The easiest way for Elon Musk to raise funds for SpaceX could be tourism

Before Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa can realize his dream of seeing the Moon with a collective of artists, SpaceX has yet to finish the rocket that will take the group into space. The company needs more money to finance the development of the vehicle, dubbed the BFR, and the wealthiest customers could be the best financing option for SpaceX.

On Monday, Musk said the total cost of developing the WCR would be about $ 5 billion, at a cost not exceeding $ 10 billion, but not less than $ 2 billion. Musk also said that SpaceX spent about 5% of its resources on the creation of this new vehicle at the moment.

Musk maintains that the WCR can ultimately be funded by existing SpaceX projects. These include launching satellites – for both commercial customers and the Department of Defense – as well as for cargo and astronauts to and from the International Space Station for NASA. The turnover of these companies does not seem sufficient for SpaceX to have all the necessary funds. quickly, although. It is more likely that SpaceX needs infusions of money, whether from people like Maezawa who are interested in the WCR or tourists wanting to travel to the International Space Station. Otherwise, the WCR will probably not start for the first time in the next two years, as Musk currently plans.

SpaceX at has increased its annual launch rate, which will help generate more money. But the company still launches only a few dozen payloads a year. Last year, SpaceX launched 18 Falcon 9s; this year, it is planned to launch more than 24. "Certainly, they have a very good business and they are already able to capture the majority of commercial space launch activities," says Greg Autry, assistant professor at university. Southern California, specializing in new space companies. But Falcon 9 rockets start at $ 62 million per mission, which makes them significantly cheaper than competing vehicles. This point of sale also means that SpaceX does not make the margins on sales that could easily finance the BFR.

Image: SpaceX

The most recent deployment of the upgraded Falcon 9 Block 5 should help, however. Block 5 is supposed to be even easier to reuse. SpaceX is already reducing run-time between flights and reducing rocket refurbishment between launches. This should help reduce the cost of making new rockets for every trip in space. However, if SpaceX's costs drop regularly from $ 25 million to $ 30 million per flight, for example, the company generates tens of millions per launch. In the best case, this represents about half a billion dollars a year for 20 launches.

SpaceX needs to employ around 7,000 people to make Rockets Generally, we pay the employees. The more people working on the WCR, the more SpaceX spends to pay for them. "The main cost is the staff," says Charles Miller, president of NexGen Space LLC, a space consulting firm and former member of NASA's Trump Administration Transition Team. "These are not the materials that he has to buy. The primary cost is the great world-class rocket team he works on [the BFR]. "

It's not like the BFR was the only major SpaceX initiative. The company plans to build a massive satellite internet project called Starlink, a constellation of thousands of space probes that will send the internet to Earth. SpaceX has received approval from the FCC to send these satellites after the successful launch of two test probes in February. However, SpaceX must launch at least half of its first network of 4,425 satellites in the next six years to maintain its license. It's expensive; SpaceX estimates that it will cost $ 10 billion to develop the entire Starlink, which will represent nearly 12,000 satellites in total. So, the company will need to spend a large portion of its revenue on Starlink, and this initiative has a difficult deadline.

Photo by Space Adventures / Getty Images

This makes attractive private customers a source of money for the WCR. Maezawa did not say how much he had paid to book a full BFR flight for himself and eight handpicked artists. Musk said the amount was "not insignificant" and that it would have a significant impact on the development of BFR. So, how much is "non-trivial" to develop a rocket? It could reach hundreds of millions of dollars. "It gives me reason to believe that this could be enough to move the project forward," says Laura Forczyk, space consultant and owner of space research and consulting company Astralytical. The edge.

If SpaceX decides to engage in private space tourism to raise funds for the WCR, the company has the means to do so. Currently, SpaceX is working on the development of a passenger spacecraft called Crew Dragon to take NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station as part of the crew program. SpaceX has received billions of dollars from NASA to help finance the development of this capability and pay for scheduled flights to the ISS once the crew dragon is operational.

NASA has only asked SpaceX to have at least four seats for the space agency team, but SpaceX can add three more seats to the vehicle if it wants to. These seats could contain extra cargo or go to tourists who want to make a long trip to the ISS. NASA's director, Jim Bridenstine, also discussed the possibility of opening commercial vehicles to tourism.

Very rich people have already engaged in space tourism, although the idea is unusual, it has a precedent. The singer Sarah Brightman has released $ 52 million to visit the ISS with Space Adventures, a tourism company that has set up flights on the Russian rocket Soyuz. (She eventually withdrew for personal reasons). A Space Adventures client, Charles Simonyi, even paid to get to the ISS twice. The Virgin Galactic space tourism company also sold up to 700 tickets for $ 250,000 each, just to send people into space for a few minutes.

Image: SpaceX

Adding customers to an existing flight of the Crew Dragon could represent an easy money for SpaceX, and if the costs of the Falcon 9 continue to drop, launch a Crew Dragon filled with seven Private tourists could also be lucrative. Rich space tourists could expand SpaceX's revenue base. "I think there is an important market for wealthy people who would like to travel in space," says Miller. "This is not as proven as the launch of commercial satellites, but a dozen people have paid to buy tickets in orbit."

This is something to consider since SpaceX's chances of getting substantial US government funding for BFR are not great. This trip is sort of an advertising campaign for the BFR's ability to send people to the moon – just as NASA is focused on the laser to return to the lunar surface. But NASA has its own rocket, the Space Launch System; it is comparable to the BFR, and NASA has already paid billions for that. The SLS is also supported by Congress, particularly by members whose constituents build the rocket. Unless SpaceX can demonstrate that the WCR is able to better manage the SLS, it is unlikely that the company will receive public funds. "[Musk] must be able to start with its own capital, "said Miller. "It's getting future capital from NASA, it's great."

This suggests that SpaceX could benefit from the space tourism game as it is the easiest way to make money fast enough to finance new projects. Otherwise, the WCR will be heavily delayed. Musk said the goal was to start major testing of the BFR spacecraft part as early as 2019, with high-speed rocket booster flights in 2020. But a rocket as big and complex as the BFR would have to pose unexpected challenges. (Try, if you can, to name a space project on time and on budget.) If SpaceX does not want to spend decades developing its rocket, it will find more passengers like Maezawa who are ready to open their door. change. wait patiently for one trip to be the key to the success of the WCR.