Jed McCaleb is set to be the building millionaire. According to The New York Times, the entrepreneur wants to build a massive space station for humans to live on. The proposed venture — which would take more than a decade to complete — would see the creation of an orbital platform for scientific research and commercial endeavors in low-Earth orbit.
It would also involve sending up several smaller satellites that could collect data from other astronomical bodies in our solar system. McCaleb, who previously founded Mt. Gox (once the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange) and Stellar (a non-profit organization that aims to connect banks with digital payments), is planning on building a space station in Hawaii that will be used as a “living laboratory” for new technologies and energy solutions.
Jed Mccaleb Builds Space Station
The project, called The Sea Ranch Space Station, plans to use solar power generated by panels on the roof of an old Kauai warehouse which McCaleb purchased in 2013. He has already installed a rooftop garden there and plans to install more solar panels soon.
Jed McCaleb, who co-founded the blockchain company Ripple, is building a giant space station for humans to live on. The proposed venture — which would take more than a decade to complete — would be built by the private space industry, according to The New York Times, who spoke with McCarthy about his plans for the project.
The project has been dubbed “Starchip.” It will involve creating a series of spacecrafts that are able to deposit their cargo into Earth’s orbit via rockets and then return them back down again so they can be repurposed and reused.McCaleb’s startup, called Interstellar, is working with the government of Saudi Arabia to build an orbital colony.
The company plans to have it ready by 2030 or so.
Jed McCaleb told Quartz that he decided to get into the space industry because he believes that humans should live on other planets and that “it would take a lot of time and money” to figure out how we can do that successfully.
He said: “I think it’s realistic for us as a society.”
