Hank will tell his story "There and Back Again: A Layman's Guide to Ultra-Reliability for Interstellar Missions." We hear a lot about missions to the stars and the exotic interstellar drives being considered to accomplish such missions but, ultimately, it is probably the "little things" that will prove the most difficult. Meteoroid impacts, radiation exposure, and even the political climate on Earth will likely end up being key factors in the end. This talk provides a brief and, hopefully, entertaining primer on how we might "survive" a true interstellar trek.

Document date June 5, 2014.