The View From Here


Sunny and Warm and 100% Great Space Symposium Conditions

Written by: developer

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 on Monday, May 19.

If you haven’t finalized your plans to be part of the most amazing space conference on Earth – even for just a day – it’s not too late to register now!

Whether you’re just coming for a day from Denver, or for the full week from Washington (or Tokyo, Beijing or Berlin), we’ve built a bigger and better Space Symposium that will serve you well. Exciting new programs include our Classified Session on Space Situational Awareness, a greatly expanded New Generation Space Leaders program, our first ever Technical Track for the presentation of papers, and the new SpaceSLAM program for space hipsters.

Of course, your Space Symposium favorites are all back and stronger than ever. Our pre-Symposium Cyber 1.4 program features an amazing line-up of speakers from across government and industry, and is well worthy of your spending a day in Colorado Springs in its own right. And, for the main Space Symposium agenda, we are very, very proud to feature our largest and most star-studded program of senior government space leaders ever. Along with thought leaders from industry, academia and science around the world, this “Who’s Who” of the space community will present the most thought provoking and all encompassing discussions of the state of play in our industry that can be found in one place, at one time, anywhere on the planet.

Speaking of that global context, the 30th Space Symposium will again be an extraordinarily international affair, with participants from Canada, the UK, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, France, Germany, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, India, China, the Netherlands, Romania and other countries.

In addition to the many space community leaders, we’re especially excited to welcome international participants in our Space Foundation education and discovery programs. I’m particularly anxious to meet four-year-old Ms. Armeen Binte Jafry, first-place winner in the 3-to-4 year old category of our 2014 International Student Art Contest, who will be coming from Bangladesh to meet astronauts and claim her prize. Her winning artwork is pictured here.

Among our new flight of 75 Space Foundation Teacher Liaisons who will meet for the first time at the Symposium, we welcome four new superstar teachers from the Maharashtra region of India: Megha Gupta, Monika Mishra and Nalini Sengupta, all from Vidya Valley School in Pune, and Arati Patil, of Vidyanchal School, also in Pune.

At the nexus of International and New Generation is the third annual presentation of the global Fusion Forum, a program of the Space Generation Advisory Council of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. The Fusion Forum attracts 75 to 100 young space professionals from around the globe, who meet on Sunday and Monday preceding the Space Symposium and report their findings to Symposium delegates later in the week.

Also new for this year, are stunning new facilities on the west side of the lake at The Broadmoor. Symposium veterans will be hard-pressed to recognize “West” after its massive renovation, which expanded the footprint of the building and the size of all rooms, added two new floors of rooms and suites, updated and upgraded the Rocky Mountain and West ballrooms, and replaced the Charles Court restaurant with a larger, closer-to-the-lake Italian masterpiece, Ristorante del Lago. Once again our Reception in Honor of International Attendees will take place in the West Tower Lobby, and I expect to see lots of impromptu and informal business meetings taking place at the expanded, and now indoor/outdoor, West Hotel Bar.

It is all about networking, after all. While the formal 30th Space Symposium agenda includes some of the most compelling speakers and panel sessions we’ve ever presented, we know that “networking with colleagues” is the number one reason delegates attend - many of my fellow CEOs take as many as 70 or 80 meetings over the course of the week. Organizations like the Aerospace States Association, NDIA, Hosted Payloads Alliance, Satellite Industry Association, Coalition for Space Exploration, Colorado Space Coalition and others host numerous important meetings in the “margins” of the Space Symposium.

While the move to May has presented some scheduling challenges, overall we are set for our best Symposium ever – the 30th Space Symposium. With Spring having sprung, May flowers in bloom, and fair and sunny skies forecast, we look forward to welcoming the winter weather weary to what has become the annual family reunion of the global space community.

The View From Here: Sunny, Warm and a 100% Great Space Symposium.

This article is part of Space Watch: May 2014 Special Edition - 30th Space Symposium (Volume: 13, Issue: 5.1).


Posted in The View From Here