National Space Symposium Show News - April 7-10, 2008 - (Page 3)

50th Anniversary Celebrated, But Future Is the Real Priority The Space Foundation is celebrating 50 years in space at the 24th National Space Symposium this week, but while we “tip our hats toward history,” the real focus is on the future, says Foundation president and CEO Elliot Pulham. “Our priority though is to deliver the absolute finest trade show of the year for the space indusElliot Pulham. try,” he says, while at the same promoting education by hosting teachers and students and the sixth annual Career Fair, which takes place on Thursday. The Foundation is striving to present what Pulham calls “new space,” hosting Anousheh Ansari of Prodea Systems. “People like Branson and Bigelow and Elon Musk and others are really doing a great service,” Pulham told Show News. “Young people are interested not in flyAVIATION WEEK President Tom Henricks SHOW NEWS Briefing Publisher Greg Hamilton Editor-In-Chief John Morris Morrisoff@aol.com 860-365-0445 Senior Editor Rich Piellisch Senior Art Director & IT Manager Kirk Fetzer Editorial Assistant Mara Morris Director of Sales Mark Flinn mark_flinn@aviationweek.com Operations Manager Erving Dockery, Jr. ing around in circles in lower earth’s orbit,” he says. “They want to do something new.” A first-ever forum featuring four of the five surviving former NASA administrators, James Beggs, Robert Frosch, Sean O'Keefe and Richard Truly will provide insight on how the agency might fare after the November election, and how it can maintain its relevance. “We will take a little stroll down memory lane,” Pulham says, “but at the same time we are going to have some of the biggest brains ever to sit in the big chair talk about the future.” “We think this is going to be a really upbeat show,” he says. “All the indicators are that we will have somewhere north of 7,500 people here during the week, all trying to do business, and have a good time. “It is the 50th anniversary for space. It is the 25th anniversary for the Space Foundation. We will talk a little bit about history, but not too much, and try to stay focused on the future.” Space Foundation Sixth Career Fair The Space Foundation will hold its sixth Space Career Fair on Thursday. The Space Career Fair is open to college students in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and business administration, or transitioning military. “We need to attract new talent to the industry,” says Foundation president Elliot Pulham. “We need to help our school systems and colleges and universities deliver competent, capable, technically proficient people.” Arthur C. Clarke, ‘Sorely Missed’ He raised the expectations of millions, and arguably made possible the space business plans of today’s Bransons and Bigelows and Musks. Without Arthur C. Clarke, and works like 2001: a Space Odyssey, they might have no customers. The space visionary and author died March 19 at Apollo Hospital in his adopted home country of Sri Lanka, from respiratory complications following a brief illness. He was 90. Clarke is credited with proposing the concept of geostationary satellite communications in an October 1945 article for the magazine Wireless World. In his concept, three “space stations” in geostationary orbit could relay communications around the globe. He wrote that some people might consider his idea “too far-fetched to be taken very seriously,” but 19 years later the first geostationary telecom satellite, Syncom 3, was launched. In 1954, Clarke proposed using satellites for meteorology, and in later years championed the concept of using space elevators as a low-cost means to send cargo to orbit. Clarke was born to a farming family in England in 1917, and moved to London in 1936, where he joined the British Interplanetary Society and began to write science fiction. During World War II he was a Royal Air Force radar specialist. He went on to write more than 100 books. Clarke’s most influential work was his collaboration with Stanley Kubrick on 1968’s landmark 2001. The film drew on Clarke’s 1948 story, “The Sentinel.” “One of the things that really strikes me,” said Arthur C. Clarke Space Foundation president and CEO Elliot Pulham, “is how important entertainment, popular fiction, is to the way that people form their opinions about our business. “The work that Sir Arthur did was certainly seminal work and encouraged other people to write, create, paint, postulate. And you see it in our industry.” “He had a huge impact on the imagination of future technologies and will be sorely missed,” said Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic. April 2008 3 SHOW NEWS Briefing is published at the 24th National Space Symposium by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121 AVIATION WEEK also publishes Show News, Aviation Week & Space Technology, Aviation Daily, Aerospace Daily & Defense Report, Business and Commercial Aviation, Overhaul & Maintenance, The Weekly of Business Aviation, Defense Technology International, and the World Aerospace Database including World Aviation Directory. Material in this publication may not be reproduced in any form without permission. © Copyright 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Library of Congress ISSN 1092-6151 www.aviationweek.com/shownews http://www.aviationweek.com/shownews

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of National Space Symposium Show News - April 7-10, 2008

Arthur Clarke, 1917-2008 Critical Questions Loom Beyond the Rocket Motor New GPS for the USAF Generals Have Their Say 2,500 Years in Space Virgin Senses Sea-Change Technology Spin-Offs

National Space Symposium Show News - April 7-10, 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.