See other posts from October 2010

A Marathon Day Two at the USA Science & Engineering Festival

Posted by Susan Lendroth

2010/10/24 10:41 CDT

Topics: fun, Planetary Society, Bill Nye, Lightsail and Cosmos-1

Day two at the USA Science & Engineering Festival was off to a running start when staff had to dodge race participants (the Army Ten-Miler) to get to the National Mall. Weaving between runners while carrying all our gear woke us up better than any caffeine jolt. Bill Nye gave morning visitors to the booth an impromptu demonstration of how Lightsail-1 will deploy in space and later packed in a huge crowd at his presentation at Freedom Plaza. We saw just as many booth visitors on Sunday as on the first day of the festival, which kept Lightsail engineers Chris Biddy and Justin Jang busy explaining how our solar sail mission will work. And we owe a big thank you to a wonderful cadre of volunteers, who hung signs, took pictures, carried models and helped us in every way possible.

Getting to the Science Festival, Day 2

Chris Biddy dodges race participants to carry gear to our booth.

Bill Nye Deploys a Solar Sail Model

Bill Nye shows how the solar sail deploys.

Wrapping up the Exhibit

Time to strike the exhibit on the National Mall.