As part of the First European Interstellar Symposium, the Interstellar Research Group (IRG) will offer three seminars on 2 December 2024 with morning and afternoon sessions. The first will start at 9:00 am and the other two will start at 1:00 pm. The IRG reception and social hour will be held that evening.
Seminars are 3-hour presentations on a single subject, presented by individual(s) familiar with the topic and providing an in-depth look at that subject. Seminars are not included in the IRG Symposium costs and do not require Symposium membership to attend. While these seminars can get technical, they are structured such that the average individual, along with the scientists and engineers can learn about the topic. Seminars have been a hallmark of the IRG Symposium from almost the beginning and have been well received. They give the presenter a chance to go into far more detail on a given topic than is possible with a 20 minute presentation. Interactions between the presenter and the students are encouraged.
You may sign up for both a morning and afternoon session, irrespective of if you are also attending the Symposium. If space is available, it will be possible to sign up at the door on Monday, the day of the seminar.
Additional seminar topics may be added later, so check back occasionally.
Speakers
Prof. Andreas Hein
Associate Professor, University of Luxembourg
Dr. Anders Sandberg
Researcher, Institute of Future Studies, Stockholm
Les Johnson
Scientist, Author, Futurist, and NASA Space Technologist
Registration
| Half Day (one seminar) | 80 € |
| Full Day (two seminars) | 150 € |
| Student / Senior Citizen Discount | 50% |
The seminar registration is separate to the registration for the First European Interstellar Symposium.
If you want to attend both the symposium and the seminars, you will need to register twice. Follow the instructions on the main page to register for the main symposium.
Schedule
Andreas M. Hein: Interstellar Generation Ships – Designing Miniaturized Worlds
Generation ships are interstellar spacecraft on which people live their lives over multiple generations. Generation ships have been a trope of science fiction for over a century, oftentimes depicting the perils of living on such a ship over centuries. Few people know that generation ships have also become a topic of scientific inquiry.
In this seminar, I will explore with you the different dimensions of designing a generation ship, using tools from science, engineering, and design.
After the seminar, you will:
- Design a highly simplified generation ship
- Know the basics of interstellar travel
- Know the basic elements of the interstellar environment
- Know the fundamental design parameters of generation ship architectures: Propulsion, power, life support systems, etc.
- Know the basic elements of generation ship habitat design
- Know the basic considerations for exploring societies on generation ships, including population size, biological, mission-related, cultural, and technological considerations
- Able to compare generation ships with alternative modes of human interstellar travel
Andreas Hein is an associate professor of space systems engineering at the University of Luxembourg’s Interdisciplinary Center for Security, Reliability, and Trust (SnT). He works on space systems that are miniaturized and distributed, including ChipSats and CubeSats, operated in swarms and formations, in-space manufacturing, and in-situ resource utilization.
Andreas is also the Executive Director and Director Technical Programs of the UK-based not-for-profit Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is), where he is coordinating and contributing to research on diverse topics such as missions to interstellar objects, laser sail probes, self-replicating spacecraft, and world ships. He obtained his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Technical University of Munich and conducted his PhD research on space systems engineering there and at MIT. He has published over 70 articles in peer-reviewed international journals and conferences.
Anders Sandberg: Planning for the Truly Long Long-Term
What can we say about the very long-term future of humanity and life in the universe? This seminar will discuss what we can predict with some rigour about the very far future, and then discuss how this poses challenges for survival, and how these challenges might be overcome. In particular I will discuss how climate and geology are likely to change over the next gigayear, stellar evolution, the Milky Way-Andromeda merger, accelerating cosmological expansion, the long-term stability of galaxies and matter. Given current knowledge many of these might be manageable through adaptation, different settlement strategies, or megascale engineering. I will also discuss some of the philosophical challenges of how to evaluate extreme long-term projects.
Dr. Anders Sandberg is a researcher at the Mimir Centre for Long Term Futures at the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm. His research at the centers on management of low-probability high-impact risks, societal and ethical issues surrounding human enhancement, estimating the capabilities of future technologies, uncertainty, and very long-range futures. Topics of particular interest include global catastrophic risk, existential risk, cognitive enhancement, methods of forecasting, neuroethics, SETI, transhumanism, and future-oriented public policy.
He was senior research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford 2006-2024. He is research associate of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and the Center for the Study of Bioethics (Belgrade). He is on the board of the non-profits ALLFED and AI Objectives Institute. He is on the advisory boards of a number of organizations and often debates science and ethics in international media.
Anders has a background in computer science, neuroscience and medical engineering. He obtained his Ph.D. in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, Sweden, for work on neural network modelling of human memory.
Les Johnson: Interstellar Propulsion: Current Prospects and Future Possibilities
One of the most obvious challenges ahead of us as we attempt to reach the stars is crossing immense distances in a relatively short period of time. Using chemical rockets and planetary gravity assists, the Voyager spacecraft are our first interstellar emissaries but for them to reach the nearest star will require 70,000 years! Practical trip times need to be measured in decades or, at most, in centuries, and this raises the question: Are there methods of advanced propulsion, within the known laws of physics, that can make this possible? The answer is, “yes!” In this short course, Les Johnson will describe the various known types of spacecraft propulsion, their theoretical maximum velocities (hence, travel times), and their suitability for helping humanity become an interstellar species.
Topics to be discussed include:
- Interstellar distances
- Chemical rockets
- Electric propulsion
- Nuclear propulsion (electric and thermal)
- Fission and Fusion Propulsion
- Antimatter Rockets
- Solar and Laser Sails
- Electric Sails
- And some speculative physics
Les Johnson is a physicist, award-winning science and science fiction author, and Chief Technologist at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center. His science fiction books include Crisis at Proxima (Baen 2024), The Ross 248 Project (Baen 2023), Saving Proxima (Baen 2021), Pluto: The Dark World (coming from Tor 2025), and more. Les’s popular science books include A Traveler’s Guide to the Stars (Princeton Press 2022) – now translated into 7 languages, Graphene: The Superstrong, Superthin, and Superversatile Material That Will Revolutionize the World (2018), Solar Sails: A Novel Approach to Interplanetary Travel, and others.
In his day job at NASA, Les served as the Principal Investigator for flight demonstrations of advanced space propulsion technologies including solar sails and electrodynamic tethers, and supported the development of nuclear thermal propulsion, electric propulsion systems, and more. Les is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, the British Interplanetary Society, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and MENSA – and is the Program Chair of the Interstellar Research Group.
Les was a technical consultant for the movies Europa Report, Lost in Space, and Solis. NPR, CNN, Fox News, The Science Channel and The Discovery Channel have all interviewed Les about space and space exploration. He was the featured Interstellar Explorer in the January 2013 issue of National Geographic magazine and appeared there again in March 2019.