I understand your cynicism, but suppose that you were seriously determined about setting up an organisation to explore and develop space. This is a very long-term endeavor. How would you go about it, and who would you hire first? Unless you have a mass of funding, if you hire scientists and engineers first, you will surely run out of money and the company will die.
You first need to create a system to feed the needs of the company for the decades it will take for it to start being profitable. And one way to do that is to spread an attractive vision of the company's plans and future. So yes, if you are very serious about exploring and developing space, finance, public relations and business development ARE the right places to start. IMHO.
You seem to be suggesting that it's possible for someone to set up an organisation to explore and develop deep space commercial activities without a mass of funding? I would think step one in even contemplating such a gambit would be to acquire several billion dollars. Then, when you've got enough backing to look halfway credible (and hopefully some hint of an actual plan), you can start with the PR and business development to try and get the rest of your funding.
Or you start with $250 million in seed funding for a NASA deliverable. And deliver that on-time, on-budget, then use the profit to bootstrap your way into the next corporate / government contract until you have a) developed the necessary experience and b) acquired the necessary funding to tackle your real goal. Like SpaceX or one of the others is going.
Several billion may be excessive. SpaceX was funded with $100 of Musk's own money and another $100 million from other investors. The rest of the billion+ which has gone into it so far is from paying customers [1].
Or maybe they did start with the engineers. Maybe they already have some pretty cool technologies but they realised they don't know how to sell it all so they're looking for business people (yes, yes, very wishful thinking).
Hm, I've been hoping that DSI would be competitive with Plantary Resources. They were hiring people with welding skills on day 1.
I haven't followed Deep Space Indistries since they're public announcement and flashy video. Are they real? Are they building anything? I sure hope so, but they certainly don't feel as real as Planetay Resources does.
I looked at that too and thought cynically "Hmm, dream team for fleecing unwary investor/partners."
That said, its way early for any consideration of actual mining. I really do think that on orbit refueling is going to be a prerequisite for that and as far as I know only ULA has even speculated on how to make that work.
We just need to start turning all of our oil exploration apparatus to the moon. Then we can ride the fuel provided by fossilized space dinosaurs to the stars... And beyond!
My understanding is that they have a lot of board members and advisers and nobody actually building (or even spending significant time designing) hardware. Their NonBuilder (management / pr / legal) : Builder (engineer / R&D) ratio is at least 2:1, maybe as high as 5:1, which seems backwards for a startup at the phase they're at. And it looks like they're doubling down on that strategy.
I might be wrong, but I doubt that's how SpaceX started... But of course, they are not in the same exact business. SpaceX is disrupting the already established space launch business, whereas DIS is in a completely new field in itself.
Watching their video I don't feel the time is now. Maybe in 10 years or so? Let's send Mark Whatney to Mars first, then send out SCVs to mine more minerals, okay?
