Ranking the Players In the Private Race to Space

rich, rich, and stupid, but rich.

@Azorus - They are smart. Way smarter than you could possibly imagine. Every NASA space shuttle launch costs upwards of $500 million. These guys realize they can only invested a tenth of that at the most and still offer an extremely competitive alternative to NASA and the global market as a whole. Even at $100 million it would still be a steal for NASA. I would imagine Space-X will have recouped most of it's initial investment in the first few launches... which it has already done.

Elon Musk, Branson, Bezos made their fortune in emerging markets that became full-blown mainstream. Think thrifty airlines, PayPal, Ebay, YouTube...

They're doing what they do best. Identifying emerging markets before they even emerge.

They are in a league of their own.

Robert Bigelow, Space Gigolo?

lol People i need ur help im gathering all the young minds of the world to help me. I may have found a form of artificial life not evactly how u would picture it. I may have found a huge neetwork of data forming a world of creatures made up of bits of DATA i am working on a program that is one of these creatures under my control so that i can step into thier world and these creatures do not have a solid form but can be seen when u enter the dada base of all computers
contact my email Zac7@aol.com and the subject will be known as project mastere code ok tell all ur smartest friends

Really... really? Popsci hasn't erased the abomination that can't even be considered a post by azrel13? I understand it's hard to catch everyone, but please. That was a ridiculous post. I wish I knew how to hack, so that I could find that person's IP address and send them a mirrion junk mail.

ARCA is who I've been really impressed by.

Armadillo Aerospace That's a cool name.

@ blaxpear

Some of us where not born with silver spoons. That was why I refered to the article in the way that i did.

This type of free spirit (and money) competition will push us forward much faster than any NASA effort. Having said that, NASA has provided the base of information allowing these efforts to progress.

Kim's right on the money.

Nasa, the Privatization of Space, the European Space Agency, and all the rest of the space agencies, companies, etc in the world will help Humanity push forward in the colonization and exploration of space. Space is Humanities future, if we don't get off this planet and become a multiple planet species, we won't survive. Many of you will say, who cares, that's hundreds if not thousands of years from now. Yeah, well your distant relatives will have to deal with it, so have a heart, and help. There's so many reasons for going into space, mining asteroids for resources, fixing overpopulation by expanding into space, planets, moons, searching for alien life, exploring the unknown, etc. They'll come a time when you'll be able to pay a couple of bucks and journey into space or some other planet like you would take a bus or subway into a city.

@Cookiees453
Sounds like Avatar is about to become real the way you say it.

Thank-you @Cookiees453
These are the 1st steps in getting into low earth orbit and beyond. Look back 20 years at the internet(arpanet)and computers(vacuum tubes), most people could never have imagined where it would lead to except a few. We have a "space port" being built in the desert, who would have thought.

I may have found a huge network of data forming a world of creatures made up of bits of DATA i am working on a program that is one of these creatures under my control so that i can step into their world and these creatures do not have a solid form but can be seen when u enter the data base of all computers
www.eprostateproblems.com/