Let me tell you about my weekend.
No, it’s not the boring chronicle of a sleepy afternoon spent watching the game on TV and some tedious housekeeping work.
This past weekend, Astronauticon 4 (http://www.astronauticon.it) was held in Lecco, Italy.
Astronauticon was the name of the annual meetup of the users of forumastronautico.it, the largest Italian space geek community.
Starting last year, roughly before Astronauticon 3, some of us forum users and “mantainers” decided that we needed a better institutional presentation. We decided to lay the foundation of ISAA, the Italian Space and Astronautics Association.
After three editions of Astronauticon in Montecatini, this year we moved to Lecco, benefiting from the huge help of the Deep Space Astrophile Association, that happily opened the doors of their fabulous Planetarium for us space geeks to flood in :-)
Special guest of honor was Col. Edward Michael Fincke, NASA, USAF, Twice on board the ISS for two different long term missions, up to a total of a whole year, six months as station commander.
What. A. Weekend.
The public response was HUGE! The model was different from the previous conventions (we used to have an hotel with congress center, so people would have to register…). Partly because of NASA rules, partly because we had committments with the local authorities that helped us funding and presenting the event (have you ever had a whole theater for your event? ;-) )…but hundreds of people came to see Astronaut Fincke talk about his experience in space and learning about our association.
We were absolutely amazed by the ability of Col. Fincke as a communicator and by his people skills. Having lunch with him (enjoying a meal together is an Italian tradition he came to appreciate soon during his stay) was always fun and relaxing, and the passion and the patience of his speeches (and he gave quite a few of them) were so genuine.
We had no doubt about his technical abilities, but now that we see he’s a great HUMAN BEING we know that NASA is still sending the “right stuff” up there.
www.isaa.it
www.astronauticon.it
www.forumastronautico.it