Meet Kam Ghaffarian: A Space Billionaire Who Is Racing To Land On Moon Before China

As the race to the moon heats up with China, a US-based space billionaire named Kam Ghaffarian¡¯s Houston-based company Intuitive Machines¡ªwhich has a contract with NASA¡ªis well positioned to build the first American spacecraft to land intact on the moon since the Apollo era.

The US space agency this month redirected its mission to the Moon¡¯s South Pole region, where China plans to land a lunar rover.

Space Billionaire Kam Ghaffarian

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Space billionaire Kam Ghaffarian has always wanted to go to the moon. Besides his stake in Intuitive, Iran-born Ghaffarian already has a billion-dollar stake in X-Energy, a nuclear reactor designer that¡¯s announced a merger with a special purpose acquisition company.

He¡¯s also a co-founder of closely held Axiom Space, which is sending civilian astronaut missions to the International Space Station and plans to build its own station for low-Earth orbit.

Ghaffarian¡¯s combined holdings give him a net worth of $3.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He¡¯s made his fortune primarily in the commercial space industry, compared with Tesla¡¯s Elon Musk and Amazon¡¯s Jeff Bezos, who have poured money into pursuing space travel after achieving success in other ventures.

His Impressive Track Record Attracts Investors

His track record has allowed him to attract investors in the crowded field of space startups. He built one of his early companies, Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies, into the second-biggest provider of engineering services to NASA, with annual revenue of more than $500 million. He was the sole shareholder by the time he sold the firm to KBR for $355 million in 2018 (his former partner, Harold Stinger, is now a pastor at a Baptist church in Virginia), as per a Bloomberg report.

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That means Ghaffarian knows how to cultivate government relationships that create revenue, said Purvi Gandhi, managing partner at Quain Investments, which counts Axiom as part of its portfolio. Gandhi said she views Axiom as a risky ¡°moonshot¡± investment and a long-term hedge against her firm¡¯s bets on climate technology here on Earth.

¡°The space race is extremely heated ¡ª overheated,¡± she said. ¡°A lot of companies don¡¯t excite me because so many entrepreneurs have limited experience in raising money and can¡¯t get to a revenue path.¡±

Besides NASA, Axiom has agreements with governments including those of Italy and Saudi Arabia, which plans to send the first female Saudi astronaut to space on the company¡¯s next mission.

He has forged relationships with big government contractors as well, specifically Elon Musk's SpaceX. The rocket manufacturer has agreements with Axiom Space for crew flights and additional deals with Intuitive Machines for Moon missions, Ghaffarian has said.

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Also Read: Elon Musk's SpaceX May Launch Starlink Services In India

Billionaire Working On Fourth Startup

Ghaffarian¡¯s also building a fourth startup, Quantum Space, which will launch an array of satellites into cislunar space¡ªthe area between the Earth and the Moon. The company got $15 million in funding in December from Jackson, Wyoming-based Prime Movers Lab, as per the report.

Ghaffarian said his life trajectory changed when he watched the Apollo 11 mission as a boy in Iran, leading him to immigrate to the US at the age of 18 to pursue higher education. He earned an engineering degree at the Catholic University of America and a master¡¯s in information technology from George Washington University. ¡°I don¡¯t know whether I¡¯m a billionaire or not, but I¡¯m really excited about making progress for our civilization,¡± Ghaffarian said in a January 2022 interview. He added that while he had long dreamed of space travel, his multiple enterprises were likely to keep him earthbound.

"It¡¯s not so much about affordability as it is about priorities," the space billionaire said.

Also Read: List Of Companies Co-Founded/Headed By Elon Musk

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