What if he’s made the wrong choice about what kind of rocket to build? Some industry people swear by re-usable rockets and think Beal is wasting his time on what they consider the old-fashioned concept of disposable rockets. “This should be his biggest concern,” says industry analyst Caceres. “In 10 years or so, the demand for re-usable rockets is what’s going to make the market explode. If he doesn’t plan for that, he could be left behind.” Beal has considered the re-usable rocket—and dismissed it. The way to go, he believes, is offering low-cost access to space, and expendable rockets are cheaper rockets. If he’s there first, with the lowest price, Beal is convinced he’ll corner the market. And he is well on the way to getting there first. Beal actually has a rocket that has been test-fired. Many of his competitors have only their dreams and some high-tech drawings.

   The question remains: Why would a reasonable man with a personal income of more than $50 million a year decide to launch a rocket company? The pragmatic facade of the businessman is not a mask, but behind it lurks a space buff.

   When Andy Beal turns those laser-beam eyes on you and tells you: one, it’s a mathematical certainty that an asteroid will hit the earth one day; two, all life will be extinguished; three, the only way to save mankind is to colonize other planets; and four, he finds it fulfilling to think that Beal Aerospace might play some tiny part in making that happen—well, you believe him.

   “I don’t lose sleep over that because it could be a billion years or hundreds of millions of years or tens of millions of years away,” he says. “But the fact is it could be 20 years away. And to the extent that our efforts speed up the colonizing of other planets—you just never know all the implications of efforts like this…. So all the knowledge, all the answers to questions that we don’t even know to ask—all that will be furthered by what we’re doing. And I like that.”

   And a lot of people in the industry like Beal’s plan. NASA is working with him so he can launch test flights from Cape Canaveral, and the state of Florida is reportedly putting together a package of financial incentives to get Beal to do more business in Florida. Last June the organizers of WorldSat ’99 Space & Satellite Finance Conference asked him to be a speaker at the event. (“These are Wall Street money people,” notes Caceres. “They don’t ask just anyone to speak at this thing.”) According to several accounts, Beal was a hit with the insider crowd of industry analysts, Wall Street financiers, and aerospace executives.

   Beal has enticed people from most of the top aerospace firms to work for him—Lockheed, Boeing, Thiokol, Orbital Services, even NASA. And he’s convinced the industry to take him seriously. They’re not convinced he’s right, but many of them are beginning to think he might be. “He’s doing pretty well for a Texas millionaire from out of nowhere,” says Eric Stallmer, president of the Space Transportation Association, a national trade organization.

   Most importantly, though, Beal has vision and the passion to pursue it.

   That is what makes him leave his Highland Park home to make it to his office in Frisco by 7:30 a.m. That’s what makes him stay, often, until 7 or 8 p.m. It’s what makes him cheerfully answer endless questions from prospective employees, industry peers, reporters, and curious friends. It’s what has made him plunk down his own money to play in this race to space. And it’s what has convinced others to share his vision.

   The smart money—that is, Beal’s own money, and lots of it—says he’s going to pull this off.