{"id":407692,"date":"2026-09-22T23:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T23:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/407692\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T23:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T23:32:10","slug":"rosen-college-challenges-students-creativity-in-space-tourism-competition-academics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/407692\/","title":{"rendered":"Rosen College challenges students’ creativity in space tourism competition | Academics"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"UCF<\/p>\n

Students and space industry professionals will occupy the Disney Dining Room at the Rosen Hospitality College for the final pitch day event of the Space Hospitality Student Challenge on Oct. 30.<\/p>\n

Gabriella Scozzafava<\/p>\n

The UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management launched a new competition in September to expose students to an emerging sector of hospitality: space tourism.<\/p>\n

The Space Hospitality Student Challenge<\/a>\u00a0is an eight-week competition that asks students to present ways to make life in space more hospitable for humans. The theme is \u201cLife Support & Human Experience in Space Hospitality,\u201d where competitors from any major are tasked with designing solutions for an International Space Station-like setting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Just as lots of people go on cruise ships now, they’ll go on spaceships in the future,\u201d\u00a0Dr. Amy Gregory, associate professor and endowed chair of space tourism programming and initiatives for the Rosen College, said.<\/p>\n

Gregory said the space industry is shifting from research and exploration to commercial development. She said human space presence will develop in three phases, beginning with workers in space, followed by groups living in orbital habitats and lunar settlements and eventually, leisure tourists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first phase, in my opinion, is researchers or workers; people that are there because they’re doing a job,\u201d Gregory said. \u201cThen you’ll have that next group of people that I call the voyagers: the individuals who are interested in living off Earth for a period of time, either in an orbiting habitat or maybe in a Mars or lunar settlement. Once the transportation component comes, we’ll have more people.”<\/p>\n

Students can choose to design their solution around one of six domains: culinary and\u00a0nutrition, self-service systems, guest well-being, habitat design, technology integration and on-Earth journey. The hospitality component ensures space inhabitants are more comfortable in these aspects of space life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m less interested in humans living in space,\u201d Gregory said. \u201cI’m most interested in humans thriving in space.”<\/p>\n

Dr. Yoo Ri Kim, assistant professor of hospitality management, co-designed the challenge with Gregory and said she wanted to get students involved in the Rosen College\u2019s research on space travel, hospitality and tourism.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I’ve realized is that a lot of the students aren’t really aware of what we’re doing,\u201d Kim said. \u201cSo, I was like, ‘We need to get the students involved because they are the future leaders. They’re the next generation who can lead this economy and this sector in the very future.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Fourth-year astrophysics major Matthew McMenamin signed up for the challenge with a team and said a physics background will help his team design a feasible solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing able to have that side allows us to think more critically and creatively on the things that we would like to see,\u201d McMenamin said. \u201cSo, we\u2019re able to think of problems that people may not have thought of before.\u201d<\/p>\n

McMenamin\u2019s team and the other competitors will be matched with a mixture of faculty and industry mentors and will receive educational materials and seminars as they develop their solutions. Competitors will submit their pitches in written or video format for the first round of the competition at the beginning of October.<\/p>\n

Pitches will be judged in five categories: innovation and originality, feasibility, alignment with space context, user experience quality and financial and logical viability, according to the challenge’s website.<\/a><\/p>\n

The challenge will conclude with a final pitch day event during UCF Space Week 2026, where the top three teams will present their pitches to a panel of industry judges. All other students can participate in a poster showcase of their ideas during the event.<\/p>\n

Kim said that while organizers are still securing awards for the competition winners, they have already obtained in-kind marketing services for the winning concept. She said she believes students with strong ideas may also meet their future investor or employer in the field.<\/p>\n

Gregory said she hopes this competition brings more visibility to the growing industry of space tourism.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re going to make sure that this is a fabulous experience for them,\u201d Gregory said. \u201cThat they’re going to learn, grow and get celebrated.”<\/p>\n

The final pitch day will take place at 9 a.m. on Oct. 30 in the Disney Dining Room at the UCF Rosen College of Hospitality Management campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kim said organizers hope to continue the challenge annually.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Students and space industry professionals will occupy the Disney Dining Room at the Rosen Hospitality College for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[4401,139,141,140],"class_list":["post-407692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-academics","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}