[FPSPACE] MirCorp's money for ISS ?

[Dwayne Allen Day]

On Tue, 17 Oct 2000, David Anderman wrote:

> date.  MirCorp's investors have now struck a deal with RSC Energia to 
> reimburse RSC Energia for the current Progress launch within 6 weeks. I 
> would assume that various penalties would accrue to MirCorp's investors - 
> such as loss of equity - in the event that these monies were not paid to 
> RSC Energia within the specified time frame.  Whether or not the money is 
> paid on time is irrelevant to the central issue to suitability of space 
> platforms for commercial purposes.

Erm...  The fact that they promised Energia the money in September and now
are promising to deliver it in November indicates financial problems with
MirCorp.  And a failure to pay one's vendors is a bad sign for an
impending IPO.


> >Someone on this list noted a week or so ago that MirCorp has had eight
> >months to generate revenue and has failed to do so.  Who was that?  I
> >can't remember...

Oh, I just remembered who it was who pointed out that MirCorp had not
generated any revenue despite 8 months of trying.  David, wanna guess who
it was?


> MirCorp has spent most of this year searching for customers, and has had 
> more success than one Dwayne Day suggested was possible at the beginning of 
> the enterprise. I could look up his original predictions about his views of 
> the potential for business at Mir, but most readers here are already aware 
> of the discontinuity between his predictions and the resulting reality 
> (such as his predicted number of space tourists  - "0").

Oh, don't be such a doodlbug--my article assessing MirCorp appeared on
Florida Today back in June and is easily accessible through their
archives.  I believe that I addressed about seven of their proposed
revenue streams and it looks like the tourist angle is the only one where
I was (possibly) wrong.  So six out of seven ain't bad, and your 
constant harping on that one is getting a little old.  (However, if
MirCorp folds before Tito ever gets to fly, then that'll make me right
after all, since they won't get his money.)

And I fail to see how one rich businessman suddenly proves the
viability of commercial space stations.  Is this really the legacy you
guys want?--subsidized vacations for billionaires?  So you hate elite
government astronauts, but cheer rich private ones?

It looks like I was able to accurately predict all the other problems with
MirCorp's revenue streams, however.  No dollars from zero-G research, no
internet portal, no advertising, no repairs of comsats or lunar probes,
yada yada yada.  I claim no great insight for these predictions,
though--the problems with MirCorp's "business strategy" would be obvious
to a donkey wearing green eyeshades or a drunken pig.

I do have one correction to make--the song about paying the landlady last
month's rent next month (after getting a job) was called "One Bourbon, One
Scotch, One Beer."  And although George Thorogood and the Delaware
Destroyers covered it, it was originally written and recorded by the great
John Lee Hooker.  My apologies to true afficionados of rock and roll--I
will not make this mistake again.



DDAY