I agree with your general point about bootstrappability, but the X-price is a faulty analogy - it was indeed bootstraped: http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_diamand

I agree with your general point about bootstrappability, but the X-price is a faulty analogy - it was indeed bootstraped: http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_diamandis_on_our_next_giant_leap.html http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_diamandis_on_our_next_giant_l... around 9:15 in. Diamandis used a small initial grant from the Ansari family and leveraged it via insurance.