For update on this subject see blog.nss.org/?p=3276.
Archive for the ‘Event’ Category
International SunSat Design Competition
Sunday, November 27th, 2011Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award
Saturday, November 12th, 2011The Spirit of Innovation Challenge invites high school teams to use science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills to develop commercially viable, technology-based products in one of three categories: Aerospace Exploration, Clean Energy, and Health and Nutrition. The Challenge is hosted by the Pete Conrad Foundation. The National Space Society is a co-sponsor.
This year’s competition offers a once-in-a-decade opportunity for select teams to travel to Rio de Janeiro in June 2012 with the U.S. Department of State to participate with an international audience for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. They will also attend a U.S. workshop in May to meet their global peers in advance of the trip to Rio.
The top fifteen teams, five from each category, will travel to the annual Innovation Summit at NASA-Ames Research Center in California from March 29-31, 2012.
“The hallmark of America’s culture is innovation and entrepreneurship; it’s how we got to the Moon and how companies like Apple, Facebook and Google were formed,” said Nancy Conrad, founder and chairman of the Conrad Foundation. “Our Challenge transcends ‘fact memorization’ and gives students a real means of changing the world. Making that sort of monumental impact is what inspires these students to tackle the big challenges … exploring the universe, discovering cures for disease and preserving our planet.”
It’s free and easy to register. Student teams simply answer four questions about their innovative concept by Nov. 29, 2011. See www.conradawards.org for more information.
NSS Congratulates Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford (USAF, Retired)
Friday, November 4th, 2011NSS congratulates Astronaut/Lt. Gen. Thomas Patten Stafford (USAF, Retired), who will be awarded the National Aeronautic Association’s prestigious 2011 Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy on December 16, 2011. This trophy honors the memory of Orville and Wilbur Wright, and is awarded annually to a living American for “significant public service of enduring value to aviation in the United States.” Stafford flew four missions (two Gemini missions, Apollo 10, and Apollo-Soyuz) and headed the 1991 Presidential “Stafford” Commission which produced the report “America at the Threshold” exploring alternative architectures for the Space Exploration Initiative. More information on this NAA award.
Satellite Industry Association DoD Commercial SATCOM Users’ Workshop
Thursday, November 3rd, 2011The Satellite Industry Association (SIA) DoD Commercial SATCOM Users’ Workshop will take place December 13-15, 2011 at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, VA (more information and registration). This is SIA’s flagship workshop, which brings together government leaders from DoD Combatant Commands, Services and Agencies as well as commercial satellite industry operators, service providers, integrators, ground equipment suppliers, and manufacturers. The theme of this year’s workshop is the evolution of SATCOM in a fiscally-constrained environment. Ms. Cindy Moran, Director of Network Services at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), will deliver the keynote address at the luncheon on Thursday, December 15th.
Announcing the 2012 Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest
Sunday, October 16th, 2011The Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest has been co-sponsored by NSS and Baen Books since 2007. Science fiction writers who create positive stories about man’s future in space are rewarded with professional publication, NSS membership and an award presented each year at the International Space Development Conference (ISDC). These winning entries aren’t pulp tales about galactic empires or alien abductions, but serious near future stories about the sacrifice, heroics, adventure and discovery that will no doubt come hand in hand with our expansion into the solar system.
Submissions are accepted now through Feb.1, 2012, with winners announced no later than March 15, 2012. Grand Prize will be awarded at the 2012 ISDC in Washington D.C., May 24-28, 2012. Please visit the contest website for the full guidelines before sending an entry and please pass this on to anyone you think might be interested.
Join NSS at the Women & Mars Conference
Sunday, October 16th, 2011The National Space Society is a co-sponsor of the Women and Mars Conference presented by Explore Mars in partnership with NASA and the Space Policy Institute on November 9-10, 2011 at the Jack Morton Auditorium at George Washington University.
Registration and Conference Agenda at:
womenandmars.eventbrite.com
Use NSS Discount Code: WomenandMars-NSS
In addition, they have arranged a tour of the Lockheed Martin Space Experience Center in Crystal City, VA on November 8 at 6pm. This tour has a limited capacity. If you are registered for the Women and Mars Conference and would like to attend this tour, please RSVP at info@exploremars.org.
For additional conference information, including hotel rates, please visit:
www.exploremars.org/page/women-and-mars/practical-info
Students for the Exploration and Development of Space Competitions
Wednesday, September 28th, 2011Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) has announced two competitions.
The first, the 2011 High-Powered Rocketry Competition is under way. The goal is to design, construct, and launch a high-powered rocket carrying a 4 kilogram payload to a height of 10,000 feet, as measured by a standard altimeter. The competition end date is October 9th, 2011. The winning chapter will be announced at SpaceVision 2011. More information.
The second is the Business Plan Competition. For students who have a Business Plan for a space product or system that will further the opening of the space frontier, they can enter the NewSpace Student Business Plan Competition. A team can be made of up to to five undergraduate or graduate students (of any major). The 5 team finalists will compete at SpaceVision 2011 and pitch their plan to investors like such as Tom Olson and NewSpace Startup Companies such as Altius Space Machines CEO Jon Goff and many other names in the space industry. Deadline to file an intent to compete is September 30. More information
“What’s Next in Space?” Video Contest
Sunday, September 18th, 2011
The Coalition for Space Exploration wants to hear from the American public about what they envision for the future of space exploration. The Coalition is launching a contest based on a simple question, “What’s Next?” Participants are encouraged to share their ideas for the future direction of America’s space program in a video. The creator of the winning video entry wins an iPad2.
The Coalition wants citizens to speak out about what they feel should be next for space exploration with a 1- to 2-minute video entry. Entries must be submitted by Oct. 17. From there, the public will vote on the best videos. The top five videos will become semi-finalists and a panel of judges from the Coalition will crown the winner.
Is an Earth Trojan Asteroid the Logical Target for the “Flexible Path”?
Wednesday, July 27th, 2011 Asteroid 2010 TK7 is circled in green. Image Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA |
| Scientists using the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) have discovered the first Trojan Asteroid in Earth orbit. Trojans orbit at a location in front of or behind a planet known as a Lagrange Point.
A video of the asteroid and its orbit at the Lagrange point can be found here. Martin Connors of Athabasca University in Canada is the lead author of a new paper on the discovery in the July 28 issue of the journal Nature. Connors notes that:
TK7 is roughly 300 meters in diameter and traces a complex motion around SEL-4 (Sun Earth Lagrange point 4). The asteroid’s orbit is stable for at least the next 100 years and is currently about 80 million kilometers from the Earth. In that time, it is expected to come no closer that 24 million kilometers. The obvious question is whether this is the logical destination for NASA’s Flexible Path manned asteroid mission? The Lagrange 4 point (SEL-4) is a logical way station on the Solar System exploration highway. Other NEO asteroids that have been identified as possible targets are few and much more difficult to reach and return than an asteroid located directly at SEL-4 would be. An asteroid located there could well be the target of opportunity that opens manned exploration of the Solar System in an “easy” mode. Unfortunately, Asteroid 2010 TK7 would not serve as such a target because it travels in an eccentric orbit around SEL-4 so far above and below the plane of Earth’s orbit that it would require very large amounts of fuel to reach. NEOWISE is the program for searching the WISE database for Near Earth Objects (NEO), as well as other asteroids in the Solar System.The NEOWISE project observed more than 155,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, and more than 500 NEOs, discovering 132 that were previously unknown. |
Robert Bigelow of Bigelow Aerospace to Be Keynote Speaker at NSS International Space Development Conference
Monday, May 2nd, 2011Robert Bigelow, Founder and President of Bigelow Aerospace, will be the Honored Keynote Speaker at the 2011 International Space Development Conference (ISDC) Governors’ Dinner and Gala to be held in the Davidson Center at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama on May 20. Mr. Bigelow founded Bigelow Aerospace, which is noted for developing and launching the first inflatable space habitats. At the Gala, Mr. Bigelow will also receive the National Space Society’s Space Pioneer Award for Space Development for his efforts to advance the technology of space habitats and for the significance they may play in the development of space tourism, industry and exploration.
Bigelow Aerospace took over the Transhab space habitat development program after NASA scrapped it, and effectively reinvented it — developing and successfully launching its prototypes, Genesis I and II, in 2006 and 2007. Limitations on payload volume during launch are one of the major constraints of the NewSpace industry, and the Company’s inflatable concept solves that problem for most in-space habitat applications. The lower launch volume and mass per volume of the inflatables, combined with now imminent launch cost reductions, should soon allow delivery of paying passengers to safe and functional orbiting destinations, such as the Bigelow station planned for operation by 2015.
The intended expansion of the space station market to private and international customers by Bigelow Aerospace has already had a transformative effect on how the future of space development is likely to unfold. In addition, inflatable modules will also serve their originally-intended purpose, as crew habitats for human operations beyond Low Earth Orbit.
ISDC Conference Chairman and Vice President of HAL5 Bart Leahy said, “Mr. Bigelow’s selection as Keynote Speaker for the Gala ties in perfectly with this year’s ISDC theme, ‘From the Ground Up.’ Efficient, low-cost space habitation is crucial to almost all future human space travel and Bigelow Aerospace is currently the industry leader for that technology.”
Prior to founding Bigelow Aerospace, Robert T. Bigelow was well-known for being a general contractor and developer in the Southwestern U.S. and for owning the Best Suites of America hotel chain. He has made a significant personal investment in the founding and on-going funding of the Company and is dedicated to “revolutionizing space commerce via the development of affordable, reliable, and robust expandable space habitats.”
The International Space Development Conference is the annual conference of the National Space Society. ISDC 2011, hosted by the Huntsville, Alabama L5 Society (HAL5), will take place at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville, Alabama, May 18-23, 2011. HAL5, a local chapter of the National Space Society (NSS), has made significant contributions toward developing cheap access to space technology, space education, and public outreach since it was formed in 1983. NSS and HAL5 believe that by educating and working with the public, the government, and private industry, we can speed up the date when routine, safe, and affordable space travel is available to anyone who wants to go.