Steve Eisenhart: The Future of Space Leadership

This month's Second View is by Space Foundation Senior Vice President - Strategic & International Affairs Steve Eisenhart

I have seen the future of space leadership. And it looks pretty darn good.

I recently had the delightful opportunity to participate in the Space Generation Congress in Beijing. In my capacity as a member of the Advisory Board of the Space Generation Advisory Council, I was able to see workshop group breakout  sessions, hear various presentations and meet dozens of young space professionals.

I came away from the experience impressed. They are committed, talented, creative and innovative individuals. Working on issues like Near-Earth Objects, Earth Observation applications and public outreach, they produced quality consensus solutions during short workshop periods. With nearly 130 delegates from 44 nations, the exchanges were lively and consensus a hard-worked task.

The participants were an innovative group. No social media in China?  No problem. Merely take a photo of the address in Chinese characters, show to the taxi driver, and everyone seemed to find the gala dinner after-parties.

They were outgoing, quick to engage you about who they were and what they were working on, and what they wanted to do in the future. They were happy to have the opportunity to hang out and chat with industry veterans such as Clay Mowry, Ken Davidian and Carissa Christiansen.

My experience in Beijing re-affirms what we have seen in our own Space Foundation New Generation Initiatives and SGAC Fusion Forum programs at the Space Symposium. That there is a bright future with talented young space professionals, engineers and policy officials.

My personal congratulations to the SGAC leadership team of Chris Vasko and Andrea Jaime Albalat for their superb efforts in coordinating the volunteer committee and local organizers of the congress. We look forward to seeing you in Colorado in May for our 30th Space Symposium.

 

As head of international affairs, Eisenhart is responsible for the Space Foundation's global strategy and relationships with international space agencies and organizations, foreign embassies and U.S. organizations involved with global space programs. He is also responsible for the program development for the annual Space Symposium. He supervises the Space Foundation's government affairs activities in the Washington, D.C., office, including relationships with government agencies, other space advocacy organizations and associations and corporate interests.

 

This article is part of Space Watch: October 2013 (Volume: 12, Issue: 10).