TechCrunch Space: The dawn of the space age

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. Flagging again that the final agenda for the Space Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt is now live. I'll be pushing this event for the next few weeks, given that we're just a bit over a month away! We'd love for you to join us.

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Story of the week

Imagine a future where the diurnal cycle, at least in some parts of the world, is adjustable. Where humans are no longer beholden to the 24-hour pattern of daylight and darkness. Instead of being constrained by the physical reality that constrains the sun to its daily cycle, imagine a future where the sun can be turned on and off like a flashlight.

This is the future that Reflect Orbital imagines is possible. The startup is developing satellites that would deploy large mirrors to precisely reflect sunlight onto specific points on the ground. Rings of satellites in sun-synchronous orbit would follow the terminator, or the line that separates night and day, providing additional sunlight before dawn and after dusk.

Their plans generated a lot of ire on the internet. But some of that attention was positive -- including from Sequoia investor Shaun Maguire.

Longshot of the week

Why use a rocket when you could use a giant, miles-long “gun” instead?

That’s the question posed by Longshot Space, a company that’s completely rethinking how to send mass to orbit. The company is developing a kinetic launch system that will gradually accelerate payloads to hypersonic speeds before launching them into orbit. While Longshot’s full-scale system will take up a lot of space, the startup is betting it can achieve very, very low costs to orbit compared to a rocket — as low as $10 per kilogram, which is a staggering reduction compared to the $6,000 per kilogram price of a rideshare on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The company raised a $1.5 million pre-seed round in April 2023; now, nearly 18 months later, Longshot closed a little over $5 million in combined venture funding and non-dilutive funding from the U.S. Air Force’s TACFI program. The new capital will be used to build a massive, 500-meter-long gun in the Nevada desert to push 100-kilogram payloads to Mach 5.

This week in space history

This week we're celebrating two major achievements in space history: the birth of NASA and the launch of Sputnik-1. Both events have changed the course of space exploration -- the former, by establishing the organization that would help ensure America's place as the world's primary space power; and the latter, by arguably kicking off the Cold War-era space race between the USA and the USSR.

Notably, the Russians launched Sputnik on October 4, 1957, and less than a year later Congress officially established NASA. America was shocked by the USSR's success in the space domain. President Eisenhower tried to save face, calling the satellite a "useless hunk of iron." But he also dedicated even more funding for the domestic space program to ensure we caught up.

Here's NASA: "Immediately after the Sputnik I launch in October, the U.S. Defense Department responded to the political furor by approving funding for another U.S. satellite project. As a simultaneous alternative to Vanguard, Wernher von Braun and his Army Redstone Arsenal team began work on the Explorer project. ... The Sputnik launch also led directly to the creation of National Aeronautics and Space Administration."