External links
- Contact Conference homepage
- Contact Conference semi-official archive
- SETI League Announces 2005 Best Ideas Awards
- The Epona Project
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Contact is an annual interdisciplinary conference that brings together renowned social and space scientists, science fiction writers and artists to exchange ideas, stimulate new perspectives, and encourage serious, creative speculation about humanity's future. The intent of Contact is to promote the integration of human factors into space research and policy, to explore the intersection of science and art, and to develop ethical approaches to cross-cultural contact. Since its beginnings, the Contact conference has fostered interdisciplinary inquiries into art, literature, exploration and scientific investigation.
Contact was conceived by anthropologist Jim Funaro in 1979, and the first formal conference was held in 1983 in Santa Cruz, California. Twenty-six annual events have followed and several held at NASA Ames Research Center. In many previous years, the COTI HI project involved teams of high school students in the creation of scientifically accurate extraterrestrial beings, and in simulated encounters between two such races.
Many spin-off organizations have formed, on line, and as far away as Japan. One such organization is the Contact consortium, which is focused on the medium of contact in multi-user virtual worlds on the Internet.
Contact has been closely allied with the SETI Institute, and its early participants created the hypothetical planet Epona as covered in the Discovery Channel documentary Natural History of an Alien .
The 27th Contact conference was held on March 31 – April 2, 2012, at the SETI Institute and the Domain Hotel, in Sunnyvale, California. Beginning with the 28th conference, held in Mountain View, the organization adopted a biennial schedule. The 29th conference was held on April 1–3, 2016, at the Domain Hotel, California.
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Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity. It draws knowledge from several fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, economics, etc. It is related to an interdiscipline or an interdisciplinary field, which is an organizational unit that crosses traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought, as new needs and professions emerge. Large engineering teams are usually interdisciplinary, as a power station or mobile phone or other project requires the melding of several specialties. However, the term "interdisciplinary" is sometimes confined to academic settings.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other planets.
Frank Donald Drake was an American astrophysicist and astrobiologist.
Jill Cornell Tarter is an American astronomer best known for her work on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Tarter is the former director of the Center for SETI Research, holding the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute. In 2002, Discover magazine recognized her as one of the 50 most important women in science.
The SETI Institute is a not-for-profit research organization incorporated in 1984 whose mission is to explore, understand, and explain the origin and nature of life in the universe, and to use this knowledge to inspire and guide present and future generations, sharing knowledge with the public, the press, and the government. SETI stands for the "search for extraterrestrial intelligence".
Seth Shostak is an American astronomer and author, and is currently the senior astronomer for the SETI Institute.
Robert McCormick Adams Jr. was an American anthropologist and secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (1984–94). He worked in both the Near East and Mesoamerica. A long time professor of the University of Chicago, he was best known for his research in Iraq.
The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences or Polish Academy of Learning, headquartered in Kraków and founded in 1872, is one of two institutions in contemporary Poland having the nature of an academy of sciences.
The NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) was established in 1998 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) "to develop the field of astrobiology and provide a scientific framework for flight missions." In December 2019 the institute's activities were suspended.
The communication with extraterrestrial intelligence (CETI) is a branch of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) that focuses on composing and deciphering interstellar messages that theoretically could be understood by another technological civilization. The best-known CETI experiment of its kind was the 1974 Arecibo message composed by Frank Drake.
The Space Sciences Laboratory (SSL) is an Organized Research Unit (ORU) of the University of California, Berkeley. Founded in 1959, the laboratory is located in the Berkeley Hills above the university campus. It has developed and continues to develop many projects in the space sciences, including the search for extraterrestrial life (SETI@home). The laboratory have built instruments to fly on more than 100 satellites and flown more than 150 balloons to "measure electric fields, auroral x-rays, hard x-rays and gamma rays, cosmic rays and the cosmic microwave background." The lab has also built and flown two dozen rockets to measure "auroral particles, UV emissions, and solar flare nuclei." It currently has projects categorized into planetary projects, geospace projects, solar and heliophysics projects, astrophysics and exoplanets projects, which are accompanied by a missions operations system, an engineering division and an information lab.
The Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC), in support of the United Nations Programme on Space Applications, is a non-governmental organization and professional network whose goal is to convey the perspectives of students and young space professionals to the United Nations (UN), space industry, space agencies, and academia.
The Mars Institute is an international non-governmental organization created with the goals of advancing the scientific study and exploration of Mars, conducting peer-reviewed research, and educating the public about Mars exploration. It was incorporated as a non-profit corporation in both United States and Canada in 2002.
HASTAC (/ˈhāˌstak/'), also known as the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory, is a virtual organization and platform of more than 18,000 individuals and 400+ affiliate-institutions dedicated to innovative new modes of learning and research. HASTAC network members contribute to the community through the open-access website, by hosting HASTAC conferences and workshops, or by collaborating with other network members.
Active SETI is the attempt to send messages to intelligent extraterrestrial life. Active SETI messages are predominantly sent in the form of radio signals. Physical messages like that of the Pioneer plaque may also be considered an active SETI message. Active SETI is also known as METI.
Andrew Fraknoi is a retired professor of astronomy recognized for his lifetime of work using everyday language to make astronomy more accessible and popular for both students and the general public. In 2017 Fraknoi retired from his position as Chair of the Department of Astronomy at Foothill College. In retirement he continues to teach through the Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University, to give public lectures, and to add to his body of written work. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors in his field.
Allen Tough was a Canadian educator and researcher. Widely known as a futurist, scientist, and author, Tough was Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto at the time of his death. He made major contributions to the fields of Adult Education, Futures Studies, and SETI. Linking these fields together was Tough's concern with the long-term future of humanity in the cosmos, and human kind's search for meaning and purpose on personal, societal, and global levels. He taught at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, for 33 years, retiring from teaching in 1997. After his retirement he devoted his time and energy to his research interests.
The cultural impact of extraterrestrial contact is the corpus of changes to terrestrial science, technology, religion, politics, and ecosystems resulting from contact with an extraterrestrial civilization. This concept is closely related to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), which attempts to locate intelligent life as opposed to analyzing the implications of contact with that life.
Thomas Pierson was founder and CEO of the SETI Institute, a non-profit institute conducting research in Astrobiology.
METI International, known simply as METI, is a non-profit research organization founded in July 2015 by Douglas Vakoch that creates and transmits interstellar messages to attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations. It is based in San Francisco, California.