Atlantis II Funding Section

Atlantis 2 will be supported by a variety of private corporate and academic sponsors. While there is concern that funding outside of academic money would create pressures against those of the mission of discovery, it was realized early on that more funds were needed than those that could be given by academic sponsors. Those corporations that have chosen to fund this mission of exploration and discovery, we hope, shall see this as an investment in the future. To those companies, we offer the possibility of use of laboratory resources and future patents of following discoveries and the capitalism upon the publicity for this endeavor. Our academic patrons will have access to the resources of the habitat, and will be the prime determinants for most of the experimentation on the station.

Although industry and academia usually don't mix together very well, we believe these two groups will both want to contribute together to the Atlantis project because they share common goals and interests. The pursuit of knowledge is obviously the ultimate goal of academia; the goal of Atlantis, though, is to establish and maintain a self-sufficient laboratory. So for this to happen, money is needed and so obtaining funds is another goal of academia. Industry's main goal is to also make money. Since money is now a common goal, both can work together to produce the greatest product that will be beneficial to both. Please see our income statement of more information.

We chose the specific academic groups for their interest in scientific research, particularly in the field of oceanographic engineering and geothermal activity. Companies in various industries were chosen because we have specific services, such as access to information, that we can sell them. In both cases our estimates were extrapolated by researching their most current research and development budgets. The size of our project was also compared to other projects that these various groups and companies have funded previously. In short, we took a percentage of their budget, based on how much they are known to have given to similar projects in the past, with the difference in magnitude of those past projects compared to ours taken into consideration. Some $1bn is estimated in terms of initial capital. This funding will ensure all construction cost as well as the maintenance and use of the station for the first six months.

With any project of this magnitude budgeting easily becomes an issue. For budgeting reasons, the project was broken down into ten sections. Each section was reasonable for a different function of the project. The budgeting report includes the major expense incurred by each group (all numbers are in $mn). Each section was responsible for helping to create their own budget as well as making sure that there eventual cost came in below budget. For a specific breakdown please see the budgeting report.

Any budgeting concerns should be directed to Atlantis@mit.edu.