On the night of Thursday, March 19th, the FACCSF team went to Palo Alto to attend the “Aerospace meets Green tech” conference, co-organized with the Toulouse-based firm ANewWorld Consulting.

Information collected by satellites can help make our actions more sustainable and environmentally friendly. We thus learned how processing satellite data into user-friendly technologies – like geolocalization applications or real time bus schedules – may change societal behavior. Indeed, from transportation to the use of fertilizers, the convergence of the aerospace industry and green tech initiatives has its role to play in transforming the American economy into a greener one.

Such a change must be first preceded by educating our young generations. Politics has the power to make the situation evolve now, even though sustainability remains a long term issue. Therefore, green technologies have become a major part of the stimulus package and it is clear that they offer promising business opportunities.

The panel of speakers was very impressive. Jean-Jacques Favier, the former CNES (French NASA) astronaut, spoke about the green way of life that a space shuttle requires as it is entirely autonomous. If optimizing restricted resources, managing waste, and sharing the same tiny space is possible in orbit, then why not on Earth?

Written by Valérie Despontin