News & Events
Authors to Talk About Space Exploration and Migration at November 1 Book Discussion
From left, Les Johnson, Gregory L. Matloff and C Bangs
The School of Arts & Sciences at New York City College of Technology will host a book discussion by Physics Professor Gregory L. Matloff, space scientist and co-author Les Johnson, and artist C Bangs on their recent collaboration, Living Off the Land in Space: Green Roads to the Cosmos, on Thursday, November 1, 2007, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., in the College’s Atrium Amphitheater, 300 Jay Street (at Tillary), Downtown Brooklyn. The event is free and open to the public.
The book presents a visionary concept for the future of interplanetary and interstellar travel. It describes the technologies under development for advanced in-space propulsion systems and discusses how humankind will draw on the natural forces of the cosmos itself in the exploration and eventual settlement of nearby and more distant worlds.
Barring major breakthroughs, the human frontier is likely to be limited to the solar system and nearby stars during the next few millennia. How will we get there and what will we find? What are the driving forces, aside from scientific curiosity, underlying our exploration of and coming migration into space? These are a few of the many questions that Dr. Matloff, Johnson and Bangs will address in this cutting-edge presentation.
The event also will feature the first public exhibit of original artwork designed by Bangs for NASA -- holographic images of the type that will be launched into interstellar space as early as 2020. The images include those of human male and female figures that combine separate features of the different races as well as a diagram of where Earth is located in the solar system and galaxy. Bangs worked with Matloff on a 2001 NASA grant-funded research project to begin development of a new technology to make possible the sending of 3-D images into space that would withstand the effects of radiation. One of three existing sets of the images was donated to the College through the City Tech Foundation in April of this year and eventually will be on permanent display.
For more information about the Matloff/Johnson/Bangs presentation, contact Dean Pamela Brown, School of Arts & Sciences, at 718.260.5008 or PBrown@citytech.cuny.edu.
10/18/07
