Nearly 1,200 space industry leaders, engineers and fans are expected to attend the five-day International Space Development Conference here to discuss where they think spaceflight is heading in the future. About 300 of those attendees are students from around the world, organizers said.

"I really do think we are in the moment of a space renaissance," computer game developer and entrepreneur Richard Garriott, who paid $30 million for a private trip to the International Space Station in 2008, told attendees Wednesday (May 14), on the conference's first day. "I think we are at this time where the future of space is looking very bright." [Visions of the Future of Human Spaceflight (Photos)]