Houston's economic diversity Thread .. (Taylor, Roma: appointed, train, pool)

[Jack Lance]

A local commercial space company Intuitive Machines is set to land the first 2 commercial spacecraft in history on the Moon.

Intuitive Machines announced Wednesday that it selected SpaceX to propel its second lunar lander to the moon.
This lander, being designed and tested in Houston, will carry an ice-mining experiment for NASA. It's set to launch no sooner than 2022.

“Launching Nova-C on a rocket with a proven record of reliability and outstanding value is an assurance to NASA and our commercial payload customers that IM is dedicated to sticking the landing in back-to-back Moon missions," Steve Altemus, president and CEO of Intuitive Machines, said in a news release.

Pictured is a rendering of Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lunar lander on the moon.
Photo: Intuitive Machines

The company previously announced that its first moon mission, where the company's Nova-C lunar lander is set to deliver commercial cargo and NASA-provided payloads to the moon later this year, will also ride into space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.


Intuitive Machines' second moon mission will deliver NASA's experiment, called the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment (PRIME-1), to the moon's south pole. PRIME-1 will drill into the moon, harvest ice and then bring it to the surface. A mass spectrometer will be used to measure how much is lost as the ice turns from solid into vapor in a vacuum.

Intuitive Machines picks SpaceX to propel second moon mission into microgravity - HoustonChronicle.com

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Another storied Houston company is going public. Earlier, Academy Sports & Outdoors went public (has done wonders in the stock market so far). Now Landry’s, Inc. is set to go public. Considering how low hospitality stocks are these days, it could be a win in a year or so

[ParaguaneroSwag]

An interesting read... One of the most recent companies that moved here from Cali, Maddox Defense, is pioneering using solar energy for military gear.

[Jack Lance]

Texas medical device company moves HQ to Houston, raises nearly $24M

Dominion Aesthetics Technologies Inc., which is working to commercialize its initial medical device, recently finalized the move of its headquarters from San Antonio to Houston.
The company — which launched in 2016 and developed EON, a “touchless, intelligent body-contouring device” — has also closed on its Series B funding round, raising $23.7 million.

Several prominent Houston biotech and medical device investors stepped up to support the Series B funding round, including MagnaSci Ventures, Morton Cohn Investments and McNair Interests Ltd. The latter was founded by Robert McNair, who owned the NFL’s Houston Texans before he died in 2018.

Dominion officials said the funding enables the company to focus on manufacturing and commercialization of the EON device during what Sheridan called a “pivotal time in the company's development."
Dominion’s new corporate office is within five minutes of George Bush Intercontinental Airport and is in a Qualified Opportunity Zone.


Dominion Aesthetics Technologies moves HQ to Houston - Houston Business Journal (bizjournals.com)

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Surprised you didn't make a post about JP Morgan expanding their corporate offices in Houston.

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by ParaguaneroSwag

Surprised you didn't make a post about JP Morgan expanding their corporate offices in Houston.

I read the article and it appears they are merely relocating their technology office from one Houston location to another.

In this case My criteria is that if it creates one new job that's not directly tied to Oil and Gas, and or brings in any amount of new money from outside the Greater Houston economy it is accretive to economic diversity. I didn't read anything in that article that clearly states this move did that.

[Jack Lance]

Landry's is going public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) raising money for future takeovers and increasing the diversity of the Greater Houston economy. Fertitta is also using "Blank Check" companies to increase liquidity and take some of his other holdings public.

Tilman Fertitta, the Houston billionaire who built a hospitality and entertainment empire from a single seafood restaurant in Katy, will take his Landry’s Inc. and Golden Nugget casino operations public by merging them with a special purpose acquisition company. The transaction values the businesses at $6.6 billion.


Tillman Fertitta's Golden Nugget Lake Charles, with its latest addition, Rush Tower. Fertitta, owner of the Golden Nugget casinos, Landry's Inc. and the Houston Rockets, said Feb. 1 he would merge his Landry’s and Golden Nugget holdings with a ‘blank check’ company, valuing the business at $6.6 billion. Fertitta will maintain control, the Rockets and other assets are not part of the deal.

GNLC / GNLC

The deal, announced Monday morning, will give Fertitta a 60 percent stake in the resulting business, which will likely be called Golden Nugget Entertainment and be traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Fertitta will be the company’s chairman, president and chief executive, as well as its largest shareholder. The merger includes Landry’s more than 500 restaurants, including brands such as The Palm, Del Frisco’s and Rainforest Cafe; and five Golden Nugget casinos.

Fertitta was poised to register for an initial public offering about two months ago, he said, when his longtime bank and investing partner Jefferies Financial Group urged him to look at merging with Fast Acquisition of New York, a special purpose acquisition company formed last year by Sandy Beall, founder of the Ruby Tuesday restaurant chain. SPACs are blank-check companies that raise money from public investors to acquire a private company and take it public. Fast raised $200 million in August.

Institutional shareholders also committed to invest around $1.2 billion in the form of a private investment in public equity at $10 per share of common stock in Fast before the transaction closes. The deal also includes some 31 million shares, or nearly half of all outstanding shares in Fertitta’s Golden Nugget Online Gaming. The resulting public company will be the 22nd largest in Houston ranked by market cap.

The merger is the start of a major shift for Fertitta, from a major restaurateur to a casino mogul, he said. While he said he’s still open to growing his restaurant and hotel businesses, he said he plans to pivot his businesses in the coming years toward gaming, particularly online gambling.
Fertitta to take restaurant, gaming empire public (houstonchronicle.com)

ALSO

Tilman Fertitta's third blank-check company with Jeffries Financial Group has found a company to take public.
Landcadia Holdings III Inc. (Nasdaq: LCY) will merge with HMAN Group Holdings Inc., the parent company of The Hillman Group Inc., a hardware and home improvement company based in Cincinnati. The deal values Hillman's enterprise value at approximately $2.64 billion, the companies said Jan. 25.
Hillman Group to go public with Landcadia III blank-check co. - Houston Business Journal (bizjournals.com)

[Jack Lance]

Originally Posted by Jack Lance

Update:

Airlock aloft as NASA uses Nanoracks technology for the Space Station

The Bishop Airlock is finally in its natural habitat: microgravity.

The 2,200-pound airlock was never intended for the comforts of Earth. Its aluminum exterior and electrical components were made for the extreme temperatures and radiation of space, where the airlock will become a door, of sorts, for satellites and experiments exiting the International Space Station.

The Bishop Airlock, designed, owned and operated by Webster-based Nanoracks, traveled into space Sunday on the 21st SpaceX cargo resupply mission. It launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The airlock filled every inch of the Dragon spacecraft’s trunk, the unpressurized part of the vehicle, and was among the roughly 6,500 pounds of cargo carried into space. SpaceX also delivered supplies for the station’s seven-person crew, science and research investigations, and spacewalk equipment.


Nanoracks employees wrap the Bishop Airlock with special plastic before shipping it to Florida, where it will be launched to the International Space Station, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2020, in Webster. The airlock will ultimately increase the number and size of satellites, equipment and experiments that can access space from the station.Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

The Bishop Airlock, however, is notable because it will become the station’s first commercial airlock. In fact, it is the station’s first permanent, complex element to be owned and operated by a commercial company.

Airlock aloft as NASA uses Nanoracks technology for the Space Station - HoustonChronicle.com

Update from an earlier post

Nanoracks' Bishop Airlock was jolted to life Tuesday at 4:37 p.m.

The airlock, launched into space on Dec. 6 and attached to the International Space Station on Dec. 19, had been powerless until then. But on Tuesday afternoon, the space station's robotic arm attached to the airlock and turned it on.

Then came the magical words: operations nominal. That's space speak for everything is looking great.

The Bishop Airlock, designed, owned and operated by Webster-based Nanoracks, is the space station's first commercial airlock. In fact, it is the station’s first permanent, complex element to be owned and operated by a commercial company.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/new...c17c50392c1d98

[Jack Lance]

There is a second Mission Control somewhere in the Houston area that will guide unmanned missions to the moon and add to the economic diversity of the Greater Houston economy.

The new Intuitive Machines mission control center will resume a long-held Houston tradition: Guiding landers to the surface of the moon.

And while its landers won’t be carrying people, the company’s missions will still be historic.

The new mission control center of Intuitive Machines, which is building a lunar lander that will travel to the moon later this year, is photographed Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021, in Houston.

Yi-Chin Lee, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer
To build its control center, called Nova Control, Intuitive Machines hired an expert from NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
“I was super excited at the opportunity to create a control center from scratch,” said Troy LeBlanc, the vice president of control centers for Intuitive Machines.

LeBlanc previously used NASA’s mission control as a flight controller. He also worked on the actual hardware and software used to run mission control, and he led efforts to modernize and upgrade the agency’s systems.
Right before leaving NASA, LeBlanc helped renovate and restore the Apollo Mission Control Center. He got a chance to work with flight controllers and directors who put men on the moon.

Houston-based Intuitive Machines unveils new mission control center (houstonchronicle.com)

[ParaguaneroSwag]

Houston based Lone River Bev Company struck a national deal, are now the "largest independent seltzer company". I suppose the non independents are White Claw/Anheuser-Bush/SamAdams (Truly)/MolsonCoors.