Alan Stern, former head of the New Horizons mission to Pluto and former head of NASA space science division, is also involved in several commercial ventures, including Uwingu, which aims to raise money for space science projects via profit making products and services. The first Uwingu service invites the public to suggest names for the many planets that are being found orbiting other stars. The names selected will not be official or binding but the activity can still be fun for the public. Stern talks with New Scientist about Uwingu and exoplanet naming: We need to rethink how we name exoplanets – New Scientist.
The South by Southwest (SXSW 2013) festival (March 8-17, Austin Texas) combines “original music, independent films, and emerging technologies”. This year there will be a
panel on “Crowd-sourcing the Space Frontier” will include Anousheh Ansari, who visited the International Space Station in 2006 and was name sponsor for the Ansari X-Prize in 2001, and Citizens in Space project manager and citizen-astronaut candidate Edward Wright.
Here is a video of the “New Visions for Space” Google hangout event (see earlier post) held earlier this week on Feb. 6th. The goal was to
feature young voices from NASA Academy, Yuri’s Night, AIAA Young Professionals Committee, The Moon Society and others to talk about how exciting all of the new developments in space are, and how all of us are making a real difference in our space future.
Participants included:
The BIL Conference – Carter Gibson (Moderator)
The Moon Society – Ken Murphy (Organizer)
Liftport – Michael Laine (Co-Organizer)
Yuri’s Night – Brice Russ
Starstryder – Pamela Gay
SEDS – Michael Zwach
NASA Academy – Will Pomerantz
ISU-USA – Laura Burns
AIAA YPC – Alison Lauderbach