All systems are go for the first annual Carolina Space Symposium, a student-organized event featuring pioneers in the space industry that will be free to the public.
On March 31, Hanes Art Center will host the event, which will cover everything from interstellar travel to how to start a space company and life beyond Earth.
The symposium will last from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and include a live band, a networking session, a weather balloon launch and a free planetarium show.
“You won’t just be sitting for hours,” said Patrick Gray, the founder and president of UNC’s chapter of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.
The student group gained notoriety on campus in January for launching a weather balloon that members later retrieved in Ahoskie.
The symposium itself will consist of nine speakers, possibly 10, if NASA accepts the group’s request for an astronaut speaker.
Space researchers, NASA employees and others on the entrepreneurial side of the industry will speak so people can see all aspects of the space industry, Gray said.
Jeff Krukin, the executive director of the Space Frontier Foundation, a major national space groups, will speak, as will a published author and an ex-NASA engineer, Gray said.
Gray said he decided to put on the symposium after he and four other members went to the group’s national conference, SpaceVision, in Colorado.