SpaceVision conference features Bill Nye, industry leaders

Bill Nye

Aerospace engineering students at the University of Colorado Boulder will host the annual Students for the Exploration and Development of Space Conference, SpaceVision 2011, today through Sunday, Oct. 30, in Boulder.

Bill Nye, aka “The Science Guy” and executive director of the Planetary Society, will open the conference with a keynote talk at 7:30 p.m. today at the University Memorial Center’s Glenn Miller Ballroom. Nye’s presentation is open to the public; tickets, $10, are available at http://www.spacevision2011.com.

The conference, which will continue Friday through Sunday at the Millennium Hotel in Boulder, is the largest student-organized space conference in the nation. More than 300 students from around the country are expected to attend sessions exploring the future of aerospace engineering, entrepreneurship and government policy.

(click to see full poster)

Other high-profile speakers will include Col. Chris Crawford, commander of the 21st Space Wing at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado; Simon “Pete” Worden (Brig. Gen., retired), director of NASA Ames Research Center; and George Nield, associate administrator for the Office of Commercial Space Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration.

Representatives of Virgin Galactic, Google, SpaceX and Southwest Research Institute also will participate in addition to primary conference sponsors Sierra Nevada Corp., Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance, the Space Foundation and the CU-Boulder Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences.

The general public also is invited to participate in the conference. For more information, go to http://www.spacevision2011.com.