It's a crazy mixture of burning man, a music festival, and a nifty tech fair. It's a great blend- watching the burners and the non-burners (... like my parents) interact was awesome.
I was one of the organizers two years ago (which was the last time it was at Ames). Even though the day of was sort of frantic for us, I had a blast. Music everywhere, things throwing fire, lots of great geeky exhibits. And it's all in and around some hangers just off the Moffett Field runway!
I'm not directly involved this year, but many of the same people that ran it then are working on it now; I expect it to be awesome again this year. Hopefully my mass of positive adjectives encourages you to check it out this year. Heh.
Thank you for the comments, we are updating the site right now and the next roll out will not be flash on the front page and will be iPhone and mobile device friendly!
This is planned by NASA itself, so they probably take a much less cynical look at space travel. Out of things to be celebrating, Yuri Gargarin's trip to space is a pretty good one. It also makes as good an excuse as anything for having a music festival.
It looks like I am going to be in the Bay Area for much of April so maybe I'll see you there. I'm a big fan of the Glitch Mob. http://theglitchmob.com/mp3/The_Glitch_Mob-Nalepa_Monday_Rem...