Rich Pounelle NanoRacks adopted a CubeSat approach to experiment racks — plug-and-play microgravity experiments basic cost of $25,000 for 30 days on the International Space Station for education, $50,000 for commercial payload is placed in a small camera bag — easy to get packed into a Progress or Soyuz — always room for one more small thing Plenty of capacity on the ISS — getting a full payload rack up […]

KC Space Pirates Frank Smith Work on laser power beaming Some of power beaming money won by LaserMotive Power Beaming competition — still has $1.1 million remaining – only 1 team (LaserMotive) can compete in terms of cable climbing KC Space Pirate’s laser provider decided to sell its laser to someone else for $1 million — won’t let them borrow it About $1 million short of a new laser Officials […]

Jon Goff
Altius Space Machines

Overview

• Founding member of Masten Space Systems
• Branched out on his own last year
• Aimed at profitably developing key space technologies
• Bootstrapping via contract engineering, but standing-up a products focused company

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Charles Miller
NASA

• These remarks are his own only, they are not pre-approved and do not represent official NASA policy
• “We are winning, although it may not be as fast as those in this room would like”
• In the middle of a paradigm shift – very exciting time
• Last year, read a book about the transcontinental railroad – Asa Whitney, brother of Eli – developed the idea of a private/public partnership to build a railroad across the country
• When he proposed it in 1844, was laughed out of Congress by skeptics
• Asa Whitney never got to build the railroad or see the golden spike driven into the ground in Utah, but he was right
• Many people see the commercial space dream as similarly crazy — they’re wrong

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While I’ve been out here at Space Access ’11, I was curious about the whereabouts of Chuck Lauer, late of the dearly departed Rocketplane Global and a fixture at these annual gatherings. This morning I found out: he’s 9 time zones away in Holland, announcing another suborbital spaceflight venture. The vehicle looks and sounds a lot like Rocketplane’s project and will fly from a new Dutch spaceport.

I’ve combined two press releases from the International Space Transportation Association describing SpaceLinq and plans for EU Spaceport Lelystad.

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XCOR CEO Jeff Greason

Jeff Greason
CEO, XCOR Aerospace

One of few companies in NewSpace not founded by someone with deep pockets

Right now, things are going well…money isn’t falling out of the sky, but excellent income stream on contracts

XCOR is on track already to be tied for best year ever

Several contracts that are in the works that he hasn’t announced yet…if they are finalized, XCOR will have best year ever

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Space Access ’11 Conference Schedule Friday, April 8 (All times PDT) I am live blogging the conference here and on Twitter @spacecom 9 am XCOR Aerospace/Jeff Greason 9:50 am Educational Outreach/Teachers in Space – Terri Carroll 10 am Rick Wills, on REFPROP 10:20 am Microlaunchers/Charles Pooley 11 am Charles Miller and Bruce Pittman/NASA, on Propellant Depot Progress & Market Implications 11:45 am Space Frontier Foundation/Ryan McLinko 12 pm ISP Systems/Max […]

Gerry Norley Tethers Unlimited Still in business, still making money…working on a number of projects satellite end-of-life terminator tape — works on electromagnetic drag and physical drag designed for small class of satellites have conducted microgravity testing on aircraft Rustler system — a net that can be deployed over debris…they put net over it, grab the satellite, and attach a tether to it that can adjust altitude or bring it […]

Gary Hudson of t/space is back….talking about the CCDev 2 proposal his company submitted to NASA…

• Team included Andrews Space, ULA and others…
• XV-OM — XV is crew transport, OM is orbital module
• It’s a pretty funky looking spacecraft…
• Soyuz type modular architecture…8 person crew vehicle…

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CSF PR — The Commercial Spaceflight Federation welcomes the Aerospace Corporation of El Segundo, California for its decision to release a clarification document yesterday regarding its white paper on the business case for NASA’s Commercial Crew program. The clarification document, titled “Aerospace Commercial Crew Modeling Tool Update,” is available on the Aerospace Corporation homepage at www.aero.org.

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Gary Hudson
t/space
“It’s a trap” Monosony and NewSpace

What monopsony is:

• too many sellers with only one buyer (government!)

What it is not:

• Monopoly the Game
• Sony the company
• The kissing disease

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Misuzu Onuki Space Activities in Japan Japanese space budget and revenues are both decreasing… Only thing that is increasing: Number of companies that have stopped their space activities Space revenues are almost the size of the government space budget New Japanese Basic Space Law went into effect in 2009 Japan has a great potential to become a user of commercial spaceflight in terms of passengers and experiments A lot of […]