This month’s Roundtable will feature:
RRE Ventures’ 2017 investment in Ursa Space, an Ithaca, a New York-based analytics as a service company, seeded the idea that the commercial space industry and its burgeoning need for services might trigger the recovery of once-mighty industrial regions and states. As start-ups flourished and billions of dollars in investment capital and government funding flowed into the industry a point of no-return has been reached.
Washington State, Florida and Colorado were poised and ready to capture the flow. SSPI then asked a question similar to one Jeff Bezos was asking, “Could the commercial space and satellite industry revive entire sectors, where the Earth’s industrial hubs once thrived?” Can it revive the sagging or eviscerated industry base in places like Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and a major source for much of the world’s private capital formation, New York?
What has happened in the “Empire State” of New York since the last time we asked this question? Has the State, despite all of its talent, financial prowess and history as an engine of the future failed yet again to capitalize on the continued growth of the sector? What is the New York State of mind when it comes to commercial space? Who is investing and where? Are places like Buffalo and Schenectady and Rochester feeling the bounce? Or about to?
Along with our usual monthly features, we will have a Significant Digits report with SpaceNews and NY Space Alliance Founder Joe Fargnoli with his always provocative “New York Minute” reaction to the panel and the topic, this time from Tonawanda, New York!