MARK HANNANT
US Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta and futurologist Alvin ‘Future Shock' Toffler were confirmed yesterday as the keynote speakers at Seattle's Aerospace Congress and Exhibition on 10-13 September.
Organisers Aerospace North America and the US Society of Automotive Engineers also announced that Vice-Admiral Joseph Dyer, commander Naval Air Systems Command, and Natalie Crawford, VP and director of Project Air Force at the Rand Corporation, will speak at the Congress on military aircraft development on 12 September. Dyer is responsible for developing, acquiring and supporting aircraft and related systems for Navy and Marine Corps aviation.
Secretary Mineta will address the gala dinner accompanying the presentation of the SAE Aerospace Engineering Leadership Award. Other awards to be made at the Congress include the Clarence L. ‘Kelly' Johnson Aerospace Vehicle Design and Development Award, the Franklin W.Kolk Air Transportation Progress Award and the Martin Whitlock Award.
On the final day Nasa Langley chief scientist Dennis Bushnell and Alvin Toffler will lead plenary sessions on the way changes in technologies and process will change the future of air transport.
Toffler, probably the world's most influential futurologist since the publication of the seminal ‘Future Shock' in 1970, has, according to Time magazine "set the standards by which all subsequent would-be futurists will be judged".
Source: Flight Daily News