HARTFORD – The space is the Downtown Marriott, the topic? The business of space.
With more countries and companies setting their sights on space travel and exploration, Hartford played host to the first ever International Space Trade Summit.
The summit brought industry leaders, representatives from NASA and space agencies from Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand to talk the about how to collaborate and make matches as new space projects are put into motion.
The U.S. Department of Commerce helped coordinate the Space Summit. “It’s meant to create partnerships,” said Anne Evans the director of the U.S. Department of Commerce in Connecticut. “This is a showcase for advanced manufacturing and what we have done is brought people together from around the world to meet us and see what we can do.”
Organizers of the summit said Harford was chosen because of a history of aerospace excellence and numerous companies that create and supply parts and IT systems.
Tolland native, NASA astronaut, and current technical fellow at Collins Aerospace (A UTC subsidiary) Dan Burbank said, “to be here at exactly the time when we are embarking on a new and much more exciting and vibrant chapter of space exploration, it doesn’t get any better than that.”
Estimates are that about 200 people are attending the International Space Trade Summit which comes to an end on Tuesday, May 20th.