I am about 2 years away from starting my next startup and I know it has to be something space tech. What are the best books / blogs / Twitter influencers to follow that I should be on top of?
I don't want to get too lecture-y but if you want to start a business, know what field you want to start it in, but don't even know what you're trying to accomplish, what problems you're trying to solve, how you'll change the market or logistics or whatever, why are you even doing it? How successful do you think an endeavor shoehorned into your desired criteria is going to be?<p>Twitter influencers? You think you're going to start a successful business by following the right people on twitter?<p>My advice, find a problem, take the time to understand the problem space very very well, find some novel solution and implement it to the absolute best of your ability. It could be in any space, but if you want to focus on space tech, there are plenty of difficult to solve problems there. Start there, understand the ins and outs of it, find a problem you think you can solve and deliver value by working on it.
One man came to Mozart and asked him how to write a symphony. Mozart replied, “You are too young to write a symphony.” The man said, “You were writing symphonies when you were 10 years of age, and I am 21.” Mozart said, “Yes, but I didn’t run around asking people how to do it.”
This really smart guy from my university in Norway started his company in an interesting way. After collaborating with Copenhagen Suborbitals, he identified rocket propellant pumps as a component where there was a growing need for a new product. He then went back to university and studied the possible subjects in fluid dynamics, and did projects with scaled-down testing using the available water lab. They've since built a team and crowd-funded, and now provide several products for the space industry. It seems to be a good example of a methodical and iterative approach to building a space company without large investment.<p><a href="https://orbitalmachines.no/" rel="nofollow">https://orbitalmachines.no/</a>
SpaceDotBiz is a newsletter about the space industry that has been interesting to read, with a free tier on Substack. A past article that stood out was a Q&A interview with a space industry journalist who moved on to become an industry analyst (2021): <a href="https://spacedotbiz.substack.com/p/caleb-henry" rel="nofollow">https://spacedotbiz.substack.com/p/caleb-henry</a><p>Limitations of the newsletter include its lack of criticism and investigative work, as this looks out-of-scope of its focus. Many of the articles have been friendly interviews with people in the space industry, and the most bearish article about the space industry ("Is The Commercial Space Industry Here to Stay?") concluded on an optimistic note.<p>Other, more critical sources would be welcome to develop a much more complete picture of the industry. I haven't sought out a specialized source for critical space industry articles, though critical articles do appear occasionally in major newspapers (e.g. the Financial Times and The Economist).
The saying is "too make a small fortune in aviation, start with a large fortune". And space is even more risky, expensive, and failure-prone than aviation.
Space startups have really taken off over the last decade, thanks to big players like Blue Origin, Space X and Virgin Galactic. There are a lot of other entrants, in what can now genuinely be called an industry, thanks to dedicated startup accelerators like the Founder Institute Space Program.<p>"Opportunities are flourishing today in Space Tech. There's now an increasingly connected ecosystem to support even pre-seed stage aerospace founders - and Founder Institute can increase any aspiring space technology entrepreneur's chances of success, by providing the necessary founder mindset and key network connections" [0]<p>[0] <a href="https://fi.co/insight/founder-institute-space-tech-virtual-2022-applications-open" rel="nofollow">https://fi.co/insight/founder-institute-space-tech-virtual-2...</a>
I tend to agree with the gist of the comments that say, "If you have to ask, you are not ready." Yet I also hate to gatekeep people, so I'd recommend changing your approach to be less about, "who should I follow?", and more along the lines of: "Who could I contact to start to learn the industry?"<p>Ultimately, that is your goal - to learn the industry, understand what problems exist, which are solved, and which need help, and find a niche where your talents can fulfill a need. Following people is a tool to reach that goal, but only one tool of many. Seek other ways to achieve the goal and you not only will likely have more success, but your questions will be taken more seriously.
3 things needed to take space to the next level.<p>1) Habitats (we gotta live)<p>2) Energy (this will cover fuel, heating, automation, defence)<p>3) Mining (this gets us the resources to do all the above)<p>You corner the market in <i>any</i> of those three and you will be set for the imaginable future.
I author Orbital Index (<a href="https://orbitalindex.com" rel="nofollow">https://orbitalindex.com</a>) weekly about the space industry. Hit me up if you want to chat.
I don't think space tech is something that would be easy for a startup, there are a lot of regulations and its a lot of very costly (I assume) hardware needed to get into. I think reading things isn't going to get you immersed or enough context of the problems. So go work at SpaceX or Blue Origin to understand the problem sets and figure out what problem space you want to work on. Along the way you could be meeting future co-founders, etc.
Not saying you shouldn't go for space tech, but I know lots of people and some European tech companies who went into space tech. They all had pretty much same kind of experiences:<p>- Lots of regulations (for launching rockets, operating ground stations etc.)<p>- Everything is REALLY slow<p>- Very high risk (your 500k mini satellite may blow up with the rocket during launch)<p>- Things are very expensive and there are lots of (small and large) hidden/unknown fees that you'll face during the projects
Selenian Boondocks[1] has a great archive of cool ideas (eg [2]) and some of the authors are also founders.<p>[1] <a href="https://selenianboondocks.com/" rel="nofollow">https://selenianboondocks.com/</a><p>[2]<a href="https://selenianboondocks.com/2022/04/geo-orbital-debris-mitigation-paper-excerpts/" rel="nofollow">https://selenianboondocks.com/2022/04/geo-orbital-debris-mit...</a>
Might be obvious but check out Delian Asparouhov, founder of Varda Space Industries. Chris Power, founder of Hadrian.
If you look them up in spotify there are many interviews that touch on the space industry.
Regarding books:<p>- I really enjoyed Lift-Off by Eric Berger on the early days of SpaceX.<p>- Shoot for the Moon is another good read on the Apollo program.<p>- The Case for Space by Robert Zubrin<p>- Ignition by John D. Clark for a history of liquid rocket propellants<p>Godspeed<p>(Edited formatting)
Not related to books/blogs/tweets, but if you are looking at space tech for 5-10 years from now, it might make sense to pay attention to 3D printing and anything around resource extraction robotics.<p>Exploiting offworld resources (like Trojan asteroids) will soon be possible with machines we can design, build, and test on Earth.
I dont know much about the business of space, but if we want to save our planet we need to start mining and processing ore in space. No need to dig up massive holes or fight resource wars here on earth when there are literally endless resources laying around put there. It is an overwhelming undertaking, to understate the challenge, but one we should take on if we are to survive.