The Interstellar Research Group (IRG) is inviting participation in its 7th Interstellar Symposium. The University of Arizona will host the symposium, which is to be held from Friday, September 24 through Monday, September 27, 2021, in Tucson, Arizona. If you submit a paper, you may present it at the symposium.
But, first, you must submit an abstract of no more than 350 words.
Your paper may focus on any of the topics that are the subject of the symposium, including all aspects of interstellar travel (human and robotic), power, communications, system reliability/maintainability, psychology, crew health, anthropology, legal regimes and treaties, ethics, and propulsion with an emphasis on possible destinations (including the status of exoplanet research), life support systems, and habitats.
Personally, I would like to see papers on terraforming. What if you found a barren rock world of the right size and distance from its star to support human life? Could you make it habitable? How would you go about giving it an atmosphere–import these things? How would you maintain that atmosphere? Is there any way to speed up the eons of work lichen does? When do you start importing Earth’s microbes? Which ones?
There will be a seminar on terraforming, actually, which I am looking forward to tremendously. However, that doesn’t mean that more papers wouldn’t be helpful.
The next two links are to my own posts on terraforming. If you are a scientist, please read these. You will likely be clutching your hair at how much I don’t know. That’s good. Perhaps you will feel moved to write a paper explaining things.
Let the Terraforming Begin! Or not.
Mountain Laurel, Terraforming, Mycorrhizae, and Exporting Primordial Soup
Dates: Abstracts for early acceptance are due: March 15, 2021. Abstracts for regular acceptance are due: June 30, 2021.