A great story on how the Internet is ruining investment capital in
ventures that are non web related, capturing a full 60% of the available
capital.
The quote is; No Bucks, No Buck Rogers!
Very appropriate, check it out;
http://www.msnbc.com/news/336902.asp
“WE DON’T need any more technology,” Hudson, president and chief
executive officer of Rotary Rocket, told scores of space enthusiasts at
a Space Enterprise Symposium in Seattle last weekend. “We’ve got lots.”
Rather, the lack of bucks is the key problem facing not only Hudson’s
company, but dozens of other small ventures trying to stake a claim on
the final frontier. And in his view — a view shared by many of the other
groups seeking investments — one of the big factors has to do with the
Internet gold rush.
“The dot-coms have hijacked the institutional funding markets,” he
complained. It was “a sorry commentary,” he said, when the second
quarter’s biggest Bay Area investment went to “a company that
distributes pet food on the Internet” — an apparent reference to San
Francisco-based Petopia.com.
Internet-related companies took in almost 60 percent of the venture
capital doled out in 1999’s third quarter, according to the
PricewaterhouseCoopers Money Tree Survey.
“Space tourism is potentially a market two or three times larger than
the commercial and military launch business put together,” Hudson said.
His company and more than a dozen others are vying to become the first
to put paying customers on suborbital flights to the edges of space, 60
miles up.
---------------
So it again points to tourism as the key to how to make orbital and
lunar flight ventures in a big way.
Again, one of the major costs will be how much per pound does it cost to
launch something into orbit?
http://nasatech.com/NEWS/ntb.nasa428.html
'...the cost of putting payloads into orbit (are) from $10,000 to $1,000
per pound.'
--------------
Cheap high thrust electromagnetic launch system;
http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/22188.html
--------------
NASA wanting commercial ventures to take over near earth orbit projects;
http://www.wired.com/news/news/business/story/21955.html
NASA may be a government agency, but it wants private industry to take
over activities in the Earth's orbit, such as the International Space
Station, so NASA can get back to deep space exploration.
Goldin emphasized providing access to space to as many people as
possible, as soon as possible. "The way we'll get there is with a
revolution both in [our] technology and business approach," he said. "We
can't afford to do solar system exploration until we turn these earth
orbit activities over to a cutting edge private sector."
Federal spending constraints will not allow NASA to deal with Earth
orbit issues, like the International Space Station and the Hubble Space
Telescope, and explore beyond this planet.
Beyond the next 5-10 years [when the International Space Station is
completed], our hope is to turn the keys of the station over to an
entrepreneur in the private sector who sees an opportunity," said
Goldin.
"If this happens, we will become one of the many tenants and users of
the station. The entrepreneur can make money and we wave goodbye to low
Earth orbit on our way to explore the far frontier."
-- Jerry Wayne Decker - jdecker@keelynet.com http://www.keelynet.com from an Art to a Science Voice : (214)324-8741 - FAX : (214)324-3501 KeelyNet - PO BOX 870716 Mesquite - Republic of Texas - 75187------------------------------------------------------------- To leave this list, email <listserver@keelynet.com> with the body text: leave Interact list archives and on line subscription forms are at http://keelynet.com/interact/ -------------------------------------------------------------