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Paul Allen Confirmed as SpaceShipOne's Sponsor
Shafe writes "Space.com confirmed suspicions that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen was the secret investor in Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne, which completed a successful supersonic flight on the same day as the centennial of flight. Allen hopes Rutan's ship will win the $10 million X-Prize to help kickstart private manned space flight."
I'm personally rooting for Armadillo Aerospace, which has John Carmack's involvement. He's got some great comments on his news page - feels much more open and less corporate than some of the other X-Prize contenders.
It's funny that most geeks really admire Paul Allen and Steve Wozniak but hate Gates and Jobs.
My favorite mega-rich guy is Marc Cuban (The Dallas Mavericks owner who wisely sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo for cold cash when everyone else at the time was selling for stock). He acts like I imagine I would if I had a billion dollars.
-B
As I understand, he sold for stock too, but bought options as a hedge.
t
Rutan's space tourism plan always had the crew being trained to fly various phases of the flight, 1) launch/climb, 2) weighlessness, 3) landing.
Actually the idea was that 10 or so would buy a chance for a seat and be trained for week in the Carribean after which the two who fly will be chosen by lottery. One seat would be guaranteed and purchased for 10x the money.
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
What about the Gates Foundation?
Granted, a lot of their "charity" work in the education sector is really just a thinly veiled attempt to get Microsoft-based computers in the public schools (the old "hook 'em young" strategy), but they also do a lot of good work involving bringing vital medications to third world countries and other such things.
Paul Allen likes to spend his money on more "visionary" pursuits, trying to further push the technology envelope, but Gates has certainly thrown plenty of money to good causes in his own right. It's just too bad he had to do that whole selling his soul to Satan and ruining the computer industry thing to get to that point.
Ahh, you mean like set up something like this?
"Ahh, you mean like set up something like this?"
Uhm, no. Bill Gates did not participate in any philanthropic activities until Ted Turner started criticizing him. And a lot of it had to do with PR since Microsoft was taking a lot of flack over being a convicted monopolist. Aside from Corbis, Gates is almost completely focused on Microsoft; expanding Microsoft's monopoly. Allen funds whatever he thinks is interesting and/or can possibly make a profit. Allen is not concerned about expanding Microsoft's empire. Allen was the UNIX enthusiast at Microsoft when he was there, by the way. While its fine and dandy that Gates is paying for vaccinations, his company is also the organization that has the audacity to audit poorly funded schools and non-profits for licensing compliance on donated computers. Its much like Jack the Pumpkin King trying to take over Christmas, if you ask me...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
That's "Billions", folks.
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Grants/
"Everyone knows Lenin had to setup a police state," Chomsky
Dude, this is so wrong it isn't even funny. If you look at the cash breakdown here you'll see that more than half the money goes to researching desease. This is a noble cause no matter what you think about his opperating system. The Gates Founddation does wonderfull things even if I hate Clippy.
Blaze a trail to the New World