Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio this weekend. You
Speaker 1: know about this one joint STEMP for space tourism as
Speaker 1: billionaire Richard Branson took a long away to test flight
Speaker 1: to space, taken alongside five of his Virgin Galactic Holdings employees.
Speaker 1: Are Ed Ludlow. Uh did talk with him right after
Speaker 1: the trip. You can catch that conversation at Bloomberg dot com.
Speaker 1: Branson trip to space bolt ing. Virgin Atlantics plan to
Speaker 1: debut tourism trips next year. Christian Davenport is report at
Speaker 1: the Washington Post. He covers NASA and the space industry.
Speaker 1: He's also author of The Space Barons, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos,
Speaker 1: and The Quest to Colonize the Cosmos. And Christian joins
Speaker 1: us on the phone in Washington. D See, Christian, good
Speaker 1: to have you here. Yeah, thanks for having me. So
Speaker 1: you've been covering this, you've been writing about it, It's
Speaker 1: been a long time coming. Tell us about your feelings
Speaker 1: seeing Richard Branson actually get into one of his ships
Speaker 1: and get out there into space. Well, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was exciting first and foremost I was there. Uh
Speaker 1: it was sort of a you know, beautiful day in
Speaker 1: Spaceport America in the desert of New Mexico where they've
Speaker 1: built this gleaming facility, this twenty million dollar taxpayer funded facility,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was typical Richard Branson and Virgin
Speaker 1: Galactic with like, you know, a band and a celebratory party.
Speaker 1: Atmosphere is really sort of almost like it was very festive.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you're watching this and and
Speaker 1: it's nerve wracking, and it's tense because you know, there
Speaker 1: are human beings on board and anytime you're you know,
Speaker 1: shooting humans off into space, it's inherently risky. And so
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. I mean, I was holding my breath.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people were, um, you know,
Speaker 1: given the fact also the Virgin Galactic had a fatal accident. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, it went it seemed like it went perfectly,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, Richard had his moment in space,
Speaker 1: got to float around the cabin with his crew members
Speaker 1: and then come back down and celebrate. But it was,
Speaker 1: you know, it was it was really a scene in
Speaker 1: an extraordinary thing for the company. But really for Richard personally. Well,
Speaker 1: and you know it's interesting that you say that the
Speaker 1: party atmosphere. I'm a daughter of an engineer. Uh. Bloomberg
Speaker 1: listeners know this involved in the early space race. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know we all got up early and it
Speaker 1: was nerve wracking because my dad, you know, my dad
Speaker 1: would say, there's you know, there's so many different systems
Speaker 1: coming from so many different contractors on these things, at
Speaker 1: least from the government's perspective, that so many things could
Speaker 1: potentially go wrong, although they obviously were really careful to
Speaker 1: make sure the systems weren't and then they had backup systems.
Speaker 1: But it is interesting to see how it's become almost
Speaker 1: like watching a movie to some extent. Yeah, and and right,
Speaker 1: a lot of people like to romanticize space flight, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of hype and a lot of enthusiasm
Speaker 1: because you've got these billionaires with you know, Elon Musk
Speaker 1: and Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson. Uh. It does sort
Speaker 1: of seem like the movies. But you know, as you knows,
Speaker 1: as you and your family know that this is it's
Speaker 1: incredibly difficult, it's incredibly risky. A million things have to
Speaker 1: go right, Um, now this isn't you know, this is
Speaker 1: not this is a suborbital space trip. It's going just
Speaker 1: up to the edge of space and coming back down.
Speaker 1: You sound like Jeff Bezos for a moment, right, Right's
Speaker 1: or or elon because Elon he's going to orbit and
Speaker 1: you know, so it's like that much. You know, he's
Speaker 1: going to Mark and Richard's going to Mark three. So
Speaker 1: it's still maybe not quite as dangerous, but still it's dangerous. Right.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things that that can that can happen.
Speaker 1: We know that. So all right, so next up is
Speaker 1: what Jeff Bezos, right, yeah, and on on Tuesday, on
Speaker 1: July twenty at the anniversary of the Apollo moon landing,
Speaker 1: and he announced that, um, you know, some time ago,
Speaker 1: and then you know, Richard kind of beat him to
Speaker 1: the punch. He said he wasn't you know, Richard was
Speaker 1: going to go on a later flight for later the summer,
Speaker 1: early in the fall, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: moved up its flight, um, you know, which obviously it
Speaker 1: angered Jeff and the people in Blue Origin, who, as
Speaker 1: you were alluding to, sort of saying, well, they're not
Speaker 1: quite going up as high as we're going and are
Speaker 1: you know, windows are bigger, and it's own a rocket
Speaker 1: as opposed to a space plane. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's just sort of extraordinary that you have Blue Origin
Speaker 1: Jeff Company, which was founded in two thousand and Virgin Galactic,
Speaker 1: which was founded in two thousand four, So all these
Speaker 1: years ago and then the founders go to space within
Speaker 1: you know, just a few days of each other. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's just wild. You know these guys from the book
Speaker 1: you wrote, uh and you've talked with them. You know,
Speaker 1: what is it that we need to understand about Richard Branson?
Speaker 1: And we'll talk more. We're gonna do some news and
Speaker 1: then we'll come back and talk somewhere. But what do
Speaker 1: we need to understand about Richard Branson and his pursuit
Speaker 1: of this. Well, he wants to open up space to
Speaker 1: more and more people. I mean today there's something like
Speaker 1: five seventy people who have ever been to space, and
Speaker 1: he wants to open that up. Now, like you know,
Speaker 1: he's not opening it up for everyone just yet. It's
Speaker 1: still very expensive. We don't know how much tickets are
Speaker 1: going to cost when they reopened. But before they suspended
Speaker 1: ticket sales, the flying version Galactic they were two hundred
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars. I think they'll come back on you know,
Speaker 1: they've said it's going to be more expensive than that.
Speaker 1: Some analysts have estimated it could be as much as
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars. So for like three or four minutes
Speaker 1: of weightlessness. I don't know that that's going to be
Speaker 1: in everyone's budget. But if they're able to fly more frequently,
Speaker 1: and they're working on already sort of a next generation
Speaker 1: spacecraft in a fleet, and then maybe they can bring
Speaker 1: that down and send more people. So we've talked about
Speaker 1: Richard Branson, We've talked about Jeff Bezos. He is up next.
Speaker 1: So what's the significance Christian? I mean, I grew up
Speaker 1: in an environment where this was just so important. It
Speaker 1: was a it was a new world, you know, new
Speaker 1: space exploration, you know, going into the unknown and and
Speaker 1: finding out so much, and then it felt like it
Speaker 1: waned so only here in the United States, and then
Speaker 1: now we're seeing the private sector really step up and
Speaker 1: push it. What's the significance of all of this? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's a great question because I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people look at these space tourism flights and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of wealthy people and they're like, you know,
Speaker 1: we've got problems here on Earth. Why are we spending
Speaker 1: all this money on space? Um? But I think it's
Speaker 1: significant for a few reasons. UM. One in terms of
Speaker 1: exploration and expanding our knowledge and you know, being able
Speaker 1: to go out, um, you know, deeper into space. Um.
Speaker 1: If you start with space tourism, you know, Jeff Bezos
Speaker 1: and talks about you know, traditionally, I mean really before
Speaker 1: SpaceX came along, you know, you might have a rocket
Speaker 1: company or NASA and they might you know, launch twelve
Speaker 1: rockets a year, right, and that's just not very much.
Speaker 1: But if these businesses you know, coming in with being
Speaker 1: much more efficient, are launching you know, twelve times a
Speaker 1: month and you know many many times a year, they
Speaker 1: get better, they get faster, the cost comes down, they
Speaker 1: may space travel just more accessible. I mean not just
Speaker 1: for you know, like space tourism, but being able to
Speaker 1: get to the Moon and maybe even get to Mars.
Speaker 1: And you know, as you mentioned, like we went to
Speaker 1: the moon and last time we were there with nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two and nobody's been back. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think NASA and the government has struggled, and you have
Speaker 1: one political you know, white White House, comes in, they say,
Speaker 1: we're going to the moon. And then another president comes
Speaker 1: into and now we've been to the moon. We're going
Speaker 1: to Mars. And then you know, then it's like we're
Speaker 1: back to the moon. They go nowhere, and now you've
Speaker 1: got these businessmen and they're just like, no, we gotta go,
Speaker 1: we gotta go now and trying to create a business
Speaker 1: case for it. What's the m hmm. But I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you is like you said that this feels
Speaker 1: like it's a rich person's endeavor. Uh, and the people
Speaker 1: who can partake in it, and there is taxpayer money
Speaker 1: that goes into it as well. Should the public sector?
Speaker 1: Should government still be involved in all of this? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's a great question. So there's taxpayer money
Speaker 1: and going into some of it, like ASEX for example,
Speaker 1: you know, they have contracts with NASA to fly cargo
Speaker 1: and supplies to the International Space Station. Uh, they have
Speaker 1: a contract to fly NASA's astronauts to the International Space Station.
Speaker 1: And they've taken that money and yeah, I mean they
Speaker 1: in turn have gone out and built the Falconine rocket
Speaker 1: and the Dragon spacecraft and they can use that for
Speaker 1: commercial purposes. If you've got NASA, they say, that's great,
Speaker 1: that's what we wanted. We want to help build up
Speaker 1: the industry. Up until now, Blue Origin has been funded,
Speaker 1: you know, largely by Jeff Bezos his own personal fortune.
Speaker 1: He's trying to change that by winning some of these contracts.
Speaker 1: In fact, he's competing right now for a contract to
Speaker 1: build a spacecraft that would land on the Moon that
Speaker 1: actually SpaceX one and Jeff Bezos company, Blue Origin is
Speaker 1: challenging that. Um. But I think what you're seeing is, yes,
Speaker 1: you want these public private partnerships where NASA and the
Speaker 1: government is investing in them and getting something for it.
Speaker 1: You know, they're getting a service, whether it's you know,
Speaker 1: flying satellites to space or resupplying the space station or
Speaker 1: flying astronauts there. Um. And then those companies turn around
Speaker 1: and invest that money in their own companies for a
Speaker 1: commercial purpose, you know, which should in the long run
Speaker 1: bring down the cost of the government while increasing their
Speaker 1: you know, the private sector's capabilities, which really has grown
Speaker 1: tremendously like in the last decade or so. Well. And
Speaker 1: I do wonder what's kind of cool about the billionaires
Speaker 1: who are involved in this, whether it's Elon, whether it's Richard,
Speaker 1: whether it's Jeff. I mean, these are individuals who definitely
Speaker 1: do it differently and think out of the box. If
Speaker 1: you think about the impact they have had on our world,
Speaker 1: and especially in terms of disrupting things, especially when I
Speaker 1: think about Elon, uh and even Jeff right, I mean,
Speaker 1: retail has been transformed the class just you know, pick
Speaker 1: your thing, and I do wonder if it's these things. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: all of this space exploration, right of all heard the
Speaker 1: stories about tang and about vel grow and you know,
Speaker 1: I think it was either even tempera pedic beds, right,
Speaker 1: Like all of this came out of NASA research and
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. I mean, is there something
Speaker 1: above and beyond that if we all kind of just
Speaker 1: let our minds wander and open that the possibility by
Speaker 1: exploring space, you know what we might find? They certainly
Speaker 1: think so Am I getting too weird on you? But
Speaker 1: I just feel like this is your world? And are
Speaker 1: you talking to scientists and academics who say, wait, the
Speaker 1: reason we need to be doing this is because of X,
Speaker 1: Y and Z. Yeah. No, I don't think it's too
Speaker 1: weird at all. And it fits right in for like
Speaker 1: what Jeff. Jeff talks about this and he says he
Speaker 1: wants to use space to open up sort of this
Speaker 1: new economic dynamism like we had with the advent of
Speaker 1: the Internet. But with the Internet, like that infrastructure was
Speaker 1: in place so that you know, Mark Zuckerbert could found
Speaker 1: Facebook from his dorm room and Jeff could you know,
Speaker 1: start Amazon because the infrastructure was there, like the phone
Speaker 1: line to you laid down the cable, and there was
Speaker 1: this device called the credit card, and Jeff could take
Speaker 1: people's money, and there was the post office that could
Speaker 1: deliver the books, um, and so you could start an
Speaker 1: internet company from nothing. But you can't today really start
Speaker 1: a space company because it's too the you know, the
Speaker 1: the bar getting into access, it's just too high. It's
Speaker 1: too difficult. The barriers to entry are too hard. And
Speaker 1: what they want to do is helped build that infrastructure
Speaker 1: so that some kid in his dorm room could start
Speaker 1: a space company. And you're starting to see some of
Speaker 1: these like you know, we pay attention to like the
Speaker 1: billionaires and their rockets. But there's a company called Planet
Speaker 1: out of San Francisco, for example, that has a fleet
Speaker 1: of satellites and space and they take you know, an
Speaker 1: image of the entire planet every single day and have
Speaker 1: this massive database of the Earth going back through time. Um.
Speaker 1: You know that's you know, a viable company right there
Speaker 1: that's had a normal success. So I think what they
Speaker 1: want to do is, yes, open that up or business
Speaker 1: and for science, but they need to first build the infrastructure,
Speaker 1: that sort of highway to space. All right, So just
Speaker 1: got about thirty forty seconds left here. What are you
Speaker 1: going to be looking out for for Jeff Bezos in
Speaker 1: his flight next week? Yeah, I mean so it's it's
Speaker 1: not just Jeff and his brother who are going. We
Speaker 1: still don't know the identity of this twenty eight million
Speaker 1: dollar auction winner. Uh. You know they auctioned off that
Speaker 1: seat and they went to twenty eight million dollars. Wait,
Speaker 1: I have to tell somebody everybody actually it was no, No,
Speaker 1: it's not me. Oh that it were true. Yes, but
Speaker 1: it is a little crazy because if you spent fifty
Speaker 1: five million, you could fly on SpaceX and spend a
Speaker 1: week on the International Space Station. But we won't get
Speaker 1: into that. Um. And the fourth seas is going to
Speaker 1: Wally Funk, who's eighty two years old, and she was
Speaker 1: part of this group called the Mercury Thirteen, which was
Speaker 1: a group of women and there was sort of a
Speaker 1: privately funded endeavored to train them alongside the men in
Speaker 1: the show that they were ready. And now she gets
Speaker 1: or tripped space. Finally. I love that aspect of it.
Speaker 1: And it's not a week. It's actually July twentie. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit more than a week that we see
Speaker 1: Jeff go up. Um. Christian, this was fun. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on. Christian Davenport over at the
Speaker 1: Washington Post cover space. Check out his book The Space Barrens.
Speaker 1: That's going to do it for this Monday, folks, get
Speaker 1: ready for bank earnings. I'm Carol Messer and this is Bloomberg.