Thread: Omniscience Explorations (Private Space Company) - Rockets -

Hello! This is Timothy Gleason, President and CEO of Omniscience Explorations. The company was launched January 18th, 2011 even though the designs have been in the planning stage for a few years. I have been following Space X, Virgin Galactic, Armadillo, and a few other companies for awhile now. We are a group of students studying aerospace engineering, space sciences, electrical engineering, chemistry, biology, computer sciences, programming, graphic designing, audio engineering, mechanical engineering, and a wide variety of all other math and science based majors. We are mostly all still in school, however, we do have some graduates in the company. We have a general plan on paper as to how to go about launching rockets (big ones). I wanted to get some insight from you as to what you might think of our concept. We are, as the title suggests, a privately created space company. I wanted to share this with you all and see if there was anyone interested in this idea. We conduct research on space flight and our current set goal is to launch a rocket into low earth orbit (LEO). If you or anyone has any ideas on the business concept or the rocket concept, I’m open for discussion. My major is actually Space Physics for those of you wondering. If you want more information please check out our website… I don’t know if I am allowed to post link here… but we’ll see what happens. I have also been talking with a few people from Space X, who designed the Merlin engine for their Falcon rockets. I would post more, it is difficult to post an entire business plan in a paragraph… I suggest checking out our recently updated forum board on the website. Thanks.

I see no business plan on your web site.

Who are your competitors? How do you plan to outcompete them? Who are your clients?

The business has only been established for a legal aspect. We are only in the research part and therefore we have no competitors. As for a business plan, I'm not looking for investors right now.

So, really this is a discussion about the viability of private space enterprises in general, especially startups. It could be interesting.

I don't think anyone has ever found a way to profit by launching rockets at all. I'm not exactly sure how it works to put a satellite in space, but it's still mostly done by NASA isn't it? I doubt they charge the full price that would cover all of their costs, especially static costs like retaining engineers to work full time.

How would you propose to accomplish the task cheaper than they do it? And without government subsidies?

Well, first off. I appreciate the interest because, as I have found of in the NASA forum, I don't convey the message the right way. I was egotistical in my approach. Currently NASA is being phased out of the rocket launching and instead they are being used to research the whole "go green" thing. They do continue to train astronauts but the astronauts are sent up through the Russian space program because NASA has retired the Orbiter. I have a few concepts to make space profitable. I am skeptical to share the concepts because I would like to apply them instead of having larger established companies use them... if they work that is. This is the first time I am typing my plans but your interest in me has caused me to take an interest in you.. If that makes sense. Anyway, here is ONE of the plans to make space profitable. I have been doing research into determining the main metals used in space debris. I have ran the percentages of the rare metals found in a single piece of space debris. Then I have done the math to determine the amount of space debris. It's only multiplication... but my research is to determine the worth in "harvesting" the space debris and bringing it back to earth or.... bringing it to the moon to use as construction materials. The profit to be made would be from harvesting resources on either A. the moon or B. a near planet (Mars)

I think if we can get the cost down and safety issues up... which is what Space X has done and is in the process of continuing to do, then many more people will be excited about space.


But.. how can we be sure there is no way to make profit if we don't try and try and try again to find it. so I assure you I will find the answer if it takes me my whole life to do it... hopefully sooner than later, and im hoping we can bring more people on the team to help with this cause.

That sounds like a good place to start. Bringing down rare minerals would be the strongest economic benefit, if they exist in the right quantities, as you've mentioned, and are accessible enough to grab. If someone could build a large enough amount of infrastructure on the Moon's surface to get the process started, sending the harvested materials back to Earth is clearly a lot simpler than trying to get them to the Moon from Earth.

If you could synthesize fuel from Regolith on the Moon's surface, and then have a bunch of rockets routinely making the trip from the Moon to Low Earth Orbit, and back again (refueling when they reach the Moon), then you could make a fortune offering to ferry people back and forth.

NASA and others would still have to figure out how to get their rockets into LEO (Low Earth Orbit) in the first place, but once they're there, you'll get them the rest of the way with your taxi service. Their savings would be huge by going through you. But.... you'd need to have some part of the process intellectually protected, or they could just copy you once you'd taxied them.

Exactly! Well summarized. I believe the approach to "protecting" the idea will be through space legislation. State laws for launching rockets and returning rockets... There needs to be a "space consortium" that would essentially keep an eye on things and make sure no one is getting screwed. Galactic Alliance... tahah wow this is definately out there but it's so crazy it just might work!

Oh, you don't want space legislation to be your protection. Whoever brings the best paid lobbyists, and contributes the most money to the appropriate senators' campaign funds is who will always win that battle, and that won't be you. (Even more true if you're dealing with governments outside the USA). It's better to find a part of the process that can still be protected through intellectual property laws, because those are already well established in international treaties, and Congress can't really screw with them too much.

Another possibility is to set your payload limits so NASA and others are never able to take a large amount of material with them on your taxi runs (or require them to bring up more equipment for you than they do for themselves as part of their payment for the service.) Then they have to choose between setting up their own service without you, and just letting you keep your monopoly. I guess that's the problem with the taxi plan..... you only make the money back if you can hold onto the monopoly.

Fundamentally, I guess that is the main problem with the space race. Whoever buys in to get it started will get screwed. Everyone else is going to make the profits at their expense.

Just an idea- if you want an edge, go big, or fill a niche. Spaceplanes, nuke rockets are ways to make a splash. Im not sure you have the money or means to do this right now though.