2009 Balticon Science Program: where great science fiction has a real science
foundation
Friday May 22, 2009
6:00 Leaving Tsiolkovskiy's Cradle: It IS Rocket Science… A Brief History of
Rockets & Rocket Science Bear Field
7:00 Hard Science for beginners : You ask the questions of our scientists:
Bear Field, Eli Terry, Dr. John Cmar 8: Closed for
Opening ceremonies
9:00 Symbiotic Links between Green Technology and Exploration Eli Terry
and Dean Calahan
10 to midnight Meet the Scientist Social sponsored by NSS and Moon Society

Saturday May 23, 2009
10 am Kepler Mission, Padi Boyd, NASA
11AM Electric Scooters are here Ray Carrier, president Green Rider LLC
".
Noon the CHROMATICS concert! ( in main tent)
PM 01:00 Fun with nerve agents using the SIMapse Home Nerve Agent
Laboratory. By MAJ Thomas B. Talbot, MD, MS , Chief of Operations & Academic
ComputingUS Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense
02:00 Development of Medical Appliances – making healing easier! Dr.
Robert Katz SUNY@StonyBrook
03:00 Potential medical Pitfalls in Space Eleanor O'Rangers, Pharm.D,
Space Medicine Assoc.
4:00 Dinosaurs, The Update - Dr. Thomas R. Holtz, Jr., Vertebrate
Paleontologist, Dept. of Geology Director, Earth, Life & Time Program, U.of MD.,
* followed by Book Signing
05:00 Psychohistory update: how close is modern social science to Asimov's
Second Foundation? – Nathan Bos JHU- APL
06:00 Space Science Instruments and the Science they enable - Laura A. Burns,
James Webb Telescope Engineer
07:00 The 100 most significant inventions of the 21st Century : Scratch
Bachrach, Dr. Robert Katz, Eli Terry , Laura Burns, Andy love With
refreshments
Sunday, MAY 24, 2009
AM 9:00 Evolution of Mating Strategies including YOU and YOUR FRIENDS!" Dr.
Beatrice Kondo,evolutionary biologist, Johns Hopkins U.
11:00 "Fantastic Voyage: A Trip to Darwin's Galapagos Today" If you have ever
thought about following in Darwin's footsteps and taking the "trip of a
lifetime" to visit the Galapagos, this session will tell you what to expect and
how to prepare. Angie Boyter,retired-JHUAPL
Noon Darwin: Who was he, What did he do, and Why does it matter? (Sunday):
overview of Darwin and his accomplishments Dr. Thomas Holtz
PM
1:00 Earth through Alien Eyes: EPOXI (EPOCh of Extrasolar Planet Exploration)
- Dr. Timothy A. Livengood, NCESSE (National Center for Earth and Space
Science Education) – EPOXI will keep you glued to your seat!
2:00 Endangered Mountain Gorillas and our shrinking planet- Update by Dr.
Michael Cranfield, Chief Vet., Maryland Zoo in Baltimore

03:00 Toxicology and Mustard gas Dr. Henry Meier, Edgewood, CIV USA
MEDCOM USAMRICD

04:00 "What's your vector? Lyme Disease and Related Diseases"
Dr. John Cmar , Johns Hopkins
05:00 "Inertial Navigation on Earth and Beyond" Andy Love, Electrical
Engineer & Applied Physicist
6:00 Let's Build a Real Time Machine! John Ashmead, Ashmenad Software
7:00 Decoding and comparing ancient Greek and Hebrew documents using
linguistic clues Rabbi Alan Yuter, Torah and Ancient Semitic languages scholar,
http://jewishdowntown.org/rabbis_corner/
8:00 PM The Moons of Saturn Dave Kratz
9:00 PM The Dead among the Living in Ancient Israel (No zombies in the
Bible!) Barry M. Gittlen, Ph.D. Professor of Biblical and Archaeological
Studies, Baltimore Hebrew University
10:00 PM The 50th anniversary of the Twilight Zone…proto-science trends in the
Twilight Zone that were achieved w/ Refreshments Marv Zelkowitz, Tim
Livengood and YOU!
11:00 Star Party ( go out and look at the heavens, weather permitting)
Dave Kratz , our star guide!
Monday, MAY 25, 2009
AM
10 High Speed Computing – What is happening on your desktop? How are we
increasing the power of your pc How can we continue to have Moore's law
applicable where computing power doubles every 18 months? (e.g., the use of
multicore
processors and what are they anyway?). How do we get higher speeds if cost is no
object? What is the current realm of high performance computers and
supercomputers?
Marv Zelkowitz, Professor of Computer Science, U. of MD
11:00 "The Once and Future Farm". Farming practices before chemical
fertilizer and pesticide/herbicide use, and the local production and
distribution of food and fuel 60 years ago, and how they relate to the modern
farm/food/fuel crops production of today and tomorrow. Rebecca's Organic Farm
Warren Turner

Noon " ALHAT: Landing Robotic Spacecraft on the Moon, an update" Dr.Robin
Vaughan, APL
PM: 1:00 Science Humor: What happens when scientists (mis)use scientific
method to analyze real life? Learn how to write in scientific style, predict a
movie's quality based only on the characters'occupations, determine how famous
someone is using a web browser, etc! Eric Schulman and Caroline Cox,
Astronomers
2:00 What Darwin Didn't Know : Various threads and themes of modern evolutionary
biology, including Evo/Devo (evolution & development) issues ." Thomas R.
Holtz, Jr. Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology Department of
Geology Director, Earth, Life & Time Program