Hanging at SETIcon….

I’ve been hanging out at SETIcon over the last day here. It’s the SETI Institute’s first annual conference, which runs through Sunday in Santa Clara.

It’s been interesting. There have been talks and panel discussions about why we haven’t found alien life yet (nobody’s really sure), advanced warp propulsion (possible if you had the power of countless suns), and how astronauts took a crap in space before there were toilets (way too icky to describe here).

The conference hasn’t been all dry science. There’s been some folks from the entertainment area, both musical and sci-fi. It’s always interesting to see how these worlds come together.

Last night, Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart gave us an exclusive preview of “Rhythms of the Universe,” a 28-minute work-in-progress musical/video composition that takes us from the Big Bang to the present day. Hart plans to debut the piece at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington. He also will play it live at venues across the country and eventually have it choreographed.

Hart took questions, and I was very impressed with his knowledge of cosmology. He said that space is not very harmonic in a human sense — about as interesting as watching paint dry. The cosmic low end of the universe, he said, is like a B-Flat. (I’m not very musical, so I’m not sure precisely what that means, but I thought it was an interesting observation.)

An audience member brought up Close Encounters of the Third Kind in which humans and aliens communicated through light and sound. Hart thought that might be a really interesting way to contact aliens.

The Grateful Dead drummer also donated a hand-painted drum skin for the SETI auction. It was very cool looking. Whoever wins the bidding is going to have a really interesting piece of art to hang on his/her wall.

SETICon also drew folks from the sci-fi world. I’ve been able to hang out with my old grad school friend Andre Bormanis, who went on to a career as science adviser/writer/producer for four Star Trek series. Andre, who has a background in astronomy and space policy, was a part of several panels today.

Earlier this evening, Andre and I were hanging out with John Billingsley (“Dr. Phlox”) at a reception. John is a very funny guy – definitely a nice person to hang with. During the reception, Tim Russ (“Tuvok”) was on stage playing guitar with the Ames Jazz Band, which features former center director Scott Hubbard. Tim, who is an avid amateur astronomer, was a part of a couple of sessions today. And he can sing the blues.

I have a bunch of notes from different presentations that I’ll be writing up in the next few days. There was no news made today — no announcements about alien signals or working FTL drives. If there is in the next day, I’ll let you all know.

Note: The original post identified Scott Hubbard as a former astronaut. He is the former center director of NASA Ames. Parabolic Arc regrets the error.