The star crowd

Last week’s Small Satellite Conference in sweltering Utah was very enjoyable, with the usual efficiency that this conference hosts and the customary mix of satellite talk, catching up with friends, a bit of mandatory marketing, and a few student groups showing off their ability to put together a cubesat kit. 

It was the first time I’d been back in a few years and it was good to see the many familiar faces of colleagues as equally dispersed around the world as I am. A lot can happen in two decades of small satellite development, both to the world at large and the individuals behind it, so it’s always a pull when the old crowd gets together like this.  

I was particularly touched when an old friend, and fellow former Schriever Chair, presented me with a decal that had flown on the Space Shuttle:

With the town of Logan getting probably half its yearly alcohol sales from the conference alone, I look forward to the next one! Not that so much is consumed per se – most attendees are sensible space engineers, after all -, but with every hotel room in the entire town taken up, and late bookers having to stay an hour’s drive away across the Wasatch mountain range, there’s clearly a squeeze on the locals.