Hmmm... It was a fun event. Large mockups of Xcor's Lynx and Spacex' Dragon. A 20 minute presentation (in which he attempted to cram a 60 minute talk) by Zubrin, spit flying and all. Lots of Ray Bradbury stuff and Carl Sagan stuff. Ann Druyan made a surprise appearance (the schedule after 5:00PM was hosed beyond all recognition - they scrambled to keep interesting people on stage) and announced an upcoming reboot of Cosmos. Will be narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson and is being created for the Fox Network. Seth McFarlan was there to boost it as well. He is apparently responsible for pitching it to Fox, and he is some kind of producer of the show, I guess.

There was an interesting panel by George Whitesides (ceo Virgin Galactic), David Giger (SpaceX), Andrew Nelson (coo of Xcor), and Peter Diamandis (CEO of the X Prize foundation). They talked (and argued a bit)about how people/governments/privates would get into space and to mars. One interesting (and somewhat belligerent-sounding question from the audience: How do the FAA and regulations affect the private development of space flight? How does NASA affect it? The answer was that they were a big help. And that the panelists hoped there would be no changes to that environment at all.

The main event of course was Curiosity's landing. A ton of excitement as we watched the control room and broke occasionally for our own cheers. At one point some damnfool started a "USA" chant. But it became overwhelming a "JPL" chant. And then thankfully, everyone shut up so I could hear what was going on in the control room.

Lots of fun and excitement. I'm still tired and hoarse.