Students for the Exploration and Development of Space

1980s

SEDS was founded on 17 September 1980, primarily by Peter Diamandis, Scott Scharfman, Richard Sorkin, Robert D. Richards, and Todd B. Hawley and their first meeting was held on Thursday, 30 October 1980.^[4] After the initial meetings in 1980, SEDS president Peter Diamandis wrote a letter to the editor of Omni magazine deploring the status of the space program and asking students to help make a difference. The letter, published in Omni in early 1981, attracted students from around the world to SEDS. This laid the foundations for the first SEDS international conference, held at George Washington University between July 15–19, 1982.^[5] As the decade progressed, SEDS continued to have more international conferences, which rotated among schools including George Washington University (again), University of Alabama in Huntsville, and Caltech. During the end of the decade, UKSEDS was founded at the Science Museum (London) and held their first conference at the University of Cambridge during 25–26 November 1989.^[6]

1990s

During the 1990s, SEDS continued to host a national conference each year, sometimes in conjunction with the International Space Development Conference through 1997, when the last "SEDS National Conference" was held (conferences would re-appear 7 years later as the "SEDS SpaceVision Conference"). UKSEDS continued to have national conferences at rotating locations each year. During the last years of the decade, there was a major decline in SEDS leadership and a connected drop in the number of member chapters around the United States.

2000s

In 2004, the SEDS National Conferences were re-established by MITSEDS and hosted on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on November 11–14.^[7] The conference was renamed the SEDS SpaceVision conference and featured many speakers who would return year after year during this decade, including Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides, founder Dr. Robert Richards, Rick Tumlinson, George T. Whitesides, Robert Zubrin, and Pete Worden. The SpaceVision conference then visited University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2005), University of Central Florida (2006), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2007), Texas A&M University (2008), University of Arizona (2009), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2010), University of Colorado at Boulder (2011), University at Buffalo (2012), and Arizona State University (2013). SpaceVision 2014 will be hosted by UNC Chapel Hill^[8][9] During this time, UKSEDS continued to have one national conference each year. SEDS India, after hosting the SEDS International conference in 2007, continued with SEDS India National Conferences every year since 2009 at VIT University, Vellore, India. SEDS also began exploring innovative national projects such as fund-raising for a joint SEDS chapter Zero-G flight and designing an innovative national Rockoon competition modeled after the Ansari X PRIZE.

Active SEDS-USA projects

SEDS-USA organizes annual and rolling projects to engage its members in space-related activities. Two such projects are:

SEDS-USA

SEDS-USA is the governing body of all chapters in the United States, and is the largest and original branch of SEDS. It is overseen by a national Board of Directors, Board of Advisers and a Board of Trustees. An integral aspect of SEDS-USA is the Council of Chapters (CoC). This council consists of national representatives of each chapter and is led by the Chair of the Council of Chapters. The CoC meets via teleconference to exchange updates between individual chapters and the national board. The 2016–17 national directors of SEDS-USA are listed below.^[14]

UKSEDS

UK Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (UKSEDS) is the UK’s national student space society. They support students and enthusiasts across the United Kingdom by running space projects, hosting conferences and workshops, and doing outreach to inspire and educate. They build links between different parts of the space community within the UK and internationally.

UKSEDS began in 1988, when several students who had attended International Space University (ISU)'s first Space Studies Program which was held at MIT made the decision to set up the organisation in the UK. A founding conference was held in March 1989 at London’s Science Museum, with a full conference at Cambridge University in November of that year.

SEDS-Canada

SEDS-Canada is a federally incorporated not-for-profit organization based in Toronto, Canada, whose mandate is to advocate for the exploration and development of space through non-partisan political advocacy, conferences, student competitions, and chapter grants. The organization was initiated in early 1981 by entrepreneur Bob Richards, and it was re-established in 2014 by a group of students from the University of Toronto and the University of Western Ontario after several years of inactivity. SEDS-Canada currently has eleven university chapters operating across the country.

As part of their advocacy goals, SEDS-Canada seeks to engage Canadian policy makers and electoral candidates at all levels of government in a multi-year effort with the aim of defending cuts to good space policy, and campaigning for new policies to ensure Canadian leadership in niche areas of space exploration and development.

SEDS-UAE

The SEDS-UAE Chapter is based at the Our Own English High School in Abu Dhabi. This chapter was founded by a high school student, Nishith Khandwala. Members of SEDS UAE engage themselves in various activities and programs such as the International Asteroid Search Campaign.^[15][16]

SEDS India

SEDS INDIA

Type	Non Profit Student Organization
Focus	"To promote the exploration and development of space"
Area served	INDIA
Method	Student Collaboration
Key people	Ajay Prasad (current SEDS India President) Dr. Geetha Manivasagam (Trustee of SEDS India)
Website	sedsindia.org

SEDS-India is the governing body of SEDS in India with its headquarters at VIT University. SEDS India was founded in 2004 by Pradeep Mohandas and Abhishek Ray. The first chapter was established in Mumbai at PIIT, New Panvel. SEDS India governs affiliated chapters in India at various universities, including VIT University, Veltech University, Birla Institute of Technology & Science Pilani-Goa, Sri Ramakrishna Engineering College and SASTRA University. Chapter affairs are controlled by the Local Chapter Committee which reports to the Executive Board of SEDS India. The Executive Board of SEDS India consists of six Board Members who are selected through a voting process, with all individual members of SEDS India being eligible to vote. The Permanent Trustee of SEDS India is Dr. Geetha Manivasagam, Professor, VIT University. The advisory panel has multiple dignitaries on its board, including the Associate Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Center.

The main outreach program of SEDS India is called OneSpace. OneSpace was founded to spread awareness about and engagement with space among underprivileged children in rural India and children residing in local orphanages. Attempts have also been made by SEDS India to outreach to northeast India, where access to space education and technical projects is more difficult. These efforts were led with the help of Angaraj Duara, an alumnus of Maharishi Vidyamandir Shilpukhuri, Guwahati, and established seven chapters in Assam. They are the Army Public School Narangi, Sharla Birla Gyan Jyoti School Guwahati, IIT-Guwahati, Handique Girls College, Royal Global Institute - RSET Guwahati, Donbosco Public School Panbazar and Tezpur University. SEDS-APSN was the first chapter in northeast India. A separate SEDS-NorthEast governing body oversees activities in the northeast.

The current Executive Board Members are listed below.