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Comment by D_Alex | Hacker News Reader

I understand your cynicism, but suppose that you were seriously determined about setting up an organisation to explore and develop space. This is a very long-term endeavor. How would you go about it, and who would you hire first? Unless you have a mass of funding, if you hire scientists and engineers first, you will surely run out of money and the company will die.

You first need to create a system to feed the needs of the company for the decades it will take for it to start being profitable. And one way to do that is to spread an attractive vision of the company's plans and future. So yes, if you are very serious about exploring and developing space, finance, public relations and business development ARE the right places to start. IMHO.

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You seem to be suggesting that it's possible for someone to set up an organisation to explore and develop deep space commercial activities without a mass of funding? I would think step one in even contemplating such a gambit would be to acquire several billion dollars. Then, when you've got enough backing to look halfway credible (and hopefully some hint of an actual plan), you can start with the PR and business development to try and get the rest of your funding.

Or you start with $250 million in seed funding for a NASA deliverable. And deliver that on-time, on-budget, then use the profit to bootstrap your way into the next corporate / government contract until you have a) developed the necessary experience and b) acquired the necessary funding to tackle your real goal. Like SpaceX or one of the others is going.

Several billion may be excessive. SpaceX was funded with $100 of Musk's own money and another $100 million from other investors. The rest of the billion+ which has gone into it so far is from paying customers [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX#Funding

I'd argue that SpaceX was a bit of a special case. Elon Musk could probably build a deep-space asteroid mining company in a cave with a box of scraps.

So it is possible!

Touche.

If it's going to take decades to become profitable then you're already doomed and it doesn't matter who you hire first.

Or maybe they did start with the engineers. Maybe they already have some pretty cool technologies but they realised they don't know how to sell it all so they're looking for business people (yes, yes, very wishful thinking).

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