Events | Space Tweep Society

Events

SpaceUp Paris, T-64 days!

by @Brigitte_Ba@twitter on Mar 20, 2013 • No Comments

When I could not make it to SpaceUp Europe in last september, I jokingly told Damien, a friend who was attending, that maybe we should co-host together the first french SpaceUp. He came back with a list of 4 others ready to join the fun… and asked me if I was still in. Mmmm, not *just* a joke then!

We tried to cover all the bases, so you may have already read it on Twitter, Facebook, G+, LinkedIn or the global SpaceUp website… SpaceUp Paris will take place on 25^th and 26^th May at the European Space Agency (ESA) Headquarters in central Paris. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the SpaceUp concept whereby participants are invited to actively contribute in presentations and talks on a variety of space themes.

« Room A », ESA Headquarters in central Paris (Credit : SpaceUp Paris / B. Bailleul)

The point is… We’d love to meet you there.

ESA Headquarters in central Paris, France (credit: ESA)

ESA Headquarters in Paris, France (credit: ESA)

But why were we invited to hold the SpaceUp at ESA heaquarters?

Fernando Doblas, Head of ESA’s Communication Department, replies to the question : “Because we can relate to the basic concept of the SpaceUp. ESA, as a space agency depends on cooperation between European states who understood a long time ago the importance of uniting to undertake together space projects far beyond the scope of what could be achieved by any single European country. Cooperation implies a willingness to listen, to be open to others, and to be ready to learn from each other. This is the spirit of ESA, its ADN, and this is also the spirit of SpaceUp. We are pleased to welcome this event, the first of its kind in Paris and at ESA headquarters, where decisions on space for Europe are taken! ”

Equally convinced by this innovative initiative, CNES, the French space agency, invites the SpaceUp attendees to learn more about the future ESA launcher, Ariane 6. On Friday 24^th May, engineers from the CNES Launchers Directorate and ESA’s Launchers Directorate will present their work, take part in interactive workshops and submit challenges to the participants.

Apart from those official events, we look forward to evenings of fun between spacetweeps. Sadly, there will be no Endless BBQ… but I’m sure we’ll nevertheless manage to enjoy each other’s company!

Everything you want to know is on the spaceup.fr website (or so we hope!), but if you have questions, do not hesitate to hail us on any social network!

NASA / NASATweetup / Tweetups

NASA’s new Social Media Credentials tweetup model

by @timmermansr@twitter on Dec 9, 2012 • No Comments

Social media is one of the fastest evolving new media in society. Tools and methods seem to success each other at ever increasing rates, making it difficult to stay on top of the latest, even for the social media savvy readers of this blog. In the space community this evolution has largely been driven by NASA. After organizing the first space-related tweetup at JPL in January of 2009, NASA continued to embrace and include the social media community in its public outreach and communication strategy.

Just before the first tweetup in 2009 NASA became active on several social media platforms. It is by far the industry leading space organization on Twitter and Facebook and has set the standard on many other platforms as well. NASA TV is probably the best known online TV channel in the world.

Since the first experimental #NASATweetup events in 2009 the concept proved very successful for NASA. And despite some initial internal doubts it quickly evolved into a key new communication channel to the general public. Opening doors of facilities and events to its Twitter followers created an increasingly large worldwide community of NASA ambassadors. In April 2012 the audience was enlarged to include followers on other platforms, and the event name changed into #NASASocial.

Less than three years after the first #NASATweetup and six months after switching to the #NASASocial model, NASA is now introducing the ‘Social Media Credentials’ model. This third ‘evolution’ brings the social media community in line with traditional media. There are a few changes though. Selection of social media users is no longer random. In order to be eligible, an applicant has to meet certain criteria. Active participation on multiple channels is now a clear prerequisite. In NASA’s own words:

“Social media credentials give users a chance to apply for the same access as journalists in an effort to align the access and experience of social media representatives with those of traditional media. People, who actively collect, report, analyze and disseminate news on social networking platforms are encouraged to apply for media credentials. Selection is not random. All social media accreditation applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Those chosen must prove through the registration process they meet specific engagement criteria.” (source)

The first time this new credentials principle was introduced was for the @SpaceX Dragon launch in October 2012. The NASA social media team explained the background of the new social media credentials as follows:

“Social media users selected to attend the SpaceX launch will be given the same access as journalists in an effort to align the access and experience of social media representatives with those of traditional media. “We look at this as a natural extension and an evolution of the NASA Social concept,” said Bob Jacobs [@BNJacobs], deputy associate administrator for the agency’s Office of Communications. “Just as radio, television, and other media expanded the definition of ‘the press,’ we’re going to open our doors to influential and interested people who engage in social media activities and invite them to work alongside traditional media.” (source)

This new concept is proof that for NASA – as for society in general – social media are becoming a mainstream communication channel, and no longer something subordinate to traditional media. This means that savvy social media users and bloggers are considered as important as traditional journalists. It will be interesting to see how NASA will manage and ensure the quality of the public outreach message through these ‘citizen reporters‘. Accreditation for these social media space ambassadors is great step in the right direction. A development that deserves our support and will keep NASA in the forefront of social media integration in public outreach. Hopefully others will follow suit…

Events / Space Tweeps / Tweetups / Twitter

Spacetweeps in the Arctic: Join #AuroraTweetup

by @timmermansr@twitter on Dec 3, 2012 • No Comments

One of the greatest benefits of being part of the #spacetweeps community are the great events that are organized. These events are the best way to turn a space passion into a true space ambassadorship and many new friends. When joining my first #NASATweetup in 2011 the other attendees told me it would change my life, which I politely laughed away. But wow, were they right! So after #NASATweetup followed ESA/DLR #SpaceTweetup, #CNESTweetup, #AndreTweetup, #SpaceKoelsch 1-3 and a few #SpaceUps. It is great to be in the heart of the best virtual and real life community in the world! (more…)

Conferences / Events / SpaceUp

SpaceUp Saudi Arabia: A story worth being told!

by @timmermansr@twitter on Nov 27, 2012 • No Comments

A small group of female Saudi spacetweeps has taken the challenge to organize the first SpaceUp Unconference in the Middle East. It is really great to see the US-born SpaceUp movement now quickly taking over the world. Last September we saw the first non-US event take place in Europe, while this December 1st we will see the first @SpaceUpIndia event in Bangalore. But the event in Saudi Arabia in January 2013 promises to be a breakthrough event for several reasons: (more…)

Europe / Events / SpaceUp

SpaceUp Poland Livestream!

by @imperator_jarek@twitter on Nov 21, 2012 • No Comments

During this weekend (24-25^th of November) SpaceUp Poland will take place in Warsaw.

It is great opportunity to meet people who are fascinated by space and excellent chance to discuss with them and share experience in this field. Traditional and local food with the atmosphere of the capital of the country will be a great background for the unconference and with inspiring presentations and talks will create an unforgettable SpaceUp Poland!

If for some reason you cannot take part in SpaceUp Poland,

you can reach us on our livestream channel:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/spaceuppl.

Starts at 11.00 AM, CEST, 24^th November.

SpaceUp Poland is dedicated to the fact, that Poland became 20^th European Space Agency member state this month, which is great milestone for all space and astronomy enthusiasts in Poland!

Europe / Events / Social Media / SpaceUp

SpaceUp Poland is coming!

by @imperator_jarek@twitter on Nov 5, 2012 • No Comments

#SpaceUp events are doing great in Europe. After @SpaceUpEU and @SpaceUpStuttgart it is time for Warsaw to be the host of @SpaceUpPL!

Expression #SpaceUp rings a bell for more and more people around the world. An “unconference” with the possibility to share your ideas with other “space freaks” sounds like heaven for many human beings for whom “the sky is no limit”. Shorter, longer presentations, talks, films, discussion panels, workshops and more discussion in-between create the unique atmosphere of this event and reveal more and more space enthusiasts across the globe.

Such an atmosphere was also present on the #SpaceUpEU event in Belgium this September. Open and friendly people with huge knowledge and their fascination to the space were amazing and extremely inspiring. This impression, connected with the fact that Poland soon becomes a 20^th member of European Space Agency encouraged us to think about organisation of @SpaceUpPL event.

So here we would like to invite everyone to come to Warsaw and help Poland and its space enthusiasts to make first steps into international space society. Join us during SpaceUp and share with everyone your experience, interests and thoughts. Make a discussion about future space exploration, find out what other participants can offer you à listen, actively participate in different SpaceUp sessions and talk, talk, talk with everyone around! Everything is about sharing – so help us to share and spread space-spirit around Poland!

SpaceUp PL is a great opportunity not only to meet enthusiastic and ready to join ESA group but also to visit the capital city of Poland and fall in love with it

We’re looking forward meeting you in Poland

Your @SpaceUpPL Team – @imperator_jarek, @llirael, @liwyj, @cissidy.

More information:

Website: http://spaceup.org/near-you/poland/

Registration: https://newspace.wufoo.eu/forms/spaceup-poland/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SpaceUpPoland

Commercial Space / Conferences / ESA / Human Spaceflight / JAXA / NASA / Roscosmos / Space Exploration / SpaceUp / SpaceX / Tweetups

The First International Space Exploration Symposium in Japan

by @ScienceInSpace@twitter on Oct 29, 2012 • No Comments

I will be attending a two day symposium organized by JAXA in Tokyo. The theme is Space Exploration for Humanity and the Future. It will open Tuesday October 30 at 1300, Japan time. The complete program can be found at the following address:

http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2012/09/20120928_sympo_e.html

I will try to cover the event live on Twitter with pictures. Even if it proves difficult (power supply problems, etc.) I will write about it here later in the week.

As you can see, the philosophical aspects of space exploration will be discussed but also its future. With the attendance of top executives from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Mitsubishi HI, SpaceX among others, we can expect some interesting talks about the commercial aspects of space exploration.

I also intend to make use of the event to contact persons interested in starting a SpaceUp or Space Tweetup events in Japan in the near future.
Anyone interested can contact me through my Twitter account @ScienceInSpace
I am looking forward to having an active exchange with my fellow Spacetweeps from all around the world.

Philippe Valdois

@ScienceInSpace

Conferences / Education & Public Outreach / Europe / Events / SpaceUp

SpaceUpEU – A personal perspective

by @MDBenson@twitter on Sep 24, 2012 • No Comments

Wow. How do you sum up one for the coolest things you have ever done?! When I went to Florida last year for STS-134 I thought that experience would take some matching. SpaceUpEU did just that.

As I’d never done anything remotely like a un-conference or SpaceUp before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. What I found impressed me, excited me, blew me away almost. I think what I have experienced at SpaceUpEU is a huge melting pot of passionate, enthusiastic people both individual in their views and interests but also united equally by their love of space and curiosity to discover other people’s passions and interests. Everything from the range of topics to the massive age range of the participants, the 15 countries participating, how far people had travelled. It made you think very differently and it helped me be more encouraged and open about something I usually only talk about online.

With so many topics, talks and discussions and, of course, overlapping slots it is impossible to absorb everyone’s ideas during the weekend but hopefully with the abundance of video equipment and recording hopefully some things I didn’t get to see might filter down later on, probably a good idea given the rather crammed state of my brain! From square one, even maybe before the event began on Friday night I have learned lots of great stuff that I hope I can remember when I need it. The sheer range of topics was also mind-blowing. From the meticulously prepared to the totally ad-hoc, enthralling to the brain-cell popping (Yes, I’m still recovering from Christer Fuglesang’s mass, weight and particle physics!!) to the down-right controversial (Mars One caused by far the most discussion!) and pretty-much everything in between.

For me personally, the diversity of information and the friendliness and openness of the crowd stands out a lot at events like this. I wore a replica NASA flight suit to day 1 of SpaceUpEU and so many people commented on how cool it was and how good it looked. Also I knew very few people there, probably only half a dozen at most, but *everyone* was open and friendly and wanted to get to know you and talk to you. Most impressive however was actually giving a talk to a group of people, in my case an Astronomy Kickstarter, who were genuinely interested in what I had to say. Although I’d have loved more time and to open the discussion to the people there with me, I still got a massive satisfaction from talking to them about a shared interest and presenting helpful information to people who wanted to get going themselves.

My only regret is perhaps that a lot of passions, information and ideas were presented but perhaps that we didn’t always have time to discuss those within the SpaceUp event format. A lot of the discussion occurred in the evenings and outside the talks themselves which is sort of what SpaceUp and ‘un-conference’ is supposed to be working to bring into the main event. I don’t think this was necessarily a failure of the event so much as so many people were so interested in sharing their passions and, being the first European SpaceUp event, it uncorked a rich source of this passion and sharing. As a first event, an opener and a launch of the SpaceUp concept in Europe, though, it was a hugely successful and exciting event to be part of. Hopefully (and I know there are other SpaceUps already happening or being planned, starting with SpaceUp Stuttgart in October) this will be the spark that ignites the fires of other people to continue the flow of ideas and information in our area of the world.

Last but by no means least, I couldn’t write a blog post about SpaceUpEU without offering massive thanks to our organisers:

Remco Timmermans (@timmermansr)
Eico Neumann (@travelholic)
Angie Kanellopoulou (@akanel)
Alex von Eckartsberg (@starlingLX)
Marco Frissen (@mfrissen)
Joachim Baptist (@JustBe74)

Although, as they kept reminding us, SpaceUp is as much a product of the participants as the organizers, their amazing efforts and hard, dedicated work opened the door for so many people to get together under this common banner to share and ignite discussion, some of which will still be going for a good while I’m sure (but hey, the rovers will do it!).

Conferences / Education & Public Outreach / Space Tweeps / SpaceUp

The SpaceUpEU Story So Far

by @JustBe74@twitter on Jul 19, 2012 • No Comments

As September is approaching fast, it will also be almost one year ago that I attended my first SpaceTweetUp. Being ESA & DLR’s first foray herein this is all the more fitting. This is the last place where I need to explain what a SpaceTweetUp can do to a person, so not going there.

So SpaceUp Europe, that’s what I would like to talk about. To me it’s a beautiful full circle story. One of the things that immediately struck me was how a Barcamp like event would be great for this topic/crowd. Little did I now at that time that it already existed and the first SpaceUp had already been held in San Diego in 2010. So one throws up the idea but it stayed with talking at that point. The fun part is that at the same time some US SpaceTweeps that already attended a SpaceUp were also talking to some other EU SpaceTweeps about the same topic. But also here, it stayed as an idea to pick up at a later time.

The next step. At some point before #SpaceKoelsch2 some SpaceTweeps started talking about SpaceUp and doing this in Europe. At this point the 2 groups that first talked separate are now talking together, space unites once again! This was the perfect time to bring it to the table and see which traction it could gather. And traction it did gather! One week later 5 SpaceTweeps were exchanging mails and on January 23 we had our first hangout (G+ is great for this:) together. SpaceUpEU was born! The first EU organising crew consisting of @akanel (GR) @mfrissen (NL) @timmermansr (NL) @travelholic (DE) and myself @JustBe74 (BE), a real European team.

Fun and work, lots of both luckily. I think it’s fair to say none of us really knew on what journey we were embarking. Finding a location (Genk, Belgium) and date (22-23/09) primarily and secondly logistics, sponsors, legal things, set-up registration and so on. This last point bringing us to today. T-1 actually! Starting tomorrow registrations will open for the first ever SpaceUpEU. Another great milestone for us, but for sure not the last. So keep an eye out on @SpaceUpEU tomorrow to be part of it.

To be continued!

Commercial Space / Tweetups

The #NewSpaceTweetup is back!

by @Marimikel@twitter on Jul 13, 2012 • No Comments

The #NewSpaceTweetup, part of the NewSpace 2012 Conference, will be Friday, July 27th, from 8-10 pm at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara.

It is a social event open to the space-loving public and conference attendees. Come join us to geek out about commercial space and build LEGOS! Cosmically good music will be provided by In Space Media. There will also be goodies from Yuri’s Night, SpaceUp, Space Travelers Emporium and the Silicon Valley Space Center. If you’d like to donate something, bring a space display or provide a space activity, please email marimikel.charrier@spacefrontier.org.

This event is free (donations welcome). More details will be posted soon. Follow @NewSpaceTweetup for the latest updates!

Commercial Space / Events / NASA

Judges Needed!

by @flyingjenny@twitter on Jun 28, 2012 • No Comments

I was recently contacted by someone looking to find some volunteer judges for the Nano-Sat Launch Challenge, which is being run by Space Florida. One or more judges will be assigned to oversee rules compliance for each competing team. Approximately 10 volunteers are needed, and they will be reimbursed for expenses, including travel, but that’s all. To qualify, a volunteer should have some aerospace knowledge or experience and should be able to read and interpret the challenge rules. Exact timeframes are based on when each team decides to launch. If you are unable to travel to the launch site when the time comes, another judge from the pool will be assigned, so there is flexibility. If you are interested, tweet at @flyingjenny to let me know and I’ll put you in touch with the volunteer coordinator.

Thanks!