Professor Bohlander's paper 'Joining the “Galactic Club”: What Price Admission? – A hypothetical case study of the impact of human rights on a future accession of humanity to interstellar civilisation networks', published in the journal Futures in 2021, was nominated as one of five finalists in the category Published Short-Form Non-Fiction for the 2023 Canopus Awards for Excellence in Interstellar Writing, the winners of which were announced at the 2023 Nexus Conference in Nairobi on 2 February.
The awards are an initiative of the Foundation "100 Year Starship", whose president, Dr Mae Jemison, was the first female black astronaut to go into space on NASA's Endeavour space shuttle missions. The 100 Year Starship project, founded in 2010, was a one-year joint U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) effort "to take the first step in the next era of space exploration—a journey between the stars."
The mission statement of the Foundation reads:
"We exist to make the capability of human travel beyond our solar system a reality within the next 100 years. We unreservedly dedicate ourselves to identifying and pushing the radical leaps in knowledge and technology needed to achieve interstellar flight, while pioneering and transforming breakthrough applications that enhance the quality of life for all on Earth. We actively seek to include the broadest swath of people and human experience in understanding, shaping and implementing this global aspiration."
