A Heavyweight Challenge

As a former event planner, I know how it is. When everything went smoothly, all the attendees think an event was simple. But there is always a LOT going on behind the scenes to make it so. Kudos to the planners of the Spacefest Continues 2026 event which took place in Tucson over the weekend, for handling this change.

I was all set to do an onstage interview with a good friend and icon of the early space program. But she regretfully had to cancel at the last moment. What could we do instead?

I was asked if fellow space historian Jay Gallentine and I could resurrect something we’d done during the pandemic as a Zoom call fundraiser for the National Ataxia Foundation. Jay had argued for uncrewed spaceflight, and I’d argued for crewed. Could we do it onstage, in front of an audience of astronauts and other space experts?

In consultation with leading space artists who agreed and approved AI as the only way to create something fast, the team designed a poster and put together everything else needed. Jay and I hurriedly put our talking points together. It was billed as a heavyweight fight – a no-holds-barred brawl. Jay said things I agreed with, because he’s an expert. Have you ever had to dig deep to insult a good friend in public, and counter great arguments they made as if they were the dumbest things you ever heard? It’s not easy.

But we did it, and the audience had fun. Best of all, we raised three thousand dollars for the National Ataxia Foundation in under an hour, while the donation table in the next room raised over a thousand more.

We can hope it makes a difference in the fight against that cruel disease. Because, for us, this is not an abstract thing. Kelsey Poor of Novaspace is a dear friend of ours, and she’s fighting it. New medication has made a startling improvement to her speech and mobility, which is wonderful. But she needs a cure.

If being goofy onstage for an hour helps with that, sign me up – every time.

There was even merch!

My dear friend Kelsey