Broadcast 1574 (Special Edition)

Guests: Dr. Klaus Dannenberg of AIAA, Dr. Jeff Farmer of NASA MSFC, David Williams of NASA JSC. Topics: AIAA 41st International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES). You are invited to comment, ask questions, and discuss the Space Show program/guest(s) on the Space Show blog, http://thespaceshow.wordpress.com. Comments, questions, and any discussion must be relevant and applicable to Space Show programming. Transcripts of Space Show programs are not permitted without prior written consent from The Space Show (even if for personal use) & are a violation of the Space Show copyright. We welcomed Klaus Dannenberg back to the program along with Jeff Farmer and David Williams to discuss the upcoming AIAA ICES Conference to be held in Portland, OR from July 17-21, 2011. For more information, visit the AIAA ICES website at www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=230&lumeetingid=2450. Conference registration and hotel reservations can be made through this website. Also, note that the early bird registration discount expires midnight, June 20, 2011. Dr. Dannenberg stated us off with an overview of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) followed by a short summary of the ICES Conference, its history with the original primary sponsor, SAE, and then with AIAA as the primary sponsor. Our guests talked about the conference programs and multiple tracks and technical sessions offered during the conference. As you will hear, ICES focuses on topics related to humans living and working in space and hostile environments. There are more than 300 author presentation papers, lots of networking sessions, and important keynote addresses. The Monday kickoff keynote features Dr. James Reuther, Director for Strategic Integration in the Office of the NASA CTO and then on Wednesday, the keynote is by Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, former NASA astronaut, CEO of Dunbar International, LLC, and the director of the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Among the topics to be addressed by Dr. Dunbar include how to teach science and related topics to students. Our guests took us through the conference logistics as to hotel, conference registration fees, obtaining the conference proceedings, and even family tours being offered by the AIAA. We spent some time discussing the student fees and membership in AIAA and why student participation in AIAA is so important. We received listener questions asking if the conference would be too technical for those without a technical background. Simply put, no. Everyone attending will benefit from ICES, even those that are not engineers. As we started our second segment, Larry sent in a question asking about the differences between ICES and the AIAA Space series of conferences held each year in California (Space 2011 for example). Dr. Dannenberg carefully went over the differences in the two conferences which range in size as the Space conferences are far larger, drawing around 1,500 participants. Also, the Space conferences are much broader in content while ICES is smaller and focused on the environmental and related issues for human space development. The subject of bringing the family to Portland and activities for them while the AIAA member attends the conference came up. There are several AIAA tours available plus Portland is a city with lots of possible family activities so this is a great place for a summer family vacation tied to the ICES Conference. During this segment, each of our guests told us their favorite part of the ICES Conference. Each guest zeroed in on a different aspect of ICES. This discussion serves as a very good illustration of the diversity and broad appeal of this excellent conference. If you have questions or comments, as always, post on the blog URL above. Questions about AIAA and ICES can be sent to Dr. Dannenberg at KlausD@aiaa.org.