NARCON doesn't usually feature launches, but the Space X Crew Dragon spacecraft was launched early Saturday morning and could be easily viewed from the host hotel.
It's always great to meet people you have only seen in the Sport Rocketry magazine. I was surprised to see Lee and Betty Piester of Centuri attending. I had a constructive talk with Gary Rosenfield and Dane Boles of Aerotech/Quest.
My Saturday morning build session on Mastering Card Stock Shrouds was early. Many attendees were still registering when I started a few minutes after 8:00 a.m. I probably had 12 in the audience. Constructive information and some tips were shared.
Pat McCarthy had earlier asked if I would consider doing a full show on Saturday night. I didn't think my cruise ship act would be a good fit for a rocket convention but I did sneak in a quick musical saw number halfway through the session just to mix it up.
The Rocketry Show was represented by CG, Gheem and Daniel the Rocket Noob. That's CG at the microphone between recording many upcoming interviews.
I also did an interview. The guys quickly learned not to hand me a microphone as I tend to go on and on.
Gary Dahlke gave an informative talk called: "What Were They Thinking?." Gary worked on the Minuteman missiles with an inside look into launch site security and some questionable decisions.
Joe Bernard gave a BPS update talk. He is shown here answering questions in the vendor room. Joe is now selling components for "propulsively" landing a model rocket like SpaceX and Blue Origin.
John Beans of Jolly Logic talked about upcoming ideas and the possibility of no pyro ejection systems.
I was looking forward to finally meeting Peter Alway. I brought my copy of Rockets Of The World for an autograph.
While there were some rockets on display, this one was a stand out. Rick Boyette brought his Chinese Long March rocket. Rick's NARCON session discussed Wireless Launch Systems.
I did enter a Dr. Zooch Saturn V in the Apollo Scale Model Contest. There was a very detailed Saturn 1B and Steve Krystal brought his Apollo Capsule Abort model. Those two would get my vote.
The only downside to a good NARCON is trying to decide which sessions to attend. There are four running at the same time.
Not NARCON's fault, the Apollo Legends Luncheon temporarily ran out of sandwich lunch meat! Oh well, I had to find one "dig" in a well run convention.
It was a lot of fun. Thanks for all your help.
ReplyDeleteFor The Rocketry Show, we much prefer people who are good talkers than trying to pull teeth out of someone who gives really short answers!
ReplyDeleteIt was great to finally meet you in person. I really enjoyed your session. Even though I'd seen many of your points here on the blog, it was really helpful to see you do it in person, and I left actually wanting to go home and build some models with paper shrouds, if you can believe that!
I'm looking forward to listening back to our interview when the NARCON episodes (there was enough material for more than one, I think) come out. When the guys first emailed me to see if I'd be interested in coming on to chat with them for an episode, I said they really should get this Chris Michielssen guy on some time, because he seems to know his stuff!
Hope to run into you again at events in the future!