3 April 2024

09:50 – 10:35

Amphi 2

Michael Benson

Michael Benson’s work focuses on the intersection of art and science. An artist and author, in the last decade Benson has staged a series of large-scale shows of digitally reconstructed planetary landscape photography in major museums internationally. His last book, Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, was published by Simon & Schuster on the 50th anniversary of the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey in April 2018. Benson has contributed to many publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and Rolling Stone. He’s currently using SEM technologies (scanning electron microscopes) to focus on natural design at sub-millimeter scales for a book and exhibition project titled Nanocosmos, which he’s realizing at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Ontario. Michael Benson is a Fellow of the New York Institute of the Humanities and a recent Visiting Scholar at the MIT Media Lab.
Credit photo: NHM Vienna

From Reverie to Reality: What was the Impact of Science Fiction on Spaceflight History?

The pioneering work of three great rocketry pioneers led directly to the space age: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (Russia), Hermann Oberth (Germany), and Robert Goddard (USA). All three were heavily influenced by works of 19th century speculative fiction. Using a broad range of examples taken from 19th and 20th century history and then on to the present day, Michael Benson illustrates the complex cross-pollination of science fiction and rocket science in his talk,  “From Reverie to Reality: What was the impact of science fiction on spaceflight history?”