Strictly, a spaceship convention this is not. Even the sizable contingent of science fiction writers at TVIW seem pretty clear-eyed about the difficulties of interstellar travel (though to be fair, several of the science fiction writers are engineers or physicists). People in the aforementioned professions tend to have institutional mindsets, and they are accustomed to starting big projects that some other generation will finish. This could have something to do with demographics. Most are pragmatic about the realities of interstellar travel: Odds are, nobody here lives to see it. There are nuclear geeks from Oak Ridge, rocket geeks from Marshall Space Flight Center, and engineering geeks from the Tennessee Valley Authority. As another TVIW cofounder-NASA physicist Les Johnson-put it, the mothballed locomotive in the Choo Choo’s backyard is better equipped for steaming to Tokyo than a modern rocket is for interstellar travel. ![]() This is the fourth (non-annual) TVIW, and its theme is “From Iron Horse to Worldship.” Choo Choo! Get it? But that construction also illustrates the scope of technological challenge. Do bring your: latest idea for mining rocket fuel from asteroids proposal for gigantic solar-powered orbital lasers thermodynamic equations for making it rain inside a starship. If you want to talk propulsion, keep it sub-bullshit. “Reality-based” means do not bring your warp drives, your wormholes, your bullshit equations that let you skip through the universe on theoretical physics. Kennedy III is one of TVIW’s cofounders, and he describes the meeting as a place for reality-based discussions about technologies that will help humans reach other star systems. So after 12 hours of planes, delays, and courtesy shuttles, I drop my baggage in my room and go looking for a drink.Ī diagram of processes for an asteroid mining machine being discussed in one of the meeting’s working tracks. The outbuildings and rail yards sprouted a gift shop, a pizza parlor, a comedy club, an indoor jungle-themed swimming pool, and an outdoor doughnut-shaped swimming pool, among other things.Ĭhattanooga is not quite the regional transportation hub it was in the latter golden age of rail travel, and in fact these days is kind of a pain in the ass to get to. The iron horse engine became a thing for guests to climb aboard for selfies. Passenger cars were moored to the rails and refurbished as luxury suites. The new owners put a neon train on the roof, the concourse beneath the freestanding dome became a lobby, and the baggage room became a dining hall. ![]() The building reopened in 1973, four months after the Apollo program ended, as the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel. Terminal Station closed in 1970, not quite a year after Apollo 11 landed on the Moon. It has a soaring dome, and the bathrooms are naturally lit through stained glass. To a former train depot once called Terminal Station, a beaux-arts building downtown, which was built in a time when trains were the apex of industry-the smartest, fastest, most high-tech way to move through space-and when stations were elegant ports of call. To get to the spaceship convention I have to go to Chattanooga.
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