You will spend the day east of Tucson, visiting the Titan Missile Museum and other historical sites, including ICBM missile silos de-activated and destroyed in 1987 as a result of treaties with the Soviet Union. It was agreed that the United States could leave one intact, with the silo top open for satellite verification; this is the intact ICBM silo we will visit, but we also will hike into the desert with a guide to visit several destroyed silo sites. The Titan Missile Museum describes the ICBM program as a “history of keeping peace.” Can we assume that ‘mutually assured destruction’ kept the Cold War cold? Can this past assumption guide present and future nuclear proliferation strategies? This trip will give participants a fascinating context for considering nuclear technology and international politics, as well as an opportunity to enjoy a beautiful day in the Sonoran Desert. On the way home, we will stop at the San Xavier del Bac Mission built in 1797, allowing us to travel back in time, long before the Cold War, when southern Arizona belonged to Spain. NOTE: This tour requires the ability to hike for about 1 hour in the desert on somewhat rough terrain. Bring walking/hiking shoes, hats, sunscreen and additional water. Fee includes admission to museum and tours, transportation, light breakfast snack, box lunch and bottled water.

How does a large metropolis develop in the desert? Manipulate water. The Hohokam Indians, who inhabited the Salt River Valley from AD 300 to 1450, built a canal system that traversed nearly 500 miles and may have served as many as 50,000 people at a time. The pioneers of the 1860s built canals from the Salt River to irrigate their crops. Following the 1902 Newlands Reclamation Act, water storage and hydroelectric dams were built on Arizona’s Salt and Verde Rivers. This field trip will visit two of these dams and travel along the Arizona Canal with a stop at the Canal for a closer look. We will drive the Apache Trail through the scenic Tonto National Forest and stop at Stewart Mountain Dam, which forms Saguaro Lake – a favorite recreation spot and home to a 13,000-kilowatt hydroelectric generating unit. We will travel to Granite Reef Diversion Dam, built to divert the river water from into the canals north and south of the river for delivery to millions of consumers across the valley. We will then travel along the canal system to G.R. Herberger Park to take a look at the Arizona Canal. We will end the tour on the controversial Tempe Town Lake. Bring walking/hiking shoes, hats, sunscreen and additional water. Fee includes transportation, box lunch and bottled water.

With 1.3 million people moving each week into cities worldwide, the design and governance of urban spaces is more critical than ever. Sustainability challenges ranging from environmental degradation to violence to community fitness are usually aggravated in cities. How sustainability principles are either retrofitted into existing cities or designed into freshly developed cities is complex and full of trade-offs. New technologies often are heralded as offering solutions to urban problems – there is no shortage of histories of richly imagined, highly technologized cities. In this field trip, we will explore how future cities are imagined and visualized and what such imagination means for the governance of urban spaces. We will travel to Arcosanti, an urban laboratory focused on pursuing lean alternatives to urban sprawl through innovative design with accountability in mind. This visit to a richly imagined, heavily philosophized place where utopia and reality meet will provide us an opportunity to think through and critique urban imaginations. To temper our futuristic analysis with a deep appreciation of history, we will conclude the tour with a walk along the cliff dwellings of Montezuma Castle. Bring walking/hiking shoes, hats, sunscreen, and additional water. Fee includes entry fees, lunch at Arcosanti, bottled water and transportation.

The Biodesign Institute at ASU is one of the nation’s premier research facilities. Designated as “Lab of the Year” by R&D Magazine in 2006, the LEED certified complex currently contains 350,000 square feet for research in emerging technologies – such as synthetic biology and nanotechnologies – for applications in vaccines, energy and other major societal priorities. In addition to an intimate tour of the Biodesign Institute and its Center for Innovations in Medicine, led by the Center’s director and top researcher Stephen Johnston, participants will experience the research in Johnston’s lab in a different way: through the eyes of research subjects. Participants will contribute to the immunosignature diagnostics project by donating a drop of blood to be assayed for the distribution of IgG antibodies. Participants also will receive a Biodesign Institute guest bag full of signature goodies.

We invite you to travel with us to the many possible futures of Phoenix! You will visit a space where insights and new knowledge emerge from dialogue, joint exploration and collaboration between science and society. Researchers from ASU’s Decision Center for a Desert City and its partner organization, Decision Theater, will take you to a state-of-the-art research and decision lab where you will be introduced to WaterSim, an interactive simulation model to create “what if?!” scenarios. Using WaterSim, you and other participants will create future scenarios and alter policies related to water supply and demand for the Phoenix metropolitan area. This is a unique opportunity to interact with a 280-degree model viewing environment as you think about the role of visualization, models and science-society collaboration related to sustainability challenges. We also will use these alternate futures to compare the different approaches to scenario planning and their potential influence on collaborative problem solving, governance, strategy building and policy implementation. Participants will receive a souvenir.

Alcor Life Extension Foundation is the world leader in cryonics, cryonics research and cryonics technology. Cryonics is a speculative life support technology that seeks to preserve human life in a state that will be viable and treatable by future medicine. It is expected that future medicine will include the ability to heal at the cellular and molecular levels. We will tour the Alcor facility and discuss technical aspects of cryonics, as well as its social and ethical implications. Fee includes transportation.

At Arizona Public Service’s Solar Test And Research Center, we will observe how utility engineers evaluate the latest solar technologies from around the world. We will learn how the center performs small scale performance testing to confirm which products have the best economic potential and discuss the transformative potential of solar energy solutions. Adoption of these new technologies requires changes to institutions and regulations that influence community lifestyles. To what extent will embrace of distributed solar technologies improve the quality of life for all? Fee includes transportation and afternoon snack.

How can we address our energy future now? Imagine liberating yourself and your community from our insatiable petroleum addiction while still driving your old car or truck. In this MacGyver-meets-McDonalds adventure, you'll meet the people and equipment behind a fully-operational biodiesel processing plant. Jay and Gene began as small-scale biodiesel homebrewers, collecting waste vegetable oil from local restaurants. Fabricating all their own equipment from discarded scrap metal and old swimming pool pumps, they formed the Dynamite BioFuels Co-Op and scaled up to their current facility that is capable of producing several hundred gallons of biodiesel per day. Join us for a field trip and discussion of the technical, legal and social challenges and rewards of DIY biodiesel. Field trip fee includes entry to the cooperative and transportation.