and some are looking far beyond tech and into space.

Not that long ago, only nations had space programs. Now tech billionaires are

building rockets, hauling cargo and satellites and offering space travel.

Seattle is a launch pad for this effort. Producer Stacy Jenkins considers whether it's

a viable commercial industry or just science fiction.

JENKINS: Jeff Bezos. Paul Allen. Elon Musk. These billionaire moguls all have ties to Seattle and big dreams of

revamping the space industry.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos owns Blue Origin Space Company, and plans to launch

rockets into orbit by the end of the decade. Stratolaunch Systems, a space

airlaunch company is backed by Paul Allen, and Elon Musk recently completed an

engineering complex in Redmond with plans to build a constellation of

satellites. But beyond the glitter of the billionaire space race, Seattle has

quietly held its own as a space hub and it's on a steep growth trajectory.

HOYT: At Tethers Unlimited a lot of us are real science fiction fans and what we like to

do is kinda take the ideas that are in the science fiction domain and figure out

how to drag them into the domain of science reality. JENKINS: Tethers Unlimited in

Bothell, WA has been creating and manufacturing space related equipment

for over two decades.

HOYT: Right now we're working with NASA to develop this recycling system for the

space station. Astronauts will be able to take the plastic waste on the space

station, they can put the plastic waste into the hopper here and then the

machine will melt it down and extrude it to make very high quality filament for

the 3D printers that are on the space station. JENKINS: Those 3D printers can then go on

to build new pieces of equipment in space. Tethers' in-space manufacturing

technology helps save waste and saves money. HOYT: On a typical cargo resupply

mission to the space station there's something like 25 pounds of plastic

waste that's sent up. Normally they would have to stuff that in a return vehicle and

burn it up in the atmosphere to get rid of it, but that mass on orbit is worth

about $10,000 per pound, so that's almost a quarter million dollars worth of just

raw material that we can recycle into feedstock for building new space systems.

UPTAGRAFFT: If we look at 3D or

additive manufacturing 10 years ago, 20 years ago, that was all sci-fi stuff.

JENKINS: Bob Uptagrafft from the Northwest Aerospace Alliance says the lightspeed

advancements in technology combined with its aerospace roots is what makes

Seattle a perfect space hub. UPTAGRAFFT: We look at at local companies like Rocketdyne

as an example, used to be called Rocket Research, they have for the last 30

years been producing booster jet rockets that drive satellites to space.

JENKINS: Aerojet Rocketdyne was the first space company to set up shop in Washington State.

It recently played a key role in the historic fly-by of Pluto with NASA's new

Horizon spacecraft. FELIX: We had 16 rockets, 16 different thruster engines. It

works like a baby grand piano that's mounted in as part of the spacecraft

aperture. The satellite itself is powered by 100% pure Aerojet Rocketdyne Redmond power.

Aerojet Rocketdyne continues to report positive growth. There are also a number of new

players on the field including Planetary Resources, whose mission is to mine

asteroids; and Spaceflight in Tukwila, who focus on small satellite launches. All this

growth is also attracting talent. MUHLBAUER: A lot of people I know have moved to the Pacific

Northwest. I actually have a group of friends who came out here that are all

from Georgia. JENKINS: Dr Rachel Muhlbauer moved here about a year ago to work at Tethers

Unlimited. MUHLBAUER: Especially in the Seattle area there's just been the boom for the space

industry. JENKINS: With no end to this growth in sight, it seems that the possibilities

for space in Seattle are infinite. FELIX: We're a very proud space community that's at the

beginning of the forefront, right, space is big and vast and there's plenty of

room for us all to maneuver and it's

really a function of how we work together with the same common cause

which is exploration.

IN Close on KCTS 9 is made possible in part by BECU. You can join our

conversation about the Seattle space race by going to KCTS9.org/in-close