Khan Space Industries was founded with the mission to seed life in the universe via von Neumann probes (an autonomous, self-replicating spacecraft).
We’re developing the requisite technologies via parallel products that promise strong market returns.
Last week was very successful, both in buidling relationships with folks in the space industry, and in determining applicable non-dilutive funding mechanisms. We mapped out a comprehensive model of an asteroid capture spacecraft, which was designed to minimize R&D and enable rapid growth of revenue. We discovered that although workable in theory, it depends on too many precise factors lining up to make it the correct choice for our initial product.
We are evaluating an additive-manufacturing product, which is enabled by microgravity and utilizes chemical vapor deposition (used in microelectronic and nanostructure production) and advanced crystal growth (high-performance optics and pharmaceuticals).
The non-dilutive funding research resulted in choosing a number of newly-released NASA SBIR Solicitation subtopics (InSPA, MGEO and a number of others) that line up exactly with both our strengths and goals. Next step there is crafting proposals for review. There also exists the open-ended DARPA, DoD and NASA Space Act Agreement opportunities, however the SBIR avenue has a higher chance of success and thus takes priority.
I'd like to extend my gratitude to Mike from Longshot for providing so many insights on space commercialization, Sean and Hugo from Starship for much the same and connecting me to their advisor and former SpaceX propulsion lead, and Martin Elvis for giving such detailed answers to my asteroid mining questions, which has sent me on an informative deep dive!
I'm looking to connect with folks in both the prototype manufactring and scale manufactring industries, if you know anyone I'd greatly appreciate an introduction.
Looking forward to the week ahead, I hope you are too.
Best,
S