Hello folks, welcome to the 40th anniversary Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, still in Houston, Texas, but on the other side of town (which, in Houston terms, means a heckuva long way). The traditional home of LPSC, a conference center in League City, near the Lunar and Planetary Institute and Johnson Space Center, was getting too tight for the burgeoning ranks of planetary scientists. But organizers wanted to keep the traditional roots of the conference in Houston. So they moved to a conference center in The Woodlands, a master-planned, mixed-use development done in the 1970s by astrophysics-loving billionaire George Mitchell. It’s about 30 miles north of downtown Houston, and about 60 miles north of League City. I was hoping for a site about 600 miles south of League City called Cancun. Anyways, the show here at LPSC looks good — organizers say 1,144 people of an expected 1,495 registrants have already shown up. Stay tuned — I’ll be blogging all week.