bluShift Aerospace on February 4, 2021, launched Stardust 1.0 rocket from Maine, their first launch as they give the impression of being to carry small satellite tv for pc launches to the Pine Tree State. Photograph courtesy of bluShift Aerospace/Twitter
BANGOR, Maine, June 7 (UPI) — Leaders and coverage makers in Maine have lengthy been trying to find methods to maintain extra of their in-state highschool and school graduates from leaving. However lobstering and forestry, two stalwarts of the Maine economic system, aren’t what they was once.
Enter the brand new house economic system.
“There’s one thing attractive about house,” Terry Shehata, government director of the Maine Area Grant Consortium, a NASA-funded nonprofit, advised UPI.
Maine — and its plethora of acreage, removed from the sunshine air pollution of the Japanese Seaboard’s main metropolises — has all the time been an important place to gaze on the stars, however not essentially to launch rockets.
The miniaturization of satellites and the rockets wanted to place them into orbit, nonetheless, has modified the calculus. The barrier to entry is now low sufficient that house, or at the very least low-Earth orbit, is not the unique playground of nationwide house businesses and large protection firms.
Now, states not historically related to the aerospace business — Maine and Michigan, for instance — need in on the sport.
Construct it and they’ll come
In April, Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed invoice LD 1923 into legislation, establishing the Maine Area Company, a public-private partnership tasked with rising the state’s aerospace business.
When legislation goes into impact in August, the corp will get to work filling management roles and codifying their objectives and governance. Then they will start crafting a strategic plan for the development of the Maine Area Advanced, which can characteristic launch websites, an innovation hub and an information analytics middle.
Final yr, a Maine-based startup firm, bluShift Aerospace, launched the state’s first rocket. Although the rocket did not fairly attain house, it efficiently showcased the capabilities of the corporate’s “bio-derived” stable gas.
bluShift, which hopes to start launching small satellites utilizing its carbon-neutral rockets, is one in every of a number of firms that Maine officers reached out to as they thought of methods for capturing a slice of the brand new house economic system.
“We have been desirous about find out how to take the state to the subsequent stage for a while now,” Shehata mentioned.
Greater than a spaceport
Earlier than pushing forward with LD 1923 and the Maine Area Company, Shehata and the consortium labored with members of the legislature to make sure Maine had built-in curiosity from companies, researchers and neighborhood leaders.
“We knew that one of many important property that Maine has is geography by way of being on the jap seaboard and one of many positions to launch small satellites into polar orbits,” Shehata mentioned.
“However our major concern has been whether or not we will capitalize on this new house economic system in a method that makes use of our distinctive property, spurs financial development and workforce improvement, and accomplish that in a method that may enable us to maintain our college students right here within the state.”
Surveys and market analysis revealed a wholesome dose of native demand, however in addition they confirmed the suspicions of Shehata and others {that a} spaceport wasn’t sufficient.
“What we’re doing is greater than a spaceport,” Shehata mentioned. “Along with spaceport, we determined we wanted to have this innovation middle and knowledge analytics hub to ensure we now have a extra full complicated.”
All three models will acquire charges and can be capable to survive financially on their very own, in line with Shehata, however the three hubs will function collectively, as a coordinated, cohesive entity.
Constructing a extra full complicated was key to making sure the state developed infrastructure that might be utilized by a range of teams, in accordance State Senator Mattie Daughtry, the invoice’s lead sponsor, from communication suppliers to pupil engineers.
Stakeholder range
“This isn’t about placing out an open for enterprise signal or attracting Elon Musk- and Jeff Bezos-style launches,” Daughtry advised UPI, talking of the invoice. “It is about making a management council that ensures all of the completely different events and stakeholders are working collectively.”
For states with out a lengthy historical past of aerospace exercise, a multi-faceted strategy is crucial, in line with Dylan Taylor, a serious investor within the new house economic system and CEO of Voyager, an area exploration agency.
“The perfect methods are built-in approaches the place schooling, know-how improvement, infrastructure, capital availability and the political assist all dovetail across the business,” Taylor advised UPI in an e mail. “Multi-stakeholder coordination is the important thing to success.”
International knowledge, Maine functions
Along with partaking Maine’s college students, Shehata and Daughtry each cited the significance of bridging connections between the Maine Area Company and Maine’s industries on the bottom.
Ali Abedi, professor {of electrical} and pc engineering on the College of Maine, who testified in assist of LD 1923 earlier this yr, is at the moment working to design and construct small satellites outfitted with microspectral cameras.
“We will use these cameras to review the concentrations of phytoplankton within the water, in order that might be helpful to Maine’s aquaculture business,” Abedi advised UPI. “We will additionally use knowledge from these cameras to review city warmth island results.”
“The third utility is monitoring completely different forests. By finding out the colours in numerous elements of forests we will see the place illnesses is likely to be spreading and harming the forest canopies.”
Small satellites launched in Maine might be used to review forest, fields, cities and water our bodies all around the globe, whereas additionally serving to researchers monitor the Pine Tree State’s personal pure assets.
“We now have to be sure that the worth of the house complicated comes again to the varied sectors in Maine’s economic system,” mentioned Shehata.
The world economic system is more and more knowledge pushed. If firms in Maine can discover a method to acquire helpful data from low-Earth orbit, it will not be tough to search out clients prepared to pay for it — at the very least, in line with Taylor’s logic.
Information, Taylor mentioned, is the draw.
“Now that we now have a re-usable, dependable and comparatively cheap launch, there was a flourishing of launching {hardware} into house,” Taylor mentioned in an e mail. “This in flip is producing a treasure trove of spaced-based knowledge.”
“With this knowledge, whole new enterprise fashions are being created. The capabilities are extraordinary as evidenced by a number of the space-based knowledge that got here out of the Ukraine battle from the personal sector.”
A lot of the information collected by small satellites launched from the Maine Area Advanced will not be on the market — it is going to be free, out there to college students at Maine’s universities for all kinds of analysis functions.
A inexperienced house economic system yields broad advantages
Non-space industries may also profit from work being accomplished on the complicated’s innovation hub, supporters of LD 1923 mentioned.
“We have already got firms proper right here in Maine which are pushing for local weather impartial launches and climate-friendly fuels,” Daughtry mentioned.
The work might help broader efforts to cut back america’ carbon footprint, she mentioned.
For a lot of within the new house economic system, miniaturization is crucial. Efforts to squeeze extra tech into smaller confines require electronics and devices to be as environment friendly as potential.
“Efforts to construct extra energy environment friendly circuitry or low energy radio communication techniques with higher knowledge effectivity can profit different areas of know-how,” Abedi mentioned.
Financing and the longer term
It is going to price someplace between $50 million to $250 million to assemble the Maine Area Advanced, in line with Shehata, however the Maine Area Company will not be ranging from scratch.
Officers anticipate to make the most of some related infrastructure that is already there, together with a pair of army amenities not in use — Brunswick Naval Air Station in Southern Maine and Loring Air Pressure Base farther north, close to the Canadian border.
It is not clear but how the Maine Area Advanced shall be funded, however Shehata mentioned the public-private partnership is more likely to pursue federal grants, hunt down industrial companions and even perhaps problem bonds.
The grant consortium that Shehata oversees will assist the company get organized and supply some preliminary seed funding.
“We’re going to principally present again workplace companies to the company with further funds that we’re securing from the federal authorities to construct up the infrastructure, after which in a couple of years we are going to step apart and set up a strategic partnership with the company,” he mentioned.
It is concerning the children
Supporters of LD 1923 and the Maine Area Advanced anticipate the undertaking to be financially sustainable with out direct assist from the state treasury and Maine taxpayers, however each Shehata and Daughtry mentioned that facilitating collaboration is the first purpose.
“The purpose is to be having a statewide effort on this,” Daughtry mentioned. “The factor that I’m actually enthusiastic about are the hyperlinks between the house complicated, house firms and lecturers.”
“I am actually to see how highschool college students use a few of these low price units.”
Shehata suggests the Maine Area Advanced might carry greater than 5,500 high-paying jobs to the state by 2042.
If a highschool pupil will get an opportunity to review the state’s assets utilizing knowledge captured by a satellite tv for pc launched from Maine, possibly that engagement motivates them to pursue an engineering diploma on the College of Maine.
And if the Maine Area Company is profitable at capturing a slice of the brand new house economic system — anticipated to be price $1.5 trillion by 2040 — possibly, simply possibly, upon commencement, that pupil will not should look exterior the state for a job within the aerospace business.
The Worldwide Area Station is pictured from the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour throughout a flyaround of the orbiting lab that happened following its undocking from the Concord module’s space-facing port on November 8. Photograph courtesy of NASA
Housing
This section of the BDN aims to help readers understand Maine’s housing crisis, the volatile real estate market and the public policy behind them. Read more Housing coverage here.
A unicorn apartment was listed in the pricey city of Ellsworth: a 2-bedroom with all utilities included for just $700 per month.
If that sounds too good to be true, it is, and the scam was not hard to detect.
The unit was posted by an anonymous Facebook user in a local forum without a specific address. A palm tree was faintly visible through the front door in one photo. When a reporter inquired about the post, someone used a Montana company’s name and sent a link to apply for a private showing in exchange for a $70 deposit.
A quick call to the Montana company, which deals only in home sales in that state, is not behind the scam listing. A representative said the agency gets daily calls from Facebook users around the nation telling them scammers are impersonating them.
These kinds of apartment listing scams, often seen on Facebook or Craigslist, have picked up steam in recent years as the nation’s housing crisis deepens and more have become desperate for affordable places to live. The scams often promise below-market rents in cities squeezed for that kind of inventory, meaning the fraudsters target those who are most vulnerable.
“Rental scams in a very tight market are very prevalent,” Phil Chin, a lead volunteer with AARP Maine’s fraud watch network, said. “People under the pressure of income are trying to get the best for a lower price, and seniors are always at disadvantage only because they don’t have the wherewithal to do all this checking around.”
These kinds of scams are “unconscionable” for targeting families looking for affordable housing, Attorney General Aaron Frey said in a statement. His office has received multiple complaints on the issue.
Many of the advertised units do not exist, the Federal Trade Commission wrote in an advisory. Some exist but are not for rent. One Maine homeowner recently discovered that his house was for rent on Craigslist without his knowledge, said Christopher Taub, Frey’s deputy. The ad included photos and almost got one renter to send money to a Nigerian email address.
“Fortunately, the shopper contacted the Maine homeowner and discovered the scam before sending any funds to the scam artist,” Taub said. “Other consumers haven’t been so lucky only to arrive at their paid vacation home for the week or new apartment to find out that it isn’t for rent at all.”
Often, Facebook users are wise to these scams and will comment that they appear to be one. But Facebook allows any poster to restrict their comments, allowing many fraudulent listings to go unchecked. Neither Craigslist nor Meta, Facebook’s parent company, responded to a request for comment on scam apartment listings.
To avoid being scammed, it’s important to confirm the person listing an apartment is legitimate or from a known and trusted business before sending them money, Taub said. Call the property management company and ask lots of questions or visit it yourself, the office advised.
The Federal Trade Commission recommends searching online for the rental location’s address and the name of the property owner. If the two don’t match, that’s a red flag. If there’s no address listed at all, like the Ellsworth unit, that’s another sign of a scam.
Though Maine landlords are allowed to charge application fees, it can only be for specific reasons including a background check, a credit check or some other screening process, according to Pine Tree Legal Assistance. Frey warns against paying any such fees by cash, wiring money, sending gift cards or paying by cryptocurrency, as you can’t get that money back.
“It’s a hard one to deal with. People are under income pressure,” said Chin of AARP Maine. “They have to be vigilant on their own, … but it’s hard to keep your wits about you when you’re facing eviction.”
BANGOR, Maine (WABI) – You don’t need to be a farmer to enjoy Maine’s harvest this weekend!
Maine Harvest Festival & Craft Show is returning to Bangor’s Cross Insurance Center both Saturday and Sunday.
Open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. both days, there will be over 80 local artisans, farmers and crafters selling a wide variety of goods, making it a perfect stop for Christmas gifts or Thanksgiving additions!
WABI got a glimpse into the Cross Insurance Center Friday as vendors prepped their booths ahead of the weekend.
New this year: admission is free!
Organizers say it is in response to low admission numbers post-COVID and to incentivize as many people as possible to come shop local.
“At the Cross Center, we really want to celebrate our community, and we want to make sure we give people, our local vendors a spotlight to reach the community,” says Brad LaBree, Cross Insurance Center’s Director of Sales and Marketing.
The event will also give attendees a chance to participate in the Cross Insurance Center’s ticket giveaway to upcoming shows a part of their Broadway series.
LaBree says Cross Insurance Center is expecting about a 5,000-person turnout this weekend.
Copyright 2024 WABI. All rights reserved.
LifeFlight crews talk on the tarmac at the Sanford Seacoast Regional Airport in July. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer
A LifeFlight crew was disrupted by a laser last week while flying back to their base in Sanford.
The light was pointed at the helicopter, which was flying at about 2,000 feet in the air around 7:45 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 11, according to LifeFlight of Maine, a nonprofit that provides emergency medical transportation. While the pilot was able to fly back safely, those flashes of light can temporarily blind the crew, who are often wearing night vision goggles, the company said.
The Federal Aviation Administration has monitored thousands of nationwide laser strikes, where someone points the beam at an aircraft. As of Sept. 30, a total of 8,863 incidents were reported to the agency, 24 of which happened in Maine. In 2023, the nationwide total was 13,304.
This is the fourth laser strike reported by a Maine LifeFlight pilot in two years, the company said.
Pointing a laser at aircraft is a federal crime, punishable by a fine, up to five years in prison, or both. And according to Maine law, pointing a laser at a uniformed law enforcement officer or injuring another person with a laser is a Class D crime.
This story will be updated.
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