WASHINGTON - Americans will have the opportunity to make an out-of-this-world investment when Washington entrepreneur Walt Anderson and his group of investors take the 14-year-old orbital outpost Mir public next year.
Amsterdam-based MirCorp, a company formed this year to transform the empty Russian space station into an orbiting business park and vacation spot, plans to sell shares to the public in order to raise the cash needed to make the idea fly.
"We are in discussions with several international banks about a public offering," said MirCorp President Jeffrey Manber. He declined to say how much MirCorp hoped to raise by the offering, but people close to the company estimate the amount to be about $800 million.
MirCorp, whose investors include Anderson’s venture capital firm Gold & Appel, internet investor Chirinjeev Kathuria and Russian aerospace giant RSC Energia, already has put close to $200 million into the station.
"We are undertaking one of the biggest renovations of the century,"
But more cash is needed to renovate the cosmic clunker. In 1997, Mir suffered a near-deadly fire and the crippling crash of an empty Progress cargo ship into the Spektr science module. Spektr had to be sealed off from the rest of Mir because of a punctured hull.
In addition to money needed for renovations, MirCorp will also need cash to occupy and maintain the station. That is estimated to cost more than $100 million a year.
Beyond the idea of selling shares to the public, the company has been trying to procure cash from corporate sponsors. This is a more difficult task since MirCorp must convince companies to put up large sums of cash for a project whose image has been tarnished by a spate of troubles. "It’s just too soon for [sponsors] now," Manber said.
Mir’s 45-day piloted mission, scheduled to take off on April 3, should help attract companies to the project. MirCorp is hoping that the next flight to the station in September will involve corporations.
Though Manber declined to name any specific sponsors, MirCorp is targeting wealthy companies in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. He envisions having Mir's name on products such as computers and selling lab space to pharmaceutical companies and other manufacturers that could take advantage of near-zero gravity.
Launched in 1986, Mir has ensured Russian predominance in long-term human spaceflight and has given Russian scientists a head start in designing the crew quarters for the $60 billion International Space Station (ISS).
While the world turned a blind eye on Mir and pinned its hopes on ISS, Anderson and his space adviser Rick Tumlinson, president of the non-profit Space Frontier, quietly approached the Russians about saving the creaky station. The Russians had planned to bring Mir out of orbit this summer and send it on a suicide dive through the atmosphere above the Pacific Ocean.
But instead of a funeral at sea, Mir may have a second life as the next hot vacation spot or the world’s top commercial lab.
"We are undertaking one of the biggest renovations of the century," said MirCorp investor Kathuria.
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