Is The Space Foundation NASA's New Party Planner?
Sources report that @NASA is going to sign some exclusive agreements with @SpaceFoundation to have them do events official for the @NASA 60th birthday & Apollo 11 50th anniversary. Odd how this was not publicly competed @JeffDeWitAZ @JimBridenstine
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) August 29, 2018
I always regarded the U.S. Space Foundation as a bit elitist and snobby. If you want to throw a real party the Space Frontier Foundation, especially when it was run by the old guard, really knew how to throw one.
But given that the U.S. Space Foundation conferences are priced so high that only government officials and government contractors on expense accounts are able to attend this probably makes sense. After all you don’t want any space advocates messing up the affair 🙂
If you mean conferences like their annual Space Symposium, then that’s an understatement. They also price out most government contractors. Billing conferences directly to contracts and grants is only allowed if the conference is relevant to the contract or grant. For something like the Space Symposium, it’s supposed to come off overhead or institutional funds. Although companies typically have more overhead than universities, there’s still only so much money available and that’s an expensive conference.
The usual result is pricing out the individual scientists and engineers, and only a few managers going to represent their institution. As well as keeping “space advocates messing up the affair” it also keeps people who actually do the work from messing things up. It’s essentially about networking for senior managers.