Jason Wright (Penn State) and Michael Oman-Reagan (MUN): Visions of Human Futures in Space and SETI. What happens if China makes first contact? METI (Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) is irrational and should be abandoned: No one will answer our METI calls — all METI does is create (existential) risk for humankind. Michael Oman-Reagan (MUN): Radical First Contact: Bridging Astrobiology and SETI. Linnda R. Caporael (Indiana): Astrobiology as Hybrid Science. Samuel Ruhmkorff (Simon’s Rock): The Copernican Principle, Intelligent Extraterrestrials, and Arguments from Evil. From New York, heer are 13 reasons to believe aliens are real; Stephen Wolfram thinks he can talk to aliens; Katie Heaney interviews Joseph O. Baker, author of Paranormal America, on our fixation with aliens; and Harry Reid on what the government knows about UFOs.
Ian Stoner (Saint Paul): Humans Should Not Colonize Mars. Taylor Genovese (Northern Arizona): The New Right Stuff: Social Imaginaries of Outer Space and the Capitalist Accumulation of the Cosmos. Putting civilization in a box for space means choosing our legacy. What humanity’s history in space tells us about our future in the stars.
