International Spaceflight Museum

Rik Riel has published Part 2 of his blog about the ISM at The Click Heard Round the World. Great pictures, and a great story! Thanks, Rik.

We promised events throughout the week, so here they are:

• Tuesday, 7 P.M. SLT
  
  Kanker Greenacre talks about the Realtime Satellite Propagator (RSP)
• Wednesday at 9 a.m., 12 noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.
  
  Jimbo Perhaps introduces the C.E.V. — NASA's next manned vehicle
• Thursday at 6 p.m.
  

See Snapzilla

Opening day has finally arrived, and it appears that we're ready. I"m posting this from a page opened using one of the laptop computers provided by aEoLuS Computers, while standing next to the interactive Cape Canaveral map.

The ISM Visitor's Guide is published, thanks to Skye who provided the copy. The upper sim is phenomenal, largely thanks to Kanker. Thanks to everybody, in fact, this is going to be a roaring success, today and for the foreseeable future, and probably beyond that. Great work, guys!

This is an internal note to other boggers on this site. (All ISM planning group members are able to create blog entries here after logging in.)

If you read other blogs, you may have noticed a feature called "Trackback" at the end of each posting. It's a little complicated, but in short what this does is allow a blogger to tell another blogger that s/he has included a link to an item in the other's blog by sending a "ping" to the quoted blog.

The software we are using presently does not have automatic trackbacking available, but all is not lost. It is possible to send trackback pings manually by creating a free account at http://www.haloscan.com and using the "Manage TrackBacks" feature.

Hamlet Au has indeed posted two blog entries about the ISM Grand Opening:

* TO THE STARS

and

* an item in his weekly SL events list (Troy's presentation on 18 June).

WOOT!

Thanks, Hamlet!

An announcement about the first public event to take place at the International Spaceflight Museum in Spaceport Alpha has been posted in the Second Life Events calendar. Listed under "Discussions", it is a presentation by Troy McLuhan called Are the US and China in a Second Space Race?.

Hiro gave me the idea when he submitted a snapshot of the new stage backdrop he'd just finished designing, so last night I took one of the gift shop, also designed and built by Hiro.

When I was looking for the link to the picture I took, I discovered other people have been posting snapshots to the site from Spaceport Alpha as well. Great!! This is superb viral marketing, so any time you feel so inclined, join the other shutterbugs and let's show SL what we're up to!

Several non-group members have been given tours of the island in the past few weeks as we prepare for the Grand Opening on the 18th-25th of June (less than a week away!) Last night Hamlet Au (formerly Linden) dropped by briefly after I contacted him about the opening at Troy's urging. So watch his New World Notes blog to see what he has to say about us over the next couple of days.

Tonight we got some help from Hiro Pendragon, who designed a stage backdrop/concert shell for our presentation center inside the rocket ring. He designed and built it on the spot, while Troy and I watched and made a few choices of colors and textures. It turned out very well indeed! It is translucent, so while it helps cut down the visual distractions of the rockets behind the stage, they are not obscured. The colors (very subtle) blend nicely with the platform floor, and I love the way the transparency goes from about 50% at ground level to about 80% at the top, nearly fading away into the sky above. Thanks, Hiro!