Golden Spike announce Phase A for commercial lunar landing missions

[Chris Bergin]

We're out of embargo (1pm Eastern)

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/12/golden-spike-phase-a-commercial-lunar-landing-missions/

This article is mainly constructed from phone interviews kindly accommodated by GS, with some quotes from the pressers.

[Andy DC]

Thanks Chris. Excellent read as always and an exciting plan.....

.....but funded by sales? Would have been huge if they had a billionaire on board, but hey, great team, they will be attractive.

[Jason1701]

Thanks Chris. Excellent read as always and an exciting plan.....

.....but funded by sales? Would have been huge if they had a billionaire on board, but hey, great team, they will be attractive.

Hopefully they'll get some venture capital as interest grows about them.

[DLR]

So Warren Buffet, Guy Laliberte and Richard Branson not involved?

[Chris Bergin]

So Warren Buffet, Guy Laliberte and Richard Branson not involved?

I was telling people that "tumblr" site was full of nonsense.

[Danny Dot]

I wish them all the luck in the world.

[Rocket Science]

Great article Chris, even though the embargo was a bit of a sieve... Such is the modern mass media world we live in...

[mrmandias]

 7-8 billion is the budget for everything up through the first manned crew to the moon, which would presumably be the culmination of the two-three test missions they want to fly before sending up paying customers. 

If each mission costs $750 million for the hardware and operations, then you'd need to have 20 customers to recoup your development costs.  20 customers is about the size of their maximum potential market, according to their own estimate.  If its only, say, $300 million, then you need 14, which is still a worrisome amount of market penetration.  At the limit case where your operations and your mission hardware cost nothing, you still need 10 customers, half your estimated potential market.

A lot depends on how much the missions themselves cost, but even more depends on having some kind of international craze for moon missions or, more probably, having a few customers who pick up multiple tickets.  Basically, as excited as I am about this, without serious NASA support its probably a bridge too far even for an ambitious plan.  But you bet I'm going to rooting for them every step of the way.

The X-factor is the potential revenues from "participation," which they haven't announced the details of yet, but say they have some interesting stuff in mind.  Can't wait to find out.

[jongoff]

Neat, thanks Chris, and thanks to Stern and the other folks for giving us such access.

So if I'm doing the math right, they need to sell about 10 tickets to meet their 7-8 billion budget.  Hmm, was that purely a development budget or does it also cover operations costs for the missions?  I'll have to read the article again.

So a maximum of 10 countries.  Ambitious, very ambitious, but at least plausible.

Also there are potential revenues from "participation," which they haven't announced the details of yet, but say they have some interesting stuff in mind.  Can't wait to find out.

Edit: 7-8 billion is the budget for everything up through the first manned crew to the moon, which would presumably be the culmination of the two-three test missions they want to fly before sending up paying customers.

I'm concerned that if they expect the addressable market is 10-25 tickets per decade at that price, and if they expect $7-8B in up-front costs (and likely something north of $500M in marginal cost per flight), you'd have to sell 14-16 tickets to break even, which is a healthy fraction of their identified market (possibly greater than 100% of the market if things break toward the lower end of their limit. They can make it work if they can really finance it entirely off of sales...but I'm skeptical. If the development cost were in the range incorrectly reported by one of the newspaper articles I saw ($1.4B), then this would be a lot more interesting.

Not impossible, but not highly likely either. Glad to see though that they're at least funding some good studies with Masten, AA, etc.

~Jon

[Rocket Science]

The cost per seat is certainly within the realm of nation states wishing to have one of “their” astronauts on the Moon.

[jongoff]

7-8 billion is the budget for everything up through the first manned crew to the moon, which would presumably be the culmination of the two-three test missions they want to fly before sending up paying customers. 

If each mission costs $750 million for the hardware and operations, then you'd need to have 20 customers to recoup your development costs.  20 customers is about the size of their maximum potential market, according to their own estimate.  If its only, say, $300 million, then you need 14, which is still a worrisome amount of market penetration.  At the limit case where your operations and your mission hardware cost nothing, you still need 10 customers, half your estimated potential market.

A lot depends on how much the missions themselves cost, but even more depends on having some kind of international craze for moon missions or, more probably, having a few customers who pick up multiple tickets.  Basically, as excited as I am about this, without serious NASA support its probably a bridge too far even for an ambitious plan.  But you bet I'm going to rooting for them every step of the way.

The X-factor is the potential revenues from "participation," which they haven't announced the details of yet, but say they have some interesting stuff in mind.  Can't wait to find out.

I type to slow...Well said, MrMandias!

~Jon

[Lee Jay]

The "national prestige" portion confuses me.  How does hiring someone to provide your country with a service gain you "national prestige"?

[Khadgars]

I'm not too optimistic about this.  Seems to me more of a PR move, especially with Newt in there.

[Dappa]

The "national prestige" portion confuses me.  How does hiring someone to provide your country with a service gain you "national prestige"?

You can plant your flag somewhere where nobdy gets to see it. 

[simonbp]

I don't know. Ask the Arab or Asian countries that build giant buildings using US and European contractors. Or the US companies that sell fancy electronics built by Chinese and Taiwanese contractors.

If Sweden buys a flight and plants a Swedish flag on the Moon, they'll get prestige from it, regardless of the contractor.

[Rocket Science]

The "national prestige" portion confuses me.  How does hiring someone to provide your country with a service gain you "national prestige"?

You can plant your flag somewhere where nobdy gets to see it. 

When I first read your comment, well I thought... never mind... 

[yg1968]

The Press Conference starts in 15 minutes:
http://press.org/events/golden-spike-company-debut

Does anyone know if it will be webcasted?

[Jason1701]

The Press Conference starts in 15 minutes:
http://press.org/events/golden-spike-company-debut

Does anyone know if it will be webcasted?

Word is no.

[Ben the Space Brit]

The "national prestige" portion confuses me.  How does hiring someone to provide your country with a service gain you "national prestige"?

Because, no matter who provides the hardware, you're putting up the cash and get to have your flag on the rock.  It's the sort of thing that would make sense to a politician with an over-exaggerated interest in his or her historical legacy.

That said, it would have to be a sure thing to attract that sort of customer.  Most will only come out of the woodwork after they demonstrate human launch capability.

[tigerade]

The Press Conference starts in 15 minutes:
http://press.org/events/golden-spike-company-debut

Does anyone know if it will be webcasted?

Chris said no.  But I hope it is at least recorded and uploaded later.