Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, October 18, 2004 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Joan Horvath

"The Entrepreneurial Space Launch Business: A User's Guide"

ABSTRACT -- Lately there has been a rush of small companies into the space launch business. Scaled Composites' successful first private spaceflight on June 21 has engendered significant coverage in the popular press about the possibilities of space tourism and far lower-cost access to space than has been available to date. The key question will be: will the frequency of launch go up and the price therefore go down? This talk will discuss, from the point of view of a former JPL program office staffer, the challenges "in the trenches" of getting a company in this market literally off the ground and how the traditional aerospace industry and the scientists who depend upon it might begin to partner with these entrepreneurs. Activities underway to encourage collaboration will be reviewed, including a somewhat unique umbrella organization, the Capps Space Science Center in Frederick, Oklahoma, which has been designed as an interface into the industry for the scientist or engineering researcher.

SPEAKER -- Joan Horvath is CEO of Takeoff Technologies LLC (www.takeofftech.com), a technology-strategy consulting firm based in a suburb of Los Angeles. Takeoff works with small companies, particularly those in the emerging private launch industry, and attempts to develop partnerships between those companies and strategic partners such as universities, larger companies and locales interested in becoming spaceports. She is also co-founder and executive director of Global Space League, Inc. (www.globalspaceleague.org), a nonprofit organization based in Frederick, Oklahoma, that works with early-stage vehicle developers and students to put student payloads on experimental vehicles. Finally, she is cofounder of the Capps Space Science Center. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, she spent 16 years at JPL, with flight experience on Magellan and TOPEX. While at JPL she was a co-founder of the Europa-Vostok Initiative in the Advanced Concepts Office (a program to not only develop instruments for exploring Europa but also use them for science in the Antarctic) and also founded the JPL Commercialization Office's short-lived entertainment partnering program, subsequently largely spun out into Takeoff. She has a BS degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT and an MS in Aero, Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering from UCLA.