Local educators attend Spaceport Summit

ORLANDO-Educators Tammy Blobaum and Elizabeth Dunn of Nebraska City Public Schools and members of the Nebraska Space Ambassadors recently attended the 48th Annual Spaceport Summit and Global Commercial Space Conference (SpaceCom) in Orlando, Florida. SpaceCom is the first major commercial space event of the year that mobilizes space professionals to discuss, collaborate and influence the business of space. Elizabeth and Tammy attended sessions on topics such as cleaning up space junk and the future of the International Space Station, and will integrate that material into their curriculum for students and other Nebraska teachers.

Highlights of this year's conference included keynotes with NASA’s top leadership personnel, Bob Cabana, Associate Administrator at HQ and Janet Petro, Director of Kennedy Space Center. They shared how we got to where we are today,and covered upcoming projects.

Under the theme of “Off Planet for the Planet,” more than sixty government leaders and topic experts shared their future-focused insights and foresights for commercial space at large. Panels were divided into four tracks: On-Planet Industry Applications, Off-Planet Commercialization, Space Exploration, and Enabling Space Commerce. Panel discussions build knowledge and networking for industry partners, government agencies, public-private partnerships, and education and training.

The Nebraska Space Ambassadors are an elite group of teachers who provide training opportunities on behalf of the NASA Nebraska Space Grant. Our mission is to offer training to other in-service and pre-service teachers in Nebraska, increasing the skills of STEM educators. Nebraska Space Ambassadors provide training in STEM based activities, NASA resource navigation and activity development, summer discovery/science camps, after school program development, and sky observation opportunities. For more information go to https://www.nespacegrant.org/nsa .