During his speech he got the audience rolling with this quip:

"The CIA spent five years trying to decode it....and

it was only a beeping sound generated by a battery"

The 62 Mile Club held a 140+ person attended event that featured a special presentation by 900 hours in space Astronaut Rick Searfoss.

"Space... It's closer than you think." Read the tagline for this event. As we entered the Luxe Hotel in Bel Air, California we noticed the venture spirit of the design of this boutique hotel off the 405 freeway. The courtyard was well served with host drinks, hors d'oeuvres and a few display tables. USC school of engineering had a Lander powered by clean-kerosene and compressed air for azimuth control. The power plant produces 50 lbs of lift and the unit is about 45 lbs.

The 62 Miler marks the solid beginning for space event promoter Robert Jacobson and Eddie Van Pelt. The club is focused on promoting private exploration and supply to explorers of space. What many call "New Space." The featured speakers were Rick Citron, Space Financier and Gwynne Shotwell, VP, Space X, Astronaut Rick Searfoss of XCOR, John Spencer and our hosts. The event was sponsored by Wyle Labs and XCOR Aerospace.

The USC students explained to me their role in the different parts of the Lander which they called Leapfrog. "Lunar Entry and Approach Platform for Research on Ground." The professors looked on and recruited students. Even though this Lander program at USC was long before the Google Lunar Challenge, all asked expressed a want to participate with a glint in their eyes. Google has added a nice spice to learning how to build these complicated machines that land on outer lands.

Lisa Leight from Stanton Associates took the time to tell me about her involvement in a new venture: A Space Services Company for New Space Ventures. Thanks for the heads up Lisa. I went on to hear more from featured speaker Rick Citron.

Our conversation was taking place as a USC student was guiding a remote control robot that looked like a centipede. The robot would fold upon itself as well as bounce off obstructions. The student called the device a Tricycle Auto Robot, I simply called it "Trixie " the Tricycle Robot." It shared the table with SuperBot, A Self-Reconfigurable Robot coming out of the Polymorphic Robotics Lab at the University of Southern California (USC).

Michael Potter, member of the Board of Trustees of the International Space University argued that, "The New Space Revolution, of entrepreneurs pushing the world into space, stands firmly on the achievements of the small satellite Sputnik. Sputnik itself was the size of a beach ball. But that small spherical orb transformed the world far greater then the largest nuclear weapon. This one peaceful satellite captured the imagination of everyone around the world, and provoked the Americans to compete in the space race, culminating with mankind landing on the moon. Yes we are humble, but of course we celebrate!"

"Metaphor and reality intersect at 62mile club. You launch out and a few minutes later you are relating not to your country anymore but to planet Earth, to humanity as a whole.... Cool eh?! I thought Rick Searfoss comment about looking at China and imagining 1.5 billion real humans going about their daily lives was apt."

That cool quote came from Madhu Thangavelu, professor of Astronautics and Architecture at USC, author of classic work The Moon, Resources, Future Development and Colonization (signed collector's Wiley/Praxis edition is on Ebay!) and second Springer/Praxis paperback edition just out on Amazon.com.

Michael Potter, Madhu and I rode to the event together. It was fun to be in my Prius and discussing using this type of hybrid energy system for a shot at the Lunar Moon Challenge. We also all seemed to hear these points from Colonel Rick Searfoss:

New Space companies will need Experienced Management teams. (The level of mature management teams with credible plans is greater now than at any other time in history Colonel Searfoss argued)

New Space companies need a short to mid-term plan. These guys want you to show profits in three years.

New Space companies need a strategy for obtaining finance. This seemed to come down to having a great idea, a great, seasoned, management team and knowing where the cash-flow is going to come from.

We enjoyed listening to Colonel Searfoss talk as he profiled and shared his years of experience with commercial space start-up companies. He spoke about his new engagement at XCOR Aerospace as a great opportunity to be a test pilot.

Colonel Searfoss also told us that Dr. Goddard is not dead. And as Dr. Goddard is the father of modern rocketry the Colonel fondly remembered the Dr. saying dreams become hope and hope becomes reality.

It seemed in Goddard's honor that he said, "We're going to fly people to the edge of space."

He also gave his website at www.astronautspeaker.com .

After looking at pictures of the evening and responding to my email, Ms. Daphne Dador, Manager, Education and Workforce Development, California Space Education and Workforce Institute (CSEWI) wrote:

"I was in a room with musicians, artists, investment bankers, aerospace engineers, old, young, Hollywood glam, office casual, basically all walks of life, with maybe nothing in common except a passion for space travel and development. The 62 Mile Club really has the potential to make space travel a part of popular culture."

Ms. Shotwell of SpaceX gave the audience a grand overview of SpaceX's dreams, hopes and realities. One of the current realities is SpaceX moving into a 500,000 sq. ft. facility in Hawthorne, California. One of the hopes that have come true is funding for the development of their Dragon capsule for LEO. And one of the dreams is manned flights to Mars. SpaceX is surely showing all the right moves at being the vanguard in New Space.

"The Falcon 9 is the 1st US Vehicle to have redundant power supply since the Saturn program," explained Ms Shotwell. She went on to tell us that the business model is going to benefit from the NASA transition creating a 5 year no-mission-capability window between 2010 and 2015. SpaceX hopes to have rockets ready for launch.

That's a fitting challenge to the 140 in the New Space audience. The theme of all the speakers and the event itself is that venture new space can exist and the stars are lining up for funding to be available to the smartest and best presented teams.

Happy Birthday beep beep beep, Happy Birthday Sputnik. Look what you have spawned.

Related Links
The 62 Mile Club
Colonel Searfoss
SpaceX
Wyle Labs
XCOR Aerospace
Pictures of the Event
Space Tourism, Space Transport and Space Exploration News

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