100 Year Starship (100YSS), the preeminent organization on interstellar space exploration, will host its annual Public Symposium on September 19-22, 2013 at the Hyatt Regency in Houston, Texas. Chaired by Dr. Mae Jemison, the 100YSS 2013 Public Symposium is a four-day event where influential leaders, experts, individuals and organizations gather to network, present papers, share and debate the technologies, science, social, economic and political structures and strategies needed achieve the capacity for human travel beyond our solar system to another star.

The 100YSS 2013 Public Symposium—“Pathway to the Stars, Footprints on Earth”—seeks to highlight the small incremental steps as well as radical leaps required to make significant progress to interstellar space, and how those steps will yield important benefits to life on earth.

Bernie Fanaroff, PhD, Project Director of the Square Kilometer Array, the world’s largest radio telescope being built in South Africa, and Casey Hudson, creative director of the blockbuster game franchise Mass Effect, are two of the featured speakers at the Symposium. “Dr. Farnoff and Mr. Hudson are examples of how the 100YSS Public Symposium platform is creating new pathways for research and innovation by bringing together widely diverse ideas, expertise, industries and capabilities to consider how they contribute to and are impacted by the challenge of interstellar travel,” said Dr. Jemison.

Symposium attendees will meet many other cutting edge researchers and thought leaders such as Jill Tarter, PhD, astronomer and co-founder of the SETI Institute; astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi, PhD; biological anthropologist and award winning author of “The Sparrow” Mary Doria Russell, PhD.; Marc Millis, former leader NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Project; Amy Millman, CEO and co-founder Springboard Enterprises whose sponsored companies have raised over $6 billion in funding; Declan Kirran, leader of Brussels based ISC Intelligence; Roy Marcus, PhD founder of the DaVinci Institute Johannesburg; and multimedia musician, performance artist, and creator of Bella Gaia, Kenji Williams.

This year’s more than 75 presenters are from the US, England, India, Russia, New Zealand and China. They will present papers on closed environmental life support systems, advanced propulsion technologies, space probes, recent advances in astrophysics, designing for life in space, the social, economic and cultural implications, new industries, education and art involved in interstellar journey—and how these interstellar driven innovations translate to help improve and enhance life here on earth today and in the years to come.

The Symposium is open to the public and in addition to Technical Paper sessions features:

– Plenaries: “State of the Universe”, “Plan B”, “Trending Now” and “Technical Show & Tell”.
– Classes for non-experts and experts alike on the fundamentals of space propulsion, astronomy, spaceship design, ethics of space explorations, human health in space and astrobiology.

Special Events:

– Sci-Fi Stories Night (Friday, Sept 20) -science fiction authors and scientists discussion how science fiction and story telling help research and society imagine advanced technologies and overcome social crises. It is followed by a film screening.
-Saturday evening’s “Accelerating Creativity” dinner features Bella Gaia, an amazing multimedia performance created and performed by Kenji Williams and company that interprets scientific data, actual space images and music to help us understand humanity’s connection and impact on Earth and with space.

– Educators Professional Development Workshop for middle and high school teachers.

– Student programs for middle and high school students.

MEDIA: Members of the media interested in attending the Symposium can register online and contact Jenny Lawhorn at 202-821-8898 or jlawhorn@scottcircle.com or Sarah Coppersmith at 202-695-8827 or scoppersmith@scottcircle.com.

PUBLIC: The general public can register and purchase tickets by visiting: http://symposium.100yss.org/registration. For additional information on the 100YSS Public Symposium, please visit: http://symposium.100yss.org.