I was honored and delighted to be invited
as a guest speaker to the second CONTACT Japan conference at the Rokko YWCA Convention
Center in the mountains overlooking Kobe last November. I must extend my thanks to Ochiai
Tetsuya, Chairman for the conference and to all of the members of the committee for their
most gracious hospitality. I also owe a great debt of gratitude to my host and
interpreter, the founder of CONTACT Japan, Osako Masamichi. |
| CONTACT Japan 2 was a memorable
experience,not only for its enlightening content but also for its friendly atmosphere and
convivial attendees. In contrast to the Contact Conference in the United States, the
program was compressed into nearly twenty-fours hours instead of about seventy-two. In
that time frame everyone gathered for five pre-sentations sessions, split into groups for
two sets of workshops, ate two meals together and enjoyed a very active party that
continued long past the tine when my jet-lagged spirit had to retire. |
| Among the presenters, I was pleased to
hear Matsuda Takuya, Dr. Sc., of Kobe University who talked about many of the positive
alternatives waiting for man in the future and exposed those present to some of the ideas
of J.D. Bernal. Dr.Jugaku Jun gave a presentation on the status of the SETI protocol for
handling a response to an extra-terrestrial communication, under consideration by the
United Nations. Dr. Patrick Collins gave a stimulating talk about research he has done
showing how receptive the Japanese would be to the possibility of space tourism. His
viewgraphs of the proposed single-stage-to-orbit vehicle dubbed the proved quite popular.
Finally, Kaneko Ryuichi, who has been doing science writing under the trade name of in
Japan, gave a delightful presentation on his visit to the dinosaur fields near Alice
Springs, Australia, and speculated on the possibility of an almost two-dinensional life
form that night have evolved from the bilateral vendobionta. |
| I owe this information to the assistance
of many English speaking attendees and it is my great regret that I have not maintained
the discipline necessary to achieve even a rudimentary understanding of the Japanese
language. That did not prevent me, however, from being able to participate in two of the
workshop sessions. |
| For two hours on each day, the group
separated into five workshops. The workshop reports were presented before dinner on the
first day and before the final lecture on the second and. last day. Each workshop group
consisted of five different segments. On the first day, people could choose any of the
following topics: |
| Increasing public support for space
development. Developing technology for legged creatures. A robot interstellar probe using
existing technology. Designing a multi-generation ship to Barnard's star. Solutions to
communication problems with aliens. |
| If those weren't challenging enough, on
the second day, people tackled: Love in interstellar space. How to unearth an alien
artifact. Designing an anti-matter spaceship. How could life evolve on a planet with a
highly elliptical orbit. Fleshing out the early history of the planet lrutokoro. |
| Irutokoro Was the planet designed by the
alien team at CONTACT Japan 1, two years earlier. That conference was a day longer and
patterned more along the lines of the Cultures of the Imagination conference track at the
US conventions. |
| I attended the workshops on and I was
very impressed with the diligence and coordination with which the groups tackled the
problem in the short time available. In fact, when I heard the presentations from all the
groups, it seemed like everyone focused intently on the problem being posed. My second
workshop, on discovering an alien artifact, was very well organized by Nakanura.Takashi (a
U.S. Contact veteran) who provided us with four computer graphic images of unusual
geographic features. we had to pick one and begin our excavations through discussion of
the proper way to proceed. Our notes and discoveries were then presented to the general
session during the report. It was exciting and challenging, and somewhat frustrating as we
did not have time to find out what we had actually found. |
| I enjoyed learning about the work that all
the groups had done. I found the ideas that everyone had very creative and very
professional. The encounters between sessions were stimulating and I enjoyed meeting so
many people from a different culture who enjoyed the same kind of creative activity that
is fostered by the Contact conference. I hope that the opportunity will come again that I
may visit Japan to attend future CONTACT Japan conventions. I am sorry that I missed the
opportunity to participate in the first alien design and contact scenario and would like
to play that game with my new friends in Japan. |
| It would be great if someone from CONTACT
Japan had the time to post an English translation of the workgroup session summaries on
the World Wide Web. I was pleased to see how many CONTACT Japan attendees had Internet
connections and how many were interested in Contact related Web sites. A few were posted
on the general bulletin board at the conference, but I take this opportunity to update you
and share them again. |
- The Epona Project(this is a new address)
- http://www.io.com/~stefanj/82Eridani/index.html
- The Galactic Geographic
- http://www.voicenet.com/~kkofoed
- Contact Consortium(includes link to Contact: Cultures of the Imagination)
- http://www.ccon.org/
- Planet Design Science
- http://www.compulink.co.uk/~vicarage/planets/
- Cal State Los Angeles World Building
- http://web.calstatela.edu/academic/builders/index.html
|
