Week 2, Day 7 and 8 ISU SSP

Many of the lectures are more in depth than I expected.  The range of industry and vocations represented here within the students attending the ISU is very wide and so each one of us takes something different away from the lectures.  There are engineers, scientists, lawyers, architects, military, government and regulatory authorities, media, doctors, space agency representatives and students.  Add that to the range of cultures/countries represented and you have a diverse group of professionals with a wealth of experience focussing their attention on team projects and the huge task of getting to know 120 other students from 29 countries.
To find out more about the distribution of cultures/countries, do to the link and click on the SSP link ;  
http://www.isunet.edu/

The ethics panel on Tuesday afternoon covered many topics and got into questions of our future activities in space and how this should be approached. Many people ask why not spend the vast sums of money spent on space research and technology on reducing poverty and feeding those who are in famine.  It's a valid question for people today amid the apparent global financial crisis.  Only communities can answer this question although another valid question is that of money spent on football, gambling, movies, .  Why is it that the people who will spend trillions of dollars globally on activities that are largely useless but entertaining and still question the value of space science and technology research and exploration. 

Following the ethics panel was a lecture from John Longsdon on the reasons for sending people to space.
Wednesday consisted of an all day exercise on teamwork training.  Pictured is an affinity Diagramming exercise where each one of us wrote 3 ideas for tourist operations in space. 

We spent quite alot of time in intercultural teams working through exercises.  The distinguished lecture thisevening was cancelled giving us all more time for socialising.




Till tomorrow- Cheers Kim E