Category Archives: Speculation

Videos: Talks given at NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Fall Symposium

The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) office funds studies into all sorts of leading and beyond leading edge ideas for space development. This past week NIAC held its fall symposium in Seattle, Washington –

Many interesting talks were given and you can see them in the archive at 2015 NIAC Fall Symposium on Livestream.

Some examples:

* Keynote Address Greg Bear, Science Fiction Author

* Four talks by:

  • William Engblom, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Virtual Flight Demonstration of Stratospheric Dual-Aircraft Platform
  • John Graf, NASA JSC, Thirsty Walls – A new paradigm for air revitalization in life support
  • Michael Hecht, MIT Haystack Observatory, A Tall Ship and a Star to Steer Her By
  • John Lewis, Deep Space Industries, In-Space Manufacture of Storable Propellants

*  Four talks by:

  • Larry Paxton, Johns Hopkins University, CRICKET: Cryogenic Reservoir Inventory by Cost-Effective Kinetically Enhanced Technology
  • Joel Sercel, ICS Assoc., APIS (Asteroid Provided In-Situ Supplies):100MT Of Water from a Single Falcon 9
  • Adrian Stoica, NASA JPL, WindBots: persistent in-situ science explorers for gas giants
  • Nelson Tabirian, BEAM Engineering for Advanced Measurements Co., Thin-Film Broadband Large Area Imaging System

* Three talks by:

  • Melville Ulmer, Northwestern University, Aperture: A Precise Extremely large Reflective Telescope Using Re-configurable Elements
  • Joseph Wang, Univ. Southern California, CubeSat with Nanostructured Sensing Instrumentation for Planetary Exploration
  • Marco Pavone, Stanford University, Spacecraft/Rover Hybrids for the Exploration of Small Solar System Bodies

Video: “GeekWire Summit: Science fiction and the future”

A panel discussion about the future: Why this futurist, sci-fi writer, and former astronaut are optimistic about the future – GeekWire

Starship Congress 2015: Interstellar Hackathon – live feed available

The Starship Congress 2015: Interstellar Hackathon is underway today and tomorrow at Drexel University. Videos from the event, including a live feed,  are available at the Icarus Interstellar YouTube channel. See the presentation schedule here.

Organized by the Icarus Interstellar group, the event is described as follows:

Starship Congress is the not-for-profit science organization’s biennial international assemblage of recognized interstellar-and-deep space scientists and proponents. The 2nd Starship Congress will be hosted at Drexel University this September 4-5.

With a nod to this year’s University setting and a Hollywood and video game-driven surge in popularity of deep space exploration (“Interstellar”, “Guardians of the Galaxy”, “EVE: Valkyrie”, “Kerbal Space Program 1.0”), Starship Congress 2015 is being subtitled Interstellar Hackathon—featuring talks and presentations centered on hacking the paradigm of interstellar space exploration. Events leading up to the September summit include academic paper submission, poster contest and crowdfunded Kickstarter campaign. Drexel University is home to the first collegiate chapter of Icarus Interstellar.

Starship Congress 2015: Interstellar Hackathon will be built around workshops and punctuated by speakers from the deep space science community over the two-day event. Icarus Interstellar welcomes paper presentation by representatives of aerospace, aeronautics, advanced materials, fission and fusion research fields. Registration for Starship Congress 2015 will open later this week on Icarus Interstellar’s website. A call-for-papers will also be made in May. (Preliminary schedule for the 2-day event is included here below.)

“Two personal reasons for being involved in interstellar studies: Its the most fun and the most significant achievement humanity has undertaken”, notes Dr. Andreas Tziolas, president of Icarus Interstellar. “Icarus’ role is to keep up the pressure by coordinating cutting edge research in a way which is approachable and understandable to everyone seeking to participate. This first ever, Interstellar Hackathon will be as fun as it will be productive, as we challenge participants to think fast and hard about exploring our place in the universe.”

As before, Starship Congress aims to bring the interstellar and deep space science community together in order to foster discussion and generate tangible action. Distinct from the first Starship Congress, the 2015 edition is being structured to quickly break-down status quo approaches in anticipation of reaping new results from looking at old challenges with fresh outlooks.

“Just pulling off Starship Congress 2013 with so many important scientists and thinkers working together was an incredible experience,” says Starship Congress strategic director Mike Mongo, “and one that reaped qualifiable advances in thinking about interstellar space exploration. I am boggling just imagining how that effect will be furthered by Starship Congress 2015’s being staged on a notable university campus like Drexel. We are hacking Starship Congress itself by introducing the benefits and influences of an acclaimed academic setting.”

Starship Congress is the premier assemblage of international interstellar proponents and advocacy groups united in the common goal of deep space and interstellar accomplishment. By combining presentation, discussion, and decision, Starship Congress aims to engender and reach consensus of actionable items throughout the interstellar community.

Icarus Interstellar is dedicated to promoting the dream of interstellar flight, a dream springing from the same kernel of Boldness found in the original vision of humans taking flight. Founded as an organization in 2009, Icarus Interstellar became a 501c3 non-for-profit registered in the state of Alaska in 2011.

 

 

Video: Marc Millis, inertial frames, and space drives

I pointed earlier to the set of videos from the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop (TVIW) held in Oak Ridge last November. One of the talks was given by Marc Millis, who was chief of NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion program, which ran from 1996-2002. Schemes to provide propellantless propulsion without violating conservation of momentum require some type of non-standard view of inertial frames. In his TVIW talk, he gave an intro to this topic. He also has this online tutorial: Breakthrough Propulsion Physics – a tutorial by Marc Millis – h+ Media

Videos: Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop

The third meeting of the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop (TVIW) was held in Oak Ridge last November. The TVIW was founded by Les Johnson, a Senior Technical Assistant for the Advanced Concepts Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Johnson was recently interviewed on The Space Show about the workshop and the prospects for interstellar flight: Les Johnson, Sunday, 2-15-15 – Thespaceshow’s Blog.

There are a lot interesting videos of presentations at the November event:

Here is a sampling:

* Dr. Brent Ziarnick, MAJ USAF – Starfleet Deferred: Project Orion in USAF Space Plan 1962 – An interesting account of the support given by the upper echelon of the USAF to the Orion nuclear pulse spaceship project:

Michael MinovitchGround-To-Orbit Fusion Propulsion System for Achieving Commercial Interplanetary Space Travel – Minovitch as a UCLA student in 1961 discovered the gravitational slingshot technique that allows a spacecraft to gain speed with the assist of a planet’s gravity. (The Voyagers, for example, used the technique to visit multiple planets and escape the solar system to  reach interstellar space.) Minovitch gave a talk about a fusion powered engine concept that he has invented that could take a winged vehicle from the surface of the earth to the Moon or a planet and back:

* Gordon Woodcock – A Construction Scenario for O’Neill Cylinder Space Settlement Habitats – 

* Robert Freeland – Firefly: An Unmanned Interstellar Probe Using Z-Pinch Propulsion – 

* A “Public Outreach STEM Event” that included a panel of science fiction authors and publishers:  Sarah and Dan Hoyt, Tony Daniel, Toni Weisskopf (Baen Books), Les Johnson, and Paul Gilster