Inside ‘eccentric’ Ripple founder’s multibillion-dollar space station plan

2025-03-24 08:31:15 Primitive Reading

The serial entrepreneur who founded the Mt. Gox crypto exchange and co-founded Ripple has shared new details about his ambitious space station company Vast, which he hopes will help expand the human race into a multi-planetary species.

In a March 20 interview with Bloomberg, Jed McCaleb confirmed that Vast is on track to launch Haven-1 — a commercial space station still under construction — into orbit by May 2026.

If McCaleb’s startup succeeds, it will be better positioned to win a lucrative contract from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration to replace the International Space Station. Contracts are expected to be handed out in mid-2026.

If Vast fails or loses the NASA contract to a competitor, McCaleb could see $1 billion wiped from his net worth and the commercial future of his space station firm would be in doubt, according to the report.

“There are not that many folks who are willing to dedicate the amount of resources and time and risk tolerance that I am,” McCaleb told Bloomberg.

McCaleb is known to be a “deliberate risk-taker” with hyperrational tendencies, according to long-time friend and former business partner Sam Yagan, who added:

“He’s maybe slightly eccentric in his willingness to take what you and I would see as a lot of risks.”

McCaleb’s aspiration to put humans on other planets draws similarities to multibillionaire and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

“It’s super important that people take this leap from where we are today to this potential world where there’s a lot of people living off the Earth,” said McCaleb, who founded Vast in 2021.

Vast is building its spacecraft with components developed by SpaceX, such as a docking adapter to connect SpaceX’s Dragon capsule to Vast’s station and an in-space internet system that will provide WiFi on the station via Starlink.

McCaleb’s firm has also booked SpaceX flights to send its hardware into orbit and deliver crew to its station, and SpaceX has agreed to carry astronauts for Vast as long as NASA gives its go-ahead.

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