The Space Conference for Everyone

The 2025 LaunchPad session delivered a fast-paced series of short talks spanning human biology, economics, and destinations across the solar system. Early presentations considered how genetic engineering, human cryopreservation, and lessons from the remarkably resilient tardigrade could help people endure long-duration spaceflight. Speakers then turned to the business of space, from systemic growth strategies and the economics of a Martian city to integrated architectures for extended human travel. The session closed with a tour of practical and ambitious frontiers, including food systems shaped by NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge, lunar lava tubes as settlement sites, next-generation spacesuits, a crewed helicopter for Titan, and the case for exploring Mercury.

The 2025 Many Roads to Space session highlighted the wide range of paths people are taking toward a spacefaring future. Educators and student leaders shared models for engaging young people, from a student-organized conference connecting high schoolers with industry leaders to three decades of the United Space School and a national rocket competition. Other speakers traced personal and institutional journeys, including a commercial astronaut’s path to space and the Florida Space Institute’s research mission, alongside concepts such as Starship-based lunar and Mars bases, a maglev space elevator, next-generation spacesuits, and rotating stations for studying partial gravity. The session closed with reflections on democratizing access to space and the deeper human purpose behind going there.

The 2025 Moon session spanned two days of discussion on returning to the Moon and building a lasting presence there. The first day reviewed the history of lunar exploration, mapping, and NASA’s Artemis program and examined property rights under international law, then moved into the technologies needed for return, including lunar power grids, electric propulsion, AI-driven spacecraft design, virtual reality education, and the effects of isolation on crew behavior. The second day focused on cislunar commerce and the Moon’s long-term future, covering lunar business planning, public-private partnerships, and even lunar sports, before turning to lava tube habitation, base camp site selection, crater geology, and pressurized rover exploration. International perspectives and a closing panel on the future of the Moon rounded out the session.

The 2025 Planetary Defense session examined how humanity can detect, understand, and respond to threats from space. Speakers outlined a planetary defense roadmap through 2026, discussed radar observations of near-Earth asteroids, and presented techniques for measuring asteroid distances within a single night. The session broadened the idea of planetary security to include space weather, nuclear-powered satellites in orbit, and climate change, while also considering how space elevators, electric propulsion, and repurposed space debris could become tools for protecting Earth.

The 2025 Rising Stars session gave the next generation of space professionals a platform to share their research. Students explored the human side of exploration, from cognitive lessons drawn from astronaut experience to all-female crews, public attitudes toward Mars missions, and AI tools for astronaut well-being. Others tackled the policy and legal questions of an expanding space economy, including security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, interference detection, mining rights, and justice beyond Earth. Technical presentations rounded out the program with GPS-free lunar navigation, rover traverses to the lunar south pole, layover settlements, terraforming, and recycling space debris.

The 2025 Space Ambassadors session showcased NSS Space Ambassadors and the projects they champion to bring space to the public. Presentations ranged across lunar agriculture, asteroid mining, AI-managed space farms, and space solar power, as well as the future of NASA and commercial spaceflight. Several speakers focused on outreach and education, using student art contests, video game engines, classroom CubeSats, and NASA projects for gifted students to engage young people, while others made the case for how space development benefits life on Earth.

The 2025 Space Business session looked at the forces shaping a fast-growing commercial space economy. Speakers assessed Florida’s competitive position in the industry, why revenue matters most to space investors, and strategies for sustainable growth, along with entrepreneurship opportunities emerging in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The session also covered emerging markets and technologies, from on-board AI computing and PocketQube satellites to the business case for a lunar space elevator, the link between industrialization and settlement, advanced propulsion concepts, and property rights beyond national borders.

The 2025 Space Elevators session framed the modern space elevator around customer needs and economic value. Speakers examined how elevators could return wealth to Earth, then dug into the engineering, including strong tether materials, defect tolerance, boron nitride nanotubes, tailored graphene, and new ways to power climbers. Other talks considered electrostatic motors and the potential of apex anchors in planetary defense, and a closing panel tackled the challenge of bringing space resources down to Earth.

The 2025 Space For All session focused on the policy, legal, and international frameworks that will shape who benefits from space. Speakers discussed NSS’s work at the United Nations, the long-debated question of where outer space begins, and international science collaborations, along with a proposed lunar observatory for detecting gravitational waves. Two panels examined how to fund planetary defense and how space law is evolving to keep pace with new activity beyond Earth.

The 2025 Space Health session examined what it will take to keep people healthy on long journeys and in new worlds. Presenters addressed space radiation, genetic engineering, food systems, and seasonal affective disorder on Mars, while another talk weighed how student contests and traditional research can best advance space health science. The session also explored human resilience more broadly, from preparing settlers for departure and how new worlds might change human aging to cultural and spiritual readiness, adaptive medicine for variable gravity, and lessons from remote communities. A panel considered how young people can be made more than healthy for the journey to Mars.

The 2025 Space History session looked back at the people, places, and programs that shaped spaceflight. Speakers traced the history of NASA’s human spaceflight program and Cape Canaveral’s role as a gateway to space, and the session also highlighted ongoing efforts to preserve and restore pieces of spaceflight history.

The 2025 Space Settlement session explored the ideas, economics, and practical systems needed to build permanent communities in space. Panels revisited Gerard K. O’Neill’s vision for space settlement in a modern context and weighed the challenges raised by the book A City on Mars, while a related talk modeled the economics of a Martian city. Other presentations turned to the details of daily life and logistics, including food production and mass recycling for small settlements, shipping container standards, AI and computing networks, and the legal questions of repossessing assets in orbit.

The 2025 Space Solar Power Symposium brought together government, commercial, and academic leaders to assess the state of space solar power worldwide. The first day featured program updates from Japan, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, followed by technical presentations on industry trends, on-orbit assembly, power beaming missions, wireless power transfer, and public-private partnership models, capped by a state-of-the-art technology assessment. The second day opened with the semi-finals of an international student competition, then turned to policy architecture, laser power beaming, ancillary services for cislunar space, and the role of space elevators. It ended with an open discussion on how the community can coordinate progress before next year’s symposium.

The 2025 Spaceports session examined the growing network of launch sites and the challenges of supporting a rapidly expanding industry. Speakers looked at congestion around Cape Canaveral and its effect on Florida’s airspace, debated whether spaceports help or hinder the path to a trillion-dollar economy, and explored new developments in ocean-based launch. The session closed with a call to action for strengthening U.S. spaceports.