Interstellar Conferences for 2014

by Paul Gilster | Apr 28, 2014 | Culture and Society | 6 comments

2014 isn’t nearly as top-heavy with interstellar conferences as the year before, but we do have two to discuss this morning, both of them slated for fall in North America. Looking through the preliminary information, I’m remembering how many good sessions grew out of last year’s meetings. For a field that grew up fueled largely by the enthusiasm of individuals who met in person only rarely, we suddenly found ourselves with the 100 Year Starship conference in Houston, Icarus Interstellar’s Starship Congress in Dallas, two Starship Century events (one in London, one in San Diego), the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop (version 2) and a London conference on what Bob Parkinson so wonderfully calls ‘the philosophy of the starship.’

Various smaller get-togethers occurred as well, and so, of course, did huge space-dominated conferences like the International Astronautical Congress and other aeronautics, astronautics and SETI sessions around the world. But who would have thought even ten years ago, much less fifty, that we would be having multiple conferences in a single year arranged around starship topics, and that groups dedicated to studying the possibilities of interstellar flight would be proliferating? A friend and I were musing that we found ourselves living in a science fictional world, and the thought came that it just seemed that way because we were getting older. And, of course, we are, but it’s also true that deep space really has become a highly visible topic.

100 Year Starship Symposium 2014

The theme for this year’s 100 Year Starship Symposium is Pathway to the Stars, Footprints on Earth, a nod to the synergies the organization continues to seek out between the huge advances in technology and biological science we’ll need as we anticipate deep space missions and the developing spinoff tools we’ll gain from such work to improve life on Earth today. The symposium will be held at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston from 18 to 21 September.

Although registration for the actual event has not yet begun, the call for papers is now active, with abstract submissions manageable through the symposium site. The deadline for abstracts is May 31, with notification of acceptance on June 30. Accepted presentations and poster submissions are then due on the 10th of September. Quoting from the submission guidelines:

Submissions can be perspectives on the central dogma, experimental results, and review of a specific topic. You must ensure that it fits the track topic to which you are submitting. Individual presentations will only be presented in one track. Individuals do not have to be associated with an institution to submit an abstract. Please note that materials should be non-commercial in content, any commercial presentation that communicates a service, technology or product can be submitted to our poster session.

Submissions will be reviewed based on bona fide field of inquiry/thought/research that derive from validated patents, literature, mathematics or practice. The data submitted should represent one or more of the following:

Actual data or background search generated presents a challenge to current dogma or asks a significant question

Data moves the field forward or clarifies some aspect of the field

Solves a problem acknowledged in the field

Provides a novel, well supported integration and/or review of field and proposes specific concept

Submitted abstracts are well written, 300 word, concise and includes a statement of the following items. If actual data, results and conclusions are not available, please provide a well thought out plan for how the information will be generated.

Background

Problem and hypothesis

Experimental design (or literature review)

Data

Results

Conclusions and Discussion

The tracks are available on the symposium site. They range from propulsion and energy to near-term spinoff technologies, data, communications and information technology, and major issues of life support and sociology. The data and communication track is a new one, highlighting recent work on data retrieval and transmission at interstellar distances. Also new at the 2014 symposium will be a track on interstellar education, looking at the role of education at producing what the site calls ‘interstellar citizens’ and probing current and future educational practices. Poster presentations are available for discussions in a small group setting.

Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop

The third Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop will be held November 9-12 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel with a theme of Long-Term Thinking–Present-Day Action. I’ve recently received the call for papers for this event, which was originally conceived by Les Johnson, Greg Matloff and Robert Kennedy in a wonderful hotel in the Italian alps in the town of Aosta. I remember the setting well, having spent several days there at one of the earlier Aosta conferences — it’s a place where long-term thinking seems to come naturally. Have a look at the TVIW website for further background, including Les’ summation of the event:

“The Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop is an opportunity for relaxed sharing of ideas in directions that will stimulate and encourage Interstellar exploration including propulsion, communications, and research. The ‘Workshop’ theme suggests that the direction should go beyond that of a ‘conference’. Attendees are encouraged to not only present intellectual concepts but to develop these concepts to suggest projects, collaboration, active research and mission planning. It should be a time for engaging discussions, thought-provoking ideas, and boundless optimism contemplating a future that may one day be within the reach of humanity.”

Presentation/paper and workshop topic submissions are now open through August 1, with the full papers and presentations due two weeks prior to the start of the meeting. Do note that this event is limited to 75 participants, with applications for attendance and further information about submissions made by email to tviw2014@tviw.us. A bit more from the call for papers:

Participants who do not wish to present a paper or facilitate a workshop will also be considered and are requested to submit a bio describing their involvement in the field of developing Interstellar concepts, including interstellar-related space science and technology and space advocacy. Submissions relating humanities, art and social sciences to interstellar exploration are also encouraged. Going to the stars will involve and engage most aspects of human society and innovation in all fields that may contribute are of interest. All Participants (including Presenters) are encouraged to bring a free-standing poster describing their Interstellar work, suitable for exhibition.

Presenters will be given thirty minutes to present their work including a Q&A session at the end, and it seems probable (though I haven’t confirmed this) that selected papers will be submitted to the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society for publication. Note, too, that on Sunday November 9, TVIW will conduct two seminars to which accepted attendees are invited, one a three-hour short course on space propulsion taught by Les Johnson, the other a course on terraforming, its methods and rationale, taught by Ken Roy. Registration for these seminars can be managed through the TVIW website once your attendance has been confirmed. Direct any questions about participation to registrar@tviw.us.

Astrosociology: The Human Dimension of Outer Space

by Paul Gilster | Oct 25, 2013 | Culture and Society | 24 comments

Kathleen Toerpe, PhD, is a social and cultural historian who researches the human dimension of outer space through an emerging field called “astrosociology.” She is the Deputy CEO for Public Outreach and Education with the Astrosociology Research Institute, volunteers as a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, is active with the 100 Year Starship initiative to lay the groundwork for future interstellar travel, and provides space outreach consulting through Stellar Outreach, LLC. She also teaches social sciences and courses in critical and creative thinking at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College and has spent her spare time hunting for exoplanets and extraterrestrials as a citizen scientist. She can be found on Twitter at @ktoerpe.

by Kathleen Toerpe

Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses- especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.
— Leonardo da Vinci

When da Vinci admonished his students to open their eyes to a wholistic understanding of their world, he hardly could have been thinking about an emerging 21st century academic discipline called astrosociology. But his Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind provide a useful lens with which to focus on a field that explores how human behavior, social interactions, institutions and belief systems are all connected to outer space.

What is Astrosociology?

The short answer is that astrosociology studies the human dimension of outer space. How are humans – right here and now – affected by what goes on in outer space? How will we be affected in the future? And, in a reciprocal relationship at the heart of the discipline, how do humans – our interactions, institutions and belief systems – affect space research, exploration and the future success of off-world human settlements?

Our ability to purposively imagine ourselves interconnected as part of the larger social structure of space forms the theoretical underpinning of the discipline, extending C. Wright Mills’ concept of a sociological imagination more widely than he himself might have imagined. In his foundational two-part Inaugural Essay: The Definition and Relevance of Astrosociology in the Twenty-first Century (2004), sociologist and astrosociology founder Jim Pass identifies the structural forces at play and coins a new term, astrosocial phenomena, to distinguish those “social, cultural and behavioral patterns related to outer space.” In short, the human dimension of outer space.

Pass developed the field as a subspecialty within the broader academic discipline of sociology and the reception hasn’t always been warm and welcoming. At times seen as competing with research in the more established niche of the sociology of science and technology, astrosociology has often received a warmer welcome from space professionals than sociologists. To be fair, there is oftentimes a speculative bent to astrosociology that pushes hard against the empirical, data-driven ethos of traditional sociological research. But it is precisely that ability to speculate – while at the same time producing and applying numerical and narrative data to create tangible and testable hypotheses – that infuses the field with Mills’ celebrated call to imagination.

Multidisciplinary Focus

By nature of its all-encompassing focus – after all, human social behavior related to the enormity of outer space is a rather large research arc – astrosociology is necessarily multidisciplinary and collaborative. Just as astrobiology syncs with biology, chemistry and physics to research microbial life on Earth in order to anticipate and recognize life elsewhere, astrosociology uses our whole knowledge of human behavior and interactions to understand, anticipate, recognize – and, in applied astrosociology, to mediate – both the relationship between space and humans as well as humans among themselves while engaging in space activities. That net is far-flung and draws in many disciplines.

Who owns the minerals found on asteroids (yes, even asteroids comprise assets as well as risks); what laws regulate space tourism; what ethics guidelines apply to microgravity research on children; how does long-duration space exploration affect crew health, morale, productivity and relationships back home; who speaks for Earth in the event of a ETI contact; how does human imagination use science fiction to inspire or “beta test” science fact; how do political, religious and cultural ideologies affect funding and popular support for space exploration; how do divisions such as nationality, race, gender, and class affect who is chosen for missions – and grants – and who remains behind? The breadth of research topics may mirror the expanse of space itself! So while astrosociology was born from the proverbial rib of sociology – and owes much to the discipline for its theoretical underpinnings in conflict theory, functionalism and interactionism – the offspring has matured to include professionals from the entire spectrum of the social and behavioral sciences, the performing and literary arts, and the humanities. Psychology, political science, history, economics, literature, theology, anthropology and dance are just a few of the academic departments that play in the astrosociology sandbox. All are welcome because all shed light on another aspect of the human experience as it relates to space, or again, in Pass’s words, as it creates and reveals astrosocial phenomena.

For myself, I am a social and cultural historian – deeply immersed in the sandboxes of both history and sociology – with a passionate desire to use education and outreach to move humanity from a disconnected and often parochial worldview to one that is ready for wonder, discovery and engagement. Along the way, what we learn about who we are in space may have profound implications for who we are on Earth. To echo the theme of the recent 100 Year Starship 2013 Symposium, Pathway to the Stars, Footprints on Earth, astrosociology is in the business of looking at footprints.

An Emerging Research Field

As an academic field, astrosociology is, admittedly, an energetic newcomer. After all, ten years is not a long tenure among ancient collegiate stalwarts like History, Physics or Literature. But research that is inherently astrosociological in content, approach and tone has been ongoing for decades. William Bainbridge’s sociological study of spaceflight (1976); Howard McCurdy’s analysis into the inner workings of NASA (1993); Allen Tough’s research into ETI contact (1998); and Frank White’s identification and analysis of the overview effect (1987) – among many, many other examples – all coalesce around astrosociological themes and astrosocial phenomena. More recently, Karl Aspelund’s insightful 100 Year Starship presentation at last year’s 2012 Symposium – on the practical and cultural challenges of clothing a human interstellar expedition – reinforce both the eclectic and the multidisciplinary nature of astrosociological research.

In 2011, the academic journal Astropolitics devoted a special issue to astrosociological research. Helmed by special editor Christopher Hearsey, the issue featured articles by Pass further defining astrosocial phenomena; Albert Harrison on the cultural aspects of SETI; Hearsay’s own examination of the nexus between law and astrosociology; David Lempert’s study of the challenges in creating space habitats; Simone Caroti’s essay on the role of science fiction in astrosociology; and Virgilu Pop’s work on the relationship between space exploration and climate change. The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Space, Propulsion and Energy Sciences (IASSPES) has sponsored three symposia in astrosociology (2009, 2010 and 2011) through its technical venue, the Space, Propulsion and Energy Sciences International Forum (SPESIF). And the Astrosociology Subcommittee, headed by Dr. Pass, welcomes collaborative research through the Society and Aerospace Technology Technical Committee of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).

Astrosociology Research Institute

The Astrosociology Research Institute (ARI), co-founded by Pass, sociologist Marilyn Dudley-Flores, and aerospace engineer Thomas Gangale in 2008 as a non-profit educational institute, facilitates cutting-edge astrosociological research and education. In addition to its quarterly newsletter, Astrosociological Insights, ARI has developed a college and professional-level course titled Introduction to Astrosociology, which forms the foundation for its Astrosociology in the Classroom initiative. This course fills a crucial gap in schooling social and behavioral scientists about space-related issues as well as educating space scientists about the human dimension of their research. We hope to begin offering this course online in the coming months along with a textbook anthology of readings on astrosociology. Equally exciting is the upcoming premier of the peer-reviewed Journal of Astrosociology, which has just issued its first call for papers. It will be the first academic journal dedicated to the study of the two-way relationship between human society and the outer space environment. Upcoming original research sponsored by ARI focuses on the selection, training and challenges faced by a new class of “private astronauts” whose presence reflects the increasingly entrepreneurial nature of space exploration. There are busy times ahead for the Institute!

To return once more to da Vinci . . .

Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

We have returned to the skies many times since our first flight beyond Earth’s gravity, and one day, perhaps, our children or grandchildren will live there, raise their children, and build new, human spacefaring societies on distant planets or moons. They will go there as social beings connected to each other and to the past they leave behind on Earth – bound by common goals and torn apart by divergent myths – but always changing what it means to be human by their interactions with each other and their environment. Those who stay on Earth will be no less affected. We are not there yet and we do not yet understand what it will all mean. But the field of astrosociology, following da Vinci’s dictum to “see the connections,” is asking the questions right now, in the thick of it, as it is all unfolding – wondrous and fresh, messy and complicated. And we invite you to join us!

Starship Century, Part Two

by Paul Gilster | Jun 16, 2013 | Culture and Society | 12 comments

Adam Crowl concludes his discussion of the recent Starship Century conference in San Diego. Videos from the session are now becoming available online.

by Adam Crowl

Lunch at the Starship Century Symposium was provided by UCSD, allowing attendees to remain nearby, adding to the discussion and trading of ideas and concerns. Certainly I appreciated the chance to catch up with friends and faces from the other side of the Pacific, as well as meeting new people. Having read people’s novels, books or scientific papers for years, then meeting them on Facebook or email, I felt like I knew some of them already. Meeting authors that I had grown up with like Larry Niven, Joe Haldeman or David Brin was something I was getting used to, as I was more eager to discuss their interstellar ideas than succumb to fan-shock. I finally had my ideas about Larry Niven’s fusion-shield, from his “Known Space” stories, confirmed by the source, but didn’t quite get to talk to David Brin about the Fermi Paradox during the whole event.

The afternoon of the first day was thematically about “New Space” – what we’re doing, as a species, in the near term of a commercial nature. Of course, this was largely from the North American perspective. Patti Grace Smith [video], one of the senior Regulators of “New Space” in Washington DC, spoke about her role in helping commercial space efforts by creating a more operator friendly legal environment. Patti also gave a summary of the key-players in commercial sub-orbital and orbital commercial space efforts, the most prominent being SpaceX, while the most secretive has been Blue Origin, whom Patti has encouraged to be more open.

Image: Patti Grace Smith speaks on commercial space.

Beyond Chemical Propulsion

Once we’re in orbit the only way is Out – into the wider Solar System. Chemical propulsion isn’t up to the task, so Geoffrey Landis [video] made the argument that Nuclear Thermal Rockets (NTRs) will be the “Workhorse of the Solar System”. Geoff’s presentation was based on material presented previously, to more technical audiences, and the technical reports he referenced are also widely available. So he focussed initially on the long history of the NTR in astronautics – dating back to the late 1940s and almost brought to operational readiness by NASA’s nuclear rocket program, before being shelved in the early 1970s. Since then research has focussed on newer materials and newer testing techniques of reactor designs, largely via computer simulation and hot hydrogen gas experiments to simulate the operating environment of engine components. An important point is that NTRs allow transport of humans and their machines in reasonable time-frames all the way to Jupiter. Inside the orbit of Jupiter there exist many sources of the chief NTR propellant – hydrogen – usually in solid form attached to oxygen as water. Conveniently water has many other uses for human beings, thus will be in demand.

Image: Ian Crawford (left) and Geoffrey Landis.

That key point lead neatly into the next presenter’s talk. Chris Lewicki [video] of Planetary Resources gave an intriguing overview of the next steps for one of the first “asteroid mining” companies. Chris had clearly covered the material many times before, showing a polish that only comes with practice. The inner Solar System has abundant energy from the Sun, and convenient chunks of material orbiting in free space in the form of asteroids (and dead comets), but the first task is prospecting and finding the most convenient resources to retrieve from their distant orbits. Thus the Planetary Resources plan of building small satellites with autonomous control, to minimise ground-control costs, and many of them, to achieve savings via mass-production. Interplanetary prospectors that are cheap enough to crash into an asteroid if that’s what the mission requires. Eventually the quest for precious high-value materials in space to return to Earth will also have the side-benefit of producing great volumes of useful in-space materials, such as water. In time the inner Solar System could have a viable network of resource trading, with precious metals being dropped back to Earth via “whiffle-balls” of foamed metal, and storage depots of liquid hydrogen for Landis-style NTRs carrying people to the Moon, Mars and the asteroids.

Panel: The Future of New Space [video]

With those thoughts in mind the day ended with a special presentation and viewing of a small fraction of Arthur C Clarke’s paintings and memorabilia, now at the Geisel Library. Seeing promotional material from 2001: A Space Odyssey“, signed by the actors, and similar items made me mindful of the vast legacy that Clarke’s work had inspired. In the nearly 50 years since he began working with Stanley Kubrick on 2001, we have achieved but a tiny part of what the 1960s imagined possible, a reminder of the difficulty of making dreams real.

Among the Starship Designers

Intense conversations ate up the hours after the scheduled activities, shadowed by my awareness that I was to be the first speaker on Day Two. My sleep was a broken few hours, an hour at a time, looking at the clock, while my subconscious was working on arranging what I would say. Needless to say, I have no idea how the delivery looked, as I covered slide-after-slide of starship concepts – most of which are covered in the anthology [video]. One gratifying aspect was being able to point out several starship designers in the audience – Freeman Dyson nodded approvingly when I discussed his interstellar Orion from 1968, and I discussed Al Jackson’s role in the development of the laser-powered ramjet. As a parting note I mentioned the “Ultimate Starship” – my personal suggestion, based on the late Robert Forward’s idea of a neutrino-rocket, to use electroweak unification physics to convert ram-scooped mass directly into a neutrino-jet. One day I will need to write the paper.

Jim Benford [video] covered the concept of microwave sail-ships, giving a fascinating look into his experimental work in the late 1990s with carbon-sails in vacuum chambers, being made to do amazing things via concentrated beams of microwaves. Jim, like his brother Greg, is a physicist, an alumnus of UCSD, but an applied physicist who has literally written the book on high-power microwave systems, such as the million-watt RADAR regularly used by the world’s armed forces. Thus he is well able to discuss the practicalities of propelling sails to interstellar speeds via beams of microwaves and has written several papers covering the economics of micro-wave starships. An elementary conclusion of the Benfords’ experiment is that a conical sail can very effectively ride a polarised microwave beam and be spun so it is self-stabilising. A less encouraging finding is that the cost of energy will dominate interstellar missions at high-speeds. Before we can reach the stars we will need to create abundant energy supplies.

Image: James Benford (left), Larry Niven and Gregory Benford at the book signing.

Next up was John Cramer [video], a physicist from the University of Washington, well-known to SF fans via his “Alternate View” columns in Analog, as well as several novels. John focussed on the use of wormholes to allow rapid transit to other star systems. Wormholes are simply connections between two points in space-time, compatible with Einstein’s equations of General Relativity as one possible mathematical solution. Outside the wormhole itself, observers would see two “ends” of the one space-time structure. Whether they exist or not is a matter for astronomical observation, as larger wormholes should produce distinctive gravitational lensing patterns that astronomers might be lucky enough to see.

If the connection formed between the two ends of a wormhole is shorter than the distance through regular space-time, then passing through the wormhole allows apparently faster-than-light travel, though nothing ever exceeds lightspeed locally. Thanks to time-dilation – the slowing of time experienced when approaching lightspeed – a time-lag can be developed between the two ends if one end is sent to a distant star. For example, if one end is accelerated to a time-dilation of 7,000 (0.99999999c), then only 75 minutes is required for the travelling end to appear to travel 1 light-year from the stationary end’s point-of-view. John Cramer discussed how this might allow a network of rapid-transit wormholes to be set-up throughout the Galaxy – with the caveat that the network can’t be allowed to form a “Closed Time-like Circuit” else this might destroy the wormholes via amplifying quantum fields.

On Target Stars and Life

Before lunch British astronomer Ian Crawford [video], a fellow member of Project Icarus, discussed what we might find amongst the nearer stars, out to 15 light-years. A planetary system probably exists around every star, something we can say with statistical confidence thanks to the work of the “Kepler” exoplanet detection mission, but discerning every planetary system will require improvements on current techniques. And we almost certainly haven’t found every small star within 15 light-years yet, as the 2013 discovery of a brown-dwarf binary at just 6.5 light-years should remind us. Ian made the forceful point that even with vast telescopes able to image those many new planets and stars, there’s only so much we can learn via telescopes. If we find a planet showing all the signs of life, we will only know more by actually going there – via robotic proxy, in Ian’s opinion.

Once we do go, will we survive? This was the after-lunch opener from Paul Davies [video], who posed the puzzling question of how terrestrial life might interact with truly alien life in another star-system. Could they co-exist, with no biochemical compatibility at all? Could they share common simple biochemicals, but foreign genetic and protein chemistry? Or could the two integrate in ways we haven’t yet imagined? Even more intriguingly, Davies suggested that we might already co-exist with “alien” biochemistries on Earth – organisms might exist in niches that otherwise exclude our kind of biology. A suggested location might be at temperatures higher than what known microbes can tolerate, or in highly alkaline fluids, such as what seeps from the ocean thermal vents. Davies has suggested, in more than one book, that any life on Mars shares a common ecosystem with Earth, due to the trade in meteorites between the planets over the aeons. Mentioning this sharing of life between planets produced an outburst from Robert Zubrin, who is an advocate of interstellar transfer of life throughout the Galaxy. A credit to Davies, his response was more interested curiosity than the reflexive dismissal Zubrin seemed to expect. His answer was that we simply don’t know enough to rule out the possibility and they should discuss it more later.

The Benfords encouraged researchers to present in the audience, with divergent points-of-view. These share a desire to bridge the space between the stars, but differ in details of how and why we’ll go to the stars. The next speaker unified the many voices by sharing his sense of wonder at the Universe, through a living work of art – Jon Lomberg [video] and his Galaxy Garden. Long-time readers of Centauri Dreams will know of Jon Lomberg’s artwork for Carl Sagan’s Cosmos in the 1970s and his Galaxy Garden in Hawaii. Having Jon share it with us, a guided-tour in slides, was inspiring and drew multiple rounds of applause from the audience. As Jon put it we can be Citizens of the Galaxy now.

Image: Artist and Galaxy Gardener Jon Lomberg.

Two discussion panels concluded the Symposium. The first, chaired by Jill Tarter, of the SETI Institute, featured Ian Crawford, Robert Zubrin, Geoffrey Landis, Paul Davies and myself. Our theme was “Getting to the Target Stars” but with Jill as the chair we wandered into the search for others who might have made the same journey [video]. Jill gave a brief summary of false-positive detections of extraterrestrial technology, which have proven to have natural explanations.

Image: Jill Tarter gives the lowdown on false-positives in SETI.

The sole exception, the distinctive spectroscopic signature of tritium, has no natural explanation if it is ever detected. With that in mind each of the panelists made suggestions about how we might detect aliens – Robert Zubrin mentioned the distinctive radio output of a starship deploying a magnetic sail, while I suggested the Solar System be searched for dead starships, since not everyone succeeds in their long voyages. A final task was to sum up how we thought humanity would go to the stars. A common feeling seemed to be via robotic proxies, or nanobots. In my opinion, by the time we are ready, the distinction between “human” and “robotic” might be meaningless or arbitrary – thus my quip “Nanobots are people too.”

The final panel [video] was a perspective by the science fiction writers, some involved in the Starship Century anthology – Joe Haldeman, David Brin, Larry Niven, Vernor Vinge – and Jon Lomberg. This was the artistic side of the event, as all these have produced visions of the starship era. The general feeling was that, given the growth in space industry that Chris Lewicki and Robert Zubrin advocated, then we would see the first star-voyagers depart in about 2200, much as Freeman Dyson had extrapolated back in the late 1960s. Some envisioned the unexpected – the discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence near enough to communicate with; breakthroughs in physics that would allow rapid interstellar travel; or, as Allen Steele depicted in his award-winning Coyote series, the rise of a tyrant putting a nation or the world on a crash-course program of starship-building. As always, the future will surprise us, but we can prepare ourselves by listening carefully to the modern-day prophets.

Wrapping Up the Houston Starship

by Paul Gilster | Sep 19, 2012 | Culture and Society | 35 comments

Because I utterly lack their skills, I have huge admiration for practical-minded people who can organize things well. Eric Davis’ work as track chair for the ‘Time and Distance Solutions’ track in Houston is a case in point. The challenge is in coping with a key fact of interstellar studies: We are so early in the game that we have not remotely figured out which propulsion method makes the most sense for journeys of this magnitude. Discussing time and distance means culling papers to find a balance of ideas, from what could be near-term (fusion, although it always seems near-term) to highly speculative (antimatter and nanotech).

Image: Physicist Eric Davis, a highly visible figure at the Houston conference.

Eric nailed the composition of the track, and it was because of that that I stayed in it through the conference. The temptation of getting involved with alternate tracks on ‘Becoming an Interstellar Civilization’ and especially ‘Destinations and Habitats’ was huge, but it was the time and distance problem that first drew me to interstellar studies so that is where I stayed. I’m hoping that Eric as well as several other track chairs will be able to offer their thoughts in future Centauri Dreams articles on how their sessions went.

Sleepless in Houston

Mae Jemison, who runs the 100 Year Starship organization, was everywhere, and I was beginning to wonder if she ever slept. She was in meetings all day Wednesday with the advisory council and later the track chairs, then in constant motion afterwards, a highly visible figure who never seemed to run out of energy. Gordon Gould and I asked her at lunch on Thursday about her flight aboard Endeavour in 1992, curious about what it is like to actually be blasted into space. We’ve all seen Shuttle launches and know how impressive, noisy and fearsome they can be.

But Mae said the effect was actually quite different. “You’re so wrapped up in padding and shielded from the noise that from inside, it’s just like being in the simulator. Remember that you have to hear all the communications inside the craft, so the noise seems very far away.” I had the same reaction a few months back when I asked Shuttle astronaut Drew Feistel, a veteran of Hubble Space Telescope repairs, whether that sweeping roll the Shuttle used to perform on liftoff was as dramatic from inside as it appeared to spectators. And the answer was no. Drew said you mostly felt acceleration, and that the roll maneuver felt very gradual and unobtrusive.

The job ahead of Mae’s group is, of course, enormous, and a huge part of that job will be to connect to a public that is both hamstrung by economic concerns and largely out of the kind of space mode we saw back in the Apollo days. My thought on that is that an organization like the 100 Year Starship can do a world of good by helping to get the word out about what interstellar issues really are. It’s surprising how few people realize the distances we’re talking about — when I first arrived in Houston, I cited in these pages the person who had emailed me with the question: “We’re already going to Pluto. How much harder can it be to go to a star?”

I gave a flip answer to that question in my earlier post, but it’s indicative of the mind-boggling nature of the time and distance conundrum and how little it is perceived by the public. I think we need to communicate how enormously challenging it will be to go to the stars at the same time that we provide a sound rationale for methodically looking at the problem. It is not using scare tactics to suggest that Earth’s history has been violent and that asteroid or comet impacts are not necessarily all in the past. And it is not being overly sanguine to say that the kind of solutions that will enable a crewed starship — maintaining sound ecologies, for example — are solutions that will have resonance on our own green planet and will help us to preserve it.

Spinoffs are always a touchy subject in spaceflight terms because they’re so easily ridiculed, and the average citizen is more likely to think of Tang than of GPS as a result of space research. But this is simply a hurdle that must be cleared for an organization with a 100-year mission to succeed. Learning how to propel a payload at a small percentage of lightspeed could have enormous ramifications for our production and use of energy on Earth, while the demand for autonomous systems will propel us into major advances in artificial intelligence and robotics. As one speaker noted, whether manned or not, a starship will demand autonomous systems.

Image: Mae Jemison addresses the crowd at Saturday night’s gala.

Into the Cosmic Sea

Let me close my Houston coverage with some thoughts about Jill Tarter. The SETI legend spoke to the symposium at large on Saturday in a short, inspiring talk outlining the search for Earth 2.0. We have yet to detect proof of an extraterrestrial civilization after 50 years of searching, but Tarter is doubling down on the need to keep looking given the small sample in our searches:

“Think about an Earth ocean as an analog. We’ve sampled the equivalent of one eight ounce glass out of that ocean in 50 years. Now you might get lucky and scoop up a fish when you do something like that, but chances are you wouldn’t. So our sample is small, inadequate. A cosmic ocean is out there beckoning us — the monumental task of sampling it remains… Our search must be audacious and inclusive. SETI trivializes the differences among us, and if it does nothing but expose every human being on the planet to this perspective, it will still have been one of the most significant events in human history.”

What might we pick up? Tarter said we will discover that Earth 2.0 in short order, meaning an Earth-mass planet in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star, but added that for it to truly be Earth 2.0, it will need to be inhabited. A technology we might detect could be anything from a beacon to a vast communications network, or perhaps huge shields against asteroid impacts or a completely unforeseen technology that could be generating radio or optical signals. “If we find technology, we can infer intelligence,” she added. “We can’t directly detect intelligence.”

Tarter’s message resonated with a crowd that, like her, believes we are a very young technology in a very old galaxy. A key question: Is it possible for a technological civilization to last for cosmic lengths of time? If the answer is no, Tarter believes SETI will fail, but of course we all hope the answer is yes. It was Philip Morrison, co-author of the first major paper on SETI, who called the idea “the archaeology of the future.” Sifting through the faint signals that impinge upon our dishes from the galaxy around us, we hope, unlike archaeologists, to find not just enigmatic remains but a living presence whose very existence will add meaning to our place in the cosmos.

In going forward, both in SETI and in the 100 Year Starship initiative, I’m reminded of Mae Jemison’s quote from Bash?, the greatest poet of the Edo period in Japan. Bash?’s wanderings into unknown country made him a legend, giving him material for his work and renewed purpose. He had learned from experience the lesson he conveyed here: “Seek not to follow in the footsteps of men of old; seek what they sought.”