NASA seeks new ideas for interstellar missions in the next 100 years

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) are seeking help from citizens for sending humans on interstellar space missions by 2111, a report said.

The agencies have jointly called for ideas from people for presentations and abstracts at the 100 Year Starship Study Symposium , which will be held in Orlando, Florida, from September 30 to October 2.

The symposium is anticipated to attract roughly hundreds of people from around the world. Speaking abstracts for papers and proposed panels have to be submitted online at www.100yss.org by 2:00 pm ET on Thursday, July 8, 2011.

“This won’t just be another space technology conference – we’re hoping that ethicists, lawyers, science fiction writers, technologists and others, will participate in the dialog to make sure we’re 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 project kicked off last year and continued in January when DARPA hosted a workshop at the Bay Arena where they featured an integration of physicists, sci-fi authors, biologists and educators who discussed why humans should travel to stars. The group also discussed about interstellar travel.

Ideas of discussion at the seminar will include time-distance solutions, philosophical and religious considerations, Biology and space medicine, communication of the vision and habitats and environmental science.

With DARPA funding the project, the two agencies are functioning to come up with a plan for creating technology that can help humans travel to the stars within 100 years, a report on DARPA’s official website said.