Jane Poynter

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Jane Poynter

Jane Poynter is an American aerospace executive, author and speaker. She is founder, co-CEO and CXO of Space Perspective, a luxury space travel company. She was co-founder and former CEO of World View Enterprises, a private near-space exploration and technology company headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. Poynter was also a founding member of the Biosphere 2 design team and a crew member from the original two-year mission inside the materially closed ecological system.

Contents

Prior to World View, Poynter served as co-founder, Chairwoman and President of Paragon Space Development Corporation, a designer and manufacturer of hazardous environment life support equipment.

Business ventures

Space Perspective

Space Perspective is a high-altitude flight tourism company, founded and incorporated in 2019 by Poynter and Taber MacCallum, with plans to launch its nine-person Spaceship Neptune crewed balloon from NASA Kennedy Space Center. [1]

On June 18, 2020, Space Perspective announced plans to balloon passengers to nearly 100,000 feet (30,000 m; 30 km) above the Earth. The tickets are US$125,000 per seat. [2] [3]

On 2 December 2020, Space Perspective closed its seed funding round. US$7 million of funding had been gathered. The company planned the first uncrewed test flight in the first half of 2021 and crewed operational flights by end of 2024. [4]

World View Enterprises

World View Enterprises, doing business as World View, is a private American near-space exploration and technology company headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, founded with the goal of increasing access to and the utilization of the stratosphere for scientific, commercial, and economic purposes.[ citation needed ]

World View was founded and incorporated in 2012 by a team of aerospace and life support veterans, including Biosphere 2 crew-members Poynter and Taber MacCallum, Alan Stern (the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto), and former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly. The company designs, manufactures and operates stratospheric flight technology for a variety of customers and applications.[ citation needed ]

The Stratollite

The Stratollite [5] is a remotely operated, navigable, un-crewed stratospheric flight vehicle designed and engineered to station-keep over customer-specified areas of interest for long periods of time (days, weeks, and months). The Stratollite uses proprietary altitude control technology to rise and lower in the stratosphere, harnessing the natural currents of varying stratospheric winds to provide point-to-point navigation and loitering. The Stratollite operates at altitudes up to 95,000 ft. (30 km) with a payload capacity of 50 kg and 250W of continuous power to payloads. The Stratollite is primarily used for applications including remote sensing, communications, and weather. [6]

Paragon Space Development Corporation

Poynter was a founder of Paragon Space Development Corporation, which develops technologies for extreme environments (like outer space and under water). While inside Biosphere 2, she co-founded the firm with fellow biospherian, Taber MacCallum, whom she later married, [7] Grant Anderson, Paragon's President and CEO and several other aerospace engineers. In 2009 the National Association for Female Executives awarded Poynter its Entrepreneur of the Year award. [8]

Inspiration Mars

Poynter was a developer of the crew and life-support systems [9] for the Inspiration Mars free-return mission to Mars planned for launch in January 2018. The two person spaceflight mission was originally to be a private, nonprofit venture [10] of 501 days duration which will allow a small human-carrying spacecraft to use the smallest possible amount of fuel to get it to Mars and back to Earth. [11] However, this plan proved unworkable without significant funding and assistance from NASA. [12]

The life support system is critical:

"If anything goes wrong, the spacecraft should make its own way back to Earth — but with no possibility of any short-cuts home." [13]

Former ventures

Biosphere 2

Poynter was one of eight people who agreed to live in a sealed artificial world for two years from September 1991 to September 1993. Just twelve days into the mission, she was injured in a rice-threshing machine, and had to leave the Biosphere for medical treatment. [14] She was out for less than seven hours. The project came under media criticism after it was revealed that some spare parts were placed in the airlock with her when she went back in.

Poynter reported that low morale and psychological problems plagued the two-year mission. [15] The eight crew members eventually split into two factions of four who hated each other.

Other work

Poynter also worked with the World Bank on projects to mitigate global climate change and grow crops in drought-stricken Africa and Central America. She is president of Blue Marble Institute, a 501(c)(3) non profit dedicated to leadership in science, sustainability and exploration. She serves on the City of Tucson's Climate Change Committee. [16] Her second book, Champions for Change: Athletes Making A World of Difference is now a middle school program. [17]

Poynter has been an invited speaker at events hosted by groups such as the United Nations Environment Programme, the US Environmental Protection Agency, TEDx, National Space Symposium, NASA, MIT, and Microsoft.

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aerobot</span>

An aerobot is an aerial robot, usually used in the context of an uncrewed space probe or unmanned aerial vehicle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Space tourism</span> Human space travel for recreation

Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. Tourists are motivated by the possibility of viewing Earth from space, feeling weightlessness, experiencing extremely high speed and something unusual, and contributing to science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Biosphere 2</span> Closed ecological research centre in Arizona

University of Arizona Biosphere 2 is an American Earth system science research facility located in Oracle, Arizona. Its mission is to serve as a center for research, outreach, teaching, and lifelong learning about Earth, its living systems, and its place in the universe. It is a 3.14-acre (1.27-hectare) structure originally built to be an artificial, materially closed ecological system, or vivarium. It remains the largest closed ecological system ever created.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dennis Tito</span> American engineer and entrepreneur, also the first space tourist (born 1940)

Dennis Anthony Tito is an American engineer and entrepreneur. During mid-2001, he became the first space tourist to fund his own visit to space, when he spent nearly eight days in orbit as a crew member of ISS EP-1, a visiting mission to the International Space Station. This mission was launched by the spacecraft Soyuz TM-32, and was landed by Soyuz TM-31.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Private spaceflight</span> Spaceflight not paid for by a government agency

Private spaceflight refers to spaceflight activities undertaken by non-governmental entities, such as corporations, individuals, or non-profit organizations. This contrasts with public spaceflight, which is traditionally conducted by government agencies like NASA, ESA, or JAXA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Life-support system</span> Technology that allows survival in hostile environments

A life-support system is the combination of equipment that allows survival in an environment or situation that would not support that life in its absence. It is generally applied to systems supporting human life in situations where the outside environment is hostile, such as outer space or underwater, or medical situations where the health of the person is compromised to the extent that the risk of death would be high without the function of the equipment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">High-altitude balloon</span> Balloon released into the stratosphere, most commonly weather balloons

High-altitude balloons or stratostats are usually uncrewed balloons typically filled with helium or hydrogen and released into the stratosphere, generally attaining between 18 and 37 km above sea level. In 2013, a balloon named BS 13-08 reached a record altitude of 53.7 km.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ARCAspace</span> Aerospace company headquartered in Romania

Romanian Cosmonautics and Aeronautics Association, also known as ARCAspace, is an aerospace company based in Râmnicu Vâlcea, Romania. It builds rockets, high-altitude balloons, and unmanned aerial vehicles. It was founded in 1999 as a non-governmental organization in Romania by the Romanian engineer and entrepreneur Dumitru Popescu and other rocket and aeronautics enthusiasts. Since then, ARCA has launched two stratospheric rockets and four large-scale stratospheric balloons including a cluster balloon. It was awarded two governmental contracts with the Romanian government and one contract with the European Space Agency. ARCASpace is currently developing several rocket systems, both orbital and suborbital, under the EcoRocket program. These vehicles include the CER rocket systems, the EcoRocket Demonstrator, Nano, 5 & Heavy, and the A1 strategic anti-ballistic interceptor. ARCA has yet to launch a vehicle above the Karman line, or sent a payload to orbit, with the majority of their projects having been abandoned due to various reasons, often including financial or regulatory constraints.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SpaceX Dragon</span> Family of SpaceX spacecraft

Dragon is a family of spacecraft developed and produced by American private space transportation company SpaceX.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taber MacCallum</span>

Taber MacCallum is the co-founder and co-CEO of Space Perspective, a human spaceflight company planning to take people and payloads to the edge of space by balloon, and the former chairman of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (CSF). He is co-founder and former CTO of World View Enterprises, a stratospheric balloon company using its un-crewed Stratollite for remote communications and sensing. MacCallum was also a founding member of the Biosphere 2 design team and a crew member from the original two-year mission inside the materially-closed ecological system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paragon Space Development Corporation</span>

Paragon Space Development Corporation is an American company headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. Paragon is a provider of environmental controls for extreme and hazardous environments. They design, build, test and operate life-support systems and leading thermal-control products for astronauts, contaminated water divers, and other extreme environment explorers, as well as for uncrewed space and terrestrial applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golden Spike Company</span>

The Golden Spike Company was an American space transport startup active from 2010 to 2013. The company was chartered for business in Colorado with the objective to offer private commercial space transportation services to the surface of the Moon. The name of the company is in reference to the ceremonial final spike placed in the First transcontinental railroad upon its completion. The company's Internet site was taken offline in September 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Inspiration Mars Foundation</span> Defunct, proposed a crewed flyby mission

Inspiration Mars Foundation was an American nonprofit organization founded by Dennis Tito that in 2013 proposed to launch a crewed mission to flyby Mars in January 2018, or 2021 if they missed the first synodic opportunity in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World View Enterprises</span> Private American near-space exploration and technology company

World View Enterprises, Inc., doing business as World View, is a private American near space exploration and technology company headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, founded with the goal of increasing access to and the utilization of the stratosphere for scientific, commercial, economic, and military purposes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alan Eustace</span> American computer scientist

Robert Alan Eustace is an American computer scientist who served as Senior Vice President of Engineering and first Senior Vice President for Knowledge at Google until retiring in 2015. On October 24, 2014, he made a free-fall jump from the stratosphere, breaking Felix Baumgartner's world record. The jump was from 135,890 feet (41.42 km) and lasted 15 minutes, an altitude record that stands as of 2024. He won the Laureus World Action Sportsperson of the Year in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Cantrell</span> American aerospace engineer

Jim Cantrell is an American entrepreneur, mechanical engineer and road racer. He is the CEO and co-founder of Phantom Space Corporation, which aims to build space transportation technology. After working at the French Space Agency CNES and the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, he worked as an independent consultant to aerospace companies for fifteen years and was on the founding teams of SpaceX and Moon Express. Cantrell was a consultant for SpaceX and Elon Musk's industry mentor when SpaceX launched in 2002.

The future of space exploration involves both telescopic and physical explorations of space by robotic spacecraft and human spaceflight. Near-term physical exploration missions, focused on obtaining new information about the Solar System, are planned and announced by both national and private organisations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GUSTO (telescope)</span>

GUSTO is a high-altitude balloon mission that carries an infrared telescope to measure fine-structure line emission from the interstellar medium. The mission was developed by NASA's Explorers Program, and was launched on 31 December 2023 from Antarctica.

Deimos-One is an American spaceflight technology development company working on an AI powered, autonomous UAV rocket system to move payloads to space. As of January 2021, the company has completed a successful prototype test flight, reaching an altitude of 30 km (19 mi).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">StratEx Space Dive</span>

On October 24, 2014, Alan Eustace broke the record for the highest stratosphere jump, releasing himself from a balloon at 135,908 feet.

References

  1. ↑ "Contact Us". Space Perspective. Retrieved 2021-09-07.
  2. ↑ Mosher, Dave (2020). "A new spaceship-on-a-balloon startup wants to float you high enough to see Earth's curvature and the darkness of space for roughly $125,000 per ticket". Business Insider. Retrieved 2020-07-09.
  3. ↑ "World View founders launch new stratospheric ballooning venture". 18 June 2020.
  4. ↑ "Stratospheric ballooning company Space Perspective raises $7 million". 2 December 2020.
  5. ↑ Eherington, Darrell (2016). "World View's 'stratollites' and new spaceport aim to change the business of space". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-10-14.
  6. ↑ Button, Keith (2017). "Satellite envy". Aerospace America. Retrieved 2018-10-14.
  7. ↑ "US private sector hopes to send older couple to Mars". BBC News. 27 February 2013.
  8. ↑ "Jane Poynter, Entrepreneur of the Year". National Association for Female Executives. Retrieved 25 Oct 2012.
  9. ↑ Kaufman, Marc (27 February 2013). "Manned Mars Mission Announced by Dennis Tito Group". National Geographic News. Archived from the original on February 28, 2013. Retrieved 28 February 2013.
  10. ↑ Belfiore, Michael (27 February 2013). "The Crazy Plan to Fly Two Humans to Mars in 2018". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved 29 April 2013.
  11. ↑ Morring, Frank Jr. (2013-03-04). "Serious Intent About 2018 Human Mars Mission". Aviation Week and Space Technology. Archived from the original on 2013-05-10. Retrieved 2013-03-07.
  12. ↑ Grossman, Lisa (November 21, 2013). "Ambitious Mars joy-ride cannot succeed without NASA". New Scientist. Retrieved 2018-10-14.
  13. ↑ Connor, Steve (26 February 2013). "The millionaire Dennis Tito and his mission to Mars". The Independent . London. Retrieved 28 February 2013.
  14. ↑ Poynter 2006, p.144-6
  15. ↑ Poynter 2006, ch.18
  16. ↑ "Climate Change Committee" . Retrieved October 25, 2012.
  17. ↑ "Champions for Change". Archived from the original on May 16, 2013. Retrieved October 25, 2012.

Further reading

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