more getting to its destination. Image: Sustainability savant Rachel Armstrong, whose work involves 'living architecture' that makes it possible for buildings to be constructed with some of the attributes of biological systems. Credit: Icarus Interstellar. When Richard Obousy reported in these pages last March about developments at Icarus, he noted the challenges posed...

The creator of the Galaxy Garden (Kona, Hawaii), Jon Lomberg is an artist working in many media whose work continues to resonate in the space community and the public at large. Centauri Dreams readers will know that he worked with Frank Drake in designing the cover for the Voyager Interstellar Record and the sequence of 120 photographs and diagrams portraying Earth and its inhabitants (soon to become the first human artwork to leave the Solar System). But they'll also remember COSMOS, the series for which Jon served as chief artist. In fact, he worked as Carl Sagan's principal artistic collaborator for many years, including key work on the film CONTACT. Here Jon extends his ideas on nature, art and astronomy to venues much larger than the Galaxy Garden itself, a proposal that would model our staggeringly beautiful cosmos. For more on the concept, be aware that Jon discussed these ideas in his talk at the recent Starship Century conference, a video of which is available. by Jon...

This is as strange a maze as e'er men trod, And there is in this business more than nature Was ever conduct of. That's Alonso in Shakespeare's late masterpiece The Tempest, a king of Naples who finds himself on a remote island where Prospero weaves his magical powers. It's an apt passage for Timothy Ferris to quote in his chapter "The Central Nervous System of the Milky Way," a part of the 1992 collection The Mind's Sky that was the basis of yesterday's post. For in an unusual conclusion to the essay, Ferris wonders whether the real purpose of a galactic network (and hence an ultimate goal of SETI) isn't passing along not only our science but our broader culture to other civilizations. "Who knows what importance our existence, or some shard of our thought, might have to a scholar or artist --- whether biological or artificial in origin -- in a remote galaxy in some far-future time?" It's a pleasing thought for a species used to feeling dwarfed by the universe, and it would apply to...

Although I'm taking a break from posting, a recent note from Marc Millis suggests something productive that can happen while I'm gone. The founding architect of the Tau Zero Foundation and former head of NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics project, Marc deals with the issues he asks about below on a daily basis, and so do I. But compiling accurate, non-conflicting information about them can be tricky, which is why we could use your help. Read on. by Marc Millis While Paul is away, I have a request for you. We have a number of questions for which we need some help to find reliable answers. For all of you who have been wanting to help, here now is a chance. When answering these questions, we need to know where you got the information. Please cite the document where you found the information. We are looking for reliable information, so avoid articles that cite values to advocate a particular solution. We have found that some papers skew estimates for such things so that it will...

The charged air of mid-July in the northern hemisphere creates states of mind that can be both nostalgic and surreal. Ray Bradbury always knew how to catch these. Listen: Somewhere, a book said once, all the talk ever talked, all the songs ever sung, still lived, had vibrated way out in space and if you could travel to Far Centauri you could hear George Washington talking in his sleep or Caesar surprised at the knife in his back. So much for sounds. What about light then? All things, once seen, they didn't just die, that couldn't be. It must be then that somewhere, searching the world, perhaps in the dripping multiboxed honeycombs where light was an amber sap stored by pollen-fired bees, or in the thirty thousand lenses of the noon dragonfly's gemmed skull you might find all the colors and sights of the world in any one year. Or pour one single drop of this dandelion wine beneath a microscope and perhaps the entire world of July Fourth would firework out in Vesuvius showers... I love...

I'm looking forward to the upcoming Starship Congress hosted by Icarus Interstellar, which will take place in Dallas from August 15th to the 18th at the Hilton Anatole. With an audience of physicists, engineers and researchers of all kinds, this is a chance to catch up with old friends and firm up relationships that have in some cases been pursued solely through email. 2013 may be remembered as the year of the conference in interstellar terms, since we had the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop in February, Starship Century in May, Starship Congress coming up in August, then the 100 Year Starship Symposium in Houston from September 19th to the 22nd. This doesn't include smaller events like the British Interplanetary Society's excellent Philosophy of the Starship gathering in late May, and if you're in range of BIS headquarters in London, it's worth checking out what's coming up on their always active schedule. But thoughts of indefatigable activity on the interstellar front...

Martin Rees' ideas on how humans will adapt to starflight, discussed here yesterday, offer plenty of ground for speculation and good science fiction. After all, the path ahead forks in many directions, one of them being the continuing development of artificial intelligence to the point where 'artilects' rather than humans become the logical crew for star missions. If decades or even centuries are needed to cross to another system, then this gets around the problem of keeping people sane and cooperating across what might be generations of voyaging. Another fork is biological, with humans being gradually engineered to make them more adaptable to environments they'll find at their destination. Here we can imagine crews sent out in some kind of deep hibernation, their biology tweaked to allow a ready transition to the new planet. Or perhaps cyborg solutions suggest themselves, with humans augmented by digital technologies to deal with problems and interface directly with critical...

How we'll go to the stars is often a question we answer with propulsion options. But of course the issue is larger than that. Will we, for example, go as biological beings or in the form of artificial intelligence? For that matter, if we start thinking about post-human intelligence, as Martin Rees does in the recently published Starship Century, are we talking about reality or a simulation? As the Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom has speculated, a supremely advanced culture could create computer simulations capable of modeling the entire universe. Rees recapitulates the argument in his essay "To the Ends of the Universe": A culture that could create simulations as complex as the universe we live in might create virtual universes in the billions as a ripe domain for study or pure entertainment, allowing a kind of 'time travel' in which the past is reconstructed and the simulation masters can explore their history. So there we have a play on the nature of reality itself and the notion...

Tracking down starflight in literature is an absorbing pastime. When I was writing my Centauri Dreams book, I found that I was vaguely familiar with many of the antecedents of today's science fictional journeys, but a book called Wunderwelten, by Friedrich Wilhelm Mader, took me by surprise. A 1911 adventure novel for young readers, Wunderwelten imagines a sphere that, in the fashion of the time's space fiction, was moved by antigravity in a multi-year journey to Alpha Centauri. Mader's ship, called 'Sannah,' was a precursor to all the Centauri-bound starships to come. What a delight to find Sannah emerge in the form of Sannah III in Stephen Baxter's story "Star Call," which appears in the recently published Starship Century. But Baxter's updated ship is a far cry from the 50-meter antigravity vessel imagined by Mader. For one thing, it's gifted with artificial intelligence: I am called Sannah III because I am the third of four copies who were created in the NuMind Laboratory at the...

Could there be a more time-worn trope in science fiction than the arrival of colonists or explorers on a new world? The stage is set for adventure and the unwinding of whatever plot theme the author has in mind, but if the planet is Earth-like, we see the colonists quickly settling in, adapting to local conditions and, in relatively short order, creating a new society. Back in the 1950s the film When Worlds Collide showed the arrival of desperate survivors of a doomed Earth on a planet that would be their refuge, the assumption being that from this point on, everything would be no more difficult than setting up a camp on some new continent. Would it be so? For that matter, would our human crew be able to survive the journey? Paul Davies has his doubts, and he expressed them forcefully at the recent Starship Century event in San Diego. While we tend to concentrate on time and distance problems -- how do you get something moving fast enough to get your crew to another star within a...

NASA has released an Asteroid Initiative Request for Information on the issue of asteroid retrieval. It's an interesting document both in its audience -- the agency is making a point about soliciting comments not only from academics, scientists and engineers but the general public -- but also because of the issues it explores. Being sought are ideas on how best to capture an asteroid, land an astronaut on one, and change its orbit, not necessarily in that order. The Los Angeles Times quotes NASA associate director Robert Lightfoot on the public component of NASA's initiative: "Too often, by the time we present a mission to the public, it has already been baked, and there's not much we can change. This is your chance to present your ideas to us before the mission is baked." If you're interested in contributing, move quickly, for the deadline for responses is July 18, with a workshop to follow in September. The creation of a Solar System-wide infrastructure will necessarily precede any...

The star Gliese 667C is as intriguing as it is because it underlines in triplicate the 'habitability' question, which surfaces every time a planet is discovered in a zone around its star where liquid water could exist on the surface. This is the classic definition of 'habitable zone,' meaning not so much a place where humans could live -- we have no knowledge of other conditions on these worlds, knowing little more than their minimum mass -- but a place where a basic condition for life as we know it is possible. I'm much in favor of considering exotic environments for life, and these would include venues ranging from the upper clouds of Venus to the depths of the icy gas giant satellites in our own system. But when we read about 'habitable zones' in most scientific papers, we're usually falling back on the liquid water criterion because it's hard enough to search for any kind of life on a distant world, much less a kind that we don't even know exists. Liquid water is a starting...

What does it take to conceive a new vision of the future and drive the idea forward? Keith Cooper, editor of Astronomy Now as well as Principium, the journal of the Institute for Interstellar Studies, examines the question in the context of a new book. Grand ideas aren't enough, for the commitment to build community and expand the audience for a breakthrough are the necessary foundation. What Gerard O'Neill and Eric Drexler can teach us about this and how their example may inform the future choices of the interstellar movement are at the heart of Keith's review. Along the way come many questions, especially this: Is a 'failure of nerve to play the long game' what is holding us back as we contemplate a future among the stars? by Keith Cooper In 1972, a think-tank of businessmen, politicians, economists, scientists and bureaucrats going by the name 'The Club of Rome' (they held their first meeting in the Italian capital in 1968) painted a picture of a dystopian future where by the year...