16-06-11 DARPA and NASA seeks ideas for interstellar flights

In 1865,Jules Verne put forward a seemingly impossible notion in From Earth to the Moon:he wrote about building a giant space gun that would rocket men to the moon.Just over a century later,the impossible became reality when Neil Armstrong took that first step onto the moons surface in 1969.A century can fundamentally change our understanding of our universe and reality.Mans desire to explore space and achieve the seemingly impossible is at the center of the 100 Year Starship Study Symposium.The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and NASA Ames Research Center (serving as execution agent),are working together to convene thought leaders dealing with the practical and fantastic issues man needs to address to achieve interstellar flight one hundred years from now.DARPA and NASA Ames Research Center are soliciting abstracts for papers and/or topics/members for discussion panels,to be presented at the 100 Year Starship Study Symposium to be held in Orlando,Florida from September 30 through October 2, 2011.The symposium is expected to attract roughly hundreds of people from around the world.Speaking abstracts for papers and proposed panels should be submitted online at www.100yss.org by 2:00 pm ET on Thursday,July 8,2011.This wont just be another space technology conference,we are hoping that ethicists,lawyers,science fiction writers,technologists and others,will participate in the dialog to make sure we are thinking about all the aspects of interstellar flight,said David Neyland,director of the Tactical Technology Office for DARPA.This is a great opportunity for people with interesting ideas to be heard,which we believe will spur further thought,dreaming and innovation.The conference will include a series of tracks.Individuals may submit speaking abstracts directly related to these topics,or they can propose entirely different ideas.