The CEO and co-founder of NewSpace Global Dick “Rocket” David, discussed the new and growing industry of NewSpace and its role in the future during break Nov. 10. NewSpace Global is an information provider analyzing the market of the “NewSpace” industry.
Essentially, NewSpace is the more than 800 private companies that use outer space to make profits.
Companies range from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, whose main goal is to lower costs of sending things into orbit by an order of magnitude, to Made In Space, which sent the first zero-gravity 3D printer into space.
NewSpace Global is an information provider and educator that tracks the NewSpace industry and analyzes the market, similar to the Wall Street Journal, but for space, David said.
David has spoken around the world at outlets including Atmel Corporation, FedEx, PayPal, the Swiss Embassy, Harvard Business School and Stanford University.
Among other points, David emphasized how different satellites are funded makes them have a different purpose and use.
He showed three of the same satellites onscreen but discussed how they really were different.
“This one is funded by NASA, this one is funded by a private company and this one is funded by the army,” David said. “They all look the same, but they really are very different, they have different futures and different purposes.”
David also focused on interacting with the audience, asking questions about both basic definitions, and making the audience members think about uses of a company being able to take pictures from space.
“I found the speaker interesting because he presented a whole new world of possibilities both for business as well as exploration,” Benjamin Goldsmith ’16 said. “I also thought the questions he asked us were interesting and made me think differently about space.”