{"id":19738,"date":"2012-04-26T21:47:58","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T13:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/rockets-robots-and-a-big-week-in-the-silicon-valley-of-space\/"},"modified":"2012-04-26T21:47:58","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T13:47:58","slug":"rockets-robots-and-a-big-week-in-the-silicon-valley-of-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/rockets-robots-and-a-big-week-in-the-silicon-valley-of-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockets, robots and a big week in the \u2018Silicon Valley of Space\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Blue Origin’s space capsule.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We\u2019ve had fun this week following the story of Planetary Resources, the new startup that plans to launch robots into space to mine asteroids. Their news conference at Seattle\u2019s Museum of Flight really did feel like the opening scene of a science fiction novel.<\/p>\n

And in the process of developing the technology to retrieve natural resources from those giant rocks in the sky, they hope to make this area \u201cthe Silicon Valley of Space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether or not that actually happens, another piece of news this week reinforced the point that there are, in fact, lots of people around here trying to figure out new ways of getting stuff into orbit and beyond, to do a variety of interesting and groundbreaking things.<\/p>\n

Blue Origin, based in Kent, Wash., south of Seattle, says it has completed a series of successful high-speed wind tunnel tests, helping to refine its spacecraft\u2019s aerodynamics.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Blue Origin is creating a reusable rocket booster than can return to Earth with powered vertical landing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The normally secretive Blue Origin was started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. It\u2019s one of four American aerospace companies using funding from NASA to try to usher in a new era of commercial spaceflight \u2014 in part to transport astronauts to the International Space Station in the post-Space Shuttle era.<\/p>\n

A big part of Blue Origin\u2019s plan is to make rocket boosters reusable \u2014 and therefore more economical \u2014 by bringing them back to Earth with a vertical landing technique after they put a capsule into orbit. Blue Origin is looking to rebound from the explosion of one of its test spacecraft in the skies over Texas last year.<\/p>\n

Another of the four companies in NASA\u2019s Commercial Crew Development program is Boeing, which despite moving its headquarters to Chicago still has a sizable presence in Seattle in the form of its commercial airplanes division \u2014 representing lots of engineering experience that could help fuel the region\u2019s role in the development of new technologies for space.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, separate from the NASA program, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen\u2019s Stratolaunch Systems is aiming to launch rockets into orbit from the world\u2019s biggest plane.<\/p>\n

In short, these companies are drawing from the region\u2019s roots in software and airplanes, and combining them to create an entirely new industry.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Planetary Resources’ Arkyd asteroid hunter<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But it\u2019s not all rockets and spaceships around here. Don\u2019t forget the space elevator folks, the people who want to send payloads into orbit on the backs of robots climbing carbon nanotubes into the sky \u2014 maybe even powered by energy-transmitting laser beams, also developed here.<\/p>\n

So what could all of these space ventures mean for the economy?<\/p>\n

Many trillions of dollars, apparently.<\/p>\n

Apart from the echoes of sci-fi, what struck me most about the Planetary Resources news conference was just how much fun they were having. It was good to see people so excited about what\u2019s ahead.<\/p>\n

This was one of the best parts of the news conference, an impromptu aside from Eric Anderson, one the company\u2019s principals:<\/p>\n

\n

 \u201cThis company is not about paper studies. This company is not about thinking and dreaming about mining asteroids. This company is about creating a space economy beyond the Earth. It\u2019s about building real hardware. It\u2019s about doing real things in space to move the needle forward. Not just talking about it. We\u2019ve done enough of that. There\u2019s plenty of talking. We\u2019re about doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to be held accountable for that. We want to generate interest all around the world and have the public follow us as we really work to do a very hard thing \u2014 which is to create robots that go into deep space and learn to remotely mine asteroids. There will be times when we fail. There will be times when we have to pick up the pieces and try again. But we\u2019re going to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Trillions or not, it\u2019s going to be pretty cool to have these people around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blue Origin’s space capsule. We\u2019ve had fun this week following the story of Planetary Resources, the new startup that plans to launch robots into space to mine asteroids. Their news conference at Seattle\u2019s Museum of Flight really did feel like the opening scene of a science fiction novel. And in the process of developing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4820],"class_list":["post-19738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-planetary-resources"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19738"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19738\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}