{"id":19205,"date":"2016-10-17T19:00:01","date_gmt":"2016-10-17T11:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/book-recounts-how-billionaires-paul-allen-and-jeff-bezos-helped-start-a-space-race\/"},"modified":"2016-10-17T19:00:01","modified_gmt":"2016-10-17T11:00:01","slug":"book-recounts-how-billionaires-paul-allen-and-jeff-bezos-helped-start-a-space-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/book-recounts-how-billionaires-paul-allen-and-jeff-bezos-helped-start-a-space-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Book recounts how billionaires Paul Allen and Jeff Bezos helped start a space race"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Binnie,
Seattle billionaire Paul Allen (center) shakes the hand of SpaceShipOne pilot Brian Binnie in 2004 with rocket plane designer Burt Rutan by his side. (Photo courtesy of Scaled Composites LLC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Commercial spaceflight seems to be hitting its stride right about now, thanks in part to the launch programs funded by billionaires such as SpaceX\u2019s Elon Musk, Blue Origin\u2019s Jeff Bezos and Vulcan Aerospace\u2019s Paul Allen.<\/p>\n

But the spark for that entrepreneurial space was lit two decades ago, and a newly published book reveals how Musk, Bezos and Allen were striking some the matches way back when.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow to Make a Spaceship,\u201d written by Julian Guthrie, focuses on XPRIZE co-founder Peter Diamandis and his years-long quest to create a $10 million competition for private-sector spaceflight.<\/p>\n

That quest reached its climax in 2004, when the Allen-backed SpaceShipOne rocket plane made multiple flights into outer space and won the prize. But the seeds were sown in the 1990s when Diamandis made the rounds looking for XPRIZE sponsors.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GIUtc9IkdX8<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bezos, Musk and Allen were all among the prospects. Allen, one of Microsoft\u2019s co-founders, owned a controlling interest in Charter Communications at the time \u2013 and in 1998 he was talking with aerospace guru Burt Rutan about using a high-flying plane called the Proteus to provide broadband data services.<\/p>\n

Rutan suggested that the Proteus, or something like it, might be used to launch a spaceship from the air. That got Allen\u2019s attention. Eventually, the promise of a $10 million prize led Allen and Rutan to forge a secret agreement to create SpaceShipOne.<\/p>\n

\"Peter
Peter Diamandis (via Google+)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One little problem: Diamandis hadn\u2019t yet secured all of the $10 million. And when Allen\u2019s point person for the project, Dave Moore, met with Diamandis to discuss sponsorship of the prize, Moore didn\u2019t let on that his boss was already working with a team that aimed to win it.<\/p>\n

The book recounts Diamandis\u2019 1999 trip to Seattle to meet with Bezos, who had already achieved billionaire status thanks to his success with Amazon. Bezos seemed like the perfect fit for an XPRIZE title sponsorship: During his college days at Princeton, Bezos headed the university\u2019s chapter of the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space \u2013 which Diamandis had co-founded.<\/p>\n

But at their breakfast meeting, it dawned on Diamandis that Bezos was saving up money for his own space venture, which came to be known as Blue Origin.<\/p>\n

\u201cBezos told Peter that Amazon was his means to make money to get to space,\u201d Guthrie writes. \u201cThe more money Amazon made, the better his chances were of opening space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"How
\u201cHow to Make a Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, an Epic Race and the Birth of Private Spaceflight\u201d was written by Julian Guthrie, with a preface by Richard Branson and an afterword by Stephen Hawking. (Credit: Penguin Random House)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Elon Musk was courted in 2001, at a time when the dot-com entrepreneur was thinking about starting up a space venture. Diamandis pitched his own startup, called Blastoff, which he hoped would bring in enough money for the XPRIZE (and put a lander on the moon in the process).<\/p>\n

Once again, Diamandis was turned down. Instead of backing the XPRIZE, or trying to send a space capsule full of mice to Martian orbit, or putting a greenhouse on the Martian surface, Musk founded the Space Exploration Technologies Corp. \u2013 SpaceX.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Diamandis closed the gap for the $10 million XPRIZE in 2002 by arranging for the purchase of an unorthodox insurance policy: For a $1.3 million balloon payment, plus $50,000 a month, XL Specialty Insurance agreed to pay the $10 million if any team was able to win the prize before the end of 2004.<\/p>\n

The policy was modeled after \u201chole-in-one\u201d insurance deals that are typically provided for golf tournaments and free-throw contests. In the nick of time, a family of Iranian-American entrepreneurs \u2013 led by Anousheh and Hamid Ansari, and Hamid\u2019s brother Amir \u2013 pledged $1.75 million, which was enough to cover the balloon payment and some of the related expenses.<\/p>\n

SpaceShipOne won the prize less than three months before the policy was to expire, and XL Specialty Insurance paid the money as promised to the joint venture created by Allen and Rutan.<\/p>\n