NewSpace Chicago announced its formation as an entrepreneurial community for the development of private companies commercializing outer space. The organization seeks to promote Chicago as a center of excellence for new commercial space, space-related, and space-scalable ventures. It welcomes participation by entrepreneurs, students, engineers, investors, and others who are interested in creating new commercial space ventures in and around Chicago.
NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program is motivating competition and innovation in the private sector to provide improved and cost-affordable launch services for crew and cargo. This shift is enabling private companies to address space-related issues beyond launch services and is promoting the growth of an entirely new space 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, robotics, nanotechnology, smart materials, and alternative energy. 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. Technological innovation and new business models are being followed by significant venture investment.
NewSpace Chicago believes that Chicago is a prime location for starting up the private space industry. The city is a global financial leader and a center of technology innovation. It supports a large science and engineering workforce and is home to world-class colleges and universities. Chicago is an economic powerhouse with all of the ingredients necessary to grow new commercial space ventures.
