Talk Series: Visions of our Interstellar Future
Date: 22nd June 2021
Time: 8pm UTC (London time)
Presenter: John Davies
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Summary
John will discuss capturing the imagination as a necessary support to the goal. Hearts are as important as minds in engaging participants in the interstellar endeavour. He argues we must take the inspirations which drove the pioneers of spaceflight in the early 20th century and build upon them. Migration is part of our human history and similar motives will drive us further. A Solar System civilisation will arise, mature and will shape our further migration. Interstellar migration must be preceded by our non-human proxies. Economics, politics and all human relations across the Solar system will be a challenge. This will be multiplied many-fold across light years. Is there any end to our Outward Urge? Scientists and engineers will be the first to engage in this, the greatest endeavour of our species since the migration from Africa. But this time it will be collective, and consciously so. How can we prepare humanity for this future?
About the speaker
John Davies is a retired software engineer and mobile telecom consultant. In his early career he was briefly part of the UK space sector where he worked on ground checkout for the Bluestreak vehicle and contributed to an early study for the Hubble telescope. He has a first degree in Electronics from the University of Liverpool and a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Manchester. He spent much of his career developing systems software for UK academic networks, based at the universities of Edinburgh and London, and in technical standards and technical sales in mobile telecoms at Hutchison Telecom and Sema Group. He joined i4is soon after its founding and his own retirement. He edits the quarterly Principium and coordinates outreach (to schools and scientific societies) and infrastructure (membership, app, web and email). He wrote The Interstellar Downlink - Principles and Current Work published in Principium 31, November 2020.
About the series
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