BlastOff! Represents one of the wildest rides I've had to date. It was March of 2000 when I was visiting with ISU alumnus Eric Tilenius that I first heard of BlastOff! Eric was the Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Mayfield Fund, a very prestigious venture fund on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, California... the place where rivers of gold were running freely into entrepreneurs banks. During one auspicious meeting, Eric told me that the idealab! Brothers Bill and Larry Gross were planning a BIG space venture and were looking for a CEO.

To appreciate the situation, you need to know that idealab! had founded some 40 companies, a number of which had gone public... companies such as eToys.com, GoTo.com and NetZero.com... they had also just raised a whopping $1 Billion in private financing to prepare the mega-incubator to go public at an estimated value of $10 Billion. The Gross bothers were riding high, printing money and nothing, I mean nothing was impossible!

So with an introduction from Eric Tilenius I made a trip to Pasadena to meet with Larry Gross - my purpose was specifically to try and get idealab! to invest in ZERO-G, Space Adventures and support X PRIZE. My friend Marshall Burns (another ISU Alum) gave me a memorable ride in his car to that meeting in which I was modifying and updating my PowerPoint presentation until the last minute.

At that meeting I met Larry Gross and Rex Ridenoure. I pitched my heart out for the creation of a space tourism and entertainment company, requesting $5 - $8M of funding to fully capitalize X PRIZE, ZERO-G and Space Adventures... in the final result, Larry made a presentation to me about idealab's interest...

It turns out that Bill Gross (and Larry) were both space fans. One day Bill was talking to his son about the space program and decided he wanted to buy him a moon rock... so he naturally looked on eBay to see if one was available for purchase (of course there are no moon rocks in the public sector). This exercise got him thinking about space... after a few other chance meetings, and a reflection on the tremendous success of the July 1997 Mars Pathfinder internet outreach (run by Kirk Goodall), Bill got the idea that he would fund the first private mission to the moon... a robotic mission that would make its money through internet advertising and media rights.... a company he called BlastOff! Bill and Larry viewed Pixar as the model for a company that could create entertainment and garner a multi-billion valuation. Their objective was to only build business models that could reach the billion dollar category... after all they had done it many times already!

Larry suggested I consider the position of CEO of BlastOff... I was flattered and excited, and quite frankly in a quandary. My concern was my responsibilities to ZERO-G, X PRIZE and Space Adventures. My proposal back was that I'd take the roll if and only if, idealab! would agree to funding all three entities, specifically putting $4M into the X PRIZE and $1M into each of ZERO-G and Space Adventures. Once funded we'd roll-in all of the companies together creating the leading space adventure and entertainment company in the world!

After a lot of arguments and negotiations, mostly with Marsha Goodstein (the President of idealab! then Bill's girlfriend and now his wife), we reached an agreement. They agreed that BlastOff would put the money into those 3 entities after BlastOff had raised in excess of $20M.

So I joined the BlastOff team which at that point consisted of a team of 18 world-class engineers working on a 3 robot mission to the moon. In addition, Jim Cameron had signed onto the effort and Steven Spielberg would soon invest $1M. With $12M of initial capital from idealab, we set out to raise an additional $40M to make this $50M+ million mission a reality... Bill wanted us to land on the moon before the end of 2001... That push would cause us to buy expensive U.S.-based launch vehicles and begin a rapid expenditure of capital that would eventually cause us to close down the shop.

In my parting months (March 2001), as we closed shop, an infamous issue of Fortune hit the news stands with a full-page cover shot of Bill Gross smiling and a giant headline reading, "I lost $800 million in 8 months. Why am I still smiling? The incredible story of Bill Gross, dot-com diehard."

During the course of the one-year BlastOff adventure I had the chance to work with some amazing people including Bob Weiss (TV and Film producer) and Tony Spear (Program Director of the Mars Pathfinder mission) as well as the super talented team at idealab (particularly Larry Gross who's an amazing person).

Following is an excerpt from one of our early program descriptions... this truly would have been an amazing program... and we really did have the intellectual power to make it happen... too bad the market crashed when it did!

A QUICK BLASTOFF MISSION SUMMARY

BlastOff! is returning to the surface of the moon in November 2001, nearly 30 years after Apollo 17 departed. The company has purchased a Taurus-XL launch vehicle manufactured by Orbital Sciences Corporation and has hired the top engineers out of industry, government (JPL/NASA) and Academia (CalTech) to design, build and operate a lander/rover on the surface of the Moon.

James Cameron, a Board member and Director of Imaging, has defined for the company the exact imaging requirements he desires to help make the BlastOff! mission to the moon a story of adventure and mystery.

The company's mission is to implement a lunar epic adventure - controlled by users around the world. The key elements of this adventure are the following:

• Consumer Involvement Prior to Launch: Using BlastOff!'s web site registered users will be able to watch the design take shape, vote on what to name the Rover and Scouts, and decide where to land the vehicle. In the final stages of launch, the customers will push the launch button on their screen… once 100,000 people say "go", the rocket will launch.
• Flags of dozens of Nations: Only two countries have ever landed on the Moon - the United States and Russia. When BlastOff's Lander touches down, it will carry on its side the flags of 50 or more countries. This will be the first time that Greece, Turkey, Ireland, Japan, France, etc. land on the Lunar Surface. As part of a viral marketing campaign, BlastOff will offer to fly the flag of a country if 10% or more of a nation's Internet users sign up on our site.
• Mission Control: This facility will be resident within BlastOff!'s California offices and will be the nexus of all communications and internet activities. It is from this location that the Rover and Scouts will be controlled, and the entire project will be directed.
• The Lander/Rover: Is the platform for landing and roving long distances (10-20KM) on the Lunar surface. The Lander/Rover is also a platform for collecting and transmitting high quality still/video images to Earth. Finally, the Lander/Rover will deliver to the surface two rechargeable Lunar "Scouts."
• The "Scouts": The Lander/Rover will deliver two 'cute' and capable Scouts to the lunar surface - each with its own distinct personality. These Scouts will be able to traverse about 1 KM on each charge, and will travel in front of the main Rover to check for danger, and clear a path. In addition, the Scouts will be outfitted with cameras which transmit via UHF to the main Lander/Rover and then back to Earth.
• The Story Line - In search of Apollo: The basic story line is that BlastOff! is going to the moon to visit one or more historical sites. Two Lunar Scouts (to be named by the audience) each with different personalities and capabilities, will compete with each other to chart a route and guide the Lunar Lander/Rover to the Apollo 12 site. The main challenge will be to investigate a large crater and determine the optimal route for the Lander/Rover. One of the anticipated subplots is that a natural obstacle will render one of the Scouts inoperable and the second Lunar Scout will need to change from a competitive mission to a rescue mission.

Working with Director James Cameron and in-house 'story writers' the "Return to the Moon Mission" must be communicated externally as a story which is filled with emotion, triumph, good vs. evil, David vs. Goliath, etc. The storytelling aspect is essential to the large-scale success of our efforts. Storytelling is timeless. The BlastOff! effort will definitely have outstanding technology - but the story of why we are going to the moon needs to be compelling and emotional as well.

Click here to see pictures of BlastOff!