Cafe Sci Orlando announcements for 2011-12: "Practical Starship Engineering" (7 December!)
Chad MILLER
* Topic, "Practical Starship Engineering"
* Neil deGrasse Tyson in Vero Beach, February
Topic, "Practical Starship Engineering"
Hi. This month we will have a fascinating discussion at our Cafe Sci at
7PM on Wednesday 7 December, at Taste, in College Park.
Traveling to the next starsystem is an enormous undertaking. The social
and engineering problems that are still unsolved stretch credulity and
imagination.
DARPA seeded [1]a study, "100 Year Starship", of how to make
long-distance space travel feasible. A serious attempt at having a wide
variety of thinkers solve an actual journey's problems will have
unimaginable benefits as side-effects. More interestingly, an analysis
of the effort could help discover how organizations can adapt to change
and still maintain focus and momentum for many generations, which both
is useful in-flight, and in solving big problems on politically-fickle
Earth.
Our speaker, Dr. Handberg, a speaker and attendee of the October 2011,
"100 Year Starship" conference will summarize the event and give his
estimation of the problems he finds interesting.
Dr. Roger Handberg, professor and chair of the Political Science
Department, specializes in space policy, national security policy, and
judicial politics. He also teaches courses dealing with government
policies in science and technology, economic and business policy, and
American security policy, particularly military space policy and
ballistic missile defense.
Handberg has worked at UCF since 1972. He has published nine books and
more than 156 articles and book chapters plus presented over 125
papers. His recent books include "Chinese Space Policy: A Study in
Domestic and International Politics", "International Space Commerce:
Building from Scratch" and "Reinventing NASA and the Quest for Outer
Space."
Directions
Taste
717 W. Smith Street
Orlando, United States
32804
Taste is near the corner of Princeton Street (really Smith Street after
the fork) and Edgewater Drive, so about 2 minutes from I-4 to parking.
One can park on the street or in the parking lot behind Taste.
* From Downtown and south, drive north ("east") on I-4 through
downtown. At the exit for Princeton Street, exit and turn
left/west.
* From Altamonte Springs and north, drive south ("west") on I-4
toward downtown Orlando. At the exit for Princeton Street, exit and
turn right/west.
From I-4, drive a few blocks to Edgewater Drive. At the intersection,
you should see a orange building ahead of you, labeled "Taste". Park on
the street or behind Taste.
Neil deGrasse Tyson in Vero Beach, February
Vero Beach's The Emerson Center for the Arts has a long running speaker
series, and [2]tickets went on sale this morning for a lecture by
astrophysicist Neil Tyson. "Tyson discusses the future of space
exploration and its impact on humanity." February 25.
References
1. http://www.100yss.org/
2. http://theemersoncenter.tix.com/Schedule.asp?OrganizationNumber=2800