SPEAKERS AND PRESENTATIONS

Darrel Anderson
"Galvanizing Delusions"
Darrel's work includes printmaking, painting, computer graphics for film, software creation and illustration. Currently, his work revolves around understanding the creative process on a cognitive level, and exploring the places where art and science collide. Recently, (using groBoto , Darrel's ongoing software project — a 3D math/art synergy tool), he collaborated with Joshua Minges and Carter Emmart on the creation of two animated sequences for the Hayden Planetarium's 2003 music show Sonic Vision . In his own words, he has found a way to lie, bluff, or slip unnoticed into any endeavor that allows him to pursue the artistic/creative process.

Carol Anderson
"COTI HI"
Carol is a nationally recognized science teacher. With Dave Tamori, she is bringing the student team from Oroville high school to participate in the Cultures of the Imagination simulation.

David Brin
"Exorarium"
David Brin is a scientist, public speaker, and author. His 1989 ecological thriller, Earth, foreshadowed global warming, cyberwarfare and the World Wide Web. A 1998 movie, directed by Kevin Costner, was loosely based on The Postman. His fifteen novels, including New York Times Bestsellers and winners of the Hugo and Nebula awards, have been translated into more than twenty languages. Brin's non-fiction book—The Transparent Society: Will Technology Make Us Choose Between Freedom and Privacy?—won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library. David joins Allen Tough's panel discussion this year.

Sheldon Brown
"Exorarium"
Sheldon Brown is an artist, technology developer and Professor of Computing in the Arts at the University of California, San Diego, where he directs the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts and is the head of New Media Arts for the California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technologies. His large scale public works include: Smoke and Mirrors, a large-scale virtual reality display at the Fleet Science Center in San Diego and Mi Casa Es Tu Casa, a networked virtual reality installation for the National Center for the Arts in Mexico City and the Children's Museum of San Diego. Brown has received awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation and others. Sheldon will be previewing his “Exorarium” project.

Andrew Chaikin
“Mars and Beyond: Making the Tomorrowland Vision a Reality”
The vision so compellingly portrayed on the Tomorrowland tv show in 1955 has helped propel dreams of sending humans to Mars for the last half-century. Now, with a new presidential directive, NASA is about to embark on the making that vision come true. What hurdles stand in their way? And, for the astronauts who make the trip, what will the Mars voyage like? Comparisions will be made with the experiences of the Apollo lunar astronauts. Chaikin is perhaps best known as the author of A Man on the Moon: The Triumphant Story of the Apollo Space Program . This acclaimed work was the main basis for Tom Hanks' Emmy-winning HBO miniseries, From the Earth to the Moon . Chaikin served on the Viking missions to Mars, and was a researcher at the Smithsonian's Center for Earth and Planetary Studies before becoming a science journalist in 1980. A former editor of Sky & Telescope magazine, Chaikin has also been a contributing editor of Popular Science and has written for Newsweek, Air&Space, Scientific American, and other publications. Chaikin is a commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition.

Bruce Damer and the Contact Consortium
"Cyberspace meets Outerspace: Visiting Mars (Virtually)"
Team members from DigitalSpace and the Contact Consortium will present live walk-throughs of projects completed in partnership with DigitalSpace for 2003-04. We will review the proof-of-concept "Drive On Mars" project for the MER/Mars Exploration Rover mission, visualizing robots working with astronauts aboard the International Space Station, the FMARS Mars analogue habitat, and a project to fractally model the entire planet from recent orbital data.

Don Davis
“An Artist’s View”
Don is one of today's leading astronomical artists. He has worked as a planetary mapper for USGS, as an emmy-winning special effects artist for film and television and as an artist and illustrator specializing in research-based planetary and astronomical subjects. He is currently creating spectacular work for dome-projection planetariums. Don is equally at home with paint or pixels.

Keith Doyle
"An Evolutionary Design Tool"
Keith is an artist and computer programmer currently exploring simulated evolution as a design tool. Keith will bring an evolutionary design tool for you to explore. You can construct three dimensional structures, then mutate, combine, color, animate and interact with them. The tool can be used to experiment with various types of biological form and symmetry, discover new forms and explore their characteristics. Keith's talk will cover the techinques used in the tool, which range from the computer representations of biological forms to the physics of movement.

Carter Emmart
Originally listed, Carter Emmart will be unable to attend this year's conference.

Ted Everts
Originally listed, Ted Everts will be unable to attend this year's conference.

Gus Frederick
“The Mars Underground”
Oregon native R.D. "Gus" Frederick works as an Instructional Technologist, creating multi-media resources for Oregon's public school educators. In his spare time, he moonlights as a Martian, providing scientific illustrations, working as a researcher on several projects involving Martian lava tube caves and heading up the Oregon Chapter of the Mars Society as its president. His presentation explores the idea of Martian lava tube caves as habitats, resources and biomes.

Jim Funaro
"Ethics of Colonization"
Founder of CONTACT, Jim is an instructor emeritus in anthropology at Cabrillo College, which recently awarded him its highest honor for teaching excellence. Publications demonstrating his research interests are "Anthropologists as Culture Designers for Offworld Colonies" and "On the Cultural Impact of Extraterrestrial Contact." Besides his degrees in Anthropology, he has a BA cum laude in Literature and is a published poet; he won the American Anthropological Association's 1997 prize for poetry.

Joel Hagen
“Three Short Films”
Joel Hagen is an artist and imaging specialist who divides his time between physical and computer media. Joel is a founding member of the International Association of Astronomical Artists, an award-winning sculptor and animator and an instructor of computer graphics at Modesto Junior College. Currently working with the microscopic imaging team on MER, Joel was also part of the NASA Ames teams on Pathfinder and Polar Lander. Joel will be showing a few of his short experimental films with subjects as diverse as anchovy schooling, early lunar missions and anatomical cross-sections.

Jeroen Lapré
“The Maelstrom II Project”
Jeroen Lapre joined Industrial Light & Magic in 1996 as a Technical Director. As a Technical Director at ILM, he is responsible for the assembly and rendering of visual effects in feature films including CG lighting of the 3D elements, and integrating them with the actors, sets, props, and locations. His film credits with ILM include Star Wars episodes 1 and 2, Artificial Intelligence, Hulk, T3, The Time Machine and many others. In addition to his work at ILM, Jeroen is working with Sir Arthur C. Clarke on a film version of Clarke's story, Maelstrom II.

Chris McKay
"Biology and the future of Mars"
Mars may have had life in the past and this is one of the main reason for its scientific interest. However it is also interesting to consider the future of life on Mars, the role of humans in that future and the connection if any to past life on Mars. Chris McKay is a Planetary Scientist with the Space Science Division of NASA Ames. Chris received his Ph.D. in AstroGeophysics from the University of Colorado in 1982 and has been a research scientist with the NASA Ames Research Center since that time. His current research focuses on the evolution of the solar system and the origin of life. He is also actively involved in planning for future Mars missions including human settlements.

John Carter McKnight
“Barsoom's Legacy - Mars Through the Lens of the American Southwest”
Ever since Edgar Rice Burroughs imagined a Mars drawn from Arizonan Percival Lowell's visions and his own Southwestern adventures, the American view of Mars has been shaped by our perceptions of the Western frontier. As the meaning of the "West" has changed in American popular culture, metaphorical Mars have evolved and conflicted. John Carter McKnight is a Features Editor and columnist for SpaceDaily.com. He is an Advocate of the Space Frontier Foundation and was CEO of Transplanetary Corporation, a firm specializing in life support technologies for extreme environments. He was The Mars Society’s first Executive Director and has practiced corporate finance law in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Justin Milliun
“Providing Mission Support for the Mars Desert Research Station”
The Mars Society is conducting simulated human-crewed Mars at the MDRS and at its other station on Devon Island in Arctic Canada. Members of the Northern California chapter of the Mars Society have provided Mission Support (analogous to NASA’s Mission Control) for several crews at the MDRS in Southern Utah. Chapter member Justin Milliun will relate our experiences of working and communicating with different crews, and what we learned. With a background in Physics, Astronomy and Engineering Management, Justin has performed Mission Support activities for the Mars Society’s Desert Research Station for over 2 years.

Oliver Morton
“Mars and a Sense of Time”
Oliver Morton writes about science and technology and what they mean to us. He's a former science editor at The Economist and currently a contributing editor at Wired; he also writes for many other magazines and newspapers, including the New Yorker, the New York Times and Science. His critically acclaimed book, Mapping Mars, illuminates the history, science, art and adventure of our centuries long quest to understand the Red Planet as a physical, mappable environment. Having written a whole book about Mars and a sense of place, his talk at CONTACT will be on Mars and a sense of time.

Gerald Nordley
"The War of the Worlds"
H.G. Wells' novel, a century old now, touched on many memes concerning astrobiology and contact that still provoke discussion and study. While 19th century science makes some examples quaint, they include in-situ resource use, biological contamination, and culture shock. This presentation explores and updates ideas presented in Wells classic. Gerald is a retired Air Force officer, author and astronautical engineer who has published both technical and science fiction work and has won Analog's annual “Anlab” reader's award three times for fiction and once for non-fiction. His latest book, writing as “G. David Nordley” is After the Vikings, a collection of futuristic Mars related stories. Gerald writes a science column for Speculations, an electronic/print magazine for Science Fiction writers and also serves as CONTACT's treasurer.

Ariel O’Neil
"Linguistic Representation and Consensus Building"
Ariel’s recent work involves a study of CONTACT’s COTI HI project. High School students are often asked to work in groups to accomplish various consensus-dependent objectives, and the students' production of various types of speech can be indicative of the many layers of activity that must occur simultaneously for these groups to successfully accomplish their tasks. The linguistic study of cultural performance and social practice, as observed in this type of educational setting, is of particular importance because it demonstrates that what may seem to be discord and disruption is often a form of consensus building.

Masamichi Osako
“Report on CONTACT Japan”
Founder of “CONTACT Japan”, CONTACT’s sister organization in Japan since 1991, Masamichi is a technical translator and interpreter in English/Japanese language managing his own company, Technical Collaboration Inc. with his wife, Michiko in Higashi-Osaka, Japan. He loves Science Fiction as well as Sciences. CONTACT Japan has held five biannual conferences and will have its sixth convention in Tokyo area in November 2004.

Douglas Raybeck
"CONTACT CONSIDERATIONS"
If we encounter or discover extraterrestrial intelligence, the pertinent question would seem to be how will we respond to the knowledge, and the inherent challenge, that there are other intelligences out there? My talk explores that issue by utilizing analogies from Western colonial encounters with the third world to construct differing scenarios of contact. It seems likely that our own sociocultural variability may be as important as the diversity of those who may contact us. As we shall see, some cultures seem better equipped to deal with both the novelty and the probable mistrust posed by another intelligent life form. Douglas Raybeck (PhD, Cornell 1975) is a Professor of Anthropology at Hamilton College. Author of several books and numerous articles, his most recent book is Looking Down the Road: A Systems Approach to Future Studies, 2000, Waveland Press, Prospect Heights, IL.

Reed Riner
“SolSys Project”
Reed Riner a co-founder of CONTACT, is Professor of Anthropology at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff where he regularly teaches courses on the anthropological study of the future, aka anticipatory anthropology. His current interests include the Flagstaff Tomorrow project, the NAU Solar System Simulation, simulation modeling in general, and gardening.

Kim Stanley Robinson
"Reading from the Mars trilogy"
One of today's most highly acclaimed science fiction writers, Robinson's work has received many honors including the Nebula, the Hugo, the Asimov, John W. Campbell, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards. Among his novels are the Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars series. Robinson's newest book is, THE YEARS OF RICE AND SALT, with FORTY SIGNS OF RAIN due out in June 2004 from Bantam. He will be reading from his Mars work at CONTACT.

Dennis Rohatyn
“Owning It”
Reasons for space travel, space stations and space colonies abound. Yet these are merely excuses, which mask deeper motives. Before we venture too far from home, we must be honest with ourselves about our real reasons for leaving it. Otherwise we will make the same mistakes in heaven as we have on earth. Except this time, there will be nowhere left to go, and nowhere to hide.

Dennis is professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego, where he has taught since 1977. His books include “Two Dogmas of Philosophy,” “The Reluctant Naturalist,” “Philosophy/History/Sophistry” and a work in progress, “Out of my Mind.” He teaches a variety of courses, including applied ethics, philosophy in literature, American philosophy, philosophy of history, plus seminars on Montaigne, Pascal, Goethe, Rousseau, Pascal, Sartre, Hegel, Descartes, Voltaire and Russell. In 1987 he received the J. Lowell Davies award for Distinguished Faculty Achievement at USD. He was honored by the class of 1991 as their favorite professor.

Randall Schroeder
“Art & Science Cars”
Randall is an elusive traveling educator with a host of unusual classrooms. The Periodic Table Car is one of Randall Schroeder's rolling classrooms and artworks. This reincarnated '69 Ford Fairlane 500 has been signed by 7 element-discoverers and draws a remarkable response from kids and everyone who sees it. Randall also travels in the Big Bang RV and the Star Car. He plans to arrive at CONTACT in one of these. Among Randall's achievements in bringing science to students is his website, www.scienceisgolden.com.

Don Scott
“Education for the Future”
An educator for more than 30 years, Don has also been a Ranger. There he developed a special interest in the work of George R. Stewart. Scott looks forward each year to the CONTACT conference, a place to explore new ideas with friends and colleagues. He heads this year's Education for the Future session with a fine roster of speakers.

Carlo H. Séquin
“M.A.R.S.—Math, Art, Religion, Science: 4 Complementary Belief Systems”
When faced with intriguing looking artifacts, such as crop circles or the “Face on Mars”, we have a choice of several different belief systems with which to interpret the given observations. Sequin will distill out essential differences in the approaches that Math, Art, Religion, and Science take for such a task, and will present a few test examples on which the audience may try out one or more of the discussed interpretations. Carlo Séquin, a frequent speaker at Art-Math conferences, is a professor at U.C. Berkeley in the computer sciences division.

Michael Sims
“The Moon and Mars: Next Steps for Humanity”
Dr. Michael Sims is Research Scientist with the Center for Mars Exploration and the Computational Sciences Division of NASA Ames. Michael received a BS in Physics and a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Mathematics from Rutgers University and has been at NASA Ames Research Center since 1987. His research includes robotics, machine learning, visualization, and tools for enhancing and easing scientific modeling. He was one of the founding members of the artificial intelligence and the intelligent mechanisms groups at Ames. Previously he served as agent for artificial intelligence, robotics and human performance for NASA's Office of Exploration. Michael is actively involved in plans for future planetary missions including robotic activities and human settlements on the Mars and the Moon. He was a participating scientist on the Pathfinder mission and is co-investigator on the Mars 2003 rover missions.

Chuck Stein
"GeoFusion: Mars"
Chuck is a co-founder of GeoFusion, Inc., a software visualization technology company. New to this conference, Chuck will show interactive navigation and 3D visualization of current Mars data. GeoFusion is building 3D Internet enabled viewers and tools that allow for the viewing of local and distributed datasets combined into one virtual world. A GeoFusion interactive Mars exhibit is on display (starting Jan. 21st) at the National Geographic Societies Explorer’s Hall in Washington D.C. An interactive exhibit will be available for play at Contact 2004. Chuck worked in the areas of environmental data management, visualization, and Internet data libraries with NRL, NOAA, and environmental organizations before co-founding GeoFusion.

Rick Sternbach
“Humans on Mars: One Goal, Many Ways”
For over fifty years, engineers and scientists have imagined many different spacecraft designs, missions, and orbital trajectories in hopes of achieving the goal of landing humans on Mars. The proposed techniques have included the fleets of winged gliders envisioned by Wernher von Braun, massive Apollo-era chemical boosters and landers throwing many tons of hardware to the Red Planet, small groups of tethered modules spinning for artificial gravity, and exotic plasma rockets which could conceivably cut the one-way travel time to three months or less. These proposals and others will be examined, along with an artistic look at Mars over the years, and a few pointers that interested amateur engineers ought to keep in mind when playing with their own Mars ship designs. Rick is an Emmy and Hugo award-winning artist whose astronomical paintings are widely published in Sky and Telescope, Smithsonian, Analog, Astronomy and many other books and magazines. Rick’s film and television credits include Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Cosmos. Rick has also formed a new company, Space Model Systems, to provide products and services to the space science community, the space educator, the collector, and the hobbyist.

Dave Tamori
“COTI HI”
Dave is a nationally honored art teacher and a leader in innovative curriculum design. Dave and Carol Anderson are bringing the COTI Hi project from Oroville high school. Dave is a musician, dancer and martial artist.

Allen Tough
"What Can We Do About Alien Lurkers?"
Some sort of advanced alien intelligence may have already reached Earth. Cloaked by advanced stealth techniques, it could be observing us undetected. How can we get this super-smart alien to come out from the shadows and talk to us? Dr. Allen Tough is the founder and coordinator of the Invitation to ETI, issued by 80 people at www.ieti.org. He is active in the SETI League and in the Bioastronomy community, and is co-founder and editor of Contact in Context, an online journal. The author of Crucial Questions about the Future, he is a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, Canada.

Kees Veenenbos
"Visualizations of Mars: Past and Present"
Kees Veenenbos from The Netherlands has been working with MOLA data and the landscape generator Terragen to make renderings of Mars for more than two years now. Following the discoveries of the exploration of Mars of the last decades he tries to come as close as possible to reality in his landscapes of ancient and present Mars. Water and ice are the big issue now and visualizing those concepts is his challenge. Kees’s renderings and animations of Mars have been broadcast by National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel Canada, and other European TV stations. His work appears in Sky and Telescope, GEO, Astronomie Heute (ESA), Ciel et Espace, Astronomy, Science, Focus and in the January 2004 issue of National Geographic Magazine. Kees will be presenting his new animations of Mars.

Scarlett Wang
“The Invitation to ETI project”
As part of Allen Tough's discussion of “alien lurkers”, Dr. Scarlett Wang will briefly describe the approach taken by the Invitation to ETI. This invitation on the Web at www.ieti.org is now issued by 86 scientists, artists, students, and futurists interested in achieving contact. Six months ago, shortly after completing her PhD at the University of Toronto, she became the Project Manager and Webmaster for this project.

Richard Zimmer
Richard has been teaching at SSU in the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies for 30 years, where he teaches Mars colony to college students and serves as a consultant to many school districts. He has a Ph.D. in Anthropology, a Ph.D. in Psychology and is a licensed psychologist who works with children.

Israel Zuckerman
“COTI”
Israel Zuckerman is the long-time coordinator of the COTI: Cultures of the Imagination workshop. He finds that CONTACT allows him to combine his secret agenda of teaching ecology and evolution with his hobbies of gaming and science fiction. He has a B.A. in Anthropology and manages a computer store in Santa Cruz, California.