Moonshots and Earthshots in the Search for Life Beyond Earth

July 20-23, 2019 at the Green Bank Observatory (GBO) in Green Bank, WV

Supported by a grant from Unither Bioelectronique, in honor of Dr Barry Blumberg, the late Chairman of its corporate parent’s Scientific Advisory Board.

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This workshop will bring together thinkers from diverse fields to discuss progress and challenges in Astrobiology that we expect over the next decade (the Earthshots) and future plans that might require several decades work and possibly major technical or intellectual advances (the Moonshots).

I understood that my mandate was to establish a basic science organization that could discover and understand natural phenomena that related to early life and to life elsewhere.

Barry Blumberg, on his appointment as founding director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI).

The workshop will begin on the afternoon of Saturday 20 July and end with lunch on Tuesday 23 July. For logistical reasons it will be limited to about 50 participants.

The detailed workshop program is built around the interests of the participants, but we expect to cover topics including:

• History and status of the search for technosignatures
• Radio emission from planets
• Chemical complexity in the interstellar medium
• Habitable planets in the Milky Way
• The structure and chemistry of planet-forming disks
• Precursors for biotic chemistry in the Solar System
• Searches for life in the Solar System
• Ethics and philosophy of the search for extraterrestrial life
• Exoplanet biosignatures
• Technical developments: telescopes & spacecraft & …

There will also be a presentation about Barry Blumberg and his contributions to the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI). The isolation and great natural beauty of the Green Bank Observatory leads to workshops of particular intimacy and focus. The many dozens of past Green Bank workshops have included Frank Drake’s 1961 meeting on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, a followup “SETI at 50” held fifty years later, and workshops on astrochemistry, cometary radio astronomy, and radio astronomy from space, among many others.

Astrobiology raises the difficult question of how to define life. What is it exactly that we are looking for beyond Earth?

David C. Catling, Astrobiology – A Very Short Introduction, Oxford Press

Program of events

The workshop offers a wide variety of talks and presentations, plus plenty of time to discuss and network with fellow astronomers, physicists, scientists, as well as subject matter experts in the field of Astrobiology. See the full program of events now.

Presentations will be webcast live as they happen.

Archived videos will be shared after the conference is completed.

Scientific Organizing Committee

• Alan Boss (Carnegie Institution for Science)
• Steven Dick (former Library of Congress Blumberg Astrobiology Chair)
• Dawn Gelino (NASA Exoplanet Science Institute)
• Joe Lazio (JPL)
• Jay Lockman (GBO)
• Karen O’Neil (GBO)
• Martine Rothblatt (United Therapeutics)
• Jason Wright (Penn State University)

Local Organizing Committee

• W. Armentrout
• A. Bonsall
• N. Butterfield
• F.J. Lockman
• L. Morgan
• S. Shears
• M. Vosteen

View a List of Confirmed Participants

Name	Affiliation
Batalha, Natasha	University of California, Santa Cruz
Belikov, Ruslan	NASA Ames Research Center
Berea, Anamaria	Blue Marble Space Institute of Science
Bergin, Ted	University of Michigan
Boss, Alan	DTM – Carnegie Institution
Boston, Penny	NASA Astrobiology Institute, NASA Ames Research Center
Carlson, Rick	DTM – Carnegie Institution
Chambers, John	Carnegie Institution for Science
Charbonneau, Rebecca	University of Cambridge
Christiansen, Jessie	Caltech / IPAC-NExScI
Cohen, Adam	Associated Universities, Inc.
Conley, Cassie	NASA Ames Research Center
Cordiner, Martin	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Crovetto, George	Clairmont Nichols Opticians
Denning, Kathryn	York University
De Paulis, Daniela	Daniela De Paulis Studio
Dick, Steven	Former NASA Chief Historian
Drake, Frank	SETI Institute
Drake, Nadia	National Geographic
Grinspoon, David	Planetary Science Institute
Gupta, Harshal	NSF
Impey, Chris	University of Arizona
Jihae	musician, actress
Kasting, Jim	Penn State University
Kellermann, Ken	NRAO
Kuhn, Jeff	Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii
Kwok, Sun	University of British Columbia
Langston, Glen	NSF
Lazio, Joseph	Jet Propulsion Laboratory / California Institute of Technology
Lineweaver, Charles	Australian National University
Lockman, Felix J.	Green Bank Observatory
Macalady, Jenn	Penn State University
MacGregor, Meredith	DTM-Carnegie Institution
Mancinelli, Rocco	NASA
Mehta, Rajan	DNA
Milam, Stefanie	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Oman-Reagan, Michael	Memorial University
O’Neil, Karen	Green Bank Observatory
Peters, Ted	Graduate Theological Union
Pilcher, Carl	Blue Marble Space Institute of Science
Ransom, Scott	NRAO
Rothblatt, Martine	United Therapeutics
Rothschild, Lynn	NASA Ames Research Center
Schwartz, Jim	Wichita State University
Siemion, Andrew	Berkeley SETI Research Center
Sizemore, Hanna	Planetary Science Institute / Green Bank Observatory
Smith, Kelly	Philosophy, Clemson University
Tatel, David S.	United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit
Weinberger, Alycia	Carnegie Institution for Science
Welsh, Barry	Space Science Laboratory, UC Berkeley
Werthimer, Dan	University of California, Berkeley
Wright, Jason	Penn State University