Space Society teamed up with the Space Tourism Society to host the 2nd annual ORBIT Awards, celebrating leadership in space tourism on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of Mr. Dennis Tito's historic flight as the world's first private space traveler, and the 25th anniversaries of STS-1, the first Space Shuttle mission and the ISDC. 2005 ISDC 2005 was held in Washington, D.C. May 19–25, 2005 at the Sheraton National Hotel with the NSS Space Pioneers Awards banquet held at the National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport, hosted by NSS Board of Governors chairman and former ABC-TV "20/20" host Hugh Downs and the Honorable Norman Mineta, Secretary of Transportation. NSS members met and debated aerospace pioneers like Burt Rutan, Elon Musk, and Peter Diamandis, while hearing the latest on the explorations of Saturn, Mars and extrasolar planets. A few of the many highlights: Presenting sponsor Transformational Space brought a new twenty-foot mockup of its new space vehicle, the t/Space CXT. The Spaceward Foundation erected a forty-foot model of its upcoming space elevator competition. IMAX director Mark Cowen wowed the crowd with the inside story of NSS Governor and Academy Award winning actor-producer Tom Hanks' latest IMAX film release, Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D. Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart announced a bold new plan to study the threat of Near Earth Object 2004MN4. NASA's Centennial Challenges program announced a new prize competition for producing oxygen from Moon rocks. Virgin Galactic's Will Whitehorn shared the latest plans for their new personal spaceflight experience. Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites received the coveted Wernher Von Braun award from German rocket engineer and Project Apollo space pioneer Konrad Dannenberg, then shared his personal vision of the future. Past conferences Previous ISDCs have rotated around the United States and Canada in the following major cities: 1982 – Los Angeles, California 1983 – Houston, Texas 1984 – San Francisco, California 1985 – Washington, D.C. 1986 – Seattle, Washington 1987 – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1988 – Denver, Colorado 1989 – Chicago, Illinois 1990 – Anaheim, California 1991 – San Antonio, Texas 1992 – Washington, D.C. 1993 – Huntsville, Alabama 1994 – Toronto, Canada 1995 – Cleveland, Ohio 1996 – New York City, New York 1997 – Orlando, Florida 1998 – Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1999 – Houston, Texas 2000 – Tucson, Arizona 2001 – Albuquerque, New Mexico 2002 – Denver, Colorado 2003 – San Jose,