MichSpace

FutureTech is a premier business and technology conference, bringing together representatives from the Ross School of Business, the College of Engineering, the School of Information, and major corporations from around the world. It is one of the largest conferences at the business school and provides a forum for top talent and industry leaders to discuss the intersection of business and technology. The topic of this year’s conference is: “Innovations Worth Sharing.”

One man I believe has innovations worth sharing is Jon Goff, which is why I'm glad SEDS@UM is able to bring him to the University. Goff was one of the founding members of Masten Space Systems, winner of NASA’s Lunar Lander Challenge and Masten’s lead propulsion engineer. Now he is starting his own aerospace company, Altius Space Machines, to close many of the gaps impeding space commercialization. Goff is focusing on the rapid prototyping of new and enabling technologies for reusable launch vehicles (RLV) such as Masten’s Xogdor or Armadillo’s SuperMod. This means pursuing a wide range of product lines including nanosatellites launchers with reusable first stages, upper stages for suborbital RLVs, micro reentry vehicles, and low-maintenance thermal protection systems.

Altius Space Machines has recently signed a contract with United Launch Alliance to aid in the development of the Integrated Vehicle Fluids (IVF) system for the Centaur and Delta Second Stage. The IVF module has the potential to eliminate the need for hydrazine and helium thrusters by using the remaining LOX and LH2 in the main propellant tanks. In addition to reducing launch costs, this exciting technology is seen as a major stepping-stone towards orbital fuel depots. This announcement is following an earlier contract to develop, integrate, and flight test an avionics box and GN&C solution for a DARPA-funded project to test small-scale propulsion technologies suitable to guide the upper stage of a nanosat launcher to orbit.

Read more:
Jon Goff at Selenian Boondocks

FuturTech at U-M Ross School of Business

SEDS@UM is proud to host Rick Tumlinson for our First Annual Challenger Memorial Lecture. Tumlinson is the co-founder of the well known and influential Space Frontier Foundation, which has been called “pound for pound the most effective space organization on Earth.” A protégé of Dr. Gerard K. O’Neill, Tumlinson is a space visionary and has been named among the one hundred most influential people in the space industry by Space News. He is also known as a catalyst to the “NewSpace” revolution, leading to the formation of private space companies by Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos and dozens of other space entrepreneurs. He led the team which leased the Russian Mir space station as the world’s first commercial space facility, signed up the first so-called “space tourist” Dennis Tito (thereby starting the commercial space travel industry), was a founding trustee of the X-Prize Foundation, Chief Executive of the $25 million FINDS space research endowment, and a co-founder of LunaCorp – which produced the first television commercial to be shot in space (for Radio Shack aboard the International Space Station).


Over the years Tumlinson has been a lead witness in six congressional hearings on the future of NASA, the US space program and space tourism. In early 2004, he testified before Senator John McCain and the Senate Space and Technology Committee on the Moon, Mars and Beyond program. Tumlinson has given many talks and speeches in the field of space advocacy ranging from critiques and discussions of current national space policy, to the presentation of a "Frontier" ideology for opening space, to the how and why of returning to the Moon, to the search for other life and the reasons why humans are reaching for the stars. I hope to see you there!

I know some of you have been wondering what's going on in SEDS@UM these days... Other than SpaceVision and MEDMA Impulse, it seems like we haven't had a whole lot of events this year. Well, that's about to change! The council has been hard at work making travel arrangements, locking down funding, and planning logistics for three major talks in the Winter term! I wont tell you who's coming just yet, but I think it'll knock your socks off! Stay tuned to Michspace.org this week for upcoming announcements about our speakers and other great events on the schedule.

Such as: Yuri's Night 2011. That's right, we've already started planning this epic. As you know, those of us here at SEDS@UM pride ourselves on the knowledge that we not only give you access to the industry's top minds, but also the best parties. The wheels are turning and we're bringing back the folks from Necto, MEDMA, and the Russian Student Association once again to make this the biggest space rave in the Midwest. Also, I'm pleased to say for the younger crowd, we'll be having educational and outreach events throughout the week. If you would like to get involved or share your ideas, shoot an email to the council, seds-council@umich.edu. Believe me, this is going to be even bigger than before!

Space be with you,
--Harv

Space Exploration Technologies is gearing up for the first demonstration of its Dragon space capsule aboard the Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday, December 7. Back up flight windows are on December 8 or 9. The flight will pave the way for SpaceX to provide cargo resupply to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Student Ambassadors in conjunction with S3FL and SEDS@UM are going to have a public viewing of the launch!

Atmospheric science Ph.D. student Harvey Elliott [that's me!] spent the summer chasing dust storms and measuring their electrical charges. My travels took me to Niamey, Niger and Boulder City, Nevada where I was working with AOSS Professor Nilton Renno to better understand the phenomenon of the electrification of dust and sand particles as they bounce along a surface. I wont say too much here, but my experiences were covered recently in the November 2010 issue of Discover Magazine [page 34] and on Michigan Engineering's blog, LabLog, here.



Read more about Professor Nilton Renno

Learn more about Professor Renno's ENG 450 class