Sticky boom made by Altius Space Machines.

• Position: AEROSPACE/SPACE/SATELLITES

Louisville

altius-space.com

How can we get more things into space? Large rockets fill up quickly and are prohibitively expensive, but NASA and other powers that be are not too keen on having small rockets buzz the $150 billion International Space Station.

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Jonathan Goff founded Altius Space Machines in 2010 to solve the problem. The answer is the Sticky Boom, dubbed a "mechanical tractor beam" by Bill Bolton, Altius' director of business development and marketing. The Sticky Boom uses electrostatic adhesion to grip its targets. Bolton likens the technology to a gecko running up a wall.

"On the bottom of their feet, they have hairs. And those hairs have hairs. And those hairs have hairs." Applying this concept...