"This site isn't dead, it just spends a lot of time hibernating lately..." Final pre-conference update, 03/31/09 - Space Access '09 Conference Info.
Space Access '09 Conference Information
April 2-4, Phoenix Arizona
Space Access '09 is two days away - if you haven't already, book your flights and rooms now. Flights are filling up, and rooms at our hotel are going fast - last we heard there are still rooms for all nights, but the hotel is close to full. (If you've booked a room but can't make it, be sure to call in and cancel ASAP, lest you be charged for the first night anyway.) Call the Grace Inn at 800 843-6010 and ask for the "space access conference rate" for our $99-per-day-including-taxes-and-full-breakfast discount room rate. Early April is still winter sunshine tourist season in Phoenix, so shake off the winter cold and damp (and all the overblown talk of economic doom) and treat yourself to a three-day look at the future under the warm Arizona sun.
Space Access '09, our upcoming annual conference on the technology, politics, and business of radically cheaper access to space, featuring a cross-section of leading players in the field, will once again be the place to hear the latest on the fast-moving entrepreneurial new-space industry. Space Access conferences are designed to let people who are serious about doing low-cost space transportation themselves get together, trade information, make deals, and learn useful things. No rubber-chicken banquets, just an intensive single-track presentations schedule with relaxed on-your-own meal breaks in a setting with plenty of comfortable places nearby to go off and talk.
The conference program is almost complete - there are just a couple of "TBDs" left in the schedule, and those are filled, with only some last-second scheduling to pin down. Check for further changes in the printed program once you arrive, since one way we get the up-to-the-minute latest on this new industry is to stay flexible right up to the last minute.
Students: We've had a couple requests for help finding people to share rooms and cut expenses, but we didn't have any way to do this in advance. There should be a notice board at Registration where you can post for roommates, though. Also, if you want to earn back some or all of your student registration fee, there will be opportunities to volunteer and help with the conference. Henry will need help running A/V in the hall, Tom may need occasional help at Registration, and Tina will need all sorts of help running the Hospitality suite. See them for details if you're interested.
Speakers: If we have you scheduled before you're arriving or after you're leaving, and you haven't told us already, email us ASAP at space.access@space-access.org and we'll fix it. We prefer you bring your presentation on a laptop tested and ready to plug into our projector and sound system (we'll have standard SVGA and headphone plugs) to prevent program delays. If that's not possible, let us know well before your talk and we'll try to set you up with a loaner machine you can load and test your presentation on ahead of time. We'll also have a DVD player, and on Thursday an overhead projector. Anyone needing the overhead on other days, or a VHS VCR on any day (ours was a recent casualty and we're not sure if we need to replace it) should contact us and let us know well ahead of time.
Space Access '09 Program Schedule, 3/31/09
overall schedule:
- Thursday April 2nd, sessions 2 pm - ~10 pm
- Friday April 3rd, sessions 9 am - ~10 pm
- Saturday April 4th, sessions 9 am - 6 pm (Hospitality - till late)
Thursday April 2nd
1 pm - Registration and Hospitality open (we may have them open as
early as noon, depending on how setup goes, but no guarantees.)
1:50 Henry Vanderbilt says "Welcome" and shares a thought or two
2 pm Henry Spencer, "The Big Top Step: From 100 Km To LEO - Building To Orbit From Suborbital Capabilities"
3:30 break
4 pm Stratofox Aerospace Tracking Team/Ian Kluft
4:30 Unreasonable Rocket/Paul Breed
5:05 David Summers/Universal Transport Systems, "High Delta-V Rocket Aircraft"
5:25 Copenhagen Suborbitals/Frank Smith
5:55 break for dinner
8 pm James Van Laak, FAA AST Deputy Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation
8:40 Space Studies Institute/Lee Valentine
8:50 Robin Snelson, Space Tourism Specialist with Rocketship Tours
9:00 Monroe King, N-Prize Contestant: Team Prometheus/Aeronautic Enterprises Inc.
9:20 TBA
late - Hospitality closes
Friday April 3rd
8 am - Registration and Hospitality open
9 am Michelle Murray, FAA AST Experimental Permit Program Lead
9:50 Kevin Greene, "The SBA-Guaranteed Business Loan Process"
10:10 break
10:40 Flometrics/Carl Tedesco
11:15 James Dunstan, on Orbital Debris Law
11:35 Panel on Orbital Debris - Joe Carroll, James Dunstan, Jeff Foust, Dennis Wingo
12:05 TBA
break for lunch
2 pm XCOR Aerospace/Jeff Greason
2:50 Garvey Spacecraft/John Garvey
3:25 break
4 pm BonNova/Bob Noteboom
4:35 Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS)/Joshua Nelson
4:45 TrueZer0/Scott Zeeb and Todd Squires
5:20 NASA Ames Human Tended Suborbital Science/Yvonne Cagle and Bruce Pittman
5:50 break for dinner
8 pm Panel, World Space Programs & Projects, Clark Lindsey, Dave Salt, Henry Spencer
8:50 Iain Finer, N-Prize Contestant: Team Kiwi 2 Space
9:10 Ed Wright, Teachers in Space's Astronaut Teacher Course Design Workshop
9:20 Brian Miller, AFI Fellow, with the short film "Cosmonaut" and a few words on attempting authentic space film
late - Hospitality closes
Saturday April 4th
8 am - Registration and Hospitality open
9 am Rocketplane Global/Chuck Lauer
9:35 Leik Myrabo, Lightcraft Technologies Inc and RPI, "International Research Collaboration on Beamed Energy Propulsion"
10:25 break
10:55 Misuzu Onuki, "Current Status Of Japanese Space Venture Companies"
11:20 Armadillo Aerospace/John Carmack
12:10 Space Frontier Foundation/Bob Noteboom and Rick Tumlinson
12:20 break for lunch
~12:45 - Registration closes
2 pm Orbital Outfitters & Space Divers/Rick Tumlinson
2:40 Masten Space/Dave Masten
3:20 break
3:50 SpeedUp/Bob Steinke
4:20 Jim Muncy/PoliSpace, "Minding the Space Gap"
5 pm Charles Pooley, N-Prize Contestant: Microlaunchers
5:20 Wrapup Panel, with Various Luminaries telling us What It All Means
~6 pm that's all for this year
late - Hospitality closes - see you next time! SA'09 takes place at the Best Western Grace Inn at 10831 South 51st St, a comfortable resort-style hotel in Phoenix Arizona, ten miles east on I-10 from the Phoenix Airport via free hotel shuttle, if you're driving go one block west from I-10 off the Elliot Rd exit then take your first left onto 51st and you're there, in a pleasant suburban neighborhood with shopping and dining a short walk away, with free parking. Call the hotel at 480 893-3000 if you have questions.
For hotel room reservations, phone the Grace Inn Reservations at 800 843-6010. Ask for the "space access conference rate" for our $99-inclusive discount room rate. (If you're attending, this rate is good for three days before and after the conference too, if you want to catch some extra Arizona springtime sun.)
Our rates are the same as last year, both for SA'09 conference registration ($100 by check mailed in advance, $120 check cash or credit card at the door, student rate $30 either way) and hotel rooms ($99 a night for 1 or 2 includes all taxes plus full American hot buffet breakfast every morning).
NOTE - if you haven't already mailed your advance registration, it's too late. All preregistrations have to be at our mailbox by Wednesday afternoon. Rather than pay the USPS twenty bucks for Express Mail, you might as well just give the extra twenty to a better cause and register at the door.
See you there!
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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 permits and planning and costs tens to hundreds of millions per mission to reach low 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 current NASA-industrial complex expensive-space dead end. Here's the longer version: Space Access Society Policy Summary
Here's our last newsletter, coming up on its third anniversary - in sum, we see no fundamental changes in the situation in the last couple years, but lots of incremental progress. Outlook continues cautiously optimistic.
Space Access Update #114 2/20/06
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
SAS no longer takes paid memberships or donations. The short version is, we no longer have a full-time Executive Director; we're now run by a volunteer committee and thus need less budget. As for Space Access Society membership, SAS has always been more a state of mind than it has been a formal organization. If you believe radically cheaper space access is both hugely important and near-term possible, you're one of us. Pay your dues by doing what you can to advance the cause, as the chance arises.
We are continuing our annual Space Access conference on the technology, politics, and business of radically cheaper space transportation, featuring leading players in the field - here's last spring's actual program book for Space Access '08 to give you an idea of the flavor. Coming up next, Space Access '09, now set for April 2-4 at the Best Western Grace Inn in Phoenix Arizona. Our seventeenth (we've been at this that long?) annual conference will again be an interesting mix of the usual suspects and some unusual new additions, once again providing an intensive informal snapshot of where the growing cheap space access industry is this coming spring of 2009.
Questions? Email us at: space.access@space-access.org (We may take a while to get back to you; we all have day jobs these days, but your mail does go through.)
Space Access Update Back Issues
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*