People Profiles: Web Articles
Elon Musk - The 2010 TIME 100 | TIME
"Elon Musk makes no sense — and that's the reason I know him (says Jon Favreau, Director of Iron Man). When I was trying to bring the character of genius billionaire Tony Stark to the big screen in Iron Man, I had no idea how to make him seem real. Robert Downey Jr. (who plays Stark in the film) said, "We need to sit down with Elon Musk." He was right."
Department of Commerce Secretary, Gary Locke's "States of Entrepreneurism" Address
"The United States has not adjusted to a new global marketplace where foreign countries and foreign companies have the ability to outpace their American counterparts. It’s not tenable for...[us] to continue with the status quo. In a world where innovation is critical to U.S. competitiveness, we must do everything in our power to optimize commercialization that stems from our nation’s vast research investments. This is an issue where the Commerce Department is working hard to find solutions.
Last fall, we launched the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, whose mandate is to drive policies and programs that help entrepreneurs translate new ideas, products, and services into economic growth, and to accelerate technology commercialization of federal R&D.
And today, I want to announce that on February 24 [2010], this Office will host a forum with university leaders and key stakeholders on the roles of universities in innovation, economic development, job creation, and commercialization of federally funded research."
Locke's analysis is dead on and includes references to NASA, aerospace and public-private collaboration in commercialization. The emerging suborbital space vehicle industry is a classic example of what he and the Obama administration are strongly promoting and they surely support STEM education as a critical lifeline essential to feed such entrepreneurial innovations.
The End of Magical Climate Thinking | Foreign Policy
"The Obama administration succumbed, like many others, to a sort of magical climate thinking that promised a painless and even prosperous transition to a low-carbon future with the tools already at hand. The only official within his administration to accurately grasp the technology challenges faced, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, was sidelined at crucial moments. Here is the back story of how the Obama administration dramatically raised and then dashed America's -- and the world's -- hopes that 2009 would be a pivotal year for remaking our collective energy future." This article places blame on both government and green energy advocates for "magical thinking" about what will surely at minimum be a tough, expensive, decades-long slog. The importance of space infrastructure advancements, especially by the private sector, to developing innovative lower-cost solar power and biospheric and climate monitoring systems will be major. Earth and its environment are increasingly understood as one evolving macro-ecosystem traveling through space over eons.
Making Rocket Science a Career Move | Space-Travel
"The Caddo Mills Municipal Airport east of Dallas is the home of Texas' most unusual rocket company, Armadillo Aerospace. All that outwardly heralds the presence of the company is a small sign over a few windows looking in on a sparse lobby decorated with a few trophies."
"Nine-year-old Armadillo is 100% owned by John Carmack, famous video-game developer of the well-known and highly-profitable Doom and Quake franchises. Armadillo has for its life so far, been a non-profitable endeavour, consuming around 4 million dollars of Carmack's own money along with various grants, awards and sponsorship monies. A team of eight (mostly volunteers but three full-timers) toils each week at pushing commercial spaceflight to where it has never gone before: affordability and availability."
Hanson provides (see pdf download) an inside profile of Armadillo with great photos and insights into this maverick enterprise that just picked up $0.5M in the Lunar Lander Challenge. He also relates it to other Texas suborbital space vehicle vendors like Blue Origin and other key industry players. This is a fine report, so check it out.
EVA Interviews Guillermo Sohnlein, Founder Internat'l Assn. of Space Entrepreneurs and Space Angels Network
"...Guillermo Söhnlein, is founder of both the International Association of Space Entrepreneurs and Space Angels Network. One of the major challenges facing Space entrepreneurs and startups is finding adequate investment seed capital, the early-stage funds needed to start and grow their businesses. Angels and sometimes VCs (Venture Capital firms) are the usual investors if you can’t self-fund, but they have rarely focused on the new Space industry. Guillermo is actively involved in bringing investors’ attention, funds and expertise to often ignored Space startups. With IASE, he encourages and provides an environment to build entrepreneurship in the new Space industry." Sohnlein brings broad and deep technical and entreprerneurial experience and wisdom to these endeavors.
EVA Interviews Rex Ridenoure, CEO of Ecliiptic Enterprises | Out of the Cradle
"The collective intuition of the original 11 employees, led by 5 co-founders, suggested that there was an unmet need in the space marketplace (rockets AND spacecraft) for integrated, end-to-end onboard video and imaging solutions—not high-end, science-quality content, but simpler stuff like you see on YouTube now. RocketCam™ is now a synonym for this sort of space-based imaging. We wanted to address not only the onboard cameras but also the image handling, data-transport, telemetry and reception aspects of the overall problem. A catch phrase that became popular several years after we formed Ecliptic is “situational awareness.” "In essence, what we had in mind at the time (though we didn’t call it this) was providing improved situational awareness for various space project stakeholders: the mission funders/sponsors, the rocket and spacecraft builders, the owners and operators of the rockets and satellites, the space insurance community, the interested public, media outlets, etc."
Former NASA KSC Director, Lockheed Martin Manager, now heads Odyssey Moon Ventures
Jay Honeycutt, new head of Odyssey Moon Ventures has signed a Space Act Agreement based on a technical collaboration between the NASA Ames Research Center and his commercial space company. Odyssey Moon Ventures will use NASA’s Common Spacecraft Bus system as part of its Robotic Lunar Lander system designed to conduct lunar exploration of commercial interest. They also hope to win Google’s Lunar Lander X-Prize of US$30M.
What's Next for SpaceX?
After the successful September ’08 launch success of its Falcon 1 rocket, this Wired article explored the future of the sleek and improved Falcon 9 version and plans for it to transport cargo, and crew, to the International Space Station. Its maiden voyage is now scheduled for Q4 2009.