Blog sightings

http://michaelbelfiore.com/blog/2006/05/spaceshot-gaining-momentum.html#comments

http://www.personalspaceflight.info/category/business/space-shot/

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=49370335&blogID=111758414

The first blog listed talked about Virgin Galactic conducting a similar contest. Anyone heard anything more on this?

Does Space-Shot have a exclusionary contract, or can you try and rope Virgin in on this game too?

It might be interesting to have not only various types of contest (as discussed in other threads), but also various prizes...

Crux

Virgin Galactic has an exclusive with Virgin Skill.

Their Virgin Galactic Quest game is running a $1 million tournament right now. They said they wanted to launch a game to win a spaceflight in December, but did not.

As demand (or supply) warrants, we will add prizes.

Maybe Casinoes at spaceports.
http://channels.netscape.com/pf/story.j ... tm&sc=1333

Incorporating the OK spaceport into Native American territory would probably improve revenues for the spaceport, but potentially introduce safety issues.

more details soon.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1157924 ... lenews_wsj (subscription required) printed my letter to the editor:

Sam Dinkin writes: Like you, I was disaffected by the sci-fi dream not coming true. A few years back I decided to do something about it. I looked up Jeff Greason, the former Intel industrialist who was once an undergrad at Caltech in the same student house I was. I liked what he was doing and invested in his company, XCOR Aerospace. I told him I wanted to write about the history of property rights and colonization. The next year, he suggested I write to the Aldridge Commission. I submitted a recommendation on space-property rights in an open letter to them that was adopted. I read everything I could about space and decided that the message wasn't being delivered well. I wrote a regular column and tried to organize space journalists and offer a space journalism prize. I went to a fundraiser for House Space Committee chairs. But I wasn't getting through. I wasn't making an impact.

I decided I needed to do more, I needed to do something personal to egg the space economy along. I see the making of a gold rush, but no rush just yet. Maybe all we need is the blue jeans to make this work -- now.

I started SpaceShot. We were founded in October 2004 and opened our doors to the public on April 2. For $3.50, anyone can buy a shot at winning a spaceflight on Rocketplane XP, the suborbital offering from $207 million COTS winners Rocketplane-Kistler. The ordinary consumer is going to space soon, and you don't need $100 million like Elon Musk or Robert Bigelow to expedite it. $3.50 and you can do your part to usher in the consumer space age.

Mr. Dinkin is the CEO of SpaceShot Inc.

Look for more on Space-Shot.com from my new Blog, Decisive Win.[/url]

Let me start by saying that I don't know anything about these types of lotteries, and I am far too lazy to do the research myself.

Does anyone know if the winner is responsible for paying the taxes on the awards for these lotteries. I would be afraid that if I won, I couldn't afford to pay the taxes.

my $ 0.02 worth. Buck.Bunny

As I understand it you are responsible for the tax, but that is why they give you the flight plus a big chunk of money. They give you $100,000 on top of the flight. The tax rate is dependent on amounts lost that year and other stuff only a tax consultant would know. Thanks for the two cents worth, but I hope you go the whole $3.50!

Crux

We will be reworking the details of the prize and cash awards to make them work better from a business perspective. We will be trying to match the terms of the Space Frontier Foundation Teachers in Space program. I don't think the teachers are going to pay taxes. That is, we will try to set up the prizes so that your flight is part of astronaut training and as an educational reimbursement becomes non-taxable and at the same time increasing the educational value of the experience.

If that fails, we may try to set you up a political candidate or hire you as an astronaut or something. I don't think John Glenn paid taxes on his shuttle flight. Being hired as an astronaut trainee would give you more of an insider prespective. As a political candidate, you may harvest more benefit if you ever want to run for office. Worst case, if all that fails, as Crux says, if you are in the highest tax bracket and don't have any deductions, you can still not be out of pocket if you use the cash co-prize to pay your taxes.

A flight for someone willing to do the lecture circuit afterward would increase the value of their name and improve door receipts, right? Create a partnership with that person and the flight becomes an investment in the partnership. The exact details should probably depend on the State of residency for the winner.

The flight winner, offerer, and middlemen would make money on the results after the flight. That ought to work, I think as long as it's not a shell and actually has a chance to be in the black.

I expect Reda Andersen will be in demand after taking the first Rocketplane XP flight.

We should have a new article coming out in the space review next week or the week after.