Sheryl Bishop has been announced as a speaker for Icarus Interstellar’s 2013 Starship Congress, with the following talk: “Odyssey: Global Personality Test for Crewing a Generation Starship – A One-Way Deep Space Neo-Earth Mission”
Sheryl L. Bishop, Ph.D. is a Professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch’s Schools of Nursing, Medicine, Health Sciences and Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences since 1992. Since 1996, Dr. Bishop has served as lecturer, faculty and co-chair for the Master’s program and summer Space Studies Program for the departments of Space Life Science and Space and Society at the International Space University, Strasbourg, France. As an internationally recognized behavioral researcher in extreme environments, for the last 25 years Dr. Bishop has investigated human performance and group dynamics in extreme, unusual environments, involving deep cavers, mountain climbers, desert survival groups, polar expeditioners, Antarctic winter-over groups and various simulations of isolated, confined environments for space, including a number of missions at remote habitats (e.g., Mars Desert Research Station, Utah, and FMARS and the Mars Project on Devon Island, Canada). She has been a grant reviewer for the European Space Agency’s Concordia Station, the Canadian Space Agency’s Life Science Directorate, the Australian Antarctic Science Division, and the Czech Science Foundation. She routinely presents her research at numerous scientific conferences, has over 60 publications (including contribution to NASA’s latest Historical Series on Psychology in Space) and over 50 scholarly presentations in both the medical and psychological fields. She is frequently sought out as a content expert by various media and has participated in several television documentaries on space and extreme environments by Discovery Channel, BBC and 60 Minutes. Dr. Bishop is a founding member, Board of Trustee member and Senior Editor for the Journal of the Society of Human Performance in Extreme Environments, Contributing Editor for Life Sciences for Habitation (formerly the Journal of Life Support and Biospheric Sciences) and Review Editor for the Journal of Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine among numerous others.
Following is the abstract for Dr. Bishop’s talk Odyssey: Global Personality Test for Crewing a Generation Starship – A One-Way Deep Space Neo-Earth Mission
What does it take to leave everything you have ever known behind and commit yourself and your descendants to the search for the next habitable world for humankind? What kind of person would successfully make the transition from this world to one of limitations and finite horizons for generations to come? These are the kinds of questions addressed in a new interactive experimental transmedia documentary project entitled ODYSSEY. The ODYSSEY presentation will be a sneak pre-view into the first worldwide attempt at exploring, describing and evaluating the hard questions and consequences of fundamental choices that must be addressed when selecting a microcosm of humanity for a one way mission to traverse deep space in search of the next Neo-Earth by means of a generation ship. The need to delineate the universe of issues and related choices that will be imposed by the parameters of a finite and resource-limited world is critical to the successful diaspora of humankind. It is the human questions related to interstellar travel that will determine the future, not the technical challenges. The Odyssey’s interactive documentary will engage worldwide participation in this exploration utilizing numerous transmedia portals to facilitate a dialogue between the film and its audience. Through the milieu of a selection interview, each viewer will be challenged with an escalating series of provocative questions that require deep consideration of the many issues that may require dramatic abdication of individual rights, radical new customs and social practices. As the viewer works through these issues, they will be offered the opportunity to contribute their responses via mobile applications, websites and other transmedia portals. A description of some of the elements in development will be shared and demonstrated.