2012 Space Frontier Business Plan Competition Awards Announced by NASA

In a continuing effort to offer support for the Space Frontier Foundation’s annual Business Plan Competition it was announced this week that NASA’s Ames Research Center, in conjunction with NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist’s Emerging Space Office, is funding this year’s awards totaling $110,000.

Over three days in July 2012, the Space Frontier Foundation Business Plan Competition will be held and will include the NASA supported Emerging Space Grand Prize of $100,000. The top prize is for the best business plan with the potential to contribute to space development. The remaining $10,000 in the total award is for the second place winner.

“As NASA’s Silicon Valley center, we’re continuing our tradition of supporting entrepreneurs and encouraging the venture capital community to become familiar with the new opportunities that are emerging in space,” said NASA Ames Research Center Director Pete Worden. “Part of our role is to encourage economic growth and development and at NASA, we look to build on some of the nation’s strongest assets to do so – including our skilled technical workforce, our commercial creativity and our entrepreneurial spirit.”

With new independent companies currently still in their early or start-up stages, the competition aims to simulate the real-world process of entrepreneurs soliciting for start-up funds.

Included for contestants is a review of business plan submissions by space industry experts and investors, plus the event hosts a ‘Boot Camp’ during which time the finalist teams will receive expert training in promoting and developing business plans.

In order to be eligible, competing companies should have technologies or products that potentially could contribute to the expansion of economic activity in space. Competition finalists will pitch their business plans publicly and be judged by a panel of world-class entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and finance professionals.

The Space Frontier Foundation is an organization dedicated to opening the space frontier to human settlement as rapidly as possible. Its goals include protecting Earth’s fragile biosphere, creating a freer and more prosperous life for each generation by using the unlimited energy and material resources of space, and unleashing the power of free enterprise to establish a permanent human presence in space.

For more information about the Space Frontier Foundation Business Plan Competition and how to participate, visit: http://newspacebpc.com