The Las Cruces Sun-News provides a final preview of the International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight, the two-day conference that starts this morning in Las Cruces. (Unfortunately I won’t be there; I don’t get into town until Wednesday night.) An interesting contrast: conference co-chair Bill Gaubatz focuses on the historical significance of the event (“[Imagine] it’s 1900, 1902 or 1903 and you had the opportunity to sit down with the Wright brothers.”) while Tim Pickens of Orion Propulsion is focused on the here and now (“For me it’s how am I going to make this stuff affordable and reachable to the common guy. You’re too busy to stop and reflect too much about the significance.”)
There haven’t been any other public announcements about Wirefly X Prize Cup events, including which teams (if any) will be approved to compete at in the Lunar Lander Challenge. One bit of good news: the current weather forecast for Las Cruces calls for mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-70s Fahrenheit both Friday and Saturday. No mention of winds, but with any luck they won’t be anywhere near the gales that plagued last year’s event.
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