LPSC 2009: 40 years strong
This year marks the 40th LSPC conference, and organizers put out a call to see who had attended every single one. Everett Gibson was a 28-year-old freshly minted PhD when he took a job at the Johnson Space Center in 1969, hoping to find water in the very first moon rocks from Apollo 11. At the first LPSC in the spring of 1970, in the long-since-disappeared Albert Thomas Convention Center, he had been working on the rocks for less than a year. Over a hundred teams worldwide had been given rocks to analyse, and the rules were simple. "Each team had to prepare a manuscript for LPSC, and we could not talk to other scientific groups before the meeting," says Gibson. "The world's press were there. Everybody came."
But not everyone came to this year's photo shoot: 40-year veterans Peter Schultz, Jim Head and Larry Taylor were at this year's meeting, but missing. In the picture, sitting in the bottom row, from left to right, is: Everett Gibson, Don Bogard and Gary Lofgren. Standing from left to right are Dmitri Papanastassiou, Don Burnett, Bob Clayton, Larry Nyquist, and Dominic Noto. Since the beginning, Noto has operated a limousine service for the conference, shuttling scientists to and from hotels and airports. He was offered an honorary spot in the photo. "I still come out here and enjoy driving with them," he says.
That's it for me this year, since I have to catch a flight in the morning. I had lots more I was hoping to highlight, but I ran out of time. Hope to see you all next year.
