Paul Allen's space firm details plans for rockets, cargo vehicle

SEATTLE - The space company of billionaire Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen on Monday unveiled details of medium-lift rockets and a reusable space cargo plane it is developing, injecting more competition into the lucrative launch services market.

With its rockets, Allen's Stratolaunch Systems Corp is trying to cash in on higher demand in the coming years for vessels that can put satellites into orbit. But his vehicles will have to compete domestically with other space entrepreneurs and industry stalwarts such as Elon Musk's SpaceX and United Launch Alliance - a partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Seattle-based Stratolaunch, founded by Allen in 2011, said in a news release its launch vehicles will make satellite deployment "as easy as booking an airline flight," though the first rocket launch is not slated until 2020 at the earliest and the massive airplane it is building to deploy the rockets is still in pre-flight testing.

Rather than blasting off from a launch pad, Stratolaunch's rockets will drop at high altitude from underneath the company's six-engine, twin-fuselage airplane - the largest ever built by wingspan.

That launch method is similar to the one being developed by billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic.

Stratolaunch's plane is designed to carry a rocket and payload with a combined weight of up to 550,000 pounds (250,000 kg), on par with what a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket can launch from the ground.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING

Around 800 small satellites are expected to launch annually beginning around 2020, more than double the annual average over the past decade, according to Teal Group space analyst Marco Caceres.

Stratolaunch announced plans for the plane years ago with the goal of flying Northrop Grumman Corp's small-payload Pegasus rocket in 2020, and some in the aerospace industry expected Stratolaunch to eventually make its own rockets after partnerships with other manufacturers fell through.

Stratolaunch said its new medium-lift rocket with a capacity of about 3,400 kg (7,500 pounds) would fly as early as 2022. It said it was in the early stages of developing a variant with a payload capacity of 6,000 kg. It made no mention of launch customers and declined to say how much it would cost to develop its space vehicles.

Stratolaunch acknowledged it was designing a reusable space plane to carry cargo to and from Earth and a follow-on variant could carry people. 

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Why College Dropouts Make Great Forex Traders

You have to have a college degree to make it in the rocket-fueled, action-oriented worlds of forex, business and finance, right? Well, to answer that question let’s first take a look at some of the most financially successful people in the world who dropped out of, or never attended, college:

Paul Allen. Co-founder of Microsoft, he is currently worth $15.7 billion.

Michael Dell. Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Dell Computer. He dropped out of higher education at 19-years-old and is now worth more than $12 billion.

Bill Gates. Took leave of absence from Harvard to start Microsoft. His estimated net worth is more than $40 billion.

Rachel Ray. No college or culinary training. Has a successful TV show, cookbook series and magazine. Her estimated earnings per year is approximately $18 million.

Steven Spielberg. Dropped out of college at CSU, Long Beach. Founded Dreamworks. His net worth is around $3 billion.

Skills and Character Traits

These are just a few of the people who became wildly successful without getting a college degree. Now, what about forex and Primetrade? Can you succeed in forex trading without higher education.
The overwhelming answer is yes. Why? Because the same skills and character traits that make the above celebrities successful are the same qualities you need to be a successful trader. These traits include:
Self-directed. Self-directed people don’t follow the crowd like blind sheep. This is not easy to do because we are taught from a young age to go along to get along, to not make waves, to “be nice” and “be a good girl.” Our system rewards conformity.

Self-directed people are driven by their own motivations. If you study Bill Gates, for example, he is as motivated by learning and growing as much as making money and eliminating diseases. He has a structured, goal-oriented system to reading, studying and learning new things.

Massively-motivated. Again, our system rewards just doing enough to get by. Massively-motivated people want to do much more than survive — they want to thrive on a big scale. They are not afraid to put in hard work in order to experience big leaps in activity, production, profit and accomplishment.

Passionate. Have you ever seen Quentin Tarantino talk about his movies. Or listened to a kid talk about his favorite sport or team. They can barely sit still. They are so excited and enthusiastic, their words come out in a torrent.

Passionate people don’t all have this breathless quality, but they share the same energy. Have you ever worked on a project or goal for a long time, but it didn’t seem like work? You were so focused on the goal, so “wrapped up” in the process, time flew by. That’s a good sign you are in the sweet-spot of a personal interest and passion.

The Cost of College

The cost of college is skyrocketing, and many graduates are still unable to find jobs. People are questioning the value of spending tens of thousands of dollars with debatable results.
Still, college is a the right pursuit for many people. It fits their goals and temperament.
But there are many paths to success. For many self-directed, massively-motivated and passionate people, dropping out or skipping college altogether is a choice that has led to towering success and monster accomplishment. Perhaps more important, they achieved self-satisfaction by finding their passion.

source: 20smoney.com

Who are the world's richest billionaire bachelors?

MANILA, Philippines – Research firm Wealth-X released a list on Wednesday naming the 10 richest billionaire bachelors in the world.

Topping the list is Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who is also the founder of investment and project management company Vulcan Capital.

Allen also owns the American football team Seattle Seahawks and the NBA team Portland Trail Blazers.

He has an estimated personal fortune of $15.3 billion.

The 60-year-old Allen has never been married, and recently reported to have bought an 8-bedroom mansion in the Silicon Valley town of Atherton for $27 million.

Second in the list is Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani, with an estimated personal net worth of nearly $11 billion.

Armani’s business ranges from clothing lines, hotels to fragrances. He is turning 80 next year.

Rounding out the top 5 in the list are 48-year-old Mikhail Prokhorov, owner of NBA team Brooklyn Nets; 46-year-old Xavier Niel of Iliad; and 70-year-old David Geffen of Dreamworks.

“Against the backdrop of a proliferation of matchmaking TV shows and online services, meeting the right person is harder than ever. Add to that the compounding difficulty of super wealth and navigating the right soul mate and discerning right intentions becomes even more challenging,” said Wealth-X president David Friedman.

Also in the list are Rosp Corunna Participaciones Empresariales’ Marcos Mera ($5.7 billion), Duncan Family Foundation’s Scott Duncan ($5.3 billion), Arista Networks’ Andreas von Bechtolsheim ($4.4 million), Santo Domingo Group’s Alejandro Santo Domingo Davila ($3.9 million), and H.E. Butt Grocery’s Charles Butt ($2.9 million).

The 31-year-old Duncan is the youngest billionaire bachelor in the group while Armani is the oldest at 79.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com