Pradeep's Space Blog
on my journey in getting people off the planet

My experiences at SEDS International Conference and the IAC

I really wanted to write like about n posts like about everything I did there but it actually didn't make sense for me to do that. I'll just link to stuff here what other people have written about. So, here's everything in 1 super-post.

It's pretty scary to know that your posts on the IAC turn up on Google Blog Search in at no. 3. Either not many bloggers or not many who've posted. 

I went to both SEDSIC and IAC in like depress mode. Things weren't as good for me as they could've been so I really didn't want to come along. But the guys pushed it and so, I thought I should come even if it was just to meet these guys. I kept networking limited to the people I know and the people they knew.  

The two guys that I really wanted to meet on the whole trip was Per Magnus and Kirk. For totally different reasons. Kirk is the guy I've been talking to for like the longest about space and the different space organisations. He's the guy who got me into SEDS (and why you're reading this) and many other places where you see my name. I wanted to meet Per Magnus coz about two weeks before the IAC he was really worried whether he would get Coke here. He came prepared with stuff he needs to say in Hindi. He was pretty frightened when I told him India had like 23 official languages and then many more. Looked like two cool guys to meet.

The guys from Nepal and Afghanistan were next. They travelled for almost the same time or maybe more than the rest although they were closer to India than the others. It was kinda weird.

The rest of the SEDSat-2 guys - Lavina (according to traditional ladies first approach), Alex, Florian, Paul, Sigve and Tom were also a delight to meet. Have to get some work on SEDSat-2 done soon.

IAC was surprisingly less formal than I expected. I thought it would be filled with guys-in-black-coats people who only spoke formally, did not relish jokes and who only smiled with a small smirk. With that expectation, the people I met there were quite mind blowing in how openly they talked and how well informed they were of what their counterparts were doing. It almost felt like the whole space community on Earth was like one big family.

Kirk asked what I took away from the IAC, but that goes into another post and not here. I really didn't expect to do the work that I did there at the IAC/SEDSIC. Was a jolly good time though. Both.

Some of the space celebrities I talked to - M. Annadurai (Project Director of the Indian mission to the moon), Will Marshall (NASA Ames), Will Pomerantz (sorry if I got the surname wrong, XPrize), Jim Volp (SGAC, SERCO - I used to write really long emails and he was like the only guy who read and responded to those), Srinivas Laxman (writes for the Times of India) and Bee Thakore (ISU, she was good enough to come for the SEDSIC). I met others too whom I would never really have talked to like Prof. Wells who teaches Space Law. I also met Raghunandan from Planetary Society, India after having all those long telephone calls and internet chats with him.
 

Posted at 05:10PM Sep 28, 2007 by Pradeep in Space in India  |  Comments[2]