Elon Musk’s SpaceX Is Raising Money at a Valuation Approaching $10B

Re:Elon Musk’s SpaceX Is Raising Money at a Valuation Approa... by danielweber on Tuesday August 19, 2014 @10:53AM (#8197599)

What profit or economics will drive colonization?

Consumption goods, not investment goods.

How do you convince ~100k people to pay 500k each to go there?

Back of the envelope Drake-like equation:

• Minimum wealth of richest 1% of Americans: $8.4 million

• Of those, 1% are in good enough mental and physical health to go

• Of those, 1% actually want to go.

That's 30,000 people. Obviously those numbers are seat-of-my-pants. Maybe only 1-in-a-thousand of people capable of making the trip want to go.

EDIT Tomp is right, my math was wrong.

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Re:Elon Musk’s SpaceX Is Raising Money at a Valuation Approa... by tomp on Tuesday August 19, 2014 @11:14AM (#8197727)

That's more like 300 people.

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Re:Elon Musk’s SpaceX Is Raising Money at a Valuation Approa... by lfuller on Tuesday August 19, 2014 @11:02PM (#8200920)

If the ticket is only $500k, I don't see it being limited to the top 1% richest. Given that you're making a one way trip to another planet, you no longer have need for any of your property including your car and home. If a middle class person making $80k - $150k were to save for 10 - 15 years then sell all their property then they certainly would be able to put together $500k. I know I'd be willing to go if Musk is able to pull this off.

In terms of compensation for the colonists, what are you going to do with money when you're on a dead rock 225 million kilometres from Earth?

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Re:Elon Musk’s SpaceX Is Raising Money at a Valuation Approa... by JoeAltmaier on Tuesday August 19, 2014 @10:55AM (#8197616)

Or 1 in a million. Or 1. Its a chancy proposition. Wealthy Americans are a very narrow demographic. Their risk-taking gene may be very correlated. I think you'd get either a lot of them, or almost none.

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