Rocketforge

I found this via HobbySpace. Apparently Scaled Composites has fixed the stability problems with SpaceShipOne. To test the modifications they ran a wind tunnel test. The reason private space will succeed in the long run is that Burt did his wind tunnel tests this way while NASA does it this way.

I just had the most amazing sushi! I’m in Tokyo for the week and a co-worker decided that we should all get up at 3:00 a.m. to go watch the fish auctions at the Tsukiji Fish Market. I’d never seen such a diversity of seafood in my life. Squid with red ink instead of black. Clams with feet almost a foot long. Four foot long fish of various types flopping around on the floor. And then you go next door and there a little lady in a booth selling rice balls with a wonderful teriyaki filling inside. And the sushi restaurants were everywhere, and open at 5:00 a.m. The fatty tuna literally melted in your mouth. The eel was freshly cleaned from a tub full of live eels.

the airtime schedule of Discovery Channels “Rocket Challenge” coverage of LDRS is now available online or at http://tinyurl.com/sabe

- iz

(sci.space.policy by way of HobbySpace) Randall Clague of XCOR posted this message on sci.space.policy stating that the AVR (aviation part of the FAA) and the AST (the rocket part of the FAA) have agreed on a division of regulation based on trajectory instead of whether or not the vehicle had wings or not (or other rather silly ways of dividing it up). As Randall says, “What this means is that the same vehicle can be an experimental aircraft on Monday, a launch vehicle on Tuesday, and an experimental aircraft again on Wednesday. Which it is depends on how you fly it”. Thus making life sane for RLVs that spend large amounts of their testing lifetimes in what would be considered atmospheric flights.

Posting will be very light until 11/5. I’m on business travel for Auto-ID stuff. I’ll be in Palo Alto, Tokyo and Springfield, AK. I think I hear that old Sesame Street tune, “Which of these is not like the other one”, in the background.

Several months ago I found the web site for the
International
Association of Space Entrepreneurs. I regularly checked in to see if
anything had happened but for most of the summer nothing seemed to be moving.
I recently checked back in to find that the web site had been updated and
that IASE was hosting a speakers series that started with John Higgenbotham
of SpaceVest back in July. In order
to find out more I decided to give IASE’s founding director, Guillermo
Sohnlein, a call.

According to Guillermo, IASE’s goal is “to promote global entrepreneurship in
the space industry through concerted efforts in business, public policy, and
education.” Their first step is to form a 501(c)(6) membership trade
association with these short term tasks:

• attracting experienced business people to space related markets
• help entrepreneurs locate capital by bringing those entrepreneurs to
  capital markets that don’t normally consider space businesses

• lobbying governments on behalf of the industry for a business friendly
  regulatory changes (taxes, liability, regulatory, etc) through PACs and
  other methods.

• educational foundation for entrepreneurial space development by targeting
  schools and organizations that have strong aerospace and entrepreneurial
  programs that need cross discipline development resources.

One important point is that IASE will not focus on any particular segment
of the market. IASE breaks the industry up into 4 segments:

• Governmental: companies that act as contractors to existing DoD/NASA space
  programs.

• Commercialization: companies that take technology developed by government
  space programs and turn them into commercial products (GPS, foam beds, etc)

• Mainstream: companies who’s products aren’t necessarily about space but
  that use space technologies to provide products (telecom, remote sensing,
  satellite radio, etc)

• Pioneers: companies that are creating new industries (space tourism)

While each segment may have different customers, they all tend to have the
same problems of access to capital, long term ROI, and high initial
capitalization requirements. IASE will attempt to mix these industries
up at its events in order to create cross pollenization between the various
segments.

In addition to the trade association, IASE will also be developing an
economic development consulting subsidiary that will help communities that
have some space related resource (such as a NASA center or high tech
resource such as Mojave airport) better integrate that resource with
the entrepreneurs. Guillermo even thought it possible to provide that
service to virtual communities such as space advocacy groups looking to
integrate more with the business community.

At the end of the interview I asked Guillermo what he though the number one
problem was that he’d like IASE to fix. His response was that the industry
as it stands is populated by enthusiasts. What he’d like to see is the industry
switch to being populated by business people in much the same way that
the personal computing industry switched in the 80s from being a mix of home
brew computing clubs to being a trillion dollar business run by business people.He made the point that nothing really happens unless there is an economic
reason to do so. And right now there is no work being done by business to
develop the economic reason for space development. According to Guillermo, if
IASE can help change that then he will have considered it a success.

IASE will be having its official
public launch
on October 30th at 6:00 pm in Herndon, VA. Given Guillermo’s goals I think
IASE will have a lot to offer. If you can make it to the event I think it
would be worth your time (and if you go drop me a note!). If you would like to keep up with IASE drop by their website at http://www.spaceentrepreneurs.org/ and sign up for their quarterly newsletter.

Adam Przybyla runs POLSEK which is a Polish space advocacy blog. Adam has an article on the Second Galileo Software Engineering Workshop GSOFT 2003 which is currently going on. What caught his eye was this section of the agenda:

Technical Session 5: Open Source Software – Open Standards (Chairman: Gérard Bulsa/Maxime Perrotin)

16:00 – 16:20 “The Rationale for Open Source Software and Open Standards” (Peter Claes, ESA/GPO)

16:20 – 16:50 “Montavista Linux RTOS for Galileo” (Peter Van Ackeren, Montavista)

16:50 – 17:20 “Experiences with the Use and Selection of Open Source Components” (Ir. Marco Nijdam, West Consulting BV)

17:20 – 17:45 Round Table (Chaired by ESA/GPO)

Update: while we’re both chatting on IRC, he found some interesting presentations from the 2003 DASIA conference that is held by the EuroSpace association of European Space Industry. Many of the presentations are for aerospace software projects that are being run using Open Source techniques.

While looking through some of my older bookmarks, I noticed that the International Association of Space Entrepreneurs (IASE) has a new look to it. I haven’t run across anything they’ve done in other fora so I’m curious if anyone has any experience with them.

In An alternative to the Heinlein Prize Jeff Foust discusses the fact that the recently announced Heinlein Prize for Accomplishments in Commercial Space Activities rewards past achievements when its support of future endeavors would do more for advancing commercial space activity. Specifically he suggests resurrecting the FINDS model:

Because these companies can make big initial strides with a small amount of funding, a little bit of money could go a long way. Instead of giving one person $500,000 for past accomplishments, the prize could award $100,000 each to five promising, but cash-strapped, commercial space startups. Different permutations could spread the money further, such as awarding four $100,000 and four $25,000 prizes. The prizes would ideally be in the form of grants with some modest reporting requirements, allowing the startups to conserve their equity for later investments.

While I very much agree with Jeff here, there are problems with the FINDS model.First of all, it didn’t limit itself to commercial activities. Funding for things such as SETI, near-Earth objects and conferences while useful for those involved, simply drained money away from FINDS. While I don’t want to second guess the FINDS funding sources and its methods, my opinion is that it would have been much better spent following Jeff’s model plus a healthy dose of entrepreneurial education and market development.

Part of the problem with things such as FINDS, CATS, SFF’s Enterprise Project, and many other commercial space ‘foundations’ is that they all seem to be dancing around the idea of being an incubator without actually committing to be one. FINDS funding non-commercial activities, thus being more of a charitable fund. CATS assumed that technology changes instead of customers would drive markets. SFF’s Enterprise Project waits for people to come with business plans instead of helping the community develop them. A serious attempt should be made to combine the best of these efforts with a serious and professional attempt at building a real incubator. Something with the following features:

Funding

The incubator must have funding. It should pick up the slack areas where Angels and VCs typically don’t fund.This means initial seed money (usually $10K – $50K) and pre-VC prototype money (the kind that usually gets the prototypes built and the first customer signed up). This does not mean the money is easy, just very targeted.

Mentoring

Many incubators will pair an entrepreneur with a mentor prior even to seed money. Mentors provide the real world knowledge that a startup entrepreneur needs in order to craft the business plan and develop the contacts needed to build a management team.

Market Development

One of the things missing in space commercialization is fresh thinking around markets and customers. This means providing business development think tanks and market analysis teams that can develop business plan skeletons for entrepreneurs to pick up and run with. Fund focus groups and market analysis efforts instead of conferences.

Ongoing Support

Startups are hard. They need a support team that understands what they’re trying to do and can help (not hinder) their efforts. This means help with contacts, advice, access to other capital sources, access to other market segments and customers, etc.

The slight problem with this plan is that none of the current crop of space organizations has the ability to do something like this. It is truly an incubator which requires participation from people who typically don’t participate in space activist/policy organizations. Of all of us the Space Frontier Foundation has the best access to the seasoned entrepreneurs that can pull it off. Some of the presentations from people like The Colony Fund suggest they might have some of the tools. But beyond that, no one has all of the components. Which means we have to build it.

So who’s interested in building such a thing?

October 6, 2003 – A grassroots campaign started last week to put a series of commericals on the Discovery channel starting in November. Discovery will air a program called “Rocket Challenge”. They spent over $1 million producing the special on rocketry and LDRS held this summer. Frank Uroda from Public Missiles is promoting the idea of airing three 15 second commercials during each airing of the program. The program will air six times. It is estimated that the program will reach six million homes.

According to Mr. Uroda, “In a nut shell, the 3 hour show “Rocket Challenge” will air twice on Nov. 3, three times on Nov. 10, and once on Nov. 17. We cannot pick and choose which shows or hours to run our ad. We must buy one 15 second spot in each hour of the show and for every time the show is run. The full package for 18 insertions was originally $93,000 but after some major negotiation between me and the accounts manager, I got the rock bottom price of $68,000 (to be paid in advance).”

The advertisements will direct interested viewers to a web site tentatively called, “FlyRockets.com.” Pat Gordzelik, a newly elected TRA board member and a group of individuals have joined Mr. Uroda in trying to pull off this grassroots effort. Mr. Gordzelik was able to pursuade the NAR and TRA boards to support the effort after extensive discussions. “I was able to get the support of the Tripoli BoD and finally NAR to support this. My analogy of a infomercial that “never asked for the order” would not get the phones to ring, finally swung em over.”, stated Mr. Gordzelik.

He further stated that “We have developed a plan for the ad using an astronaut to endorse rocketry as a whole. It will be 18 fifteen second ads at a cost of 68k. We are also working on attaining outside corporate sponsorship. Frank is developing a raffle website to garner funds from interested individuals. The whole plan will be formally introduced probably this weekend as time is short.”

Frank Uroda stated, “Yes it is a big risk and a lot of money. But wars are not won by small, incremental moves. It is the bold strokes that win the wars. We are in a war now, actually a battle of attrition. It’s a battle we are sure to lose. The regulators have nothing but time and money on their side. We have neither. We have but one choice, grow or die. There is still time to do this but now it must be done by the organizations since all of us manufacturers are on the verge of bankruptcy.”

A web site has been set up to take donations for the ad campaign. Vendors can also donate prizes for the Mega raffle to be held to support the campaign. The web site address is : http://www.saverocketrynow.org

[ reposted from "http://www.space-rockets.com/arsanews#ad1">ARSA ]

- iz