The 8th Continent Project is organizing the emerging generation of space-derived business and technology - Space 2.0. Just as the transition of the World Wide Web from an exclusive tool for high-level government and academic research to a mainstay in nearly every home across the globe has been coined "Web 2.0," space-derived technology is undergoing its own transition into a new era where it is a means for delivering content and value to everyday people.
Indeed, people are already interacting with Space 2.0 on a daily basis, but don't know it. Consider the following examples, keeping in mind that these Space 2.0-enabled capabilities have already generated significant wealth and and hundreds of thousands of jobs:
Pay at the Pump
Nearly all pay-at-the-pump credit/debit card transaction approvals route through networks of telecommunications spacecraft. Almost instantly after the card is swiped, the request and then the approval traverse thousands of miles to enable you to fill your tank.
Emergency Response
The cutting-edge capability of DigitalGlobe's QuickBird satellite delivers high resolution maps that can achieve accuracy to within three feet, allowing rescue authorities to more easily navigate in remote locations in response to calls for help. Most recently, the QuickBird images were used by the Division of Forestry to help firefighters fight wildfires in a remote location near Fairbanks, Alaska. Firefighters used the images to determine the locations of endangered structures, evacuation routes and areas where firefighting personnel needed to be dispatched.
Safer Buildings, Bridges and Mines....and More Oil
Lumedyne Technologies (formerly Omega Sensors) is developing applications for its new accelerometer technology to make safer tall buildings, bridges, mines and other complex structures. The startup has increased the precision and reduced the price points of this technology, a central component of spacecraft navigation systems, to introduce disruptive capability and value. Lumedyne Technologies won the first 8C Business Plan Competition, and has since successfully closed a $1.5 million first round capital raise and received a $1.25 million contract from the U.S. Department of Energy to build and demonstrate its accelerometer technology for oil exploration and microhole seismic imaging.
More Effective Chemo
Tests conducted on the Space Shuttle have demonstrated that cancerous cells retain chemotherapy medicine longer in weightlessness than in normal gravity. Subsequent research by university students on NASA's reduced gravity research aircraft further demonstrated that this additional beneficial effect consistently occurs in weightless conditions lasting only 20 seconds or less. This discovery has led to a better understanding of cancer cell behavior and how to control it.
Forest Conservation
Scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts are using new satellite radar technology to help enforce forest conservation laws and treaties. The project is analyzing radar waves emitted from a surveillance satellite that enables them to monitor whether or not governments are sticking to conservation pledges and assess the overall state of the world's forests regardless of weather conditions, with close to real-time accuracy.
Avoiding Chemo Hair Loss
NASA spacesuit technology has helped doctors reduce the hair loss experienced by many cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy treatments. Because they grow more rapidly, cancer cells are warmer than normal cells. Chemotherapy is designed to go to hot cells in the body, but this includes both cancer cells and other rapidly growing cells, such as those in hair. By locally cooling hair cells and warming cancer cells, spacesuit-based technology helps guide chemo drugs more completely to their intended targets.
GPS Helps Win A Race Against Time
Recently reported on CNN was the story of a Pennsylvania boy whose life may have been saved by GPS and fast-thinking emergency response personnel. On the waiting list for a suitable heart, the ten-year-old was in need of an immediate transplant. A heart became available, but the boy's doctors were unable to reach his mother. Quick thinking emergency personnel used the GPS technology found in most cell phones to locate both the boy and his mother at a nearby jazz concert. The mother had turned the ringer volume down for the concert and had not noticed the calls. A Pennsylvania State Police official interrupted the concert and located the boy and his mother. The crowd cheered; and the boy received his new heart.
Archaeology
Cameras attached to satellites and aircraft are being used by archaeologists to reveal remarkable details about ancient civilizations and land features. In one example, Archaeologist Scott Madry, Associate Professor at the University of North Carolina, spent a few hours on Google Earth and located 101 features in an area covering 1,440 square kilometers in central France. These features represented Iron Age, Medieval and Gallo-Roman sites. It's one of the first viable alternatives for archaeological exploration to bring to light new dig sites around the world.
Air Traffic Control
Current air traffic control systems are well on their way to being too primitive to accommodate today's crowded skies. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says that if the U.S. air traffic control system isn't revamped soon to a satellite-based system that dramatically opens up airspace, delays will increase by more than 60 percent by 2014 from 2004 levels. Such delays would cost the U.S. economy in excess of $22 billion a year by 2020.
Muscle Loss Therapy
Millions of Americans suffering from muscular dystrophy and other muscle-wasting conditions may soon benefit from research being performed at the University of Colorado at Boulder using the microgravity environment of space, where experiments on a potential muscle-loss therapy are proving to have a positive effect in preventing muscle loss.
