Getting personal...

It has been a while.
I only now noticed that my last blog was posted almost two weeks ago. Well, sorry for that.

I can describe the last two weeks as 'did a lot, but nothing was done'. Lecture material got more specific, for better and worse, the team project group (TP) met and discussed things, but it felt a bit like marching in the same spot, and many social event were held, but no new soul mates were found, although good friends which are always welcome were made.
The problem with neglecting your blog is that you want to discuss everything but can't find where to start. So here it is, in a not-chronological, not-rated by importance manner.

We had our Israeli culture night this week, or may I refer to it as - Israeli themed Friday night party! And it was fun. We made a nice presentation about Israel (as the humble author I can say it had the right mix of serious and funny), we also made some good food and a great atmosphere.

 

In preparation for the culture night we decided to mention Ilan Ramon (and STS 107) who should have celebrated his 60th birthday two weeks ago. As we were building the presentation Dan, another Israeli participant, and I talked about Ilan Ramon as an Israeli symbol. Dan volunteers at SpaceIL, and he mentioned that in some of the educational outreach lectures he made around Israel the children's view of a part of Ilan Ramon's national legacy is a view of defeatism. Ilan Ramon is a national hero (as he also was during his life) and he was sent to preform a national mission. This mission failed. And ever since, the great state of Israel has not pursued that mission again. This contradicts the Israeli ethos of being able to do everything, everywhere and at any time. Obviously, there are many reasons why the next Israeli astronaut hasn't been lunched (or even chosen) yet, but there are discussions now on this matter. The point I actually wanted to make has to do with the contrast between the type of nation Israel claims to be (inwards and outwards) and the type of nation it is, but enough with terrestrial politics.

The Exoplanet TP got a bit lost in the last two weeks. After being inspired by so many great speakers and experts there was a drift towards deciding on a science-engineering mission and getting our work started on it. The group did not discuss our audience, project objectives or type of end product, 'just let us build some imaginary mission and that's it'. It even came to a vote deciding on the science question and engineering solution, with no broad research done. Thankfully, some of the participants and the TP chair managed to redirect the discussion to 'how to do the project' rather than 'what is the solution'. We are supposed to meet today, and hopefully a proper path will be set.

As the core lecture section of the program is about to end, some of our lecturers are saying their goodbyes before heading back to home towns and work places. One of these lecturers is Prof. Scott Madry from the University of North Carolina. Scott's area of interest is remote sensing and I had a joke circulating in my mind for the past week. So after gathering some courage and friends for moral support I went to Scott and said - 'as a gay person, I would like to ask you if you consider gay-dar as remote sensing?', he obviously laughed, then said - 'well that could be a good market for space'. We continued the conversation and at some point I thought about 'the first gay satellite', I'm not sure what exactly such a satellite could do, and if it is proper for the gay community to put itself in a field of nations, but it would be nice to have the rainbow flag orbiting space and making sure it is a tolerating and accepting place. Maybe I should check with Grindr about making a business pitch on the subject.
Later in the conversation I asked Scott about something that bothered a bunch of us for a while. I asked him 'why doesn't the ISU discuss military space?'. We did mention dual-use when talking about satellite applications (Scott did) and national space programs and budgets, but no single lecture was given under the title 'Military Space'. Which is weird because it is a major locomotive for space and for some nations (mentioned above) is the primary space industry. Scott's answer was 'you should have met Todd'. Todd Hawley was one of the three founders of ISU (back in 1988), and according to Scott he was a visionary and a driving force of ISU and the Space Studies Program (SSP). Scott then mentioned 'Todd was gay', he then said that Todd died from AIDS in 1995 after a very short but fruitful life (Before founding ISU Todd also founded Student for Exploration and Development of Space together with the two other ISU founders Peter Diamandis and Bob Richards). Scott then closed this circle while explaining how different were the times 20 years ago, and how Todd stood up, faced his fellow peers and explained who he was without apologizing. After that Scott returned to answer the military question, he explained that Todd grow up with the military and in his mind space military was the Anti-ISU, not International, not Intercultural and not Interdisciplinary (the 3Is). And in some kind of memorial and legacy ISU does not 'waste' time with it. It is mentioned when the contexts arise, but it isn't addressed as a topic on its own. I'm not sure I agree with this mindset, but, in the world of legitimate reasons this is quite a good and honourable one.
During our conversation Scott mentioned several times that we should have been able to meet Todd and then referred us to youtube. After watching this 10 minute film, I agree that it is a shame Todd isn't here -

As if this blog wasn't personal and emotional enough, I want to mention Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Shaar & Naftali Fraenkel, who's bodies were found yesterday at the end of a 18 day search after they were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists. Many other kids from both sides have paid the price of ancestral crimes and I really hope that they and the boy Muhammad Durin that was killed in a protest last week are the last in a very long list of unnecessary victims. This makes me think that probably Todd was right about the military.