[meteorite-list] Pasadena To Host COSPAR Planetary Conference in 2018

[Ron Baalke]

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/science/20141118/pasadena-to-host-cospar-planetary-conference

Pasadena to host COSPAR planetary conference
Pasadena Star News
November 18, 2014

PASADENA - One of the most prestigious scientific meetings in the world 
will be hosted in Pasadena in 2018 - only the fifth time the Committee 
on Space Research has come to the United States in the past 56 years.

At the biannual COSPAR assemblies, organized to promote international 
collaboration, scientists present their avant-garde space discoveries. 
Previous gatherings have played a central role in formulating such disciplines 
as Earth and planetary science.

The California Institute of Technology will host the event - Pasadena's 
largest ever scientific conference - with the aid of the Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory, said Caltech president Thomas Rosenbaum.

"I know that you are well aware of the pivotal roles played by Caltech 
and JPL in space science since the very dawn of the Space Age almost six 
decades ago," Rosenbaum wrote in a letter to the president of COSPAR when 
campaigning for the conference. Pasadena won the 2018 bid against contenders 
Denver and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

"The first U.S. space probe and the first actual space science mission, 
Explorer 1, was designed and built by JPL in 1958, the same year as the 
creation of COSPAR. It seems particularly fitting, then, that we should 
host COSPAR in Pasadena, California, on the 60th anniversary of the founding 
of COSPAR and the 60th anniversary of Explorer 1."

Mayor Bill Bogaard, the Pasadena Center Operating Company, Caltech and 
JPL hosted a press conference Tuesday to announce everyone's excitement 
in winning the competitive bid for the 42nd COSPAR Scientific Assembly, 
set to take place July 14-22, 2018. The most recent conference took place 
this summer in Moscow, and the last time it was in America was in Houston 
in 2002.

An estimated 3,500 to 4,000 scientists are expected, said Michael Ross, 
chief executive officer of the Pasadena Center Operating Company. Bogaard 
noted Pasadena is "perfectly suited" for these kinds of conferences.

"As the home of the world-renowned California Institute of Technology 
and the world-renowned Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we're prepared and poised 
to welcome this very distinguished international group to Pasadena," he 
said. "These elite institutions are at the forefront of space, technology, 
engineering, mathematics and advanced-edge science. We are deeply proud 
of the remarkable roles that they have played on behalf of humanity in 
the scientific exploration of space."

JPL has led 52 of NASA's 71 planetary missions, and Caltech is home to 
32 Nobel Prize winners as well as 57 National Medal of Science recipients.

While the conference won't cost Caltech or JPL anything, said Gregg Vane, 
spokesman for JPL, the institutions have so much to gain.

"Our community of scientists will have an opportunity to interact with 
3,500 scientists from around the world without having to leave home," 
he said. "They will invite them to their laboratories. They will initiate 
new partnership ideas. ... So this will give opportunities for the scientists 
here in the Pasadena area to form partnerships they might not be able 
to do otherwise."

According to Ross, the event is expected to fill 6,500 hotel room nights 
and bring millions of dollars to the city. "We know people will come early 
and stay late because they're coming internationally," he said.

Tourist dollars will benefit the city's hotels, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, 
museums and retail stores, Ross said. His team has yet to predict COSPAR's 
economic impact on the San Gabriel Valley.

Previous COSPARs have been hosted by Warsaw, Beijing, Paris, Tel-Aviv 
and Prague.

As Astronomer Royal Martin Rees famously said, "The universe of astronomy 
has no center, but the universe of astronomers does. For years, that center 
has been Pasadena."