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Koch had already built a spar that he wanted to float off the Thai coast as part of a personal project focused on creating a “launch loop”, a theoretical (and possibly fantastical) system for launching objects into orbit, without rockets. Seasteading, Koch figured, was an obvious alternative application for his technology. The trio agreed they would seek to be the first to truly test seasteading in practice.
Small as it was, the pod they prepared to launch two years later was seasteading’s slightly roomier equivalent of the Vostok 3KA space capsule that housed Yuri Gagarin during the first manned space flight. But XLII was also a “big [middle] finger . . . to all those out there who want to control other people’s lives through force,” Elwartowski declared in a YouTube video. By early February, the team was cracking the champagne and streaming live to a Seasteading Institute party in San Francisco. Joe Quirk, the institute’s president, visited the pod to record the joyous occasion, capturing the pioneering couple dancing on the top deck of the structure. “You cannot buy this view,” Thepdet declared. “You can see the sun set and the sun rise and see the thousand million stars.” Elwartowski promised to “build many more, based on what we’ve learnt with this prototype . . . We’re looking for freedom-loving people to come join us.” Koch was on and off the pod at this time, popping over from Phuket by boat for visits.
Eight weeks later, the novelty started to wear thin. Articles began to appear in the Thai press questioning whether the experiment amounted to a challenge to national sovereignty. A media firestorm ensued, with furious denunciations from politicians, the military and a host of talking heads on TV. Thepdet, a Thai national, was branded a traitor, with commentators frequently noting she might be subject to the death penalty if and when she was apprehended. Koch watched with alarm as the project was condemned.
Tipped off about a likely military intervention, Elwartowski and Thepdet, along with Koch, fled by yacht — first to Malaysia, where they were denied the right to disembark, and then to Singapore. Back in Phuket, meanwhile, Thailand’s Third Naval Area Command sent a flotilla of three vessels, led by the HTMS Sriracha, to board and search the deserted pod. Then they towed the whole once-in-a-generation experiment in radical freedom back to shore.
A year later, Koch was still furious about the debacle, which had cost him about $150,000. With Steyn on his payroll, he wanted to know who among the Thai authorities was responsible for what he considered to be an outrageous act of aggression against an innocent residential vessel. Was there a warrant in Thailand for his arrest? Which local politicians were involved? What was the name of the prosecutor on the case? Each new answer Steyn provided proved a step deeper into the maze of Koch’s desire for vengeance.