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Space The Almighty Buck Science

Paul Allen Confirmed as SpaceShipOne's Sponsor 276

Posted by michael from the sugar-daddy dept.
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."
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Paul Allen Confirmed as SpaceShipOne's Sponsor More

Paul Allen Confirmed as SpaceShipOne's Sponsor

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  • TechTV reported this last night on TechTV live. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by the_2nd_coming ( 444906 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @01:53PM (#7766246) Homepage
    I wonder if Paul Allen will want to be the first Private citizen into space with the first privately built space ship.

    • Re:TechTV reported this last night on TechTV live. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mr_z_beeblebrox ( 591077 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @01:56PM (#7766300) Journal
      I wonder if Paul Allen will want to be the first Private citizen into space with the first privately built space ship.

      It is good to see people with his kind of wealth putting it to work for society. The benefits of a private space market will be....well more benefits than you could imagine. (sorry about the star wars thing) If his reason for doing this is just to get to be 'first inspace in a privately owned vehicle' well then, I wish him the best of luck!

      • Re:TechTV reported this last night on TechTV live. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by JPelorat ( 5320 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:37PM (#7766832)
        "It is good to see people with his kind of wealth putting it to work for society."

        They all do, it's just that most of it isn't high-profile or 'cool' stuff like space travel.

        Wealthy people don't stuff their mattresses full of cash or have a Scrooge McDuck vault where they hoard coin and bill, or in any other way keep it totally removed from the economy.

        No, instead what you find is that their money is socked away in investment portfolios, mutual funds, annuities, or their own businesses as capital investments. All that money gets invested somewhere in society, whether it's in government bonds, other companies, loans, etc etc etc.
    • I would certainly go in a heartbeat if I had the option, but I don't know of the payload capacity of SS1...can it hold passengers as well as crew?
      • would certainly go in a heartbeat if I had the option, but I don't know of the payload capacity of SS1...can it hold passengers as well as crew?
        It holds three. The plan is that the passengers are the crew.The White Knight is designed to serve as a simulator for flying SpaceShipOne. Crews would be trained in the White Knight.

        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.

    • Finally, some Microsoft money being used for good rather than evil!

      • Re:TechTV reported this last night on TechTV live. (Score:4, Informative)

        by eln ( 21727 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:12PM (#7766502)
        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.

        • Gates vs. Allen (Score:5, Insightful)

          by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:24PM (#7766645) Journal

          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.

          There are lots of ways to look at how Gates and Allen spend their money. You pointed out one distinction. However, I'd like to go a little deeper into that and ask why.

          Here's my theory: Gates has convinced himself that he's a genius. That he's smarter than almost everyone. He feels that he's the elite. This explains his attempts to so fully dominate and control the future of computing. He certainly doesn't need the money. He's doing it because he honestly feels that he knows better than anyone else how computing should evolve.

          But he's not entirely heartless. He sees the poor unfortunate masses who aren't as great as he is and feels like he should give them a few bucks. Kind of like royalty flinging coins out the windows of their buggies and at the miserable wretches in the crowd as they roll down the common street. It makes him feel good about himself and, quite frankly, those who are lucky enough to catch those coins he chucks out the window really do need the money so they are grateful.

          Allen, on the other hand, has a much more modest view of his place in the world. Unlike Gates, he does not believe that he's one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived. He can fully appreciate the fact that there are scores of other people out there with great ideas. Since he has the money, he funds their work in the hopes that they will be able to develop their ideas into fantastic technologies that advance the human race.

          There's no right or wrong here. Both are doing what they feel is best.

          GMD

          • Re:Gates vs. Allen (Score:5, Informative)

            by kippy ( 416183 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @03:23PM (#7767340)
            Dude, this is so wrong it isn't even funny. If you look at the cash breakdown here [gatesfoundation.org] 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.
        • Actually, my observation is that Gates is focused on addressing traditional charity problems and is more interested in putting out charitable money for its own sake, whereas Paul puts his funds into stuff that he thinks is cool. Some of that stuff has added benefits, which is great, and I am sure that's a factor for him--but I think mostly it's just because it's stuff that he has always wanted to do (and most likely that you or I would want to do) given a few billion dollars to throw around.

          Bill invests i

  • Good for Paul! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Guano_Jim ( 157555 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @01:54PM (#7766257)
    This is not the first time Mr. Allen has contributed to the common good: google link [google.com]

    Good for him. If only more plutocrats thought the same way.

    Turkey Guts [slashdot.org],BTW.

    • Re:Good for Paul! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ralph Wiggam ( 22354 ) * on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:02PM (#7766376) Homepage
      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

      • Re:Good for Paul! (Score:4, Informative)

        by haystor ( 102186 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:03PM (#7766399)
        As I understand, he sold for stock too, but bought options as a hedge.

      • Re:Good for Paul! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by mongbot ( 671347 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:16PM (#7766553)
        It's funny that most geeks really admire Paul Allen and Steve Wozniak but hate Gates and Jobs.

        You have a point.

        Creating a spaceship is all well and good and will probably advance humanity in the long run. Kudos to Paul Allen for taking the initiative.

        But, in purely monetary terms, Bill Gates is much more charitable. In fact, it could be argued that he's the most philanthrophic individual in history. I don't like it any more than you do, but it's true. I suppose it's a small consolation to think that some of the "Microsoft tax" goes towards charity.
        • In fact, it could be argued that he's the most philanthrophic individual in history.

          Well, he could be following in Rockefeller and/or Carnegie's footsteps of trying to pay for a philantrophic legacy after a lifetime of general evil. Carnegie advocated the violent resistance of a strike at one of his steel plants, and Rockefeller's Standard Oil is the modern blueprint of antitrust law.

          Whereas Palladium alone may well be the cultural equivalent of burning the library at Alexandria, I'd say Bill has more

        • Re:Good for Paul! (Score:2, Insightful)

          by bwy ( 726112 )
          Why is it that so many humans admire self-sacrafice above all other traits?

          I can admire someone because they are smart/wealthy/etc and worked hard to get that way without taking handouts along the way or otherwise being a burden on society. Nothing else is required to earn my respect.

          These people set a better lesson for society. Someone with billions who gives it all away just teaches people that handouts are readily available and personal achievement is meaningless.

          There are few exceptions to this. O

      • Re:Good for Paul! (Score:5, Funny)

        by blackmonday ( 607916 ) * on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:34PM (#7766789) Homepage
        Excuse me, sir, but a lot of us on Slashdot not only don't hate Steve Jobs, we would pay good money to roll around in the leader's dirty underwear!

    • I do agree that his contributions are great. He throws his money around in some really cool ways, and everyone I know who knows him says he is a really nice guy. Cool so far.

      Then there is MS and Ticketmaster. Sorry, but he gets modded down to negative numbers for Ticketmaster alone. Ticketmaster, time to go shower, I wonder if steel wool would get the stain off of my soul for simply mentioning that blight.

      -Charlie
    • It may actually be for his own good (and that would be a good thing). As a wealthy guy, he is probably able to count on his fingers the millions of dollars of his own taxes that are invested in NASA. He sees little success coming from NASA and so he hedges his tax "investment" by helping private industry begin manned spaceflight, something that had heretofore been solely under the control of inefficient government agencies.

      He's spending money now so that he can save it later in lower taxes once the publ
    • Yes, good for Paul.

      However, if he really had philanthropy at heart he would have put up the money for the X-Prize. Indeed, men of his wealth are precisely the men who should be creating objective prize awards in all areas of critical technology development and scientific discovery. Others, of less means, should be competing to win those prizes.

  • Well that explains everything. (Score:5, Funny)

    by mgs1000 ( 583340 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @01:54PM (#7766261) Journal
    I guess he plans to blast the Trailblazers into space so they won't cause him anymore problems.

  • Thanks for providing a link (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 19, 2003 @01:54PM (#7766270)
    I hadn't before heard of this Microsoft of which you speak.

  • That will teach (Score:5, Funny)

    by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportlandNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Friday December 19, 2003 @01:56PM (#7766290) Homepage Journal
    id software to write games that run on non-MS platforms!

    I kid.

  • Versioning (Score:5, Funny)

    by MadFarmAnimalz ( 460972 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @01:56PM (#7766293) Homepage
    Oh. Damn that's good to know. The Microsoft co-founder, eh?

    If history is anything to go by, that contraption won't be worth a thing until SpaceShipThreePointOne is built.

    • If history is anything to go by, that contraption won't be worth a thing until SpaceShipThreePointOne is built.

      You know, that's probably not an entirely silly thing to say. I mean this thing had only been up 15 minutes or so when it crashed [mojavebooks.com]. Scary looking pictures- I think it's not supposed to swerve off the runway like that :-)

      Does this remind you of any particular Windows version? It kinda reminds me of Windows 95. :-)

      Still, atleast they aren't selling seats to it yet.

      • If history is anything to go by, that contraption won't be worth a thing until SpaceShipThreePointOne is built.

        You know, that's probably not an entirely silly thing to say. I mean this thing had only been up 15 minutes or so when it crashed. Scary looking pictures- I think it's not supposed to swerve off the runway like that :-)

        Maybe they were operating under the belief that any landing from which you can walk away is a good landing. :-)

  • not necessarily a good indicator (Score:4, Interesting)

    by social ( 117400 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @01:58PM (#7766311)
    Allen's sponsorship isn't necessarily a good indicator that the project will be any more successful, as he has had some major slip-ups in the past. His Experience Music Project in Seattle has thus far proven to be a financial wreck.
    • Perhaps a financial wreck, but it's also an amazing place to visit. If you're a music fan, that is.

    • There's some padding... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by zipwow ( 1695 )
      I'm reminded of KC Royals owner Ewing Kauffman in the early 70's.

      I should point out at this point that the Royals were very competitive, mostly due to the money that Kauffman was putting into the club.

      Anyway, the story goes that one reporter asked him if he was worried about the amount of money he was losing by owning the Royals. His reply?

      "Yeah, I can probably only afford to do this another fifteen or twenty years."

      If Paul Allen wants it to work, it works. That's what being in the "top 5 richest..."
    • I wouldn't call it a finacial wreck. I have quite a bit of experience with the place as my GF is a Museum Studies grad student at the UW and interned at the UW.

      Basically, people are of the misconception that Paul Allen has something to do with the museum. Technically he doesn't. He built them a building, donated his entire collection of stuff to them, and gave them funding to get started; but then they became atonomous. They aren't doing real well right now, but what museum did well in this economy?

  • Don't forget Carmack (Score:5, Informative)

    by PIPBoy3000 ( 619296 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @01:58PM (#7766317)
    I'm personally rooting for Armadillo Aerospace [armadilloaerospace.com], 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.
  • There were 5 posts so far and none of them was anti-Microsoft.
    Come on guys, we can do better than this!

  • Obligatory joke (Score:4, Funny)

    by JamesP ( 688957 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @01:58PM (#7766321)
    This spaceship has encountered an error and will self-destruct now. Microsoft apologizes for the inconvenience...

  • Windows in Space (Score:5, Funny)

    by manganese4 ( 726568 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @01:58PM (#7766326)
    Well if they use windows on the operatoring system for the Microsoft MicroShip, when it gets hacked as an SMTP relay, it will give new meaning to Chuck Yeager's phrase for the mercury astronauts "Spam in a can"
  • when the MicroSoft spacecraft crashes.
  • That was another flop of his, along with the 'Blazers.

  • Alien Confirmed... (Score:5, Funny)

    by SirChris ( 676927 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @01:59PM (#7766339) Journal
    I thought that it said Alien confirmed as sponsor. And that would have been good news.
  • Congratulations to Paul Allen for his support of one of the X-Prize team.

    Too bad a generation of pioneer-heritage Americans had to be lost [geocities.com] before releasing that culture to pursue space as a place [aol.com].

  • I hope their rocket design is better than their web skilz... Nice site [scaled.com] with better than 1/2 the page (at 1024x768) taken up by a cheesy graphic and menu.

  • Good to see it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Chitlenz ( 184283 ) <chitlenz@ch i t lenz.com> on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:08PM (#7766460) Homepage
    This has to be some kind of ideological statement by this guy. 10M is nothing, for gods sakes, he pays ALL of his Seattle Supersonics more than that every year, so it can't be the money.

    Whatever his investment amount is, its good to see both noteriety and cash flow in to private space programs. Maybe we can set a trend where rich geeks get sick of waiting, and goto space on our own. If you think about it, it's kinda the way we (as in geeks as a whole) tend to act anyway (when we're at our best that is).

    I forget who said it, but someone quoted that every good program begins as an itch that needs to be scratched by the programmer... maybe this one's his?

    -chitlenz
    • The starbucks guy own the sonices... paul allen owns the seahawks though. I think he may have tried to buy the mariners when they were for sale, but nintendo got them instead.

  • X-Prize Redundant? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by N8F8 ( 4562 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:11PM (#7766493)
    The Russians are charging $20 mil per passenger for tourists. Doesn't take much for that to outcompete X-Prize for motivation.

    • Re:X-Prize Redundant? (Score:3, Informative)

      by taniwha ( 70410 )
      the X prize isn't about tourism - it's about creating alternates to the big govt controlled space programs and eventually getting the cost of space travell down so that you don't have to be a .com millionaire or pop star to be able to afford it
      • But the carrot is the X-Prize and the prestige. OTOH, being the first civilian corp to put a tourist in space could be just as big a motivator, especially if no-one claims the X-Prize.
    • I tend to think that the actual cost of launching one of these people is greater than what they pay to get on board. It's not a profitable model. The only reason it seems to work now is because the US is subsidising the russian space program. So if you live in the US, it's YOUR money that's getting N*Sync stars into space. The X-prize is about making PROFITABLE commericial space travel, which would be very cool indeed.

  • For the benefit of Humanity (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sufehmi ( 134793 ) <sufehmi@@@gmail...com> on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:15PM (#7766534) Homepage Journal
    Let's hope the winner of X-prize and other participants won't patent their work like mad, to the point of disabling others to build similar machine.

    If ship was patented to death for example, I don't think there would be that many ships on the ocean now.

    I have high hopes for the future of humanity with X-prize and its participants, but then again I've yet to see the limit of human's ability to shoot itself on the foot.

  • kick'em! (Score:2, Funny)

    by ajaf ( 672235 )
    Good! they're investing on ships so they're prepared when we kick'em from earth!

  • And it wouldn't be possible... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zebra_X ( 13249 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:16PM (#7766560)

    If paul allen hadn't made boat loads of cash working for M$. I don't see Linus financing the Nina and Pinta of the infant space age.

    >:O
    • Pff, if you buy Linus's audio book [amazon.com], you can hear him in his own voice whine on for about a minute about how expensive his new house in downtown LA or SF or wherever he moved to was. He's sitting there complaining to his interviewer who I'm sure lives in a house a tenth as nice, who actually does tell Linus he shouldn't be complaining, to which Linus just responds with more whining.

      He might be a great coder but I'm glad he doesn't have any more money to throw away.

  • Paul Allan is a JERK (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zulux ( 112259 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:18PM (#7766576) Homepage Journal
    Paul Allan bought a summer camp out from under the camp, kicked the kids off and built a multi-million dollar trophy home in it's place.

    Kind of like a "Ernest Goes to Camp" without the happy ending.

    more info here [lakeunion.com]
    • Okay, I'll admit. I bit, I checked the link and I check the site's links. I still did not find what I was looking for and have one blazing question:

      Who sold the camp?

      In order for someone to buy, someone else has to be willing to sell. The purchaser cannot be the only one at fault. Apparently, the seller was largely at fault for not recognizing the importance of the camp site and "selling out."
    • I don't get it. Why did they sell it to him? You are not obligated to sell your property to anybody, no matter who it is or how much money they're offering.


      • The camp was owned by a family that was a freind of the camp - they were in the process of selling the camp property at fair market value to the camp itself.

        Then Paul came in with $BIGNUM and swiped the camp.

        So, yes, someone sold out for $BIGNUM.

        And yes, Paul Allan is still a JERK. Fucking with a summer-camp is just being an ass.

  • Nice going, Paul! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Thagg ( 9904 ) <thadbeier@gmail.com> on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:19PM (#7766590) Journal
    It's kind of amazing, in the last two days we've had a couple of interesting space stories, both involving about the same sum. Two more 'space tourists' are going to fly to the ISS in Soyuz capsules, for $20MM. Paul Allen is revealed as the sponser of Rutan's effort -- total cost, about $20MM.

    So, where one person gets to go into space, by himself, atop a converted Russian ICBM -- somebody with a little more sand kickstarts an entire private space industry. The tourists have only their memories, while Allen will have his own spaceship!

    Very inspiring, Mr Allen.

    thad

    • Re:Nice going, Paul! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by MarkLR ( 236125 )
      There is a dramatic difference between a sub orbital flight and going to orbit and staying in space for days.

      When a X-Prize craft can reach orbit that's interesting, until then these vehicles are really of little interest.
    • cost almost as much as all of SS1's development and launches.

      Private industry is the future of space. Another notable thing about SS1's development, is that all of their subcontractors doing things like the rocket motor (except perhaps Thiokol who I believe supplies their graphite fabric) are small businesses themselves.

  • Microsoft in Space (Score:3, Funny)

    by cheeseSource ( 605209 ) <{snailbarn} {at} {yahoo.com}> on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:22PM (#7766621) Journal
    Okay bring on the jokes about usiing the MS operating system in space...

    "I have no idea what happend - this blue screen appeared and the ship shut down on re-entry..."

  • Paul Allen is cool.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by The Lynxpro ( 657990 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [orpxnyl]> on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:27PM (#7766687)
    Why can't Bill Gates be more like Paul Allen and then more people would actually like him? Or maybe more like Sir Richard Branson... Just a thought...

    • Ahh, you mean like set up something like this [gatesfoundation.org]?

      • Re:Paul Allen is cool.... (Score:5, Informative)

        by The Lynxpro ( 657990 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [orpxnyl]> on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:59PM (#7767081)
        "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...

        • And I thought I was a cynic.

          "Gates is almost completely focused on ...expanding Microsoft's monopoly."

          Yeah, I guess that little "almost" in there is the 6.2 BILLION DOLLARS in grants and donations. I guess this [gatesfoundation.org] is what prevents him from being "completely" focused on Microsoft's monopoly, right?

          I'm not exactly a Microsoft apologist, but for you to sit there an dismiss such a huge amount of philanthropy as a PR campaign or tantamount to billionaire one-upmanship angers the shit outta me -- regardles
      • That's "Billions", folks.

        http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Grants/
    • He had his personality surgically removed as an adolescent.

    • SpaceShipOne vs malaria, AIDS, etc (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Was the post meant to be ironic? As a space nerd, I'm happy that Paul Allen is funding the development of a spacecraft, but all in all, I don't think a suborbital spacecraft is more important than trying to eradicate AIDS, malaria, and hunger. Check the Gates Foundation [gatesfoundation.org] web site.

      And no, I'm not saying we have to choose between earthly needs and exploration.

  • if (SpaceShipOne) (Score:5, Funny)

    by sahen ( 710972 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @02:29PM (#7766713)
    that might explain why they used Visual Basic naming conventions.

  • MS Orbital Vehicle Assistant (Score:5, Funny)

    by Odonian ( 730378 ) on Friday December 19, 2003 @03:27PM (#7767385)
    __
    / \
    |O O|
    |\_/| "Looks like you are trying to Break
    | | The sound barrier!"
    | | |
    | | |
    | \_/

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