Glad it didn't kill you, Henry :)
My vote would be for every two years in April. Easier for my failing
memory to deal with "every other April" than to try to deal with
alternating calendar months every year and a half.
Thanks again for inviting me to speak - hope I added value.
Best,
Bill
Bill Bruner, Col., USAF (ret.)
New Frontier Aerospace
bill@xxxxxxxxxx
925-456-4553
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On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 12:40 PM Henry Vanderbilt <
hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 1/13/2020 8:56 PM, willsrw wrote:
Hi
Does anyone have insight as to whether or not there will be a Space Access
Symposium this year? Last year's Symposium was a great start.
Thanks,
Rick Will
I might have some insight here. Ahem. (And yeah, it's getting past time
I shared what's going on with the conference.)
The short version: Not this April, alas. A Space Access right after Labor
Day is not impossible, but our current planning baseline is April '21.
Some background for the long version...
Agreed, last spring's Bay Area Space Access conference was
programmatically very useful. Putting a Space Access together has a way of
clarifying what the current priorities are, this one after a couple years
hiatus even more so. (More on what came out of that soon.)
Logistically speaking, doing the conference out-of-area ended up a wash -
the mix of issues straining our resources to the max changed, the net
strain alas did not. The good news: It didn't kill me - apparently I'm
getting somewhat healthier again finally.
Fiscally speaking, the Bay Area was, well, expensive. We hoped for a big
attendance bump there, we got a modest one, we just about broke even. Far
better than losing a big chunk - many thanks to everybody who worked their
hearts out helping keep things close - but not sustainable.
Net of the above: There will be more Space Access conferences. It's still
useful - it covers ground not really systematically addressed anywhere else
we're aware of. And it should be doable sustainably, though that's going
to take some more work.
We will do the next one in Phoenix. The logistics are easier and the
prices are lower.
We will not, alas, do the next Space Access this April. We were looking
into that, ran into logistical difficulties, had to punt.
We probably won't do it on an annual basis going forward either. Every
year-and-a-half to two years looks like a better interval, both to ease the
logistics, and to allow enough interesting new thinking to accumulate so
each conference has a higher cool-new-ideas to same-old-stuff ratio.
April of next year is our current baseline. Later this year, Labor Day
or shortly after, is still possible, but at this point low-probability.
RE both "later this year" and some long-term thoughts on possibly going to
a spring-fall schedule at 18 month intervals, an informal survey question:
How many would (or absolutely would not) consider coming to Phoenix
somewhat past the peak of the alien-desert-planet *hot* part of the
summer here for this thing - possibly Labor Day weekend, possibly a week
or two after, historical average ~100F midafternoon highs, ~80F overnight
lows - but to a really nice resort hotel in a really nice
many-restaurants-walkable touristy neighborhood at a very tolerable price?
I ask because end of summer is slack season for space conferences in
general - once you hit October the calendar is jammed - and late summer is
also low-cost season for conference sites here. If you've got some heat
tolerance and are willing to be seen in public in shorts, hawaiian shirt,
and a wide-brimmed hat (or in a suit by the pool) outdoors is still
livable. And even if not, this town is set up so you can spend three days
here and never be outside of air-conditioned spaces for more than thirty
seconds at a time.
Henry
