Mars Settlement Financing

[spacester]

Mars Settlement Financing<br /><br />I started the Mars Settlement precursor thread and followed that up with the Let’s Design a Settlement for Mars thread, and this is the third thread in the series. The first states that Settlement Supports Science (and lots of other fun stuff) and the second one is where we are planning the settlement.<br /><br />This thread is where I reveal the financing strategy. It’s going to be a slow process; you’ll need to be patient with this thread. I’ve given hints in the other threads; I’m going to make you read them to find the hints (for now - if somebody wants to post a summary, that would be great!). <br /><br />The plan is rather audacious, so I’m going to bring my audience along slowly.<br /><br />Here’s where we start:<br /><br />You know how every once in a while someone will suggest that the way to pay for a space program is with a lottery? Isn’t that a great idea? You know how they have to quickly give up on their idea because in the real world, the government will never allow it?<br /><br />Well, what if we don’t have to give up on the idea altogether?<br /><br />Keep reading, keep reading, MY PLAN IS NOT A LOTTERY!<br /><br />It’s a way to harness some of that idea in another way. OK, what’s the great thing about the lottery idea? It amasses a pool of money, and everyone has a chance to win, right? That’s the part I want to keep. Forget the lottery itself, it’s illegal and ineffective for the kind of wealth we need to generate.<br /><br />OK, so I’m talking about getting people to voluntarily give me their money and I give them a chance to win. How can I do that? Answer: “I” cannot. It could only happen if it is some sort of “we” asking for their money. So <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[tap_sa]

Private Space Administration?<br /><br />LiteNASA sans anal-retentive red tape, having single clear mission/goal like in the 60s?

 

[summoner]

Assuming about 200,000,000 people you'd only need about $250 per person or $12.50 per person for 20 years. Sounds easy enough, just need to convince them now. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> <br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width:271px;background-color:#FFF;border:1pxsolid#999"><tr><td colspan="2"><div style="height:35px"><img src="http://banners.wunderground.com/weathersticker/htmlSticker1/language/www/US/MT/Three_Forks.gif" alt="" height="35" width="271" style="border:0px" /></div>

 

[spacester]

Not quite. Less of a LiteNASA than an UnlikeNASA - get rid of the red tape by severing the link between NASA's vast knowledge and capability and it's correspondingly vast bureaucracy. Not a single clear mission, actually, the Mars Settlement would actually only be part of a still larger program. <br /><br />That's right, another group of three: Moon, Mars, Asteroids. So three clear goals. (Not missions - look what happened to Apollo after the first successful mission). <br /><br />Play and work and research on the moon. <br />Settle Mars. <br />Exploit the asteroids.<br /><br />My plan has something for everyone. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[arobie]

So far what I know from the previous threads about the financing plan:<br /><br />It's audacious.<br /><br />There are three clans financing it:<br />Elves<br />Dwarfs<br />Humans<br /><img src="/images/icons/laugh.gif" /><br /><br />Seriously it has three sources of funding which we will build our financing on.

 

[spacester]

<font color="yellow">Assuming about 200,000,000 people you'd only need about $250 per person or $12.50 per person for 20 years. Sounds easy enough, just need to convince them now. </font><br /><br />Right. <br /><br />Now there's going to be a percentage of the target market that will never buy what we're selling. No matter how cool and sound and wonderful and beneficial a plan for space development we come up with, they just are not going to go for it, not ever, noway nohow.<br /><br />What percentage of the public can we never ever reach? Assuming that percentage, now how much do we have to take from American adults to put together $50 Billion? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[arobie]

<font color="yellow">What percentage of the public can we never ever reach?</font><br /><br />What are we offering them? What is their incentive? Will they get any direct benefits from this?

 

[tap_sa]

And how are we offering whatever we are offering? Ads, call marketing, chain letters, travelling mars salesmen, mars tupperware parties, what?<br /><br />---<br /><br />Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms WhoEverYouAre<br /><br />Greeting, my name is Robert Umm'bekiki, I am for Nigeria. I recently discovered that my uncle was a spacetravelling scientist. He passed away and left me with a $50B inheritance. The problem is that it's in platinum nuggets deposited on a bank on Mars so I need your help with transferring the money!<br /><br />Sincerely Yours,<br /><br />Robert U.

 

[spacester]

ROTFL! All and none of the above lol. How we offer it is getting way ahead of ourselves.<br /><br />What we're offering, ah, that's the question. We are offering a dominant position in technology for the USA and its allies for the duration of this century, that's all. <br /><br />Yes, they will directly benefit from their participation, more on that later.<br /><br />But some people will think we're from Nigeria no matter what. My answer is around 10% are completely unreachable, that's all. That's given we have achieved awesome brand awareness on our part.<br /><br />In marketing, there are the early apopters, the middle adopters and the late adopters. (Oversimplifying perhaps.) Maybe the never adopters are around 10%, but the next question is what percentage of early adopters could we get with a really nice plan? Maybe 20%?<br /><br />Let's rework the numbers for 20% of 200,000,000 folks to generate $15 Billion over five years.<br /><br />That's $75 per person per year from our core supporters during the first five years. That's what we're talking about.<br /><br />Now some of our supporters will be unable to pay that much, but we want them on board. So let's say half of our base is at the $25 per year level, that means we need more from the rest. Let's say 10% of the rest, for 5% of our base, is at the $750 per year level.<br /><br />We need $3 Billion a year so that's<br />20,000,000* $25 = $0.5 Billion<br />plus<br />1,000,000 * $750 = $0.75 Billion<br />plus<br />18,000,000 * $100 = $1.8 Billion<br />totaling<br />$3.05 Billion<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[grooble]

Do you really think there are that many people interested? I'd donate to your cause, i'm in the UK. The £ is worth almost double what the dollar is. Perhaps you can try and incorporate foreign donations into your plan as it's good when the dollar is weak.<br /><br />Trekunited.com had the same idea, they wanted to raise $35m to pay for another season. The premise was this: There are millions of star trek fans, if they all gave a $ or 2 each, we'd have the money in no time.<br /><br />But millions don't give, only a few 100 or low 1000s do. <br /><br />It's not impossible ofcourse, but you'd need to really inspire people and make them believe you could pull it off. <br /><br />Check out www.freedomship.com a great idea, great design, but the cost is $9b, the guy just can't get the funding. <br /><br />I think you could attack the problem from several points:<br /><br />- Reduce the costs of the goal through tweaking etc<br />- increase the number of donaters<br />- increase the value of the donations<br /><br />If this is a 2 decade plan, perhaps you could really create something great here, a journey for all involved, with this end goal of putting our kind on another world. It could be fun, people could build friendships and make something of their lives, everyone pooling talents for the greater good, helping each other improve their lives, careers, life in general, which would attract others to get involved, and increase the value of donations as people will become wealthier and more confident and PASSIONATE!<br /><br />Sorry if i ranted, but it'd take an exceptional plan to bring this about, make people feel part of a family, that even though they most likely will not step on mars themself, they'd have taken part in perhaps the most grand, important and significant event in human history.<br /><br />I have a good feeling about it.<br />

 

[blairf]

Spacester<br /><br />Don't give up on the lottery idea altogether. Let me drop a few hints.<br /><br />* Richard Branson bid for the largest lottery in the world in 2001<br />* As part of that bid process he put together a consortium that included the largest lottery infrastructure company in the world<br />* Mature lotteries always struggle with 'lottery fatigue' and often look to develop innovative products<br />* Global lotteries are *doable*. The Red Cross has toyed with the idea (out of Liechenstein if memory serves)<br />* 'Prizes money cannot buy' are the holy grail of lotteries (hence the runaway success of fame based reality TV)<br />* I can't be overly specific but I personally know for a fact that several massive lotteries would be open to space based lotteries.<br />* Look to history, public subscription/lotteries have a long and noble history of financing exploration.<br /><br />Lottery financed space exploration will happen it is just a question of when and by whom. Trust me!<br /><br /><br />

 

[cdr6]

I think grooble is on to something, the big cruise companies do this sort of thing on a regular basis. Eg. Cunard has just completed the QM2 which is financed by many/several financial ententies. There is a Las Vegas firm doing the financing thing for the ship Titanic 2. Also along those lines there is a hotel magnate building a "lunar" hotel in Vegas. It is supposed to simulate the experience of going to the moon for a vacation. <br /><br />So, I think you are on the right track, perhaps even timely... This is going to be interesting to follow.

 

[summoner]

Offer someone a spot on one of the missions. People would pay quite a bit for a shot at that. The other thing that you're not addressing is corporate sponsorship. Large companies would pay alot of money to put there name on the side of the base or ships. A movie company would pay tremendous sums to be the first to film on Mars. I believe that one company has already offered quite a bit for someone to get them to the moon. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> <br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width:271px;background-color:#FFF;border:1pxsolid#999"><tr><td colspan="2"><div style="height:35px"><img src="http://banners.wunderground.com/weathersticker/htmlSticker1/language/www/US/MT/Three_Forks.gif" alt="" height="35" width="271" style="border:0px" /></div>

 

[quasar2]

do you have a link for that? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[quasar2]

actually you kinda have a point there. dwarves &/or little people would be the most logical candidates for long-term missions. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[dan_casale]

Include non-cash donations into the mix. Maybe someone has a piece of equipment that can be used as funding or directly on the project.<br /><br />The biggest problem is believability and credibility. Perhaps the National Space Society (NSS) would hold the trust acount for this project? What about another government that seems trustable? A former Apollo astronaut? Jimmy Carter?<br /><br />I'm not sure that $50 billion is enough for this part of the project. I guess we will know more as the other thread progresses.<br /><br />Another Idea:<br /><br />Sell advertising space on the surface of the rocket, $1/sq in. Get about 100 digital cameras to record each sticker as it goes by.<br />Corporate sponsers for products used on the journey.

 

[yurkin]

Well I got an idea.<br />It involves ski masks, explosives and fire arms. We can call ourselves the Mars Liberation Front, raising money to build a settlement on Mars, by any means necessary.<br />

 

[arobie]

<font color="yellow">actually you kinda have a point there. dwarves &/or little people would be the most logical candidates for long-term missions.</font><br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/shocked.gif" /> <br /><br />Uh oh...me and my big mouth. I take what I said to spark that thought back. I'm 6 feet tall and I wanna go!

 

[jhoblik]

We need to involve these groups of people that are interested in space exploration and they will play role as advertisement, technical adviser or funds managers of our enterprise:<br />- guarantee of collected funds(for example Tom Hanks, James Cammeron,..)<br />- guarantee of technical solution(Burt Rutan, Elon Musk, …)<br />- managing collected funds(CEO of successfully big companies, ….)<br />Everybody who participates financially will get:<br />- stock of space enterprise <br />- chance to win price.<br />Price could be trip to orbit, or even trip to orbit of Moon. These options will be probably available this decade and next decade. As highest price, one of stockholders will be awarded to participate on the trip to Mars.<br />Chance to win will be directly related to yearly-dedicated money to the space fund, but it will be limited to for example up to $1000. Who will donate more than 1000 will not have bigger chance to win prices.<br />Every stockholder will be eligible to get dividend related to his stock option at the moment that out enterprise will be profitable(this investment will be probably profitable for stockholders children) Revenue and profit will be derived also from selling technology invented for Mars mission.<br /><br />As a first step, collected money will be invested. Profit of invested money will be use to motivate development of hardware for Mars mission.<br />For example to develop ISRU, supplier will be awarded only if achieved required functionality. <br />Some hardware could be modify for our mission like Bigelow inflatable trans-hab and developer will be awarded for modification + original cost of hardware.<br />At moment of actual mission part of invested money will used to buy the hardware, launch capacity already available. <br />At the beginning of our enterprise we could promise that money dedicated to space funds in case that our mission failed, will be return back to stock holders(we will use at the beginning only profit from invested money)

 

[spacester]

Hi jhoblik, that sounds good. But my understanding is that major parts of that plan would never be allowed by the SEC. Look to 1000 planet's experience - they had to spend all of their initial funds on lawyers to to form an organization.<br /><br />I do not believe that a for-profit entity is the answer. Some parts of your description ring true with my ideas, but it would take a long time to sort it all out. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[spacester]

Grooble, I love your so-called rant. That's also called enthusiasm, and if we can harness that on a massive level, we'll get the job done. <br />***<br />It really would take an exceptional plan. I've been working on the nucleus, a kernel if you will, of what such a plan would look like, for three years. I don't have all the answers. A lot of the ideas seen on this thread are great ideas. But quite frankly, space keeners have been at this idea thing for, what 30 years now or more? I'm afraid there are very few new ideas. OTOH, 'dwarves in space' is a new one to me. That idea is crazy, but it also has merit, I'd like to see a thread on it.<br /><br />Of course, ideas are cheap. What I'm trying to do is not so much come up with a brilliant thought, but derive from logic what such a plan would look like. If the logic is sound enough, we can together develop a plausible strategy.<br /><br />Which gets me back to my slow introduction of the strategy.<br /><br />The audacious part so far has to be the number of people I propose to form our support base. Any marketing types out there must be laughing at me at this point. They would've been right to laugh three years ago, but I think I'm onto something.<br /><br />I've conceived several ways to pool resources together to make this happen. <br /><br />The other day, pizzaguy said, in a different context, that what many (most?) Americans are distracted by, are such things as<br />"... their kid's soccer game. <br />... who is sleeping with who in Hollywood. <br />... the balance in their 401k's, IRAs or SIMPLEs. <br />... Planning their next vacation. <br />... Paying for their kids' cars (which they drive right past the school bus every day.)"<br /><br />I do not dispute that. But how many of your fellow Americans do you really think are that shallow? That's <i>all</i> they think about? See, I'm an optimis <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[spacester]

There are some real nuggets from the last group of posts, in alignment with my plan.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Don't give up on the lottery idea altogether</font><br /><font color="yellow"> Offer someone a spot on one of the missions. People would pay quite a bit for a shot at that.</font><br /><font color="yellow">Include non-cash donations into the mix. </font><br /><font color="yellow">The biggest problem is believability and credibility.</font><br /><br />Not that the rest wasn't good too, it's just that these quotes jumped off the screen for me.<br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[grooble]

I like how premium bonds in the UK work. I invest say $200, and i am entered into a monthly lottery 200 times, the grand prize is $2m in US currency, per month. <br /><br />You could make it a lifetime duration, so if you invest $1, you are entered into the prize draw once per month for the next 20 years. $2 = 2x, $5 = 5x etc, you'll get people always pumping more in to improve their chances, but the cash prize value remains the same, so you'll get surplus funds which you can deposit and gain interest on.<br /><br />

 

[jhoblik]

I think to be approved for lottery will more complicated than create enterprise.<br />What about a first we will use rovers to find big chunk of ice on mars. It will be on Mars commodity similar to oil on Earth. And than every who gave money will own part of that area and his children will have profit from that commodity.<br /><br />

 

[spacefreek]

A potentially radical idea would be to sell Mars timeshares(JK, can you imagine that telemarketing call???). Or sell the entire planet Mars to Bill Gates and Sir Richard Branson, and run the project as The Mars Orbital Express powered by Windows and operated by Virgin Galactic. The bottom line I'm trying to get at is to use as much corporate sponsorship as possible. Have Reebok make the spacesuits with huge logos on them, and give them advertising that spans the solar system. Maybe Daimler/Chrysler could build a Martian Jeep. That'd boost their sales. Trail-rated for Mars, too. If there are corporate sponsors spending their monies to develop portions of the overall hardware and software requirements, and your company purchases the finished product, you've gotten a lot more bang for your buck by offsetting the R&D costs to the contractor, and offering them a lot in return.