Written by: Kiel Porter, Loren Grush, Bloomberg Businessweek
Translated by: Luffy, Foresight News
Jed McCaleb has made a fortune in the cryptocurrency space, and now he is ready to invest a significant portion of it into his dream of space.
The billionaire, who co-founded the infamous Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox and the cryptocurrency XRP, is personally funding an ambitious plan: to build the world's first commercial space station and send it into orbit.
If successful, his startup Vast Space LLC is poised to win a contract from NASA worth potentially billions of dollars next year to replace the International Space Station. McCaleb has stated that he is prepared to lose $1 billion if it fails. As of the end of 2023, McCaleb controls billions in assets through two foundations, with the $3.3 billion in assets coming from his personal donations.
"This step is crucial for humanity's future living beyond Earth," said the 50-year-old McCaleb at the company's headquarters in Long Beach, California. "Not many people are willing to invest as many resources, time, and take risks as I am."
Since then, he has hired an industry veteran as CEO, and SpaceX is providing some technical support to Vast. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has urged the U.S. to accelerate the timeline for retiring the International Space Station (currently scheduled for the end of 2030). Founded in 2021, Vast's spacecraft incorporates some technology developed by SpaceX, particularly the docking adapter used to connect SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft with the Vast space station, as well as the space internet system that provides Wi-Fi to the station via Starlink. Vast has booked SpaceX's launch services to send its hardware into orbit and transport astronauts to the station, and SpaceX has also agreed to transport astronauts for Vast once NASA approves.
However, the task remains daunting, and it is hard to see from McCaleb's background that he is the right person for the job. The boy from an Arkansas farm and a dropout from the University of California, Berkeley, has no background in the aerospace industry. His career has been characterized by seizing opportunities in emerging technologies and then pivoting in time to avoid government regulation and other adverse factors, a short-term mindset that seems at odds with the long-term focus needed to win a high-risk race to create a technological marvel.
Vast's headquarters in Long Beach, Source: Bloomberg Businessweek
Sam Yagan, a friend of McCaleb's who co-founded an online file-sharing company with him over twenty years ago, now serves as co-founder and managing director of Corazon Capital. He describes McCaleb as a thoughtful risk-taker. "He is very rational about these things," Yagan said, "but he is willing to take the kind of risks that you and I would see as huge, a bit unconventional."
Many of Vast's employees have previously worked at SpaceX. The parking lot at the company headquarters is filled with cars produced by Musk's Tesla. One of the Cybertrucks belongs to Max Haot, who joined Vast in 2023 after McCaleb acquired his company. Since then, Haot has become the CEO of Vast, allowing McCaleb (who drives a more ordinary Model 3) to fly in from his home in San Francisco once a week to oversee project progress.
Before the acquisition, Haot was not focused on the space station sector. Instead, he attempted to emulate Musk by founding another rocket launch startup, Launcher. The company raised $30 million in investment and made progress in developing rocket engines and launch vehicles, but two satellites built by Launcher encountered failures after reaching space. In 2022, Haot met McCaleb while seeking investors.
McCaleb made an acquisition proposal and agreed that Haot would serve as president of Vast, eventually becoming CEO. Haot was initially reluctant to accept the deal, but he changed his mind when he realized that Launcher was struggling to secure the necessary funding.
Vast founder and chairman Jed McCaleb with CEO Max Haot at the testing facility in Mojave, California, Source: Bloomberg Businessweek
Vast's grand vision is not just to build the first private space station. The company also aims to develop an artificial gravity system to simulate Earth's environment for future astronauts. This engineering feat is highly complex, requiring the use of centrifugal force to set up large rotating modules in space. This proposal is particularly appealing, as human experience on the International Space Station has shown that prolonged exposure to microgravity can harm various biological systems.
However, all of this is still a long way off. Currently, Vast needs to get its first space station into orbit. The company's workforce has rapidly increased from fewer than 200 people a year ago to 740, covering a range of talents from technical engineers to spacesuit manufacturers. Vast's headquarters operates 24/7, with engineers and construction workers working in shifts to either expand the Long Beach facility or build Vast's first prototype space station, "Haven-1."
Space stations are common elements in popular culture, such as the Death Star in "Star Wars" and the namesake space station in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine." Since astronauts first boarded the experimental Skylab in 1973, space stations have been an important part of U.S. space exploration. Decades later, with the end of the Cold War, NASA collaborated with countries like Russia to build the larger International Space Station. Since November 2000, there has always been at least one astronaut aboard the International Space Station, who frequently studies the behavior of materials and humans in a microgravity environment.
A technician at Vast headquarters, Source: Bloomberg Businessweek
Haven-1 is approximately 33 feet (about 10 meters) long and 14.5 feet (about 4.4 meters) wide, designed to fit snugly inside the nose cone of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The station will have a habitable volume of about 1,600 cubic feet (45 cubic meters), roughly double that of a typical RV. It will feature private sleeping quarters, a large window, wooden paneling, and a table for four.
At least that is the goal. In January of this year, the company began constructing Haven-1, with plans to launch it in May 2026, delayed from the originally planned date of August this year. The company recently tested a prototype to confirm its structure could withstand internal pressure and is developing key components for the power system, propulsion, and other crewed missions. Its shell must withstand the harsh environment and temperatures of space while maintaining the pressure and gases that humans are accustomed to on Earth.
"We're not really a space station company yet," Haot said, "we're an aspiring space station company."
The main structure of Haven-1 awaits further testing at Vast's Mojave facility, Source: Bloomberg Businessweek
Assuming everything goes smoothly, after Haven-1 launches, Vast will send four astronauts into space aboard a Falcon 9 rocket to dock with the space station. If the first launch is successful, Vast plans to launch the first segment of the next space station, Haven-2, by 2028. It will serve as the starting point for a larger base intended to replace NASA's International Space Station.
One of the biggest challenges will be creating an effective life support system. The International Space Station uses a regenerative system that recycles all wastewater into drinking water and converts carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen. Such a system is essential if passengers are to stay on the space station for an extended period, but Haven-1 will not be equipped with one, as astronauts are expected to stay only briefly. Vast plans to eventually equip Haven-2 with such a system, but the station is not expected to have a long-term crew presence in its initial years.
Competitors, including Axiom Space, Blue Origin, and Voyager Space Holdings, are also racing to build their own space stations, but one advantage for Vast is that McCaleb is willing to invest heavily in the project. "Vast is the only company that is primarily relying on its own funds and is ready," said Chad Anderson, founder and managing partner of the investment firm Space Capital, which focuses on the aerospace industry. "In that regard, they are an interesting choice." (Anderson has no financial ties to Vast but has invested in SpaceX.)
Despite these competitors having aerospace backgrounds and some launch contracts, they do not have such a close relationship with SpaceX.
Engineers study life support systems in the clean room at Vast headquarters, Source: Bloomberg Businessweek
McCaleb is eager to downplay any personal connections, stating he has met Musk "a few times, he probably doesn't remember me," even though both have invested in OpenAI. Despite their differences in approach and demeanor, there are many similarities in their interests and unconventional paths to wealth: both dropped out of school (Musk dropped out later), founded software companies in emerging fields, and turned their love for fantasy and gaming into financial success.
McCaleb's first project, eDonkey, was one of the earliest file-sharing services on the internet and an early competitor to Napster. Founded in 2000, the company allowed users to share music and movies for free, generating millions of dollars in annual revenue through advertising. In 2006, to avoid copyright infringement lawsuits, the company agreed to pay $30 million to the Recording Industry Association of America and subsequently shut down.
McCaleb's next success was Mt. Gox, one of the world's first Bitcoin exchanges. The website was founded by McCaleb in 2010, and a year later, he sold most of his stake at an undisclosed price. In February 2014, the exchange went bankrupt, with users losing over $400 million worth of Bitcoin at the time, marking the largest cryptocurrency disaster in history before the collapse of FTX in 2023. Although McCaleb remained a minority shareholder, he faced no sanctions and claimed to have suffered losses in the disaster as well.
By that time, McCaleb had already begun his next venture: XRP, the cryptocurrency on the Ripple protocol, of which he was also a co-founder. McCaleb initially held 9% of XRP. After a disagreement with his co-founders, he left the company in 2013 but retained his XRP and gradually sold it over the following years. According to analysis from XRPScan, during the cryptocurrency boom at the end of 2017, the value of XRP skyrocketed, eventually inflating to a market cap of $130 billion in January 2018. McCaleb netted approximately $3.2 billion from selling XRP and Ripple shares between 2014 and 2022.
"He is one of the most important founders in the cryptocurrency space, even though few people really know him," said Nic Carter, founding partner of the investment firm Castle Island Ventures, which focuses on public blockchains. "Interestingly, most other significant figures are those flamboyant, high-profile, and extravagant individuals."
Despite his tremendous success, McCaleb has a small social circle, primarily collaborating with Yagan and other long-term partners. He owns a house in the surfing paradise of Costa Rica, has a residence in Berkeley, and possesses his own private jet.
McCaleb provides a stable source of investment for the often volatile aerospace industry. In this field, once-promising startups frequently collapse due to a lack of funding. Although a former employee filed a lawsuit accusing Vast of cutting corners, the company seems to lack the negative press associated with SpaceX. Its billionaire CEO spends most of his time at home with his wife and three children rather than trying to confront the federal government.
Haven-1 at Vast's testing facility, Source: Bloomberg Businessweek
If McCaleb's plan succeeds, Vast has already booked multiple crewed missions with SpaceX to send astronauts into orbit, and both McCaleb and Haot have expressed their willingness to take those flights themselves. "As a kid, I spent a lot of time exploring outdoors, looking up at the sky and marveling at its wonders," McCaleb said. But all of this first depends on whether the company can win the final contract for NASA's program, which aims to kickstart a commercial space station project that could replace the International Space Station. The program has a soft guarantee that NASA will purchase time and space on any space station that reaches orbit. This contract is expected to be signed by mid-2026.
Haot stated that without NASA's contract, the commercial viability of any space station is questionable. "Winning this competition is a matter of our survival."
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