Ken Murphy / 4:35 am March 31st, 2009

Howdy everyone!

I’m fresh back from the latest Lunar & Planetary Science Conference (affectionately referred to as the LPSC), and what a time it was. I ran into a lot of old friends, met some new ones, and wallowed in copious amounts of Moon stuff. The proceedings are found here (pdf).

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Ken Murphy / 1:26 am March 31st, 2009

is driven this week by astroENGINE. This week’s Carnival of Space is presented in the form of a quiz, and will be podcast Live! on April 1st, a first for the CoS!

Ken Murphy / 5:54 pm March 29th, 2009

Potter, Michael
“Orphans of Apollo”
Free Radical Productions
2008
Publisher’s Web Site
Out of the Cradle Review
The Space Review Review
Adventures in Ethics and Science Review
Cosmic Log Review

Librarian’s Note: Quite an interesting documentary that highlights the kind of entrepreneurial spirit that made the U.S. a great nation, and how vested interests can work both for and against you. I’ll have a review up shortly.

Ken Murphy / 2:03 am March 26th, 2009

Shipp, Stephanie & Christine Shupla
-How Our Moon Formed
-Our Moon in a New Light
-To the Moon and Beyond
Lunar & Planetary Institute
2008
ISSN: 0161-5297
Publisher’s Web Site

Librarian’s Note: One of the many cool handouts available at the LPSC.

Ken Murphy / 3:10 am March 24th, 2009

Dixon-Engel, Tara & Mike Jackson
“Neil Armstrong: One Giant Leap for Mankind”
Sterling Publishing
2008
ISBN: 978-1-402-76061-7

EVA / 12:56 am March 22nd, 2009

Welcome to the third edition of EVA Interviews: The Business of the new Space Age! Our next guest is Rex Ridenoure, Space entrepreneur and CEO of Ecliptic Enterprises Corp. - a successful small Space startup famous for its RocketCam™ equipment and images.

EVA:     Hi Rex! It’s great to have you join us at EVA Interviews and Out of the Cradle. Welcome! As a successful Space entrepreneur, you have had a lot of experience with the issues and challenges facing Space Startups today. We’ve discussed some of these in the previous editions of EVA Interviews. I’m very much looking forward to hearing your actual experience with these, how you have built Ecliptic from scratch and what insights you have to offer us!

Since these interviews are about Space as well as the business and entrepreneurial aspects of our exodus Out of the Cradle, I always like to start by asking about Space. I know you do have a personal interest in Space. Can you tell us how your interest started and how it has evolved?

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Ken Murphy / 12:30 am March 22nd, 2009

has docked at Orbital Hub, the place where space exploration, science, and engineering meet. This week’s Carnival of Space wanders the cosmos to bring you the latest performances, from a bubble market in habitable planets, to space cards that help teach about our planets. Enjoy the show!

Ken Murphy / 8:00 pm March 14th, 2009

Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen, Mesdames et Messieurs, Damen und Herren to this, the 94th Spectacular Carnival of Space!

I’m Ken, the friendly Lunar Librarian here at OotC, and I’ll be your Ringmaster for this week. And what a week it is! We have a full slate of performances from over 20 different space blogs, so let’s waste no time in getting started.

The Carnival of Space tradition here at OotC is start at Earth and work our way outwards to encompass ever vaster realms of the infinite enormity of space.

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Ken Murphy / 2:31 am March 13th, 2009

Schultz, Jason & Darren G. Davis. Art by John Polacek
“Missile to the Moon #1″
Bluewater Comics
01/2009
Publisher’s Web Site

Librarian’s Note: Updated quite a bit from the cult movie of the same name, it’s off to the same campy start. An ad in the middle notes that the film is now available in a colorized version as well. The flipside of the comic is some kind of superhero-y story.

Ken Murphy / 3:04 am March 7th, 2009

There are an increasing number of entrepreneurial space-related events and conferences happening, and here are a few that I’ve gotten notice of recently:

On short notice is the half-day symposium on THE SPACE ECONOMY, occurring next Friday morning, March 13th in D.C. The agenda can be found here. There are some interesting names supporting the event, from Cisco to Phillips & Co., in addition to the usual suspects like AAS, AIAA, CSE, GMU, ISU and SEC.

[Update: Robert Hoskins of Phillips & Co. uses some of the output of the event in an editorial in Florida Today in response to short-sighted political maneuvers, found here. Hoyt Davidson of Near Earth LLC also provides a nice summary in the June issue of From the Ground Up (pdf)]

Near Earth LLC, a capital advisory firm, has their March newsletter (pdf) out, From the Ground Up. This month they put the markets in the context of space developments, and are optimistic for the future.

Later this month, also in D.C., is the Satellite 2009 conference, from March 24-27. This is for industry, which means there’s quite a list of exhibitors. Eva and I bandied about the idea of her attending to get some interviews, but no one is buying any books, so there’s no capital to underwrite the trip. Plus, it’s unclear if we’d qualify for a media pass. And I’m going to be at the LPSC down in Houston that week.

The next week starts with the National Space Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, CO, running through April 2nd. This one also has an impressive list of exhibitors, making it a good place to look to put some money to work.

Filling out the week in early April, from the 2nd to the 4th, is the Space Access ‘09 conference in Phoenix, AZ. This is the conference where all the rocket guys get together to talk about access to space. There’s a strong entrepreneurial spirit to this one, making it a great place to scout for talent.

Back when I was co-chair of the 2007 ISDC, I campaigned hard to get as many pre-conferences as possible held just before the ISDC, so that the results could be presented at our citizen space conference. So in addition to the Aerospace Technology Working Group (ATWG), we also had the Space Venture Finance Symposium (often considered the 2nd Space Investment Summit), and folks from both groups stuck around for our conference. That was repeated again in 2008 in D.C., and will be repeated again this year in conjunction with the 2009 ISDC in Orlando, FL. The 6th Space Investment Summit will be on Wednesday, May 27th. From the website:

Presentations will focus on the latest developments in the rapidly growing space tourism industry (vehicles, funding, destinations, timeframes, numbers of customers and more), as well as new cross-industry business.

Be sure to stick around for the International Space Development Conference, the largest citizen space conference in the world. From May 28-31, it will feature luminaries from all aspects of our space endeavours. I know from experience that the program will keep evolving right up to the last minute, so be sure to check regularly for updates.

Further out in the year is the NewSpace 2009 conference from the Space Frontier Foundation, from July 18-20 at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountainview, California. Waitaminit…that’s what I thought - the ISU Summer Session Program is going to be at NASA Ames from June 29 to August 28. OMG, I so have to be there for that party. I may need to bring lots of beer and Texas vodka to the festivities. Rick always appreciates a nice ice-cold Shiner Bock.

Still further out, September 14-17, is the AIAA SPACE 2009 conference & exposition in Pasadena CA. This one is a more technically oriented, and may not be as much fun as the NewSpace 2009 conference.

I’m sure there are a few that I missed, but this should give you a start on getting the lowdown on the business of space.

Ken Murphy / 4:01 am March 6th, 2009

“Who Owns the Moon” by Virgiliu Pop. Published in 2009 by Springer as Vol. 4 in their Space Regulations Library, it weighs in at 175 pages all in. A handful of editing errors, mainly in the last half.

While this could be considered a follow-up to Virg’s earlier work “Unreal Estate”, which was as thorough a Title Search on who owns the Moon as you’ll find, really it stands alone by taking a different approach. While the prior book looked backwards at who was trying to do a land grab of Lunar real estate over the years, this one instead looks at how we can move forward by taking a look at how the law stands now, its context, including historical, and how it is interpreted.

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EVA / 2:51 am March 1st, 2009

Welcome to the second edition of EVA Interviews: The Business of the new Space Age!

Our next guest is Guillermo Söhnlein, founder of both the International Association of Space Entrepreneurs and Space Angels Network. One of the major challenges facing Space entrepreneurs and startups is finding adequate investment seed capital, the early-stage funds needed to start and grow their businesses. Angels and sometimes VCs (Venture Capital firms) are the usual investors if you can’t self-fund, but they have rarely focused on the new Space industry. Guillermo is actively involved in bringing investors’ attention, funds and expertise to often ignored Space startups. With IASE, he encourages and provides an environment to build entrepreneurship in the new Space industry.

 

EVA:     Hi Guillermo! Thank you very much for joining us at EVA Interviews and Out of the Cradle. Welcome! I am very much looking forward to our conversation about all the interesting projects you have created to address the challenges facing Space entrepreneurs! 

Since these interviews are about Space, as well as the economic aspects of our exodus Out of the Cradle, I’d like to begin by asking about Space. I know you do have a personal interest in Space.  Can you tell us how your interest started and how it has evolved? 

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Ken Murphy / 1:32 am March 1st, 2009

is SO BIG that they had to break out a sideshow to fit everything in! To The Launch Pad, the blog sponsored by the XPrize Foundation (who’s hiring, BTW), fell the unfortunate task of trying to coordinate the proceedings at the end of what was apparently an Insane Week™. The Main Event went on as usual, offering a plethora of space topics from international Lunar news to the comet Lulin, to the Space Camp Song. Today, the Sideshow rolls into town to further runneth over your cup of space goodness.

Speaking of Space Camp, I did grown-up space camp, oh, nigh on ten years now it was, and my absolutely most favorite part of the whole thing was the multi-axis trainer. I’ve since ridden on them at the Maryland Science Center and the Shanghai Science & Technology Museum, and I still love ‘em. If you want to see what the experience is like, you can

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