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Session 1454

Acoustic Shaping, Inc.: Business Plan for Space-Based Manufacturing Narayanan Komerath Georgia Institute of Technology

Abstract

A Business Plan to help NASA's Mars Mission is used as a vehicle for developing entrepreneurial skills and experience among engineering students. A team of students at all levels is guided through the process of conceptualizing and developing a proposal and a Business Plan, and articulating these to NASA and other audiences. A technology developed through a NASA-sponsored Student Flight experiment is used as the nucleus of a Space-based construction industry over the next 20 years. The team structure, and its evolution over the first year of the project, are presented. The GT team's endeavor has served to focus attention on the central role of Space-based infrastructure to enable development of a Space-based economy.

I. Introduction

The NASA Means Business (NMB) program was started in 1998 by the Mars Exploration Office of the NASA’s Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS) division1. The opportunity was publicized in Fall 1998. Six student teams would be selected, based on their proposals to help develop NASA's Business Plan for a human mission to Mars. A NASA Reference Mission was provided, and the plans were to be selected based on approaches to six aspects:

1. Vision 2. Strategic Plan 3. Product Development 4. Market Analysis 5. Outreach 6. International component

Selected teams would work closely with NASA experts in the development of NASA's Business Plan for the human exploration of Mars. Proposals were due in mid-December 1998. This paper describes the efforts of the team from Georgia Institute of Technology, (GT) which has won a place in this program in both years of the competition to-date. In the first program year (1999), the GT team's strategic plan helped to focus attention on the critical role of space-based infrastructure in improving the prospects for establishing business in space. In 2000, the competition focus is on Customer Engagement. The GT team has enlisted the participation of Business students at Emory University and Georgia State University to expand the entrepreneurship aspects. This last aspect is discussed in the context of integrating entrepreneurship and engineering curricula.

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Komerath, N. (2000, June), Acoustic Shaping Inc: Business Plan For Space Based Manufacturing Paper presented at 2000 Annual Conference, St. Louis, Missouri. 10.18260/1-2--8155