If a connection between accounting and astronautics seems tenuous, it's one that Neil Armstrong invoked on the 24th of August, 2011, when he spoke before CPA Australia in Sydney, doubtless motivated by his father's career as an auditor. Armstrong stopped signing autographs in 1996 and rarely spoke in public, but accepted the Sydney invitation, according to members of the audience, because of his declared 'soft spot' for accounting. While no video was allowed during the speech, author Neil McAleer has had access to an audio recording, though one of uneven quality. What follows is an excerpt from a longer project on the Moon landing that McAleer is working on, within which he adds commentary to the parts of the speech he was able to transcribe. Armstrong's words throughout are in quotes, with McAleer's additions in standard text. The first man on the Moon would die almost exactly one year after giving this speech. "I am truly delighted to be here today and I thank you for the wonderful...

These are unusual times for a site that usually begins its investigations no closer than the outer Solar System (asteroids are an exception). But there is no way to ignore the Apollo 11 anniversary, nor would I even consider it. Tomorrow I'll have further reminiscences from Al Jackson, who was on the scene in Houston when Apollo touched the Moon, and on Friday a piece from Neil McAleer with substantial portions of a speech Neil Armstrong gave in Australia in 2011. For today, a look at how the public views space exploration in our era and earlier, with the surprising result that there seems to be more interest in space than I had assumed. In fact, while it has often seemed as if interest peaked with the moon landings and then slackened, turning instead to space programs of the imagination via high-budget films, there is new evidence that the work we track on Centauri Dreams has a good deal of support. According to a recent survey, over 70 percent of Americans liken the exploration of...

It's always good to have eyes and ears on the ground at events I can't get to, so I was pleased when Aleksandar Shulevski contacted me with the offer to send back notes from the European Space Agency's Advanced Concepts Team Interstellar Workshop in Noordwijk in the Netherlands. Born and raised in Bitola, Republic of Macedonia, Aleksandar is a science fiction reader and amateur astronomer who followed up electrical engineering studies in Skopje with an MSc in astronomy at Leiden University (Netherlands), dealing with calibration issues on the LOFAR radio telescope. He received a PhD from the University of Groningen, doing research on active galactic nuclei radio remnants observed with LOFAR. After working at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) as junior telescope scientist, he is now a research scientist at the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy at the University of Amsterdam, specializing in low-frequency radio transients and pursuing his interest in SETI....

Given the difficulties that persist in retrieving many good papers from behind publisher firewalls, I'm always glad to see open access journals plying their trade. Let me call your attention in particular to Acta Futura, which comes out of the scientists working with the European Space Agency's Advanced Concepts Team. Acta Future defines itself as multidisciplinary in scope with a focus on the long-term development of space science. Hence the list of topics is wide, as the website notes, "...ranging from fundamental physics to biomimetics, mission analysis, computational intelligence, neuroscience, as well as artificial intelligence or energy systems," and this does not exhaust the range of possibilities. If you're interested in browsing through or searching the archives, click here for a page with the appropriate links as well as information on how to submit papers to Acta Futura. I've had ESA's Advanced Concepts Team on my mind this weekend because long-time Centauri Dreams reader...

Centauri Dreams' resident movie critic turns his attention to a personal favorite from the canon of science fiction films. My own memories of The Thing from Another World go back to late Saturday night black-and-white TV, where I first saw the chilling tale as a boy. The scene where the team fans out on the ice as they try to figure out what it is that is frozen down there still puts a chill down my spine. Who knew at the time that The Thing himself was James Arness, early in his career arc toward Gunsmoke's Matt Dillon? Larry gives us all the details, including reflections on the film's significance in its time and the questions it raises about our attitudes toward the unknown. Don't be surprised to find a collection of Larry's Centauri Dreams essays making its way into book form one of these days. by Larry Klaes Ah, aliens. For some humans, they are the conquering interstellar warriors of some tyrannical Galactic Empire. To others, they are angelic saviors just waiting to uplift...

Foundations of Interstellar Studies Workshop in UK A workshop on interstellar flight titled Foundations of Interstellar Studies is to take place from 27 to 30 June of this year in the town of Charfield, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom, at the current headquarters of the Initiative for Interstellar Studies. This follows an initial 'foundations' conference in 2017 that was held at City College New York and the Harvard Club of New York; future conferences, "run jointly between several organisations depending on the host country," are planned on a roughly two-year schedule. I immediately warmed to the theme that the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4IS) introduced by quoting Robert H. Goddard: How many more years I shall be able to work on the problem I do not know; I hope, as long as I live. There can be no thought of finishing, for 'aiming at the stars' both literally and figuratively, is a problem to occupy generations, so that no matter how much progress one makes, there is...

I became fascinated with Scandinavian mythologies in grad school and wound up doing a deep dive into early Icelandic literature. Heroic tales from a worldview long superceded proved a rich source of materials, but is myth always a thing of the past? Joseph Campbell would speak about ritual as the only way to participate in mythologies that were essentially over, but perhaps, as Nick Nielsen argues below, there is a mythology of the future that is being born right now. If humanity succeeds in expanding to the stars, how will our descendants look back upon the early age of space? Perhaps the things we do today turn into the far future’s own mythologies, particularly if waves of star travel lead to speciation or post-human outcomes. Nielsen probes cultural and philosophical aspects of an interstellar future in Grand Strategy: The View from Oregon, and Grand Strategy Annex, where as in the essay below, the outcomes of the choices we make today propel the discussion. by J. N. Nielsen 1....

Today we re-enter the realm of perspective-altering photographs, images that open new vistas in our early reconnaissance of the Solar System. Before October 7, 1959, we had little knowledge of the far side of the Moon, even though librations allowed the occasional glimpse at extremely low angles of a small part of it. The Soviet moon probe Luna 3 took the first photographs of the far side, and was followed by the much better imagery of Zond 3 in 1965. NASA's Lunar Orbiter program would continue the mapping as the 1960s progressed. Image: First glimpse. The view of the Moon's far side from Luna 3. The far side would swim into vivid focus, of course, when Apollo 8 and subsequent missions took astronauts to the Moon, but it was up to the China National Space Administration to make the first soft landing there on January 3 of this year (Ranger 4 had impacted on the far side in 1962, but without returning data before impact). Working in this environment demanded a relay satellite to...

Humans are associative creatures, and it always amazes me how a single image or a particular scent can call up a memory on some completely different topic. Some associations are general: Most people associate Strauss' magnificent Thus Sprach Zarathustra with Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey because of that movie's spectacular opening sequence. For me, those powerful sounds likewise recall Apollo. Never forget that in April of 1968, we were getting ready for the first manned Apollo test, followed in almost bewilderingly short order by the grandest voyage then imaginable, the Apollo 8 circumnavigation of the Moon. I always tie 2001 with Apollo and hear the Strauss in my mind whenever I think about Lovell, Borman and Anders reading so powerfully from Genesis that Christmas Eve. Reading Jeffrey Kluger's brilliant Apollo 8 (Henry Holt, 2017) triggered the whole melange of memories and emotions. I'm sure people of a previous generation had their own deep associations when they heard about...

The death of V.S. Naipaul (1932-2018), that cross-grained and all too combative man who saw so unflinchingly into the post-colonial lands from which he drew his heritage, invariably brings to mind his strangest novel, The Enigma of Arrival (Vintage Books, 1987). Temporarily settled into a cottage in Wiltshire in rural England, the author looks back on his career in search of a renewal as cyclic as the seasons. Landscape inspires creativity in this deeply visualized microcosm, even as Naipaul broods over the painting that gives the book its title. The novel is an odd, self-indulgent work, one I completed more out of a sense of duty (I was reviewing it for a newspaper) than enthusiasm. Yet its introspective imagery keeps resonating. Naipaul was obsessed with the sub-story of the painting, showing the arrival of a visitor at a strange port city and implying a subsequent journey that would in some way parallel his own career. The work of Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978), ‘The Enigma of...

Ever since I started Centauri Dreams in 2004, I've been talking about the question of infrastructure within the Solar System. My thinking has always been that while we will doubtless get off interstellar missions beginning with robotics on an ad hoc basis during this century, the prospect of a sustained effort will require a built-out infrastructure that will help us create and test out deep space systems of many kinds, from new propulsion technologies to closed loop life support experiments. One step at a time, but do this right and we may push deep into the Kuiper Belt, then the Oort Cloud and, we can hope, beyond. That's a long-term vision and it clashes with what we've seen since Apollo, a retreat from lunar exploration by humans that may eventually be reversed as we think about partnerships between commercial aerospace and government space programs. To explore these concepts, an upcoming meeting called the TVIW Symposium on The Power of Synergy is to be held in Oak Ridge, TN...

Although we've seen spectacular images from deep space with the help of Voyager, New Horizons and numerous other spacecraft, the view from 1 million kilometers out can still put our world in perspective. Below is what a CubeSat called Mars Cube One (MarCO-B), one of a pair of such diminutive spacecraft, saw from that distance as it turned its camera back toward Earth. At the sides of the image you can see bits of the thermal blanket, the high-gain antenna feed and the HGA itself at the right, but in the center is the place we call home, the Earth-Moon system. You may want to zoom in to see the Moon better. Image: The first image captured by one of NASA's Mars Cube One (MarCO) CubeSats. The image, which shows both the CubeSat's unfolded high-gain antenna at right and the Earth and its moon in the center, was acquired by MarCO-B on May 9. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. I've been keeping an eye on the MarCO CubeSats because they are the first of their type to be sent into deep space. The...

How big a role space travel will play in our future is a question with implications for our civilization's intellectual, economic and philosophical growth. It may even be the hinge upon which swings the survival of the planet. But as Centauri Dreams regular Nick Nielsen points out in the essay below, enthusiasts for spacefaring can overlook historical analogies that show us the many ways humans can shape their culture. Numerous scenarios swing into view. An interstellar future may not be in the cards, depending on the choices we make, which is why seeing space travel in perspective is crucial for shaping the exploratory outcome many of us hope to see. By J. N. Nielsen The Role of Spacefaring in Spacefaring Civilizations What is, and what will be, the role of spacefaring in spacefaring civilizations? If we count the present human spacefaring capability as constituting a contemporary spacefaring civilization, the question can be partly addressed by assessing the role of spacefaring in...

My doctor is a long-time friend who always stops during my annual physical to ask about what's going on in the hunt for exoplanets. Last week he surprised me when, after I had described ways of analyzing a transiting planet's atmosphere, he asked whether planets could give rise to civilizations in different epochs. Why just one, in other words, given that homo sapiens has only been around for several hundred thousand years? Our technological civilization is a very recent, and to this point a short-lived phenomenon. Were there others? I was startled because Adam Frank (University of Rochester) and Gavin Schmidt (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies) have recently raised a stir with a paper on what they call the 'Silurian Hypothesis,' the name deriving from a Doctor Who TV episode referencing intelligent reptiles called Silurians who come to life when accidentally awakened. As the authors point out in their paper: We are not however suggesting that intelligent reptiles actually...

I don't usually reproduce news releases here, but this one is of unusual interest given that I am both a strong supporter of Breakthrough Starshot and a partisan for getting academic conferences available through live streaming. Breakthrough Discuss begins today and its sessions will be well worth your time, given the array of distinguished speakers and the tight attention to matters interstellar. The third annual Breakthrough Discuss scientific conference (https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/events/discussconference2018), which will bring together leading astrobiologists, astronomers, engineers, and astrophysicists to advance discussion around recent discoveries of potential life in the universe and novel ideas for space exploration, will be held on Thursday, April 12, and Friday, April 13, and full sessions will be available for live viewing on YouTube. The two days of discussions will focus on "Alien Life: Diversity in the Universe," with sessions discussing the search for life in...

The Tau Zero Foundation expresses it deepest sympathies to the family, friends and colleagues of Stephen Hawking. His death is a loss to the the world, to our scientific communities, and to all who value courage in the face of extreme odds.

Thinking about Ursula Le Guin takes me to a single place. It is a snow-driven landscape, a glaciated world of constant winter called Gethen, whose name means 'winter' in the language of its people. I was reading The Left Hand of Darkness while snow pelted down outside one afternoon in upstate New York, waiting for my wife to get back from her teaching job, nursing a cup of tea and finding my mental location fusing with Le Guin's fascinating world. For The Left Hand of Darkness was a spectacular introduction to Le Guin. I had seen her name and even had, somewhere in the stacks, a copy of her first novel, Rocannon's World (1966), part of an Ace Double that I never got around to reading. The Left Hand of Darkness came out in 1969 but it was in the late 70's that I read it. I had been through "The Word for World is Forest" when reading Again, Dangerous Visions (1972), one of Harlan Ellison's anthologies, and although it won a Hugo Award in 1973, I hadn't found it as much compelling as...

Will we recognize life if and when we find it elsewhere in the cosmos? It's a challenging question because we have only the example of life on our own world to work with. Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud raised the question back in 1957, a great memory for me because this was one of the earlier science fiction novels that I ever read. I remember sitting there with it in my 5th grade class in St. Louis, Missouri, having been loaned the paperback that had begun to circulate among my fellow students. I was mesmerized by the account of life as I had never imagined it. Hoyle, you'll recall, creates a vast cloud of gas and dust that turns out to be a kind of super-organism, and I leave the rest of this tale to those fortunate enough to be coming to it for the first time. But we've had the same conversation about Robert Forward's 'Cheela' recently, living as they do on the surface of a neutron star. The question is one Jacob Bronowski circulated widely through his televised series The Ascent of...

The recent burst of interest in interstellar flight has surely been enhanced by the exoplanet discoveries that have become almost daily news. Finding interesting planets, some of them with the potential for water on their surfaces, inevitably raises the question of how we might find a way to get there. We can only imagine this accelerating as missions like the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the James Webb Space Telescope begin to fill in not just our inventory of nearby planets but our understanding of their compositions. Find a terrestrial class planet around another star -- we may find that there is more than one around the Alpha Centauri stars -- and the interstellar probe again becomes a topic of lively conversation. Breakthrough Starshot, the hugely ambitious attempt to develop a concept for tiny payloads being delivered through beamed laser propulsion to a nearby star, is by now a major part of the discussion. And as I said in my closing remarks at the recent...

From Arthur C. Clarke's Interplanetary Flight: An Introduction to Astronautics (London: Temple Press Limited, 1960): There is no way back into the past; the choice, as Wells once said, is the universe-or nothing. Though men and civilizations may yearn for rest, for the dream of the lotus-eaters, that is a desire that merges imperceptibly into death. The challenge of the great spaces between the worlds is a stupendous one; but if we fail to meet it, the story of our race will be drawing to its close.