The View From Here
Sunny and Warm and 100% Great Space Symposium Conditions
More than a year’s worth of preparation for the 30th Space Symposium is winding to a close as the event moves from design and engineering to the launch pad. Our Space Symposium teams are Go for launch and Go for flight, with a forecast of sunny and warm weather and 100% great Space Symposium launch conditions…
30th Space Symposium a May Flower in Full Bloom
May 1, May Day, is Lei Day in Hawaii — resplendent with garlands of fresh and fragrant blossoms everywhere. A perfect lead-in to the Space Symposium! With the brutal 2014 winter endured all over the planet, I know that a lot of you are especially looking forward to the 30th Space Symposium because of this…
Pluto New Horizons: Rocking our World Like a Bat Out of Hell
“Like a bat out of HellI’ll be gone when the morning comesOh when the night is overLike a bat out of HellI’ll be gone, gone, gone.”— Meat Loaf, 1977 When singer Meat Loaf released his album “Bat Out of Hell” in 1977, the concept of speed that he and songwriter Jim Steinman were going for…
30th Space Symposium – Government's Best Bargain Ever
The key metrics we track for our annual Space Symposium are looking better than ever. Two and a half months before the industry’s most important conference event, we are sold out of exhibit space, ahead of plan in sponsorships, ahead of forecast in advance registrations and have confirmed our largest number of speakers ever. There’s…
Rockin' in the Space World
I have to admit that there’s a soft spot in my heart for NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellites. It was a tad more than 25 years ago that I had the rush of supporting my very first space shuttle launch, and it was a biggie: the launch of space shuttle Discovery on mission STS-26R…
Getting Our Next Generation Priorities Right
2014 is likely to be another tumultuous year around the world, and especially here in the United States. At this writing, crippling federal budget uncertainties, which have hung like the sword of Damocles over the nation and our industry, appear to have been addressed with the passage of a two-year budget agreement. This welcome news…
Still the Most Amazing Industry in the World
If anything has been amplified to a painful level this year, it is the consequence of political dysfunction, and how the failures to govern by Congress, the Administration and both political parties have negatively affected the United States, both at home and abroad. No sector of society has been spared the impact of this colossal…
Fear and Loathing in Washington — The Remix
Two years ago, November 2011, I wrote about the creation of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (aka the “Super Committee”), which had been tasked to find deficit reductions in just a few short weeks that had eluded the Congress and the White House for a dozen years. “The worst-case scenario,” I wrote, would…
All A-Buzz for Space Education and Discovery
There were any number of peak moments during this year’s 64th International Astronautical Congress in Beijing — from the sand painting and drum dancers of the opening ceremonies to Chinese opera at the closing dinner. But the most striking moment to me was when Dr. Buzz Aldrin sat down at a table in the Heinlein…
Punching Above Our Weight Class – Through Partnerships
Sportscasters sometimes refer to an over-achiever, or someone who frequently seems to perform beyond his or her apparent physical limitations, as “punching above his weight class.” It’s an apt, if somewhat anachronistic label, and one we embrace at the Space Foundation despite its pugilistic origins. We’re proud of the fact that we pursue our mission…