Article Courtesy of Las Cruces Sun-News
By Diana M. Alba
LAS CRUCES – Michael Blum’s conference name tag dubs him as an “astronaut-in-waiting.”He’s one of Virgin Galactic’s customers, and, if all goes well, he and five friends will launch into suborbital space about a year after the company begins its commercial space tourism operations at Spaceport America in southern Sierra County.
Personal interests are part of the reason Blum, an investor from Singapore, has traveled to Las Cruces annually to attend the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight. This year is his seventh conference. But business also drives his interest.
“Like a number of other early Virgin Galactic customers, we’re also interested in investing in Virgin’s business and what’s going to pop up around Virgin’s business,” he said. “We’re always looking at what it is and where it is that we can get involved.” Continued Blum: “This conference is a great way to connect with the local community here in southern New Mexico, with other like-minded individuals and with other companies that are bringing change to the industry.”
Blum said he believes it’s time for the government to focus more attention on space exploration, a role that can be filled by commercial aerospace companies, such as SpaceX, Bigelow Aerospace and Virgin Galactic.
Some 340 people are at the conference this year – the largest-ever attendance, said Patricia Hynes, director of the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium. The event was founded in 2005. “We have every single large player in the industry here,” she said.
The symposium began Tuesday, with a free, all-day public forum at the Pan American Center. People attending Wednesday had to pay a registration fee.
In a morning panel, representatives from three large companies spoke about the difficulty in gaining the public’s trust in their eventual spaceflights, while at the same time conducting vehicle development programs that not only allow for failures, but rely on them in order to solve as many problems as possible early on.
Jeff Greason, CEO of XCOR Aerospace, said part of that entails countering a myth that calls for everything to go right the first time.
Steven Brody, vice president of North American operations for International Space University, based in France, said this is the third year he’s attended the symposium. He said gaining exposure for the institution is one reason for the trip. Also, “I come partly to see people I know and others I’d like to meet,” he said. “The networking potential is great here.”
Author and Pulitzer winner Neil Sheehan did not speak Wednesday morning, as originally scheduled, because of an allergic reaction to a medication, Hynes said. Sheehan was slated to give the keynote address
The symposium, hosted at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, wraps up today.
Diana M. Alba can be reached at (575) 541-5443
