A trek to Toulouse

摘要

Mark Williamson, independent space technology consultant and technical author, reports from the fifty-second International Astronautical Federation (IAF) congress, held this year in Toulouse, France. Late september 2001 was perhaps not the best time to travel, given the events in America on 11 September which saw the destruction of New York's World Trade Centre and an attack on the Pentagon. Nevertheless, well over a thousand delegates made the effort to attend the world's leading space congress, the International Astronautical Congress (IAF), in Toulouse, France. The decision by the organisers to continue with the congress, and by delegates to attend, was seen by many as an act in defiance of terrorism.