Profitable Upcoming Events and Useful Places to Be

Here's an interesting list of upcoming space, aerospace, venture capital and business focused events occurring over the next couple of months. Think of it a basic list of profitable places to go, interesting people to meet and useful organizations to connect with. Some of these events are even in Canada.

In order of occurrence (but not necessarily of importance) they are as follows:

• The National Angel Capital Organization is holding one of their business breakfast sessions on the topic of Raising Cash from Angels and VC's on January 20th in Mississauga, Ontario. This is a great event for business owners and entrepreneurs whether or not they they work in newspace, aerospace or some other sort of traditional space. 
• The Secure World Foundation, the Space Security Index and the Canadian Embassy in Washington D.C. are holding an Outer Space Security Briefing focusing on trends, new developments and an "assessment of the status of space security" on January 21st at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C.
• The Astronomy & Space Exploration Society (ASX) at the University of Toronto is holding their 7th Annual 'Expanding Canada's Frontiers' Symposium on January 29th in Toronto, Ontario.
• The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are holding the 13th Annual Commercial Space Transportation Conference, organized around the theme of “Igniting the Space Economy” on February 10–11 in Arlington, Virginia.
• The Lunar and Planetary Institute is holding it's Next Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference in Boulder Colorado on February 18-20th focusing on opportunities that next-generation suborbital vehicles like Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo, Blue Origin's New Shepard, XCOR's Lynx and others offer for research, education and public outreach. 
• The French Chamber of Commerce in Canada is hosting the 6th Annual Venture Capital Forum in Montreal on February 1-2 and in Boston, Massachusetts on February 3rd on the topic of "financing innovation." This years guests  are expected to include Canadian Space Agency astronaut Julie Payette and former ESA astronaut Claudie Haigneré.
• The American Conference Institute is holding an ITAR Bootcamp in San San Diego, California on February 24-25th mostly for American firms needing comprehensive, practical information on upgrading in-house ITAR compliance programs but also quite useful as background information for Canadian firms looking to grow their US business.
• The 2010 Canadian Space Commerce Association Annual General Meeting is being held in Toronto, Ontario on March 16th and is focused on the growing Canadian commercial space sector. 
• The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) is hosting a Workshop on Suborbital Platforms and Nanosatellites at the John H. Chapman Space Centre in St-Hubert, Quebec on April 14-16th.
• The SpeedNews 8th Annual Aerospace & Defense Industry Suppliers Conference is being held in Los Angeles, California on May 3-5th and is designed for equipment manufacturers, marketing representatives, analysts and raw material suppliers.
• The Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute (CASI), a nonprofit technical organization for people interested in aeronautics, space and remote sensing is holding their ASTRO 2010 conference in Toronto, Ontario on May 4-6 focused on "Canada's Future in Space: A Mission in Collaboration."
• The Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association's 2010 Annual Conference is being held in Ottawa, Ontario on May 26-28th and is focused on the topic of private equity, venture capital and their role in driving innovation.
• The next Space Investment Summit is being held in Chicago, Illinois on May 28th in conjunction with the annual International Space Development Conference (being held on May 26-28th) and will focus on prominent space focused business investors and and pre-qualified space-related business plans.
• The Canadian Institute of Geomatics is having their 2010 Canadian Geomatics Conference on June 14 - 18th in Calgary Alberta on the use of intelligent mapping to enhance Canadian global competitiveness. 
• The Space Frontier Foundation's conference on NewSpace 2010 is being held at the NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California on July 17-20th. The four day conference will explore public and private partnerships, small satellites and commercial space initiatives.
• COSPAR (the Committee on Space Research) is having it's 38th Annual Scientific Assembly in Bremen, Germany on 18-25 July 2010. This event is generally the biggest interdisciplinary conference on space science worldwide and well worth attending. 

The venture focused events are likely going to be the most boring but over the long run they might also be the most important connections that business owners and recent graduates need to make if they're truly looking to grow existing space focused businesses or fund a new space focused start-up.


LDRS 23-World's Largest Rocket Launch Music Video

Of course, not everyone is interested in the business only aspects of our upcoming next great age and for those people I've included this music video from the Tripoli Rocket Association which organizes annual amateur rocket launching events and was the first amateur organization to launch a rocket into space in 2004.

The music, written and performed by a band called CalmInSight is almost as fast as the rockets.