2010 Speakers:
More As they become known!
Lynn Baroff
Human-rating Automated and Robotic Systems
How Can HAL Work safely and effectively with People? A Panel
Future long duration human deep space missions will not be possible without unprecedented levels of automation to support human crews and their activities. Automated and robotic systems will carry the load of routine "housekeeping" functions for the new generation of explorers, as well as assist them in their exploration, science, and engineering tasks. We can evolve automated and robotic systems to the level of sophistication needed for these missions-but the challenge of human-rating such systems has yet to be addressed. Our intent in this session is to introduce a variety of perspectives on requirements and architecture for the interfaces and interactions between human beings and the array of automated systems that will enable these missions of exploration; and to identify approaches to the creation, evaluation, and implementation of human-rated automated and robotic systems in the human space program. Members of this session include: Lynn Baroff, Andrew Mishkin, Darrel Jan, Bill Clancey, Carol Stoker and Mark Lupisella.
Lynn Baroff is Executive Director of the California Space Education and Workforce Institute (CSEWI), a non-profit agency. The institute's purpose is to integrate the efforts of that state's educational establishment and its huge space enterprise, in maintaining and growing the workforce needed for the world's largest space economy. He comes to the Institute after 16 years at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), where he most recently worked as Human-Systems Integration lead with NASA's Constellation Program, America's next generation program for human space flight. He continues his association with NASA as a Senior Research Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, leading an agency-wide team in developing a standard for automated and robotic systems that support long duration human space missions. His work is helping to develop the social and work process patterns that will support new and long duration space missions to the moon, Mars, and beyond.
Bill Clancey
Consciousness, Schemas, and SETI: The Search for Human Intelligence
Psychologists and social scientists have suggested that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence reflects the nature of human consciousness, which enables us to be social beings, and our cultural practices of inquiry and exploration. In particular, cognitive science is revealing how fundamental organizing concepts (schemas) broadly affect both scientific work and how we deal with human dilemmas, such as our mortality. This presentation considers the conceptual schemas that underlie scientific and cultural assumptions about our place in the universe and how SETI reflects our ways of thinking and values.
William J. Clancey is the Chief Scientist for Human-Centered Computing in the Inteligent Systems Division at NASA Ames. He leads several partnership projects with Johnson Space Center, including automating routine aspects of file management between Mission Control Center and the International Space Station, and the EVA Metabolic Rate Advisor, a voice-commanded assistant for astronauts.. Clancey's scientific interests include understanding the cognitive and social nature of human exploration and team work; the neuropsychological architecture of conceptualization; the cultural evolution of cognition; and the varieties of animal consciousness. Clancey holds a doctorate in computer science from Stanford University. In addition to his many books and publications, he is currently writing a NASA Special Publication for the History Division on how working with the Mars Exploration Rover has changed the nature of field science.
Yvonne Clearwater
Space Exploration: Art, Science or Entertainment?
The magic, mystery and romance (MMR) of space exploration has long been conveyed by word, song, music and the visual arts. Now, has Avatar's 3D animation trumped NASA's ability to simulate real missions to Mars and Jupiter? In capturing public attention and stimulating imagination, how can NASA's new online Space Communications and Navigation Network demonstration (SCaNN) compete with the high cost MMR effects of Star Wars? How are emerging Web 2.0 technologies starting to open and humanize opportunities for everyone to share the experience and begin to participate in space exploration?
Yvonne Clearwater has enjoyed a fascinating career at the intersection of science, art, communications and cutting edge technology. As a NASA Principal Investigator, she built and led the Habitability Research Program for the International Space Station, featuring distributed, multi-disciplinary investigations resulting in space human factors interior design guidelines. She has managed NASA projects ranging from Mars and lunar habitat design research studies, to robotics education, strategic communications, the American Student Moon Orbiter, and the first NASA app for the iPhone. To offer behind the scenes stories underlying NASA's mission success, she has produced PBS documentaries, a TV science series, Mars Virtual Reality Theater, a Cosmic Carnival, science exhibits and state-of-the-art technology demonstrations. She now serves as the NASA Ames team leader for innovation in emerging social media Web 2.0 technologies. A lifelong learner, Yvonne holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California, Davis, focusing on design research and communications. But it was painting murals of the lunar and Mars surfaces, spanning 45 feet each, that made her grin.
Bruce Damer
The EvoGrid: An Artificial Origin of Life Experiment
and the CONTACT Challenge
The EvoGrid, or Evolution Grid, is a global project that grew out of a presentation given at CONTACT XII in 1995 and the subsequent Digital Biota events of the Contact Consortium. The EvoGrid seeks to create a large enough computing space (containing trillions of particles representing virtual atoms and molecules) that chemical origin of life experiments can be undertaken. Of specific interest to the CONTACT audience are the following questions arising from the EvoGrid effort:
These and more questions will be considered in this session which will feature the latest simulation runs from the EvoGrid Prototype 2010.
Bruce Damer is a frequent CONTACT presenter and inventor and director of research and technology at a number of organizations, including CONTACT's offspring organization, the Contact Consortium, where in the mid 1990s teams pioneered many aspects of virtual worlds and avatars on the Internet; at DigitalSpace which has been engaged with NASA for over a decade simulating and designing existing and new space missions; at Elixir Technologies, where in the 1980s he led efforts with Xerox to develop some of the first graphical user interfaces on personal computers; and leading the Evolution Grid, or EvoGrid, which seeks to use massive grid computing through the Internet to simulate the origin of life of Earth. In his spare time, Bruce curates one of the world's largest collections of vintage personal computer hardware and software, called the DigiBarn Computer Museum, as well as designing cyber-clothing, and raising pigs, and many fruits and vegetables with his wife Galen Brandt on their "real" farm in Northern California. More on Bruce and his pursuits and life at: http://www.damer.com
Donna Duerk
Moon Habitats: Sausages, Tuna Cans, Or Doughnuts?
I propose a visual presentation that describes the concepts for Moon habitats that NASA has been working on recently that include the ATHLETE robot, Lunar Electric Rovers, and various habitat configurations developed at JPL and JSC. It will also include my student contributions to the problem of what to do with hundreds of the Cargo Transfer Bags that will be used getting provisions to the Moon over time -- after they are emptied.
Donna Duerk is an Emeritus Professor of Architecture at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and now teaching half time. She has written a Curriculum for Aerospace Architecture (NASA, 2003) and a textbook for Architectural Programming. She is the Chair of the Education Sub-committee for the Space Architecture Technical Committee of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Donna has been coming to CONTACT for about five years.
Chris Ford
Computer Generated Synthetic Human Beings
Why we have not seen completely digital actors (close up) yet, the challenges of simulating photo-realism (motion as well as visuals) as applied to human faces and bodies, and how close up hyper-realistic synthetic humans, avatars, etc, are looking increasingly possible. I am interested in the possibility that in remote visual interaction we could return to being 21 years old, assume another identity, turn into the opposite sex, or even become non-human...
Chris Ford is currently RenderMan Business Director at Pixar Animation Studios with over 20 years experience in computer graphics (CG) software development, media production technology, product management and business development. Previously at Autodesk, Alias, Silicon Graphics, and Wavefront Technologies, Chris has managed most of the professional CG modeling, animation, and rendering software tools used in contemporary feature film special effects and scientific visualization including Wavefront, Maya, 3ds max, and RenderMan. Chris is also a keen astro-photographer focused on the application of 3D visualization techniques to astronomical imaging.
Gus Frederick
Space and Time Warps - Time-Lapse & Exposures
Oregon multimedia artist Gus Frederick has long been facinated with the concept of visually stretching and shrinking time. This naturally led to time-lapse cinematography, initially on motion picture film, but now much more easily accomplished by way of various digital processes. Multiple examples, in the form of entertaining short subjects, will be shown, along with a technical overview of their creation. (Delevered remotely via Skype)
Gus Frederick is a multi-media artist, animator and technical illustrator who lives in Silverton, Oregon with his cat, lots of books and tons of 78rpm phonograph records. He currently works as a Multimedia Specialist for the Oregon Office of Private Health Partnerships. A long-time space enthusiast, evironmentalist and peacenik. He is actively involved in his local community by way of several diverse organizations from the Silverton Grange to the Marion County chapter of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters. He is also working with a new global group known as Explore Mars to promote and study the implications of how best to make use of a new world.
Jim Funaro
Small Town Monkeys in the Big City: Problems of Scale
Our cultural institutions - social organization, politics, economics - evolved as adaptations to serve our prehuman social needs. As in other animal societies, they were designed by evolution to operate effectively within their original biosocial context, which for primates means small-scale -- groups of less than 100. After 4-5 million years as food collectors, about 10K years ago humans became food producers, which meant our populations were no longer limited by the natural food supply. Within the last few thousand years our population has increased a thousand fold. These institutions we see today were not built to operate in such a large-scale context and thus have historically become outdated, ineffective and corrupted versions of their eufunctional originals, leading to most of our world problems - warfare, poverty, corporate and nationalistic greed, ecological degradation, globalization, etc. What could we do about this?
Jim Funaro is the founder of CONTACT and professor emeritus in anthropology at Cabrillo College, which has honored him with its highest award for teaching excellence. Publications demonstrating his research interests are "Anthropologists as Culture Designers for Offworld Colonies" and "On the Cultural Impact of Extraterrestrial Contact." His personal and professional approach to life combines the sciences and the arts. Besides his graduate degrees in Anthropology, has a BA cum laude in Literature and is a published poet; he won the American Anthropological Association's 1997 prize for poetry with "The Dancing Stones of Callanish."
Roberta Goodman
Talking with Dolphins: Who's Testing Whom?
Is it possible to speak with a non-human intelligence? What modes of communication with dolphins are there, given their vocal capabilities, form, interests, and environment? As research director for John Lilly's Human/Dolphin Foundation, I designed open-ended tasks and now tell stories about the dolphins' responses. How do dolphins respond to an obviously different training context and request? As I tested them, the dolphins tested me. Dolphin intelligence is revealed in creative, adaptive, and brilliant answers. "Dolphiness" is an advanced state of being: highly intelligent, creative, subtly aware and spontaneously resonant. Dolphins are masters of relationship and community. Talking with dolphins is a matter of our effort and abilities.
Roberta Goodman has worked five years in captive dolphin research and 25 years with wild dolphins as a research assistant with Diana Reiss' Project Circe and the Human/Dolphin Foundation (HDF), as research Director for John Lilly's HDF's two dolphins, Joe and Rosie, and as diver for Marine World. Stories of her communication research continue to reach audiences worldwide and has been published in several books and movies.
Randall Hayes
Cognitive Dissonance as a Cognitive Universal
Many science fiction stories share a key tragic element -- the refusal by a character or a society to accept as true facts that are upsetting. This situation is usually treated as a moral failure, which leads to disaster. On the other hand, several decades of psychological research have shown fooling oneself to be a normal human trait, and even healthy under some circumstances. More fundamentally, the way brains process information by repeated filtering means that denial may be a river in any culture we find.
Randall Hayes has degrees in biology and neuroscience, which he uses to inform his son's drawings of aliens, monsters, and robots. He teaches interdisciplinary courses in Analytical Reasoning and Evolutionary Theory as it applies to everyday life at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University in Greensboro, NC. He read Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" in Weekly Reader in the 7th grade, and is now putting together an evolution-themed SF anthology for classroom use.
Howard Heard
Panel - Avatar: The Good, The Bad And The Beautiful
Howard Heard is a native of southern California and studied motion picture production at UCLA. He has an avid interest in the sciences as an amateur observer, as well. Still a resident of Los Angeles, he has done film editing work on forty-five features, more than fifty hours of prime time episodic television, pilots, miniseries, four documentaries, and other short films and commercials. He also serves on the faculty of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena with students who hope to become the film directors of tomorrow.
Darrel Jan
Panel: Human-rating Automated and Robotic Systems
Dr. Darrell Jan is presently the Project Manager for the NASA Advanced Environmental Monitoring and Control (AEMC) Program Element, within the Exploration Systems Technology Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In this role, Dr. Jan is responsible for developing chemical sensing systems for future human space flight. As Manager of AEMC, he has overseen research projects which include miniature mass spectrometry, an electronic nose array, development of mid-IR tunable diode lasers for trace gas measurement, PCR and ATP analysis of Space Station water, detection of trace gases via FRET using dendritic molecules, bioluminescent bioreporter chips, microfluidic ion chromatography, and several others. Dr. Jan has received a NASA Quality and Productivity Award for Propulsion System Filter Analysis. He has accepted five Tech Brief awards. He is a member of AIAA, AAAS, AIChE, and ASME. Dr. Jan earned his B.S. in Bioengineering at the University of California at Berkeley, and his S.M. and Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Jeroen Lapré & Matthew Blackwell
Epsilon Aurigae Dome Show
The California Academy of Sciences Visualization Studio Senior Technical Director, Jeroen Lapre, and Technical Director, Matthew Blackwell, will present their work on a 5 minute planetarium dome show that explores the eclipsing binary system Epsilon Aurigae. Epsilon Aurigae is located in the constellation Auriga, approximately 2000 ly from earth. The binary system is believed to consist of an F0 super giant, and a solar system-sized dust disk, orbiting a common center of gravity. The Epsilon Aurigae system drops in brightness every 27 years. The eclipsing of the dust disk and the F0 is proposed to be the cause of this dimming. Jeroen will explain how science data about the epsilon Aurigae System was imported into Uniview, and modelled in Maya.
Uniview is a real time 3D "Universe in a Box" software package by SCISS, a company specializing in astronomy visualization software for digital planetaria. Maya is a 3D modeling and rendering package, by Autodesk, which is popular in the visual effects industry. Matt will describe the process of visualizing a solar system-sized rotating dust disk, starting with scientific simulations supplied by collaborators, and examining the issues encountered in representing such information using software commonly employed in the visual effects industry. The Epsilon Aurigae vizualization is based on research by Professor Robert Stencel, and produced in association with the Citizen Sky Project, AAVSO, Adler Planetarium, with assistance from the National Science Foundation.
Jeroen Lapré's background includes 11 years in the feature film visual effects industry at Industrial Light & Magic. Jeroen has had a life-long passion for science and space exploration. He enjoys combining digital visualization skills gained from the visual effects industry, with compelling science topics at the California Academy of Sciences Visualization Studio.
Matthew Blackwell's background includes a doctorate in chemistry from UC Berkeley and over 10 years in the visual effects industry at Industrial Light & Magic.
Todd Klaus
An Overview of the Kepler Mission, a Search for Earth-Size Exoplanets in the Habitable Zone
The Kepler mission is designed to continuously monitor over 100,000 stars at a 30 minute cadence for 3.5 years searching for Earth-size planets in the habitable zone. The field of view was chosen to maximize the number of suitable target stars while satisfying constraints on ecliptic and galactic coordinates. The field must be at least 55 degrees from the ecliptic in order to be continuously observable throughout the year as Kepler orbits the Sun while remaining within 20 degrees of the galactic plane in order to maximize the number of target stars. These constraints are further refined to minimize the number of false positives due to background eclipsing binaries, which is a function of galactic latitude. The Kepler photometer contains a 95-megapixel CCD camera, but due to storage and bandwidth restrictions, only about 5% of these pixels are sent back to Earth. This requires that the target stars within the selected field be preselected. The target stars were chosen based on metrics designed to optimize the scientific yield of the mission with regards to the detection of Earth-size planets by the Kepler photometer. Target tables specifying which pixels to store and download are generated at the Science Operations Center (SOC) at NASA Ames Research Center and uploaded to the spacecraft every 90 days. The data collected on board the spacecraft are downloaded monthly via NASA's Deep Space Network and processed at the SOC using custom built distributed pipeline software running on a cluster of 128 processors.
Todd Klaus is the Lead Software Engineer for the Kepler Science Operations Center (SOC) at NASA Ames Research Center. Todd has been with the Kepler project since 2005, and helped design and implement the software and hardware used to process the Kepler data in search of planetary transit signatures, as well as the operational tools and processes used by the SOC. Todd has been a software engineer and architect for 19 years, and is also an avid amateur astronomer with a backyard observatory.
Ken Koenig
Panel - Avatar: The Good, The Bad And The Beautiful
Ken Koenig, M.D. is a recently retired psychiatrist/psychoanalyst who was in private practice for over 32 years. He was also responsible for co-organizing the Northern California branch of the Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis where he taught for many years. Nearing retirement Ken took up documentary filmmaking, a long held passion that brought together his interest in photography, computers, interviewing and filmmaking (which began when he grew up using a 16 mm camera his parents owned). A lifelong jazz fan and musician, he made his first film about the famous jazz club in Hermosa Beach, near Los Angeles (The Lighthouse) where modern jazz on the west coast had its roots in the 50s and 60s. This project has proven very successful and the film has been shown in venues nationally and internationally. His next project was a film about the history of jazz in his hometown of Santa Cruz, CA. His most recent film is a live concert documentary about singers and the Great American songbook. He is currently beginning work on his next documentary film. Ken lives in Santa Cruz with his wife. He has a son, who is an animator and script writer and works in Los Angeles most recently on the Simpsons as well as his own animated projects. He has a daughter who lives in Northern California and is an archeologist.
Larry Lemke
Flying on Titan
On January 14, 2005 the Huygens probe successfully entered the atmosphere of Titan and descended on a parachute to the surface, where it remained operational for a few hours, transmitting data to the Cassini orbiter for subsequent relay to Earth. This orbiter-probe spacecraft combination produced a wealth of observations consistent with previously held theories, while also revealing unexpected discoveries. For example, the presence of predicted convective atmospheric processes, evaporation and condensation of liquid methane, geological resurfacing, and energy sources to drive all of these processes was confirmed. After the mission was proven successful, the discussion within the Outer Solar System exploration community quickly turned to the topic of bringing mobility to Titan. In principle, the characteristics of Titan allow the possibility of mobility on the solid surface, on the lakes, or in the air. Of these possibilities, aerial mobility offers the highest productivity of scientific data return in the immediate future because the atmosphere is in contact with every point on the surface (allowing global access) and because the speed of air travel makes it possible to cover a very large ground track during the course of a given mission. In addition, the view of Titan's surface from orbit is obscured by a haze layer at high altitude, thus making low level atmospheric flight the only practical alternative for high resolution imaging. Of particular importance to the problem of flight is the combination of Titan's very low gravity and high atmospheric density, making Titan the easiest place in the Solar System to fly. This talk deals with flying fixed wing aircraft on Titan for purposes of scientific exploration using the new generation of Radioisotope Power Source being developed by NASA.
Larry Lemke earned a BA in Psychology from University of California Santa Cruz, a BS in Physics from Portland State University, and MS and Engineer Degrees from Stanford University. In 1978 Mr. Lemke joined the professional staff of NASA-Ames Research Center, performing applied and theoretical aerodynamic research in advanced rotorcraft technology. From 1988 through 1996, he was a member of the faculty of the International Space University, where he was responsible for Design Projects and the Space Engineering departments. Beginning in 1996, he served for 5 years as the Chief of the Advanced Projects Office at NASA-Ames. He served as Principal Investigator for a Mars Airplane technology development project (MATADOR), and a Mars Hypervelocity penetrator (MVE) project, and Co-Investigator on the Mars Analog Rio Tinto Experiment (MARTE, Riotinto, Spain). Since 2004, he has served on assignment to NASA Headquarters' Program Analysis and Evaluation (PA&E) office, where he participated in the Surface Nuclear Power special study group and the Near Earth Object special study group. He has published more than 20 articles in technical journals and conference proceedings. He currently serves as a senior aerospace engineer within the NASA-Ames Small Spacecraft Office/Mission Design Center. Specific interests are in the design of extraterrestrial airplanes and planetary surface and subsurface access systems.
Mark Lupisella
Panel: Human-rating Automated and Robotic Systems
Rob McCann
Mission Operations Beyond the Earth-Moon System
Historically, manned spacecraft missions have relied heavily on real-time communication links between crewmembers and ground control for generating crew activity schedules and working time-critical off-nominal situations. On crewed missions beyond the Earth-Moon system, speed-of-light limitations will render this ground-centered concept of operations obsolete. A new, more distributed concept of operations will have to be developed in which the crew takes on more responsibility for real-time anomaly diagnosis and resolution, activity planning and replanning, and flight operations. I will discuss the innovative information technologies, human-machine interfaces, and simulation capabilities that must be developed in order to develop, test, and validate deep-space mission operations.
Robert McCann is Group Lead of NASA Ames' Intelligent Spacecraft Interface Systems Laboratory. He holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Waterloo and started his career at Ames as a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow. He has conducted research in the areas of human multi-tasking limitations, testing and evaluation of advanced automation and human-computer interfaces for aircraft surface operations and real-time fault management on next-generation spacecraft, human performance modeling and simulation, and effects of vibration on spacecraft operations. He has over 60 professional publications in these areas, which have been cited in over 700 refereed journal articles. In his spare time, he blogs on scientific and astronomical topics at http://whabbear.blogspot.com.
Andrew Mishkin
Panel: Human-rating Automated and Robotic Systems
Andrew Mishkin is a Principal Engineer and the Supervisor of the JPL Planning and Execution System Engineering Group at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). He has nearly 25 years experience in the design, development and operation of various robotic vehicles, including the Sojourner, Spirit, and Opportunity Mars rovers. He was the lead for the Command and Control team for NASA's Constellation Program, and is currently leading the SEPOD team providing systems engineering expertise to the Constellation Mission Operations Project at JSC. Previously, Mr. Mishkin was the primary architect of the surface operations process for the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission, and served as the MER command sequencing team chief, and as a MER mission manager. He is the author of Sojourner: An Insider's View of the Mars Pathfinder Mission.
Jim Moore
What's the Difference Between a Chimpanzee and a Bonobo?
Chimpanzees have a reputation (today) as aggressive, male-dominated, warlike and "demonic." Bonobos (aka pygmy chimpanzees) are "apes from Venus" who make love, not war. Understanding the reality behind those images and the ecological explanation may help in designing and perhaps understanding aliens.
Jim Moore has collected degrees (BA, MA, MS, PhD; no BS) and is a biological anthropologist at UC San Diego and founder of the Ugalla Primate Project. His research focuses on chimpanzees and how they can inform us about human evolution. Chimpanzees and early hominids have something in common with vampires and aliens: they are clearly not members of Homo sapiens, but whether they are persons is unclear and their "humanity" cannot be categorically rejected. In that spirit, he's looking forward to returning to CONTACT after a hiatus of ... way too long.
Reed Riner
What Anthropology Brings to the Study of Futures
The training and education of professional futures thinkers has been feudalized, so that tyros study in a Master's enclave, where there is restricted, and not peer-reviewed nor sharing of methods and findings, as both are necessarily proprietary. Anthropology, as a public discipline, and the most holistic, all-embracing, among the social sciences, brings an established structure of inductively developed and inter-connected theories (explanatory strategies), methods, and professional practices - which can, potentially, elevate the exploration of alternative futures from proprietary Feudalism into a 21st , post-modernist holistic, inter-disciplinary social science. Specifically, anthropology's strategy 'yang' strategy of 'timelining' of thermodynamic, cultural materialist description, while the Ethnographic Futures Research illustrates the complimentary, 'yin', ideographic strategy, eliciting and clarifying 'meanings'. Geeks will understand these relations in the hardware / software dichotomy.
Reed Riner is Professor of Anthropology at Northern Arizona University, where he regularly teaches courses about the future, and is a founding board member of CONTACT.
Don Scott
The Ecologist, the Mythologist, and the Poet
Sometimes intellectual change is obvious and highly visible - like the Apollo moon landings. But more often, it happens quietly, in a backwater, outside of formal institutions and overlooked by the media. People of like mind run into each other, talk, share ideas, and the paradigm shifts -- so quietly that society at large does not know the shift has happened until decades pass. This talk will explore one example of quiet paradigm shift - which began when two brilliant misfits met in a dentists' office, and reached its fulfillment when another brilliant misfit shared a unique and potent cocktail with one of them.
Donald M. Scott is a retired NASA Educator. In the best tradition of medieval wandering scholars, Scott currently travels the western United States in his classic 1977 Toyota Chinook, working as a volunteer Ranger-Naturalist while he completes his biography of historian, odologist, toponymist, and pioneering ecological novelist George R. Stewart. Scott is interested in the role that independent scholars play in the creation of the future; that will be the topic of his talk at CONTACT 26.
Seth Shostak
Broadcasting to ET: A Dangerous Thing to Do?
Where should SETI aim its telescopes to find a signal that would prove that we 'e not the smartest things in the galaxy? The traditional answer: stellar systems somewhat like our own. Consequently, every SETI experiment since Project Ozma, a half-century ago, has relentlessly examined the neighborhoods of nearby stars, hoping to pick up ET's faint signal. But the bulk of technically competent societies (if such things exist) will be far beyond our own level. It's possible that these cultures won't be constrained to solar systems. In this talk, we consider some novel galactic locations where highly sophisticated intelligence may be sited, and suggest why SETI observations in these direction might lead to a signal detection sooner than the continuing surveillance of individual star systems.
Seth Shostak is senior astronomer and official spokesman for the SETI Institute. A distinguished astronomer with many publications to his credit, Seth is also a photographer, filmmaker and widely known media personality. Seth's book, Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life has received much public and scholarly acclaim.
Michael Sims
Human 2.0
We describe colonial insects such as ants and termites as superorganisms because of how they closely couple their behavior and established roles in accomplishing greater tasks than single individuals can accomplish. The newest superorganism on Earth is the organism formed by the aggregate of all of humanity coupled with all of our sensor, communication and reasoning creations. Very much like the shell of a bivalve these external components are created out of materials of the world and give us ways to interacting with the world that are beneficial. The newest technologies, such as web 2.0 technologies, allow us to greatly enhance our ability to respond as a single organism. This talk will describe what is similar and different about the human 2.0 superorganism from the other classes of superorganisms that we are familiar with and recast our past in terms of what will be possible in the future. In part, we will argue that although human 2.0 is radially different from past superorganisms that it is a powerful and natural new superorganism to inhabit the universe. We will open the inquiry as to what this implies about other possible life in the universe.
Michael Sims is Research Scientist in the Intelligent Systems Division of NASA Ames, Co-Investigator on the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER), Deputy Chief Scientist for NASA Engineering and Safety Center and cofounder of the Center for Collaboration Science and Applications (CCSA, http://www.cmu.edu/silicon-valley/ccsa/). 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 and collaboration. Previously he served as agent for artificial intelligence, robotics and human factors for NASA's missions beyond low Earth orbit in the 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. On the MER mission, in addition to being Long Term Planning Lead, for 7 of MER's 9 camera he serves as payload uplink lead and designed and built the software system which is used on each rover for automating most of that work.
Carol Stoker
The Habitability of the Phoenix Landing Site
The key objective of the Phoenix mission was to search for a habitable zone. The paper evaluates the habitability of the landing site based on mission results. We define the habitability probability (HI) as the product of probabilities for the presence of liquid water (Plw), energy (Pe), nutrients (Pch), and benign and nontoxic environment (Pb). Observational evidence for the presence of liquid water (past or present) includes clean ice at a polygon boundary, chemical etching of soil grains, and carbonate minerals in the soil. The presence of ice at the surface and near subsurface, along with thermodynamic conditions that support melting suggest that liquid water is theoretically possible. Presently, unfrozen water can form only in adsorbed films or saline brines but more clement conditions recur periodically due to variations in orbital parameters. Energy to drive metabolism is available from sunlight, where semi-transparent soil grains provide shielding, and chemical energy from the redox couple of perchlorate and reduced iron. Nutrient sources including C, H, N, O, P and S compounds are supplied by known atmospheric sources or global dust. Environmental conditions are within growth tolerance for terrestrial microbes. Surface soil temperatures currently reach 260K and are periodically much higher, the pH is 7.8 and is well buffered, and the water activity is high enough to allow growth when sufficient water is available. Computation of HI for the sites visited by landers yields Phoenix=0.47, Meridiani=0.23, Gusev=0.22, Pathfinder=0.05, Viking 1=0.01, Viking 2=0.07. HI for the Phoenix site is the largest of any site explored but dissimilar measurements limit the comparisons' confidence.
Carol Stoker is a staff scientist in the Space Sciences Division at the NASA Ames Research Center in California. She is a lead scientist on the Phoenix mission whose four principal science teams include Biological Potential, Geology, Chemistry and Minerology, and Atmospheric Science. Dr. Stoker leads the Biological Potential working group responsible for evaluating the biological potential, or biohabitability, of the polar landing site. Her Mars-analog drilling experience and research into life in extreme environments on Earth, together with her development of the virtual reality technology that enhances the control of mobile rovers, make her uniquely qualified to participate in the exploration of the Polar region of Mars accomplished by the Phoenix mission.
Melanie Swan
Revolutionizing Biology with Personal Genomes
Biology evolved to be just good enough to survive. Genomics provides the critical toolkit for its greater exploitation. The ability to sequence and synthesize DNA is already having an impact in the health and energy sectors. The global challenge and opportunity for humanity is to move safely and expediently into a new era of biological manipulation.
Melanie Swan - Principal, MS Futures Group, is a hedge fund manager and futurist focused on research in emerging high-impact technologies. Recent publications include "Multigenic Condition Risk Assessment in Direct-to-Consumer Genomic Services," "Engineering Life into Technology," and "Emerging Patient-Driven Health Care Models." Melanie has an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Georgetown University. She is an advisor and instructor at Singularity University.
Ulrich Winter
The two sides of contact - Who's testing whom?
Is it possible to speak with a non-human intelligence? What modes of communication with dolphins are there, given their vocal capabilities, form, interests and environment? How do dolphins respond to an obviously different training context and request? As Goodman tested them, the dolphins tested her. Test results are presented to explain, how dolphin intelligence is revealed in creative, adaptive, and brilliant answers. Other results show, that dolphins are creative, subtly aware and spontaneously resonant, that they are masters of relationship and community.
Ulrich Winter is a physicist working as a freelancer in the headquarters of T-Mobile, Germany, funding his own research projects on Neural Network technologies. The current project tries to utilize brain sized Neural Networks as a translator between dolphin or whale communication patterns and human language.
Israel Zuckerman
COTI Classic: Back to Cultures of the Imagination
We're celebrating the inauguration of our second quarter century of CONTACT with a resurrection of our original focus on COTI. This should please many longtimers, who have been clamoring for a return for years, and delight some newcomers, who have not had the opportunity to participate in the event that precipitated the initial success of our conferences. So, for CONTACT 2010, we return to the thrilling days of yesteryear with COTI Classic. Human and alien teams will be recruited from our presenters and audience. Contact between the teams will climax the conference on Sunday.
Israel Zuckerman is the director of the COTI: CULTURES OF THE IMAGINATION workshop. He has a BA in Anthropology, and currently is a computer technician and educator at a bilingual elementary school in Watsonville, CA.