…and I’m back, but busy doing things around the house that weren’t happening because of the conference. Based on a discussion with Jim Muncy, one of the people who helped draft the new legislation (and Congressman Rohrabacher’s former staffer on space issues), I’ve got some further thoughts on this post.

[Monday morning update]

I’m asked in comments how the conference was. Not as good as previous years, in terms of either presentations or attendance–it had the look’n’feel of being thrown together at the last minute (which is, unfortunately, often a result of being put on by a volunteer organization). I’d hoped to see some people who ended up not attending, but it was worthwhile nonetheless. There was a disappointing panel of SF writers toward the end on Saturday that I’ll blog about a little later (or perhaps even write a column about).

I missed the Saturday evening partying due to another engagement in Hollywood (an event at which, if anyone didn’t have a good time, they didn’t deserve to, and thanks to Brian Linse for his unending and gracious hospitality). But there were sufficiently few people at the conference that I managed to talk to everyone there that I had/wanted to anyway.

However, because I was schmoozing in the hallway at one point (actually, at many points–it’s the main reason I attend these things–I rarely hear anything of which I’m not already aware, one way or another) I did miss the one bit of news to come out of it–a new X-Prize contender. Fortunately Jeff Foust, who was also in attendance, didn’t, and he’s already written up the story.