Long Island Space Society    http://www.lispace.org/

28-30 March 2003 - I-CON science fiction convention at Stony Brook.

David and I set up a "fan" table with displays of our new flyers,
NSS brochures, our membership form, and some information about other
space societies as well.  Of about 75 flyers on display, roughly half
were taken; all but 4 of the 50 or so colorful NSS brochures I had; 14 of
our membership forms, and 16 copies of our web site home page. Now
we'll have to see if that turns into any real new memberships!

We were given a bit of a personal welcome by Brad Hausman, the
convention chair this year. I'd exchanged some email with him
beforehand, and he seemed glad to have us there. I guess they're
always looking for support on the more serious side of things.

Some former strong local NSS members had a significant presence at
the convention - in particular I met and talked with Ed Nash, who
was a local chapter president until 1994. Ed and various friends
(Ed Bishop, Norman Hawley, Lenny Provenzano)  were involved in several
of the sci-tech panel discussions - obviously still interested and
enthusiastic about space, but at least Ed seemed a little jaded about
working with national organizations (he expressed some libertarian
views that apparently didn't mesh with NSS policy). Definitely seemed
like a good local group of people to stay in touch with anyway.

I also ran into Linda Lindeman of the Long Island Science Center - this
is a new museum in Riverhead; apparently usually they are only open
during the daytime, but they have run lecture series at night, and Linda
seemed to think we would have no problem setting up public meetings there.
But recommended we talk to the director, Delia Gibbs, about it. As
a location it provides us a spot on the eastern end of the island; if
it does work out then we have the ends of the island covered and should
probably start working on the middle...

I had previously talked online with Ian Strock of the Moon
Society/Artemis Project, and it was good to meet him there and hear
him argue for a return to the Moon, in various panel discussions. The
Artemis (private enterprise) approach fit in well with the talk by
John Carmack of Armadillo Aerospace - his goal right now is sub-orbital
flight, and he and a group of amateur rocketeers in Texas have been
building gradually more sophisticated vehicles that they believe will
make them a contender for the X-Prize, for re-usable sub-orbital flight
to the edge of space (100 km height). One interesting thing learned
from his talk was the need for FAA clearance to a certain height
above where they launch, on a regular basis. Anywhere on the island we
might be able to get similar clearances?

Toward the end of the convention I had a chance to meet briefly
both Carl Fink, this year's head of the Science and Technology track,
and Jay Schneider, who will be head next year. I offered to work
with them on programming for next year, and Jay sounded interested.
At least they know about us now!

There was lots of other interesting stuff at the convention; there was
a bit of a medieval or fantasy theme overall (Lord of the Rings and
Harry Potter enthusiasts partly to blame) rather than the Trekkie groups
I'd been expecting. But they did have a good (if small) set of science
talks, including their Guest of Honor, Inge Heyer of the Space Telescope
Science Institute, who talked about finding life on other planets, and
some of the things they've seen with Hubble.

All in all, I think it was worth having a presence there - we'll see
if it turns into some real new memberships for us in the long run. A
fun weekend at least.