Robert Bigelow, an eccentric American businessman who made his fortune with budget hotels, has invested $500 million in inflatable space habitats that Nasa is to put to the test in 2015.
Robert Bigelow got rich off budget hotel suites that start at US$189 (Dh694) a week. Now they are funding his dream of building inflatable space habitats with rates topping $400,000 a day.
"I guess it seems strange or unique to other people," he says. "To me, it's just following a dream that I have had all of my life of doing something important that was space- related."
For the Las Vegas businessman, his desire to build low orbital dwellings is the ultimate gamble. He has bet $500 million of his own money on his closely held venture, Bigelow Aerospace - five times what the billionaire Elon Musk invested in his own space company.
"If you don't have bucks, there's no Buck Rodgers," says Mr Bigelow, 68, echoing a phrase from the film, The Right Stuff, about the early days of the US space flight programme.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration this month announced a $17.8m contract to Bigelow Aerospace for an inflatable room that will be attached to a port on the International Space Station some time in 2015. Astronauts will use the prototype for two years, allowing Nasa to test the technology for "pennies on the dollar", says Lori Garver, the agency's deputy administrator.
Mr Bigelow has spent about half of his stake. He may never recoup the investment, according to Jeff Foust, an analyst at Futron, a Bethesda, Maryland-based technology consultancy.
"Are there enough customers out there to make this a worthwhile venture?" Mr Foust says. "It's yet to be seen."
Nasa's award to Bigelow Aerospace means that the 1,300-kilogramme inflatable spare room that uses a Kevlar-like fabric called Vectran will be tested to see how it withstands space debris and radiation.
The technology is based on an idea conceived in the 1990s by Nasa, which let Mr Bigelow licence the patents, according to Mike Gold, the director of Washington operations for Bigelow Aerospace. The company has taken the blueprints to fruition by building actual test structures, Mr Gold says.
Nasa retired its shuttle fleet in 2011 and relies on Russia for rides to space at a cost of about $63m per astronaut. It has turned to the private industry to ferry cargo and eventually humans to the station.
Mr Bigelow needs US companies such as Boeing and Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp, known as SpaceX, to develop lower-cost alternatives, Mr Foust says. Otherwise, he says, Mr Bigelow's private stations "literally won't get off the ground".
SpaceX's first flight last year of an unmanned cargo ship to the International Space Station signalled the start of a new era in commercial space flight, Mr Bigelow says.
Eventually, Mr Bigelow intends to build stand-alone stations launched by privately operated rockets that can be used as research laboratories orbiting Earth or be part of an effort to establish a permanent presence on the moon or Mars. Although a permanent habitat will not be ready before 2016, his company is promoting a round-trip flight and 60-day stay aboard the "Alpha Station" for $26.3m a head.
Mr Bigelow is a lesser known figure in the privately funded space race that has drawn high-risk adventurers such as Mr Musk and the British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Galactic is taking bookings online for $200,000 "Pioneer Astronaut" suborbital flights. Abu Dhabi's Aabar Investments holds a 32-per-cent stake in Virgin Galactic, which proposes to build its second spaceport in the emirate.
Mr Bigelow likewise has an ally in the Emirates. In early 2011, he signed a memorandum with the Dubai-based Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology to "explore joint efforts".
The hotelier grew up in Las Vegas. During his first semester in college, his father died in a plane crash. He later graduated from Arizona State University with a bachelor's degree in business. He and his wife, Diane, raised two sons.
Mr Bigelow has nursed a lifelong obsession with unidentified flying objects after his mother regaled him with the tale of his grandparents seeing a glowing flying object while driving through the desert in 1947.
He has amassed a library of about 3,500 books about UFOs, cosmology and related subjects. He gave financial backing to the National Institute for Discovery Science, which hunted UFOs and studied paranormal activities before disbanding in 2004. He has recorded interviews with almost 250 people who claim to have had a sighting or encounter with a UFO, and says he believes alien wreckage was discovered in Roswell, New Mexico, in the 1940s.
"I'm in the camp that has zero doubt" that UFOs exist and have visited the Earth, Mr Bigelow said.
Mr Bigelow, who declines to discuss his net worth, made his fortune through a chain of residential hotels in the south-west US. He caught the property bug from his maternal grandfather who leased several apartments on his property.
"I kind of, by osmosis, got the notion that you could make a good living off of that and have regular income, if you did the right things," he says. He says he sold about one-third of his Budget Suites of America properties before the recent recession. "People were just throwing money at you and begging you to sell," he says. "It became ridiculous."
James Oberg, a former mission control specialist for Nasa and space consultant in Dickinson, Texas, who accompanied Mr Bigelow to Russia in 2007 for the launch of a prototype habitat, says the hotelier has the passion to help shape the next generation of space travel.
"Bigelow has his own style and his own passions," Mr Oberg says. "He struck me as a builder of things rather than a master and user of wealth and privilege."
On the ground, Mr Bigelow is distinctly low-tech: he shuns email. Visitors to his space venture's headquarters in North Las Vegas will notice that security guards refer to him as "Mr Big".
Even if he completes his dreams on schedule, Mr Bigelow will then be in his 70s, making it unlikely that the entrepreneur will ever make the trip out to his low-earth orbit habitat.
"This isn't about benefiting one human," Mr Gold says. "This is about opening up space for all of humanity."
* Bloomberg News, with files from The National
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December 28
Stan Wawrinka v Pablo Carreno Busta, 5pm
Milos Raonic v Dominic Thiem, no earlier then 7pm
December 29 - semi-finals
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Novak Djokovic v Milos Raonic / Dominic Thiem,no earlier then 7pm
December 30
3rd/4th place play-off, 5pm
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World Cup League Two
Results
Oman beat Nepal by 18 runs
Oman beat United States by six wickets
Nepal beat United States by 35 runs
Oman beat Nepal by eight wickets
Fixtures
Tuesday, Oman v United States
Wednesday, Nepal v United States
The Details
Kabir Singh
Produced by: Cinestaan Studios, T-Series
Directed by: Sandeep Reddy Vanga
Starring: Shahid Kapoor, Kiara Advani, Suresh Oberoi, Soham Majumdar, Arjun Pahwa
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Company: Eco Way
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Find the right policy for you
Don’t wait until the week you fly to sign up forinsurance – get it when you book your trip. Insurance covers you for cancellation and anything else that can go wrong before you leave.
Some insurers, such as World Nomads, allow you to book once you are travelling – but, as Mr Mohammed found out, pre-existing medical conditions are not covered.
Check your credit card before booking insurance to see if you have any travel insurance as a benefit – most UAE banks, such as Emirates NBD, First Abu Dhabi Bank and Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, have cards that throw in insurance as part of their package. But read the fine print – they may only cover emergencies while you’re travelling, not cancellation before a trip.
Pre-existing medical conditions such as a heart condition, diabetes, epilepsy and even asthma may not be included as standard. Again, check the terms, exclusions and limitations of any insurance carefully.
If you want trip cancellation or curtailment, baggage loss or delay covered, you may need a higher-grade plan, says Ambareen Musa of Souqalmal.com. Decide how much coverage you need for emergency medical expenses or personal liability. Premium insurance packages give up to $1 million (Dh3.7m) in each category, Ms Musa adds.
Don’t wait for days to call your insurer if you need to make a claim. You may be required to notify them within 72 hours. Gather together all receipts, emails and reports to prove that you paid for something, that you didn’t use it and that you did not get reimbursed.
Finally, consider optional extras you may need, says Sarah Pickford of Travel Counsellors, such as a winter sports holiday. Also ensure all individuals can travel independently on that cover, she adds. And remember: “Cheap isn’t necessarily best.”
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Mia Man’s tips for fermentation
- Start with a simple recipe such as yogurt or sauerkraut
- Keep your hands and kitchen tools clean. Sanitize knives, cutting boards, tongs and storage jars with boiling water before you start.
- Mold is bad: the colour pink is a sign of mold. If yogurt turns pink as it ferments, you need to discard it and start again. For kraut, if you remove the top leaves and see any sign of mold, you should discard the batch.
- Always use clean, closed, airtight lids and containers such as mason jars when fermenting yogurt and kraut. Keep the lid closed to prevent insects and contaminants from getting in.
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Wales 2 (Moore 10', Wilson 34')
THE SIXTH SENSE
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Opinions on Lebanon
Kareem Shaheen:Lebanon is being forced to relive its traumas
Michael Young:Hezbollah is losing its ability to intimidate anyone
Raghida Dergham:Lebanon-Israel talks will mark another win for Donald Trump
FA Cup fifth round draw
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Leicester City v Coventry City/Birmingham City
Northampton Town/Derby County v Manchester United
Southampton/Tottenham Hotspur v Norwich City
Portsmouth vArsenal
