Thursday, 25 September 2008
09:00 – 11:30: SGC2008 Opening Ceremony
Welcome, Opening - Kevin Stube, SGC Manager
Keynote, Ambassador Arevalo; Chair of UN COPUOS
11:30 – 13:00: Introduction of SGC projects
13:00 – 14:00: Lunch presentations
A.C. Charina; Coordinator of SGAC NEO competition
Mary D’Souza; First place NEO competition winner
Andrew Bacon; Second place NEO competition winner
14:00 – 14:45: Nicolas Croisar, SSETI; Virtual Working
14:45 – 15:30: Jessica Culler; NASA CoLab
15:30 – 18:00: Project group work
18:00 – 20:00: Dinner at the Pearce Institute
Thursday opened bright and early with over 40 amazing young people having breakfast together and making the short trek to the 23 bus. The line led directly to the historic Pearce Institute, a classic building in the Goven area. There a welcoming address was given by Kevin Stube, the event manager of Space Generation Congress, who all delegates knew from his patient informational emails over the preceding 4-6 months since delegates had been selected. As intimately familiar with the organisation and founders, Kevin also gave a history of the founding of Space Generation Advisory Council at UNISPACEIII in Vienna, Austria.
With delegates settled and informed of the legacy upon them as representatives of the youth leaders of the world on the topic of space, the keynote speaker was welcomed. Chair of the United Nations Council on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, Ciro Arévalo gave an interactive presentation to the delegates.
Ciro Arévalo, “We have to protect space”
Summary by Laura O. García
Young people today are more prepared to have a global perception that can be very helpful to find solutions, said Ciro Arévalo, Chairman of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Use of Outer Space (COPUOS), during the first day of the Space Generation Congress (SGC), which was being held in Glasgow, Scotland.
Arévalo, who participated at SGC as the keynote speaker, pointed out that food price crises and global warming are some of the challenges that the world is facing today. Outer space and its uses also have different issues to be solved.
He remarked, among other themes, that commercialization and privatization of space should be governed. “We have to protect space”, he said, and remarked that this is crucial to keeping space exploration sustainable.
He also elaborated on the three main challenges in order to protect space, which are to keep its uses peaceful, to have a code of conduct and to achieve a much more equitable approach of space from different countries.
International cooperation is an important tool to avoid confrontation and reach arrangements, he said. “That is why it is so important to be sensitive to the needs of all the countries,” he added.
One example of collaboration among different countries is the use of space technologies like satellite images to get helpful information when natural disasters or high scale emergencies occur. “Disasters don’t respect borders,” he pointed out.
In that scenario, young people have a key role and should be listened to, he said.
During Ambassador Arevalo’s presentation, a delegation visited from the local organizing committee of the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) 2009, which will be held in Daejeon, South Korea, and which included the Ambassador from Korea Heung-Sik Choi. Following was a short introduction of a new project for each region of SGAC to represent their home areas in a decorative rug design which would be displayed at the SGAC booth at IAC 2008 during the next week. After reconvening, each SGC project was briefly described so that all delegates would be aware of each others work so far and goals for the project group time. Please see the SGC 2008 project pages for more information. Project groups broke into short planning meetings before everyone went off for various sandwiches provided by the Pearce Institute.
Lunch brought everyone back together into the main room for presentations from the winners of the “Move an Asteroid” competition which had been planned at SGC 2007. The first place winner, Mary D’Souza of Australia, and second place winner, Andrew Bacon of the UK; each presented their concepts for diverting a Near Earth Object.
After the lunch presentations, Nicolas Croisar of the Student Space Exploration and Technology Initiative Association (SSETI) gave a presentation on how that organisation had dealt with virtual working over a continent and more for its projects.
Nicolas Croisar, SSETI ASSOCIATION
Summary by Laura O. García
There are huge satellites that orbit Earth, after being developed for several years by hundreds of engineers and scientists. However, very small satellites which can be developed in less time also exist. Some of these have had university students lead their design and manufacture processes. SSETI Association is one of the organizations which creates “minisat” projects.
Nicolas Croisar, Treasurer from SSETI Association, gave a presentation about their experience as an association. He explained that SSETI was born as a student space exploration and technology initiative, and it became an association registered in France.
“We are a miniature education-oriented space agency,” Croisar said. He pointed out that it is a place to learn to gain experience and meet other space enthusiasts.
The core of that association’s activity is designing, manufacturing, testing, and launching satellites in international cooperation projects. However, it is not focused only in the engineering area. They also have individuals who support “legal advice, financial support, technical support, and phase review.”
Croisar said that universities, sponsors, and other organizations participate in the projects. Although the association used to work with the European Space Agency, nowadays it works independently.
“SWARM is our first independent project. It’s the same idea: to have fun and have an educational goal,” he said. There are going to be two kinds of satellites, called “M-Sat and F-Sat”. Together they will weigh around two kilograms.
Finally, he pointed out that work and communication done over internet is really important in their work.
Following was SGC staff member Jessica Culler speaking about NASA CoLab, which is a project at the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) which seeks to connect communities inside and outside of NASA to collaborate. To break down perceived walls around the major civil space program, NASA CoLab employs virtual
Finally, it was time for the delegates to get down to business and accomplish some project work in their first working session. After a few hours of hard work, the teams were forced to break for a dinner of home cooked soup, meat pastries, breads, and sandwiches from Janice and the kitchen crew at the Pearce Institute. The home meal was followed by a fabulous dessert of chocolate and fruit pies and cakes. The delegates then separated for a night of socialisation.