Astrotech Corp. Message Board
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SPACEHAB Announces New Company Initiative
Tuesday April 10, 3:15 pm ET
Company to Focus on Space Based Manufacturing
HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SPACEHAB, Incorporated (NASDAQ:SPAB - News), a leading provider of commercial space services, today announced plans to develop a new company division that will focus on manufacturing pharmaceuticals and materials in space for distribution into the commercial marketplace.
With a 22-year heritage of processing and transporting over a thousand experiments to low Earth orbit, SPACEHAB plans to leverage the company's deep understanding of microgravity science and payload processing into a new focus towards on-orbit manufacturing for both intercompany initiatives and as a service provider for other customers.
"The International Space Station (ISS) Program is now transitioning from the construction and experimentation phases to its intended utilization phase," said Thomas B. Pickens, III, SPACEHAB President and CEO. "With SPACEHAB's extensive experience and knowledge in processing highly sophisticated space bound payloads, it is a natural 'next step' for the Company to now utilize the ISS for the advancement of many identified experiments into viable and useful manufactured products. The microgravity environment provides a unique, yet generally unexploited, manufacturing platform for the production of various life-altering pharmaceuticals and materials. SPACEHAB's entrepreneurial energy and unique capabilities bring to the equation exactly what is needed to make the leap from science to the manufacturing of valuable products that have the potential to save and improve lives," concluded Pickens.
To execute this new direction, SPACEHAB is applying resources and tapping into the Company's strategic partnerships with key national and international space agencies and companies as well as the institutional science community. SPACEHAB plans to release more information on the selected life science products to be manufactured in space at the Space Investment Summit in New York, New York on April 16, 2007. The summit, hosted by the Space Commerce Roundtable and the Space Frontier Foundation, provides a forum for leading investors, industry representatives, entrepreneurs, and experts to present and appraise the newest and most promising space commerce investment opportunities.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070410/20070410006152.html?.v=1
How about completing Apex 100 too ? Still, drugs are the latest fad on Nasdaq these days so whatever gets the job done ;-).-
- 1 Reply to marsavian
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�Timing is everything, and the time for space is right now,� said Thomas Pickens III, the president and CEO of SPACEHAB, a company that announced earlier this month that it was repositioning itself as a provider of space-based manufacturing services. That timing, he said, stems from the availability of the ISS as a platform for microgravity research as well as the emergence of commercial providers, via COTS, to provide commercial transportation services to and from the station.
Those who are interested in space for commercial microgravity research see it as a means to augment, rather than replace, existing terrestrial work in areas like protein crystal growth. �I think we�re making a big mistake if we go around telling companies, �We�re going to grow crystals for you in space. Pay me to do this,�� said Larry DeLucas, director of the Center for Biophysical Science and Engineering at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. �They�re not going to be eager to do it. They�re going to laugh if they haven�t done it before.�
DeLucas argued that the right approach is to build up technology that allows companies to do similar work on the ground. �We have some unique technologies, and right now we�re spinning off a company that does not need space to succeed,� he said. However, despite that advanced technology, as many as 70 percent of the proteins they try to crystallize on the ground will fail; 60 percent of those, though, could crystallize in microgravity. �That would make a dramatic difference and give us something very unique that space could contribute, but we�re not going to depend on it,� he said. �Space can be, I like to say, the frosting on the cake.�
Like Marty, Pickens argued that there was a limited window of opportunity for companies and investors in this area. �You can�t wait much longer,� he said. �If you do, you�re not going to have a place to play.�
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/860/1
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Maybe we could sell space pot,that should be profitable.
- 1 Reply to spgbobnopants
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Space pot... good plan.
Perfect spokesman: Buzz Aldrin.
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Wasn't going to post here anymore....
The BS flag needs to be flown.
1. spab only was the carrier for all those experiments that flew on the previous missions. spab was not involved in the design, development, operation nor post flight data reduction of any of the experiments. They only knew enough to allow it onboard the shuttle and it was only engineering data, not the science involved.
2. Again, all the "previous" experience no longer resides in spab. All those people left.
3. So in all, spab is like any other new company. They have no previous experience to leverage on- 2 Replies to mi2also
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Go spew your BS elsewhere!!!!!!!!!!
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Why wasn't you going to post here anymore ? The place wouldn't be the same without your gloom and doom ;-).
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