After the first of the year, look for a simpler web site — much simpler, and much more effective. Look for crowd-sourcing tools to deliver both opportunities and solutions. How about a wiki on steroids? Better Facebook and Twitter streams. And, soon for you at 8C, “There’s an app for that.”

All work and no play? Hardly! Look for deal-marketing and gamification, too.

Of course, we will continue our business plan competition, virtual venture incubator and the other 8C programs you have given high marks.

Thanks for your continuing support and inspiration. We couldn’t be doing this without you!

Are winners and losers an inescapable result of this battle? We at 8th Continent think not.

Take Florida, for example.

Faced with the loss of as many as 23,000 jobs directly or indirectly tied to the retirement of the Shuttle Program, Florida has launched an impressive array of business recruitment, infrastructure development, workforce, R&D, and STEM education programs.  Its focus is four-fold:

1. Upgrade the state’s launch infrastructure for 21st Century demands;
2. Expand and deepen its aerospace R&D capabilities;
3. Retrain a portion of its Shuttle workforce for jobs in emerging aerospace roles; and,
4. Retrain and incentivize others in the Shuttle workforce to grow a new generation of entrepreneurial ventures that employ aerospace-derived technology to deliver new solutions in industries not typically associated with aerospace – industries like clean energy, optics and photonics, advanced materials, cybersecurity, biotechnology, environmental monitoring, agriculture, adventure tourism, and robotics.

At 8th Continent, we call this emerging aerospace constituency “Space 2.0.” Taken together, traditional aerospace and Space 2.0 constitute a powerful ecosystem that creates jobs, investment opportunities, and prosperous communities.

Florida knows this; and other states with deep roots in America’s legendary space program accomplishments can discover a productive path beyond the current tug-of-war, thanks to Florida’s vision.

8th Continent stands ready to respond to whatever happens in Congress between now and the end of the year…including our least favorite outcome: continuing indecision.

But what we hope happens is a balancing of all considerations, resulting in a strategy that, over time, both funds new “pre-competitive” aerospace technology and then works hard to push that technology out the door and into the hands of American entrepreneurs with access to the deep pockets of the capital marketplace.

The garage where David Packard and William Hewlett started their new company in 1938 as recent Stanford University engineering graduates. (Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET Networks)

Since World War II, the United States has productively invested an astronomical amount of money in the research and development of “pre-competitive” technologies to achieve its goals for both the Nation’s defense and its competitiveness within the global marketplace. The American Space Program is one of many shining examples of the payoff.

Over time, subsequent rounds of government-funded development can transition specific pre-competitive technologies to the point where they become “competitive” — ready for deployment in commercial ventures that constitute attractive investment opportunities for the far deeper pockets of the capital markets.

When this happens, it is natural and appropriate for government to transition how it acquires that technology from requirements-based to performance-based procurement frameworks. The result is more capability at lower price points, and thereby more productive use of taxpayer dollars.

It is arguable whether the White House’s controversial cancellation of NASA’s Constellation Program heralds the evolution of rocket technology from pre-competitive to competitive. However, if  it does, the government-as-customer stands to gain substantially by purchasing less expensive, more capable, and more reliable launch services from providers that are fully exploiting the power, productivity, and significantly larger resources of free market capitalism.

Moreover, this trend is not merely limited to how our government gets to orbit. More space program payoffs are just around the corner.

Aerospace is no longer a vertical stovepipe exclusively populated by a small cadre of highly trained “rocket scientists.” It is going horizontal, like the IT community of the 1960′s did — propelling crossover advances in a broad range of 21st Century industries such as location-based, energy, biotechnology, nanotechnology, optics and photonics, materials, robotics, and natural resources exploration and development.

To optimize the benefits of this transition for both customer and provider, current policies and regulations governing federal procurement must be adjusted. For example, Federal Acquisition Regulations and other similar rules that frame traditional cost-plus-fixed-fee federal contract relationships must now also accommodate the substantially different fixed-price business models that characterize the capital markets. ITAR/export administration, patent protection, and employment visa rules must also be updated and optimized.

And, since this transition is likely to be gradual over a long period of time, the development of “hybrid” procurement environments that simultaneously possess coordinated requirements-based and performance-based aspects would be highly desirable.

If America’s spacefaring agencies embrace this technology maturation process and are willing to let go when the time is right, the dividend from decades of government investment in aerospace R&D will be a robust American procession of job creation and productivity, investment opportunities, and community stability and growth for generations to come.

Also headed to the Global Moot Corp Competition is the Runner-Up team Green Valley Solar, from the University of Arkansas, and Semi-Finalist team Deli Worm, from Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China.

Altus Poles serves many industries by providing a new automated manufacturing process for the production of long composite grid poles that are stronger, lighter and cheaper than steel. The design of its composite grid structures achieves an incredibly high strength-to-weight ratio with a special geometry that uses longitudinal and helically-wound members. Application of this technique reaches virtually every structures market, including poles and towers, wind power generation, aerospace and defense, sports, high-rise building construction, and civil infrastructure.

Green Valley Solar, the runner-up in the 2010 8th Continent Business Plan Competition, is the developer of a patented method for creating large grain polysilicon that allows solar power manufacturers to reduce their manufacturing costs by 26%. At the same time, their technology increases the conversion efficiency of silicon-based solar panels by 16%.

Deli Worm is the 2010 8th Continent Business Plan Competition’s entrant in the Global Moot Corp Competition. Their venture addresses a critical environmental problem by providing an exciting alternative to fishmeal as a dietary protein for animals. Their sanitary method of processing housefly worms promises to alleviate the severe overfishing that has already resulted in the over exploitation and depletion of 76% of the world’s fish stocks.

Other semi-finalists teams honored in this year’s competition hail from the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. The Michigan team, Advanced Battery Control, has invented a high-performance and efficient smart battery management system platform that delivers equivalent vehicle battery functionality at up to 50% the size and 50% the cost of state-of-the-art technology. Nano-Protection, the University of Virginia venture, employs innovative and cost effective carbon nano-tube composite material to shield against hazardous electromagnetic interference experienced in many industries or applications.

Competing university teams from around the world developed their concepts during the 2009 fall semester, and submitted their business plans to a panel of judges with both technical and business expertise. Based on the single criterion “Would I invest my money in this venture?”, the judges selected these 5 semi-finalist teams to compete for the cash prize and additional services. This includes legal assistance from the IP law firm Townsend and Townsend and Crew to help launch their ventures.

Members of the Denver office of Polsinelli Shughart, PC will assist the 8th Continent Project with various training programs and seminars throughout the coming year. Please welcome Glenn Lenzen, Peter Moore and Polsinelli Shughart to the 8th Continent Project.

This according to both Burke Fort, director of 8C, and John Metzger, founder and CEO of Metzger Associates, about their 4-years-and-counting partnership. Both are pioneers in their fields. Both believe in supporting leading-edge organizations and initiatives. Both have built national reputations for results, creativity, aggressive execution and out-of-the-box thinking in the emerging Space 2.0 world.

Metzger Associates is one of the most respected strategic communications firms in the Rocky Mountain region. Since the company’s launch, Metzger and his team have been on the leading edge of high-tech, energy, clean-tech and telecommunications. The company has established a leadership position in social and new media and has extensive experience in everything from viral marketing for restaurants to customer interaction management for aerospace companies. Metzger has been ahead of the curve throughout the entire history of online communication and holds the distinction of being the first communications firm with a Web site nearly 20 years ago.

“Since 1991 Metzger Associates has had the privilege of telling important stories about some of the most influential companies of the Information Age,” said Metzger.  “From telecom, to dotcom, through the dotcom bubble burst and on to today’s social and new media – communications is and will always be about stories.”

And, as Metzger pointed out, there is an abundance of great stories out there ripe for the telling.

“There are more labs, more research and more academic studies being done right here in our own backyard than just about anywhere else in the world,” he said. “But, just as important to this alchemy of innovation is the fact that we have a strong VC and angel community, providing Colorado with a unique cluster of industries, capital and intellectual brilliance.”

Metzger Associates currently works with a number of these cutting-edge programs and companies, including the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (a collaborative initiative between the NREL and the University of Colorado, Boulder), Broad Reach Engineering, Analytic Spectral Devices, TechStars, the Boulder Innovation Center and the Rockies Venture Club.

The agency owes its unique view of marketing to its survival. As Metzger put it: “Twenty years ago few people had experience marketing technology products. So when they tried they were always frustrated and left wondering why the traditional marketing tactics didn’t work. They were used to slow-moving product lifecycles, which simply don’t apply in high-tech.”

Fast-moving, entrepreneurial companies are what drives Metzger Associates’ business and “space-derived technology for use here on Earth is what 8C is all about,” said Metzger.

“‘Space 1.0’ was astronauts, rocket ships and billion-dollar government projects,” he continued. “‘Space 2.0’ is venture-backed entrepreneurs starting new companies with new technologies. 8C’s mission is to bridge the gap between these innovations and their commercialization.”

Courtesy of DigitalGlobe, Inc.

All 8C members and Space 2.0 organizations are invited to join in. You can….

• Add to the List>> Tell us about your organizations’ Haiti relief activities. Email us at info@8cproject.com
• Take Action >> Ways to help:
  + Free Access to Haiti Imagery (DigitalGlobe)….<more>
  + Haiti Earthquake Relief Efforts (DigitalGlobe)….<more>
  + Text “Haiti” to 90999 (American Red Cross)….<more>
  + WATCH Help for Haiti for updates to this initial list.

Thank you!

sysRAND is also developing and adapting low-energy industrial processes for manufacturing products on the moon for space use. This research and development company is creating technologies which can be licensed, sold or spun out as new ventures in the aerospace industry, among others.

“To commercialize space and make it less expensive, we need to find solutions to the transportation problem and identify ways to avoid launching everything that the missions and crews need to thrive in space. So we’re using logistics – beneficiation and manufacturing processes, energy and indigenous raw materials – to reduce the total amount of material which has to be launched to support space exploration.

“Our method is to launch factory modules which are assembled together to manufacture indigenous feedstocks and products on-site,” explained sysRAND CEO Gary “ROD” Rodriguez. “We’re developing the architecture that is pulling together a myriad of insular, point solutions. It’s a plan with a 30- to 50- year horizon; it’s comprehensive and over time it’s only going to get bigger.”

The 20-year-old company started out as a systems and technology consultancy, working with industry and oil patch and computer peripherals developers. Throughout the 90’s the company developed dozens of avionics projects for companies such as Rockwell Collins.  One project of note was a flight data recorder for the President’s Helicopter Fleet, “Marine One.”

Since 2004 sysRAND has been working in two principal R&D domains: one, foundational systems plus tools to support them, and two, adaptation and translation of low-energy industrial processes to space.  Rodriguez said that a third domain seems inevitable: the translation of reliable and low-complexity technology to energy-poor global markets to replace obsolescent, missing or inappropriate infrastructures.

“We knew it was smart business to anchor the company in the space industry and branch out from there,” Rodriguez said. “Our combined experience in industrial systems and avionics has resulted in a fusion which is advancing technology in both markets. By keeping one foot in the space arena we are able to develop foundation technologies which are novel to space and industry alike.”

For example, the company is currently developing software and methodologies for space applications which may also be applied to ships, buildings, and enterprises of many scales.

A bucket ladder excavator is being developed by sysRAND for NASA to use on the Moon and Mars. The sysRAND excavator is competing with several other designs, and the sysRAND design has the advantage of many other system enhancements such as “proximity sensing whiskers.” This technology will support surface operations at the Lunar Outpost which will provide radiation protection, landing pad preparation and other site features to enhance crew safety.  The Colorado School of Mines’ Center for Space Resources and 8^th Continent initiative are active research partners in Lunar mining and civil engineering work.

sysRAND has a constellation of closely-related technologies in development which will all converge in the space context in the near future.  These include making robotic auxiliaries on the moon autonomous, promoting the production and use of indigenous fiberglass, and development of a combustion synthesis fabric to stabilize Lunar Regolith (soil) in surface applications.

“The business of space is about versatility,” Rod said. “We are designing things now to be used on the moon that will later be used on Mars and Near-Earth-Objects (NEOs).”