Space is cool, and full of useful stuff, but lately it seems we are never going to get there until we take on space as a private venture.  Space based cold wars aside, governments just don’t seem to be interested in the massive investments needed for mankind to colonize space.  Private ventures are certainly making big steps forward.  There’s the X prize, Virgin Galactic, and SpaceX.  But, sending wealthy space tourists on a sub orbital amusement park ride isn’t going to cut it either, even if it is an impressive first step.  And, aerospace mega corporations have been building rockets to put satellites in orbit since the 60s, why is SpaceX any different?

But there is a long term strategy that not only puts people in space but also gives average people like us a chance to participate.  The plan is simple.  Invest a small amount of money in the best long term investments you can find, then follow the 80/20 rule and use the dividends to fund space exploration!

What?

OK, lets say we can find 10,000 people across the world willing to invest just $50 in a for profit, LONG term venture to make real money by exploring space.  That may seem like a small investment, but we have all the time in the world.  Of course, you could find big investors with deep pockets to get things going a lot faster, but frankly if big investors were interested in doing this, they would be doing it NOW.  So they aren’t going to do it.  But I’m sure we can find at least 10,000 starry eyed dreamers willing to part with $50, especially since in the long term they will become the wealthiest people in the history of human civilization.  That’s right, even Bill Gates would blush to imagine the kind of wealth they will eventually generate, but you must be patient.  So, that’s a $500,000 initial investment.  Figure after adjusting for inflation, you should be able to earn 10% annually.  20% of the annual income will be spent on the annual budget, the rest is re-invested.

50 Years in the Future

After 50 years, the fund would have accumulated about $4.7 million in capital.  The annual budget would still be just $94 K per year.  So, after 50 years, the FHES would still have pretty meager funding, considering the ultimate goal is conquest of the entire universe.  Still, $94 K is enough to offer some small college scholarships, encouraging young students to go into science and engineering, of course using this as an excuse to push our agenda forward.  Maybe some very small cash prizes for demonstrating key technologies in space exploration, for example a self sufficient, sealed biosphere (how hard can that be really?)  But, all in all, still small potatoes.

100 Years

OK, now the fund is at $219 Million, and the annual budget has grown to $4.4 M.  We’ve also graduated at least a few dozen FHES “scholars”, which if we chose wisely may have succeeded and occupy important positions in government and industry, and most importantly, they are getting the word out.  After all, If we want to change mankind forever, we need to do it one person at a time.  But anyway, a $4.4 million annual budget is enough to get some real work done.  Still not enough to really put people in space, but we could now fund a small research institute, solving some of the tougher technical problems in the manned exploration of space.  Obviously we’d want to staff it with at least a few FHES scholars.  Maybe ½ the annual budget or more could fund the institute.  Maybe a staff of a dozen scientists with an equal number of support staff, plus some administrative support.  $2 million per year, even adjusted for inflation, really doesn’t buy much, but it’s a start.  But, there’d also be more money for the scholarship program, plus more money for technology prizes.  By paying out an annuity stream instead of a lump sum, we could bank future dividends against larger prizes.  We might even be able to offer s $10 million X prize for demonstrating some key technology to involve more of private industry.

150 years

Now the ball is really rolling.  Capitalization is now $10 billion, with a $206 million annual budget.  The research institute would be large and well funded.  We would be able to attract world class scientists to take on major research projects.  We would even be able to fund our own launches.  For example, at a price tag around $400 million, we could seriously send a privately funded robotic mission to Mars.  If NASA can put Phoenix together for about that much, I’m sure with greater creativity a privately funded mission could do much better with less money.  OF course, this wouldn’t be a single year budget hit, we’d spread out the program of 4-6 years, at a level of no more than $100 M per year, and still have money to spare.  Also, we’d be pumping out FHES scholars at a higher rate.  The FHES scholarship program would become an important institution, at least in the narrow field of space technology and research.  While $206 million per year is an impressive budget, it still is not enough to accomplish our ultimate goal of putting people in space.  Still, we could start doing the important planetary research to lay the foundation of that effort.  For example, can water be extracted from Deimos using an robotic mission?  What about solar sails?  Nuclear electric propulsion?  There are lots fo technologies we will need for the next phase.

200 years

After 200 years of patient planning, our time has finally arrived.  Nearly $500 billion in capitalization and $10 billion annual budget.  $10 billion per year is enough money to do just about anything.  We’d begin with a manned mission to Mars, but not some Nancy mission to go there for 2 weeks, collect some rocks, and come back.  We are going to stay.  Earlier missions have already established an unmanned outpost, with a small nuclear reactor to process water pumped from underlying water ice deposits.  We’d also collect atmospheric CO2 and process it in a large tank of water (collected locally) with some mineral from the local soil, to grow algae.  The manned mission would arrive with a small habitat and some heavy construction equipment.  The first step would be to dig into the underlying ice layer, which is 100s of meters thick, and mining out the water to create ice caves.  The first thing we’d do is put an inflatable sir lock near the mouth of the cave so the cave system could be pressurized.  We’d put the caves just deep enough so we could hold some pressure easily, and also the site would be preselected so the ice was free of major fractures.  If we find small cracks, they are easily patched just hosing the surface with clod liquid water, which would freeze quickly and seal the cracks.

Now, some of the caves would have insulated liners and be used for habitation and workspace.  Others could be filled with water and salts collected from surface soil and kept at -5 C, cold enough not to melt the surrounding ice, but not cold enough to freeze seawater.  Into the mix we add mineral nutrients, bio engineered algae and plankton, and then grow fish.  Maybe some Alaskan king crab too, why should the Martian explorers be deprived of luxuries?

Into the future

Obviously there are some technical problems to solve, but over the past 200 years the institute should have been able to solve them.  Without getting lost in the details, the foundation would add to the outpost year after year.  We would build a small fleet of reusable spacecraft to bring supplies from low earth orbit and deliver them to the outpost on Mars.  Over time the outpost would grow to a colony, and within 10 years we would be ready to begin exploiting the resources of near earth or near mars asteroids.  We’d use the Mars colony as a base to reach the asteroids, and the asteroids as a source of raw materials to build much larger facilities near EARTH, both in low earth orbit and on the moon.  Eventually we’d build larger facilities in the asteroid belt to more easily extract resources from there.  Most likely, Ceres would be a good first outpost in the asteroid belt.  

Eventually, we could build massive space based solar power stations to provide cheap power on earth.  We could extract rare precious metals and perhaps send them to earth at a profit.  But the big wealth would come from exploiting the resources in the solar system itself.  The icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn. solar power from Mercury, where the sunlight is 10 times more energetic than near earth, etc. 

All the wealth in the universe would be ours for the taking.  And, if not the original 10,000 investors, at least the inheritors of their estates would become the wealthiest individuals in the history of human civilization. 

I’ve got $50 to spare, do you?