At our October 15th meeting, retired NASA engineer Dan Adamo will talk about space colonization, in particular why Mars might not be the best place to attempt to establish a foodhold off Earth. About his presentation, Dan writes:

“This presentation reviews historic Earthly distinctions between exploring and pioneering before applying these distinctions to destinations in space. Although a case can be made for human and robotic exploration in space, there is as yet no compelling rationale for ‘putting down roots’ to pioneer anywhere off Earth. Why then is the surface of Mars widely accepted as humanity’s future ‘home away from home’ to the extent some 200,000 people are willing to attempt forming a permanent colony there? There is no evidence suggesting humans can survive on the surface of Mars long-term, let alone thrive there to produce viable offspring. A variety of evidence is presented to affirm the surface of Mars is a ‘socio-cultural’ destination whose suitability for human pioneering is based on more than a century of fictional literature and poorly informed research as the Space Age dawned. More current knowledge of the ‘unexplored country’ in our Solar System suggests small bodies such as asteroids and the moons of Mars are humanity's best hope for pioneering off Earth this century.”

This should be a fun exploration of the actual possibilities and constraints to off-planet colonization. Don’t miss it!

At our meeting we will also have Ken Martin’s slide show of astrophotos shared on our email list since the last meeting, displayed in all their glory on the planetarium dome.

The meeting is at 7:00 on Thursday, October 15th at the Eugene Science Center planetarium, 2300 Leo Harris Parkway in Eugene (behind Autzen Stadium).

*Special EAS award: Longest Presentation Title