Utah to host space explorers' annual conference

Thanks to the influence of former astronaut and Utah senator Jake Garn, an estimated 80 astronauts and cosmonauts from 29 countries will come to Utah next October for their annual "planetary congress."

"I'm truly thrilled," Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said at a Thursday press conference announcing the news. "This really presents the state with some extraordinary opportunities."

"As did the Olympic Winter Games, this event will focus the attention of the world on Utah," Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon said.

The Association of Space Explorers — founded in 1985, the same year Garn flew on the space shuttle — limits membership to those who have orbited the Earth at least once. The rules are careful to specify that the orbit must be "in outer space," presumably from preventing some wise guy who circumnavigated the globe in an airplane from applying.

The group's more than 300 members include many well-known astronauts — Apollo 11 lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin is one — as well as Utah's own Don Lind and of course Garn himself.

Some of them hail from surprising places. In addition to the United States, Russia, England and Germany, members come from Italy, Cuba, Romania, Mongolia, Syria, Slovakia, Afghanistan, Hungary and Vietnam.

As part of the conference, astronauts will visit every school district in the state to visit with students. Garn has done that very thing during gatherings in other countries.

"To be able to talk to those kids about (space flight, science and technology) is really, to me, the most important part," he said.

To hear Huntsman tell it, those visits will have an impact. He said he still clearly remembers the time a Russian cosmonaut visited his classroom.

"I don't remember a lot from school, but I do remember that," he said.

The annual gatherings have been held in such far-flung locales as Vienna, Mexico City, Budapest, Riyadh, Moscow, Madrid, Warsaw, Berlin, Bucharest, Tokyo, Washington, Brussels, Montreal — and now, Salt Lake City.

"I could not be more excited," Garn said.

The weeklong event will center at Salt Lake's Grand America hotel, with functions at various other meeting halls, schools and, perhaps, the planetarium itself.

"We're hoping we can get a couple of them to come here and address some of these school groups," planetarium marketing manager Claudia Nakano said.

Among other objectives, the association exists to "promote the establishment of regular and close contacts among persons who are united by the experience of manned space flight" and "unify the efforts of astronauts and cosmonauts to reinforce international cooperation in the exploration and use of space."

"When you're in space, you can't see national borders," said Andy Turnage, executive director of the U.S. Association of Space Explorers. "We really all live on one planet."

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E-mail: aedwards@desnews.com