In case you missed it, check out Ally Marotti’s article in the Chicago Tribune last week. She interviews entrepreneurs from several Chicago area space start-ups, ranging from space logistics, to spacesuit design, to hypersonic travel. Long-time NASA partners Boeing and Caterpillar are discussed, as well as NewSpace Chicago itself!
Have you ever thought of fashion as engineering? More specifically, as space engineering? You should. On September 14, fashion designer and commercial space researcher and enthusiast Lee Anderson joined NewSpace Chicago to open our eyes and challenge our assumptions. The apparel and space industries have been tightly collaborating since the earliest days of the space race. In the 1960s, NASA went to the fashion industry for the expertise, skill, and even their equipment to solve…
In celebration of over thirty years of recognizing and awarding innovation, the Edison Awards announced today that, in partnership with NewSpace Chicago, they will expand with a new category for 2018: Space Innovation. Originally established in 1987, the Edison Awards have recognized and honored some of the most innovative products and business leaders in the world and is among the most prestigious accolades honoring excellence in new product and service development, marketing, design and innovation.…
Fashion and Aerospace have been partners since the first Space Age. Their historical achievements have paved the way for a robust textile industry that serves both our needs on Earth and our Space endeavors. In addition, Space can be a hostile environment both physically and psychologically and fashion has a role to play in both. It brings forth the material science to protect humans from harmful radiation as well as flexibility to enable mobility to…
Space debris is a serious problem, threatening not only satellites and space vehicles, but our very economy. With space-based communications, television, military, and GPS/navigation systems, our economy is more dependent upon space that many realize. Astroscale, a newspace start-up based out of Singapore, Japan, and the UK, is developing technology to de-orbit dead satellites. Gracefully de-orbiting dead satellites will prevent them from colliding with other objects, damaging or destroying them and thereby creating yet…
Chicago is one of the fastest growing centers for start-ups in the country, and crowdfunding is part of that engine. 25 space entrepreneurs and enthusiasts came together at Chicago’s mHub incubator on June 15th to learn from some of crowdfunding’s best experts and advocates. NewSpace Chicago founder and meetup moderator David Hurst opened with a short background on crowdfunding, and some successful examples from the space arena, including SpaceVR, the Integrated Space Plan, ArduSat, and…
The International Space Station has been our outpost in space for the last 19 years. But the space station is coming to the end of its lifespan. After the ISS, where will be able to go in space? The Space Angels Network looks at the coming commercial space stations that will be flying soon. Have you ever dreamt of living in outer space? Since the development of spaceflight, the off-Earth lifestyle has been limited to…
As reported in Space.com on Monday, Feb 27, SpaceX founder Elon Musk announced that the company will fly two private citizens around the Moon in 2018. The private spaceflight company will use its Falcon Heavy rocket to send the two paying passengers into space aboard one of the company’s Dragon spacecraft. The two private citizens, who have not yet been named, approached SpaceX about taking a trip around the moon, and have “already paid a significant…
On Tuesday, September 27th, during the International Astronautical Congress (IAC), Elon Musk, CEO and Chief Designer of SpaceX, announced the company’s plans to colonize Mars, with the long-term goal of humans becoming a multi-planetary species. Musk described an Interplanetary Transport System and how it’s design seeks to overcome the long-standing challenges of sustainably moving large numbers of passengers and large cargo off-world. The plan Musk presented certainly has both technical and financial flaws. Yet the…
From the Chicago Tribune, October 5, 2016: Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg sketched out a Jetsons-like future at a conference Tuesday, envisioning a commercial space-travel market with dozens of destinations orbiting the Earth and hypersonic aircraft shuttling travelers between continents in two hours or less. And Boeing intends to be a key player in the initial push to send humans to Mars, maybe even beating Musk to his long-time goal. Like Musk’s SpaceX,…