Day 8 – Saturday, July 16

Day 8 lectures:

• Logsdon’s “From Competition to Cooperation” (International relations in space from Apollo to ISS)
• Gilles Clément’s “Environmental Control and Life Support Systems”
• Hoffman’s “Extra-Vechicular Activity” (EVA)

By far the best talk today was Hoffman’s talk about EVA’s. Here are some pictures.

I don’t know if Hoffman knows this, but US Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama uses his space walk every year. I went to space camp as a camper in 2000 during high school and as a counselor in 2004. When I was in the high school camp we used a Hubble mock up and practiced a few of the steps in the first Hubble repair EVA that Hoffman and NASA legend Story Musgrave performed. After he gave this talk which was his last for the summer, we gave him a standing ovation. He really is a national hero in my opinion. He was an excellent speaker. He spoke clearly enough that everybody could understand him. The vast majority of the participants are non-native English speakers. He concisely presented his ideas and used mainly pictures and visual demonstrations. I really feel honored to spend a week with him here in Austria. It will definitely be a story that I share with my kids and grandkids.

After our last lecture for the weekend, we went on a Graz city tour. It started as a walking tour and then we rode an open air bus for the rest of the afternoon. Here are some pictures of the trip.

Graz Pics on Facebook

The really fascinating part of the trip was all the music we heard! After the tour, we broke off into smaller groups for dinner. We walked around and happened upon an outdoor concert with a symphony and an Austrian choir dressed in traditional garb. We enjoyed that for a little while then continued on to find a place for dinner. The restaurant was under a glockenspiel so we had another performance on the hour which lasted at least 10 minutes. Then live musicians serenaded the restaurant. On our way back to campus we had some delicious gelato and stumbled on yet another live music event! In a big plaza with a fountain, there was a group of about 30-40 students in a circle singing acapella. The director was standing in the middle conducting their songs. It was beautiful!