Steve Wozniak announces the creation of a new space company Privateer

Step aside, space barons. Steve Wozniak announced space plans.

Sunday night Wozniak tweeted cryptic announcement: “Unlike others, a private space company is being created.” Privateer’s embedded video ads deceptively resemble the space announcements of most billionaires, with platitudes like “we’ll go far together” in what looks like stock footage of milestones in space. The footage from the climate march and the statement “this is not a race” is an obvious reference to the original “space race” of the Cold War era, and perhaps a hint of things like Blue Origins. choosing a fight on twitter with Richard Branson, who can call himself a real astronaut.

Woz didn’t share any further details other than a video (see it below) in which a forest fire is somewhat confusing, clouds of smoke rising from fossil-fueled power plants, people taking to the skies, a child in an astronaut suit, and a loved one iris plan. “We will take care of what we have so that the next generation can be better together,” the voiceover says.

V Privateer website is in stealth mode, but says more details on the company will be announced at AMOS Tech 2021, which starts Tuesday in Maui, Hawaii and runs through the end of the week.

According to YouTube video descriptionWoz co-founded Privateer with Alex Fielding, a member of the first iMac team. The two co-founders of Wheels of Zeus (“WoZ”), a now-closed startup that created GPS location tags attached to frequently lost objects.

The Privateer’s website does not contain contact information and the contact form does not process requests at the time of publication. We’ve reached out to Wozniak for comment and will let you know when we get a response.

If your knee reflex reaction is why, woz ??!?!?he doesn’t seem to be fighting for space domination alongside Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos. It looks like he’s planning to take out space debris instead; August Press release for an unrelated titanium alloy 3D printer, described Privateer as “a new satellite company dedicated to monitoring and cleaning objects in space.”

Wagon will do these guys a favor. Space has become a dump of dead satellites and launch vehicles, and so much so that in 2019 NASA called low earth orbit “the world’s largest garbage dump” with nearly 6,000 tons of garbage. NASA has warned that space debris threatens space travelers with debris ejection seven times faster than a bullet and reports that even stains of paint smashed the shuttle windows. The agency is currently tracking 27,000 pieces of larger space debris.

Cleaning will cost money that the US government does not provide. Last year, former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine called on Congress to fund a $ 15 million cleanup mission. tweet: “There have been 3 potential connections of serious concern in the last 2 weeks. The trash gets worse! »The latest bill on the financing of space activities, passed by the Senate, does not provide for the allocation of these funds, but instructs the Office of Science and Technology Policy to assess the situation. (Conversations surrounding this bill have mainly focused on Blue Origin’s campaign to write $ 10 billion check for government contracts to compete with SpaceX.)

The waste management space is filled with amazing delights. Lasers! Space claws! Tentacles! Astroscale space company funded by the governments of Great Britain and Japan. already started testing of magnetic docking systems that towing space debris of the future and use the Earth’s atmosphere as an incinerator. (Although customers will need to install the appropriate docking plates before launching the ship.)

Former NASA scientist Donald Kessler predicted in 1978 that a compacting minefield would become exponentially more dangerous in the coming decades, as future collisions would involve more debris. Last year he said Scientific American claims that space is “long overdue” for disaster.