My updates during the day got waylaid by a digestive imposition. Sorry.

Laurie Garver was, as noted before, an exhilarating speaker. She is upbeat and fully aware of how important the new race for space is. We were beating the drums a bit during her presentation;. As she said, we want to be the leaders in this new journey. We will happily join with others to explore and even exploit where necessary, the resources of the other celestial bodies, but for the technologies and the actual dash into space, we want to be the leaders again. Our private companies are building on the beginnings NASA gave us, with one of the best safety records for space travel on the planet. from the time we started manned travel in space until now the US has lost one Mercury capsule and occupants on the training platform and two shuttles: one on lift off and one on return. For over 40 years, that's a good record. We lose more airplanes than we do space vehicles.

Ms. Garver was followed by a networking break and then a panel on growing business for spaceports. The director of Spaceport America and the CEO of Spaceport Sweden were both on hand, as well as the directors of Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Spaceport Sweden is located above the arctic circle in Swedish Lapland and offers spectacular views  including the Aurora Borealis and the long summer sun. The town also hosts the annual Ice Hotel, but that's another story. All of the panel agreed that tourism, into space and to the space ports them selves, is a very important part of their planning. They were also agreed on Orbital travel being the largest portion of their future services as Suborbital point to point travel can be handled by major airports and does not need the facilities of a full service spaceport.

After this discussion, we broke for lunch. Mexican salad with black beans and corn; green enchiladas (which is mostly cheese sauce, green chile and corn tortillas in a sort of caserole), chicken or beef fajitas (the meat is marinated and cooked with onions and bell peppers, served in a small warm tortilla) and the toppings included shredded cheese, fresh guacamole and salsa. There was also green chile cornbread and the deserts were much like yesterday's: lemon cheesecake on a white cake base, chocolate cheesecake on a chocolate cake base and something that might have been chocolate mouse. After the problems with the underlying cake yesterday, i gave the desert a miss. Besides, there were M&Ms and peanuts for snacking on outside the meeting hall.


dragon
11/15/2011 11:27:57 am

OK, it's Lori Garver, not Laurie ... <sigh>

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9/25/2012 02:09:15 pm

THX for info

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    I have three soap boxes that are liable to intermingle: Space, education and entertainment. Now if I can just figure out how to make educational movies that allow me to go into space ... LOL

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