Peter Diamandis - XPrize and Planetary Resources

Learn more about the Xprize here, the Ansari XPrize here, and Planetary Resources here.

Originally posted on SSI's first Website in 2012:

To cap off our most successful quarter yet, SSI hosted Peter Diamandis on Dec 4th to talk about his experiences with space entrepreneurship. Having started 16 companies, two thirds of them in the space, few know how difficult starting a space company can be as well as Peter. He reminded us of this very quickly by admitting that on average his companies have had 10-year startups, and not all of them have ever been successful. But Peter is so driven by his passion for space and so unwilling to take no as an answer, that he has constantly accomplished what others thought were impossible. The key, he points out, is understanding the position of others and then convincing them that helping you achieve your dream is actually in their best interest too- and quite often you have to go straight to the top to get anything done.

Peter began with the story of Zero Gravity Corporation. When he started, NASA and the FAA both told him it was illegal. But Peter continued to push back until he’d convinced the FAA to change the regulations around zero-g flight and was able to operating weightless flights in 2004 after founding the company in 1993. The lesson here that Peter highlighted was that because he wanted to do something new that had never been done, people were afraid and said no. By working with them to understand their point of view and show them that he had a plan that fit with their values, he could convince those in charge to change their minds.

Peter uses this same approach in the development of Planetary Resources, a company Peter co-founded to mine asteroids. Most think that asteroid mining is ridiculous, but Peter points out that actually crazier things have happened: the majority of the asteroids they’re aiming for are energetically easier to get to than the moon and oil companies invested $15B in the first deep offshore oil rigs that had a 10-25 year return on investment. What is needed to accomplish this is not a change in the laws of physics, but simply the construction of a phenomenal team that can build the technology, conversations with companies like Bechtel Corporation to help them see that this is no different than a long-term investment in resources, and meetings with NASA and the government to help them see that it’s in their best interest to change regulations around claiming and mining asteroids. Planetary Resources has already made incredible progress and give Peter’s words tremendous credibility. We were incredibly lucky to host him and wish him and Planetary the best- hopefully we’ll all be able to claim our own asteroid soon enough!