Bright Ideas in Seemingly Challenging Times

The election is finally over but the challenges remain. In no particular order, some of the top issues on the list appear to be our national debt, the future of interest rates, and a new government department known as DOGE. DOGE has promised to light up both parties, with one politician stating: “Who elected them?” To further erode confidence in our government, we have drones flying in various parts of the country that the government doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge, except that we can be assured that the unidentified drones are not a threat. This can easily lead you to fear tough times ahead. Fortunately, challenges create opportunities and drive innovation, much like the examples that follow.

 

 

In the December 9th issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology, there was an article about a group of students at the University of Southern California who formed a rocket club. They built a 13ft high, 330 lb. rocket and launched it into space reaching a height of 470,000 feet in altitude. That is 89 miles high in case you are wondering. Rockets travel to space all the time, but not ones created by students with limited experience. There were approximately 100 students involved in the project, most of which were undergraduates, and according to Dan Erwin, a professor at USC and chair of the Department of Astronautical Engineering, they mostly figured it out themselves. The club formulated its own ammonium perchlorate composite solid rocket fuel, and according to Hayden Brophy who is lead of the USC Rocket Propulsion Lab, they also created a “dual-purpose airframe-motor casing constructed from high-strength carbon composite—a design rarely achieved in amateur rocketry due to its immense difficulty.” In addition, they developed a thermal protection system to withstand the tremendous heat created at hypersonic speed. There is more to the story, but the point is that this was an incredible achievement for a group of college students. A final point regarding this story is the focus that was needed by the students to ensure all manufacturing processes and design steps were followed—a significant achievement on its own. The rocket returned to Earth mostly intact, and now the students are working to transition to the USC Rocket Propulsion Lab, the first university space program. If you think this is a one-off event, it’s not.

 

 

In the same issue of AW&ST, there is another article about 15 European students who attended high school together that have recently founded Pave Space to tackle another mission. It is a startup focusing on satellite guidance, navigation and control, as well as spacecraft propulsion. Their accomplishment is just as incredible as the USC group, and these students had no support from any university. This student group created a rocket named the Colibri that completed 53 missions flying to about 350 ft. and then successfully landed to be reused again. In each flight, the rocket hovered for about 1 minute, shifted laterally approximately 35 yards, and then was able to land on an 18-inch square target 53 times, all on a $280,000 budget.

 

 

Some prognosticators are suggesting that we are about to enter a no-growth decade and that it will be very challenging for the economy to continue to grow at its past rate of about 6% with inflation. Historically, innovation has led to economic growth. The above stories do not guarantee fixes are just around the corner, however, they do illustrate that innovation is alive and well. We have no idea if the next Apple, Hewlett Packard, or any other innovative company is currently being created at someone’s kitchen table or garage. As we begin the new year, even if the headlines are negative, that doesn’t mean positive events are not also taking place. Who knew a guy who started an online bookstore in his garage 30 years ago would become one of the largest retailers in the world? Thankfully, there are still some very smart kids and garages.

Observations on the Market No.402