Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?

#121

Post by keiferski » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

No one has suggested this so far, strangely enough: start with content. Aim to become the place for excellent news, interviews, videos, etc. about anything space related. Or, go a fictional route - if George Lucas / Lucas Films wanted to get into actual, real space travel or space products, he's in an excellent position to do so. The brand is related and they've got billions to spend. I would bet that this happens sometime in the next ±100 years - imagine Disney having a Star Wars theme park in space. And you certainly don't need to be as successful as Lucas to build a fictional brand around space - even a smaller company could make space products if it has an audience.

How to start from scratch: build up an audience, relationships with industry members, and an overall familiarity with the marketplace and potential opportunities. Develop a product, sell it to your audience, hire smart people, rinse and repeat. Your starting costs are basically zero, assuming you know how to write/create content.

Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?

#122

Post by joshmarlow » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

NOTE: The below suggestion is assuming Starship pans out and launch costs drop dramatically.

The way I see it, there are 3 (overlapping?) ways of making money in space:

1) put something up there (like a satellite) 2) take something down (asteroid mining, space based manufacturing, etc) 3) do something in space you can only do there

Here's an idea that falls into category 3 that I've been kicking around - space based entertainment. Maybe design a new sport that's only playable in space (or start with a currently popular one and extend it with space-only dynamics).

You would definitely need some significant capital and it'll be several years before you could actually put some athletes in space. But assuming launch costs are cheap enough and human transport is reliable, I don't think it would require speculative new technologies. Possibly the biggest technical gap would be in building large enough structures for the sport. The work of Bigelow Areospace or Nanoracks seems to be going in the right direction.

Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?

#123

Post by jjoonathan » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

rtkwe wrote: post #97

amayne wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> SpaceX will probably end up shutting down due to lack of lift demand... The launch business is tiny compared to what's possible when you can do large volume industrial research and manufacturing in microgravity. I take the approach that space right now is like the computer industry in the early 1970s. We're about to have our microprocessor moment with fully reusable rockets. This means ridiculously cheap access to…

The thing is even if SpaceX gets actually cost down to ridiculously low prices it's still going to be extremely expensive and very very hard. We have practically speaking no experience manufacturing in space, the only thing that's been made have been small test quantities of ZBLAN fiber and until we get asteroid mining and refining setup the extra cost of lifting all the raw materials is going to make manufacturing i…

At least for semiconductors you won't have to haul up all that high vacuum equipment :)

Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?

#124

Post by jobigoud » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #109

bloopernova wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That statement about the funding received by SpaceX via Starlink is a revelation to me. I hadn't thought that particular thing through. According to a very cursory search, SpaceX's revenue in 2018 was around $2B. NASA's budget in 2018 was around $20B. A tenfold increase in money flowing through a company would bring its own challenges, but assuming SpaceX navigates those OK then they'll be able to fund massive projec…

NASA has a few trajectories, IMHO. One they can become the "FCC/FAA of space". The last A is "Administration" of course. This should not be considered depressing, as the scientists and engineers currently on the front line of NASA discoveries are already often associated with other institutions and could easily follow the trend. Two, they can become the science arm or funding agency for space-related science. This is…

The first one would be very weird considering there is also ESA, JAXA, etc. in the game. The world is not regulated by the US. Focusing on research seems to more likely.

Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?

#125

Post by logfromblammo » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:03 PM UTC

Start a non-space company, grow wildly successful, and use the substantial financial resources from that to fund your space company. Space is a capital-intensive industry. You cannot compete with those who can leapfrog you with one investment round or bond issue.

Presuming you don't want to do that, or to become a primary launch provider, start by networking with people already in the industry. Move to space hot spots like Cape Canaveral, Huntsville, Houston, or Los Angeles, and start stalking insiders.

Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?

#126

Post by rtkwe » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:11 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #123

rtkwe wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is even if SpaceX gets actually cost down to ridiculously low prices it's still going to be extremely expensive and very very hard. We have practically speaking no experience manufacturing in space, the only thing that's been made have been small test quantities of ZBLAN fiber and until we get asteroid mining and refining setup the extra cost of lifting all the raw materials is going to make manufacturing i…

At least for semiconductors you won't have to haul up all that high vacuum equipment :)

You'd still need it LEO at 500km varies between 10-700 nPa and UHV is a max of 100 nPa. It's too variable an environment to really develop chips in due to space weather and the variability in the extreme thin reaches of the atmosphere in Earth orbit.

Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?

#127

Post by DennisP » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:20 PM UTC

bloopernova wrote: post #78

DennisP wrote: post #63

Start by assuming SpaceX will be successful with Starship and Starlink. That means they drop launch costs to $20/kg at scale, find themselves with NASA-level funding from Starlink subscriptions, and start building permanent installations on Mars and the Moon. Figure out something they're going to need for those. Musk has said they're relying on other companies to provide the infrastructure to actually live on Mars. B…

That statement about the funding received by SpaceX via Starlink is a revelation to me. I hadn't thought that particular thing through. According to a very cursory search, SpaceX's revenue in 2018 was around $2B. NASA's budget in 2018 was around $20B. A tenfold increase in money flowing through a company would bring its own challenges, but assuming SpaceX navigates those OK then they'll be able to fund massive projec…

NASA could also contribute a lot towards habitat technology. SpaceX is purposely leaving that to others, and NASA has done a lot of work in the area already.

Plus they do some work on advanced propulsion for deep space, including fission and fusion rockets.

Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?

#128

Post by wasdfff » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:23 PM UTC

First, start something massive and unrelated to space, like a paypal. Then ride your dividends straight into your burn rate, securing idealistic investor money to go into the furnace along the way.

Seriously, that’s the playbook for what you suggest. The only playbook. Anything else in these threads is going to be baseless presumption; if it were as the commenters said, they’d themselves be doing it and not sharing it online.

Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?

#129

Post by jonas21 » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:24 PM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #108

smm2000 wrote: post #82

Find country that need (but does not have yet) ICBM capabilities and pitch them that you can build rocket for them. They will provide all funding you will ever need.

that's a great way to end up dead by the countries who do not wish said country to have an ICBM.

or, more likely, to end up dead by said country once they realize you have no idea what you're doing

Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?

#130

Post by wasdfff » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:28 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #102

zpeti wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This shows a complete lack of knowledge about how most industries evolved in the past. Every industry was in the phase you describe the space industry in. History is full of example of industries where no-one could imagine the potential before it got really cheap. From mobile phones to cars. Once something gets cheap the opportunities explode. Which is SpaceX's plan. At $20/kg a space hotel would be possible to build…

Exactly, you're not going to have the first mover advantage if you are waiting for someone to be ahead of you.

But if you are someone like lockhead you have money to wait for spacex to fizzle out, headhunt their talent, and outperform with your military industrial complex connections and 70 years of working in aerospace.