Space
Access ’15 Conference Info and Agenda
April 30th –
May 2nd
at the
Radisson Hotel Phoenix North
Final
Pre-Conference Online Update 4/27/15
Conference
Hotel & Room Reservations
Space Access
Conference Background
Space
Access Society‘s
2015 conference on the technology,
business, and politics of
radically cheaper
space transportation will
feature a cross-section
of the growing cheap access community,
talking about what’s
going on now and what will be happening next,
in a fast-paced intensive informal atmosphere, single-track
throughout so you don’t have to miss anything.
Confirmed
launch-project & space-hardware presenters so far:
Altius Space Machines,
CubeCab, DARPA ALASA, EXOS Aerospace Systems & Technologies,
Frontier Astronautics, Masten Space Systems, Moon Express, Tethers
Unlimited, Virgin Galactic, XCOR Aerospace,
plus sessions on what
you’ll need to know to start your own space venture
(that’ll
also help if you’re working at one, or thinking of investing in one)
– rocket
development safety, 3d printing hype & reality, complex-systems
mission-assurance, government regulations, NASA Ames and JSC
commercial cooperation opportunities. We’ll also have reports on
high-end student
&
amateur rocket
hardware projects, talks
by well-known space
writers/bloggers (Jeff
Foust, Clark Lindsey, Charles Lurio, Doug Messier, Rand Simberg,
Henry Spencer), and multiple sessions plus a special guest program
segment about now that
cheap orbital access is near, how do we start affordably taking the
next big steps outwards to
the Moon, Mars, and
beyond?
Space Access
has been described as a
“Hackers”
conference for rocket people,
with better content than many other space conferences costing many
times more. It’s two-and-a-half days of total immersion in making
the future happen.
This year’s edition, SA’15,
is just days away – make those travel arrangements now, reserve
your room while our hotel still hasn’t filled up, register
online while you still can, and be
there!
Conference
Hotel & Room Reservations
SA’15 is at
the Radisson
Hotel Phoenix North, 10220
N Metro Parkway E in Phoenix Arizona, fifteen freeway miles from
the Phoenix Airport, with Space Access conference room rates of $99 a
night plus tax, rate includes a 25% discount on the hotel
full-breakfast buffet. Reserve
your room at our rate, or call the Radisson at 602 997-5900 and
ask for the “Space Access Conference” rate (good for up to
three days before and after our dates if you want to do a little
late-spring southwestern touristing.) The forecast for our dates is
sunny & dry, low-to-mid nineties days, overnight lows in the high
sixties. The hotel has a fine courtyard pool and pool-deck –
pack accordingly.
Attendees at SA’13 may
recognize the address – yes, this is the same location, on the
northeast quadrant of the ring road around Phoenix Metrocenter Mall,
with a wide variety of restaurants and shopping a short walk away,
extensively renovated under a new owner.
SA’15
registration is $120 in advance, $140 at the door, student
rate $40 in advance
and $50 at the door. The day rate will be $60 ($20 student) available
at the door only. You can register in advance by mailing a check,
along with your name, email, and desired organization name (if any)
for your badge to Space Access ’15, PO Box 16034, Phoenix AZ 85011,
or register
online via Paypal or your credit card.
Tuesday April 28th
is
the preregistration
deadline – online
registration will close
down after midnight,
and mailed registrations must
be received by Tuesday.
Summary: SA’15
Registration (Main Ballroom Lobby) and Hospitality (156 & 158)
will be opening around noon on Thursday April 30th. We’ll
be starting conference programming in the Main Ballroom at 1:30 pm,
running (with breaks) till after 10 pm Thursday. Registration and
Hospitality will open at 8 am Friday and Saturday, and Friday May 1st
sessions will run from 9 am till after 10 pm, then Saturday May 2nd
sessions 9 am till after 6 pm, with hanging out, talking and partying
to follow Saturday night till late.
Should you arrive in the
evening after Registration has closed, just go on in and catch the
sessions, and get registered the next morning.
Check the conference program
book for any late schedule changes that may matter to you.
Last-second changes during the conference itself (if any) will be
announced and handwritten onto the program schedule posted by
Registration.
Presentations Timeline
Thursday April 30th
Morning –
setup
will be underway. Please
stay
out of the ballroom, ballroom lobby, and Hospitality rooms unless you
have business there.
Noonish –
Hospitality
(156 & 158) and Registration (Main Ballroom Lobby) will open.
Oneish –
Main
Ballroom will open.
1:30 pm – Henry
Vanderbilt your
Conference Manager gives a brief welcome and sets the scene.
1:40 pm – Henry
Spencer on
Building
Rockets Without Killing Yourself (Much): Rocket Safety 101.
2:25 pm – Dr
Peter Swan of
the International
Space Elevator Consortium on
Space
Elevators, $500 per pound to GEO,
based on a four year study by the International Academy of
Astronautics.
2:45 pm – Virgin
Galactic, Will Pomerantz,
VP, Special Projects,
will discuss where LauncherOne
and
SpaceShip
2 are
headed.
3:30 pm – <break>
4:00 pm – NASA JSC
Commercial Space Capabilities Office, Dennis
Stone, Project Executive,
on the Collaborations
for Commercial Space Capabilities (CCSC) initiative.
4:20 pm – Ken Biba,
of the
Carmack-Prize winning AEROPAC team,
on the ARLISS
Extreme 2-stage 100,000-feet recoverable CANSAT-launcher project.
4:40 pm – FAA
AST,
Pam
Underwood,
Deputy
Division Manager, Operations Integration Division, on Transition
of Traditional Government Space to Commercial Space.
5:10 pm – Robert
Watzlavick will
report on his ongoing development of a
liquid bipropellant rocket motor.
5:30 pm – Separating Facts
From Hype In Current 3D Printing Technology, Plus Future
Possibilities Earthbound And Elsewhere, presentation
by Rich Cameron
and
Joan Horvath,
Nonscriptum LLC, consultants
on uses of 3D printing and maker technologies.
6:00 pm – <dinner
break>
8:00 pm – Panel: The
Commercial Smallsat And Launcher Revolution. Jeff Foust is
a long-time space
journalist,
tweeter, and blogger.
Clark Lindsey is
one of the original essential space
bloggers, and
has recently gone
pro. Charles Lurio is
writer and publisher of the insider newspace newsletter The
Lurio Report. Together
they will discuss the
explosively growing commercial smallsat market as
well as various soon-to-arrive
dedicated smallsat launch options.
8:50 pm – Moon
Express, Ben Brockert, Propulsion Systems Engineer. Moon
Express plans to send a series of robotic spacecraft to the Moon for
ongoing exploration and commercial development.
9:15 pm – Rex
Ridenoure on
The Spinning
Lander Concept For Cost-Effective Lunar & Planetary Missions.
9:35 pm – Dave Salt
is
a longtime professional in the European space industry and will give
a talk based on his paper The
Disruptive Potential of Subsonic Air-Launch,
with some additional material.
10:05 pm – Charles Pooley,
Microlaunchers LLC,
on their plans and their new book Microlaunchers:
Technology for a New Space Age.
10:15 pm – David
Luther/Exodus Aerospace
10:25 pm – <end of
Thursday programming>
Midnight –
Hospitality closes. Get
some rest, there’s two more long days ahead!
Friday, May 1st
8:00 am –
Hospitality and Registration
open
9:00 am – Henry
Spencer on
Fuel Depots and
Extraterrestrial Resources: Myths and Realities with
emphasis on near-term cis-Lunar applications.
9:40 am – Dr
Peter Swan of
the International
Space Elevator Consortium on
Space
Mineral Resources – The Economics of Mining Asteroids.
10:00
am – Dennis
Stone,
with A
Brief History Of COTS. Dennis
Stone helped start and execute NASA’s historic Commercial
Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program
in which NASA and industry partnered to develop capabilities to carry
cargo to Low Earth Orbit.
10:25
am – <break>
10:55 am –
COTS 2: Return To The
Moon, Part 1. Doug
Plata will be
running this special guest session on his proposal to apply the
successful COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems, IE NASA
Commercial Cargo) model to commercial development of the
transportation, habitation, and other systems needed for Lunar
settlement on a practically affordable basis. Part
1 talks:
10:55 am – Doug Plata
on Returning
To The Moon On A Budget
11:15 am – Dave Masten
on Low-Cost
Access to the Lunar Surface
11:55 am – Erik Seedhouse
on Lunar
Surface Crew Factors and Habitats
12:20 pm – <lunch
break>
2:00 pm – COTS 2: Return
To The Moon, Part 2 talks:
2:00 pm – Jeff Greason
on The
Market Implications of Lunar Return
2:30 pm – Doug Plata
on Lunar
Surface Operations,
and (Pascal Lee had to cancel for family reasons) with a brief
summary of The
Moon and the Road to Mars
3:00 pm – Jim Muncy
on
How Fixing ISS
Accelerates Luna
3:10 pm – COTS 2:
Return To The Moon Wrapup
Panel
3:30 pm – <end of COTS
2: Return To The Moon guest
session –
break>
4:00 pm – Bruce
Pittman, NASA Ames Commercial Space Portal,
on Developing a
Thriving Cis-Lunar Economy
4:25 pm – DARPA
ALASA, Mitchell Burnside Clapp, Program Manager. DARPA’s
Airborne Launch Assist Space Access program seeks to launch
satellites on the order of 100 pounds for less than $1M total,
including range support costs.
5:10 pm –
CubeCab,
Dustin Still, COO.
CubeCab is positioning
themselves as a provider of launches to LEO for 1U and 3U CubeSats.
5:40 pm – Doug Jones
discusses
Mars-Base
Midland,
his plan to do Biosphere 1.5 on a budget, using current technologies
and hardware to build a mostly-closed-loop comfortable house in the
US desert southwest. (Or as he puts it, his thermodynamicist’s
holiday.) Doug’s day job is Chief Test Engineer AKA “The Rocket
Whisperer” at XCOR Aerospace.
6:00 pm – <dinner
break>
8:00 pm – Gerry
Nordley will
report status and progress at Tethers
Unlimited.
8:20 pm – EXOS
Aerospace Systems & Technologies, John Quinn, COO. Founded
in part by key members of the Armadillo
Aerospace team,
Exos’s website
says
they will be getting into the ultra-fast-turnaround recoverable
suborbital payloads market, and their Facebook
page says
they’re currently building four copies of a suborbital rocket and
longer-term developing a manned suborbital VTHL rocket and a small
payload orbital vehicle. Beyond that, Exos is playing their cards
close to their vest, but we expect they’ll have much more to say by
the time of our conference.
9:00 pm – Prestwick
Spaceport, Chuck
Lauer,
International
Business Development Manager.
9:15 pm – L.K. Kubendran,
Program
Executive, Flight Opportunities, Space Technology Mission
Directorate, NASA HQ,
on a suborbital/nanolaunch
capability development initiative.
9:35 pm – John
Schilling on
Mission
Assurance,
how to design and build complex
systems that won’t fail when
there’s no
do-over.
How to actually do it, and how to convince the traditional Big
Aerospace world that you’ve done it, overlapping but not identical
topics. A run-through of what the usual processes and standards are,
how to do them right (in the useful-engineering rather than
buzzword-bingo sense) if you are going to do them, and the quick and
dirty ways to get approximately the same results if you aren’t going
to do it by the book.
10:15
pm – <end of Friday programming – don’t
miss the Prestwick
Spaceport Scotch Tasting,
Part 1>
Midnight –
Hospitality closes. Get
some rest, there’s one more long day ahead!
Saturday May 2nd
8:00 am –
Hospitality and Registration
open
9:00 am – XCOR
Aerospace, Jeff Greason. XCOR
is currently assembling the first prototype Lynx
two-seater
suborbital rocket spaceplane, testing a small (3000 lbs nominal
vacuum thrust) pump-fed liquid-hydrogen
engine for
ULA as a tech-demonstrator precursor of an eventual RL-10 class upper
stage engine, and working with Masten
Space Systems on
methane propulsion for Masten’s vehicle for the DARPA
XS-1 highly-reusable
rocket stage program.
9:50 am –
Portland
State Aerospace Society, Nathan
Bergey. PSAS is a student aerospace engineering project at Portland
State University, building ultra-low-cost, open source rockets.
10:05 am –
Space
Studies Institute,
Gary
Hudson, President, on SSI’s G-Lab
orbital variable-G
life-sciences lab project.
10:30 am – <break>
11:00 am – Altius
Space Machines,
Jon Goff.
Altius is a space technology company that is developing the
innovative HatchBasket SmallSat
Deployment System, ISS “Shirt Sleeve” Glovebox
Robotics, Unique Grasping technologies to grasp a boulder off of an
asteroid, Rendezvous and Docking solutions enabled by robotics and
grasping Sticky Boom technology, and a potentially revolutionary
Plasma
Aerocapture electrodynamic reentry system.
11:35 – Doug Messier
writes
on space at Parabolic
Arc out
of Mojave, and will give a talk on The
Future Ain’t What It Used To Be: Lessons Learned In Commercial
Spaceflight Since The Ansari X Prize.
12 noon – Frontier
Astronautics,
Timothy Bendel.
Frontier provides affordable and reliable rocket engines and attitude
control systems, as well as custom design and testing services for
customer’s rocket engines or flight vehicles
12:25 pm – <lunch
break>
2:00 pm – Masten
Space Systems,
Dave Masten.
Masten Space is a leading developer of VTVL
suborbital payload-carrying systems and provider of planetary
lander systems flight-testbed services, and is one of three
contractors for the DARPA
XS-1 highly-reusable high-performance rocket stage program.
2:50 pm – Brigham
Young University students
Patrick Walton on
PIC 1.0: Visual
Inspection Performed by a CubeSat,
Jessica Morgan
on
Origami-Based
Deployable Space Mechanisms,
and Brett Coles
and Jeshua Mortensen on
the BYU/Central
Utah Tooling Nanosat Launch Group.
3:10 pm – Robert
Steinke will
report on the potential of battery-powered propellant pumps, given
that R/C hobbyist motors and batteries are now competitive with
peroxide-monoprop gas-generator turbines.
3:25 pm – Ed Wright,
Citizens In Space/US Rocket Academy,
and Prof. Justin Karl, University of Central Florida,
on developing payloads for the Lynx Cub suborbital
payloads carrier.
3:45 pm – <break>
4:15 pm – Rand
Simberg gives
his views on Current
Policy Priorities. Rand
is a self-described recovering aerospace engineer, and is a
well-known space and current-events blogger,
editorialist,
and author
of
Safe
Is Not An Option.
4:40 pm – Rick
Wills is
working with Midwest
Propulsion Group and
will report on their vintage rocket and jet-turbine engine
restoration projects.
4:55
pm – Jim
Muncy, PoliSpace,
on CSLA, The
Learning Period, and
such other Policy Issues as
May Occur.
5:35 pm – New Models For
Off-Planet Settlement roundtable
discussion session. We (presumably) already believe long-term
off-planet settlement is essential. The time has arrived to talk
about the most practical way to make it happen as soon as possible.
The purely public model has failed, between extremely high
public-agency costs and at-best still relatively flat long-term
public space budgets. One purely private model, bootstrapping a space
media project by the multiple orders of magnitude needed to finance a
settlement, may once again be falling short. What sort of
public/private or alternative pure-private model might actually
produce sustainable off-planet settlement? “COTS 2”,
building on the original COTS (Commercial Cargo) low-cost commercial
system development model to affordably produce the needed
transportation, habitation, and other systems, has been suggested and
sounds to us viable – but is there a better model out there? If not,
what will be involved in implementing “COTS 2”? Help us
start sorting all this out.
6:15 pm – SA’15
sessions done. Once
you’re back from dinner, see you at the Prestwick
Spaceport Scotch Tasting Part
2, at Hospitality
till
way late, in the Hotel
Bar,
and hanging ’round the pool deck – it’s time to enjoy a
traditional Space
Access Saturday night.
– Weather
Local
weather for our dates is forecast clear and very dry, days reaching
the nineties by mid-afternoon, cool nights in the high sixties.
Conference style is informal, averaging somewhere near business
casual, and the hotel has a nice pool and spa – pack accordingly.
Sunglasses, sunscreen, and/or a hat are good too, if you’re planning
to be outdoors during the day for any length of time. And remember to
drink plenty of fluids; the humidity will be very low and you can
dehydrate easily even if you’re not taking long hikes in the sun.
– Getting To the Hotel
From The Airport
We’re at the Radisson Hotel
Phoenix North, 10220
North Metro Parkway East in Phoenix (the northeast quadrant of
the ring road around Phoenix’s Metrocenter Mall), about ten miles
north of central Phoenix and fifteen from the Phoenix Airport, off
I-17 near the Peoria Rd exit. The Radisson does have a shuttle van,
but it’s for local trips around the hotel only, no airport runs.
The blue Super Shuttle
airport van costs $19 a person to the Radisson (make sure you ask for
“Radisson Phoenix North, in Metrocenter” so you don’t end
up at the wrong Radisson) $36 round-trip. Cab fare from the
airport should be around $40-$50, depending on traffic. (Phoenix
weekday rush hours run roughly 7-9 am and 3-6 pm, and the hotel is
across the center of town from the airport, so it may be slow going
during those hours.)
– Via Rental Car
If you’re renting a car,
you’ll need to catch an airport shuttle bus to the rental car center
just west of the airport. Once you have your car, you can take a left
out of the rental center exit, follow the signs for I-10 West through
a number of turns and lights, take I-10 West through downtown Phoenix
for about four miles, then exit onto I-17 North. Take I-17 North for
about ten miles to Exit 208 (Peoria Ave).
At the bottom of the I-17
North Exit 208 ramp, turn left under the freeway onto Peoria, then
left again after about 1/4 mile (at the light) onto 28th Drive, then
left again at the next light (about 2 blocks) onto Metro Parkway. The
hotel will be on your right in just over a block, and hotel parking
is free.
The alternative route,
less well-marked but fewer lights, and partially bypassing downtown,
is to take a left out of the rental car center exit, then left at the
first major cross-street (Buckeye Rd), left again at the next major
cross street (16th St), drive south on 16th for half a mile then just
before going under the freeway turn right onto the I-17 access road.
Bear left onto the I-17 North onramp, drive about 15 miles to Exit
208 Peoria Ave, then follow the directions as above.
– Public Transit
If you’re not in a hurry and
want to save some money and/or see a bit of the city, you can take
the local “Light
Rail” trolley line about two-thirds of the way to the hotel.
Catch the free “Sky Train” Light Rail shuttle
from the airport to the local Light Rail station, buy a ticket at the
vending machine in the station ($2 for one ride, $4 for an all-day
pass if you might want to get off and on again, cash or credit card)
then catch the next “19th Ave & Montebello” train that
comes along.
Once you’re at 19th Ave and
Montebello, the current northern end of the Light Rail line, you’re
about five miles from the hotel. Cab fare from there should be around
$15, or if you want to complete the urban public transit experience,
you can take the “19th
Avenue Connector” bus to Metrocenter for free – it runs four
times an hour weekdays, twice an hour weekends and evenings, and
takes about 25 minutes to Metrocenter. Once at the Metrocenter
Transit Center, you’ll be on the southwest side of the mall inner
loop, and the hotel is on the northeast – you’ll have to walk the
last third of a mile or so – either direction around the inner loop
is about the same, and when you get to either the Sprint store at the
corner of 28th Drive (walking clockwise) or the Phoenix Public
Library branch (walking counterclockwise), that’s the back of the
Radisson right behind them.
The Radisson hotel shuttle
van will take you as far as the Light Rail station at 19th
& Montebello by arrangement,
so if you’re not in a hurry it will be possible to get back to the
airport Sunday morning for the $2 Light Rail fare. Check with the
hotel for van departure details, check the Light
Rail schedule, and allow plenty of time. (Don’t forget there’s
another shuttle to catch from the Light Rail to the airport
terminals.)
– Driving Into Town
Take your best route to I-17
Exit 208 Peoria Ave (about ten miles north of I-10). At the bottom of
the Exit 208 ramp, turn west onto Peoria (left under the freeway if
you’re coming from the south, right if you’re coming from the north)
then after about 1/4 mile on Peoria, turn left at the light onto 28th
Drive, then left again almost immediately at the next light onto
Metro Parkway. The hotel will be on your right in just over a block;
hotel parking is free.
Space Access conferences are
designed to let people who are serious about low-cost space
transportation get together, trade information, make deals, and learn
useful things. Dress averages business casual, and we don’t do
rubber-chicken banquets – just an intensive single-track
presentations schedule with relaxed on-your-own meal breaks, in a
setting with plenty of comfortable places in the hotel and nearby to
go off for food, drink, and talk – not least of these our
world-famous volunteer-run Space Access Hospitality Suite, in room
156/158.
Audience
Questions
We
have wireless microphones for audience questions. Please wait till
the speaker calls for questions, and if you’re picked for a question,
please wait for a volunteer to get a microphone to you. Then speak
normally from a few inches in front of the mike. (Not off to one side
of it – these mikes are highly directional.) (And don’t play
with the buttons; the volunteer will hand the mike to you live and
ready to go, green light on.) (And give the mike back when you’re
done!)
As
always, please keep questions organized, short and to the point, and
above all, polite – we’re here to shed light, not generate waste
heat. Your help in keeping the program moving along briskly and
informatively is greatly appreciated!
Speakers –
we have undoubtedly scheduled some of you before your flight arrives,
after it leaves, or in some other way made life difficult for you.
Also, travel problems happen. If so let us know (email
is best) and we’ll do our best to fix it.
Should you arrive in the
evening after Registration has closed, just go on in and catch the
sessions, and get registered the next morning.
Check the conference program
book for any late schedule changes that may affect you. Last-second
changes during the conference itself (if any) will be announced and
handwritten onto the program schedule posted by Registration.
Please note the length of
your timeslot, and prepare accordingly – we recommend you aim your
presentation at taking roughly 3/4s of your allotted time, to allow
time for audience Q&A. Also, note that the schedule is long, and
packed, and timeslots in general are short. The upside of this is,
we’re single-track throughout – during your time, you’ll have
the entire audience. We are very glad to have so many interesting
speakers willing to show up – thanks! We do have a very full
agenda running well into the evenings, and we really do need to keep
the program running on schedule. Your help in keeping to your
timeslot, and in making the transitions at the start and end of your
talk as quick and clean as possible, will be greatly appreciated.
To help you get on stage
quickly, if your presentation is static slides only, you can save it
as a .PDF and either email it to us in advance or hand it to our A/V
person on a stick (by the start of the previous break if possible,
please! And make sure it’s clear what talk it’s for.)
If you have video,
animations, sound, or just prefer to save in PPT files, to avoid
compatibility delays please bring your presentation set up to run on
your own machine. We’ll have a 15-pin VGA plus headphone audio
connection, as well as a standard (type A) HDMI connection plus a
mini (type C) HDMI adapter, plus power at the podium for you to
connect to. (If your machine needs any other special adapter to talk
to one of these, please bring it – there are far too many such
for us to try to stock.)
Please
let
Henry Vanderbilt the Conference Manager know you’re on site
and
good to go well ahead of time; it’ll reduce his stress level
appreciably, especially if he doesn’t yet know you by sight. He’ll be
the tall fellow operating the PA and vid cam setup front-right in the
hall, in between introducing speakers. Keep an eye on the program
copy posted at Registration for schedule changes affecting your talk.
Oh, and please show up for your talk a few minutes early so Gerry
Nordley or Tim Kyger (who’ll trade off running the A/V setup at the
podium) can set things up for you.
We’ll
also be keeping introductions to a bare minimum (we figure the
audience is there to listen to you, not us) and if people come up to
talk to you afterwards, please ask them to walk with you to the
ballroom lobby so we can get the next talk underway. Thanks!
As for SA’15
conference fundraising,
as of April 26th we’ve reached $8080 of the ten thousand we need to
make this conference sustainable. (Yes, we’re doing the conference
now regardless of whether we reach our goal. The commitment we’ve
made to all of you entirely aside, hotel contract cancellation
penalties are downright fierce.) The place raising the last part of
our goal makes a difference now is in the degree of conference
followup we can do afterward. EG, finally after all these years
getting set up to start processing and posting conference videos
online.
If you believe that Space
Access conferences are useful to this community, and that keeping
conference prices as low as possible for all of us who are still
students, hungry amateurs, or tight-budget startup pros is still the
way to go, help, please. Donate
online, or send a
donation of whatever size – ten, a hundred, a thousand, it all helps
– via check to: Space Access Society, PO Box 16034, Phoenix AZ 85011.
(Note that this is NOT
tax-deductible, as we are not a 501c-anything. It is however entirely
confidential, as we have never and will never share or disclose in
any way our supporters’ names. Our ongoing gratitude goes out to all
who’ve supported us over the years and who continue to help.)
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