Fox Valley holds Wisconsin's Space Conference

Professors, students, and business leaders gathered Friday in Menasha to talk about aerospace, the industry of aviation and space flight.

It's part of the Wisconsin Space Conference focused on research and the future.

Rockets, planes and space make up the flashier parts of aerospace, but there's more to it than that.

"Incorporates and encompasses every STEM major you could think of anything from biology and environmental science," said Kevin Crosby, Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium Director.

Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium funded by NASA organized Friday's conference hoping to spread that message.

"The message to these students that aerospace exists in Wisconsin is just not getting out there," Crosby said. "So we feel like we're an important link to helping students that those jobs are available."

Available positions at aerospace companies in Wisconsin like Gulf Stream, Plexus and Sierra Nevada.

"Something in space flight whether it's propulsion systems, a rocket, an rcs thruster or something on our environmental side," said Dr. Todd Treichel of Sierra Nevada Corporation.

According to "IN Wisconsin," more than 900 companies have ties to the states aerospace sector.

To ready students for those jobs, the consortium gives students grants to perform research projects with NASA.

"We believe that the space industry could cut down on tens of thousands of dollars by implementing our technique and NASA's actually gained a lot of interest in our project and plans to implement it for future missions to Mars," said Celestine Ananda, junior at Carthage.

Building a brighter future for evolving aerospace.

"We're going to go to the moon and live on Mars one day," Crosby said. "And the only way that's going to happen is if our students are engaged from K-12 all the way up."