Greetings from Vienna!

Charity and I safely arrived in lovely Vienna Sunday morning and spent a few hours wandering around downtown before catching a pre-dinner nap. Hopefully we will get a chance to do some serious sightseeing at some point in the next week. We found a nice little Viennese cafe for our first meal in Austria, which for me was German potato salad and a nice schnitzel as you can see on the right. Very nice. Of course we were also tempted by the numerous shops selling fresh baked goods and various cakes and sweets. Another morning :)



Dinner Sunday night was at the Salm Breau brewery and restaurant. I shared an incredible pan of cheese spetzle and a haunch of ham with my friend Ben, along with a couple pints of authentic Pilsner. We talked with several members of the Space Generation who were in town to attend COPUOS and make a briefing of their own. The really interesting part is that our group included Americans, Canadian, a Brit, 2 French, 4 Autrians, a Pole, and a German. Of course there were conversations in multiple languages going on which made the evening all the more fun.

Monday morning we started the serious part of this trip (of course food is always serious to me). We were in town to attend the 45th Sessions of the Science and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (whew - what a mouthful) or UNCOPUOS to its friends. There are currently 68 nations that are part of UNCOPUOS and at least another dozen permenant observers.

Our attendance is twofold. First, my colleague Ben and I will be presenting a summary of the Space Traffic Management Report we worked on over the summer in Beijing. This will be on the 14th. Secondly, our employer, Secure World Foundation, will have its status as permanent observer voted on in June by the full UNCOPUOS committee and we needed to show them that everyone should vote yet.


The session was interesting. The first day consisted mainly of all the different nations making 5 minutes opening statements on all the great things their nation is doing for space or what areas they were concerned on. Of course like any event, the real work takes place in the hallway and after the formal sessions are over. This was also my first time being in a meeting with simultaneous translation in 7 languages and I must say those UN translators are amazing.