MICHIGAN CITY | A local startup is hoping to give regular people the chance to start their own “space program” with its high-altitude balloons, capable of floating as high as 80,000 feet.
RockZip Highballoons will design and produce balloons that are 10 to 15 feet in diameter and able to float in “near space” for several days.
RockZip co-founder Austyn Crites said the balloons are commonly used for scientific research, weather tracking and communications.
“Basically the balloon itself becomes a satellite or a communications tower,” he said.
They’re also useful for testing scientific equipment in a no-oxygen, extremely cold, high radiation environment, he said.
A variety of “space entrepreneurs” are developing hardware “but have no way to get it into space,” Crites said. RockZip hopes to fill that need, and to make “highballoons” available to the general public.
Such balloons generally cost $1,000 to $1,500, he said. “Our goal is to be significantly under that.”
Crites’ partners in RockZip are Juan Quiroz, Adam Studebaker and Martin Boix.
They will take their business plan to Silicon Valley July 24 to participate in the Lightning Pitch Competition at the NewSpace 2014 convention, hosted by the Space Frontier Foundation.
RockZip will have four minutes to pitch its plan to a panel of judges, then answer questions in a situation similar to the TV show “Shark Tank.” They will have a chance to win a $20,000, $7,500 or $2,500 prize.
The company will be competing against seven others from across the country – some, for example, with ideas for small-satellite related services, another proposing to build “safe havens” on the Earth, moon and Mars, and another bringing together space exploration experience and funeral industry knowledge to provide “memorial spaceflight services.”
Crites said RockZip hopes to find investors at the conference, “to take it from prototype to more of a commercially available product.”
Meanwhile, the quartet is making and testing small balloons, with the aim of having a full-sized prototype done in a couple months.
The balloons are filled about 10 percent full of helium – the gas expands to fill them as they gain altitude – and released to float freely to an altitude of 60,000 to 80,000 feet. Some are designed to come back down immediately, others to float as long as three days.
“Most people are looking for one day,” Crites said.
They’re equipped with a GPS device so they can be tracked as they return to earth. Some have altitude-control devices, which allow the owner to find an altitude with a wind direction that allows some control, but generally the balloons simply “ride the winds,” Crites said.
They have parachutes to ease descent, and a “cut system” to drop the balloon in a specific location.
The RockZip team has spent a couple years learning about the balloon industry, and believes that, with budget cuts to NASA in recent years, there are a variety of opportunities for entrepreneurs in space-related businesses.
“It’s our time to help take over space development,” Crites said.
