Notes from ISDC 2011

ISDC 2011

The National Space Society hosted the 2011 International Space Development Conference in Huntsville, AL from May 18-22. Since it was so close, I decided I couldn't pass up the opportunity to hang out and network a bunch of fellow space professionals and enthusiasts. I had only attended one other ISDC prior to this one, in 2007. That conference was pretty good, but most of my memories of it are of sitting in Dallas traffic going to or coming from the conference venue. Fortunately, traffic was not an issue this time and I got to spend much more time attending the conference itself.

Relatively speaking, however, I don't think I enjoyed the 2011 ISDC quite as much as the 2007 ISDC. I found myself watching speakers and panels drone on and on about space policy and politics, with the occasional historical perspective on NASA and the space industry. After a couple of days of this, I found myself to be underwhelmed and mostly bored with the presentations in the main conference tracks.

Well, as it turns out, they were keeping most of the best speakers and presentations sequestered in the lunch and dinner talks - each of which required a $30 or $50 meal ticket to attend. Since I was attending the conference on my own dime, and since I have spent much of my adult life so far as a poor grad student, I couldn't bring myself to shell out an extra $200-$300 on top of what I had already committed to travel, hotel, and registration. Fortunately, the NSS has started to post these talks online. The Moon and Back blog has also been posting presentations and interviews from the conference.

Some Observations

The theme of the conference this year was "From the Ground Up." Supposedly, this was to be a conference about what it takes to get us from here to there - there being a significant amount of human activity in outer-space. What that amounts to, apparently, is much haggling and debate about our national space policy, FAA regulations, NASA's human spaceflight budget and Congressional mandates to build a super-heavy-lift launch vehicle.

As an engineer and a scientists, I went into the ISDC hoping that I would hear some discussions about the technological and engineering challenges that need to be addressed before humanity can begin to leave Earth in large numbers and for long durations. However, as the conference wore on, I began to see that the technology is no longer the long pole in the tent. Engineering problems have engineering solutions, and with proper resources allocated, an engineering solution can be found to all of the problems currently facing extended human spaceflight. What we are lacking are those resources, and a coherent strategy to guide the development of the required technologies and infrastructure.

Despite my overall disappointment with the conference, there were a few high points as well. There was an excellent presentation by Michael Doornbos of Evadot. I think I will have to dedicate an entire blog post to that one. Then there was also the Google Lunar X-Prize panel, also moderated by Michael. And then I got to meet with a couple of fellow Part-Time Scientists team mates. We worked together to hack one of our R0 rover prototypes into working order in time to demonstrate it during and after the GLXP panel session.

Michael has a passion for space and a wonderful ability to pass it on to just about anyone he meets. His talk was on "How to inspire kids by thinking big in space." His concern is that we are not doing the kinds of things we need to be doing in order to give our children something larger to aspire to. Long gone are the days when everyone knew the names of the astronauts and felt intimately connected to their missions.