The Billionaires' Space Club

theodp writes Silicon sultans are the new robber barons, writes The Economist, adding that "they have been diversifying into businesses that have little to do with computers, while egotistically proclaiming that they alone can solve mankind's problems, from aging to space travel." Over at Slate, NYU journalism prof Charles Seife is less-than impressed with The Billionaires' Space Club. "It's an old trick," begins Seife. "Multimillionaires regularly try to spin acts of crass ego gratification as selfless philanthropy, no matter how obviously self-serving. They jump out of balloons at the edge of the atmosphere, take submarines to the bottom of the ocean, or shoot endangered animals on safari, all in the name of science and exploration. The more recent trend is billionaires making fleets of rocket ships for private space exploration. What makes this one different is that the public actually seems to buy the farce." Seife goes on to argue that "neither [Elon] Musk's nor [Richard] Branson's goals really seem to break new ground, despite all the talk of exploration."

Comments

RAH had this in the 50's

[Bodhammer]

They all want to be D. D. Harriman - "The Man Who Sold the Moon".

The one who figures out asteroid mining is going to be the real winner!

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[mi]

The one who figures out asteroid mining is going to be the real winner!

And I for one will applaud him the way Heinlein would've done — not call him a "robber"...

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[confused one]

parent is missing the point + what follows is a bit of a circular argument. Asteroid mining isn't going to do anything, directly, for people on Earth. If, however, you're going to build infrastructure to support space exploration and colonization, in the long run you need to learn to use "local" resources. You're not going to do it successfully entirely using resources lifted from the surface of the Earth.

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[TheEyes]

Space exploration and colonization are hopeless fantasies. Nobody in their right mind is going to spend insane fortunes to explore and colonize the most inhospitable places there are, for no apparent benefit.

Hopeless or not, we have to do it. Right now all of humanity is in a single interconnected biosphere, that is one rich crazy dickhead away from becoming uninhabitable. How many people are out there right now claiming that we can do anything we want to the Earth and humanity can never become extinct, because God? We need to get sustainable populations off of this planet and somewhere they can survive for when the inevitable happens and one of those mouth-breathing morons hits the wrong button somewhere and releases super-Ebola into the atmosphere or something.

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[itzly]

We can't we just go extinct ? What's so special about our particular DNA configuration that we would have to preserve it at huge costs ?

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[Lotana]

What's so special about our particular DNA configuration that we would have to preserve it at huge costs ?

We are the only living organism in the known Universe that possess such a high level of intelligence. Until we discover another species that can plan thier survival on interstellar basis, we are special and worth preserving.

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you just go and die? Is there anything special about you?

Stop wasting precious resources and time.

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[Anonymous Coward]

There are seven billion people on the earth. I think we can work on more than one endeavour at once.

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[Applehu Akbar]

More importantly, you don't build large-scale infrastructure like China's new Silk Road bullet freight operation out of thin air. Large-scale infrastructure of this kind will require large amounts of pure metals. Having large new sources of supply in turn encourages bigger projects. How much copper is it going to take for the Silk Road to go maglev?

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[Applehu Akbar]

Nobody in his right mind would build a worldwide communication network that would shoot information anywhere in the world with negligible friction, either. But there were entrepreneurs who just went out and did it, so it will be these very people who are most likely to open up extraterrestrial destinations for us.

I can personally remember a time when getting a long-distance phone call meant that somebody had died.

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[Applehu Akbar]

I have just the organization for you, and all fellow misanthropes: http://vhemt.org/

Please visit this site and abide by its recommendations. For the good of humanity and for all the promise of our future, encourage all your fellow Greens to do the same.

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[anmre]

Actually, you are not sure about anything and are just grasping at straws at this point. We get it -- you're a nihilist (so cool!). The rest of us just have a more optimistic outlook regarding the frontiers of space and technology.

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[Lotana]

Look at the title of the story you are replying in: It is billionaires that are funding it. Nothing about public funds being discussed here.

You just seem to trying to find any excuse in order to troll the space enthusiasts of this site.

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[DanielRavenNest]

> We've spent the last half century turning into a knowledge society

And all of those billions of computers run on energy, as does the rest of civilization. Modern civilization is based on replacing human and animal labor with mechanical and electrical power. The amount of solar energy passing closer than the Moon is equal to the whole world's fossil fuel reserves *every minute*. We just have to learn how to exploit it. Leveraging resources already on location is part of that equation.

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[flyingsquid]

Hopeless or not, we have to do it. Right now all of humanity is in a single interconnected biosphere, that is one rich crazy dickhead away from becoming uninhabitable. How many people are out there right now claiming that we can do anything we want to the Earth and humanity can never become extinct, because God? We need to get sustainable populations off of this planet and somewhere they can survive for when the inevitable happens and one of those mouth-breathing morons hits the wrong button somewhere and releases super-Ebola into the atmosphere or something.

The "we've got to get off of this rock!!!" argument is nonsensical when you consider that the Earth is currently the most habitable place within several light-years and it's been that way for at least the past 3.5 *billion* years. Just over the past 550 million years we've seen severe ice ages, runaway greenhouse warming, an asteroid impact, several massive volcanic eruptions... these events were severe enough to devastate the biosphere and wipe out most of the species on the planet, but in each case some of them survived (otherwise we wouldn't be here). It's been able to sustain complex life for at least half a billion years. Even after the Chicxulub asteroid impact, it's still got a breathable atmosphere, radiation shielding, normal gravity, liquid water, etc., none of which are the case on Mars (all you'd need to survive would be stocks of food, warm clothes, and fuel to last out the impact winter). And even before 550 million years ago, when there's too little oxygen for complex life, it's still a better option than Mars (you'd need supplemental oxygen like on Everest but otherwise it'd be habitable). You would have to do a lot to the Earth to make it less habitable than space or Mars; even with a full-out nuclear war, you've got the Strangelove option.

Looking backwards, Earth has been habitable for a very long time, it's likely to remain so for tens of millions of years more- far longer than our species can be expected to last. Looking forwards, there's no realistic scenario in which space colonies make sense:

Let's assume that we do develop the technology to live on hostile environments such as Mars, asteroids, etc. Wouldn't this exact same technology also allow us to cope with whatever hostile environmental conditions might develop on Earth?

Let's assume that we develop the ability to terraform Mars to make it habitable. Wouldn't this exact same technology allow us to terraform Earth to correct whatever hostile conditions might emerge here?

Let's assume that nuclear war or other environmental issues threaten us as a species. Wouldn't it be a lot easier and more realistic to prevent these things from happening in the first place than build some fleet of Space Arks to escape them once they've already happened?

Let's assume again we're so suicidal that we're in danger of wiping ourselves out due to nuclear war or environmental damage. Doesn't this undermine the whole All Your Eggs in One Basket argument? I mean, the idea is that some freak event might wipe out one of your baskets, but not ALL of them. But that assumes these are independent events. If people on Earth are stupid and suicidal enough to wipe themselves out, that's not a problem with the Earth, it's a problem with the *species*. EVERY human population will have those same suicidal tendencies. It's false redundancy because all your backup systems share the exact same fatal flaw.

Do I buy it?

[Runaway1956]

I'm well aware of fake "philanthropy". Some of the more respectable philanthropy even fails. Supposing that some billionaire actually funds the lab that finds the cure for cancer - he has bought and paid for his brand of immortality. The world doesn't need or want any more pyramids, so cancer will do the trick.

All the same - if enough people are competing to accomplish something is space, SOMEONE is going to succeed.

Yeah, I buy it. Hell, I'd work for little more than a pretty meager wage if I could be reasonably sure of ACCOMPLISHING something meaningful in space.

Re:Do I buy it?

[Livius]

This is exactly why The Economist is over-stating the argument. Anonymous charity is a goal of many religions, but self-promoting charity is better than no charity at all. If the philanthropy achieves its charitable goal, then it doesn't matter if it's self-serving, and one could argue that the wealthy patron has honestly earned the fame and recognition that they receive. If it does not achieve its goal, or does so inefficiently, then the public is not likely to be fooled.

Re:Do I buy it?

[beelsebob]

What's especially weird about this article is that neither Branson nor Musk have ever said that their space ventures are anything other than a method of making them a bunch of profit...

Re:Do I buy it?

[the gnat]

neither Branson nor Musk have ever said that their space ventures are anything other than a method of making them a bunch of profit

Musk has repeatedly stated that he wants to retire on Mars, and making orbital launches affordable is a first step towards that. It sounds a little nutty, but I wish him the best of luck anyway. If he succeeds, we should all benefit in the long term; if he only makes a fool of himself, at least he's not doing it with my money.

Re:Do I buy it?

[Kjella]

Or the alternative, nobody's going to succeed. That happens often enough as rich people want to live forever, well so far that's not for sale. if I got the choice between dying myself or two of my organ transplants saving lives, I'd choose living. Doesn't matter if a thousand or a million or a billion lives would live without me, you've no moral right to ask me to sacrifice my life.

Re:Do I buy it?

[FatLittleMonkey]

What's especially weird about this article is that neither Branson nor Musk have ever said that their space ventures are anything other than a method of making them a bunch of profit...

Nor have they "egotistically proclaim[ed] that they alone can solve mankind's problems, from aging to space travel." Nor "all the talk of exploration." Nor "shoot endangered animals on safari".

Seriously, the guy is nothing but a walking strawman.

There's plenty of things you can criticise the "PayPal mafia" and NewSpace over, especially Thiel and Branson respectively, but nothing that the Professor is going on about even comes close to a valid criticism. (Or even something that has anything to do with reality.) It's bizarre that someone would say it, but crazy that a major newspaper would actually publish it.

"The more recent trend is billionaires making fleets of rocket ships"

A) "recently", for something that's over a decade old, suggests that he's only just heard about it and because he only just heard about it, thinks it's new.

B) "fleets of rocket ships" is how a child would see it. Suggesting the guy is not only ignorant, but is surrounded by ignorant people.

"neither [Elon] Musk's nor [Richard] Branson's goals really seem to break new ground"

VG won't be doing anything special, (although even a private sub-orbital system is new; nothing like SS2 exists. X-15 with passengers and open space.)

But Musk already has the cheapest launcher on the market (perhaps ignoring a few micro-launchers), is about to develop fly-back first stage (something the industry has been wishing for since the early sixties), and is developing a private manned capsule, and is developing a heavy lift launcher that costs less than any other medium-lift launcher on the market even if they doesn't achieve reusability, and he's working with NASA to develop a Saturn V F1-class engine for a Saturn V class launcher, and he wants to go to Mars.

Not breaking new ground? What the fuck does this idiot want from them, a warp drive?

Re:Do I buy it?

[confused one]

Musk has been clearly stating that one of his long term goals is exploration and colonization of Mars. As an example: Elon Musk: The Case for Mars. That mission statement is written right into SpaceX documentation: About SpaceX

Re:Do I buy it?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell do I care how the 1% of the 1% spend their money?

In a certain sense, I grew up poor in a rich (extended) family. Most of the other families in my neighborhood had motor boats and went water skiing in the summer. My family had a $150 canoe from K-mart. But I never went to bed hungry out of economic necessity. And when I got accepted to MIT, my family paid the full tuition.

But then I ended up living overseas and seeing first-hand levels of poverty and human suffering that will haunt me for the rest of my life. Before that, I didn't really understand poverty. Sure, growing up I heard about famines in Africa and urban decay in the inner cities. But it never really hit home that there were vast numbers of good innocent people who, through no fault of their own, were trapped in vicious soul destroying poverty. I wasn't a bad person but at a subconscious cultural level without really thinking about it I accepted that the world mostly a good and just place and that most people who were suffering in desperate poverty somehow deserved it: if they really didn't want to be poor then they could just "make some good choices" and stop being poor.

So why does it matter what rich people spend their money on? In the long term, an economy can increase it's productive capacity through scientific discovery and technological advances. In the very long term, we'll have technology that would allow most people in the world to live lives of comfort and leisure while robots do almost all of the work. But, in the short term, the economy has a limited productive capacity - that can either be used to produce frivolous luxury goods for rich people or to lift poor people out of poverty. And rich people control most of the economy. In a certain sense, I believe in the power of the human spirit. I believe that humanity can achieve incredible things - but only if it wants to. If the (rich) people who control the world's resources and economy mostly want frivolous luxury goods for themselves then that's what humanity will achieve. On other the other hand, if it were possible to wave a magic wand and make all the world's rich people truly care about lifting poor people out of poverty then poverty could be eradicated from the world in a single generation.

Mostly rich people really don't understand poverty because it's so far outside their own life experience but many of them have also not thought carefully about whether the purpose of life is to do as much as they can for themselves or do do as much as they can for others (and many naively pretend that the two are exactly equivalent).

Re:Do I buy it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The 'dont care AC' here. You are 100% correct. I think maybe I overstated my potion a bit.

Even a poor neighborhood in the US does not understand the abject poverty some people in 3rd world countries lives in.

However, my point is I can neither control nor influence what these people do (just as you could not control what your extended family did with their money). In any manor whatsoever. I would rather they spend it on their pet space project than pumping it into some hedgefund that just shuffles money around. At least the money is doing *some* good rather than just making interest/valuation float.

The best way I can put it is this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Unfortunatly it is wrapped up in anti immigration rhetoric. We could literally steal the money from all the 1%rs and hand it out freely to the world. It still would not be enough. The mean daily wage of every person on the planet is $2.50. Think about that. There is 0 we can do to help them. The only way to help them is to find ways they can help themselves. Anything else will not work as it is not sustainable in any way (as giveaway money runs out).

In our own country we have sold everyone on the idea they have to go to college to be something. We we should be selling people on the idea they need to build things. They need to create jobs, they need to be the ones doing the hiring. They need to work to build a better life. No one will give you the really nice things. They will give you basic needs and thats it. Instead we sell people that they could be chosen and lifted up out of poverty at the whim of the 1%. We sell large sections of our population on the idea if they play football or basketball good enough they could win the lottery and make millions. We sell everyone on the quick fix. I do not look to the 1%rs to help me out. They never will in fact they are looking to separate me from what little I do have. They are too busy playing astronaut or robber baron. I worry about what I am going to do. We have huge swaths of people who have thrown up their hands and go 'I do not care' we need to get them to care again. We need them to build a better world instead of a lazy one where everyone lays around hopping to win the lottery between bits of reality TV.

And whoever tagged this one as flamebait is a jerk.

Re:Do I buy it?

[Runaway1956]

I would if I could - we ALWAYS seem to have mod points here, but not me, not today. I agree with AC. Like him, I grew up relatively poor, in a rather wealthy town. It wasn't until I walked the streets of Djibouti that I saw genuine soul grinding, body destroying poverty. No, rich people don't understand poverty - and in fact, there are only a small percentage of Americans who probably have seen it face to face.

Re:Do I buy it?

[Hognoxious]

Teach a million men to fish, and soon the oceans are empty.

Re:Do I buy it?

[flyingsquid]

I remember seeing starving Ethiopian kids on TV when I was a kid, and it left me deeply shaken up. But over the years, I realized that you saw all kinds of things on TV- GI Joe and Transformers and the Enterprise and the Millennium Falcon and exploding coyotes, and the little Ethiopian kid with the distended belly sort of entered that realm. One more image on TV and you can just change the channel.

And then travelling in Africa I saw a starving kid, face to face. Me looking at him, and him looking back. And I realized, that's not fake. That's not TV. I can't just change the channel and make him go away. And he can't just change the channel and make all this stuff go away. This is his reality, and it fucking sucks, and this is the reality of millions and millions of people.

One of the tropes in science fiction is the Bubble City. The residents of the Bubble City live in their cozy, clean, climate controlled little domed city and have wealth and peace and long happy lives. And meanwhile, outside live the savages, with their poor, dirty, and violent little lives, and the people in the Bubble City don't think much about them or worry about them. What I saw for the first time is that this isn't science fiction. This describes the world we live in. The developed world is a bubble, but until you step foot outside, you don't even know it.

Re:Do I buy it?

[Optali]

And we can all recall Howard Hughes, a billionaire as eccentric and any and who actually produced quite a bunch of breaking tech.

These guys do have a lot of money, and they can just go and invest a part of it in something they fancy, even if it doesn't make sense. If it does, they will have hit the jackpot as Hughes did, of not, well, they had their fun.

I don't understand all this bitching: They have the funds and they do what they want with it, right? It's always better than investing in churches and / or think tanks trying to tell us that tobacco is good for health or that Jesus worked as a cowboy in a dinosaur farm.

 

What the hell is this guy smoking

[Spy Handler]

not gonna bother clicking any of the links. This guy is either incredibly ignorant and been living under a rock for the past few years, or his 401k is heavily vested in defense contractors. SpaceX is shaking the space launch industry to the very foundations and turning everything upside down. SpaceX is already cheaper than them (by a lot), but if the R program succeeds (we'll know in a few days), basically Elon will wipe out ULA and Ariannespace and there will be nothing left of them except for a few crumbs thrown at them by their buddies in government.

Re:What the hell is this guy smoking

[Teancum]

Ariannespace already treats SpaceX as a credible threat and is making significant changes to their next generation Ariane launch vehicle specifically to go in a direct competition with the Falcon 9. I don't know if they are going to succeed in being able to drop launch costs below $1k/kg like Elon Musk seems to be striving for, but they sure want to stay in the game and try to at least maintain market share against SpaceX and the stream of steady launch contracts that are now going to America that used to not happen.

SpaceX is definitely winning more launch contracts than they are currently launching, so I expect that even an increased launch rate is going to be sustainable for that company into the near future. This is even without the reusable launchers that SpaceX is trying to develop as I consider that to be merely icing on the cake and a long term extra profit thing even if the upcoming launch pancakes the 1st stage after stage separation.

ULA is merely trying to compete against SpaceX in the halls of Congress instead with lobbyists. I wonder how that will work out in the long run?

Re:What the hell is this guy smoking

[denzacar]

I like the bit where running a space transport company with long term cargo, people and fuel transporting plans and goals, including but not limited to resupplying the ISS is equated with "shoot[ing] endangered animals on [a] safari".

Why not just call Musk an apartheid-lovin fascist nazi-commie from South-WeHateBlackPeople-Africa?

Re:What the hell is this guy smoking

[Trane Francks]

In addition to your excellent points, SpaceX made history by being the first private spacecraft to berth with the ISS. NASA and SpaceX have a very complementary collaboration schedule in place. The cost-competitiveness of SpaceX's programs will make for a long-term paradigm shift in space exploration and commercial ventures for the private sector.

Re:What the hell is this guy smoking

[AK Marc]

I clicked a link. the billionaire who "shot endangered animals on safari" didn't shot any animals, and was armed only with a camera, and never gave the reason that it was in the name of "science" or anything else. So the summary is a lying troll. I agree that there's something else going on. Otherwise why lie so blatantly?

Re:What the hell is this guy smoking

[Immerman]

Are you sure there's any cake under that icing? As I recall the single-use launch vehicle accounts for 90-95% of the cost of a typical launch, SpaceX included. Make it reusable and you cut launch costs to around 1/10th to 1/20th of the current level. Even a single reuse would cut costs almost in half, a handful of reuses would bring the price down enough that it might start making sense to look at the cost-effectiveness of other aspects of the launch as well. Of course that's based on reusing both stages, and the second stage will probably prove considerably more challenging to recover, but it's still a potential game-changing advance in the technology, not just some profit-padding "icing"

Re:What the hell is this guy smoking

[Guspaz]

Nope, once you run an Internet company, you're never allowed to be successful at anything else. It doesn't matter if you run a highly successful and profitable space transport company, that's just vanity and hubris. It doesn't even matter if you weren't a billionaire when you founded said space transport company, and that it was your post-dot-com companies such as said space transport company that made you a billionaire... you're now in the "billionaire robber baron space club".

Re:What the hell is this guy smoking

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Even if you go out on a very pessimistic limb and assume that the best SpaceX will be able to achieve in next few years will be a Falcon Heavy version with the reuse of just side boosters (central core expended, no downrange landing) and without crossfeed, and that reusing those side boosters would only cut the costs by a factor of two to three (some serious inspection required, plus logistics), it turns out that you should still get a ~40 t to LEO/~15 t to GTO class launcher for something like 100M-$110M, or slightly less. In fact, they don't even have to ask for less money - if they asked for $150M, or even $200M, people would still gladly pay for it since nobody else plans to offer anything even remotely similar in that time frame, and if SpaceX will still have limited launch throughput at that moment (as they do now), they'll just be limiting their own profits (which they badly need for further R&D).

Re:What the hell is this guy smoking

[Beck_Neard]

Yup I agree. It's true that a lot of billionaire philanthropists are full of it, but not all of them are.

Musk has made a well-defined and significant contribution: Development of a cheap reusable rocket. This isn't some wishy-washy concept like "paradigm shift in how we interact with our technology" or "revolutionary new power source that could change the world if only people listened!" This is something that can be measured in pounds-force, tons to LEO, and gallons of LOX.

Re:What the hell is this guy smoking

[K. S. Kyosuke]

You may not have noticed, but there hasn't been a single reusable non-STS launch vehicle yet - in fact, not even STS was properly reusable (SRBs corroded, ET burned up), so I'm not even sure it counts. And those "significantly lighter and cheaper" vehicles you called for and eventually ended up with are called Delta IV...hey, wait a minute! Those aren't actually cheap at all! Bummer.

And why would you want to launch something in space just to bring it back? Because it's much cheaper than to build it again, of course, even if you get slightly less payload with it.

Re:What the hell is this guy smoking

[Teancum]

SpaceX is making a profit off of their expendable rocket program.... and beating the Chinese Space Agency on a cost per kilogram into orbit even doing just that. Mind you, the main way that SpaceX is going to try to get launch prices cheaper is simply to reuse the first stage by flying it back to the launch pad... something that won't ever make the trip into space anyway. Most of the fuel that the stage will be firing is the reserve fuel that normally isn't used in a nominal flight but will be used in an attempt to recover the stage after it has accomplished the primary task of sending the rest of the rocket to a point it can get into orbit and space.

Another difference between what SpaceX is doing and previous attempts is that they are doing it incrementally instead of all at once (a huge problem for Rotary Rocket as well as the DC-X and arguably even the Space Shuttle) and it isn't being done with tax dollars but rather with private R&D spending. They don't depend upon a vague and indifferent Congress to decide if funding for the R&D program will continue or not. No NASA money is being spent on the reusable engine program but instead is simply minor testing after the revenue portion of the flight has already happened.

We will see next month (or this month... depending on when you read this) how successful SpaceX will actually be with the concept, since they are attempting to capture and successfully land the first stage as a part of the next launch. If it was power point presentations still, your argument that this is bullshit would be justified. Bent hardware currently sitting on a launch pad (SLC-40) in Florida awaiting FAA-AST approval for launch doesn't sound like bullshit to me. I think SpaceX is in slightly better shape than you think.

Re:What the hell is this guy smoking

[Teancum]

I'm suggesting that some of the methods that SpaceX has employed to reduce costs of their rocket in terms of applying mass production techniques and treating the manufacturing of rockets more like how automobiles are manufactured on an assembly line has made a huge impact in terms of the cost of a launch. They are currently manufacturing more than a couple Merlin 1-D engines each week and plan to ramp up that production rate to even higher levels. They have also streamlined a number of things in the vehicle design to drop prices considerably including using consumer grade electronics instead of mil-spec equipment (using redundancy instead to achieve higher reliability) and several other innovations to really drop costs that haven't been used earlier.

That is the cake I'm talking about which other companies haven't been able to achieve... for various reasons. The Merlin 1-D engines aren't the highest performing engines and definitely have some strong limitations, but they are very cheap to manufacture. The same goes for the body of the rocket and other parts too. The vertical integration of SpaceX has also helped in terms of keeping the supply chain tight and keeping costs under control.

I also question how much actual savings will happen with reuse as there are definitely fixed costs that really limit how much it can reduce costs. 1st stage reuse at best only saves about half of the cost.... when done over the course of nearly 20-30 launches for amortization and assuming even low fixed costs. That still is useful and can make SpaceX very competitive, but it isn't nearly the earth shattering cost reduction that some are suggesting. SpaceX isn't even talking much any more about 2nd stage reuse, and all of the contracts using the Dragon spacecraft currently require a new capsule on every launch.

In other words, SpaceX really can't be depending on reuse for profit and instead must depend on other ways to cut costs in order to survive as a company while charging so little to the end customers. Admittedly, SpaceX officials have quoted a price point of $7 million per launch of the Falcon 9 to deliver 10 metric tons to LEO as something they are aiming at (mentioned at a satellite conference in Indonesia last year with commentary by other launch providers simply saying SpaceX is quoting nonsense). That is about 1/10th of the price currently, but I would assume that includes more than just reuse savings.

Re:What the hell is this guy smoking

[Teancum]

This is a technology that only only a number of countries you can count on your fingers can do.

I think you can put that on a single digit. The Soyuz spacecraft can basically return the three member crew and essentially a postage stamp. Well, it is about a hundred pounds of extra baggage, but essentially nothing on a practical level. The Dragon spacecraft really is the only vehicle currently in active use that has this capability at all.

Yes, Russia obviously has the capability and even flew the Buran spacecraft that had some capability of returning stuff from orbit. The Chinese Shenzhou spacecraft has the same return capabilities of the Soyuz (basically nothing) although I have no doubt that if China needed the capability they could make it. There is also the X-37 spacecraft that the USAF has been playing with that may or may not have actually brought stuff back from orbit. It also should go without saying that the Boeing CST-100 as well as the Orion capsule should also be capable of returning more substantial amounts of cargo from space (Boeing is even trying to muscle their way into the next round of the commercial cargo resupply flights). ESA has never had a return cargo capability of any kind, nor has Japan even though I don't doubt either "country" (is the EU a country?) could put up such a spacecraft if they cared. Both Japan and ESA have sent cargo flights to the ISS though.

Re:What the hell is this guy smoking

[Beck_Neard]

I'm pretty sure if you gave SpaceX $150 billion they could also send a bunch of astronauts to the moon. Hell, even the ULA could do that, and they are wasteful behemoths.

SpaceX carried out its entire Falcon 9 development and launch program (including ISS resupply mission) with less money than a single shuttle launch.

Don't get me wrong, Apollo was great, and the Apollo program was done _extremely_ well given the time constraints ("...by the end of this decade") and technological abilities of the time. It was nothing short of a technological miracle carried out by the very best minds the world had to offer. But it cost 1/8 trillion dollars (in today's money). Never forget that when making a comparison.

Re:What the hell is this guy smoking

[Applehu Akbar]

We're talking about journalists here, not historians.

Someone's mad

[Anonymous Coward]

You can practically feel the envy radiating off him. "You can't be rich and a good person too, that's not fair!"

"all in the name of science and exploration"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe I just haven't seen it, but do they actually claim this? Sources? I've always thought of these things as rich peoples hobbies, on their own money, for their own fun. I assume the talk about things isn't even the primary goal, but just a necessity as unusual things tend to draw attention anyway. Consequently, relations to fan-boys and media have to be managed. But that's just a side-effect?

Troll. Go away.

[NReitzel]

Nuff' said.

I have a huge problem...

[Man On Pink Corner]

... with the author's conflation of "shooting endangered animals on safari" with the pursuits of a James Cameron, Elon Musk, or Richard Garriott.

So, I guess I took the clickbait, huh.

What's with the "robber" nonsense?

[mi]

Silicon sultans are the new robber barons

What's with the "robber" nonsense? Whom did the "silicon sultans" rob and of what? Are the toiling masses of the downtrodden not better off with Internet-connections to a dazzling variety of sites and cellular phones in their pockets?

Perhaps, comparing value-creating capitalists to the highway plunderers of the dark-ages — as has been the Illiberal Socialists' wont for nearly 150 years — is not entirely warranted?

Re:What's with the "robber" nonsense?

[Teancum]

They robbed the workforce of long term employment stability in exchange for trinkets.

When in history did anybody ever have long-term employment? It was the so-called Robber-Barons that provided such long term stable employment contracts to their workers in exchange for loyalty. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, they were instead plundered by knights as they pillaged farmland and took random women as mistresses and whores (often involuntarily... and legally). Or you can go back to your hunter-gatherer tribe.

Re:What's with the "robber" nonsense?

[catchblue22]

What are "robber barons" anyways? John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil is an excellent example of one. He gained an early lead in the oil industry. Then he used some rather extreme tactics to preserve his lead, none of which benefited consumers. For one, he bought up rail lines surrounding his competitors, and used this ownership to deny his competitors the ability to transport their oil. Those competitors responded by packing their oil in barrels which could then be loaded onto multiple means of conveyance (i.e. trucks). This is why oil is still measured in "barrels". Rockefeller responded by attempting to control the market on the compound that was used to seal the barrels from leaking. The government eventually responded by breaking up Standard Oil into many different companies.

The above doesn't sound like Space X under Elon Musk. Space X is the plucky newcomer disrupting the existing American launch contractor United Launch Alliance (ULA) and its cosy relationship with the US military. If anything, ULA, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing fall under the moniker of "Robber Baron". This writer sounds like a troll acting in the best interests of the decaying American launch industry.

Re:What's with the "robber" nonsense?

[meta-monkey]

"I can't believe these NEW fatcats think they're as good as our OLD fatcats!"

Re:What's with the "robber" nonsense?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

So yeah, how can we live in a world with such high "productivity" and yet have less than people had 40 years ago?

Capitalism. ;-p

Re:What's with the "robber" nonsense?

[dryeo]

The thing is you have to make enough to save for that retirement fund.

Will you buy it? (Re:Do I buy it?)

[mi]

The world doesn't need or want any more pyramids, so cancer will do the trick.

It sound like you are disapproving... Will you refuse any treatment developed with a "silicon sultan's" money — because the benefactor's purpose was not sufficiently pure in your opinion?

Will you demand, the laboratories be staffed by people of all races and genders, and that any developed drugs be manufactured by unionized workers and/or be "Fair Trade" certified — before you agree to accept the cure?

Will you reject it, because "not everyone" can afford it — or will you, perhaps, wish, such "unfair" drug was never developed in the first place?

Branson philanthropy? When?

[damn_registrars]

You can criticize Richard Branson on plenty of things, but I don't recall him ever selling any of his ventures as being philanthropic. From my vantage point he has been pretty clear on the fact that he does what he does because he has the money to do it, and if it somehow helps others along the way that's just gravy.

Now, there are plenty of others who try to spin their adventures as being for "humanity", but I don't recall an adventure of his where he went for that label.

As the saying goes...

[marciot]

They hate us 'cuz they ain't us.

Too much whine for breakfast?

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody pissed in Seife's corn flakes this morning, and he's taking it out on anyone more accomplished than himself. Which is pretty much everybody.

Re:Too much whine for breakfast?

[Applehu Akbar]

On Slashdot, we of the dark side don't thump Bibles. We thump "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."

Traditional funding vs. individual billionairs

[Required Snark]

What are the alternatives? Who will fund things like deep sea diving or space launch systems? (Big game hunting is just a stupid troll.)

There are only two groups outside of individual rich people who can fund these endeavors: governments and normal investment. Governments are already in the game. India just launched their first heavy lift vehicle, for example.

Regular investment will never take that kind of risk. Perhaps in the past you could have raised money on Wall Street or the equivalent, but these days big financial institutions expect government subsidized guaranteed profit. It's so much easier to buy legislation, manipulate the system and control regulators then invest in long term innovation. Acquisitions and mergers along with zero interest prime rate funding lines their pockets without any bothersome "investing". Why bother with risky space investment, for example?

So it's fine if big egos go after these kinds of things. There are a lot worse ways that the ultra rich spend their wealth. Would you rather see Musk with Tesla and SpaceX, or Ellison with his billion dollar yacht?

By the way, you are subsidizing Ellison's yacht and purchase of the island of Lanai in Hawaii. He took out a loan against his stock in Oracle, so the interest he pays defers his income taxes. To quote another rich asshat, "taxes are for little people."

If it doesn't succeed...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

If [self-serviing private philanthropy] does not achieve its goal, or does so inefficiently, then the public is not likely to be fooled.

If self-serving private philanthropy does not achieve it' goal, nobody is harmed except the self-serving private philanthropist.

If PUBLIC philanthropy does not achieve its goal, the general population has been looted and received no benefit in return.

Re:If it doesn't succeed...

[ClickOnThis]

If PUBLIC philanthropy does not achieve its goal, the general population has been looted and received no benefit in return.

That's a pretty broad brush. What exactly is your definition of "public" philanthropy? And how do you define its success or failure?

Re:Space is very unforgiving

[Dereck1701]

"It's why a ~$350 million test stand was built"

I think you forgot your sarcasm tag, the test stand in Mississippi is widely believed to be an egregious example of runaway federal government pork spending. Built for a rocket engine being designed for a launch system that no longer exists. The rocket motor itself was idled long before the test stand was completed but politically connected individuals continued to get money funneled to it even after it exceeded its original estimates by a factor of three.
http://www.popularmechanics.co...

SpaceX

[EnsilZah]

I've been following SpaceX recently so I thought I'd point out a few things about them in regards of breaking new ground.

The company went from being founded to launching its first commercial payload to orbit in about seven years. (Which seems pretty quick in aerospace timescales)

They're consistently delivering supplies to the ISS for about half the price of their competitor using the Dragon capsule which is also able to return cargo back to Earth.
The Dragon capsule was designed with carrying passengers in mind, and version 2 of the capsule which will be undergoing launch abort tests soon is scheduled to start taking astronauts up to the ISS in about two years or so.
It will also be capable of landing propulsively.

They've undercut the prices of all existing competitors significantly, making them scramble to design new rockets to match SpaceX's price, but they'll only be ready around 2020.
Meanwhile SpaceX has been testing reusing the rocket's first stage.
The upcoming mission to the ISS will have its first stage attempt to land on a barge at sea, with the ultimate goal being landing back at the launch site.
Elon claims a theoretical potential hundred-fold price reduction for launches, but even a ten-fold reduction would have a significant effect on the industry.

In the longer term, SpaceX has plans for much larger engines and spaceships, with the ultimate goal of landing on Mars and eventually enabling people to move to Mars for around $500K.

Oh god, not THAT slate article

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

There is some retarded troll on there named MikeyD who argues with every post...he keeps claiming that "space" is a completely empty void that has nothing but a few empty rocks, repeating that locking yourself in an SUV for six months is simulating a Mars trip and other such trollish nonsense. Even so, the author here is just super-whiney; I guess he's mad that Musk and Branson didn't give him their money and are building out a space infrastructure again. The author also seems quite confused as to the differences between SpaceX and VG claiming their basically the same type of company. I guess he'd rather these guys just be like John McAfee and use their money to create a harem and make customized bath salts.

Total BS

[WindBourne]

When Gates and others push to have ALL of their money given to philanthropy, I just shake my head and say what fools. It will be spread around and do little good.
OTOH, ppl like Paul Allen is the one that pushed the cable companies to carry the internet. Likewise, he funded Scaled Composites jump into the X-Prize and winning it. This was the real start of private space going forward.
Now, we have Ellon Musk building up companies such as PayPal, Solar City, Tesla, and SpaceX.
Between these 4 companies, he employs more than 100K ppl. BUT, more importantly, all 4 have changed society for the better.
Paypal helped bring retailing to the net. Prior to paypal, few wanted to put their CCs on the net (in fact, only idiots did).
Solar City was key to bringing down the costs of solar installs. The reason is because they focused on getting the INSTALLATION to be cheap and fairly quick, while buying from various makers and forcing their prices way down. Now, they are building MULTIPLE factories that will do 1GW/year of solar modules.
Tesla has forced ALL of the other car companies to produce hybrids and electric cars. In fact, Tesla has made such an impact on the car makers that all of the majors are banding together to push fuel cells. In the mean time, Tesla has installed over 300 super chargers around the world, and will almost certainly have 600-1000 units by end of next year. In the mean time, they are busy producing a line of factories in which the first one will more than double the production of li-ion batteries.
Now, he has SpaceX which has created the world's cheapest launch system. But, he is not content to stop there. He is working on recovering the first stage of F9 and 3 stages of FH. If this is successful, then sometime next year, he will cut the prices up to 50% off. And again, he is not interested in stopping there. He is instead focused on creating a rocket that will launch 200+tonnes to LEO, so as to send ppl to the moon and mars. All of this is forcing other companies and govs. to change.

The author has a point that many of the billioniares are doing NOTHING productive with their money. The right solution is to drop taxes on new companies that are solving issues. This would encourage others to jump into these kinds of ventures. And it far far better to have 8 failures combined with 2 successes in new arenas, then to simple have the money sitting around doing nothing.