Northern Virginia Student Aerospace Conference
Future Frontiers: to the Moon and Beyond!

March 11, 2008
TJHSST Auditorium

The aerospace industry will soon face a 'brain drain' as the first generation of aerospace engineers retires, and Excelsior realizes the importance of inspiring more young people to enter the field. Most students in the US do not have the opportunity to meet engineers, hear their stories, and feel the passion for what they do. Excelsior hopes to change this by hosting an annual aerospace conference that is aimed at high school students. Students, if you are planning to attend, please download the Registration Form. Sign up by mailing in this form with a $5 check. Or email us with the form and pay $10 at the door. Teachers, if would like to help us publicize this event at your school, please download the Flier.

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Last Year's Conference

We hope you all had fun at this year's conference. Thanks to all who came! We hope to see you at next year's conference. In order to make next year's conference even better, please email us with your suggestions and/or comments on our first conference. Thank you!

We are very grateful to Dr. Ann Palkovich of the GMU Provost Office Sponsorship of Events, Advanced Systems Technology and Management, Inc., and David Brandt of Lockheed Martin for their generous contributions to Excelsior Club that made this conference possible.

Special thanks to all the speakers, their companies, and everybody who invited them, including Karen McCann, Lance Sherry, Randy Mimiaro, Victoria Friedensen, Hannah Goldberg, Pat Watts, Annemarie Mycka, and Carlos Nunez. We'd also like to thank John Dell and Adam Kemp for sponsoring NVSAC and Excelsior. Thanks to Tony Casipit, Myra Thayer, Lee Burton, Chris Beacham, Aaron Perman, Caroline Kim, Sam Pell, Judith Fogel, Gary Bottorff, Arundhati Jayarao, and all who helped out. Last but not least, we'd like to thank Ann Palkovich, Luis Fernandez, and everybody else from GMU for giving us the opportunity to use this facility free of rent.
~ NVSAC Planning Committee: Esther Li, Nastia Rumiantsev, Kelly Ran, Ashley Lewis, Michael Mensing, Ben Lash, Matt Green, Joel Stein, Katherine Donahue, Nishad Samant, and the rest of TJ Excelsior Club

We are just now realizing the importance of creating more US engineers. The aerospace industry especially will soon experience a shortage as the first generation of aerospace engineers retires. Excelsior realizes the importance of inspiring more young people to enter the field, and as students planning to go into engineering fields we know what it takes to get inspired. We have had the opportunities to meet engineers, hear their stories, and feel the passion for what they do. Most students in the US do not get these opportunities and Excelsior hopes to change this by hosting annual aerospace conferences aimed at high school students.

Students, if you are planning to attend, please download the Registration Form. Sign up by mailing in this form with a $10 check. Or email us with the form and pay $15 at the door. Teachers, if would like to help us publicize this event at your school, please Teachers, if would like to help us publicize this event at your school, please download the Flier in PDF (or doc).download the Flier in PDF (or doc).

Astronaut Paul Lockhart spoke about our future Lunar Outpost!

display booths = internship/programs/companies advertisement NVSAC Schedule - Friday March 9th, 2007 at George Mason University Ball Room

presentation time - Q&A time length Event / presentation title Speaker

8:00 - 9:00 check in, set-up

9:00 - 9:10 10 Introduction, Acknowledgments Esther and Nastia

9:10 - 9:40 - 9:50 30+10 1. Keynote - Exploring the Future ~ Return to the Moon Astronaut PAUL LOCKHART, NASA

9:50 - 10:20 - 10:30 30+10 2. Virginia. Spaceport Robert Parker, Air Force

10:30 - 10:40 10 break + display booths

10:40 - 11:10 - 11:15 30+5 3. Orion Crew Vehicle and the Next Generation of Explorers David Brandt, Lockheed-Martin

11:15 - 11:35 - 11:40 30+5 3. Careers in Outer Space! David Brandt

11:40 - 12:00 - 12:10 20+10 4. Northrop Grumman Education and Outreach Sophia Kim, Northrop Grumman

12:10 - 12:50 40 lunch provided by GMU (donations only) + display booths

12:50 - 1:10 20 5. Overview of the Naval Center for Space Technology and NRL Student Programs Patrick Binning, NRL

1:10 - 1:30 - 1:40 20+10 6. Student Involvement at the Naval Center for Space Technology Ivan Galysh, NRL

1:40 - 2:10 - 2:20 30+10 7. Convolutions in Deployable Design & Simplified Sensing Jason Ethier, Duke University

2:20 - 2:30 10 break + display booths

2:30 - 3:20 - 3:30 50+10 8. Ringed Planet Rendezvous: Cassini at Saturn and Huygens at Titan Robert Naeye, Goddard Space Center

3:30 - 4:00 - 4:10 30+10 9. The Wrong Stuff: How a Submariner and Physicist Became an Astronaut Finalist, and What Happened Then. Ralph Chatham, Defense Projects

4:10 - 4:20 10 break + display booths

4:20 - 5:05 - 5:15 45+10 10. MIT Mars Gravity Biosatellite Elizabeth Deems & Dan Judnick, MIT

5:15 - 5:35 - 5:40 20+5 11. The Hubble Story John Maguire, Aerospace Corp

5:40 - 6:00 20 End - Closing statements Conference Committee

6:00 - 6:30 clean up

More about the conference:

Date: Friday, March 9th , 2007
Time: 9:00am – 6:00pm (internship fair during lunch)
Place: George Mason University , Fairfax Campus Ball Room. Click here for directions.
Address: 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22032 (the university)
Cost: $10/student. $15 at the door.
Audience: 100 – 150 students

Including about 40 students from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST)

Theme: Aerospace explorations in the future
Events: Lectures, discussions, information on aerospace internships, and job opportunities

The idea for this conference came from TJHSST Excelsior Club a year ago as we realized the importance of creating more U.S. aerospace engineers. The purpose of the Excelsior Club is to facilitate the Systems Engineering Class to design and build a picosatellite, TJ3SAT, with the sponsorship of Orbital Sciences. The purpose of NVSAC is to help students throughout Northern Virginia (and more states in the future) become more informed about aerospace in high school and get the opportunity to possibly start "Excelsior Clubs" at their own schools.