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Who Wants to Buy a Satellite?

Aired November 11, 2003 - 15:21   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Ever wanted to have your own satellite? I'm not talking about a satellite dish, your own satellite orbiting above us 17,500 miles an hour. Well, it's as simple as putting in a bid on eBay. Of course, you could skip the auction and just buy it now for $9.5 million. That includes the launch. But what fun would be that? And who would bid on such a thing, you might ask?
Well, we've got the man who made this posting to eBay with us, the founder of a company called SpaceDev, based in Poway, California, outside of San Diego, and a space visionary himself, Jim Benson.

Jim, good to have you with us.

JAMES BENSON, FOUNDER, SPACEDEV: Hi, Miles. Good to see you again.

O'BRIEN: It's good to have you here.

Let's talk about why you decided to go to eBay.

BENSON: Well, Miles, as you may know, we launched our first microsatellite in January of this year. It's an Earth-orbiting NASA science mission. And it's the world's first orbiting note on the Internet, the first satellite that can be operated from a laptop computer anywhere in the world.

And SpaceDev is lowering the cost of access to space. So we thought, well, let's further open up space to the public. Let's offer a satellite for sale over eBay and see what kind of fun we can have and maybe make some money while we're at it.

O'BRIEN: All right, the minimum bid, $250,000. The bidding opened up last night. So far, no takers.

BENSON: We have a minimum bid of $250,000, so that we can screen the serious bidders. If we wanted to have some fun, I guess we could open that up, but we really do want serious bidders. The wife of the guy who has everything, or the guy that wants to buy his wife the first-ever private space mission, or somebody who actually, university or government agency, who would actually like to fly a serious payload.

O'BRIEN: All right, this would be great stuff at a cocktail party. But, besides that, what would be the point of having your own satellite?

BENSON: There are a lot of people, who, like Dennis Tito, for example, who wanted to go to space and spend $20 million buying a ticket to go to the space station.

For people who have less money, but perhaps would like to own their own space mission, this is a possibility. And it's less expensive than the rigors of going through six months of training and spending $20 million to actually go to space. But, in a few months, SpaceDev, through its propulsion division, hopes to be sending people toward space on Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne. So we're trying to open space to the public on the propulsion side and on the satellite side.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about SpaceShipOne. You're going to provide the rocket motor for this effort out of Mojave, California. Burt Rutan, who designed the aircraft Voyager, flew around the world on one tank of gas -- the spacecraft is in the belly of that larger craft there -- will give folks a suborbital ride, if all goes well. And they'll pay, who knows, $100,000 or so. Is there really a business for all of these things, Jim?

BENSON: Miles, I think the suborbital space tourism could be a multibillion dollar project. I'm glad that SpaceShipOne is going to be powered by SpaceDev. I like to think of it as SpaceDev inside.

I made my modest fortune in the computer field, specifically microcomputers. So, when I founded SpaceDev a few years ago, I did it to bring the microcomputer wave thinking to space. I want to revolutionize space, the way Apple revolutionized the computer industry. And we're already successful in launching the country's smallest high-performance low-cost satellite. And we're trying to involve the public, get the youth excited about space again, and offer space missions to the public, whether they're suborbital space rides powered by SpaceDev or satellites built by SpaceDev.

O'BRIEN: I think Miles-Sat has kind of a ring to it, doesn't it?

BENSON: Miles-Sat. There you go.

O'BRIEN: Yes, you like that? All right, maybe -- you give me a bargain? Probably not.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

BENSON: For you, Miles, anything.

O'BRIEN: I'm going to call the credit card company, see how much I can get.

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: All right, Jim Benson with SpaceDev; eBay is the location. Just put in SpaceDev there. You can go to the site and at least take a look. And if you've got a quarter of a million bucks sitting around there, why don't you join in the bidding?

Jim Benson, thanks for your time.

BENSON: Good to see you, Miles. Thank you.

O'BRIEN: All right. Good luck.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired November 11, 2003 - 15:21   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Ever wanted to have your own satellite? I'm not talking about a satellite dish, your own satellite orbiting above us 17,500 miles an hour. Well, it's as simple as putting in a bid on eBay. Of course, you could skip the auction and just buy it now for $9.5 million. That includes the launch. But what fun would be that? And who would bid on such a thing, you might ask?
Well, we've got the man who made this posting to eBay with us, the founder of a company called SpaceDev, based in Poway, California, outside of San Diego, and a space visionary himself, Jim Benson.

Jim, good to have you with us.

JAMES BENSON, FOUNDER, SPACEDEV: Hi, Miles. Good to see you again.

O'BRIEN: It's good to have you here.

Let's talk about why you decided to go to eBay.

BENSON: Well, Miles, as you may know, we launched our first microsatellite in January of this year. It's an Earth-orbiting NASA science mission. And it's the world's first orbiting note on the Internet, the first satellite that can be operated from a laptop computer anywhere in the world.

And SpaceDev is lowering the cost of access to space. So we thought, well, let's further open up space to the public. Let's offer a satellite for sale over eBay and see what kind of fun we can have and maybe make some money while we're at it.

O'BRIEN: All right, the minimum bid, $250,000. The bidding opened up last night. So far, no takers.

BENSON: We have a minimum bid of $250,000, so that we can screen the serious bidders. If we wanted to have some fun, I guess we could open that up, but we really do want serious bidders. The wife of the guy who has everything, or the guy that wants to buy his wife the first-ever private space mission, or somebody who actually, university or government agency, who would actually like to fly a serious payload.

O'BRIEN: All right, this would be great stuff at a cocktail party. But, besides that, what would be the point of having your own satellite?

BENSON: There are a lot of people, who, like Dennis Tito, for example, who wanted to go to space and spend $20 million buying a ticket to go to the space station.

For people who have less money, but perhaps would like to own their own space mission, this is a possibility. And it's less expensive than the rigors of going through six months of training and spending $20 million to actually go to space. But, in a few months, SpaceDev, through its propulsion division, hopes to be sending people toward space on Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne. So we're trying to open space to the public on the propulsion side and on the satellite side.

O'BRIEN: Let's talk about SpaceShipOne. You're going to provide the rocket motor for this effort out of Mojave, California. Burt Rutan, who designed the aircraft Voyager, flew around the world on one tank of gas -- the spacecraft is in the belly of that larger craft there -- will give folks a suborbital ride, if all goes well. And they'll pay, who knows, $100,000 or so. Is there really a business for all of these things, Jim?

BENSON: Miles, I think the suborbital space tourism could be a multibillion dollar project. I'm glad that SpaceShipOne is going to be powered by SpaceDev. I like to think of it as SpaceDev inside.

I made my modest fortune in the computer field, specifically microcomputers. So, when I founded SpaceDev a few years ago, I did it to bring the microcomputer wave thinking to space. I want to revolutionize space, the way Apple revolutionized the computer industry. And we're already successful in launching the country's smallest high-performance low-cost satellite. And we're trying to involve the public, get the youth excited about space again, and offer space missions to the public, whether they're suborbital space rides powered by SpaceDev or satellites built by SpaceDev.

O'BRIEN: I think Miles-Sat has kind of a ring to it, doesn't it?

BENSON: Miles-Sat. There you go.

O'BRIEN: Yes, you like that? All right, maybe -- you give me a bargain? Probably not.

(LAUGHTER)

(CROSSTALK)

BENSON: For you, Miles, anything.

O'BRIEN: I'm going to call the credit card company, see how much I can get.

(LAUGHTER)

O'BRIEN: All right, Jim Benson with SpaceDev; eBay is the location. Just put in SpaceDev there. You can go to the site and at least take a look. And if you've got a quarter of a million bucks sitting around there, why don't you join in the bidding?

Jim Benson, thanks for your time.

BENSON: Good to see you, Miles. Thank you.

O'BRIEN: All right. Good luck.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com