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| Toulouse for the 38th International Electric Propulsion Conference (IEPC 2024) |
Here is the report from my second back-to-back European conference of 2024. I started the week prior at the Spacecraft Charging Conference in Avignon where I presented a paper of dynamic modeling of lunar regolith adhesion to spacesuits. From there I traveled to Toulouse for the 38th International Electric Propulsion Conference (IEPC). IEPC is the premier conference for people working on spacecraft plasma thrusters.
I arrived in Toulouse on a train from Avignon. Well, specifically a train from Narbonne, as I had to make a transfer there. After my not optimal AirBnB experience in Toulouse the year prior for the 2023 EU Contamination Conference, I decided this time to stay in a nice hotel. The two best hotels in Toulouse are the Grand Hotel de l'Opera and Hotel Grand Balcon. By the time I was making my reservation, the first hotel was available for only the first part of the week, so I ended up splitting my stay among the two. After checking in, I headed over to the conference venue Centre de Congrès Pierre Baudis to register and join the welcome reception. There I met up with my Ph.D. advisor Michael Keidar. I grabbed dinner with James Szabo from Busek.
The next two days were essentially focused on the conference. A huge personal highlight for me was this was the first time to have students at this conference. Since 2020 I have been working as a part-time lecturer at USC, and where for the past 3 or so years I have also been co-advising an undergraduate club called ASPEN dedicated to advanced spacecraft propulsion. I suggested a new project to them involving development of a solid fuel plasma thruster. Four ASPEN students, Kayden, Max, Emerson, and Olivia traveled to IEPC to update the community on their project. Their first introduction was at the Gaseous Electronics Conference at University of Michigan in 2023, but that was a much smaller audience. At this conference I also had a small booth due to my company PIC-C being one of the conference sponsors. I mainly used the booth to advertise my Plasma by Simulations by Example book. The booth also offered a good meeting spot for tagging up with the students. I personally had two talks at the conference. One was on experimental test of operating a Hall thruster in a pulsed mode, and another on the use of CAD geometries for representing the surface geometry in plume - spacecraft interaction simulations.
Wednesday June 26th is when Sandra arrived. This was also when I had to move from the Hotel de l'Opera to the Grand Balcon. While both hotels are nice, the first one definitely had more charm due to Grand Balcon's modern interior decoration. That evening was the conference gala dinner. It was held at the Chateau de Preissac, a large mansion-style event venue located about 30 minutes out of Toulouse. Here Jay Polk from JPL announced the plans for the 2027 IEPC which will be held in Pasadena. Vlad Hruby, the Czech founder of Busek, was honored with the Stuhlinger Medal, the highest honor in the field of plasma propulsion.
The next day featured an afternoon excursion to Carcassonne, a historical fortified town with a well preserved citadel. We were taken on a tour of the fortifications, after which we had several hours to stroll around and do some shopping. Carcassonne has been inhabited since around 3,500 BC during the Neolithic period. Building of the fortification dates back to the Romans around the year 330 AD. The massive gothic Basilica of Saint Nazaire started as a cathedral built in the year of 1096, which itself sits on a site of a church from the 6th century AD. The town later became famous for its role in the Albingensian Crusade, in which the French monarchy attempted to eliminate the Cathar religious and political movement.
That evening we walked to a nearby restaurant called Au Gascon for a cassoulet, which is the typical dish of this region.
IEPC ended Friday morning and afterwards Sandra and I did more sightseeing and strolling through Toulouse. We went on the same boat tour of the Brienne Canal that I did previously on my own on my prior visit of Toulouse. This tour takes you to the mouth of the Midi Canal, which connects Toulouse with the Mediterranean! One day I would love to rent a small house boat (as one of our California friends does) and take it all the way. Our boat driver was not the best, and crashed into one of the locks pretty hard.
Another really neat coincidence, sort of like seeing the Olympic flame in Avignon, was that we were here for the final of the French Top 14 Rugby League. The Toulose team, called Stade Toulousain, is by far the best rugby team in Europe. The match, against the team from Bordeaux, was being played in Marseille, but was being broadcast live on giants screens in front of the Capitole. We started watching there, but then went back to our hotel room to see it better on the TV. We could see the crowds and the Capitole from our balcony. Toulouse won, of course.
The next day, Saturday, was our final day in Toulouse. We did yet more sightseeing. We started with the Church of the Jacobins. This is another impressive Gothic-style monument dating back to the 13th century AD. It started as a church for the Dominican order, which was nicknamed as the Jacobins. This order was started by Dominic de Guzman to push against the spreading heretical beliefs of the Cathars. The Dominican order was eventually dissolved after the French Revolution in 1789, and Napoleon ended up converting the church into barracks. The army finally moved out in 1861, but it was not until the second half of the 20th century that much of the damage was undone and the architecture restored.
The highlight of the church is its impressive nave with tall palm-tree like pillars. The church surrounds a central courtyard which was presumably used by the monks for their meditation.
We next headed to the Basilica of Sain Fernin. This is another beautiful church. It also houses a crypt. We also poked inside the Church of Saint-Pierre des Chartreux. From there we headed to the art museum in the Hôtel d'Assézat (the word hôtel means a large urban mansion). On the way back, we stopped for drinks in a pub called Prima Circus.
The next morning we made our way to the airport for a flight to Vienna to begin the next part of our adventure: visit of the new apartment in Slovakia.
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