International Astronautical Federation is an international space advocacy organisation based in Paris and founded in 1951 as a non-governmental organization. It has 206 members from 58 countries across the world. They are drawn from space agencies, industry, professional associations, government organizations and learned societies. It is linked with the International Academy of Astronautics and the International Institute of Space Law with whom the IAF organises the annual International Astronautical Congress (IAC). Working in close cooperation with the United Nations, IAF organises annually the Space Workshop for Developing Nations. With the Committee on Space Research and the International Institute of Space Law, the IAF also conducts an annual survey of Highlights in Space for the United Nations.
Every year at the International Astronautical Congress, three awards are given out: the Allan D. Emil Memorial Award, the Franck J. Malina Astronautics Medal and the Luigi G. Napolitano Award.. The 2014 meeting of the IAC is planned for Toronto, Canada with a theme of "The World Needs Space".
Famous quotes containing the words institute, space and/or law:
“Whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles & organising it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing. It would take us as long to recall a space of time as it took the original time to elapse, and we should never get ahead with our thinking. All recollected times undergo, accordingly, what M. Ribot calls foreshortening; and this foreshortening is due to the omission of an enormous number of facts which filled them.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“In a democracy—even if it is a so-called democracy like our white-élitist one—the greatest veneration one can show the rule of law is to keep a watch on it, and to reserve the right to judge unjust laws and the subversion of the function of the law by the power of the state. That vigilance is the most important proof of respect for the law.”
—Nadine Gordimer (b. 1923)