From the ConRecaps, Reports & Reviews

Star Trek Mission New York, Day 2: NASA Trek Talks

By: Alyssa

Alyssa, Kevin and Michael
Alyssa, Kevin and Michael

NASA Booth Front

Day 2 of Star Trek: Mission New York began with logistical coordiniation: getting a Hallmark Star Trek ornament, signing up for round 2 of Star Trek: Bridge Crew, and sitting in the Captain’s chair.  I also got some time to spend on the exhibit hall floor, while the event is rather small comparatively with no traditional comic or t-shirt vendors, some of the booths were outstanding in their uniqueness & high quality of content.  The NASA booth was by far the most interesting with unique and fun science-y things to do plus the give-always were high quality.  The booth

NASA Booth Left

was large – about 30 foot by 50 foot.  It was broken into 4 quadrants, each section was a tangle. Here’s pictures of the sections.

Each section has tables & highlighted an different section on the NASA mission. I asked if NASA was going to be coming to other conventions.  The general feeling I got was a change in the way NASA was being marketed which is leading to an outreach to the community.  It honestly seems as tho they are realizing, while we sci-fi geeks don’t have the technical background we do have the interest and they should tap into it.

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NASA Booth Back

One of the neat things in the NASA area was the photo kiosk. Think old style Alyssaphoto booth’s with funny backgrounds and essentially you’ll understand the NASA Kiosk.  Photo’s generated had 4 extraterrestrial backgrounds. Here’s an example of one of the backgrounds.

My first panel was at 12:15

titled Trek Talks: Ugly Bags of Mostly Water: What Will Aliens REALLY Be Like with Phil

Phil Plait and Bobak Ferdowsi.
Phil Plait and Bobak Ferdowsi.

‘The Bad Astronomer’ Plait and NASA’s Bobak ‘Mohawk Guy’ Ferdowsi. The conversation first touched on what we actually knew about extra terrestrial life, Mars, Jupiter’s moon Europa and the possibility of life on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Primarily due to their abundance of liquid water. The conversation then turned to what would others species be like.  Someone brought up the idea of a old master race that ‘Seeded’ the Galaxy with ancient humanoids DNA and as a result there was an abundance of humanoid species in the Galaxy.  Phil Plait addressed this with a ‘yeah, no because evolutionary pressure’s on the evolving species would have selected for different traits in different environments.  When asked if there were any good fictional shows which had accurate science, both Phil and Bobak recommended the movie The Europa Report on Netflix.

Random pics:

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Walter Koenig

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Tomorrow, Sunday is the last day of the Con.  Attendance is expected to be at it’s highest tomorrow.  Also it is the day of my weekly show,  A Cup o Tea with an Englishman.  Our show starts at 1 pm et, 10 am pt. Click to watch the hangout on YouTube.
I hope to get to a couple of panels, I’m not sure which yet tho. Look for the Day 3 blog post late Sunday night.

Alyssa

Alyssa bought her first comic at age 7 and was hooked. She has collected comics most of her life. Recently, she has branched out to comic art and books and the occasional Lego set. She goes to as many cons as she can and enjoys the 'long form' storytelling of the television medium. She is also a foodie and is always up for trying new and different food.