Aerospace and Government Leaders Address '50 Years of Space Exploration: The Next Giant Leap'

Colorado Lieutenant Governor Barbara O'Brien to Open AIAA Space Exploration Conference

RESTON, Va., Feb. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is pleased to announce the principal speakers for the 3rd AIAA Space Exploration Conference, February 26-28 inDenver, Colo. The conference will celebrate America's 50 years of space exploration, and the "Next Giant Leap" of space exploration now already under way.

The conference will open with remarks by The Honorable Barbara O'Brien, Lieutenant Governor of the State of Colorado, and a keynote address by The Honorable Shana Dale, Deputy Administrator of NASA.

Featured speakers also include three of NASA's top administrators, who will mark the current status of the Exploration Systems, Science, and Space Operations mission directorates and set forth their course headings for the future.

After a broad range of panel sessions over three days, the closing speakers -- Paul Carliner, principal, Carliner Strategies, LLC, and Dr. Leslee Gilbert, Republican staff director, House Committee on Science and Technology (invited) -- will offer perspectives on space exploration, and the role it plays in our national interests.

A major theme of the conference is the Constellation Program, which is developing the Orion crew spacecraft and the Ares I and Ares V rockets to send astronauts to the moon to set up a lunar outpost and prepare for human exploration further into the solar system.

Among many other topics, panels will focus on NASA's new Commercial Development Policy, the synergism between science and exploration, human and robotic collaboration in exploration, international cooperation in space, lunar architecture, and the challenges of exciting Generation Y and beyond to carry forth future space exploration efforts.

The 3rd Space Exploration Conference, 50 Years of Space Exploration: Taking the Next Giant Leap, will be held Feb. 26-28 at the Colorado Convention Center inDenver. The event is organized by AIAA in coordination with NASA. Prime corporate sponsors include United Space Alliance, The Boeing Company, and Lockheed Martin Corporation. Other sponsors include Raytheon, ATK, Booz Allen Hamilton, United Launch Alliance, Analytical Graphics, Inc. and Freedom Information Systems. The Space Exploration Conference is supported by the American Astronautical Society, California Space Authority, Coalition for Space Exploration, National Space Society, and Space Exploration Alliance. Space News and Aerospace America are the media sponsors. For more information, please visit www.aiaa.org/events/exploration.

SOURCE American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

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