ISDC 2007 in Dallas

I'm in Dallas for ISDC 2007, and I have to figure out which of the many interesting sessions and papers I will attend the next few days. The main conference starts tomorrow, so all I needed to do today was pick up registration materials and try to get tickets for Saturday's featured luncheon with Buzz Aldrin (got 'em). I will also get to hear lunch or dinner talks by Eric Anderson, Steve Squyres, and Harrison Schmitt - cool!

I also went on a very detailed JFK assassination tour with a few other ISDC attendees. One interesting subject that came up related to space: if JFK had not been assassinated, would the Apollo program have gone differently? I hadn't really thought of that before - after Kennedy's death, fulfilling his Moon pledge could be seen as a sort of memorial to him. I can imagine that there could have been funding problems even if he had been reelected in 1964. I'm sure this alternate history has been considered by others, but getting immersed in the details of November 1963 while visiting Dallas for a space conference (in the 50th year of the space age) makes it an especially intriguing point to ponder.

Jeff Foust will be blogging from here - I will try, but I will have to see how it goes. I'm hoping to actually meet some fellow space bloggers at Saturday afternoon's "Space Bloggers Summit" session.