Short version: probably won’t be blogging at least through mid-February. Sorry guys.

[Of course the real reason I do stuff like that on Twitter is because my adult supervision at Altius doesn't do Twitter, which allows me to speak my mind sometimes about space policy issues without getting the "Dutch Uncle's talk" every day...]

• Updated our business plan based on feedback from the Newspace Business Plan Competition, and created a company profile on Gust.com/Angelsoft (sorry guys, for accredited investors only).
• We were able to close a deal with Lockheed Martin to use a really nice thermal-vac test chamber for testing our Sticky Boom™ gripper system as part of the SBIR Phase I effort.
• In about a month from closing that deal we designed, fabricated, installed, and ran tests with a thermal-vac test rig in the chamber that simulated capturing the Mars Sample Return Orbiting Sample canister over a wide range of temperatures.  Net result was that over 63 tests, all tests delivered sufficient pull-off force to have captured and retained the MSR “OS”.  Forces near ambient temperatures were on average over 10lb, using the same gripper we used for the Zero-G flight tests in May.
• Also improved the pad to gripper attachment method so the pads don’t pull-off accidentally.  Makes it so our demo unit can actually pick up the hollow stainless steel sphere we used in 1g, horizontally, without any problems.  Which is pretty darned cool when you realize this is using the same static cling forces you get from rubbing a balloon on your head.
• We also wrote about 160 pages worth of SBIR, BAA, and commercial proposal, final reports, and other related documents.  Basically did about a Master’s Thesis worth of writing in about a month…which brings back bad memories of my actual Master’s Thesis…
• In the process discovered a design concept that might enable us to do Sticky Booms™ with reaches in excess of 100-200m, and even started finding some potential terrestrial applications for some of the technologies that go into making Sticky Boom™ work.
• Did our first pitch at an actual Angel Investor meeting down in Houston on September 22nd, put on by the Space Angels Network and the Phillips & Company.  While there we also got to meet with several companies in the area, and got to visit Space Center Houston.  Really enjoyed the Skylab and Saturn V exhibits.
• And managed to get a few really good interviews that resulted in some pretty cool press for Altius this month (AvWeek, Tech Review, PopSci, and others).
• Discovered Pandora.com…
• Started weightlifting on a regular basis with a friend, who you might know from the Space Business Blog who recently moved out to the area.  I’m still definitely in the transition from wuss to wimp, but I’ve turned the corner (in a good way) on an exercise routine for the first time in my life.

We’ve still got a long way to go, but here were some of the highlights that have happened since after I made the plunge:

• We’ve found, signed, and fulfilled over $200k worth of contract engineering work
• I invented Sticky Boom™ which has the potential of changing the way rendezvous, docking, and space servicing are done (and which got us mentioned in New Scientist today).
• We took that idea, won a NASA contract to mature it, and also raised about $50k to accelerate its development
• We built two generations of prototypes, got invited by NASA to show one of them off in Washington DC at the US Capitol Visitors Center, and took the other one and flight demonstrated it on a Zero-Gravity aircraft.
• And just today we got invited to present our business plan as one of the finalists at the 2011 New Space Business Plan Competition later this month.

It’s been a pretty spectacular year, and we’ve gotten a lot accomplished in a short time, especially considering that I’m still learning the ropes. That said, I don’t at all miss the 13,000 miles worth of driving I did in the second half of last year, or spending six months crashing on friends couches bouncing back and forth between California, Colorado, Utah, and Oregon.

Hopefully I’ll soon be able to start getting more active in the space technology and policy blogging scene again here on Selenian Boondocks. Thanks for the patience and support.

I like the angle he’s taking. While this reactor is nominally a power-generator, he’s looking at the medical isotope and RTG plutonium production markets as additional niches that LFTRs can fill much better than the competitors. I think that’s pretty clever (in some ways like what we lucked into at Altius with Sticky Boom): focus first on markets that your competitors are at a distinct relative disadvantage, use that to get a toehold, and then jump back in to the real fray.

And I thought I had my work cut out for me starting an aerospace company! Good luck Kirk! Here’s to hoping that 20 years from now people look back on Boiling Water Reactors in the same way the look at using leaches for curing diseases in the Middle Ages.

In today’s blog post, I just opened the kimono a bit about our new rendezvous and docking product (the tractor beam I’ve hinted at) and committed to try and do at least one short blog post per day for the next month while we push through a major product development sprint. Should be a wild ride.

[Update: I had a glaring error on one of the slides pointed out. It turns out that an inclined plane in LEO will only line up with an arbitrary departure asymptote once every 360 degree revolution of the ascending node. This means departure opportunities happen once every 50-70 days. Option #1 gets hurt the worst (requiring 4-6 depots to get the coverage needed instead of 2-3), but the other two still have merits. More details later. And I'll eventually update the presentation (or flesh it out on Selenian Boondocks in corrected form)]