IAC#3 - Two approaches to space tourism

Both EADS Astrium and Virgin Galactic have models of their proposed vehicles on display in the exhibition hall, demonstrating differernt approaches. Astrium (top) proposes an all-in-one rocketplane while Virgin (bottom) will use a two-stage vehicle - an aircraft carries the smaller rocket to its launch altitude.

Given that Virgin (with Scaled Composites) are actually developing flight hardware and have rolled out the carrier aircraft, I know which I expect to see in space first!

IAC#2 - Team Kingston

There are fair few Kingston people attending the IAC, a well as Barnaby and myself. Here are some of them.

First up is Kingston alum Abdul Ismail. After working in the USA for a NASA subcontractor after graduation and attending the ISU Master's programme in Strasbourg, France Abdul set up his own company and now splits his time between the Europe , the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (just behind him you can see EADS Astrium's rover testbed "Bridget").

Another Kingston alum is Flis Holland (former chair of both KUSEDS and UKSEDS) who, supported by the Arts Catalyst has organised Less Remote at the IAC, a symposium about the future of space exploration from the the arts and humanities perspective which has attracted a wide range of international participants.

IAC#1 - The Space Armadillo

The International Astronautical Congress (IAC) is the world's biggest astronautics and space engineering conference. Each year it is held in a different location around the world. The 2008 IAC year is being held in the UK (for the first time in 20 year) in Glasgow. More than 2000+ attendees are present to hear of the latest developments in the space world and attend the exhibition. Amongst the 2000 are staff, students and alumni from Kingston.

The most notable feature of the site is the main auditorium, known locally as The Armadillo (top left) where we had the opening ceremony (left) on Monday morning. After that, the exhibition (more later) opened and the technical sessions started. In the evening the Welcome Reception took place just across the river in the Glasgow Science Centre and culminated with fireworks!