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PayPal Founder Wants To Launch Satellites
XNormal writes "Elon Musk, founder of Zip2 and PayPal is planning to build a launcher for small satellites. Much of his personal fortune come from the IPO of PayPal and subsequent sale to eBay. The amount of money he plans to spend on this project is not much more than Denis Tito spent on his space station visit. The difference is that this venture actually tries to do something productive. Elon is also behind the Life to Mars mission."
Didn't Tito's money go into the russian space program? Just because he had more fun than most of us doesn't necessarily mean his actions were completely unproductive. $$ can = productivity (as well as the obligitory $= PROFIT!!!)
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PayPal horror stories: Boycott-PalPal.com
Google search of "beware of paypal": Beware
PayPal Warning
Petition to shut down PayPal My skin is crawling - really.
With all of these horror stories, I am going to open myself up to moderation as flamebait and share some tips with you.
I have routinely had over $500 in my PayPal account, at times bordering on $1000. For me, I use it as a place to stash my "mid-term savings" pool. It's easy enough to get the money out if I need it using the MasterCard-branded debit card; but it's not cash in my wallet that I'll shove into a soda machine or cafeteria line at lunch.
I also do quite a bit of trading on eBay and have even dealt in the more "dangerous" auction fields like playerauctions.com.
For eBay trades, send the thing with some proof that you sent it. USPS Delivery Confirmation if you're cheap or don't care about things like tracking; USPS Registered if you're hung up on USPS. UPS is decent; they have tracking. FedEx has a very good security policy...you can specify to leave the package with no signature, try to get it signed but leave it if waived, or require a personal signature -- no waivers accepted. Of course that costs extra, but if you are worried about being defrauded by your buyer, that's not too much extra to ask.
For PlayerAuctions, my Thawte (www.thawte.com) S/MIME certificate, for signing and authenticating e-mails that I send, is sufficient. A signed message with the account key(s) contained inside it.
It's impossible to forge the digital signature saying I sent the thing; just like it's impossible to convince the FedEx man to leave the package without a signature, when it says "signature required -- no waiver accepted"
Common sense states these things. Online trading is fundamentally about trust. Cover yourself in your auctions -- Seller reserves the right to end the deal at any time; even after payment has been remitted (If payment has been remitted, it will be returned to you.) A bid contract is a legally binding agreement; if they don't like your terms, they don't have to buy it from you.
If you cover your back with these sorts of things, you're virtually guarenteed to have a good reputation in the online community. On the off chance someone still tries to fraud you, you have hard proof that they are lying. And guess what? That's a crime.
The Federal Government and the FTC don't look too kindly on interstate commerce fraud and mail fraud.
The problem with that argument is that the "FLIPPIN'" space shuttle always costs the same per launch [1], so that if all you need is to launch a 400kg sat into LEO it's kind of wasteful. Shuttle is basically never used for private sector stuff anyway.
As for the Russians, well with satelites, the cost of the sat usually exceeds that of the launch. The proton, IIRC, tends to turn into little bits and peices about 10% of the time.
As for being ruseable, hogwash! That adds complexity to the system, as well as refurbishing costs. It'll add weight to the launch vehicle which either translates into a larger launch vehicle (= more money) or lower payload (= smaller market). Not a good choice.
[1] - Yes, yes, I know, it will vary a bit, but not related to payload or anything...
TODO: Something witty here...
I remember a Slashdot article sometime ago that Indian space research organisation (ISRO) send satellites for a price less than the russian agency ...
I think it will be very difficult for this guy to beat the indian price :)