One if by Space, Two if by Sea

Whether it’s the gaggle of billionaires trying to tackle space travel, or a separate group of billionaires trying to dominate the sea at the America’s cup, the well-heeled have always had an appetite for the adventurous.

Let’s check-in on a few of the recent projects.

Space

Yesterday, before the crack of dawn, SpaceX launched 60 Starlink satellites into orbit from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The successful launch comes just a week after SpaceX blasted its last batch of 60 satellites into space, bringing the total fleet to over 1,200.

The Elon-backed company, with aims to bring high-speed internet to customers all across the globe, has been accelerating in recent weeks:

• While still in “beta” mode, the company said it will expand its test markets to include Germany and New Zealand.
• Last month Musk said the fleet will have active coverage for most of the globe by 2021, with complete global coverage by 2022.

Sea

Yesterday a startup called “Bedrock Ocean Exploration,” which plans to build a “smarter, more efficient way to collect and manage seafloor data,” announced an $8 million seed investment round.

In plain English, the company plans to accurately map the intricacies of the ocean floor. Today, they claim, the seafloor remains 80% unmapped.

Founder Anthony DiMare told TechCrunch, “It seems quite odd that no one has built the SpaceX equivalent for the ocean…There’s no big, modern technology company that fits the space yet.” DiMare went on to explain that a greater percentage of the surfaces of the Moon and Mars have been mapped vs. our own ocean floor.

To What End? Reasonable question.

• Among the primary use cases will be to more efficiently lay undersea cables, a process that currently relies on “guesstimates” to determine the most efficient path.
• DiMare said off-shore wind farms could be another large category, but they are not currently working with oil companies.

the takeaway

Sounds like good SPAC material.