50 years ago this week, one of the most important international collaborations in human history was unfolding between Australia and the USA. The Apollo 11 mission was underway, with a trio of the Earth’s bravest inhabitants roaring towards the Moon. This voyage was the pinnacle of a decade long project and the origin of the term ‘moon-shot’.
The Apollo 11 mission was an incubator for many inspirational stories. One of these stories is that of the inexperienced Australian team asked to rig the Parkes Radio Telescope to communicate with the Apollo 11 mission — one of three ground stations used by NASA to stay in contact with the lunar astronauts no matter which way the earth was turned. (Correction: There were actually 3 antennas used by NASA in Australia, the most of any nation outside the US. Click here for more information.)
Based in the middle of a sheep farm in rural Australia, the team had no idea that they would be relied upon to relay the first audio and images of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin taking our first steps on the Moon.
Without the extraordinary collaboration between the Australians and Americans 50 years ago we would have missed witnessing this incredible feat of human ingenuity.
We use the name Moonshot in honor of this collaboration which brought the world together in the face of almost certain impossibility. As an Australian organisation, it’s only fitting that on this 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission we are launching Moonshot Houston.
“We will plug Moonshot’s programming and partners into our local community; grow space businesses in and around our NASA facilities, universities, and business centers; and benefit from a mutual exchange of ideas with other leading industries in the city like medicine, energy, and big data” says Nathan Johnson, City Director of Moonshot’s new Houston chapter.
“The space economy is an entirely new phenomenon everywhere in the world. I’m thrilled to expand our events, training programs and networks to the city that is arguably the space capital of the world” says Troy McCann, CEO of Moonshot.
“Space is no longer about rockets, satellites, and just exploring places above the Earth’s sky. We’re on the verge of a Cambrian explosion of new opportunity.”
Moonshot provides a framework to grow and capture new wealth through the international space economy, elevating individuals and their ideas into successful teams and scalable businesses to create the industries of the future and solve humanity’s greatest challenges.
The opportunities are all encompassing, such as developing new medicines from chemical reactions requiring minimal gravity, to transitioning environmentally damaging industrial processes away from our biosphere, allowing life to thrive while creating more pure materials and better performing products.
The new chapter will begin this fall, bringing Moonshot’s Stage 1 and Stage 2 programs to Houston, with a focus on building an active community of space entrepreneurs, industry leaders, researchers and students.
This article was originally posted at https://blog.moonshotspace.co/moonshot-to-mission-control-4ee2776709b1
Troy McCann
During university, where he studied computer science and electrical engineering, Troy mixed his passions for technology and entrepreneurship through multiple engineering-heavy businesses. Using his experiences in commercialising deep research and the space industry, Troy began to develop a framework for supporting the growth of commercial solutions to humanity’s most difficult challenges while assembling a community around it, forming the basis for Moonshot.
Troy was ranked the 4th most influential new space business leader of the industry in the NewSpace People Global Ranking Report for 2019.
