What we’re about
We are an open community for entrepreneurs, investors, engineers, scientists, students and others who are interested in the development of private companies commercializing outer space. We seek to promote Chicago as a center of excellence for new commercial space, space-related, or space-scalable ventures.
Space is a place. Space is a place where we are doing business. Billions of dollars each year are generated from businesses that are operating in space. Examples include launch services, communications, weather, other remote sensing, and global positioning systems (GPS). As humanity moves beyond the initial stage of simply exploring space and goes to space to stay, we will engage in the activities that people do when they inhabit a place. The challenges of space-based enterprises are familiar: logistics, scheduling and transport, construction, energy, food, air and water, habitation, finance, insurance, communication, resource extraction, and manufacturing.
Space is happening now. NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program is motivating competition and innovation in the private sector to provide launch services for crew and cargo. This shift has also enabled the private sector to address other issues beyond launch services and is enabling the growth of an entirely new industry.
Opportunities for new space ventures span a broad range of for-profit applications developed to solve problems here on Earth, and that can be scaled to solve key problems in space and vice-versa. These applications cover diverse fields including biotechnology, medicine, nanotechnology, smart materials, and alternative energy. Technological innovation and new business models are being followed by significant venture investment.
Chicago is an economic powerhouse. A global financial center, a technology center, a transportation hub, supporting a large science and engineering workforce, and home to world-class colleges and universities, Chicago has all of the ingredients to grow new commercial space ventures.
We are starting up the private space industry in Chicago. Join us. Join the future.
