Sunday, 04/08/12 - The latest updated agenda with detailed program schedule (revised and with late additions) for Space Access '12 is online. The conference begins this Thursday, April 12th at the Grace Inn in Phoenix Arizona, and runs through Saturday April 14th. If you haven't already, reserve your hotel room soon, as the hotel is down to a handful available for the peak nights of the conference.
Advance conference registration is now closed. You'll be able to sign up at the conference starting 8 am Thursday at our Registration table in the conference hall lobby. If you are preregistered, your badge will be available for pickup in SA'12 Hospitality Wednesday evening. Hospitality will be open Wednesday 7pm - 11pm for early arrivers (in suites 118-120 right off the main hotel lobby.) We've also arranged for the hotel bar to be open Wednesday evening, with basic bar-menu food available - the hotel restaurant will be open for all meals Thursday through Sunday mornings.
Hope to see you there!
Wednesday, 3/14/12 - How time flies! Another Congressional funding season is underway, and you have your first chance to push Congress to spend at least some of its billions in space funding on useful things. Help support full funding for NASA's Commercial Crew and Space Technology programs!
Wednesday, 1/11/12 - The
site and dates for our next annual conference on the business,
technology, and politics of radically cheaper access to space,
Space Access '12, are set. The site will be the Grace Inn,
10827 S 51st St in Phoenix, same as last year. Conference sessions
will begin 9 am Thursday April 12th 2012 and end 6 pm
Saturday April 14th. We plan to have our Hospitality Suite
(and the hotel bar) open Wednesday evening for early arrivers.
Advance conference registration is $120 (Student rate $40), mail
checks to Space Access '12, PO Box 16034, Phoenix AZ 85011, or click
here to register online.
For hotel reservations call the Grace Inn at 800 843-6010 or 480
893-3000; ask for the Space Access Conference rate to get our $69
(plus taxes, single or double) full-breakfast-included room rate,
good for three days either side of our conference dates. Watch here
for more on the conference details in the coming weeks.
Thursday,
12/15/11 - We have a new update
out, SAU #129, with
word of a surprising victory in the continuing battle over the future
of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.
Thursday, 9/15/11 - We have a new update out, SAU #128, with our thoughts on traditional NASA development costs, and some pointed questions for tomorrow's Commercial Crew forum.
Tuesday, 7/26/11 - We have a new update out, SAU #127, with the latest on the FY'12 NASA Appropriation, Commercial Crew news, and Space Launch System political developments. Hope to see you all at the SFF Conference later this week!
Friday, 7/8/11 - We have
a new Update out, SAU
#126, with an urgent
Political Action Alert - a chance for you to make a
positive difference in this country's future in space, plus some
thoughts on Shuttle: Looking Back, And Forward.
Thursday,
7/7/11 - We have a new Update
out, SAU #125.
"This is a heads-up - there will be significant Congressional
action next week on NASA budget items that matter to us. Our
window to make a difference should open in the next day or so.
The next thing we send out will almost certainly be a Political
Action Alert, another chance for you to make a positive difference in
this country's future in space."
(As we mentioned in
Update #124, those of you who took part in our last political push
helped nudge the process noticeably in the right direction - the rest
of you, what are you waiting for? This time, join in - once you
have the targeting info, make the call and help us make a real
difference!)
Monday, 6/20/11 - We have a new Update out, SAU #124, with some thoughts on current issues - SLS "Competition", Commercial Crew & Cargo's direction, the state of the Newspace industry, and a possible extension of the CSLAA.
Space Access Society: Who are we?
There are countless useful, interesting, and profitable things we could do if we had routine affordable access to space. But, as the old down-Maine joke goes, "you can't get there from here." Half a century into the Space Age, it still takes years of paperwork and planning and costs tens to hundreds of millions per mission to reach Earth orbit, drastically constraining the otherwise huge opportunities. It isn't the laws of physics or engineering that are stopping us - there's nothing in either that prevents reusable rockets based on available technology from operating at costs and reliabilities a lot closer to modern airliners than to current rockets. Yet somehow, after all the early promise, we ended up in a blind alley. We've spent a generation there. Enough is enough.
Space Access Society thinks the problem has a lot more to do with political and bureaucratic inertia than with any fundamental engineering obstacles. SAS's sole purpose is to promote routine, reliable, radically cheaper access to space, ASAP. We think it's possible within the decade, with a little luck and a lot of hard work. Welcome to our minimalist retro text-intensive web page, where we'll try to give you a handle on how we think we can get out of the long-time NASA-industrial complex expensive-space dead end. Here's the longer version: Space Access Society Policy Summary (due for an update at some point, but still amazingly relevant for something written five years ago.)
And here's our Updates backlist, so you can see how our understanding of the problem has evolved over the years:
Space Access Update back issues
One of the higher-profile things we do is our annual Space Access conference on the technology, politics, and business of radically cheaper space transportation, featuring leading players in the field. The most recent was Space Access '11, April 7-9 2011 in Phoenix Arizona, our nineteenth (we've been at this that long?) annual conference. SA'11 was again an interesting mix of the usual suspects and some unusual new additions, again providing an intensive informal snapshot of where the growing cheap space access industry was this spring 2011. Here's the program book for SA'11, to give you an idea what our conferences are like. Stay tuned for more info on Space Access '12, mid April 2012 in Phoenix Arizona as we start getting it organized in the coming months.
Questions? Email us at: space.access@space-access.org (We may take a while to get back to you, but your mail does go through.)
Space Access Update Back Issues
SAU #129 -15 Dec 11 Update
SAU #128 -15 Sep 11 Update
SAU #127 -26 Jul 11 Update
SAU #126 - 8 Jul 11 Update & Alert
SAU #125 - 7 Jul 11 Update
SAU #124 -20 Jun 11 Update
bulletin -17 May 11 Alert
bulletin -26 Apr 11 Alert
SAU #123 -14 Apr 11 Update
SAU #122 - 2 Apr 11 Update
SAU #121 -16 Feb 11 Update
bulletin -27 Sep 10 bulletin
bulletin -24 Sep 10 bulletin
SAU #120 -23 Sep 10 Update
SAU #119 -20 Sep 10 Update
bulletin -13 Sep 10 bulletin
bulletin - 9 Sep 10 bulletin
bulletin - 5 Sep 10 bulletin
SAU #118 -30 Aug 10 Update
SAU #117 -21 Aug 10 Update
SAU #116 -29 Jul 10 Update
SAU #115 -14 Jul 10 Update
SAU #114 -20 Feb 06 Update
SAU #113 - 4 Jan 06 Update
SAU #112 - 9 Sep 05 Update
SAU #111 - 5 Apr 05 Update
SAU #110 -31 Mar 05 Update
SAU #109 -15 Feb 05 Update
SAU #108 -31 Jan 05 Update
SAU #107 - 2 Dec 04 Update
SAU #106 -19 Nov 04 Update
SAU #105 -19 Oct 04 Update
SAU #104 -29 Sep 04 Update
SAU #103 -15 Apr 04 Update
SAU #102 - 9 Feb 04 Update
SAU #101 -13 Dec 03 Update
SAU #100 - 8 Feb 03 Update
SAU #99 - 13 Dec 02 Update
bulletin - 12 Feb 02 bulletin
SAU #98 - 8 Mar 01 Update
SAU #97 - 26 Jan 01 Update
SAU #96 - 26 Sep 00 Update
SAU #95 - 27 Aug 00 Update
SAU #94 - 9 Jul 00 Update
SAU #93 - 13 Apr 00 Update
SAU #92 - 5 Apr 00 Update
SAU #91 - 7 Feb 00 Update
SAU #90 - 10 Oct 99 Update
SAU #89 - 25 Sep 99 Update
SAU #88 - 24 Jul 99 Update
SAU #87 - 19 Jul 99 Update
SAU #86 - 25 Jun 99 Update
SAU #85 - 18 Jun 99 Update
SAU #84 - 17 Jun 99 Update
SAU #83 - 3 Jun 99 Update
SAU #82 - 12 May 99 Update
SAU #81 - 5 Mar 99 Update
SAU #80 - 28 Feb 99 Update
SAU #79 - 8 Oct 98 Update
SAU #78 - 6 Nov 97 Update
SAU #77 - 16 Oct 97 Update
SAU #76 - 3 Oct 97 Update
SAU #75 - 23 Sep 97 Update
SAU #74 - 31 Aug 97 Update
SAU #73 - 14 Jul 97 Update
SAU #72 - 23 May 97 Update
SAU #71 - 6 May 97 Update
SAU #70 - 18 Oct 96 Update
SAU #69 - 31 Jul 96 Update
SAU #68 - 21 Jul 96 Update
SAU #67 - 11 Jul 96 Update
Full list of back issues available here eventually,
when we finally dig them off various retired computers...
*end*