IAC 2014 - Day 2: An Ode to my Yoda

Today, I will abandon the approach of summarizing my experience at the IAC, and focus solely on the morning session on space structures.  In particular, I want to highlight the talk that was given by Professor Arun K. Misra, my mentor.

He is the Yoda to my Skywalker, the Dumbledore to my Potter.  Much of my knowledge of space research and the reason for my initial interest in space elevators came from Misra.  He supervised my Masters project from 2004 to 2006, and we have published several papers together since then.  He is kind and acts with integrity, and has served as a model for professionalism in my eyes.

I will never forget my initial meetings with Professor Misra in 2004, when I expressed my concern that the project will be difficult for me to carry out.  He quietly laughed, and said "You know, building the first space elevator will be hard... Your project, studying its dynamics, will be easy."  He curbed my definition of hard work, and in so doing, helped me mitigate a common fear that young professionals commonly face - that of daunting tasks.

IAC 2014 - Day 1: Blast Off

"Dude, Buzz Aldrin just walked by..."  This type of thing happens at a major space conference, but as someone who has only been to a few such events, it stopped me in my tracks.  I paused, and considered the significance of the moment when that man walked on the moon forty-five years ago.  Aldrin is 84 years old now, but he still moves well (fast enough that I decided not to chase after him for his autograph).

Today, the International Astronautical Congress kicked off with an exceptional opening ceremony featuring a couple of astronaut MCs and Cirque de Soleil performances.  However, it was the musical performance of Peter Katz that really stole the show - he spoke to the 3,000 audience members about the importance of dreaming and following those dreams.  He then went on to blow everyone in attendance away with his amazing voice and songwriting; that was my friend Peter Katz, upstaging Cirque de Soleil.  The event closed with a fine speech by astronaut/rock star Chris Hadfield.

At the convention centre, it is hard to keep up with the fascinating information that constantly flies in all directions.  During the head of agencies event, I learned that only 40% of spacecrafts sent to Mars actually make it there.  It takes most countries many tries to succeed.  India's space agency (ISRO) recently made history by succeeding on a Mars mission on their first try.

The 65th International Astronautical Congress

Next week, I will be attending and presenting at the 65th International Astronautical Congress (IAC).  It is the annual space conference with the highest attendance in the world.  Thousands of experts in industry and academia from all corners of the world with gather to share expertise in anything and everything space-related.  The event will take place between Sept. 29 and Oct. 3 in Toronto, Ontario, at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre; the location changes every year - it's like the Olympics for nerds.

The scale of the event is kind of mind-boggling.  There will be 180 symposiums, each on a specific space topic.  Each symposium consists of anywhere from five to ten 14-minute talks.  Therefore, there will be about one thousand presenters and more than one thousand presentations, as some speakers will be giving several talks.

It is impossible to physically attend more than 6% of these talks.  At any given time, there are eighteen symposiums taking place.  When attending such a conference, one must make choices; there will be interesting talks missed because something more interesting is taking place at the time.  Spinning it more positively: there is always something amazing going on.

How do you Pee in Space?

I recently finished an autobiography of sorts penned by Canada's most famous astronaut, entitled Chris Hadfield: An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth.  It was a Christmas gift that I ever so slowly moved through - this reflects not my enthusiasm for the book, but rather the life of a father of two young children.

If I take just one thing from this book it is that the life of an astronaut is not for me.  While I would love to see the world from their orbiting eyes for a day, I cannot fathom dedicating my life to achieving such a goal.  In any case, it's too late for me.  At 32 years old, I have a better chance of becoming a professional athlete than an astronaut (and I'm already a mechanical engineer).

The truth is that any kid has a much better chance of being a professional athlete than an astronaut.  At any point in time over the last decades, there were merely tens of active astronauts in the world cleared for flight (slightly more than 500 people have ever been to space in history).  Compare that to the thousands of currently active professional athletes, and the case is settled.  I guess what I'm saying is that we should stop stomping on the dreams of kids who want to pursue sport, and stomp instead on those of would-be astronauts.  I'm joking of course, but those longing to be astronauts should know that the odds of it happening are slim.

Astronauts are the center of attention of the global space initiative pursued by thousands of engineers and technicians.  To become an astronaut, one needs to meet an exhaustive list of criteria, which hundreds of other applicants do, and then be among the best of them in every conceivable metric.