Team Leader: Catherine Matos
                           gt7126c@prism.gatech.edu
                        404-894-9622

Supervising Faculty Member: Dr. Narayanan Komerath
                                                          narayanan.komerath@ae.gatech.edu
                                            404-894-3017
 
 
 

Team Members:	Academic Level	Role
Richard Ames	Ph.D. candidate	Business Management & Finance
Alana Boleman	Freshman	Financial Analysis
Don Changeau	Sophomore	Flight Test Engineering
Adam Coker	Junior	Product Development
Avinash D’Souza	Junior	Flight Testing
Olivier Deigni	Junior	Financial Analysis
David Francis	Master’s student	Customer Engagement
Bala Ganesh	Master’s student	Financial Analysis
Justin Hausaman	Sophomore	Space Operations
Martin Hinson	Senior	Financial Analysis
Jin S. Kim	Master’’s student	Product Development
Pat Kriengsiri	Sophomore	Flight Testing
Catherine Matos	PhD Candidate	Outreach
Tinoush Moulaei	PhD Candidate	Life Sciences Applications
Peter Posiask	Sophomore	Long Range Planning
Xinyuan Tan	Junior	Product Pricing
Paul Thienprayoon	Freshman	Flight Testing
Chanin Tongchitpakdee	Master’s student	Customer Engagement
Sam Wanis	Master’s student	Research and Development
Nate Watson	Freshman	Long Range Planning

1. Summary

In the first year of the NMB program, a student team from the Georgia Institute of Technology developed a Business Plan for space-based manufacturing. The plan was built around the technology of Acoustic Shaping, developed by Georgia Tech's undergraduate team in NASA's Reduced Gravity flight program over the preceding two years. The Business Plan of a small start-up company was used to illustrate the opportunities, and the critical enablers, for a space-based economy in the 21^st century. Human exploration of Mars, and beyond, was seen to become a driver, as well as the natural outcome, of such an economy. At the same time, presentation of this concept helped focus attention on the critical role of government in the development of both technology and an enabling infrastructure beyond Earth. There is growing awareness that a systematic march towards a space-based economy, which uses extraterrestrial resources, is the way to enable human exploration and development of space.

The Georgia Tech team's proposal for the 2000 NMB program is to lead progress along the path laid out last year, towards the development of a space-based construction industry. The prototype start-up company, ASI, enters the second year of its 4-year campus incubation period, growing in its team-based organization. The technology of acoustic shaping will be driven towards space application, through ground and sounding rocket experiments. The product development team has developed product ideas and markets that will be developed further. Customers for the space-based construction industry have been identified:

• NASA,
• the construction industry,
• the composite manufacturing industry and
• the future space-faring generation, now in middle- and high schools.

1. Proposal Summary
2. Introduction
3. Strategic Plan
4. Products & Markets
5. Customer Engagement
6. Outreach
7. Technology: R&D
8. Flight Testing
9. Cost Analysis & Production Design
10. Concluding Remarks
11. Supplemental Information
12. References