Neurologist Dr. Aaron Cardon has been announced as a speaker for Icarus Interstellar’s 2013 Starship Congress, with the following talk: “Project Hyperion: Ideal Biological Characteristics for Long-Duration Manned Space Travel”
Aaron Cardon was born and raised in northern New Mexico, where a lifelong interest in science and space was easily inspired by skies littered with stars on clear nights. As a passion for biology and neuropharmacology steered him to an education in psychology and medicine, he was always fascinated by near-future technologies inside medicine and out. He graduated from Baylor College of Medicine in 2010 and is currently finishing his residency in clinical child neurology. With his training, he hopes to continue providing and improving treatment for neurologic and developmental disorders of childhood, while focusing translational research on the neuropharmacology underlying development and modulation of memory, attention, and perception processes; the ethical implementation of electronic interfaces for the treatment and augmentation of cognition; and the neuropharmacology of volitional behavior.
Following is the abstract for Dr. Cardon’s talk Project Hyperion: Ideal Biological Characteristics for Long-Duration Manned Space Travel
The physical, cognitive, and social characteristics of modern humans are adapted to evolutionary pressures of the terrestrial savannah, where energy prudence, heuristic modeling, and tribal cohesion were successful survival tools. As we ponder exploration or migration into deep solar or interstellar space, however, we radically alter the ecological niche of such travelers. By extension, we should assume that the maximally effective interstellar traveler could exhibit important differences in
physiologic, mental, or emotional capacities which would better match such niches. Within the constraints of a specific mission design, we can consider mechanisms by which optimal characteristics could be developed or enhanced. Imagining the environment aboard a world ship such as Hyperion, I explore here variations in physical, cognitive, and emotional characteristics of deep-space travelers which may better match such environments, as well as near-term future technologies which could be applied by space-faring societies to maximize the fit of their astronauts to the deep-space environment.