The ConVersion XVI Guests of Honor. From left to right, Gregory Bennett, Tanya Huff, L. E. Modesitt Jr. & Ben Bova.
A couple of weeks ago my wife and I had the pleasure of once again attending ConVersion, the annual science fiction convention held in Calgary.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re picturing a bunch of oddballs in Star Trek and Star Wars costumes, sitting in the dark watching videos and yelling out the dialog in time with the actors. But you couldn’t be more wrong.
Oh, sure, there was a video room (though I never went into it). And sure, there were costumes–costuming is a big part of science fiction fandom, with every convention featuring costuming contests. The entries are always entertaining and often spectacular.
But the heart and soul of every science fiction convention are the panels, and ConVersion XVI was particularly blessed in this regard, because of the caliber of the guests.
Heading the list was Ben Bova, a science fiction writer and science journalist who is the author of more than 90 books, past editor of Analog and Omni magazines, and a frequent commentator on science for radio, television (he’s often seen on the CBS Morning News) and newspapers (he’s a member of the board of contributors of USA Today).
ConVersion also features a Science Guest, whom this year was Gregory Bennett. Bennett worked in manned space flight engineering at the Johnson Space Center from 1979 until this year, when he quit his job to become Vice President of Spacecraft Development for a new company, based in Las Vegas, called Bigelow Aerospace.
With these two as the main guests, ConVersion XVI had a decidedly scientific bent. A main topic of discussion was the commercialization of space, with a strong focus on the moon. That’s not surprising in view of what Bigelow Aerospace has in mind. The privately funded company’s goal is nothing less than to deploy and operate tourist hotels and cruise ships in space. Specifically, Bigelow Aerospace hopes to develop a hotel/cruise ship that will take 100 tourists (and 50 crew) on a cruise around the moon and back. Bennett figures they have a 50/50 chance of pulling off this feat within 15 years.
Bennett is also the founder of the Artemis Society, whose goal is to colonize the moon, and he spoke quite a bit about their plans, as well. Their envisioned moon colony would be built inside underground lava tubes, which would offer protection from micro meteorites, radiation and extremes of heat and cold while providing a ready-made pressure vessel for establishing an atmosphere.
Bennett and Bova both feel that the true future of space exploration lies in the hands of private enterprise; that the only way we’ll move into space to stay is if we can make it pay. And while there’ll be money in practical space enterprises like solar power satellites (something the Japanese are very interested in), an early driving force is likely to be tourism. Hence Bigelow Aerospace.
If you don’t think you’ll live long enough to take a cruise ship to the moon, you might want to think again. Bova led a discussion on immortality (which unfortunately I had to miss, being tied up with another panel at the time). He says that within 10 years we may have a simple treatment that will keep your cells from aging and repair the damage aging has already caused. He bases that on recent successful attempts to “immortalize” cells in the laboratory. I confess to some skepticism, but I haven’t researched it yet–look for a future column on the subject!
Bova and Bennett weren’t the only guests, nor were those the only panels. The Fantasy Guest was writer L. E. Modesitt, Jr., featured on an interesting panel about the economics of science fiction and fantasy–who pays for all those spaceships and knights in shining armor, anyway? Since Modesitt is a former economist, his novels are based on sound economics–one reason for their appeal, since it makes his fantasy worlds seem that much more real.
Tanya Huff, another fantasy writer, was the Canadian Guest of Honor, and writer Dave Wolverton led the annual Writers’ Workshop. Yours truly, as one of the many “local” guests, participated in panels as varied as “Booming Explosions in Space!”, where we had great fun bashing the bad science to be found in most science fiction movies and TV shows, the much-more-serious “Is Technology Changing our Values and our Morals?” (short answer: yes), and “What Are We Really Afraid Of?”, where we dissected horror fiction and figured out what scares us and why. (The classic short story The Monkey’s Paw got two votes from the panel for scariest story ever written, because, while you never see what’s outside the door, your imagination works overtime to make sure you really don’t want to!)
One short column can’t really do a three-day convention justice…so don’t be surprised if I mention it a few more times in the coming weeks.
You’ve been warned!
