Are you starstruck by space tech too?

One of the benefits of living away from the bright city lights is that you can actually see the stars twinkling when you look up into the sky. It’s awe-inspiring to truly imagine the concept of light-years and know that certain stars we see now actually expired eons ago. As a kid, I loved Greek mythology - and so many constellations are named after Greek myths. I maaayy have geeked out by reading a myth, looking up the related constellation, and running outside to see if I could find it in the sky. And then I saw that a college friend had recently stepped away from his role as Chief Space Officer for Virgin Galactic, so now we are exploring space tech together.?

?? Note: Since I first wrote this article in April, two major space news items happened! Both Richard Branson AND Jeff Bezos went on separate flights into space. Both trips aimed to just pass the Kármán line (62 miles/100km above the earth's surface), where gravity loses its hold on your aircraft.

#TECHTOPIC

The Space Age began in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to be launched into space. Soon after in 1958, the US created NASA (the National Aeronautics & Space Administration). So ‘space tech’ is the development of any technology that helps further space exploration. Much of the early history of space tech was led by NASA and the governments of other countries, in conjunction with a small number of defense companies.?

In 2000, a ‘new’ billionaire named Jeff Bezos quietly launched Blue Origin, a full two years before Elon Musk launched SpaceX. Then billionaire Richard Branson got involved by launching Virgin Galactic in 2004. All three companies want to make space travel more reliable, safer, and more affordable, moving it outside the realm of just planetary defense. Blue Origin is focused on lunar bases and space colonies. SpaceX began with the further mission of going to Mars (tho has teetered on the brink of collapse more than once). And Virgin Galactic’s goal has been space tourism, similar to how one might visit the Maldives.? Some say this three-company race is simply the inevitable result of a few geeky men who have billions at their disposal to help realize their childhood dreams of exploring the final frontier.??

Since the early 2000s, these three companies have dominated the discussions about expanding access to space travel. (There was also the cautionary tale of the now-defunct Mars One project aiming to send 100 people to Mars. A friend was named a finalist before the project went bankrupt in 2019 so I’ve been tracking this one for a while). And while SpaceX tops the most innovative space tech companies list, more and more companies are entering space tech with an expanding list of objectives. Some companies are working to impact climate change on the Earth via space. And space tech is becoming a hot set of stocks to invest in.

As with many other areas of tech, more regulations need to be developed. ‘Air traffic control’ is a major one as SpaceX has so many satellites in lower orbit that collisions are predicted to be inevitable. And while it’s a good thing there is a startup working to develop a robot workforce to do satellite repairs, that doesn’t fully solve the collision problem. With the recent launch of Virgin Orbit (a separate company aimed at putting more satellites into orbit), we need to start defining how and when and where satellites can be put into space. We don’t want to have too much space junk!

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This post was originally shared on the Digital Orchards blog on April 9, 2021.