Alien Crash Site: Recent Episodes
Caitlin McShea
A new InterPlanetary interview series from the Santa Fe Institute takes a page from the Strugatsky brothers' classic Soviet sci-fi novel, Roadside Picnic, to discuss a variety of transformative alien artifacts.
Thirteen years ago, an alien civilization visited our planet, and left behind myriad, mysterious materials in their crash sites. These areas, Zones, behave very strangely, but the interplanetary items they contain could change the trajectory of our technological advancement. What appears as a hoop might actually be a perpetual-motion machine. What appears as a slime might alter space-time.
Spend too much time in the Zone and your genes might mutate, your bones might dissolve, your body might be ground into meat. If you’re lucky enough to make it out alive, you’ll likely be imprisoned. But a successful trip in and out of the Zone could alter human history. Do you dare? And for what?
Hosted by Caitlin McShea.
Learn more about what was discussed in this Alien Crash Site episode by clicking through the links below:
- Lindy’s homepage
- Psyche Mission
- ASU's InterPlanetary Initiative
- Vesta
- Kleopatra
- Maxar
- Henry Stone at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- Voyager Mission - Gravity Assist
- LucyMission
- DARTMission
- Psyche Inspired
Learn more about what was discussed in this episode by clicking on the links below:
- Gary’s homepage.
- Unfettered journey
- Dan Dennett
- Eugene Wigner
- Michael's Complexity Podcast interview with David Kinney
- 2019 IPFest World Building panel discussion
- Geoffrey West’s Scale
- Hanson's Age of Em
- SFI Symposium AI and the Barrier of Meaning
- ACtioN Climate Change seminar - Complexity of Sustainability
- Peter Turchin
- Bob May's 1972 paper: "Will a Large Complex System be Stable?"
- Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged
- Paul Smaldino's work on covert signaling
- Peter Watt’s Blindsight
- Asimov’s Foundation trilogy
Learn more about everything referenced in this episode by clicking the links below:
New School Policy and Design for Outer Space
SFI’s InterPlanetary Project
Aging, Adaptation, and the Arrow of Time - A James S. McDonnell Foundation funded research track on Complex Time
Complex Time video playlist
InterPlanetary 2019 panel on Complex Time, featuring Sean Carroll
To learn more about items mentioned in this podcast:
- Natalie's homepage
- Co-Ordination: On Time Between Worlds - An InterPlanetary Panel discussion on Complex Time
- Chris Kempes's Alien Crash Site Interview on life detection
- "Towards a more universal life detection strategy" as submitted to the Planetary and Astrobiology Decadal Survey
- Arrival
- Ted Chiang's "The Story of Your Life"
- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
For more information, visit this link and register FOR FREE.
Alien Crash Site returns after that with an interview with SFI Post-Doc Natalie Grefenstette.
- Generalized Stoichiometry and Biogeochemistry for Astrobiological Applications
- Multiple Paths to Multiple Life
- Watch Chris Kempes and David Krakauer discuss multiple life in episode 2 of "Andromeda Strain and the Meaning of Life"
- Watch Sara Walker's critique of Multiple Life in episode 4 of "Andromeda Strain and the Meaning of Life"
- Allometric scaling of production and life-history variation in vascular plants, by West, Enquist, Brown and Charnov.
- A related lecture by Geoffrey West
- Atlantis Dispatch 009, in which we contemplate cultural origins...
- Past related ACS episodes - Heather Graham and Cole Mathis on what Chris calls “Chemical Complexity.”
- Their co-authored paper, Identifying molecules as biosignatures with assembly theory and mass spectrometry.
Learn more about everything referenced in this episode by clicking the links below:
- Identifying Molecules as Biosignatures with Assembly Theory and Mass Spectrometry.
- Generalized Stoichiometry and Biogeochemistry for Astrobiological Applications.
- Time Team
- Elemental Cycles
- DNA has Four Bases. Some Viruses Swap in a Fifth
- Bennu
- Hayabusa Mission
- Alien Crash Site Episode 015, with Cole Mathis on Assembly Theory.
- Determination of Azimuth
- Atlantis Dispatch 001, in which we contemplate the meaning of “past” life.
- Viking missions
- 84001
- Isua
- Bob Hazen
Learn more about things discussed in this episode, by clicking on the links below:
- Timiebi Aganaba's home page
- And LinkedIn
- And Twitter
- Global Space Treaty
- Artemis Accords
- Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
- Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University's InterPlanetary Project
- And the Psyche Mission
- The Court Case: Viasat, Inc (Appellant) Vs. Federal Communications Commission (Appellee) re: Space Exploration Holdings, LLC (Movant-Intervenor).
To learn more about the items discussed in this interview, click through the links below.
- Ryan’s website
- Ryan on Twitter
- The Carrington Event
- Parker Solar Probe
- Mars MAVEN
- Ushering in a New Frontier in Geospace through Data Science
- Dictionary of Obscure sorrows
- What is an Individual?
- Jorge Luis Borges
- “Talk on Indolence” by the Avett Brothers
- "Machine Gun" by Jimi Hendrix
For more information on items mentioned in this interview, click through the links below.
- Vanessa’s Website
- InterPlanetary 2018 Festival panel "Intelligent Systems and Cognitive Assistance" featuring Vanessa, David Krakauer, Jonah Nolan, Graham Spencer & Kurt Squire.
- Dan Sperber
- Norman Rockwell's painting "The Gossips"
- Giant dragonfly - Meganeura
- Alien Crash Site interview with Tamara van der Does
- Dune witches
- Buena Vista Social Club - Chan Chan
- Jil Jilala
- Nass El Ghiwane
Learn more about the items discussed in this conversation by clicking on the links below.
The paper discussed: "Identifying molecules as biosignatures with assembly theory and mass spectrometry"
- "Scientists develop new molecular tool to detect alien life" - news article
- "Chemists design alien life detector" - news article
The essay discussed: ($$ paywall) "Art as a Product of Nature, as a work of Art" by Paul K. Feyerabend
Dragon's Egg, by Robert Forward
Related:
Atlantis's first dispatch on the "Great Phosphine Freakout" of September 2020
Sara Walker and Lee Cronin on the "meaning" of life, as part of 2020 conversation series called "Andromeda Strain and the Meaning of Life."
Learn more about everything referenced in this episode by clicking the links below:Herschel Moon History
- Natalie Elliot’s Homepage
- Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of Lock”
- Shakespeare’s
- Julius Caesar
- Hamlet
- Romeo and Juliet
- Claudius Ptolemy
- Nicolaus Copernicus
- Tycho Brahe
- Aristophanes’s
- Clouds
- Birds
- Fermilab Bison
- Antikythera Mechanism
- “Origin Story” for Aeon
- And two recently published papers on universal life detection that we are WAY TOO EXCITED about:
- Generalized Stoichiometry and Biogeochemistry for Astrobiological Applications
- Identifying molecules as biosignatures with assembly theory and mass spectrometry
Learn more about everything referenced in this episode by clicking the links below:
InterPlanetary 2018 - Planetary Policy, Law & Regulation Panel
Earth Juijitsu
Environment Now
Ecuador’s recognition of Pachamama
Slavoj Zizek
Santa Monica’s sustainability ordinance, protecting the aquifers
Brown v. Board of Education
US Space Act (1958)
Outer Space Treaty (1966)
Moon Agreement (1979)
Learn more about the things we discuss in this episode by clicking through the links below:
Honeybee Capital
Ever-Widening Circles, by Rilke
Zero sum game
Tom Seeley's work on honeybees
Suzanne Simard's work about tree communication networks
Geoffrey West's lecture on Scaling
I Dream a Highway - Gillian Welch
Ode to Joy - Beethoven
Final scene of Stalker
Learn more about everything referenced in this episode by clicking the links below:
Van’s homepage
UCLA-led team of scientists discovers why we need sleep
Watch Van on the “Time Design” Panel from #IPFest2018
Ted Chiang’s Seventy-Two Letters
Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem
“You’re So Cool” by Hans Zimmer
“Don’t Look Back in Anger” by Oasis
“Welcome to the Jungle” and “You Could Be Mine”
Learn more about everything referenced in this episode by clicking the links below:
Michael’s webpage
Lauren Ancel Meyers
Carl Bergstrom’s Calling Bullshit
Michael’s work on the Neandertal genome
Information’s impact on fitness
Michael, Sara Walker, Chris Kempes and Lee Cronin, herein the #OriginsOfLifeLeague
Life ≠ Alive
Learn more about everything referenced in this episode by clicking the links below:
Philosophy of Werner Herzog
Adam and Eve
Kant’s aesthetics
Oedipus Rex
Pandora Myth
Beatrice Han-Pile
Diego Velázquéz’s Las Meninas
Rothko’s Tate Collection
Tamara’s Website, Google Scholar Page & Twitter
• InterPlanetary Festival Website
• Alien Crash Site Podcast
• In 72 hours of sci-fi, postdocs transmit parental model of alien civilization [video]
• Greetings from a Triparental Planet 72 Hours of Science Pre-Printby Gizem Bacaksizlar, Stefani Crabtree, Joshua Garland, Natalie Grefenstette, Albert Kao, David Kinney, Artemy Kolchinsky, Tyler Marghetis, Michael Price, Maria Riolo, Hajime Shimao, Ashley Teufel, Tamara van der Does, and Vicky Chuqiao Yang
• Scale and information-processing thresholds in Holocene social evolution by Jaeweon Shin, Michael Holton Price, David H. Wolpert, Hajime Shimao, Brendan Tracey, and Timothy A. Kohler
• SFI’s VP for Science Jennifer Dunne Remembers Ecologist Bob May
• Complexity Podcast
• IPFest 2019 Worldbuilding Panel with Rebecca Roanhorse, Ty Franck, Daniel Abraham, Michael Drout, and Cris Moore
• Anathem by former SFI Miller Scholar Neal Stephenson
• Dark Integers by Greg Egan
• Aliens comic series by Dark Horse
Learn more about everything referenced in this episode by clicking the links below:
Theme song, "Stalker" by Tortilla
The “Living in Space” InterPlanetary Panel from IP Fest 2018
ChemCam and SuperCam
Recap of Nina’s time in Antartica
Bradbury Museum panel of LANL scientists discussing Today’s Perseverance landing
Joerael Numina’s art (The image of the Curiosity Rover behind me is one example of his work)
Learn more about everything referenced in this episode by clicking the links below:
Sasha’s website and work
Sasha on “Visualization and Designing the Impossible” IPFest 2018 Panel
Sasha at IPFest, on open-source space data
Jet Propulsion Lab’s page of downloadable 360 and VR/AR videos
Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History
VITAL Ventilators
Virtual tour of the Jet Propulsion Lab
Kin Dza Dza
Learn more about everything referenced in this episode by clicking the links below:
Exploration Institute
Ocean Planet
What Armin on the 2018 InterPlanetary Festival Panel “The End of the World?” with Annalee Newitz, and Lauren Oliver.
Read Armin’s introduction to that ^ panel in IP Transmissions Volume One: Genesis
Read up on Star Trek, if you’re unfamiliar for some reason...
Learn more about everything referenced in this episode by clicking the links below:
Visit David’s new website
Learn more about SFI’s recent Complexity and Structure of Music Workshop.
Watch the 2018 InterPlanetary Festival Panel, Autonomous Ecosystems, where David (and past guest, Kate Greene) contributes to the conversation.
Listen to some of David’s Sonic work.
Watch David’s Hypnomancy performance from the 2020 Currents New Media festival.
Aucourant Records.
Ardy SixKiller Clarke.
Learn more about everything referenced in this episode by clicking the links below:
2019 InterPlanetary Festival’s “Game Design Panel,” moderated by Frank
InterPlanetary Transmissions. Volume 2: Stardust, featuring an introduction to the Game Design panel by Frank
NYU Game Center
Claude Shannon’s “A Mathematical Theory of Communication.”
Alien Crash Site interviews with GPT-3
Frank’s Universal Paperclips
David Chapman
Marcel Duchamp
Caitlin’s favorite Jonathan Richman performance
Monday begins on Saturdayby Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Hard to Be a God also by the Strugatsky Brothers
Stanislaw Lem
Philip K. Dick
J.G. Ballard
SCP Wiki
Antimemetics
qntm
Learn more about everything referenced in this episode by clicking the links below:
Kate’s new book of essays, Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars.
The 2017 InterPlanetary Panel, which launched the project.
The 2018 InterPlanetary Festival Panel, “Autonomous Ecosystems.”
All About Eggs, published by Lucky Peach.
“Ova Easy” egg crystals, for your solo-Sunday omelettes.
“The Aleph” by Jorge Borges
Rocannon’s World by Ursula Le Guin.
“Hey, Elon Musk, What about Toilet Paper on Mars?” by Eric Mack.
New Yorker article, “Roommates on Mars,” which outlines the “Nutella Incident.”
Endurance.
“King Arthur Flour’s Baking Hotline Has Never Been Busier — and the Questions Are Getting Personal.”
Learn more about everything referenced in this episode by clicking the links below:
Ashton’s 2018 InterPlanetary Festival Appearance, “Living in Space”
Ashton’s 2019 InterPlanetary Festival Appearance, “Zen and the Art of Space Exploration”
Sam Harris podcast interview with David Krakauer
General Systems Theory - Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Limits to Human Performance Research at the Santa Fe Institute
Ursula LeGuin’s Rocannon’s World(pdf)
Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game
Arrival (trailer)
Contact (trailer)
SFI President David Krakauer joins Caitlin McShea to consider the producers of an object, the receivers of said object, and the qualities of the object itself, in this first episode of Alien Crash Site...a sci-fi technology pod that pushes people out of their comfort Zones, and into Alien Crash Site Zones, in pursuit of a truly transformative object.