Posted on 06/24/2006 11:31:33 AM PDT by KevinDavis
It may not be as heady as the X Prize, but the Space Frontier Foundation is planning what you might call the B Prize for space-related business plans. The payoff for the best pitch? Entrepreneurial glory ... plus a $1,000 poker chip, awarded by an investor at the foundation’s annual conference in Las Vegas next month.
XCOR Aerospace's Rich Pournelle, a guy who is well-versed in the world of space entrepreneurship, sent along the call for entries for the NewSpace 2006 Business Plan Competition.
Pournelle emphasized that the entries need not be restricted to rocket ships.
(Excerpt) Read more at cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com ...
Withdraw from the 196 UN Outer Space Treaty. Forget these little pointless entrepreneur encouragement awards.
7
The beginning of my businaess plan is very down-to-Earth.
I want to set up an irrigation company for the Australian Outback.
I propose to supply fresh water for crop irrigation, at regular intervals, on demand for a fixed price. It will be supplied as rain water to specified coordinates.
When sufficient contracts for delivery are in hand, I propose to build an electromagnetic launch facility in Antarctica, taking advantage of natural topography to accelerate large quantities of ice into a suborbital trajectory.
Once the payload has reached the proper re-entry point, coordinated explosive charges will break the ice into fragments small enough to melt and separate as they fall, in order to land softly as rain.
Once this enterprise is fully operational, other desert areas at greater distance will be added to the client list. Eventually, all the deserts of the world will be able to share in a bounty of rain-fresh irrigation water, with no land-based delivery requirements.
When this has been achieved, I propose to extend once more, to the very limits of space itself, and provide low-cost launch facilities for near-Earth orbits of massive amounts of useful reaction mass in the form of ice. The ice can be configured as a structure itself, or it could be melted and transferred to the tanks of space going vessels, which could heat the water into steam for propulsion.
This simple scheme could open the entire Solar System to space exploration for a launch cost of pennies per kilogram.
All of you entrepreneurs should be quick to get in on the ground floor.
42
Invest in the russian nuke power barge and add desalinization. Once the first $ Billions are rolling in then space development may be possible if still not legal.
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