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PayPal Founder Wants To Launch Satellites

Posted by Hemos on Mon Dec 02, 2002 11:20 PM
from the go-up-up-up-going-up-up-up dept.
Space
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."
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  • Maybe this guy and Jon Carmack should get together. Not only can they afford it but i bet they could pull it off.

    • Re:I have an idea... (Score:5, Funny)

      by phorm (591458) on Monday December 02 2002, @11:44PM (#4799121) Homepage Journal
      Yeah, but if Carmack went to the moon/mars then the place would suddenly become infested by grey demons and ugly pig things with big teeth. Subsequently, they'd be sucked into hell and have to battle their way through before returning to save earth...

  • Productive? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by duncan bayne (544299) <duncan.bayne@fluidscape.co.nz> on Monday December 02 2002, @11:26PM (#4799023) Homepage
    The difference is that this venture actually tries to do something productive.

    Excuse me? I thought that Tito purchased an orbital holiday for ~ $20 million.

    Now, I can imagine how much I'd enjoy an orbital holiday. It'd be a lot of fun: an exciting new sensation that I'd be unlikely (in the present climate) to experience ever again. I imagine Tito felt the same.

    So, how was this purchase not productive? Tito gained (an orbital holiday), the Russians gained (money for the space project). I suspect your criticism of it as being unproductive is in part due to the fact that it was unashamedly self-interested (good on him for it!), and in part because you couldn't afford it yourself.

    • I don't think the ~$20 million went to anywhere productive. The Russians simply don't have enough rubles to fund their space program (or much of anything else) and USD$20 million wasn't enough to save it. They're so out of it to the point that NASA's planning an exit strategy for the ISS project.

    • Re:Productive? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bravehamster (44836) on Monday December 02 2002, @11:35PM (#4799077) Homepage Journal
      Hear, hear! I'm tired of hearing people bitch about how rich people throw their money away doing frivolous things. It's not like Tito pushed the money into the vacuum of space. He paid peoples salaries, and helped the Russians keep up their part of the ISS bargain. Just because someone spends money on something you may consider stupid doesn't mean that money is gone. I have yet to see a single economic report that says that spending money is a Bad Thing(tm).

      • Heh, reminds me of a quote from Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning was the Command Line [spack.org]:

        This is all strongly reminiscent of the heyday of Communism and Socialism, when the bourgeoisie were hated from both ends: by the proles, because they had all the money, and by the intelligentsia, because of their tendency to spend it on lawn ornaments.

      • Re:Productive? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by nomadic (141991) <nomadicworldNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday December 03 2002, @01:06AM (#4799405) Homepage
        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.
    • Not sure if you realize this, but being in space is not something a lot of people would enjoy. Why? While in space, free-floating in 'weightlessness' you have the sensation of falling....constantly. In essence, you are falling. You are falling around the earth. Now, I don't know about you, but unless you enjoy the feeling of falling, this would be very nauseating. I have been in small planes doing dives before, nowhere near freefall speed, and that was enough to churn my stomach. Weightlessness is not pleasant to everyone. If you don't believe me about the falling sensation, ask a physics professor.
    • 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.
  • The life to mars site is pretty cool too. I think the best idea is the comm sat on mars. If there were soem dedicated communications satalites up there maybe some of the problems with failed missions could be avoided.

  • Shoulda known (Score:4, Funny)

    by LostCluster (625375) on Monday December 02 2002, @11:26PM (#4799026) Homepage
    It always seemed like PayPal was founded by some kind of space cadet. We shoulda seen this coming.

  • im confused now (Score:5, Funny)

    by rainman31415 (576575) on Monday December 02 2002, @11:26PM (#4799027)
    Elon is also behind the Life to Mars mission.
    i thought janet reno sent him back to cuba or something....

    no .sig, dont smoke rainman
  • 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!!!)

  • Better use... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 02 2002, @11:29PM (#4799037)
    Maybe he should put some of that vast fortune into preventing paypal from sucking [paypalsucks.com].

  • Rocket-pal (Score:5, Funny)

    by MrLint (519792) on Monday December 02 2002, @11:29PM (#4799040) Journal
    You too can invest in this state of the art method of sending stuff into space. But be forwarned, just because rocket-pal sends things into space they arent an actualy aero-space firm, so ifyou lose all your investment/cargo with them its not insured!

    Fly rocket-pal today!

  • And of course.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Large Green Mallard (31462) <lgm@theducks.org> on Monday December 02 2002, @11:30PM (#4799041) Homepage
    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 :)
    • it's not a space flight, it's an interstratum transport venture

      Re "interstratum transport venture":

      (1) What the heck is it?

      (2) Could you say "interstratum transport venture" 6 times fast?

      Thx. :)
      • Assuming you know the meanings of "transport" and "venture," I'll venture to define "interstratum."

        Actually, I imagine you're familiar with the prefix "inter-," meaning "between," already as well.

        "Strata" are, uh, layers, basically. Generally stacked up on top of each other, as layers tend to do. Like geological layers, or the layers of a parfait or a Slurpee in one of those cool Strata cups. Or atmospheric layers. You know our atmosphere has layers, right? Troposphere, and, um, and so on. Oh, and "stratum" is the singular form of "strata," natch.

        So what we've got here is a venture to transport something between atmospheric strata. Which is a fancy way of saying, it ain't going all the way into space so it doesn't count.

        I guess. Your kilom't'rage may vary.

    • I was joking. But given PayPal's view about it's own position, I was insinuating that he might try a similar thing to this to avoid government regulation, just as paypal has :)

  • I'm unimpressed... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by WolfWithoutAClause (162946) on Monday December 02 2002, @11:30PM (#4799044) Homepage
    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.

    • of course if you count the cost of the satelites lost due to failed insertion, things get a wee bit more expensive. What was the bottom line on the 1K loss ? does anyone have a figure or a link ?

    • Re:I'm unimpressed... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Tyler Eaves (344284) on Tuesday December 03 2002, @12:04AM (#4799201)
      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...
    • Looking at the cost per kg is not really relevant when comparing a rocket carrying a 12.5 ton payload with a rocket designed for a 470 kg microsatellite. The cost/kg is always higher for small payloads. For a small payload this is actually pretty cheap - about half the cost of the Orbital Sciences Pegasus [orbital.com].

      BTW, the first stage of Musk's Falcon LV is supposed to be reusable. Getting down to $0.5K $1K range is possible only if you make dozens of launches per year but the market for microsatellites just isn't that big.

  • So.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by su007 (530279) on Monday December 02 2002, @11:31PM (#4799049) Homepage
    They will take your satellite, hold onto it for a few months, and ignore you if you ask about the status. When you do finally get a hold of someone, they will remind you that per the terms of the service, your satellite was %100 at risk. At that point they will inform you that they have flagged your satellite for possible abuse, and already reviewed your case and decided to keep your satellite. If you wish to contest this you will have to go into binding satellite arbitration. http://www.paypalsucks.com/news.shtml
    • As much as i dislike paypal this is not true. They dont fuck over those who pay them a lot of money. Have you noticed they never fuck over large accounts. They only mess with the people who they can get money from but not enough to make it worth going to court over.

  • Evil (Score:3, Informative)

    by mao che minh (611166) on Monday December 02 2002, @11:32PM (#4799052) Journal
    *sarcasm* What a great company this guy created, he so deserves the millions that line his pockets!:

    PayPal horror stories: Boycott-PalPal.com [boycott-paypal.com]

    Google search of "beware of paypal": Beware [google.com]

    PayPal Warning [paypalwarning.com]

    Petition to shut down PayPal [petitiononline.com] My skin is crawling - really.

  • Farscape? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MacAndrew (463832) on Monday December 02 2002, @11:41PM (#4799103) Homepage
    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 [slashdot.org]? 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!

  • Do not be fooled! (Score:3, Funny)

    by teamhasnoi (554944) <teamhasnoi@@@yahoo...com> on Monday December 02 2002, @11:45PM (#4799130) Homepage Journal
    It is a front for the construction of his EVIL Space Fortress! When the lasers are raining hot, burning death upon us all, YOU will be sorry you used Paypal to buy that anime video!

  • Vision (Score:4, Interesting)

    by andyring (100627) on Monday December 02 2002, @11:46PM (#4799131) Homepage
    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!

  • Sometimes you need a small load (Score:5, Insightful)

    by astrashe (7452) on Monday December 02 2002, @11:53PM (#4799149) Journal
    If you go to the warehouse grocery store, you pay less than you do at 7-11. And if you use a big vehicle, you get a better price per kg. There are economies of scale.

    But what if what you're lofting doesn't weight 40x as much? Wouldn't it be nice to get the good price anyway? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to go to 7-11 and the a single can of soda for the same price you pay for a can when you buy a case at the warehouse store?

    This guy is no dummy, and I'm sure he's identified a market.

  • It's all so clear (Score:4, Funny)

    by dirkdidit (550955) on Monday December 02 2002, @11:55PM (#4799157) Homepage
    Heh, so thats where all that "lost" PayPal money went.
  • I like projects like this. Since NASA most certainly isn't doing a very good job (I don't blame NASA, I blame politics), it's great to see rogue projects like these coming along, giving us some hope of further exploration of space.

    If he's got the money and the interest, I'm all for it.
    • I agree completely. It's obvious that no major space missions are going to get off the ground(pun intended)just by relying on NASA and the other space agencies around the world.
      The commercialization of space is just what we need if we want to get to Mars by 2025 or if we want to establish a lunar colony. Sure this is only a small step in an area where many small steps will have to be taken for it to be successful, but this little bit will help a lot down the line.

  • Safe Trading Precautions (Score:5, Informative)

    by man_ls (248470) <jkoebel.gmail@com> on Monday December 02 2002, @11:59PM (#4799179)
    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.
  • "But does he have staying power?" asks NASA official.

    Good question... is that a mutant power, like telekinesis?

    "STAND BACK, Batman, he has STAYING POWER!".

    -- Terry
  • 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.
  • If it costs $20 million to launch 420kg into space, it is all well and good that someone can do it for $10 million. But I don't weigh 420kg.. I weigh 85kg, that's just over 1/5th, so shouldn't it cost $4 million to shoot my ass into low earth orbit? $16 million is a little expensive for a room on a space station don't ya think? How much does it cost to make a space station anyways? That's what our Space X friends should be doing, offer $5 million trips to LEO space stations, undercut the russians and herald in a new era of space tourism (for rich bastards).

    When we have that, then we'll need reusable vehicles (i.e., next generation X-Prize winners) but until then there's no-where to go! The X-Prize will be won by 2005, and we'll be able to pay a small fortune to "touch" space (but not LEO) in a reusable vehicle, will we have to wait until 2010 to get a reusable LEO vehicle for space tourism? By then, will there be anywhere to go?

    It just doesn't add up. My kingdom for a business plan.

    • while i am certainly no expert on the matter of shooting things into space, there are certainly many other variables one must consider for the cost of shooting you (A PERSON) into space that doesnt concern an inanimate 420kg load. for example, air, you are breathing it, the hunk of metal isnt and it costs money to provide that air. also, liability and insurance issues must be of some concern.
  • Scientists are trying to figure out how to visit other planets without accidentally carrying earth microbes, and this guy wants to dump them for fun.

    For the sake of science and possibly other life forms, let's hope that that kind ecological terrorism won't be tolerated by governments. Bringing rabbits to Australia was bad enough.

  • He can send the order to randomly freeze another 200 accounts! Let the interest roll!

  • Let me get this straight (Score:4, Interesting)

    by USC-MBA (629057) on Tuesday December 03 2002, @01:06AM (#4799403) Homepage
    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 [ad-astra.net]. 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...

  • Much of his personal fortune come from the IPO of PayPal and subsequent sale to eBay.

    Let's not forget all the money he took from his customers.... [paypalsucks.com]
  • Nobody's flown solo into space since the Mercury program. Could this make it feasible?

    The Falcon LV will be able to orbit 473 kg, or a little over half a ton. The Mercury spacecraft, built with 1960 materials and technology, weighed about two tons. What would it weigh today, with judicious use of kevlar, Demron and other high-tech lightweight materials? Seems to me that it might be feasible to loft a passenger in his own spacecraft for $20 million, and let him orbit for as long as his supplies (and psyche) allow.

    And here's one more thought, useless as it might seem--how about using it as a one-man ground-to-ISS transfer vehicle? You could even send it up unmanned to provide for evacuating a single injured or ill crewmember from the station.
    • ... non-multi-millionaires that seem to know better how to spend the millions that other people have.
      He is not better than everyone else, but certainly is richer... and though Paypal is fairly evil, he is sorta entitled to spend his money the way he likes...
      I am pretty sure that if one day you have too many millions to count you might take a different perspective on the space travel...

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