Meeting Anousheh Ansari and Buzz Aldrin at CNN Future Summit
22 11 2006I am *bleeping* starstuck after meeting the two space travellers today.
I was invited to the CNN Future Summit taping at the Esplanade in Singapore and had the privilege to be in the same room with Anousheh Ansari and Buzz Aldrin, 1st female space tourist and 2nd man on the moon respectively.. I am still in a mild state of amazement after meeting these icons of human space travel. Its been my dream since i was really young to travel to the stars and today, I think i got the closest I have ever been. To go any closer will require me to strike paydirt and pay that $200,000 for a Virgin Galactic ticket.
I managed to be the only guy who asked a question to this panel of luminaries, that includes Ian Pearson, futurologist at British Telecom and Lino Guzzella who’s a real innovator in hydrogen fuel cell technologies. The whole event is essentially an awesome publicity stunt by Singapore Tourism Board to drum up buzz for the upcoming spaceport. I hate to leak out details of the show before its first screening at 6pm Singapore time on the CNN channel. All i can say now is that Buzz Aldrin’s really conservative and “old-guard-ish” while Ansari is full of entrepreneurial enthusiasm on what our generation can do to make space flight even more accessible. And I am trying to figure out how I can record my first appearance on internation television. Darn, I forgot to mention my name and NUS affiliation, haha..
All in all an amazing week for me, after my invitation to George Bush’s talk in Singapore. That caps 3 major international celebrities and makes for a climatic end to my university education. I am gonna reserve some of my thoughts on this event till after the show’s screening.
Related post: A Spaceport for Singapore
Hey bjorn… that was a cool event.. shucks.. i was so close to my five minutes of fame….. ah well.. gluck with taping your session…
Man…. I had my TV on yesterday, saw that loony Richard Quest yelling at Ansari, and thought to myself: hey, Bjorn must be out there too. He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t miss that sort of stuff in Singapore… Well, what do you guess…. there you were with your question, smartass. Anyway, I’m really proud of you, keep it pimpin’!!
haha, yea, richard quest was GOING BONKERS ( in his own brit-speak) on the poor souls on the panel, it was more jerry springer than larry king at times… anyhow, i was hella lucky to be there meeting these awesome folks, i could hardly believe it when i first got the invite from my school, now thats a nice graduation gift they gave me =D
dude, Anousheh seems kinna suspect man… check out this wiki entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodea_Systems
her startup company payed for her space flight. wtf?
how believable is that wikipedia entry?