Profits Set to Soar in Outer Space
FYI,
"Profits Set to Soar in Outer Space - Prepare for liftoff: The space
business may be the most incredible new opportunity of your lifetime
Business 2.0 Magazine"
http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/27/technology/business2_guidetospaceintro/index.htm?cnn=yes
: Let's not wax sentimental about our space exploits thus far. The
: Apollo era was heroic, but beating the Soviets to the moon never
: provided a compelling economic reason to return. (We didn't even
: get Teflon or Tang as spinoffs--both were invented before 1960.)
: The shuttle and the international space station continued this
: record of dismal return on investment. Small wonder, then, that
: most private-sector investors have focused instead on more earthly
: pursuits. Only one thing will prod us into the cold, hard vacuum
: of space, and that's the prospect of earning cold, hard cash.
: We are also well into the commercial space age. In 1998, private-
: sector spending on space applications began to exceed government
: spending, and the gap is widening. A critical mass of
: entrepreneurs -- some with familiar names like Bezos and Branson
: -- have been backing space-related companies for years. In the
: coming months, their efforts will reach blastoff stage (quite
: literally). Some of the markets they're targeting, like the
: $4 billion satellite launch business being pursued by PayPal
: founder Elon Musk, are ripe for competition. But most, such as
: suborbital tourism, space hotels, and solar satellites, don't yet
: exist. All, however, have the potential to generate astronomical
: returns during the next decade.
: Building infrastructure is the first step, and here historical
: analogies abound. The federal government is poised to begin
: contracting with the private sector to deliver cargo into orbit, a
: trend that could nurture a market for civilian spaceflight in much
: the same way that airmail contracts from the Post Office spurred
: the development of civil aviation a century ago. Prize money
: -- the incentive that launched Charles Lindbergh -- is now being
: offered for everything from building a machine to extract oxygen
: from lunar soil ($250,000) to building an aircraft capable of
: delivering tourists to orbit by 2010 ($50 million).
: The long-term possibilities are even more celestial. Ever heard of
: 3554 Amun? It's a space rock about 2 kilometers in diameter that
: looks as if it might have fallen straight out of The Little
: Prince. There are three key things to know about 3554 Amun: First,
: its orbit crosses that of Earth; second, it's the smallest M-class
: (metal-bearing) asteroid yet discovered; and finally, it contains
: (at today's prices) roughly $8 trillion worth of iron and nickel,
: $6 trillion of cobalt, and $6 trillion of platinumlike metals. In
: other words, whoever owns Amun could become 450 times as wealthy
: as Bill Gates. And if you time your journey right -- 2020 looks
: promising -- it's easier to reach than the Moon.
: That doesn't mean it's easy, of course; nothing worthwhile ever
: is. The automobile, commercial air travel, the PC, the Internet,
: the cell phone -- all took decades to reach their full potential,
: and none would have taken root without stubborn entrepreneurs who
: refused to heed conventional wisdom. The greatest barrier to the
: open markets of space isn't physical or technological; it's
: psychological. But for those who have the right stuff, the rewards
: may prove greater than anything the Apollo astronauts ever
: imagined.
-----------
"The Silicon Valley of Spaceflight - Spaceflight startups are
flocking to the tiny town of Mojave, Calif."
http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/22/technology/business2_space_rocketvilleusa/index.htm
: If you want to view the entrepreneurial future of space travel,
: start in Los Angeles. Drive 100 miles northeast until you reach
: sun-baked Mojave (population 3,800). Head to the local airport.
: Don't expect to see launchpads or fancy command centers--there are
: none to be found. Yet history is being made here: In 2004 the
: Federal Aviation Administration certified Mojave Airport as a
: civilian spaceport. Burt Rutan's company, Scaled Composites, has
: its headquarters near the runways, and it was from here that his
: SpaceShipOne became the first private spacecraft to carry a
: passenger beyond the stratosphere.
: Rutan isn't alone. His neighbors include a handful of other space-
: related ventures, and together this cluster of startups resembles
: nothing so much as the early pioneers of the computing industry
: back in the days when tech companies first began setting up shop
: among the prune orchards of what would later be called Silicon
: Valley. This isn't to say that the atmosphere at Mojave is chummy;
: the firms housed here are fierce competitors. "We share
: information with each other about as much as Boeing exchanges
: information with Lockheed," says Randa Milliron, who works at
: spaceport tenant Interorbital Systems.
: What matters most, however, is that Mojave is already home to a
: critical mass of talent dedicated to the task of reducing the cost
: and complexity of space travel.
--------------
"Millionaires on the launch pad - After getting rich shaking up the
PC, Internet, and videogame worlds, some well-known names hope to do
the same for spaceflight"
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/03/01/8370587/index.htm
: Musk is part of a wave of successful tech gurus who are investing
: their own cash in attention-grabbing bids to get off the planet.
: But don't mistake these for vanity projects. Dismayed by NASA's
: glacial pace and fascinated by the technical challenges, the space
: geeks are betting they can do for orbital economics what they've
: already done for PCs, the Internet, and videogames. Now, after
: years of enigmatic press releases, they're readying their
: rockets. "We're entering the most exciting era in space since we
: reached the Moon," Musk says.
: The cast of characters reads like a Who's Who of late-20th-century
: techdom. There's Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft who
: bankrolled the Ansari X Prize-winning SpaceShipOne. Amazon founder
: Jeff Bezos and John Carmack, the creator of Doom, both have
: private space ventures. Richard Garriott of Ultima Online fame and
: Larry Page of Google sit on the boards of space companies.
: The $4 billion commercial satellite business may be the most
: lucrative space venture right now, but it's not the only one. NASA
: is offering $40 million this year, and another $460 million by the
: end of the decade, to any company that can deliver cargo to the
: international space station. Musk's primary goal, however, is to
: deliver people. "We'll be making manned spaceflights before the
: end of the decade," he predicts.
: Allen may get there first, thanks to his $24 million investment in
: Burt Rutan's company, Scaled Composites.
: Elsewhere in Seattle, Bezos is playing coy. After defying
: expectations with Amazon, he has quietly funneled millions of his
: own dollars into an ambitious startup called Blue Origin. Bezos,
: who talked about his desire to reach the stars during his high
: school valedictorian speech, has only once spoken publicly about
: the company. But Blue Origin has begun construction on a spaceport
: in West Texas. It also has a facility near Sea-Tac airport, making
: what is believed to be a fully reusable launch vehicle similar to
: the Pentagon's DC-X, with vertical takeoff and landing capability,
: for suborbital tourism. Test-launches are set to begin later this
: year.
: Carmack is aiming for the suborbital tourism market too. In 2003
: the man behind Doom and Quake put down millions of his own dollars
: to create Armadillo Aerospace, based in Mesquite, Texas.
: Armadillo's goal: computer-controlled liquid-oxygen rockets to
: launch people more than 300,000 feet above Earth, where they will
: experience weightlessness for a few brief minutes. Armadillo has
: successfully demonstrated a prototype. "Think of what we, and
: others, are doing as building the largest roller coaster in the
: world," Carmack says. "Rocket science is mythologized out of whack
: with its difficulty. Nine out of 10 people will fail, but one of
: us will eventually get through."
-----------------
"Opportunities That Are out of This World - In the decades ahead,
how much money will be made in space? Here's our comprehensive guide
to a universe of new opportunities"
: Since the dawn of space travel, this ambitious endeavor has solely
: been the bailiwick of government bureaucracy. But that's changing,
: as a fleet of entrepreneurs and big businesses alike look to
: exploit the many commercial opportunities in outer space.
: Their plans range from the mundane to the fantastic, including a
: space hotel -- you've got to sleep somewhere when you're not on
: earth -- a space elevator and a trip to Mars.
: Whether or not any of these projects come to fruition may be
: debatable, but one thing is for sure: Plenty of money will be
: spent trying to get them off the ground.
---------------
"Why Space Needs You - SpaceShipOne's creator says private
enterprise, not government funding, will conquer the final frontier"
by Burt Rutan
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/03/01/8370591/index.htm
: Entrepreneurs have always driven our technical progress--and, as a
: result, our economy. They tend to be more innovative, more willing
: to take risks, and more excited about solving difficult problems.
: They seek breakthroughs, they have the courage to fly them, and
: they know how to market them. They will now provide the solutions
: and the hardware needed to enable human spaceflight with an
: acceptable risk--at least as safe as the early airliners.
: Private enterprise in space
: Many of our commercial breakthrough technologies of the past three
: decades, such as wireless communications and alternative-fuel
: vehicles, will be seen as enablers as we build and operate safe,
: affordable spaceships. Like the early airlines of the 1920s, those
: who offer safety and value to the space-flying public will develop
: profitable, expanding businesses. But first we need to stop
: thinking of space as an adventure for bureaucracies alone.
: Yes, the first explorations into uncharted territory, from Lewis
: and Clark to the Apollo missions, are usually funded, directed,
: and managed by the government. These projects are pure research by
: their very nature: high risk with uncertain results. Return
: voyages, however, are best done by entrepreneurs. They are better
: at developing transportation hardware, and they have the
: marketplace incentive to provide affordability and adequate safety.
: Powered flight did not need to go through the government-funded
: stage, since it was lone entrepreneurs who succeeded in the
: important pioneering efforts. They quickly followed with solutions
: for business activities: air shows within six years, barnstorming
: within 14 years, airmail flights within 15 years, and competitive
: airline service within 23 years of the Wright brothers' first
: flight.
: The risk of dying in an airliner during early scheduled operations
: was about one in 6,000 flights. Within three years it had improved
: to one in 33,000 flights. Today it is one in several million.
: High risk
: Spaceflight took the more traditional path. Governments directed
: and funded all the research and conducted all the initial flights.
: Then, for 43 years, all manned flight activity outside the
: atmosphere was the exclusive domain of government programs. The
: Russians have sold several seats on Soyuz rockets, but out of
: financial need rather than as part of a plan to begin passenger
: flight operations.
: The explosion of the Challenger in 1986, after 24 consecutive
: shuttle flights, grounded all U.S. manned space missions for more
: than two years. (Compare that with the early history of aviation,
: when 20 of the first 40 pilots hired by the Post Office died in
: crashes within three years, with no suspension of service.) Since
: the Columbia tragedy in 2003, spaceflights have seemed more
: hazardous than the pioneering ones of the 1960s. Now, 45 years
: after cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin first orbited Earth, spaceflight
: remains horribly risky: one fatal crash in every 66 flights.
: It's time for private enterprise to step in and bring the risk
: down. Until SpaceShipOne's three flights in 2004, there were no
: entrepreneurs actively testing spaceflight hardware in order to
: solve cost and safety issues. No one was addressing the desires of
: the public to explore, to float weightless, and to see the black
: sky.
: In the next decade, I plan to develop a fleet of suborbital
: spaceships that are robust and affordable enough to allow large
: numbers of opinion formers to look back at Earth and understand
: the importance of crossing our new frontier. The spaceline
: companies operating these ships will begin to satisfy the public's
: desire and passion for space--which is unlikely to happen with a
: continued government monopoly.
: For-profit space travel
: As the suborbital spaceliners mature, entrepreneurs will continue
: their risk-taking research. The next step is affordable orbital
: access with adequate safety, at which point the industry will
: expand rapidly. It will offer competing orbital resort hotels
: and "shore excursions"--swings around the Moon.
: When space travel becomes driven by profit, activities such as
: energy generation, mining, and medical research will flourish. We
: will send not just a few robotic probes into the solar system
: every decade but thousands per year, each one in search of the
: rewards of human colonization. In 300 years, people who go to
: other planets will not return. They will stay, raise their
: families, and provide insurance for the survival of our species.
: Humans have done this ever since we left that hot, humid valley of
: Africa. We are naturally selected for courage and strength, since
: the timid never leave and the weak die on the way. Our instinct to
: explore hostile places is what has distinguished us from Earth's
: other animals, and this trait is not likely to fail us at the top
: of our atmosphere.
--
Mark Reiff <markreiff@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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