Joint Propulsion Conference

Barney is just back from the AIAA Joint Propulsion Conference, a trip to Cincinnati that lasted all of last week. He was representing GoVentures' ARDE client in the Exhibit area, leading the Liquid Propulsion Technical Committee short course on Thursday and Friday, co-author on several papers, and generally schmoozing potential ARDE customers.

Mike Hersh, ARDE's West Coast rep, was also in attendance. Watching him talk about tanks is like attending a master's class in aerospace sales.

The conference was reasonably busy but attendance looked to be down about 10% (Barney's guess) from last year in Sacramento. Opinion: this was probably due to there being a lot of propulsion work, and therefore propulsion engineers, in Southern California.

The Exhibit area was noticeably less populated than last year, however, with both Lockheed and Orbital Sciences among the "big displays" missing. The combination of lower attendance and fewer exhibits equated to significantly less traffic for the ARDE booth.

The winner of the ARDE door prize, a model of the Space Shuttle, was Harvey Maclin of the Ohio Center for Advanced Propulsion and Power. Harvey was still in the OCAPP booth when we drew his name so he got the model in time to take it home with him. Congratulations, Harvey!