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To: NonZeroSum
There has been almost zero venture capital invested in space tourism.

I worded that poorly. I meant venture capital in non-NASA (hence private) efforts, not necessarily aimed at tourism. There have been two (that actually got to the point of building hardware) private launch industry efforts (if memory serves me), trying to develop launch facilities and vehicles, but I believe the prospectus did mention tourism as a potential return on investment. I don't honestly know how much venture capital they were able to draw in.

5 posted on 03/12/2003 12:54:11 PM PST by The_Victor
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To: The_Victor
I worded that poorly. I meant venture capital in non-NASA (hence private) efforts, not necessarily aimed at tourism. There have been two (that actually got to the point of building hardware) private launch industry efforts (if memory serves me), trying to develop launch facilities and vehicles, but I believe the prospectus did mention tourism as a potential return on investment. I don't honestly know how much venture capital they were able to draw in.

There has been almost zero venture capital invested in private launch systems (at least relative to investments in government launch systems). Other than Kistler, I'm not really aware of any. All other attempts have been with angels. And no one has raised significant funds of any type for a vehicle for tourists. That may change if someone wins the X-Prize in the next couple years.

It's not a technology problem--it's a financing problem.

6 posted on 03/12/2003 3:49:54 PM PST by NonZeroSum
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