The first panel of the morning was Robert Heinlein’s Future History, what he got right and what he got wrong. This was a panel discussion of a number of fans and scholars of Robert Heinlein, including the author of the Biography, Robert Heinlein: In Dialog With His Century. It was very innteresting, but covered little new ground. Verdict: Okay

Next up was a panel on upcoming movies in the next 3-5 years, however audience members kept derailing the single presenter and we had progress very slowly. So slowly I bailed on the panel and went to another. Verdict: No good. I stepped into a video presentation about Nazi Germany’s flying wing fighter and tests of a full-scale model as to its stealth capabilities. Now a bad documentary, but it leaned on the hyperbole of what this fighter would have meant to the war so late in that conflict. Even in full production in late 44 or early 45 this would not have turned the tide of the war. Verdict: Alright

Next I went to GRAIL: A Mission of Gravity. This was a presentation about the recently launched unmanned lunar mission to map the interior of the moon by gravity. The probes, two, were launched in September but because they are taking a very odd low energy orbit to the moon are still in transit. The GRAIL spacecraft should start operating early next year and after a three month mission we should have a detail mass mapping of the lunar subsurface.  Verdict: Pretty good

Final panel was How Should Magic Work in a Story? This was a two person panel of Tim Powers and Harry Turtledove. It was s fast and far ranging discussion of fantasy and magic and how to work the elements of the fantastic without breaking disbelief. Whenever these two get together it’s usually very good and this was no exception. Verdict: Thumbs Up.

And that was my Loscon for 2011.