Space Access '12 Conference - April 12-14 - Phoenix Arizona

SA '12 will be the next round of Space Access Society's long-running annual get-together for people seriously interested in the technology, business, and politics of radically cheaper space transportation. This year's conference sessions will run from Thursday morning April 12th through Saturday evening April 14th. (Our Space Access hospitality suite will be open Wednesday evening for early arrivers.)

Conference location is the Grace Inn, 10831 South 51st Street, Phoenix, AZ, about ten freeway miles from the Phoenix airport via free hotel shuttle bus. For room reservations, call 800 843-6010 or 480 893-3000, and mention "space access" to get our discount $69/night single-or-double breakfast-included rate. (This rate is good for up to three days before or after the conference.)

Conference registration is $120 in advance, $140 at the door, student rate $40 either way. We're not (yet) set up to accept credit cards in advance - RSN! For immediate advance registration you need to paper-mail us a check or money order. Include for each registrant the name and affiliation (if any) to be listed on the badge, plus your email address. Make the check out to Space Access '12, and mail it to:

Space Access '12

PO Box 16034

Phoenix AZ 85011.

Just over six weeks till the conference begins! Time to start thinking about booking those flights to Phoenix; they'll cost more if you wait too long.

Space Access '12 Confirmed Speakers as of 2/28/12

Altius Space Machines/Jon Goff

Armadillo Aerospace

Dallas Bienhoff

Matt Cannella, student, "HySoR Hybrid Sounding Rocket"

Phil Chapman

Commercial Spaceflight Federation

FAA AST/Mike Kelly

Osa Fitch, "The Rocket Test Company: 2011 Update"

Frontier Astronautics/Timothy Bendel

Jeff Foust

Garvey Space

Keith Henson

David Hoerr, "The Rocket Company, 10 Years After"

JP Aerospace/John Powell

Lasermotive/Jordin Kare

Liftport

Clark Lindsey

Masten Space/Dave Masten

Charles Miller/NextGen Space

NASA OCT/Dr. Lagudava Kubendran

Panel: Newspace Lessons Learned - Gary Hudson, Henry Spencer, Henry Vanderbilt

Bruce Pittman/NASA Ames, "Barriers And Opportunities For Reusable Launch Vehicles"

Team Phoenicia/Will Baird

Rocket Crafters, Inc.

Rocketplane Global/Chuck Lauer

John Schilling, "Halfway to Anywhere, Part II: Groundwork For Going Beyond LEO"

Rand Simberg

Space Frontier Foundation/Ryan McLinko

Space Studies Institute/Gary Hudson, President

Speedup/Robert Steinke

Henry Spencer, "Beyond Chemical Rockets:  Overview and Near-Term Options"

and "Lessons From Smallsats for Small Launchers"

Stratofox Aerospace Tracking & Recovery Team/Ian Kluft

Students for the Exploration and Development of Space

Scott Tibbitts

Rick Tumlinson, on the EarthLight Institute

United Launch Alliance/Frank Zegler

Unreasonable Rocket/Paul Breed

Ventions/Adam London

Max Vozoff/mv2space

XCOR Aerospace/Mark Street

Stay tuned to http://www.space-access.org as we fill out the SA'12 program.

Conference Background

Space Access '12 will be the next round of our long-running annual get-together for anyone seriously interested in the technology, business, and politics of radically cheaper space transportation.  The conference is intensive and informal - long days, single program track, tightly scheduled sessions, no requirement for a prepared paper, speaking off-the-cuff is fine.  The idea is to get a snapshot of where things are and where they're headed next, not where they were six months ago.  We have long on-your-own meal breaks (no rubber-chicken mass banquets) and we make sure there are convenient places nearby to go and talk with other attendees.  We figure networking is a better use of your conference time than listening to canned dinner speeches.

Conference attendees range from students and amateur rocket enthusiasts, through cheap-access political activists and startup rocket companies, to government and established aerospace company people. Typical attendance is in the mid to high one hundreds.

We understand that many of you in our target audience aren't rich - yet. We work hard to keep overall conference attendance costs low. Phoenix is a major air hub, we schedule the conference so you can travel at off-peak parts of the week despite it still being weekend winter-tourist season here, we negotiate great room rates at our pleasant and well-kept resort style conference hotel, and our registration fee speaks for itself. We've been called a far better conference than some that go for many times our price.

To a considerable extent, Space Access has been (by design) an incubator for the "newspace" entrepreneurial end of things. Bottom line, it has been a useful conference over the years - companies have been started, investments made, ideas spread, people hired - pretty much what we've aimed for.

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