I decided at the last minute to head over to Houston, so as to catch the last day of the World Space Congress. Unfortunately, I missed the discussions that occurred earlier in the week, but at least I was able to take in the exhibits and meet a few other Mars Society members...

Rocky Persaud, Patt Czarnik, and Carl Carlsson staffing the Mars Society booth.

In attendance on Saturday were Rocky Persaud (Ontario), Patt Czarnik (Ohio), Carl Carlsson (Texas - Houston), Jennifer Knowles (Texas - Houston), Tom Olson (New York City), and James Harris (Texas - Austin). The picture above doesn't quite reflect how busy the booth really was throughout the day -- a steady stream of visitors stopped by the booth, asked questions about the Mars Society and its goals, and signed up as members.

The exhibition contained exhibits from a wide variety of aerospace companies, from small suppliers and analysis shops to aerospace textbook publishers to space tourism start-ups all the way up to giants such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics. Displays from the various NASA centers and program offices took up about one-eighth of the exhibition space, and many international space companies and national programs were represented (including those from Italy and India).

Oddly, considering its prominence in current civil and commercial space projects, Boeing was nowhere to be found. Something else that struck me by its absence was the X-33 -- that project appears to have been swept completely under the rug. The only evidence I found at the WSC that the X-33 project ever existed was a brief shot of a linear aerospike hot-fire test on a video loop at the NASA Stennis booth. In contrast, I noticed several exhibits crowing about systems, parts, and technologies used in the X-34 and X-38 projects.

Aside from the space tourism folks, most of the exhibits were tied to commercial space (ie: satellites and the usual expendible launchers) and space science (including NASA's manned Shuttle and ISS programs and the assorted planetary and deep-space probes). While my visit was necessarily brief, in the time I was there I did not come across any exhibits promoting human settlement of space in its own right, or real development of space, other than that of the Mars Society. (Yes, the NSS was also there, but I did not see their booth for some reason, despite walking right past it and noting the Swedish Space Corporation booth next to it. They were stuck in a much less desirable location than MS, which was right across the main aisle from Arianespace.) I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this -- after all, it is a gathering of industry, civilian, and military bigwigs, and not a Mars Society convention -- but as I looked at all the admittedly impressive displays and gee-whiz gizmos, I couldn't help but be disappointed that it all was being used for weather forecasting, military and scientific mapping, and other important yet mundane applications, instead of actually taking us somewhere new and interesting.

And of course, that is the reality of space at present, and pretending otherwise is wishful thinking at best, or sheer fantasy at worst. Clearly, grand ideas are less important to attaining a permanent foothold in space for humans than is simply making that foothold turn a tidy profit. That being so, it was good to see at least few companies following the so-called "p0rn model" that fueled the expansion of the Web. By linking space with entertainment, in ways in which ordinary people can participate, companies like "Zero Gravity" may just be laying the groundwork for real space access by private citizens.

Another positive aspect of the exhibition was the demographics of the attendees. While attendance was said to be "light", the crowd on Saturday seemed about as thick as I had expected, and represented a wide range of ages, apparent incomes, and ethnic backgrounds -- it wasn't just teenage space nerds (or thirty-something formerly-teenage space nerds). Since a grassroots organization like the Mars Society depends on a continual infusion of fresh blood for its existence and the interest and goodwill of the general public for support of its civil-space goals, this diversity of interest is a promising sign indicating that the organization's potential appeal isn't limited to a narrow pool of space scientists, rocket engineers, and hard-core enthusiasts.