The AMSAT Space Symposium’s Keynote Speaker with be Jan King, W3GEY, founding member of AMSAT and former member of the Board of Directors & V.P. of Engineering. Jan’s keynote speech, entitled “Never, Never, Never Give Up!” will be presented during the Symposium banquet on Saturday October 11. As a teaser for his speech, Jan shared the following with our symposium team:
” So very much has changed in 45 years! For starters, our hobby of 1968 has become an industry. Launch vehicles can’t be had for the price of a NASA Administrator’s letter anymore. Launch costs are $100K per kilogram now. ITAR? Not worth discussing. So, what do we do? Is it time to say, “We had a really good run at this” and let it go? We showed some people who cared and wanted to listen that you can do a lot with a little. Should we call it quits and give it up? There are those who ask me questions that start with, “Back in your day….?” It is particularly those people, I’d like to show…that we really
are made of the right stuff. We still have things we know that Government Experts and wide-eyed university graduate students don’t. Silicon Valley is now filled with satellite experts who aren’t. The average university graduating electrical engineer still can’t make a 2 meter pre-amp with a 1 dB noise figure, and wouldn’t know how to start. Unless, of course, they figured it out from the Internet. Ah yes, the Internet! Another small change since 1968. We’ll talk about it in October. Hope to see you in Baltimore. W3GEY.”
