If you were to start a space company, what would it be based on? I have a dream of sending spacecraft out to explore space. However, I need a way to fund that exploration. What are some profitable ideas? I was thinking something satellite based, maybe sending them out to space? Then eventually get into space mining once there is a widespread need for raw material in space. Or maybe get a piece of the sounding rocket business.
>>7684323
Slow board?
>>7684323
Bumping with booty.
>>7684323
Space mining.
It would help justify wanting planetary bases on the moon or mars to help facilitate the process.
>>7684323
>If you were to start a space company, what would it be based on?
Huge stacks of money.
>I was thinking something satellite based, maybe sending them out to space?
As opposed to what, exactly?
>Or maybe get a piece of the sounding rocket business.
There's a sound rocket business?
>>7684472
Sounding rockets are rockets that only go into the stratosphere to take weather data.
>>7684323
It's a good idea OP, great way to get hands on liquid rocket experience. Be sure to have your paperwork in order. And what this guy >>7684472 said, ultimately if you want to get into big boy leagues you need $ so as well as the sounding rockets I'd invest in unrelated things just to make some money to put into your real dream of space.
>>7684689
>Sounding rockets are rockets that only go into the stratosphere to take weather data.
Yeah, but I've not heard of any serious use of them outside of of the early history or rocketry. I figured satellites had taken over their work.
Do people still use sounding rockets for much?
>>7684712
I dunno, research it. As I said the point isn't doing anything useful it's gaining rocketry experience.
>>7684323
>eventually get into space mining
I want this retarded meme to end
we're currently paying 20k$ just to get a single kilogramm of payload into low earth orbit
even after this price drops through private sector R&D you still won't find any financial gain from FLYING A GODDAMN SPACESHIP TO AN ASTEROID JUST TO HAUL SOME MINERALS BACK TO EARTH
if you can't even come to this fairly simple conclusion yourself, then it's highly unlikely you'll ever manage to start an actual space company
for gods sake get some common sense before you end up lost beyond redemption in your collection of pipe dreams
>inb4 "ur just not open minded enough!" and "you're just afraid of innovation!"
>>7684841
scratch the BACK TO EARTH part, misread
point still stands
asteroid mining is full retard, and you never go full retard
>>7684841
>"Pipe dream"
>"It will never work"
>"Impossible"
Lord Kelvin everyone
>>7684841
Silly faggot, you're not supposed to bring it back to earth, but build space vegas.
With space hookers and space blackjack.
>>7684853
and here comes the OpenMindness Defense Force
I'm sure you can back up your retarded sentiment of sending literal shittonnes of mining equipment (because everything less will never mine enough raw material to be even considered relevant) to a space rock of which you only have a rough estimate (at best, and only if you've already wasted a sitload of dV just for sending a probe) on how much worthwhile material is actually buried within
>>7684323
Making porn in space. Simple, but profitable
>>7684420
That is one fat ass
>>7684323
Robots robots robots!
Anyone in my company that made the slightest suggestion about putting meat bags in space would be instantly fired.
>>7684864
Once launch costs start dropping
and as extractable resources continue to decline in the earth
eventually it will be profitable.
Also, mining equipment only needs to be sent up once, aka a one time investment for decades of returns
>>7684323
Step 1. Create a successful earthly company (like PayPal for example)
Step 2. Sell it and become filthy rich
Step 3. Use this money to support your space company and accept that you're going to be taking a loss for the next 20 years
>>7685035
Elon Musk created x.com, not Paypal. Paypal bought out the struggling x.com in order to consolidate the market. But you already knew that. Why do Musk's disciples have to lie non stop to glorify their god?
>>7685040
Nope, paypal didn't exist until Confinity merged with X.com, when Musk had a disagreement with Bill Harris, which caused him to leave the company. Later Musk renamed the company paypal. So musk did create paypal
Musk haters will say anything these days
>>7685026
>Once launch costs start dropping
They could drop an order of magnitude and it still won't pencil out for a workable industry. Launch prices have stubbornly remained on the order of US$10K per pound. Shipping material around our planet runs about a thousandth of that. Space will never compete with on-ground mining efforts.
>>7685035
>Step 3. Use this money to support your space company and accept that you're going to be taking a loss forever.
>Step 4. Rich guy dies and his inheritors don't continue that insanity. The project is shut down.
*FIXED*
Space efforts will never be profitable. The energy required to get off the planet is just too large. Another form of economics is required, but Humans clearly don't subscribe to such things. NOBODY is willing to just work for decades for free. NOBODY is willing to work for decades on a project that will take centuries to reach its goals. Humans have innate needs for profit and short-term gains. PERIOD.
>>7684841
The mining is for raw material that you can use in space. For example, you could extract water from an asteroid that can be used by humans in space, or use it to produce hydrogen fuel. It's not too far fetched to imagine ship refueling stations in space in the future.
>>7685026
>mining equipment only needs to be sent up once, aka a one time investment for decades of returns
>heavy duty mining equipment
>one time investment
apparently space mining equipment is completely devoid of wear and never needs maintenance :^)
you don't have a fucking clue how actual machines work, do you?
>>7685225
>The mining is for raw material that you can use in space
and the processing plants required for converting that raw material into usable goods somehow just float into space all by themselves
awfully convenient
>>7684864
It doesn't hurt to have an open mind. Closing it to new ideas limits yourself.
>>7684323
>If you were to start a space company, what would it be based on?
I have this dream of sending a big payload of sand or maybe small rocks to LEO. Then slowly, the debris would fall out of orbit and ending up as a kick-ass human-made meteor shower!
>>7685353
Nope, you build them in space. But I think you already know that, you pessimistic peon. I'm not saying this is something I'd implement in the near future, I'm thinking more like a couple decades of r and d and tests, then moving on it. Space mining WILL be a thing as long as we humans still have a desire to reach out into the universe. To believe otherwise is just plain foolish and although I respect your right to an opinion, I will no longer humor you.
>>7685378
That sounds pretty sick man.
>>7685359
>Closing it to new ideas limits yourself.
not if the idea can be classified as retarded just by thinking about the pros and cons for less than 5 minutes
ironically thinking about the pros and cones is the complete opposite of closing yourself off to an idea/opinion
I just don't come to the same handwavy and biased-as-shit conclusion as your bunch does
>>7685379
>ablooobloo y r u so negative ;_;
>lolol wont talk to u anymore :^)
what a fucking trainwreck of a comeback
>I'm thinking more like a couple decades of r and d and tests, then moving on it. Space mining WILL be a thing
try refuting my points instead of pulling predictions out of your ass
>>7685378
Alternate i would send the debris to MEO. Trash all the existing satellites, making even more debris. Killing fast internet and satellite TV. Instead, people had to sit outside every night watching technology burn up in the sky.
>Mfw no one could sue me because, no laws against trashing satellites.
>>7685388
Okay thanks for confirming that you're either not very intelligent, or a teenager. It's okay buddy, you have a lot of growing up to do, but youll get there some day. I'd like to entertain you, but frankly I started this thread to discuss ideas for a space company. I have no interest in debating whether space mining is practical or not, so your opinion is irrelevant. I hope you at least have the brainpower to comprehend that I am not refuting your opinion as vigorously as you hoped because it's really just not worth the effort.
Anyways, I would love some fresh ideas and opinions, so if anybody is lurking just throw something out there.
>>7685401
Kek, would be quite the light show.
>>7685411
>plans to start a space company
>can't even defend a simple point, which he clearly mentioned was planned to be done "eventually", against resistance
boy you sure gonna get BTFO'd hard once you actually set foot into any kind of business enviroment
>>7684841
>>7684864
>God damn it, why are people always talking about shit I don't like? Can't they realize that the only people who can see the future are the ones that think like me?
I seem to remember reading somewhere that people thought the same things about computers a few decades back. "Just a pipe dream" "too expensive to be practical" "just a passing fad". How did that work out, anon? Use that computer of yours to let all of us know, on the internet.
>>7685422
>Looking for ideas
>Pessimistic asshole with nothing to contribute besides "space is stupid, and you are stupid for liking it" and "lol, you're gonna fail because you aren't like me" tries to derail thread.
>OP kindly tells pessimistic asshole to fuck off
>Pessimistic asshole's jimmies are further rustled.
Ignore this nearsighted bag of dicks, op.
>>7685468
>progress in electronic component development
>somehow being relevant to retarded idea
refer to the first inb4 and shove your attitude up your ass
there's a difference between proclaiming "it will never work" and "it won't be even remotely efficient because of X, Y and Z"
"god forbid someone uses logic to shoot holes in our idea!
if he doesn't believe in our economically retarded concept then he's clearly as bad as the guys who said that computers are a pipe dream!!
boy I sure hope my epin strawman will show him!"
>>7685488
>doesn't understand the basic requirements of economically feasible operations
>thus fails to comprehend the provided arguments
>thus, by the power of mental gymnastics, the argument is invalid because it is "nothing to contribute"
>>7685492
It all comes back to the same shitty argument of "not feasible now, never will be" that every butthurt asshole through history has shouted until blue in the face because it's an idea they don't support. If the concept that some people won't be influenced by that one little shit in the back of the room that keeps shouting "just give up already" is too complex for you to grasp, feel free to step out and troll another thread. OP asked for ideas for his business, not if you thought it was feasible.
>>7685505
>not feasible now, never will be
who the fuck said never, why would 'never' even matter
OP wants to start a company NOW, not in 300 years
he set his timeframe, nobody gives a shit if asteroid mining is profitable in a hundred years because by that time he'll be dead anyway
and you're telling me about "too complex to grasp"?
fuck yourself
>>7685388
If you had said that you were going to fly a rocket to the moon 150 years ago you would have actually been able to fly to the moon purely on the power of laughter that you would generate because it was completely and utterly impractical at the time. In fact right up until the 1920s mainstream media shat on Goddard's work saying he was deluded and didn't even know high school physics. Don't be an autist, be a free-thinker
>>7685513
OP said he wants to eventually get into space mining. Right now he is thinking about sounding rockets. There is abolutely nothing unrealistic about this. He gains rocket experience with the sounding rockets, by the time he's made enough experience and money for an orbital launcher space mining may be commercially viable. But hey keep believing that nothing you can't imagine will ever exist.
>>7685513
Yeah, actually, the entire point of your rant has basically been about how everyone should just abandon the idea because it will never work. But, oh noes, you got BTFO and backtrack once you realize how poorly thought-out your argument was. "Who said never? Just not in our lifetime, 'sall I meant". So, is the industry just going to spontaneously spring into being in a century or two? How do we get there without anyone laying the framework beforehand?
>>7684323
Space escort service.
sometime in the future I think that orbital space will become quite important. as we see launch costs dropping and more routine flights into space we will need to build more and larger space stations, eventually going from something like the ISS to a larger ring station with simulated gravity allowing for a greater variety of experiments and research. mars is months away, the moon is a weeklong trip, but getting to orbit takes a few hours.
and of course having good orbital infrastructure--space stations, communications equipment, and most of all knowledge and confidence in our tech will be a jumping off point for missions past orbit to the Moon and Mars.
imagine having a large station in orbit with routine shuttles to and from it. that station could be home to further craft with ion drives or something that could be efficiently launched from orbit.
>>7685522
This is pretty close to my line of thinking right now. Honestly I don't know much about sounding rockets, but I think it could help me familiarize myself with the kinds of rockets I'll be designing later on. Do you think this is a reasonable assumption?
>>7685572
Yeah go for it, ignore the haters.
>>7685492
>progress in electronic component development
>somehow being relevant to retarded idea
The same could also be said of electricity, automobiles, commercial air travel, television/motion pictures, firearms. The list goes on and on. The point is innovation, anon. There will always be detractors that look at a new idea and say, "That's never going to amount to anything worthwhile. No point in anyone wasting time with it." Just like there will always be people willing to say, "Oh, yeah? Well, fuck what you say, I see potential, and I'm gonna try to make it work."
>>7685575
Anon speaks the truth.
Anybody have resources on anything sounding rocket related? Or anything about human space habitat concepts.
Mining asteroids is immoral unless we know nothing is living on them.
Same for mars.
>>7685125
Learn to use Google.
>>7685674
Learn to not be a fucking idiot.
Extracting He3 of course.
>>7685753
where
>>7685753
Though if you've any competence in terms of electrical engineering, creating generators, motors and especially electrical car engines out of the Keshe Foundation's plasma technology WILL prove extreeeeeemely, extreeeeeeemely lucrative.
>>7685755
The moon.
img excluded due to cellular device.
I'd start an eco-vegan-glutenfree space company with the goal of cleaning space. I'd then start an insanely massive marketing campaign to convince all the hippy SJW treehugging worried-about-the-Earth idiots that all the debris in space is dangerous for the Great Mother Earth; when the brainless mongrels are completely dazed by the shitloads of meme science I had thrown at them, they would naturally push their eco-bullshit agenda on a political level, to the point at which any government, possibly the american one, they're idiots enough to fall for this shit, would cover me in gold to solve this problem.
I'd then use the VTOL technology developed by other companies to create what is basically a frog that jumps into space, eat a big piece of space debris, and then lands back in front of mainstream media, who will write enthusiast articles with my smiling face beside the space debris just recovered as a header.
This is b8 .
>>7685856
1st idea: take trash launch it into in the planet people will think it looks pretty begin charging people pay u drop trash in a certain area slowly empty landfills make money profit
2nd idea: put a weaponized satellite into space capable of taking out of international space station hold astronauts hostage get payed mad money to not kill them profit
>>7684323
>what would it be based on?
dat ASS
My idea is to start a private company on the moon. sounds pretty stupid just hearing that, but: here's my thought:
Everyone wants to go to space. Everyone wants to bring back samples.
If we end up going to places like europa, mars, etc etc and bringing back samples, we don't want to bring them to earth. On the pure offchance that we DO discover microbial life in those jet plumes of water, or in some rock on the martian surface, you don't want that shit on earth for a few reasons, namely in case our environment destroys / alters it, or vice versa (Andromeda strain?) Far fetched, but I don't think its that absurd to say we shouldn't take precautions.
On top of that, bitches need fuel to get places yo. with regards to intra solar system travel & to the recent lunar refinery and refueling station economic study that was released July 2015, One could also consider constructing the fueling depot. The caveat here would be that there really is enough water tied up in the lunar regolith, and that building the mining equipment, mining, refining, and storing liquid H2 and/or O2 are economically feasible. Mostly determined by the actual H2O concentrations. This could later be extended to helium-3 if the need for it ever actually arises, and in some rare cases there are significant (marginal on earth, significant for the moon) deposits of iron and aluminum that may be made to use.
a third concept is low-G / true vaccuum experiments. Not every one can get access to test things like that, and in the future it might be easy / cheap to send it to space instead of having a huge vaccuum chamber for some things.
So in short: A private lunar company that
>handles Non-Terran Objects (NTO's) and assesses them for life, composition, human handling safety, etc via a biossafety level 4 facility
>mining & refining, primarily rocket fuel (H2 & O2)
>offering general purpose testing facilities open to all
>>7686489
do u even Δv
>>7684895
This. All the best technology started from the basic primal urges of killing, eating, and fucking. Godspeed, anon, in launching your Satellite of Love!
>>7685182
Actually, if launch costs drop by an order of magnitude (which is considered to be feasible if true reusability can be achieved), the cost of shipping a kilogram of x to space will be roughly on par with the cost of shipping it express from north America to Australia.
If a rocket system can be built that is reusable on a level comparable to a commercial airliner, launch costs will cease to be an obstacle to the economic development of space.
>>7686489
We can do business together anon. Instead of mining the moon, which could have unknown consequences, my company mines asteroids we bring into lunar gravity, then send it down to your moon-based refinery. Win win scenario.
every fucking engineering freshman wants to be Tony goddamn Stark.
i can't wait for industry to crush your pathetic dreams.
>>7687008
Kek
>>7684323
>no mention of the word pirate
The correct answer is space piracy, its not illegal until there are laws
>>7685575
It all comes down to how much you can lower the price 1kg to space. It's way too high right now and to lower it to acceptanle levels, you'd need major breakthrough in space cannons or such. Any other way would require about 100 billion dollars to make a viable project. You can't get that kind of money if you know perfectly what kind of return you'd get on the investment or if the state somehow thinks it's a good way to spend money. That's why all innovations happened either by the state or by small entrepreneurs who didn't require billions to get started.
>>7686999
Trips checked. Also, this:
http://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_stone_explores_the_earth_and_space%3Flanguage%3Den&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwiB05XiqbTJAhXJ5CYKHQSsAsEQtwIIDzAA&usg=AFQjCNFnr6CT-SBbtHcbORAj0G_ld0YnRw
>>7684323
What's the point of that pocket?
>>7684323
Foamed metal (steel, maybe aluminum) casting and developing microgravity uses for electromagnetic molds (i.e. e.g. using force fields to cast objects)
and spun-gravity agriponics facilities to support the industrial personnel without expensive lifting of foodstuffs in additional to raw materials
and drop facilities to deliver the foodstuffs and microgravity products to on-demand locations across the globe
