Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2011-06-18]: DARPA agency issued a call for papers for the “100 Year Starship Symposium” [source: DARPA Call for Papers]. The goal is to get ideas from people, organizations, companies and universities across the globe in order to start building the technological capabilities and the philosophical breakthroughs required to start the first human interstellar space mission by 2111.Themes for discussion and analysis during the symposium include:
“Time/space manipulation and/or dilation, near speed of light navigation, faster than light navigation, observations and sensing at near speed of light or faster than light...
Implications of finding habitable worlds, implications of finding life elsewhere, implications of being left behind...
To have gravity or not [inside the ships], space and radiation effects, environmental toxins, energy collection and use, agriculture, self-supporting environments, optimal habitat sizing...
Criteria for destination selection, what do you take...”
Our getting away from “home”, the management of Time as a notion, to live and die on your way to a distant star, travelling with speeds greater than the speed of light (even though we “know” that this cannot be done), the implications of finding life beyond our planet (as if the existence of a plant in this Earth of on Mars plays any role for the importance of the miracle we call “life”), even questions as simple and at the same time complicated like “what will you take with you in a journey like that", are an excellent food for thought.
The journey is more important than reaching the destination.
And starting a new journeys like that, is what makes us who we are…
(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective...
(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective...
