May 18, 1998

A DAY ON EUROPA:
A JPL PUBLIC LECTURE WITH ARTHUR C. CLARKE

Hazardous Media and its technology partner Livecam.com will cybercast science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke live from his home in Sri Lanka to a public lecture on exploration of the Jupiter moon Europa sponsored by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The lecture, titled "A Day on Europa," will be held at Cal Tech's Beckman auditorium in Pasadena on Thursday, May 21, from 7pm to 8:30pm PDT.

Arthur C. Clarke will join a panel of prominent scientists to discuss the potential of exploration of Europa. The icy moon has remarkable similarities to Earth, and Clarke has suggested in his novels "2010: Odyssey Two" and "3001: The Final Odyssey" that life could be supported there. JPL launched the probe Galileo to Jupiter in 1989, and it has been orbiting the planet since late 1995, returning to Earth revealing pictures of Europa. Clarke has often referred to Europa as "the lifeboat of the human race," suggesting that if the Earth became inhospitable, mankind could potentially relocate to Europa. The moon could potentially be an ideal space station for further exploration of the galaxy, Clarke says.

Clarke will broadcast his message to the lecture and take questions from the audience via an internet "livecam" near his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The livecam is provided by Sri Lanka Telecom. The livecam broadcasts a constant video stream, technically known as a "jpeg push," out to the internet. The livecam is maintained by Los Angeles based Hazardous Media (http://hazardous.com), who has successfully produced a series of cybercasts with Clarke, including birthday wishes to the HAL 9000 computer in March 1997, and the 30th anniversary of "2001: A Space Odyssey" in April 1998. Rebroadcasts of these past Clarke cybercasts are available at http:/hazardous.com/2001.

The jpeg push technology was developed by internet guru John Sokol of Livecam.com (http://www.livecam.com). The livecam is the only one in existence on the island of Sri Lanka, south of India, and Clarke enjoys using it to communicate with the rest of the world.

Says Clarke in a upcoming documentary produced by Hazardous Media: "The internet is a communication network which is making the global family I've been talking about for decades. At the moment, it's true that only a few people in developed countries can afford this sort of thing. But more and more, people in countries like Sri Lanka are getting it. And every village will have a communications device of some kind in the next few decades. So the whole world will be wired up."

This is the third time that Hazardous Media and Livecam.com have teamed to cybercast Arthur C. Clarke to the internet.

Says documentary filmmaker A.J. Catoline, co-founder of Hazardous Media: "Cybercasting Arthur C. Clarke from Sri Lanka to Los Angeles is like traveling from Earth to Europa as far as the internet is concerned. Cybercasting is fast emerging as a new medium like radio and television once were state-of-the art technologies." Catoline says the livecam currently produces an image of about 6 frames per second, however as internet speeds increase worldwide, we will soon see full-motion video.

Adds cybercast technician John Sokol: "Will the telephone, television and internet become one? Absolutely, I think they are converging."

Hazardous Media's website earns its name by embracing the internet as a growing digital revolution, where new mediums are emerging in the uncharted and hazardous frontier of cyberspace. The company's slogan is "daring internet adventures," and Hazardous Media and Livecam.com have taken digital cameras into the world's more "analog" locations, including Sri Lanka, Korea, the Nepali Himalayas, and Eastern Europe. Both companies are based in Los Angeles, however their home is wherever the internet takes them.

Hazardous Media is producing a documentary film called "1010: An Internet Odyssey with Arthur C. Clarke" about the history and the future of the digital revolution and the internet. Scenes from the cybercast will appear in the film.

The lecture will be broadcast to the internet via the websites of Hazardous Media and JPL. Real Audio/Video and CUSeeMe technology will be used. Please stay tuned to the hazardous.com URL listed above. JPL's website may be accessed at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/europaday.

The NASA satellite network will also broadcast the entire conference live to viewers in North America. The conference may be received on GE satellite # 1, Ku band, transponder 24, vertical polarity, downlink frequency 12.180, 103 degrees west longitude.

The panel of scientists joining in the lecture with Clarke will be Dr. Ron Greeley of Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, a Galileo project imaging team member; Dr. John Delaney, a submarine volcano researcher with the University of Washington, Seattle; and Joan Horvath of JPL, the Europa/Lake Vostok Initiative manager. Lake Vostok, a frozen lake underneath the ice in Antarctica, may have features similar to Europa. Dr. Richard Terrile of JPL will moderate the panel and JPL Director Dr. Edward Stone will give the welcome address.

The event is free, but tickets must be obtained from the Caltech Ticket Office, with information available by calling (626) 395-4652 or at the following Internet website: http://www.caltech.edu/~tickets/to.htm.


California Institute of Technology

May 18, 1998

EUROPA - ANOTHER WATER WORLD?

On May 21, a panel discussion titled "Europa - Another Water World?" will take place at Caltech in Pasadena, California. This event will be broadcast live over the Internet and also as a live satellite broadcast (more details below).
If you plan to attend the event in person, seating is limited and you will have to obtain tickets from the Caltech ticket office. The tickets are free. The current information on the event is available on this web page:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/europaday/index2.html

ARTHUR C. CLARKE

Arthur C. Clarke will be joining the panel as a live cybercast from Sri Lanka. This means live video and audio of Dr. Clarke will be presented. This cybercast portion is in collaboration with Hazardous Media, and there is a web page with more information available at:

http://www.hazardous.com/europa

NICKI STONE, OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST

Nicki Stone, who won a gold medal in aerial skiing at the recent Nagano winter olympics will be attending the event. Nicki will be in one of the booths outside of Beckman Auditorium prior to and after the panel event.

LIVE OVER THE INTERNET

The panel event will be provided live over the internet in three formats: