“John came to me and said he wanted to build a futuristic city in the desert,” Rhinehart said. As chance would have it, Rhinehart had purchased a 3-acre parcel of land in the high desert for $3,000, sight unseen, thinking it might serve as a nice spot for stargazing. “When I got out there the first time, it felt like Mars — just being on that plain all alone with the mountains around you and the stars above you, there’s a lot of good energy there. When John said he needed a site, I was like, ‘Oh, you can use mine for free.’ ”

A little more than a year later, Betaspace was born — a futuristic space settlement event that features expert speakers in terraforming, synthetic biology, and space exploration.