Carleton journalism professor Christopher Dornan brought some of his out-of-this-world lectures about satellites and space beyond the university to speak at the Ottawa Public Library on Nov. 19.
Dornan is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton, where he teaches the course “From Sputnik to Google Earth: A Cultural History of Satellite and Space Communication.”
His presentation featured some of the content he teaches in his communications course at Carleton.
Dornan discussed the history of human interference in space and the release of machinery around the Earth.
The Ottawa Society for Arts and Sciences (OSAS), an educational society launched in 2011 by Ottawa mayor Jim Watson, hosted the talk.
Dornan explained he believes there are extra-terrestrials, but humans have not been able to contact them for several reasons. Some of these reasons could be, he said, they don’t know about the existence of intelligence, or because humans do not have the means to speak to them.
“They may not be able to manipulate the same spectrums as us to contact us on our frequencies . . . My opinion is that we probably aren’t listening in the right place,” Dornan told the audience, which consisted of about 15 OSAS members.
Dornan started the talk with the history of Sputnik 1 in October of 1957, when humans learned they could release probes into space.
Dornan explained through war, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. furthered their presence in space. There is now so much released in space there is a cluster around the Earth of different pathways for probes, Dornan said.
After that, the Kessler Syndrome was developed, which Dornan explained as the possibility of one of the machines colliding with another and causing a ripple effect, then blacking out Earth’s main methods of communication and travel.
Dornan explained one of the causes is solar flares omitted from the sun.
Dornan said his passion for the subject developed while he was completing his undergraduate degree at Carleton, working on a program called “Science is a Dirty Word” for CKCU, the campus radio station.
“I discovered that there was a guy, Governor Feldman, who used a telescope in Algonquin Park . . . I wrote the article on that, and that’s where I really got started on this topic,” Dornan said in an interview.
Jason Abdelhadi, an advisory member for OSAS, said although he was generally terrified of the topic, Dornan’s talk was a success.
“I am very interested in knowing more . . . It was very enlightening,” Abdelhadi said.
