posted 10-02-2003 05:05 PM            

It's nice out here in November

...the International Lunar Conference 2003 is a decisive week-long gathering of American and international space program representatives, scientists and engineers, astronomers, business people and entrepreneurs, educators and enthusiasts -- all seeking to develop global and inter-global understandings, strategies, initiatives and enterprises leading to a permanent human presence on our Moon within the decade.

John Young and Harrison Schmitt are scheduled to attend.

http://www.spaceagepub.com/ilc_2003.html

Rizz

posted 10-07-2003 01:12 AM               

Ya'll come on down, but make sure you bring your sun tan lotion.

I'm signed up for the whole week(the heck with work).
I think the Mauna Kea tour is a "don't miss" item. Tiptoeing through the lava fields with a moon walker or two sounds like good fun! Maybe a side trip to the volcano would be in order too.

Hope to see some of you folks here, keep an eye out for me, I'll be wearing sunglasses, shorts, flip flops, and a real loud "aloha" shirt. Just kidding, shoot me an Email if your coming this way, I can show you where to go and what to see. I might take my telescope up to the visitors center on Mauna Kea. No moon viewing that week, but Mars,and Saturn will be up and of course there's always great deep space viewing.

Aloha all, and Rizz..... hope to see you here.

Dave

posted 10-07-2003 06:00 PM            

Danatbird, from what I understand, the Wednesday tour is an option.

Dr Schmitt should be on island by then, and I suppose he'd consider going on a tour like that, but there is no way to confirm that for sure, but what is for certain, it's going to be quite an experience, with out him, and icing on the cake if he takes the tour.

The tour is being operated by a company called Hawaii Space Tours.

Reading through some of the abstracts for the sessions, looks like we are headed in the right direction for more lunar exploration.

I'm just a short canoe ride from Maui and hoping to attend the whole week.

I would highly encourage anyone out there that has some frequent flyer miles, to consider coming out for a visit, especially if you've never been here.

Cosmo - Igor Volk is supposed to be on island as well.

Hey Big Wave Dave, I'll finally get to buy you a Mai Tai with one of those little funny umbrella's

Rizz

posted 11-22-2003 11:44 PM               

This Conference was a week long "work shop" with the goal of getting humans back on the moon, ASAP. The speeches were presented by Astronauts, Scientists, Geologists, Architects, Tourism experts, and Business people. This group is very serious and very well organized. I strongly recomend you folks keep an eye on these conferences and their outcomes, I am happy to be a part of this force.

Some of the more interesting speakers that I was able to hear and meet included James Benson (SpaceDev), Dr. Ouyang Ziyuan (live teleconference from Beijing), Mike Duke (Colorado University of Mining), Prof. Madhu Thangavelu and David Schrunk. (Architects)

Also in attendence was Greg Nemitz, who claimed the astroid "Eros" a couple of weeks before Nasa landed on it and has sent them a bill for I believe $20.00 for landing rights. When I asked him if he had Liability insurance to cover any damage caused by Eros he quickly replied that it is in a safe orbit and did not expect any problems. His case goes before a jury in Reno Nev. See www.erosproject.com for more info.

The property rights issue in Space is going to be an important item to get resolved.

Of course the most interesting speaches in my layperson mentallity were those by Capt. John Young who spoke at the opening ceremonies and Harrison Schmitt who spoke about the use of the abundant Helium on the moon.

The best part of the week for me was to be able to spend some "quality, one on one" time with John and Suzy Young. I sat with them and chatted from the first day they arrived and throughout the week. They are two really great folks!

On Wednesday the 19th about 50 of us went up to Mauna Kea (mountain) to explore the lava flows and visit the telescopes at the Summit. Harrison did not attend.

John was constantly bending over and picking up the different rocks and examining them. He would quickly add "nope, we didn't find any of these on the moon". This is the same area a lot of the Apollo astronauts came to train.

This is about as close to moon terrain as I'm going to get and standing right next to a Moon Walker, it doesn't get any better then that!

On top of the mountain we split up and visited the different observatories. By pure luck I was in the same van as John and Suzy. We visted the VLBA (Very Long Base Array)http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/vlba/html/VLBA.html.

With just a few of us there, the scientist gave us a quick tour of the facilities not paying too much attention who we were. John and I ended up in the break room where on the wall was pinned a panoramic photo of, yes, Apollo 16. But there were two astronauts pictured in this photo. I asked John how could this be....we then discovered that both Astronaunts where Charlie Duke and it was actually two photos put together. You could see Charlie's footprints moving from one position to the other.

When the scientists rejoined us I explained that standing next to them was the man who took the this photo(s). You could have heard a pin drop!! Needless to say they where dumdfounded with excitement and scrambled to find a sharpie, and at almost 14,000 feet elevation that can be a challange. John signed his photo.

All and all this was a great Astronaut encounter a wonderful learning experience for me. The next Lunar conference is scheduled for India in two years I believe.

My thanks to all those who participated, especially John and Suzy Young and of course Steve Durst with "Space Age publishing Company" and "Hawaii Space Tours" and his staff who put together a wonderfull conference.

posted 11-23-2003 05:08 AM               

To combine the two and throw in a bit of lunar prospecting as well - superb!

Thanks for the photos.

posted 11-24-2003 01:15 PM               

I did manage to get to the new SPACE exhibit at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, but missed Cene Cernan. I was there on the "grand opening" day, but HE was there the two days BEFORE the grand opening! It was great to stand next to anout a 20 foot tall replica section of the Saturn V!

posted 11-24-2003 02:00 PM            

Due to high surf last week, 25'+ waves, my little canoe couldn't make the journey across the channel.

Actually, I had work commitments (hate when that happens!).

This was an important conference. I was able to read many of the abstracts - alot of passion out there.

Thanx for the pix-

So looks like Dave and John are pretty tight now

Way to go.

Aloha

posted 11-25-2003 05:46 PM               

I'm not jealous. Not a bit. No siree!

Noah