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."

Comments

I have an idea...

[packeteer]

Maybe this guy and Jon Carmack should get together. Not only can they afford it but i bet they could pull it off.

And of course..

[Large Green Mallard]

He won't have to get approval for his space mission because it's not a space flight, it's an interstratum transport venture, which isn't regulated like space flights are

(cf: PayPal not being a bank and thus have responsibilities to the FED and FDIC :)

I'm unimpressed...

[WolfWithoutAClause]

His projected cost per kilogram is about $20K. That's similar to the cost of the space shuttle per kg, but that launches 40 times more stuff. Big flippin' deal.

By comparison, the Russian Proton rocket is down at $2.6K/kg.

But if he really wanted to do something impressive he would design a 2 stage fully reusable rocket. That could probably launch for $0.5K/kg to $1K/kg.

Farscape?

[MacAndrew]

If this guy is really into space, and has a lot of money, what do you think the chances are we could talk him into buying an inexpensive $800,000 fan-financed episode of Farscape? Wishful thinking? Anyone know his address? :)

These rich folks and their diversions put my hobbies to shame..... They put even my hobby aspirations to shame!

Vision

[andyring]

Like it or hate it, admit it. This guy's got vision. Not only did he start one of the few remaining "dot coms", he seems to have another idea that could really take off (no pun intended). Perhaps he'll be able to come up with a cheaper and/or easier method for deploying satellites, in fact it sounds like that's what it's all about. Satellites work wonders already, and if they become more within the reach of a wider market, I can see only good things coming from it. Who knows, maybe better satellite 'net access, cheaper satellite phones, more amateur radio satellites, increased competition all around.

More power to ya!

About time for a space-lottery?

[vectus]

This is slightly offtopic (it does have to do with the encroaching commercial exploitation of space), but doesn't it seem to be time for a space lottery?

It only costs $20 million to send someone into space.. (with promotion, taxes and stuff, I bet it would cost about $30 million to run a lottery that would do this) lots of lotteries these days run into the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of prize money.. and I think they'd get even more people than usual going for a trip into space. I'm assuming most geeks are too mathematically inclined to throw money away (buy lottery tickets).. but even I would take the chance for an opportunity to go into space.

I'm positive the Russians would love it. (NASA wouldn't be too keen on the idea). The only potential pitfall would be if the person didn't meet the health requirements.. for which case you could easily just give the person the money. That and a bunch of safety disclaimers, and they'd be set.

Let me get this straight

[USC-MBA]

Here we have Elton Musk, boy genius, whose company, PayPal, in spite of the fact that its business model consisited essentially of investing its customers' deposits and pocketing the returns while performing currency exchanges (think: how high could the overhead possibly be on such a service? And variable costs are essentially zero!) while at the same time collecting fees off Business and Premier PayPal accounts, still took four years to acheive profitability.

Mr. Musk is now going to enter into the commercial sattelite launch industry, an industry whose barriers to entry are (ahem) astronimical, and compete with far cheaper Russian services. Since Mr. Musk is not utilizing any new technological innovation, he will presumably rely purely on his business know-how to make his sattelite company as efficient as PayPal...

Oh, the things a measly 1.5 billion and dollars will do to a man's ego...

Re:Productive?

[nomadic]

Agreed. The opposition to Tito's flight from the slashdot crowd is mainly jealousy that they didn't have a chance to do the same thing. The opposition from the NASA crowd is over the fact that someone from outside their little clique had the gall to get himself up there. Bunch of overbearing elitists with square haircuts who forget who pays their salaries; space was supposed to be opened up for everyone, not just them.

The ironic thing is Tito is a former NASA engineer, with the same background as the many of the other astronauts.

Re:Productive?

[JTMON]

umm, yes you are falling but you do not have the same feeling as on earth because as gravity pulls you closer to earth, centrifugal? force spins you out equalizing the effect somewhat. Mostly astronauts get sick once back on earth.

Not just that.

[TheLink]

He was a pioneer. His space trip was probably one of the most useful space experiments the ISS will ever do in its lifespan. It was also successful.

Remember, NASA were asses about the whole thing initially. After the Russians and Tito proved them wrong, NASA changed their tune. Now space tourism is at least being given consideration.

USD20 million is nothing, NASA and others have wasted that and more on far less useful stuff.