Astronautica Cooperative
Founders Wanted

Chart the first member-owned path to space.

Astronautica Cooperative is the spark of a community that refuses to leave humanity's future to chance. The charter, structure, and mission below are draft notes—an open playbook for how we might launch ourselves together.

Explore the mission

Jump to the working notes ↓

State of the project

Everything is in the open. We are documenting assumptions, drafting governance, and mapping the work before incorporation. Join in if you want to help write the next lines.

  • •
    Charter, mission, and structure are living drafts for future cooperative review.
  • •
    Operational arms and committees are mapped so we can recruit toward them deliberately.
1 Founder actively drafting the blueprint
3 Entities: Foundation, Cooperative, Ventures
0 External dependencies—we build this together
Drafted: October 2024 • Maintainer: Rivir

Welcome to the Astronautica Cooperative docs

This documentation captures the current thinking behind Astronautica Cooperative—the idea of a member-led organization that exists to help us reach space together. Nothing here is “done” yet. These pages are working notes intended to evolve into our charter, mission architecture, and operating playbook.

The goal: build a cooperative that charts its own pathway to spaceflight instead of waiting for third parties. Along the way we will develop legal strategies, fundraising motions, training protocols, and engineering partnerships that stay open for future members.

Current state & assumptions

Astronautica is presently in the ideation phase. The “we” is effectively one person exploring a concept. The following statements set context for everything else in these docs:

  • A

    No legal entity has been formed yet. Draft cooperative bylaws and registration research are still ahead of us.

  • B

    Operational arms, committees, and squads are aspirational. They are documented here so we can recruit toward them later.

  • C

    We value open-technology principles, but tooling, repositories, and compliance workflows have not been created yet.

  • D

    Timelines and metrics are placeholders that help us think about sequencing, not public commitments.

As the project matures these status markers will shift from “planned” to “in progress” and eventually “established”.

Projected structure

Long term we envision Astronautica as a cooperative with member assemblies, operational arms, and mission squads. Below is the anticipated structure once we reach a critical mass of contributors.

Astronautica Foundation

Mission Guardian

Protects the mission, holds IP, and sets strategic direction. Houses the Think Tank, Signal & Story, and Legal arms.

Board: Founder (permanent) + Cooperative reps + Independent advisors.

Astronautica Cooperative

Member Body

Democratic member organization. Runs Training, Operations, Engineering, and Alliance. Members vote, contribute, and earn mission credits.

Needs: incorporation, charter ratification, founding cohort.

Astronautica Ventures

Investment Arm

Invests in space companies through a full pipeline: pitch competitions, incubator, accelerator, and strategic fund. Returns fund cooperative missions.

Launches when capital and deal flow exist.

Mission Squads are cross-entity teams assembled for specific deliverables — they draw members from any arm and disband after completing objectives.

Planned workstreams

These are the early streams of work required before Astronautica can claim to be operational. Each stream will eventually get its own dedicated page with milestones and owners.

🏛️

Foundation Formation

Research jurisdictions, engage legal counsel, and prepare incorporation paperwork for the Astronautica Foundation.

Status: preplanning.

🔭

Space Timelines

Evidence-based predictions for major space milestones — interactive countdowns powered by research from the knowledge base.

Status: live.

📡

News Curation

Curated space industry news and research, organized by category and updated regularly.

Status: live.

💬

Community Building

Growing a community of people who care about cooperative space access through conversations on Discord.

Status: Discord server ready.

Open questions

Decisions still to be made. Most of these require gathering data, speaking with advisors, or testing a prototype idea.

  • 1

    Which jurisdiction best supports a Foundation + Cooperative + Ventures entity structure for a space organization?

  • 2

    What Foundation tax status (501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), or other) best fits an organization that owns both a cooperative and an investment vehicle?

  • 3

    What concrete deliverable proves the model works in the first year? Research report? Training pathway pilot? Community milestone?

  • 4

    How do we manage conflict of interest when the founder serves as Foundation Board Chair, Ventures GP, and Cooperative founding member?

If you have thoughts, create an issue in the forthcoming public repository or reach out directly via the contact page. These questions will drive early research.