Good news, everyone!

What: SpaceUp San Diego
When: February 12th and 13th, 2011
Where: The Loft at UC San Diego
Registration is open now

(If you’re new to SpaceUp, read how it works or get an overview from a writeup of SpaceUp DC.)

For our second annual event, the San Diego Space Society is working with the UCSD Astrophysics Club to host the event at The Loft at UC San Diego. The Loft is a comfy venue that benefits from UCSD’s amazing network bandwidth, plus it features a full service café (Zanzibar!) just steps away from Pod One.

The famous five-minute lightning talks will be back again this year, renamed T minus 5 to avoid any Imperial entanglements. Register to get details on giving your presentation. Don’t worry if you’re shy; there are plenty of ways to participate.

Kids have their own activities this year, so children are FREE with a parent registration.

The attendee list already has some exciting names listed, and we expect to see more of the area’s scientists, engineers, educators, students, and rocket nerds sign up soon. Make sure you’re one of them by registering today.

To learn more, visit the SpaceUp San Diego site, follow it on Facebook or Twitter, or email questions to info@spaceup.org. We hope to see you there!

If you haven’t yet registered for SpaceUp Houston, they just gave you a great reason to do so now:

Early Bird Registration will close on January 19th, 2011 and all early birds will receive a special Space Up T-shirt with the following logo designed specifically for Houston!  So, don’t miss out and register today.

Early-bird pricing is just $25, so that’s like buying the t-shirt and getting an awesome 2-day unconference (with a special session by astronaut Clay Anderson) for free!

[Author's note: Even though I'll be stuck in San Diego that weekend, I registered to get the awesome t-shirt. If you can't get to Houston yourself, you can still register and take part live via Spacevidcast.]

You probably came here because you heard about SpaceUp DC first, but if you haven’t, here are a few highlights so far:

The webcasting provided by Spacevidcast has been fantastic. The morning started with an audio glitch and a few bandwidth hiccups, but the rest of the day had three rock-solid simultaneous streams (one from each active session room) with clear audio. Better yet, the full archived sessions showed up on Youtube within a few hours!

The conversation on Twitter has been awesome, too. (Search for the #SpaceUpDC tag on Twitter to get a taste.) The live SVC feeds helped here; people who aren’t on-site have been able to report on SpaceUp sessions as though they were there. The conversation bounces back and forth between on-site attendees, remote attendees, and other followers on Twitter, as in this exchange between me, NASA, and Dennis Bonilla.

Of course, it isn’t all roses and rainbows; I haven’t seen a single Moonpie yet. Still, there’s a whole second day, so I’ll just have to keep watching.

SpaceUp DC, the second SpaceUp ever, is only a week away. Organizers around the globe are working to put on other SpaceUps, including one near you. SpaceUp is heating up.

It’s time for a change.

OK, it’ll be a small change at first, barely noticeable if you haven’t looked at the SpaceUp site that closely. I’ve scooped out all the San-Diego-specific content from the main SpaceUp site and moved it over to the new SpaceUp San Diego subsite. I also updated the remaining pages to reflect the actual photos, video, and general awesomeness we’ve seen at SpaceUp already.

SpaceUp locations will be added as their organizers announce them. Each city’s team is independent, but we’ll try to bring everyone together on this site as well. If you’d like to help organize a SpaceUp near you, read how it works and contact us to get started.

Onward and forward!

[Cross-posted from the SpaceUp San Diego news.]

I’m making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS. *

The first SpaceUp was awesome! I’m still recovering and catching up afterward, but the glow from all that concentrated amazingness is propelling me forward. While the wiki is getting filled in, take a look at the photos and videos that have already been posted.

More are available on Spacevidcast and Youtube, with links (as we get them filled in) collected on the wiki.