(left to right: Dave Salt of Telespazio-Vega GmbH, SSI Senior Associate Dr. Justin Karl, Industry legend and SSI Advisor Henry Spencer and SSI President Gary Hudson)
 
It’s dinner break on day two of the Space Access Society SA’16 in Phoenix and I just ran up to the room to get you some pictures of a couple of the day’s sessions.
The picture above shows SSI President Gary Hudson at the podium kicking off the morning panel “Paths to Reusability”, a fast paced and enlightening talk/Q&A on the widely varying approaches, market potentials and the Cons and Pros of RLV’s and ELV’s (Reusable and Expendable Launch Vehicles) .  Plus more than a bit of discussion on the effects of different soft-tech and HR policies of both long-established launch providers and companies new to the game.  If Mr. Bezos had a listener in the audience, I think he will be hearing happy words and also a bit of good advice to keep in mind from the many person-years of industry experience in the room this morning.
 
Later in the day Dr. Justin Karl gave a quick overview of the Embry-Riddle Daytona Beach Commercial Space Operations course then handed the microphone over to his UCF SpaceOps lab students Carl Christiansen, Bryan Malave, Edgardo Manzenara and Daniel Risler to present their undergrad G-Lab study plans (somewhat related to last year’s SSI G-Lab overview by Gary Hudson).
 

 
There have been, as always, a lot of great presentations at this year’s Space Access —  While it’s mostly a rockets and propulsion gathering there was MUCH talk of the need for a real G-Lab, a “LEO, CisLunar and Beyond” panel with Dave Masten, Steve Hoeser, Mitchell Clapp and Jeff Greason that hit High Frontier topics and ULA brought out slides backing SSI Senior Advisor John Mankins’ SPS-ALPHA work.
Ok, it’s after 8 here.  Mitchell Burnside Clapp of DARPA is already into his talk on the DC-X and Pioneer Rocketplane so we have to get back down to the ballroom, there’s still more to come tonight and a full day tomorrow.
If you’re in the Phoenix area you should consider a day ticket tomorrow morning – Registration opens at 8am and I think that day rate is still $60 — well worth it. It’s right at the Radisson Hotel Phoenix North, 10220 North Metro Parkway East, Phoenix Arizona.  For more information hit the Space Access Society page.