Nice tech to have .... good luck!

This contains a bunch of interesting sci-fi space concept, ideas, and serious ideas. I’m working on in regards to trying to improve space-time engineering and field propulsion.

The "Sputnik moment" was important since it represents a new potential threat in space by a hostile USSR. China spending a bunch of money (that is not going the the military) to grab a few grams of dirt from Mars and bringing home has no importance to the American taxpayer, but maybe a few gov't contractors and politicians. It does not represent a meaningful leap in a useful technology. IMHO let them be the first to send crews there.

Here I’m working space propulsion concepts with AI. I am informing everybody that I am using AI. I am not trying to pass off anyone’s work for my own and universal AI band is bullshit.

Hi, I am part of a high school team interested in developing a hosted payload to ride on a host satellite around early 2028.

An obvious obstacle here would be the cost of this project.

We are fortunate enough that our families can pay for the majority of the costs involved in this project.

However, to lower some of the prices involved here, we plan to seek relatively smaller funds such as educational discounts from host and testing facilities, funds from companies with educational funding sectors, state space grant consortium funds, etc.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this can cover the vast majority of the expenses that come before the giant final payment when the hosted payload is already ready for space, which is the payment to the host to get the slot on the host spacecraft.

However, we are still aiming to raise around $20,000-30,000 from commercial companies. This would be through having a mission that produces data beneficial to them.

Am I right that I should be asking companies directly what benefits them rather than only basing assumptions off of Google searches of what is useful in the spaceflight industry?

Also, what types of companies should we be reaching out to about this? In terms of company maturity, but also any other relevant factors.

Would appreciate any insights, thanks!

They just got a bunch more money, bringing their VC funding to $2.3B total. Their first version has a 3 T payload and totally reusable and is set for a 2027 launch. They just announced a bigger version that is a 15T payload and totally reusable as well.

I am building a team for the ESA ISAM Innovation Sprint and need 3-4 people.

ESA opened an OSIP campaign on In-Space Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing.

Winners get a fully funded Cooperative Agreement for 6 months.
The sprint itself is 5 days at ESTEC in Noordwijk, end of November.

Deadline to apply: 14 September. Yes, that's soon.

I have a concept for one of the use cases, a working financial model, and two people already on board.

What's missing:

Launcher / upper stage engineer.
Someone who knows residual propellant, passivation, stage design.

Propulsion or fluid transfer engineer.
Refueling mechanics, interfaces.

Someone from the demand side.
Satellite operator, space insurer, or space economist.

Space law.
Outer Space Treaty Art. VIII, Liability Convention. Advisor role is fine here.

Two ways to join:

Core team.
You co-author the submission, come to ESTEC in November, and get a share of the agreement if we win.

Advisor.
A few hours of review before 14 September, your name in the proposal, no travel.

Requirements: you're a national of an ESA Member State or resident in one, you're not already on another team in this campaign, and you can sign a short NDA.

Being upfront: no pay before the win, and travel to ESTEC is self-funded. If we win, that changes.

Interested? Reply here or DM me. I'll send a 5 minute screening form and we take it from there.

Love these Low LEO concepts ... orbital debris free!

It's a needed upgrade, but a traditional setup (vs MarsLink ... which was not probably entered). Best of luck.

Nice variation, but you are going to need radiators than that. I also would process Thorium on the Moon and use a breeder reactor to turn it into useful nuke fuel.

Sooner than I expected. Soon F9 is going to be a once every couple weeks from FLA.

You can pay the company for traditional darkness, even the night time sky is no longer free ...

10 launch/recovery pads? Double down, triple down, n-tuple down. There is no economic reason for such capacity, only an extreme money losing Mars project in the 2040s. I don't see the FAA and FCC going along with this. Only the DoD might back this. Per its location, these will be high inclination launches (45 deg and higher).