The eSpace Three

Posted by admin | Filed under Entrepreneurs, Scott Tibbits, Spacedev, Starsys, eSPACE

Over the past several months Diane and I have been privileged to talk to more than 30 potential space entrepreneurs that have brought their vision for a new product or venture to us for possible involvement with the eSpace incubator.  What a variety of ventures this has represented and what a wonderful look into the future of aerospace;  solar powered planes that never need refueling, new types of rockets that are “green” and re-useable, companies to provide commercial access to the moon, high efficiency power supplies for ion engines, zero-gravity experiences as a way of exciting and educating students.

 Of the 30 ventures we looked at, more than half of them were strong incubator candidates.  Wanting to start gently to make sure we get it right, we chose to go forward with a small, select group for this first round.

Three companies have been invited to be the first round of participants in the eSpace incubator: Zybek Advanced Products, Special Aerospace Services and Net-Centric Design Professionals.  Each of the companies has been coupled with a seasoned space entrepreneur as a mentor to help them utilize the extensive resources of the eSpace incubator and to provide mentorship and strategic guidance. 

The ventures are about as varied as you could be and still be within the  domain of “space”.  A company that manufactures near-exact duplicates of dust on other planets, a company that uses earth-bound telescopes to predict when orbital junk might collide, a company that creates systems so that what a spacecraft senses shows up on your laptop instantly in the best possible way for you to use it.  In addition to the high innovation represented by the ventures, we are as excited about the people that we will get to work work with.  It is inspiring to be with these folks. Mike Z, German, Sheryl, Mike S, Jeff, Chris and the rest of the teams all share an excitement about “what could be”.  They can see a future where their technology or venture has become manifest, and just being around them you see it too.   Once you hear  in their words what they are going to create,  you catch their passion, you too believe it could happen, and you cannot help but be swept up and want to help that come to be.  

We look forward to the coming year and discovering what each of these ventures will become.  And we look forward to the next round of discussions with emerging entrepreneurs as we develop our next round of eSpace incubator participants.  

If you are an emerging space entrepreneur we want to hear from you.  Contact us.  Share you vision.  Let’s see if eSpace can help.

Scott

Tags: entrepreneur, Entrepreneurs, eSPACE, NDP, Scott Tibbitts, space awareness services, Starsys, University of Colorado, zybek
Permalink | Comments (0) | Jul 14, 2009

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