"This site isn't dead, it just spends a lot of time hibernating lately..." Latest update, 11/15/08 - Space Access '09 Preliminary Info.
Space Access '09, our upcoming 17th annual conference on the technology, politics, and business of radically cheaper access to space, will take place Thursday April 2nd through Saturday April 4th 2009 at the Best Western Grace Inn in Phoenix Arizona. Our conference attendee hotel room rate is $99 a night tax included, single or double, and comes with full buffet breakfast. For reservations, call 1-800-843-6010 and ask for the Space Access Conference 2009 room block. Conference advance registration is $100, mail checks along with your name, email, and organization (if any) for your badge to: Space Access '09, 5555 N 7th St #134-348, Phoenix AZ 85014. We'll be posting a preliminary conference agenda in the coming weeks.
There are countless useful, interesting, and profitable things we could do if we had routine affordable access to space. But, as the old down-Maine joke goes, "you can't get there from here." Half a century into the Space Age, it still takes years of permits and planning and costs tens to hundreds of millions per mission to reach low Earth orbit, drastically constraining the otherwise huge opportunities. It isn't the laws of physics or engineering that are stopping us - there's nothing in either that prevents reusable rockets based on available technology from operating at costs and reliabilities a lot closer to modern airliners than to current rockets. Yet somehow, after all the early promise, we ended up in a blind alley. We've spent a generation there. Enough is enough.
Space Access Society thinks the problem has a lot more to do with political and bureaucratic inertia than with any fundamental engineering obstacles. SAS's sole purpose is to promote routine, reliable, radically cheaper access to space, ASAP. We think it's possible within the decade, with a little luck and a lot of hard work. Welcome to our minimalist retro text-intensive web page, where we'll try to give you a handle on how we think we can get out of the current NASA-industrial complex expensive-space dead end. Here's the longer version: Space Access Society Policy Summary
Here's our last newsletter, coming up on its third anniversary - in sum, we see no fundamental changes in the situation in the last couple years, but lots of incremental progress. Outlook continues cautiously optimistic.
Space Access Update #114 2/20/06
And here's our Updates backlist, so you can see how our understanding of the problem has evolved over the years:
Space Access Update back issues
SAS no longer takes paid memberships or donations. The short version is, we no longer have a full-time Executive Director; we're now run by a volunteer committee and thus need less budget. As for Space Access Society membership, SAS has always been more a state of mind than it has been a formal organization. If you believe radically cheaper space access is both hugely important and near-term possible, you're one of us. Pay your dues by doing what you can to advance the cause, as the chance arises.
We are continuing our annual Space Access conference on the technology, politics, and business of radically cheaper space transportation, featuring leading players in the field - here's last spring's actual program book for Space Access '08 to give you an idea of the flavor. Coming up next, Space Access '09, now set for April 2-4 at the Best Western Grace Inn in Phoenix Arizona. Our seventeenth (we've been at this that long?) annual conference will again be an interesting mix of the usual suspects and some unusual new additions, once again providing an intensive informal snapshot of where the growing cheap space access industry is this coming spring of 2009.
Questions? Email us at: space.access@space-access.org (We may take a while to get back to you; we all have day jobs these days, but your mail does go through.)
Space Access Update Back Issues
SAU #114 -20 Feb 06 Update
SAU #113 - 4 Jan 06 Update
SAU #112 - 9 Sep 05 Update
SAU #111 - 5 Apr 05 Update
SAU #110 -31 Mar 05 Update
SAU #109 -15 Feb 05 Update
SAU #108 -31 Jan 05 Update
SAU #107 - 2 Dec 04 Update
SAU #106 -19 Nov 04 Update
SAU #105 -19 Oct 04 Update
SAU #104 -29 Sep 04 Update
SAU #103 -15 Apr 04 Update
SAU #102 - 9 Feb 04 Update
SAU #101 -13 Dec 03 Update
SAU #100 - 8 Feb 03 Update
SAU #99 - 13 Dec 02 Update
bulletin - 12 Feb 02 bulletin
SAU #98 - 8 Mar 01 Update
SAU #97 - 26 Jan 01 Update
SAU #96 - 26 Sep 00 Update
SAU #95 - 27 Aug 00 Update
SAU #94 - 9 Jul 00 Update
SAU #93 - 13 Apr 00 Update
SAU #92 - 5 Apr 00 Update
SAU #91 - 7 Feb 00 Update
SAU #90 - 10 Oct 99 Update
SAU #89 - 25 Sep 99 Update
SAU #88 - 24 Jul 99 Update
SAU #87 - 19 Jul 99 Update
SAU #86 - 25 Jun 99 Update
SAU #85 - 18 Jun 99 Update
SAU #84 - 17 Jun 99 Update
SAU #83 - 3 Jun 99 Update
SAU #82 - 12 May 99 Update
SAU #81 - 5 Mar 99 Update
SAU #80 - 28 Feb 99 Update
SAU #79 - 8 Oct 98 Update
SAU #78 - 6 Nov 97 Update
SAU #77 - 16 Oct 97 Update
SAU #76 - 3 Oct 97 Update
SAU #75 - 23 Sep 97 Update
SAU #74 - 31 Aug 97 Update
SAU #73 - 14 Jul 97 Update
SAU #72 - 23 May 97 Update
SAU #71 - 6 May 97 Update
SAU #70 - 18 Oct 96 Update
SAU #69 - 31 Jul 96 Update
SAU #68 - 21 Jul 96 Update
SAU #67 - 11 Jul 96 Update
Full list of back issues available here eventually,
when we finally dig them off various retired computers...
*end*