I’ll be attending two conferences in Europe this September. The first is HiSST, the 2nd International Conference on High-Speed Science and Technology, 11-15 September in Bruges, Belgium. Our paper is “Rotational Detonation Engine for Hypersonic Flight.” My co-authors are
Dr. Christopher Galea, Mr. Miles Simpkins, Dr. Yiguang Ju, and Dr. Mikhail Shneider. The last three authors are from Princeton University. The conference is organized by CEAS, the Council of European Aerospace Societies. We are in session 1a on September 12.

The next conference is the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Paris, France 18-22 September. We are presenting the paper, “Nuclear Fusion Powered Titan Aircraft,” with co-authors Annie Price, Zoe Koniaris, Dr. Christopher Galea, Stephanie Thomas, Dr. Samuel Cohen, and Rachel Stutz. Annie will give the presentation. Dr. Samuel Cohen is the inventor of the reactor discussed in the paper and works at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

My first overseas conference was IAC in Paris in 1982. I was working at Draper Laboratory at the time.

IAC is also famous from the movie, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” While on Space Station V, Heywood Floyd is asked by Elena, “Well, I hope that you and your wife can come to the I.A.C. conference in June.” To which he replies, “We’re trying to get there. I hope we can.”

After the conference, I’m heading to Aix-en-Provence to visit ITER, where a new experimental Tokamak is under construction. A Tokamak is a toroidal fusion reactor.

Please get in touch with me if you will be at any of the conferences or at ITER!