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Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Miscellaneous Stuff from the ISDC

Okay, even though I attended none of the meals and few of the programs (my fault, not ISDC's), I still brought home the usual pile of intriguing stuff. For instance, if you go to one of these events, have a business card on hand--they are the primary means of information exchange. Here are the ones I collected over the course of two days:

  • Mark Bontrager, Tony Gannon, Percy Luney, and Bernie McShea from Space Florida.
  • Cariann Higginbotham from SpaceVidcast.com. Cariann and her husband Ben run a Mr.-and-Mrs. webcast focusing on space news out of Minneapolis, Minnesota. They are just too cute for words. They're kind of like a morning radio or TV show, but the chemistry/cute is real because of the husband-wife relationship. Cariann is just as friendly and upbeat in person as she is on the web. I hope SpaceVidcast gets broader play out there. They're fun.
  • Barbara Hero, Founder and Director of the International Lambdoma Research Institute (she was selling a "Pythagorean Lambdoma Harmonic Keyboard (PLHK)." The PLHK is a diamond-shaped keyboard that emits various electronic tones depending on which key you press as a means of music therapy and relaxation. It helps if you've been a fan of Pink Floyd or Yanni before purchasing.
  • David Buck, founder of Spaceship Earth Academy, a space-themed day-care/pre-school that's about to become a chain. I've talked with David at nearly every ISDC I've attended. He's a decent guy. Kinda looks like General Armstrong Custer. Not that there's anything wrong with that; just sayin'.
  • Tony Webb, founder of eSpaceTickets.com. I met Tony in Dallas in 2007, when he was trying to sell lottery tickets for people to win trips to space. Still not sure how he's doing that or how on-the-level that is, but he's still keeping on.
  • Brooke Owens, Space Industry Analyst on International Policy at the FAA's office of Commercial Space Transportation. I said nice things about Brooke's comments during the workforce discussion. Given her go-get-'em attitude and experiences at the X Prize Foundation, I wonder if she'll find government too constraining. Guess we'll see. (She expressed no displeasure with her work, I hasten to add--that would just be my theory.)
  • Ken Davidian, Program Lead from the FAA OCST's Space Systems Development Division. Ken is a Facebook friend, but he and I chatted for awhile in a friendly enough fashion about OCST's work. Ken was a NASA guy until recently.
  • Marianne Dyson, who's a science writer and consultant for National Geographic, a writer of space-related children's books, and a long-time friend from the National Space Society. Marianne was happy to see me, but expressed concern that I was spending too much time on Facebook and in front of the computer. I'm shocked, shocked...




*

Getting back to the "stuff," or the swag as my buddy Doc calls it, here's an inventory of the welcome packet for each registered attendee, which came in an ATK-sponsored ISDC logo laptop bag (what my pal Tess would call a "man purse"). The bag will probably go to one of the kids in the family, but the rest of the stuff was fun. It included:

  • The Conference program. That might've been useful to read, but the single-page schedule was the most important and useful item in the front pocket--and the only thing I looked at during the conference. Bad Bart! BAD!!
  • The latest copy of Ad Astra Magazine. And yes, you can even find a book review of David Hitt's Homesteading Space by Your Humble Narrator on page 56.
  • The May 25 issue of Space News.
  • A Space Florida luggage tag. Now that's useful!
  • An invitation to the Space Frontier Foundation's NewSpace 2009 conference at Ames Research Center July 17-20.
  • A CD with archive editions of the Moon Miner's Manifesto, the newsletter of the Artemis Society. This, too, would be useful.
  • A National Space Society membership brochure--useful for joining, renewing your membership, or recruiting someone to the Society.
  • A NASA bumper sticker.
  • A "Fly Me to the Moon" Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle bumper sticker. (Where's the Ares sticker?)
  • An advertisement for the International Symposium on Solar Energy from Space, which is located in Toronto, Canada, September 8-10 and sponsored by Space Canada.
  • A Space Florida fact sheet.

Not a bad haul, all things considered. I might even manage to read some of it before the next big thing hits my Kindle. No, really...

2 comments:

Benjamin Higginbotham said...

Wow, thank you for your incredibly kind words! I hope we get to see you as a regular on the Spacevidcast show.

There was a lot that happened at ISDC and I'm excited to see what 2010 brings us in Chicago. 2009 is the planning year for 2010 which will be the foundation year in space travel, starting with Virgin in my opinion.

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