Space Generation Congress Day 3

Day 3: Friday, September 29th, 2006 [More Talks and a Boat Trip]

The Restroom Door Said Gentlemen

I woke up at 7:45, once again too late to catch the hostel's breakfast. Baah, oh well. We took the subway/trolley to the University and prepared for the conference. Everyone was considerably deader. I was not feeling particularly hot, but during the break I had a cup of coffee about bounced right back. The first presentation was by Jim Burke, a retired NASA employee who had been with NASA for over 40 years. He talked about his roles in NASA and how the NASA world is changing.

Next up were the Embry-Riddle people to talk about their Nano-satellite project. Apparently, there are plenty of university built satellites sitting around that can't get launched because they're so cheap to build (relatively) but so expensive to launch. The whole time I was thinking about how awesome it will be to launch Daedalus III this May and it will actually reach space, and how we're going to beat ERAU's team and win the Race to Black competition. Sure, it was rude to think about that while they were presenting on a totally different subject, but I don't care.

Maybe I should have though. After their presentation we went on break. Halfway through the break I had the urge to go to the bathroom for a number 2. However, because the men's room door was wide open, I didn't notice it when I passed it and walked right into the women's restroom. While I was in there a few people came in and out, but I didn't even realize I was in the women's restroom until I came out of the stall and noticed there were no urinals. Thankfully, no one saw me walk out of the women's room.

Once the break was over, Chris Boshuizen gave a talk called "If Bob, Peter, and Todd could do it, what about me...?" which referred to Bob Richards, Peter Diamandis, and Todd Hawley, the founders of SEDS, the SGC, the International Space University, and the X-Prize Cup and addressed how we can take a great idea and turn it into something great. Unfortunately, none of the three guys could make it to the conference, but they showed up the International Astronautical Conference the next week (the SGC always coincides with the IAC so SGC delegates can go to both without making two huge trips).

Next Pieter got up and talked about the European version of SEDS called EUROVIA. Despite his nervousness, poor English, and non-powerful voice, he did well. His mom watched him over the webcam and sent him a text message afterwards, which I thought was cool.

After Pieter, the President of the International Astronautical Federation (the group that puts on the IAC), Jim Zimmerman, spoke about the "Emphasis of Youth" in space policy and development. I was pretty hungry at this point so I couldn't pay attention too well.

Thankfully, lunch was next. It was the same as the day before, but the mingling was different. J.J. seemed to be fascinated with a new religion called Pastafarianism, a group that believes the Flying Spaghetti Monster was responsible for creation and therefore their theories should be taught in science class alongside of intelligent design (the religion is obviously fake, but people are joining it to protest the degradation of science or as an outlet for their frustration with conservatives). The best part? The religion's chosen people are pirates!

Following lunch, we had a teleconference with a guy in Virginia. It was a rather ghetto setup since the guy was using a PC while Kevin Stube in Valencia was using a Mac. Keith Cowling is a former NASA employee who founded NASAWatch.com. This guy reminded me of Dr. Brandenburg in that he seemed like a conspiracy nut. Despite his "internet power" I think he's a serious thorn in NASA's side, but if he's trying to expose actual truth, I can't stop him.

At the end of the teleconference, we split back up into project groups to put some finishing touches on our Youth Space Declaration recommendations and our strategic plan for the... art contest. After the wrap up we went to the IEEE office (if only the AIAA office could be this cool...) to drop off our stuff and get ready for the boat tour. We took the trolley to the coast and took some pictures while we waited to get on the catamaran.

I don't think the trip was worth €18, but it was definitely relaxing and gave us all a chance to kick back and enjoy the Mediterranean breeze as we sailed North up the Valencia coastline. There were plenty of pictures taken, simply because there wasn't a whole lot else to do except mingle, relax, and just watch the sunset. They served us a glass of champagne near the end of the trip. It was a lot of fun. Here's my favorite photo of the whole trip. I have a lot more but really can't link them all without clogging this paragraph full of hyperlinks.

I don't remember what I had for dinner that night, but I know plenty of people were disappointed that I didn't have the energy to go out on the Pub Crawl again, no matter how much I wanted to. I was a party pooper and went to sleep at 10:30 without consuming large quantities of alcohol.