Rocket science

As far as I can tell, way too many startups are focused on building apps. Apps that are useful - at least marginally. Apps that are frivolous - but that just might catch on. Apps that are meant to make the world a better place - but as often as not make things worse.

And then there are a bunch of rocket makers that have attracted billions in venture money. These are companies that are, for the most part, focused on small scale rocketry and that aren't, for the most part, competing directly with the goverment and SpaceX, which build the big kahunas.

One of these rocket companies is Astra, a three-year-old startup based in California. (And located right next door to a Pottery Barn outlet. Not that this is germane to their story. Nor is it likely to matter to the rocket scientists who work at Astra, who are probably not the Pottery Barn market sweetspot. But how much fun to be able to meander around a Pottery Barn outlet during lunch? Years ago, I counted myself lucky to work near a Gap outlet - pretty much the only good thing about working at Wang Labs...) 

As for Astra: 

The company’s founders say they want to be the FedEx Corp. of space. They’re aiming to create small, cheap rockets that can be mass-produced to facilitate daily spaceflights, delivering satellites into low-Earth orbit for as little as $1 million per launch. If Astra’s planned Kodiak flight succeeds on Feb. 21, it will have put a rocket into orbit at a record-setting pace.(Source: Bloomberg)

Astra has attracted $100M in investment, which is not a helluva lot, considering what they're trying to do - and given that a lot of stupid app companies fritter away that kind of money on stupid marketing schemes.  

Astra is hoping to top that investment money by winning the Darpa Launch Challenge. (Darpa is the R&D wing of the Pentagon.) Darpa's offering  a $12M prize to a startup that can "send two rockets from different locations with different payloads within a few weeks of each other."

The prize is Astra's for the taking, as the two other finalists Richard Branson's Virgin Orbi and Vector Launch are out of the running. Virgin withdrew, and Vector went bellyup.

So I wish Astra luck getting their hands on that $12M.

I have no idea why I lit on this story. Maybe it was the fact that one of Astra's co-founders is a rocket scientist with a PhD from MIT. Maybe it's because I got a kick out of their near-Pottery Barn location. Maybe it's just as good a distraction as any from the meshugas of the "real world."

It isn't because I have any great interest in space. I don't. My father was the paper boy for Dr. Robert Goddard, father of American rocketry. That's about the alpha and the omega of my interest in anything to do with space.

So I think my interest is because Astra will be working on small payloads. And a few years back, a smidgeon of my husband's ashes were part of a small payload into space.

My husband wasn't a rocket scientist, but he was a science guy, and he was keenly interested in the space program. One of his final wishes was that some of his ashes get launched into space.

We were sitting in the living room, a month or so before his death, talking about the places Jim wanted a tiny bit of his ashes to end up. Most are buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery, but there are a few grains on his parents' grave, on the gave of his beloved aunt and uncle, on my parents' grave, on that of my Aunt Margaret (Jim just adored her). There's a bit of Jim in Galway Bay, in Connemara, in Central Park, in Washington Square. With a few more places still on the list.

Anyway, Jim at one point said, "I'd pay a million dollars to have my ashes sent into space."

Well, I told him, that's where we part company. "I'm not going to end up sleeping over a heating grate so that your ashes can go to the moon." I guess it was the brain tumor talking, because he immediately agreed that the million dollar thang wasn't a good idea. But I was happy to find him a way to get into space.

Which I did. 

And in October 2014, Jim got his spaceflight through an outfit called Celestis. He's in good company. Gene Rodenberry, producer of Star Trek went into space thanks to Celestis. As did the actor who played Scotty -  of "Beam me up, Scotty" fame. As did astronaut Gordo Cooper.

 Jim's ashes were part of a pretty small payload, and I'm glad we had the opportunity to get Diggy where he wanted to go - and for a lot less than a million bucks.

I think Astra is going to focus it's business on niche-purpose satellites. But I'm just happy that there's space in space for the little guy. Or the little guy's ashes. (Sixth anniversary of that little guys death's coming up. Time sure does fly...)