A Chattanooga company, American Bicycle Group, helped create the landing gear for an unmanned Mars rover that explored the red planet a few years ago.
That’s just one example given Tuesday of a Chattanooga area venture that has done business with NASA. About 150 business people showed up at a day-long conference at UTC to learn about opportunities with NASA, and especially with the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
Dr. Paul McConnaughey, associate director-technical at Marshall, said Chattanooga is in the heart of the Tennessee Valley Corridor, which provides science and technology links stretching between Alabama and Virginia.
He said NASA is empowering businesses to take over space efforts around the Earth while the federal agency focuses more on the moon and manned Mars exploration.
“There’s a good opportunity for folks in the Tennessee Valley Corridor to get involved,” McConnaughey said.