SpaceOps2010 [Archive] - PERMANENT space, Biotechnology and Nanotechnology

Mark Prado

04-16-2010, 10:04 AM

Before, this was a highly recommended conference, but I'm not so sure anymore. I went to the Space Ops conference in April 1998 (the last one I could afford the money and time to attend) and presented a paper as well as served on a panel and some other things. Met many of the current leaders there and did some important socializing with some.

At that time, it had become the premier space resources conference series after the decline of the SSI conferences.

The theme "Delivering On The Dream" hits the nail on the head. I get tired of hearing speeches about "why we should" develop space instead of "how" and practical step by step measures, lots of talking without practical steps being taken. When it comes time for some real work, a lot of people flake off. So this is a good theme. Unfortunately, declaring a theme is the easy part, and actually delivering on it is another thing!

However, looking at the agenda, it seems there is less focus on lunar and asteroidal materials utilization. This conference has always been on a broad range of space topics, but some of the leaders in lunar and asteroidal utilization had utilized this conference series as a top congregation one after the SSI conferences kind've fell into the background. It appears that's no longer happening.

For $655 to $855, not including hotel registration, I'd rather use precious money and time in more productive ways, especially in this age of the internet and virtual conferences.

It's good to meet people, but it's better to find a forum where more of the ones you need to meet are in attendance. There isn't much focus at this conference on our specific goals. It's more "general space". Most of the attendees at professional space conferences like this one appears to be are mainly just looking for their next little piece of quickly paying business and are not seriously interested, if interested at all, in the goals we have here, based on my experience in the 1980s and 1990s in attending many such space conferences. It's important to target your conferences and limited financial resources and time, not spread oneself thin. (Unless, of course, we had a booth or were presenting papers, but it's way too late to prepare for that, and very expensive at an AIAA conference.)

Notably, it's April 15th, just 10 days before the conference, the online registration form link still has this:

"On Saturday, 26 December, Avectra, AIAA's Association Management System (netFORUM) partner, will be moving their primary hosting services to a new data facility. As a result of the move, netFORUM is expected to go offline and www.aiaa.org also will be unavailable. If you are attempting to register for a conference, apply for membership, or renew your membership during this time, you may still do so by faxing in your registration form to 703.264.7657, and we encourage you to do so. If you are attempting to purchase a book or merchandise, you may still do so by faxing your order to 703.661.1501."

So, even with an organization like the AIAA which has heaps of money and decades of establishment, there's still a lot of negligence and carelessness whereby they can't even get an online registration organized.

It's not money we need as much as it's good and practical people. Not hype and talk, but walk.

It would be good to get the USB stick proceedings on offer for $200. I don't think the AIAA is willing to donate a copy of the proceedings to a not-for-profit humanistic organization like ours, but you're welcome to try and I hope you prove me wrong!

I have a copy of the proceedings of this biannual conference for every year from 1990 thru 2004 but am missing 2006, 2008, and of course this year's conference. Since the proceedings are on USB, they are digitized and electronic, but I would not count on them being put on-line for free, and will probably wind up in the AIAA database at their high fees.

In the past, the AIAA asked authors of papers to sign a form which I interpreted as stating that the AIAA gains copyright authority over your published work. I would line that out, so I could publish separately, but gave them permission to publish royalty free (not that they ever offered me royalties). After all, they didn't pay me a red cent to do the work. While I understand they must cover their publishing costs, the form was a bit over the top. Always be careful to read the standard forms people ask you to sign, and balance it from both sides, of course. Some government people went out of their way to say to some people who signed, essentially never mind the signed copyright form because their work created under contract with the support of taxpayer money is public domain, not AIAA property, similar to how I couldn't work for one company and then personally sign my work over to be the property of another company. However, it's proper to contact the authors and ask for a copy of their work directly, then have that, not the AIAA copy, if appropriate.

On a related note, there is the PERMANENT Publications database. As of 1998, I had over 500 documents in it which were closely related to lunar and asteroidal resources utilization and practical nearterm space colonization. It was on-line. Unfortunately, it was in Lotus Notes format. We need this on-line again, but for that we need a PHP/MySQL programmer to step forward to help out. It's not a lot of work, but it's work that needs to be done, not just talked about.

It organizes all the work to date and ties it together.

Some publications we have a copy of which can be downloaded, or a link to a copy on the author's website (though I download these because links die all the time). Others are summarized in a paragraph (I have read so many papers...) and then author's contact info or a link made to the AIAA database or wherever anybody can get a digital or paper copy of the original. A lot of stuff I have is only on paper in our library.

Too often, people are out to spend a lot of money and time going to some conference to socialize and get their fix on what they think is cutting edge technology or seeking some enabling solution. Let me tell you, folks: Lunar and asteroidal resources utilization is not held back because we need some enabling new technology. This is not such high tech stuff. It's held back because we don't utilize what we already have. Like the old Apollo adage in the 1960s to put a man on the moon within the decade, "Better is the enemy of good enough!"

Attending conferences, while nice, is not the best way to spend our money and time. The best way to identify people who could help us is to review the established, published literature, and then contact them directly. Not the talkers, but those who have completed the relevant analyses already and published it. In many cases, they've already done work, and we just need to tie it in.

And what we need most is not still more technical people, it's financial people willing to support the work, and these you usually don't find at these technical space conferences.

If we had heaps of money and were looking to recruit people, then yeah, could do a lot of informal interviews on the spot. But with practically no money, there are much better ways we could budget our money and time. At least my money and PERMANENT's very limited money at this time.

The best conferences are those which publish their proceedings in advance, so that you can read the papers beforehand and then target the people who you want to meet. Going into a paper presentation is usually not the most time efficient way when you can read it. For me, conferences are for meeting people face to face and getting into group discussions. After researching the attendees and being prepared. Just walking into a conference without preparations is not something I think most of us have the luxury of, either in terms of expense or time.

- Mark