{"id":17301,"date":"2023-04-05T19:00:56","date_gmt":"2023-04-05T11:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/how-power-is-blazing-a-trail-for-americas-space-effort-and-for-nuclear-startups\/"},"modified":"2023-04-05T19:00:56","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T11:00:56","slug":"how-power-is-blazing-a-trail-for-americas-space-effort-and-for-nuclear-startups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/how-power-is-blazing-a-trail-for-americas-space-effort-and-for-nuclear-startups\/","title":{"rendered":"How power is blazing a trail for America\u2019s space effort \u2014 and for nuclear startups"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An artist\u2019s conception shows a nuclear thermal propulsion system at work in orbit (USNC-Tech Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As more and more hardware goes into Earth orbit, and eventually to the moon and Mars, where will the power to run all those machines come from?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one of the questions under consideration at a State of the Space Industrial Base workshop that\u2019s being conducted this week at Seattle\u2019s Museum of Flight.<\/p>\n

The workshop, hosted by Space Northwest, is bringing together government, academic and commercial leaders to assess the state of advanced power and propulsion for space missions, as well as the outlook for a Department of Defense initiative known as Hybrid Space Architecture.<\/p>\n

Input from the workshop will be combined with insights gained at two other workshops in Florida and New Mexico to help the Pentagon\u2019s Defense Innovation Unit produce its annual report about the space industry\u2019s potential contributions to sustaining America\u2019s leadership on the final frontier.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so much going on, at both big companies and small companies, and we figure that it\u2019s about time that the government actually comes to you,\u201d Steve \u201cBucky\u201d Butow, director of DIU\u2019s space portfolio, told more than 60 attendees during Tuesday\u2019s opening session.<\/p>\n

The topics being addressed at this week\u2019s workshop play to two of the Pacific Northwest\u2019s space industry strengths. <\/p>\n

The Seattle area already produces more than half of the world\u2019s satellites annually \u2014 largely thanks to SpaceX\u2019s Starlink operation in Redmond, Wash., plus LeoStella in Tukwila and Xplore in Redmond. Meanwhile, Amazon\u2019s Project Kuiper is gearing up to build thousands of satellites at a facility in Kirkland.<\/p>\n

All those satellites could play a role in the Hybrid Space Infrastructure that DIU envisions. \u201cIn short, space internet,\u201d Butow said. Microsoft Azure Space, Amazon Web Services and Project Kuiper are among DIU\u2019s commercial partners in the space infrastructure project.<\/p>\n

The region\u2019s role in developing advanced propulsion and power systems might not be as well-known, but it\u2019s arguably just as worthy of note.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Pacific Northwest is unique in the United States, in that it has aerospace and nuclear, all within the same region,\u201d said Paolo Venneri, executive vice president for Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp\u2019s Seattle-based tech division. <\/p>\n

Washington state\u2019s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Idaho National Laboratory are both nuclear research hotspots, so to speak. And the Seattle area has more than its share of commercial nuclear ventures \u2014 ranging from TerraPower, the small-scale nuclear fission company founded by Bill Gates, to far-out fusion companies such as Helion Energy, Avalanche Energy and Zap Energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have this unique combination of workforce and talent that all touches on all these areas that we\u2019re talking about, propulsion and nuclear. That\u2019s principally why we\u2019re here,\u201d Venneri said.<\/p>\n

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