NASA SPONSORS ANNUAL BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION

The following excerpt is from the NASA website:

“MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA’s Ames Research Center, in conjunction
with NASA’s Office of the Chief Technologist’s Emerging Space Office,
is continuing its support for the Space Frontier Foundation’s annual
Business Plan Competition by funding this year’s awards totaling
$110,000.

The Space Frontier Foundation Business Plan Competition will be held
during a three-day event at NASA Ames in July 2012. The NASA
supported Emerging Space Grand Prize will include an award of
$100,000 for the best business plan with the potential to contribute
to space development. NASA also is supporting a second prize of
$10,000.

“As NASA’s Silicon Valley center, we’re continuing our tradition of
supporting entrepreneurs and encouraging the venture capital
community to become familiar with the new opportunities that are
emerging in space,” said NASA Ames Research Center Director Pete
Worden. “Part of our role is to encourage economic growth and
development and at NASA, we look to build on some of the nation’s
strongest assets to do so – including our skilled technical
workforce, our commercial creativity and our entrepreneurial spirit.”

The Business Plan Competition is designed for new, independent
companies in the seed, start-up, or early growth stages. The
competition simulates the real-world process of entrepreneurs
soliciting for start-up funds from early stage investors and venture
capital firms.

The competition traditionally includes a review of business plan
submissions by space industry experts and investors and a ‘Boot Camp’
where the finalist teams will receive expert training in promoting
and developing business plans.

In order to be eligible, competing companies should have technologies
or products that potentially could contribute to the expansion of
economic activity in space. Competition finalists will pitch their
business plans publicly and be judged by a panel of world-class
entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and finance professionals.

The Space Frontier Foundation is an organization dedicated to opening
the space frontier to human settlement as rapidly as possible. Its
goals include protecting Earth's fragile biosphere, creating a freer
and more prosperous life for each generation by using the unlimited
energy and material resources of space, and unleashing the power of
free enterprise to establish a permanent human presence in space.

For more information about NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist,
visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/oct

For more information about the Space Frontier Foundation Business Plan
Competition and how to participate, visit:

http://newspacebpc.com

For more information about Space Frontier Foundation, visit:

http://spacefrontier.org”