2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

Given the Moon theme of the game this year and the tribute to the 40th anniversary of man landing on the moon I am really hoping to see Neil Armstrong as the guest speaker at the Atlanta Championships this year.

Who would you like to see as the guest speaker this year?

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

lance armstrong cause he's comming back to bicycle racing this year... he might as well build robots too, lol

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

I hope that Neil Armstrong will be able to come back to Purdue University for the Boilermaker Regional. Yes, he graduated from Purdue, WOO!

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

Considering how Neil Armstrong has tried to live his life as a private citizen after 1971, I would be very surprised if he was a guest speaker.

Alexander Leonovich Kemurdzhian would be ideal considering this years game, but unfortunately he passed away nearly six years ago.

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

Yea I heard even Purdue had a pretty hard time just getting him to come to the dedication of the building named for him (Neil Armstrong Hall of Engineering).

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

I had the opportunity to speak to Mr. Armstrong this summer in Indianapolis. No questions about NASA. No questions about space. No questions about the moon. No autographs. I would agree with the notion that he would not be a guest speaker. Perhaps a guest there anonomously...but not a speaker.

He does still have a pretty good golf game, though.....

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

Maybe not Neil , maybe Buzz Aldrin, or maybe a Mythbuster!

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

My first thought was Neil Armstrong, but that seems less likely now. Even if not him, though, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see one of the Apollo astronauts. It could also be Gene Kranz or another of the Apollo flight directors.
With the amount of emphasis they put on the moon, it seems like they have to have somebody lined up already.

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

How about a conspiracy theorist be the speaker for a moon-themed game. :rolleyes:

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

How about Barack Obama? Not really related with the space theme, but I think that would be a great thing for FIRST.

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

Great idea. And we can get someone who is afraid of water to speak at the 2010 Water Game champs.

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

I was going to say Grant, you stole my thunder!

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

Someone good from NASA could be cool. Or a Mythbuster. Hopefully not a politician, I'd like for FIRST to not show any allegiance to any side, intended or not.

(I know I'm going to tick people off with this, but PLEASE not Mark Leon... He's a GREAT MC, but his attempt at a presentation/speech at my school ended in disaster my Junior year.... To the point where he's not even allowed on campus!)

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

If not that, we should as a whole community try to get the gang to visit us all in Atlanta. It would also be cool to invite the guys over on "Prototype This"

I think they'd love to see what we all do.

edit: actually I'm sure that Jamie and Adam have been to a regional with Grant or something. But again, they'd enjoy it on a grander scale.

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

You wouldnt want Obama to come? I wouldnt see having him speak as choosing sides. If any other party would have been elected we could have had them speak. I guess I dont care who speaks, but I think if we could get Obama there it would be huge for FIRST.

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

I agree that it would be good for the public eye, but I know of many people who aren't happy with the results of the election, and as a result wouldn't be happy with FIRST. Give Obama a year or so to get a track record, then I think it would be a good idea to try and snag him as a speaker. (Plus security for that speech would be near impossible... Think of all the tools they wouldn't let you bring in!)

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

I assume you mean any whatsoever.

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

I see where you are coming from.

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

Grant Imahara is directly involved with a team, I'm not sure it'd be a good idea to have him as a speaker. As for Obama, he's the President, like it or not. I'd have been thrilled if Bush could have come to or spoken at a competition, and I didn't like him at all.

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

Exactly. The Secret Service would have to take over running the event, unless they had the speaker speak elsewhere, where it can be controlled... What you don't see when you watch a Presidential speech on TV is all the layers and checkpoints the cheering audience has to go through to get there. It's more secure than an airport...

However thrilling it would be to see Obama speak (and he's a GREAT speech maker), it would spell disaster for the competition....

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

As for someone good from NASA, maybe that Dave guy? :p

I seem to remember watching a video of President Bush (the current one) talking about how awesome FIRST was. I'm relatively sure that was 2006, but it might have been 2005. By this point Mr. Obama will be the actual President, so I don't think having him shows any sort of partisanship.

Anywho, Red Whittaker would be awesome. His name has come up before, and now that he's most likely going to send robots to the moon, he's the obvious choice.

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

A little birdie told me that we will have a guest singer on stage this year at the championship. His name is Karthik Kanagasabapathy. :)

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

AHAHAHAHA

No duets with Karthik, Arefin? I'd pay to see that.

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

I think Gene Kranz would be an awesome speaker, or else any of the Apollo astronauts. Or maybe someone from one of the Lunar X Prize teams? They could talk about how they are using private resources to attempt something as massive as landing on the moon. (Gene would probably be more awesome.)

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

Fixed your post

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

Red Whittaker spoke at the Boston Regional in 2007(I think). His speech was interesting content wise but not what I would like to see as the main speaker at Championships. I think his knowledge and expertise would be better displayed in something like a Q&A session with Team leaders rather than a speech to every one at championships.

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

As much as I'd like to hear Neil Armstrong to be the guest speaker in ATL, he has chosen to live as a private citizen, and very rarely have I even seen him do interviews for Apollo / NASA documentaries.

I would love for one of the other NASA Engineers, Mission Controllers, or Astronauts to come speak.

Maybe someone like Gene Kranz, Jim Lovell, Gene Cernan, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Alan Bean, Dr. Georg von Tiesenhausen, John Young, or Homer Hickam.

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

I'd pay for Karthik and Paul to MC again, and have them sing! lol

I say we get two people to speak who really have space experience.

Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck :D

FTW lol

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

So Championship has now come and gone and while Neil Armstrong and President Obama were pretty long shots I was surprised that there was no guest speaker at all this year. Going from President Bush Sr. last year to nothing this year was sort of a let down. I wonder if FIRST had a guest speaker sheduled and they had to cancel at the last minute or something?

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

It is interesting that someone else had the same thought I did.
No speaker?? what was with that?

I guess the whole "patent thing" took the place of a speaker.

I am not sure what that was all about...

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

Since it would be so hard to get an actual president in there why not make a live hologram of him like they did on CNN that one time. Would it really be that hard?

Re: 2009 Championship Guest Speaker
 

The CNN "hologram" was a special effect added to the video, and was seen only by people watching the television broadcast. There was nothing visible in the studio.