Day 1 NewSpace: Building an industry

D-L Wilkinson's picture

A synopsis of Day 1 of the Newspace Conference is difficult.  Many aspects of this exciting industry were covered.  You can view a recap of parts of it at Space Vid Cast.  We started with an alignment speach from James Muncy reminding us that we do this because human expansion is what people do.  And what is at stake with the current waffling in Washington is human presence/migration in/to space.  He also re-labeled the term "oldspace" with "Heritage Space" and emphasized that Newspace is not replacing Heritage; we need both for a viable space industry.

The primary format has been panel discussions.  Starting off with suborbital flight and then orbital flight.  Tim Perkins at lunch reviewed the history of Orion and how to have a successful space business by just building support systems instead of launch vehicles.

Alan Stern presented a projection 15 years ahead.  He gave a conservative outline of what the space industry transportation capabilities would be but emphasized that the government won't be the ones doing it.  And he proceeded to include (completely independent of OL) key pieces of the OpenLuna Business model in his talk.  Specifically using exploration and entertainment as revenue generation.  And winning on volume (small amounts from lots of people as opposed to lots from a few or even one).  Hopefully the other panels will show up on space vid cast too.  "Space: Open for Business" and "War Stories from the Entrepreneurial Frontier".

The Final presentation was "Creating a Framework for Space Tourism" by Tom Shelly - President and CEO of Space Adventures.  If you didn't know where to go for your seat in space, his is the one.   Being partnered with Armadillo space we got a sneak peak at their technology which has matured considerably since the last I saw it.

For myself, the conference is a great networking opportunity of which I have barely scratched the surface.  The work on the website has been critical to a successful encounter with folks here.  It is making the late evenings and missed dances worth it.  Will post more tomorrow.  Please, everyone, join up.  We are banking on the numbers (literally - winning on volume) so we can get our OL leaders like myself to more of these conferences so we can build the company all the way to the lunar outpost.  How much more can you ask on return for a mere $50?

D-L Wilkinson's picture

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Debi-Lee Wilkinson
VP Membership and Development
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