Posted on 04/03/2006 6:07:27 PM PDT by KevinDavis
Creating a money-making rationale for private space ventures—be they public space travel, orbiting hotels, low-cost rocketry, a space junk collection service, or even a lunar power and light company—such enterprises must be grounded in first-order business basics.
Over the decades, several entrepreneurial space firms have come and gone, their vision getting too far ahead of business reality, but there are encouraging signs that private space ventures are reinvigorating—as well as agitating and disrupting—customary models of space commercialization.
That’s the message to be heard at Space Billionaires: Educating the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs, a Thought Leader Forum being held April 4 at the Wilshire Grand Hotel in Los Angeles and organized by the University of Southern California’s (USC) Marshall Center for Technology Commercialization.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
"Thar's GOLD in them thar minor planetoids!"
and that, in a nutshell, is all it takes for motive: pure, unadulterated, utterly shameless greed.
what will it take to make that motive take hold of peoples' throats?
relative ease of access to extra-orbital space.
what will it take to make THAT happen?
a self-sufficient lunar colony with manufacturing facilities and a mass-driver launch system.
so... how do we get THERE from here?
Withdraw from the Treaty and accept claims at the Land Office. Gov't won't be able to keep up with the private sector on this frontier and will have to budget an extra clerk at the BLM.
Dump the Treaty and register claims. That's all.
Nobody knows where to invest anymore and there is a lot of money sloshing around. So much just sitting at 5%, and all of it ready for investment in something other than molasses and tar.
"Next Generation of Space Billionaires"
I guess I must have overlooked the previous generation of space billionaires, unless it's referring to Soros.
so... what does it take to divest from a treaty?
It's about as easy as getting an islamic divorce. Serve notice and wait a year. Done.
you JEST!?!
The escape clause is written in the body of the Treaty. The Pres has the authority all by himself if he wants to do it. Pre-approved in itself.
no [beep]?
kewlie.
how do we nudge whoever needs tobe nudged to make use of the exit clause from that idiotic agreement?
also: where's the full text of that idiotic agreement?
My Senator is willing to dump the Treaty if we can get some interest going out here.
I'm interested in dumping that treaty.
If I had money and was interested in making it turn into BIG money, I'd be interested in exploiting space resources after that treaty was dumped.
tagline change
I got a very nice letter from my Senator about the Treaty. Everybody, including the White House, knows the Treaty is doing no one any good and is stopping private investment. But, international inertia is a fearsome thing, as we see every day with Mexico, Iraq, Iran, China, and all our other friends.
Is this a movement?
An old tagline returns. :)
Is this a movement?
hrmn...
over the last few years, I have somehow managed to get several hundred people to regularly consider seriously my musings and laugh at my jokes. I don't know how that happened, but perhaps...
My FRiends,
I cannot in good faith ask you to take a public stand blindly. Instead, I ask that you please visit this link and read the text of the United Nations 1967 Outer Space Treaty, of which the US is a signatory.
Please consider its anti-capitalist, anti-property, essentially Statist nature. Please consider how it has stymied and shall continue to stymie private profit-motivated use of space. Please note that it forms a legal block against American military supremacy in an era in which technical innovation and unexpected/uncounterable capabilities are all that keep America ascendant.
If you agree that this treaty is bad for America and, ultimately, bad for free humanity, please join us in condemning it publicly and advocating America's withdrawal from it.
A place to start: Archive your current tagline, and replace it for the remainder of April with condemnation of this treaty. If and when anyone asks you about your tagline, refer them here, to this thread, and suggest they do as you have done.
Any advocacy you choose to take In Real Life would be welcome.
Thank you for your consideration,
kp
Done.
sweet!
I have hopes for what I shall witness when I awake tomorrow.
Note tagline change.
Note correction to tagline change:
*grins!*
Another time for FUN (F*** the UN).
One of the problems with the space business is that there's a breathless side to it which has never had a clue about where the real money is. But it is there in spades.
The real money has been in communications, not manned space. Direct-To-Home (DTH) service was a debatable concept in 1990, a wobbly business in 1995, on the brink in 2000, and commonplace now. DirecTV and Charlie Ergen at Echostar have been slugging it out, we don't know who the big winner will be, but the numbers are stupendous: billions and billions.
Same story with SDARS (Satellite Digital Audio Radio Service): Sirius and XM. Up from nothing in 1999, the subscriber numbers are now in the millions. If there was ever a shaky business plan, they looked like it. But it (SDARS) is here to stay, and again...the money is enormous.
The Big LEO telephone networks - Iridium and Globalstar - were flops. But I contend that they were incredibly badly marketed - and considering that their prices are now competitive with global GSM/CDMA plans, and their subscriber numbers are inching up (the marketing is a whole lot better, but still nothing like what the DTH/SDARS people do), they may eventually survive.
And there are new things coming: ATC - Ancillary Terrestrial Component, for example.
And this doesn't even mention service that is now taken for granted - cable head end providers, ordinary network feeds, the entire telecom network (dominated now by Intelsat, Eutelsat, SES Americom and Panamsat).
The truth is that the comsat sector is booming now and will in the future - that is where the billions are being made.
Someday transportation to space will be routine and human travel may make money. But at the moment, that's not where the money is. But it is there.
bump
yes, but only if one uses a rental -ah- protruberance... you *just don't know* where they have been, FRiend!
*snort, chortle*
so, will you forsake being Jake Blues for a month?
*batting purty green eyes*
On It.
Sure. I will gleefully do a great many things to "stick it" to the Reds (this includes the UN) and their machinations.
sweet!
I must rack it. I have such hopes for what tomorrow may reveal...
BTTT
bumpity BUMP!
#17 ping
;)
As you wish, my liege
My other tagline was better, but I'll use this one just because I despise the U.N. At least until I think of something really funny!
I was a year old in 1967.
While I fully agree your new taglines (and I believe the same should apply to Antartica), priorities dictate I stick with my current tagline!!
UP...
well, yeah... that is an important message. 'sides, you are Irish, so the "US out of UN" isn't really your fight.
I was thre years preborn in 67. Johnson and the UN tried to steal my future before I was even born, tha commies!
Hmmm... I like the idea of Ireland's withdrawing fromthe UN!!
agitate for it!
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