Japanese bank invests in Starlab
The Starlab design in 2025. Click
for original image.
The consortium building the Starlab space station today announced that the Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank of Japan has invested in the project.
Through this investment, SuMi TRUST Bank will support Starlab’s efforts to develop and commercialize space station technologies, while exploring opportunities for collaboration that contribute to the advancement of space-related industries and broader industrial development in Japan and globally.
The press release provided no other information, other than this boilerplate PR jargon. The amount invested was not mentioned.
Regardless, the investment tells us two things: First, Starlab has now raised more than $400 million in investment capital, and appears in a solid position to begin work on its large single module station to be launched on Starship.
Second, the investment in this American-based space project by this Japanese bank speaks volumes about the sad state of Japan’s own commercial space industry. Other than the lunar lander Ispace, Japan has seen little success from any other major rocket startups. One rocket startup, Interstellar, has obtained some investment capital, but the development of its rocket seemingly stopped for the past five years. Another, Space One, has had one launch failure. And though Honda has completed a successful vertical take-off and landing of a small rocket prototype, it doesn’t expect to attempt an orbital launch until 2030.
Meanwhile, the two rockets owned by Japan’s space agency JAXA, the H3 and Epsilon, are grounded because of launch failures.
It appears this bank believes it is more likely to earn profits from this American project than from these other Japanese space efforts.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The Starlab design in 2025. Click
for original image.
The consortium building the Starlab space station today announced that the Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank of Japan has invested in the project.
Through this investment, SuMi TRUST Bank will support Starlab’s efforts to develop and commercialize space station technologies, while exploring opportunities for collaboration that contribute to the advancement of space-related industries and broader industrial development in Japan and globally.
The press release provided no other information, other than this boilerplate PR jargon. The amount invested was not mentioned.
Regardless, the investment tells us two things: First, Starlab has now raised more than $400 million in investment capital, and appears in a solid position to begin work on its large single module station to be launched on Starship.
Second, the investment in this American-based space project by this Japanese bank speaks volumes about the sad state of Japan’s own commercial space industry. Other than the lunar lander Ispace, Japan has seen little success from any other major rocket startups. One rocket startup, Interstellar, has obtained some investment capital, but the development of its rocket seemingly stopped for the past five years. Another, Space One, has had one launch failure. And though Honda has completed a successful vertical take-off and landing of a small rocket prototype, it doesn’t expect to attempt an orbital launch until 2030.
Meanwhile, the two rockets owned by Japan’s space agency JAXA, the H3 and Epsilon, are grounded because of launch failures.
It appears this bank believes it is more likely to earn profits from this American project than from these other Japanese space efforts.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
With considerable buy-in from both European and Japanese concerns, Starlab looks to be trying to position itself as the place where the ISS “band” – absent the Russians – can get back together once ISS is gone.
A bank coming on board is always a good thing.
A decade hence, there will a great cacophony from people who complain how “unfair” it is that “large corporations” are shutting the “little guy” out of space.
Well, folks, now’s your chance.
Investors want to fund low risk start-ups…hoping a few dollars and a few code monkeys will turn them into the next Bill Gates.
After WWII, you did see a lot of aviation growth because it wasn’t that far removed from the garage, as it were…..and VCs STILL ran from Vern Rayburn and VLJs late last century.
Plane-jane air racing and car restoration can put you in the hole if your name isn’t Jay Leno.
Apart from useful zero-gee products being returned by the ton which may or may not open financial floodgates—-the only way a start-up could have a chance starting from scratch…is to bodge a physics breaking contraption like out of the movie EXPLORERS.
That ain’t happening.
I still advocate waterfall because it is the checklist manifesto made tangible.
Agile needs a lot of money up front for aerospace.
Computer start-ups don’t.
Elon is a unicorn…a space advocate who understands business and is successful.
Gimlin/Patterson together wouldn’t find another if they tried.
Last time Attenborough hid a blind at a National Space Society, all he saw were dime-a-dozen starry-eyed, empty-pocket darters with the occasional crew-cut barracudas from the USAF…Elon being one of the few invasive species to tough it out.