Orbiter Meeting (2009-2010)?

[jb42682]

Below are for regional meeting in the United States.

Place: Kennedy Space center and complex http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/home/index.html

Length: Two days one night

Activites: Based on individual budget such as tours, Astronomy if some were willing to let others see the stars threw there telescopes. General Orbiter lunch and discussion.

Time Frame: May 2009-late July 2009

Yes? No? Maybe?:beach:

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, it depends on how much spaceflight the convention people would want to see... I would say Munich or close to Sinsheim could be interesting, Bremen maybe also. Toulouse could also be a good location, but I have no clue on which visitor programs are possible there. In the UK, I would say, there are only two really interesting locations, which both can be well reached from London.

Berlin would be otherwise interesting, but it has only very limited spaceflight stuff around.

 

[cjp]

I wouldn't be interested if it's too far away. If it's on another continent (maybe except North Africa and Turkey), it'll soon cost hundreds of euro's, which for me is too expensive for such an event. For the rest, the amount of time is important. Within the Netherlands (and probably within the Benelux), you can visit most places and return to your home within a single day, meaning you don't have to find a place to sleep etc.. Maybe the same can be done for a larger area when using those high speed trains (TGV, ICE etc.), but I never tried it and don't know how expensive they are.

I guess you'll either have a lot of local events, where most people are prepared to go to the nearest event, but the events are so local that each event attracts only a small number of people. Or, you can have larger regional events (or even a single global event), that will only be visited by the real hardcore Orbiter fans. I think the second one will also attract only a small number of people, but it will be more interesting for the people visiting it, and it has the additional advantage that you can choose an interesting space-related location.

 

[Urwumpe]

I know that German high speed trains are fairly expensive compared to France or Netherlands, but still, you can afford them well, when you book early enough ahead of your travel. I pay usually less than 30 € for a round-trip Wolfsburg-Berlin (240 km distance) with the ICE, 35€ when I also reserve seats. The result is only one hour of travel time, and a pretty comfortable ride even in the second class. Using regional trains for saving money can be even more useful sometimes in Germany on the weekend, but he travel times explode then and the trains not operated by the former state company DB are dirty, damaged and uncomfortable.

I think Europe has, thus, it much simpler to create such a convention as for example the USA, though there are more US users around. The density is still higher and most cool things are closer together, so you can plan to visit two spaceflight locations in a week without stress and have a convention in parallel.

But I know from organizing a convention, that it requires a lot of work and effort.

 

[n122vu]

Sounds awesome. I would definitely be interested.

Mid-2010 at the Cape would work best for me, personally. My daughter will be sans-trach after next summer (if all continues to go well) and we are planning on taking her to Disney in 2010 to celebrate. Was going to try to plan so the trip coincides with one of the final shuttle launches.

I would also like to tour JSC as well, but I doubt if I could float two big trips in one summer. Disney is definitely going to happen, so...

 

[Quick_Nick]

Could go to an Astros game and hold up an Orbiter sign on national TV.

Tex I'll help plan this, I wanna see this work.

Then you WOULD need a few million to spare! :lol: (yeah, yeah, it's an exaggeration... but still )

 

[Chipstone306]

LOL may i suggest beautiful Halifax,? I am sure my roomate would not mind with a large group of people crashing in my house to talk about orbiter all week.:rofl:

 

[Deke]

We could have several conventions across the world at the same time, and all be in commuinications with one another. We could have a North American Convention (say Houston, or Flordia) a Euro Convention (Somwhere in Germany? Martin's flat?) And others across the globe, this way everyone gets a taste of it without having to travel far. We could designate people incharge of the regional conventions.

 

[Chipstone306]

If we are to seriously think about this a planning committee is surely needed the quicker the better as we all need a lotta notice and convention areas need to be informed a few months in advance at least

 

[Urwumpe]

If we meet in Martin's flat, he will have no more time developing Orbiter because it will take years to fix the damages. Can you even imagine what happens when Brits and Germans come together for a "small, well-behaved" party?

I still get a bad hang-over just from thinking about the public viewing parties during the FIFA 2006.

 

[ar81]

Beer, wine, vodka and whiskey can do wonders... like making a bunch of orbinauts to engage in a western-like fight at the Saloon...

I just wonder what would we share aside of what is already online if we meet.
I would have to save lots of money for buying power is low here.

 

[Cobalt]

If it were in Florida, I'd suggest trying to plan it around a launch. I wonder if they have group rates? Go watch the real thing happen, go back and do it better than they do in orbiter....

 

[astrosammy]

I first would have to find a way to tell it my parents :lol:.

 

[Urwumpe]

I first would have to find a way to tell it my parents :lol:.

Tell them you spend the weekend at a girlfriend. They don't know her, and it is your business to learn to know her better.

They will sure accept this lie simpler as the truth that you hang around with spaceflight geeks for a weekend, telling dirty Leoneer's jokes the whole night, argue about the V-2 being actually a primitive design, and finally drive home with a backpack full of souvenirs from the EADS Space shop.

 

[Chipstone306]

what about a conference with a model rocket contest too?

 

[Urwumpe]

what about a conference with a model rocket contest too?

Possible in the USA, but in Europe, we could only really do that in Switzerland, as the rest of Europe has too restrictive laws for such events to be interesting, except you go for optics, instead of performance.

 

[astrosammy]

what about a conference with a model rocket contest too?

Possible in the USA, but in Europe, we could only really do that in Switzerland, as the rest of Europe has too restrictive laws for such events to be interesting, except you go for optics, instead of performance.

Only in Switzerland? Why don't we do it in front of the Reichstag building? :lol:

 

[Urwumpe]

Only in Switzerland? Why don't we do it in front of the Reichstag building? :lol:

My Girlfriend still works there. When she does no longer work there, we can do what ever we feel our citizen rights are.

 

[Quick_Nick]

what about a conference with a model rocket contest too?

JSC has a 1.25 sq mi. (over 300 acres) field used by a local model rocketry club. (that I was a part of for a short time two years ago)

 

[jb42682]

What i think would be good idea is that we need to organize this into a club and have regions divided as follows.

Country-region-subregion
for example

North America-East coast-south.------This region would cover flordia,geogia and south carolina and have a central base of operations based on where the members of this region would want it.

Also there needs to one national base of operations for each country and one world base of operation(of course this would be the Great doctors home region). If you guys like this format i will start the website work and try to get us a site going just let me know. any ideas are good ideas.:beach:

-Justin