TechCrunch Newsletters - Max Q - Space tourism season is open

Soon, space will be just absolutely filled with rich people. Also, Rocket Lab is getting U.S. defense money to fund its next-gen rocket development.

Blue Origin's next flight names two passengers

One space VC is going to get to say he actually went to space, as DCVC’s Chris Boshuizen revealed he’ll be one of four passengers on Blue Origin’s second ever human spaceflight. He’ll be flying on October 12, and also on board will be Glen De Vries, an entrepreneur and the Vice-Chair of Life Sciences and Healthcare at Dassault Systems.

Boshuizen co-founded satellite constellation pioneer Planet Labs prior to becoming a VC, and also worked for a number of years at NASA’s Ames Research Center. De Vries co-founded Medidata Solutions, a clinical research platform which was acquired by Dassault in 2019. Both of these gentlemen are obviously very wealthy, which should not be a surprise to anyone.

Blue Origin says it will be announcing the other two passengers on the October 12 flight in the next few days. The company’s first human spaceflight happened in July, when Jeff Bezos and his brother went to space along with Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen.

Boshuizen and De Vries will be spending a couple of minutes past the Karman line at an altitude above Earth technically defined as space, where they’ll be able to roam about the cabin weightless and take in the views. They’re joining an exclusive club, but one that seems like it’s about to get a lot less exclusive, depending on how many rich people feel like taking a very expensive, very short trip.

Rocket Lab, SpaceX and Blue Origin nab Space Force funding for rockets

The U.S. Space Force has doled out a number of awards to the top private space players, which will be earmarked for development of various aspects of their rocket programs. Rocket Lab is relatively new to the club, picking up $24.3 million for its forthcoming Neutron medium capacity rocket, while Blue Origin, United Launch Alliance and SpaceX round out the group with return trips to the U.S. defense funding well.

Blue Origin is also getting funding for a rocket that isn’t yet actually very fleshed out yet — it received $24.3 million for New Glenn, which is the orbital vehicle it’s developing as a success for its New Shepard suborbital rocket.

ULA got — you guessed it — $24.3 million for its Vulcan Centaur heavy lift rocket, which will be a key defense industry asset for the U.S., while SpaceX got the least of everyone with a $14.4 million award to help development of the Raptor rocket engine it’s currently prototyping and testing for its Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster.

Peter Beck on interplanetary ambitions

Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck joined us at TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 this year, and he took us all the way back to the beginning of his space ambitions, and shared that the goal was always to go beyond Earth and travel out into the solar system. He also provided some updates on the Electron rocket reusability program, noting that the really tricky part is not actually getting the rocket boosters back, but managing the thermals involved — like the super high heat of re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.

Tess Hatch joins us at TC Sessions: Space this December

Joining us at TC Sessions: Space happening December 14-15 is Tess Hatch, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, who focuses largely on frontier technology and specifically on the commercialization of space, drones, autonomous vehicles and the future of agriculture and food technology.

Hatch brings a lot of expertise to the table. She studied aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan before earning her Master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics engineering from Stanford. She then continued on to Boeing, then SpaceX, where she worked with the government on integrating its payloads with the Falcon 9 rocket.

We’re excited to hear from her at TC Sessions: Space. Grab your tickets to join us and save $100!

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