Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking,
Speaker 1: the podcast that looks at the future and says, let
Speaker 1: me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Vocabon, and I'm Joe McCormick. So, um, guys,
Speaker 1: I just got back from a great trip. You guys
Speaker 1: held down the fort admirably. I went to c e S,
Speaker 1: which it was cool, but it did really immediately made
Speaker 1: me wish that I could take a vacation because it's
Speaker 1: a lot of work to cover c e S and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I like exotic vacations. And that's where this
Speaker 1: whole space thing sort of popped into mind, this idea
Speaker 1: of let me really really get away from it all.
Speaker 1: Although I'm kind of curious here, I mean, because you
Speaker 1: you may have expressed a few, um frustrations with the
Speaker 1: amount of preparation that you had to do to go
Speaker 1: to ce ES and the amount of preparation to go
Speaker 1: to space is like six months of training. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you know I can sleep through that. That's easy enough. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: we wanted to talk about space tourism, this idea of
Speaker 1: regular human beings going up into space, people who are
Speaker 1: not necessarily dedicating a significant portion of their lives to
Speaker 1: the study of space or the exploration of space, people
Speaker 1: who just want to have a chance to experience that
Speaker 1: for themselves. You know, I can imagine back in the
Speaker 1: sixties when people were watching the Apollo program on TV.
Speaker 1: There was probably this sense among children at the time
Speaker 1: that like, oh man, the doors, yeah, they're just flying open.
Speaker 1: In a few years, I'm going to be going to space.
Speaker 1: We're going to go there on vacation. It'll be fun.
Speaker 1: It'll be like a day trip. You know, you can
Speaker 1: just go up and look at the curve of the
Speaker 1: Earth at the window. Wouldn't that be cool? Well, particularly
Speaker 1: once we started landing people on the Moon, and at
Speaker 1: that point I really thinking, okay, so now now this
Speaker 1: is the future. This is it from here on out.
Speaker 1: We're not going to have a time where we're not
Speaker 1: going to the moon. And that time came pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: Then we never went back, unless you believe that Apollo
Speaker 1: eighteen movie. I have seen that Apollo eighteen movie. Don't
Speaker 1: watch it. I'll save you. Uh. It's terrible, is absolutely terrible,
Speaker 1: not not even a little bit. What's it about like
Speaker 1: moon spiders or about Moon rock spiders or rock moon
Speaker 1: spider episode to ask conspiracy stuff about? But yeah, yeah right, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well okay, so we never we didn't go back to
Speaker 1: the Moon. We're still going to space some Yeah, we've
Speaker 1: got the International Space Station. We've got some telescopes up
Speaker 1: there and a couple that are well one in particular
Speaker 1: that's getting ready for the big launch. So we keep
Speaker 1: talking about that wacky like Mars one kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about that too. Yeah. But but I
Speaker 1: think I think that I s S right now is
Speaker 1: pretty much the inspiration. I mean, kids like Chris Hadfield
Speaker 1: being up there and and you know, singing space audity
Speaker 1: and getting people excited about the entire thing all over again.
Speaker 1: You know, it's He's very much I think our generations
Speaker 1: answered to those terrific Apollo videos. Yeah, it's great to
Speaker 1: be a space enthusiast. But if you are not somebody
Speaker 1: who works at NASSA, if you're not like a test
Speaker 1: pilot or an astronaut of some kind, how are you
Speaker 1: going to get there? Well, I mean, until fairly recently,
Speaker 1: you could get there by dropping a tunnel cash. Yeah yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so this requires a little bit of explanation. So, uh,
Speaker 1: a little bit more than a decade ago, you know,
Speaker 1: about fourteen years ago or so, the world was in
Speaker 1: a space where the Russian Space Agency in general in
Speaker 1: general was really strapped for cash. In fact, Russia in
Speaker 1: general was really strapped for cash, right, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the Russians have a space an actual space industry, just
Speaker 1: like the United States does. And then a lot of
Speaker 1: the US space industry depends heavily on the Russians at
Speaker 1: this point for their various rockets and some of the
Speaker 1: other equipment they make as well, and of course their
Speaker 1: their partners aboard the International Space Station. So back at
Speaker 1: that time there was a company called Mere Core m
Speaker 1: I R c O r P. So they were in
Speaker 1: charge at that time of private company in charge of
Speaker 1: the Mere Space Station, and they were looking at perhaps
Speaker 1: offsetting some of the maintenance costs of the Mirror by
Speaker 1: offering up the chance for private citizens to spend a
Speaker 1: hefty lump of cash in order to go up and
Speaker 1: visit the mirror, uh space station. This was great while
Speaker 1: the Mirror was still you know, in orbit. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: a couple of things happened. Well. For first, there were
Speaker 1: some companies that took advantage of being able to send
Speaker 1: people up into space. But they're not space tourists, right.
Speaker 1: These were companies that sent along a specialist who was
Speaker 1: someone who would oversee the payload of like something that
Speaker 1: wasn the Space Shuttle or in one case, there was
Speaker 1: a reporter for the Tokyo Broadcast System called toyo Hiro
Speaker 1: Akiyama who went up to the Mere Space Station once
Speaker 1: this program was offered, and it was actually the Tokyo
Speaker 1: Broadcasting System that paid the twenty eight million dollars US
Speaker 1: to the Russian space industry for Akayama to go up
Speaker 1: there and broadcast. And Akayama actually performed science experiments broadcast
Speaker 1: every single day. So this was a working trip. It
Speaker 1: was not a vacation, right, So so we don't really
Speaker 1: count that as a space tourist, but it's sort of
Speaker 1: opening up the doors for what immediately followed. So there's
Speaker 1: a guy named Dennis Tito. He was yeah, American businessman,
Speaker 1: um really wealthy investor and um he is officially the
Speaker 1: first person to pay a fee to go up into space. Now,
Speaker 1: initially his plan was also to go up and visit Mirror.
Speaker 1: But like you were alluding to, Lauren, mir did not
Speaker 1: stay up in orbit forever. They Russian Space Agency actually
Speaker 1: decided to de orbit Mirror. De orbit means let it
Speaker 1: crash into, yeah, onto Earth. So he began to Actually
Speaker 1: what happened was a Mirror Corps began to partner with
Speaker 1: another company, a company that becomes really big in space tourism,
Speaker 1: company called this U space company called Space Adventures Limited,
Speaker 1: which I thought was like a laser tag company until
Speaker 1: I looked more into this, But no, it's this. This
Speaker 1: is actually the organization that coordinates with say, the Russian
Speaker 1: Space Agency to make sure people can go up into space.
Speaker 1: I kind of want them to also do laser tag.
Speaker 1: That might be part of the training. I don't know.
Speaker 1: You never know, you might run into space aliens and
Speaker 1: you have to make sure your accuracy is really high
Speaker 1: moon spiders and spiders. Am I correct in saying that
Speaker 1: all of the people, all of the space tourists so
Speaker 1: far who have been up there, have been with Space
Speaker 1: Adventures if you don't count Akayama, absolutely, and and we
Speaker 1: shouldn't count Ocama because again that was a business trip,
Speaker 1: not us. So yes, you are correct and so and
Speaker 1: also we should say that all of these trips so
Speaker 1: far are orbital trips. You're reaching orbital velocity, you're actually
Speaker 1: orbiting the Earth, as opposed to suborbital, which we'll talk
Speaker 1: about a little bit later. So Tito goes up there,
Speaker 1: spends probably Space Adventures does not share how much money
Speaker 1: each person spent in order to get there, and the
Speaker 1: amount of money changes depending upon when and how the
Speaker 1: person goes up and how long they go up. But
Speaker 1: people like to speculate on how much these trips costs.
Speaker 1: So the the estimation is roughly around twenty million dollars
Speaker 1: US to go up there. And he went up for
Speaker 1: a week essentially. And uh, and what happened with Space
Speaker 1: Adventures was able to when I say up there, I
Speaker 1: don't think I've actually mentioned where he went. The International
Speaker 1: Space Station is where he went. So because mirror was
Speaker 1: no longer an option, the I S S became the
Speaker 1: the one location and you could go to, and Space
Speaker 1: Adventures was able to secure that. At the time, NASA
Speaker 1: not so thrilled with this option. They felt that the
Speaker 1: I S S was really a scientific facility and that
Speaker 1: to bring tourists in would jeopardize actual legitimate science, not
Speaker 1: to mention devalue the whole concept of what the I
Speaker 1: S S was. They were also not at the US
Speaker 1: and Russia. We're not really having the best of relations
Speaker 1: right that very momentary that they had just had that
Speaker 1: espionage scandal, and uh, the US had kicked a bunch
Speaker 1: of foreign dignitaries out of out of our country, and
Speaker 1: Russia had, in exchange kicked a bunch of our dignitaries
Speaker 1: and their country. Everyone was pretty pretty upset with everybody else.
Speaker 1: Russia was threatening to defund their portion of the I
Speaker 1: S S entirely. Yeah, it was. It was kind of
Speaker 1: a you know, I'm not gonna lie, a little shaky time.
Speaker 1: It was. But I actually think that this tourism thing
Speaker 1: might have brought everyone together with the promise of money
Speaker 1: could have So yeah, he went up and spent a
Speaker 1: week there and then came back down and uh and
Speaker 1: and set the president. And since then, um, I believe
Speaker 1: six other people have gone up. I can tell you
Speaker 1: their names actually, so there's there's Mark Shuttleworth was the
Speaker 1: next one. He was a businessman from South Africa, paid
Speaker 1: also probably around twenty million dollars. He went up in
Speaker 1: two thousand two, spent eleven days up on the I
Speaker 1: S S. Gregory Olsen paid about twenty million in two
Speaker 1: thousand five from October one to October eleven. Then you
Speaker 1: had Annoche and and sorry, she paid around twenty million
Speaker 1: and two thousand six for a little over a week
Speaker 1: in September. She was an Iranian American who who is
Speaker 1: a telecommunications entrepreneur and the first woman to to go
Speaker 1: up as a space tourist. And she she blogged all
Speaker 1: of her experiences about it. And the blog is still
Speaker 1: up and it gives me so many feelings. I highly
Speaker 1: recommend that everyone go check that out. I'll see if
Speaker 1: I can remember to link it on social. Next, we
Speaker 1: have Charles Simoni, who went twice. He liked it so
Speaker 1: much he went a secon at time. He went in
Speaker 1: two thousand seven for fifteen days, and in two thousand
Speaker 1: nine he went up again for fourteen days. And estimates
Speaker 1: say they paid around twenty five million for the first
Speaker 1: privilege and around thirty five million for the second one.
Speaker 1: And you might wonder, hey, how's this dude to afford
Speaker 1: all these crazy vacations. Well, he's the guy who essentially
Speaker 1: oversaw the production of a little uh software suite called
Speaker 1: Microsoft Office. Oh yeah, so no big And so if
Speaker 1: you've ever used word or excel or in power Point,
Speaker 1: this is the guy using it twice. Yeah. So he's
Speaker 1: worth around a billion dollars so that, you know, not
Speaker 1: insignificant sum of money, but he could afford it. Next
Speaker 1: is the guy who I actually know who went to
Speaker 1: the International Space Station, Richard Garriott. Richard Garriott a k a.
Speaker 1: Lord British. He's the guy who created the ultimate series
Speaker 1: of computer role playing games. Uh and someone I met
Speaker 1: when I was a kid and stayed in contact with
Speaker 1: him for quite a few years. I've lost touch with him.
Speaker 1: I have not really talked about his experiences in space.
Speaker 1: He's a busy man, so I don't have any firsthand
Speaker 1: or even secondhand information to give you. Someday we are
Speaker 1: going to do a text up episode about him. But
Speaker 1: the final person we've got on here he Lallaberte. He's
Speaker 1: a Canadian, so it's probably actually guy at this point.
Speaker 1: I guess it all depends on whether or not you're
Speaker 1: in Quebec. But La Liberty Thank You went up in
Speaker 1: two thousand nine. He paid probably right around forty million
Speaker 1: dollars to do so, and uh, he comes from he
Speaker 1: got his money from a little show, got a little
Speaker 1: bit of popularities, particularly if you've been to say, Las
Speaker 1: Vegas recently starked to La where I think every show
Speaker 1: in Vegas has now starked to lay. So did he
Speaker 1: get to do acrobatics and eat fire and space? I
Speaker 1: would say no to the fire, and you're kind of
Speaker 1: have to do acrobatics when you're up there, because yeah,
Speaker 1: walking is would be an amazing trick up in space.
Speaker 1: So I bet he did it. He probably did, He
Speaker 1: probably did. Those were the the that's officially the list
Speaker 1: of people who have been to space as quote unquote tourists,
Speaker 1: although I should say that most of them hate that
Speaker 1: word because they actually did stuff up there as opposed
Speaker 1: to just going on a vacation. I think the technical
Speaker 1: term might be private astronaut, private astronaized what some of
Speaker 1: them like, Yeah, there were a couple, there were some
Speaker 1: one one person said something like uh uh, private space traveler.
Speaker 1: Like it was just there were all these different little
Speaker 1: variations on it, because no one really wanted it to
Speaker 1: just be tourist, doctor space love doctor, doctor space guy. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it would just be the last one. And sorry also
Speaker 1: pointed out that, you know, she was like, I spent
Speaker 1: like six months training for this guy's It's not It's
Speaker 1: not like I was just like, oh, hey, space trip,
Speaker 1: Like I didn't book an all inclusive package, you know, yeah, exactly. So, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the trips are pretty serious stuff, right, I
Speaker 1: mean you have to go through lots of a Now,
Speaker 1: granted it depends upon which agency are looking at, you know,
Speaker 1: how they do this, but you know, they had to
Speaker 1: do training to learn everything from how the various systems
Speaker 1: work so they could operate any given system. They had
Speaker 1: to know how to react in the case of an emergency.
Speaker 1: They had to seem at least healthy enough that they
Speaker 1: could take that trip without either causing themselves injury or
Speaker 1: making someone else sick. Okay, well, let's talk about the
Speaker 1: different kinds of private space travel that are available. First
Speaker 1: of all, like, what technically counts his space? How high
Speaker 1: do you have to go? Well, the United States says
Speaker 1: that you have to go about eighty kilometers up or
Speaker 1: fifty miles, but that's not that it's also not the
Speaker 1: only definition. I mean, the the Federation Aeronautique INTERNATIONALE sets
Speaker 1: the altitude at one kilometers, which is around sixty two
Speaker 1: miles high. It's just because it's a round number in
Speaker 1: the metrics system. What do they know? Whereas whereas the
Speaker 1: fifty miles is a round number and the see we
Speaker 1: that okay, I see all right, size America? Um okay,
Speaker 1: So yeah, space it doesn't have a there's not like
Speaker 1: a specific border, right that you can just point out
Speaker 1: and say, on this side you are not in space,
Speaker 1: and on this side you are in space. It's kind
Speaker 1: of more of a it's kind of a more of
Speaker 1: a wibbly wobbly spectrum thing. Yeah, so it all depends
Speaker 1: upon your point of view. I guess. Also another thing
Speaker 1: we should point out is, you know, like I said
Speaker 1: that these are all orbital space trips. You know, they
Speaker 1: were in orbit around the Earth. You're talking as a
Speaker 1: tourist who have already gone. That's the only thing that
Speaker 1: had been available was orbital. There were no suborbital specific
Speaker 1: missions for for space tourism. Okay, well, let's talk about
Speaker 1: let's sort of go from the bottom to the top.
Speaker 1: So suborbital is less than what these people who already
Speaker 1: went did. What is it? Okay, suborbital. It's it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily an altitude thing. It's more of a speed thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: So in order to be in orbit, you have to
Speaker 1: attain orbital velocity. That means you're going at a speed
Speaker 1: where you are constantly uh, the your fall towards the
Speaker 1: Earth is at the same same rate as the curvature
Speaker 1: of the Earth, in the sense that you're always falling
Speaker 1: just beyond where the Earth is. You're staying in that
Speaker 1: same relative point um. Not necessarily in geosynchronous or geostationary orbit,
Speaker 1: but you know that's you're you're going at this incredible speed,
Speaker 1: so you have to maintain that speed in order to
Speaker 1: maintain orbit. If you drop below that speed, then you're
Speaker 1: going to start falling toward the surface of the Earth.
Speaker 1: That's what's a suborbital trip. So if you were to
Speaker 1: go fast enough so that you got up to the
Speaker 1: altitude where more or less you argue that, yes, I'm
Speaker 1: in space, I'm a h kilometers up or I'm you know,
Speaker 1: eighty kilometers up, depending upon whose definition you're following. Uh,
Speaker 1: But your speed is not so much that you're going
Speaker 1: to stay in orbit. That would be suborbital. So again
Speaker 1: it's not so much an altitude thing as is a
Speaker 1: speed thing. It does mean that it's slightly I hesitate
Speaker 1: to use the word easy, but it's something that's more
Speaker 1: achievable if you are able to design the right kind
Speaker 1: of aircraft for it. Um And that's really what a
Speaker 1: lot of the space tourism companies out there are looking
Speaker 1: at is the suborbital orbital option also would mean that
Speaker 1: the uh, the cost of putting someone up there would
Speaker 1: be lower, so you would see lower price tags attached
Speaker 1: to those tickets than say twenty to fifty million dollars
Speaker 1: per pop, which I think we mostly can argue is
Speaker 1: not within the grasp of your average tourist, right, most
Speaker 1: consumers can't really drop that kind of cash. And we'll
Speaker 1: cover more of that in another episode about the costs
Speaker 1: of space travel and how could this actually come into
Speaker 1: the grasp of the average traveler. So when we talk
Speaker 1: about suborbital right now, we have to talk about all right,
Speaker 1: who who? Who is offering up a suborbital travel plan?
Speaker 1: Richie Branson? Right, Well, eventually to two companies are have
Speaker 1: solid plans in place. Yeah, So that that's something we
Speaker 1: definitely need to stress though. Is that no one's doing
Speaker 1: it yet. But when you say solid, what you mean
Speaker 1: is like you can go to their website and start
Speaker 1: booking right now. Sure, I could also book lots of
Speaker 1: trips to fictional places. I'm not going to get there
Speaker 1: anytime soon. You can, And well, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that the way that I'm defining it is that they
Speaker 1: are capable of doing at least a test flight with
Speaker 1: the equipment that they currently had right there. In fact,
Speaker 1: there was a test flight of Virgin Galactics aircraft that
Speaker 1: they're planning on using for suborbital trips just a few
Speaker 1: days before the recording of this podcast. We're recording this
Speaker 1: on January four, two thousand and fourteen, and on January tenth,
Speaker 1: they held a test flight and it was really to
Speaker 1: check out the rocket control system. So this was the
Speaker 1: first time they had had an actual, live human pilot
Speaker 1: behind the controls to test this to make sure it worked,
Speaker 1: and everything worked perfectly, So it's a great story. However,
Speaker 1: you should also remember the first time Richard Brentson talked
Speaker 1: about Virgin Galactic was back in two thousand four and
Speaker 1: at the time he was projecting out to have the
Speaker 1: first flights taking travelers to a suborbital pathway to be
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven. So you know, we've gone a
Speaker 1: decade since he announced this essentially more or less, and
Speaker 1: we have not yet hit that first flight. And it's
Speaker 1: you know, it tells you a couple of things that
Speaker 1: these these tasks are way more complex and uh and
Speaker 1: more expensive than people had anticipated when they first started
Speaker 1: thinking about it. Getting into space is not a trivial matter.
Speaker 1: So um, it's not to say that this is impossible
Speaker 1: or we shouldn't pursue it, but rather that by by
Speaker 1: seeing how far off we were from the projections, we
Speaker 1: have to keep that in mind. And I've actually seen
Speaker 1: some people suggest that fourteen might be the make or
Speaker 1: break year if we don't see uh, some some um
Speaker 1: market success from these these unit these different companies that
Speaker 1: are trying to have this, that it might end up
Speaker 1: pulling some of the enthusiasm out. We're going to start
Speaker 1: getting disillusion right. Um yeah, Okay, So let's take a
Speaker 1: look at these companies like Virgin Galactic and SpaceX who
Speaker 1: want to offer suborbital flights. What does this flight actually
Speaker 1: look like? What happens on it while you go up
Speaker 1: into the again, depending upon what the altitude is you
Speaker 1: go up into space, but again at a speed, at
Speaker 1: a speed where you are not going to go into orbit,
Speaker 1: but you will have at least a few minutes of
Speaker 1: weightlessness as well as the opportunity to view stars without
Speaker 1: any sort of twinkling, because you're not gonna have any
Speaker 1: atmosphere in the way, So you're gonna see the stars
Speaker 1: as they would appear if you were out even further
Speaker 1: into space. Uh, you're gonna have a great view of
Speaker 1: the Earth. You can be able to see the curvature exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll be able to see the curvature of the Earth.
Speaker 1: And Uh. Also, because you would be traveling in a
Speaker 1: fully pressurized cabin, you would not necessarily have to wear
Speaker 1: a full space suit. Um, this would be something where
Speaker 1: you might be wearing a jumpsuit, but not a full
Speaker 1: space suit. The whole trip would last ninety minutes from
Speaker 1: take off to landing, so only a few minutes of
Speaker 1: those would be spent in quote unquote space. But you
Speaker 1: would have that opportunity to be in an environment that
Speaker 1: relatively few people have experienced. Yeah, so you get a
Speaker 1: pretty unique and amazing view. You get to experience some weightlessness, yep.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of other companies working on this besides
Speaker 1: Virgin Galactic and space X. Two that are kind of
Speaker 1: interesting are Blue Origin, which is a fairly secretive company.
Speaker 1: That one was founded by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.
Speaker 1: So if you figure out what to deal with them
Speaker 1: is uh, well, they're looking at vertical takeoff and landing
Speaker 1: rockets that can be used over and over again, so
Speaker 1: it's a slightly different approach. A lot of these other
Speaker 1: spacecraft are craft that would be launched from another aircraft,
Speaker 1: so they kind of piggyback onto an aircraft and then
Speaker 1: launch while they're already in the air so that they've
Speaker 1: are he got that initial boost going, um but in
Speaker 1: this case it would be a rocket. Blue Origins looking
Speaker 1: at rockets that would take off from the service of
Speaker 1: the Earth and then returned to the service of the Earth. Um. So,
Speaker 1: but they're pretty quiet about the whole thing. And then
Speaker 1: there's x Core Aerospace, which is also looking into spacecraft.
Speaker 1: There a lot of their early work was mostly in rockets,
Speaker 1: actually building the rockets that would take a spacecraft up
Speaker 1: into space, but they're now working on the craft itself.
Speaker 1: I love that Virgin Galactics is called the enterprise. That's
Speaker 1: great V S S enterprise. It's based off Spaceship two,
Speaker 1: which in term was based off Spaceship one. You might
Speaker 1: guys might remember that was the spaceship that actually won
Speaker 1: the d Sorry X prize for achieving suborbital flight. It
Speaker 1: was unmanned, but it achieved the flight, won the ten
Speaker 1: million dollars and was immediately retired. And Sorry X, by
Speaker 1: the way, being funded by our our friend and sorry
Speaker 1: who was one of the six who went up into space.
Speaker 1: She has also been really excited and she and her husband,
Speaker 1: I suppose it's more fair to say, or one of
Speaker 1: her family members. I'm not sure if it's her husband
Speaker 1: or not. Right, she obviously had a life changing experience
Speaker 1: going up to the I S. S and wanted to
Speaker 1: uh to encourage the privatization of space exploration space travel,
Speaker 1: which could in theory bring that closer to a large
Speaker 1: a much larger audience. Right, right, So, so how much
Speaker 1: are we looking at for this kind of space Well,
Speaker 1: Originally in two thousand four, a ticket a reservation for
Speaker 1: the Virgin Galactic flight would cost you about two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Now it's more like two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: I guess if you adjust for inflation, it's probably not
Speaker 1: a whole lot of movement there, um, but it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's not it's still not cheap, but two or fifty
Speaker 1: dollars is is much less expensive than that twenty to
Speaker 1: fifty million dollar price tag of going to the I
Speaker 1: S s uh. So that's your suborbital plan if you
Speaker 1: want to experience what it's like to go up into space,
Speaker 1: but not go all the way out into orbit and
Speaker 1: usit as space station somewhere and hang out there for
Speaker 1: a few days and to pay some millions upon millions
Speaker 1: dis right, so that that brings us up to orbital flights.
Speaker 1: So this is where this is what we've seen before. However, yeah,
Speaker 1: right at least all the way out into orbit. Um,
Speaker 1: we can go even further in a little bit, but
Speaker 1: going all the way on the orbit right now is
Speaker 1: not viable in the sense that Space Adventures cannot book
Speaker 1: a flight for you right off to the s S.
Speaker 1: They're still advertising them, yeah basically, but they just SS
Speaker 1: isn't putting anybody up at the moment right as of
Speaker 1: what happened was there were plans to ramp up activity
Speaker 1: aboard the International Space Station, which essentially meant that there
Speaker 1: was no room for uh people in Hawaiian shirts and
Speaker 1: flip flops to come up there and muck around with
Speaker 1: all the science and whatnot. So the the Space Adventures
Speaker 1: folks and the folks that the Russian Space Agency essentially
Speaker 1: said for the time being, this is on hold. Will
Speaker 1: tell you when you can go again. Originally they were
Speaker 1: looking at possibly starting up again in twenty thirteen, saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, now we're no longer sending so many cosmonauts
Speaker 1: up to the I s S each time we've got
Speaker 1: more flights, we can actually book a person every now
Speaker 1: and then. But that turned out not to happen. You know,
Speaker 1: it just didn't work out properly, So you still can't
Speaker 1: go there right now. The earliest they're saying that they'll
Speaker 1: probably be allowed to send people back up will be
Speaker 1: And again that's mostly because of the Russian space program
Speaker 1: and the fact that you know, there's limited space. That's
Speaker 1: the sayers, capsules can only hold a few cosmonauts, and
Speaker 1: if those cosmonauts are needed for specific mission, then there's
Speaker 1: no space to bring anybody else, right, And since we
Speaker 1: don't have a any NASA shuttles, right, Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: the only way up there right now. That's the only
Speaker 1: way you're getting up there. So some companies are working
Speaker 1: on alternatives. Yeah, yep, SpaceX might offer private flights up
Speaker 1: to the I S S in the future. They have
Speaker 1: already demonstrated that they were able to dock a dragon
Speaker 1: capsule that was unmanned, but they were able to dock
Speaker 1: it with the I S S perfectly fine. Um, so
Speaker 1: that was kind of a proof of concept that once
Speaker 1: they have proven, you know, to everyone that the Dragon
Speaker 1: capsule is safe, that's going to support life, it's gonna
Speaker 1: have all the features in there that's necessary to keep
Speaker 1: people from from perishing in space, because as we've established before,
Speaker 1: space is trying to kill you. It's all about perishing.
Speaker 1: Once they once they get to a point where they're
Speaker 1: able to so cheerful, once they're able to get to
Speaker 1: a point where they're able to prove that all of
Speaker 1: that is perfectly fine, then there's the potential to actually
Speaker 1: transport private citizens up there. There's as far as they know,
Speaker 1: there's nothing specific where you can actually reserve anything or
Speaker 1: even say, you know, semi more information about this. It's
Speaker 1: more like they have the potential to do it, but
Speaker 1: I don't know that they have commented publicly about actually
Speaker 1: doing that as a business um, But it's certainly something
Speaker 1: that they could they could have the capacity to do
Speaker 1: once they prove the technical aspect um. Also, they have
Speaker 1: Boeing who's working on the CST. CST stands for Crew
Speaker 1: Space Transportation and it's part of NASA's Commercial Crew Development
Speaker 1: Program or cc DEV, and so this was another opportunity
Speaker 1: for NASA to reach out to the private industry and say,
Speaker 1: can you guys help us bridge this gap that we
Speaker 1: have because we don't have that program anymore. We can't
Speaker 1: we don't have a spacecraft that can do this, and
Speaker 1: you know, while we might have something in development, it
Speaker 1: may take us a decade or longer to get it
Speaker 1: to finish, whereas you guys could start working on it
Speaker 1: right away. So Boeing did work on that. There were
Speaker 1: some things that were holding it up, mostly they were money,
Speaker 1: but that you know, they've they've received funding a couple
Speaker 1: of different rounds of funding on it, and it worked
Speaker 1: on that that that could also potentially dock with both
Speaker 1: the I S s and uh if anyone were to
Speaker 1: actually build a private space station, something that's privately owned
Speaker 1: by a corporation or individual who has a ridiculous amount
Speaker 1: of money, um, then it could also dock with that.
Speaker 1: And in fact, Boeing's business plan was more or less saying,
Speaker 1: all right, well, for this to make sense for us,
Speaker 1: we need to have this much funding up front, and
Speaker 1: I forget what the number was is huge. It had
Speaker 1: way too many commas in it. And then they said,
Speaker 1: and we need there to be essentially to space stations
Speaker 1: because that would make it feasible for us to to
Speaker 1: operate this. So right now there's only the one, but
Speaker 1: you know that that might that might change sometime in
Speaker 1: the future. Do you guys want to talk about some
Speaker 1: of those private space stations that have been in planning? Sure? Y,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't really want to brag, but I
Speaker 1: got a little d i y project going on in
Speaker 1: my garage. I took one of those little fabric dog
Speaker 1: bad things. And that's going to ask how your dog
Speaker 1: was involved. But that's but that's good, Okay, he's he's
Speaker 1: he's got ambitions. You got a steel drum garbage can,
Speaker 1: right right. I've written rocket on the side of it.
Speaker 1: That's important. No, Okay, so what a bunch of M
Speaker 1: A D s we're joking around. But as it turns out,
Speaker 1: there there actually there is a company that is working
Speaker 1: on building, uh building actual space station stuff for private use,
Speaker 1: and in fact has launched two prototypes already. Right so,
Speaker 1: when you think about space tourism, um, suborbital flights seem
Speaker 1: like they could be really cool. But if you want
Speaker 1: to get that full space experience, you are going to
Speaker 1: be depending on some kind of permanently orbiting module, right um,
Speaker 1: And the I S S is kind of busy right now,
Speaker 1: like Space Adventures still says, we we hope we get
Speaker 1: back there, but yeah, we don't know. The earliest we
Speaker 1: can say. What might be a really good option if
Speaker 1: you want to travel to space, go around the Earth
Speaker 1: in orbit is just to have a dedicated space lodging
Speaker 1: where you can stay. Now. The company that has built
Speaker 1: a couple of prototypes that and they are in orbit
Speaker 1: right now is called Bigelow Aerospace. Now they go so
Speaker 1: far as on their website to say they are not
Speaker 1: building a space hotel. That is not what they're doing. However,
Speaker 1: what they are doing is they're building their building space
Speaker 1: these expandable space habitats that could potentially be put to
Speaker 1: any sort of use you can imagine, which could include
Speaker 1: actual space tourism. If a company wanted to end up
Speaker 1: essentially kind of leasing this from Bigelow and then turning
Speaker 1: it around and selling space to space tourists, that is
Speaker 1: entirely possible, right. Essentially, what they've said is that they
Speaker 1: anticipate that their primary customers, at least early on, are
Speaker 1: going to be countries, um or major yeah, or major corporations. Right, So,
Speaker 1: a major corporation that needs to do some sort of
Speaker 1: scientific study that will only work in a low gravity
Speaker 1: or zero G environment, you know, your options are pretty
Speaker 1: slim here on Earth. So this would this would open
Speaker 1: up options because again, it's also difficult to make sure
Speaker 1: that you can get that same sort of work done
Speaker 1: aboard the I S S. They have their own agenda
Speaker 1: that is pretty full. So if you had an alternate,
Speaker 1: like you could go to this other space station and
Speaker 1: be able to do that work there, that would be huge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But there are two ways this might pertain to space tourism.
Speaker 1: One is that, well, okay, let's say a company that
Speaker 1: just wants to lease it out as a space lodging
Speaker 1: is the company that leases it from Bigelow, and so
Speaker 1: they're they're running it now and that's what they decided
Speaker 1: they want to use it for. Or a similar technology
Speaker 1: could be used to build another space station. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and well let's talk about what the technolog How do
Speaker 1: these things work? So they are expandable, also you could
Speaker 1: call them inflatable. They have fabric and metal joints that
Speaker 1: no one was really sure if they were going to
Speaker 1: be able to hold up to the rigors of space.
Speaker 1: But in fact that like I said, they've launched two prototypes,
Speaker 1: the Gemini one or I'm sorry, not Gemini Genesis, the
Speaker 1: Genesis one and Genesis to uh, I don't know how
Speaker 1: I got that mixed up. I mean Star Trek two.
Speaker 1: Come on. So the Genesis prototypes have been launched successfully
Speaker 1: into orbit and are continuously gathering information for Bigelow that
Speaker 1: they're taking scientific measurements. They have cameras all over them.
Speaker 1: Those don't have any people, and they do not they
Speaker 1: are they are not meant to be habitable. They are
Speaker 1: meant to be kind of like orbiting science stations that
Speaker 1: are really to gather more information so that Bigelow can
Speaker 1: continue to innovate and create habitable environments. In fact, they're
Speaker 1: working on one called the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module or
Speaker 1: being Yeah, they're working with NASA on that one, yep,
Speaker 1: Because again NASA's looking at the private industry to help
Speaker 1: pick up some of the I hate to use the
Speaker 1: word slack, but you know, to help help them out
Speaker 1: financial slacks. Certainly. Sure, so, they were looking at creating
Speaker 1: BEAM as a potential module that would add on to
Speaker 1: the International Space Station. It would effectively expand the I
Speaker 1: S S. It's kind of like, you know, building an
Speaker 1: extension to your house in a way, except this particular
Speaker 1: extension is inflatable, it's expandable, um and uh, it would
Speaker 1: really only be there for a couple of years, just
Speaker 1: as sort of a proof of concept. It wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 1: become like it wouldn't be the new living quarters for
Speaker 1: the crew aboard the I S S. It's more to
Speaker 1: make sure to test that this concept is in fact
Speaker 1: viable and could end up creating a modular space station
Speaker 1: that could be adjusted multiple times while in orbit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Beyond that, they've got another proposed model called the B
Speaker 1: A three thirty or the or just the Alpha station
Speaker 1: for short. I believe I think A is for Alpha
Speaker 1: in there somewhere right. Yeah, it's the proposed larger habitat,
Speaker 1: and it's going to provide three and thirty cubic meters
Speaker 1: of usable internal space, which is quite roomy when it
Speaker 1: comes to space. Um. But the modules can be linked together,
Speaker 1: so you can create more expansive space stations just by
Speaker 1: addition they chain them together. Yeah. And so Biglow claims
Speaker 1: this habitat is going to provide better protection the I
Speaker 1: S S in terms of radiation and ballistic impact. We
Speaker 1: don't know if that's true, but that's what they say. Um.
Speaker 1: And then also it will have four and aft propulsion,
Speaker 1: so it'll be sort of self regulating in terms of
Speaker 1: its position and and orbit speed. UH. Solar panels for
Speaker 1: independent electric power, and four large viewing windows so you
Speaker 1: can look at the Earth, of the stars and everything
Speaker 1: in between. George Clooney flying by Yeah, oh no. UM.
Speaker 1: For for this experience, they're estimating flight rates of between
Speaker 1: twenty six million, depending on what flight carrier you choose. UM.
Speaker 1: I didn't imagine the miles you'd you'd rack up, like
Speaker 1: you bean medallion immediately um. And that's just for the flight,
Speaker 1: and then for the exclusive use in control of a
Speaker 1: third of that cubic meter space um, that would be
Speaker 1: an additional million. That's a yeah. So you know on
Speaker 1: those flights you still only get one bag of peanuts.
Speaker 1: Don't open a bag of peanuts and low gravity environment.
Speaker 1: Just trust me on this one. All right, Well, let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about let's let's say that let's
Speaker 1: say that we've gone into the future by about let's
Speaker 1: say fifteen years, and now space tourism like this is
Speaker 1: I mean, this is what everybody does, right suborbital if
Speaker 1: you if you if you want to be on a
Speaker 1: budget or you know, you can go up to orbital
Speaker 1: if you've got a little extra money. All the kids
Speaker 1: are going like dad, I don't want to go to
Speaker 1: space again. Orbit is boring. So what could be the
Speaker 1: next step? The Moon? That's a that's another step. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Sun. Bad idea, bad idea. I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: I'll I'll let you do. Uh, I'll let you do
Speaker 1: a quick trip to Death Valley and you can just
Speaker 1: experience that and it'll be as close as we want
Speaker 1: you to get to the Sun. Hey, death valleys cool.
Speaker 1: I respect our national parks, but anyway, it's actually warm
Speaker 1: the moon. The moon would be a cool place to go.
Speaker 1: And this is my logic. Hundreds of people have been
Speaker 1: to space, not many people have been to the moon,
Speaker 1: but twelve not not about twelve twelve people. Twelve people
Speaker 1: have stepped on the unless you believe apolloweighteen is truly
Speaker 1: a documentary, in which case will knock that up to fourteen.
Speaker 1: Or if you believe Apollo eleven was fake. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: but then now you're gonna just get punched by an astronaut.
Speaker 1: We've already seen that happen before. Not you specifically, but
Speaker 1: in general, you deserve it. Okay, who's saying they're going
Speaker 1: to go to the moon. There's a company called Golden
Speaker 1: Spike company Golden Spike obviously, well yeah, and and of
Speaker 1: course their their name is giving homage to the Transcontinental Railroad,
Speaker 1: that fine old Golden railway Spike. Um. But uh, their
Speaker 1: their plan is to have a system where they would
Speaker 1: have a ship take you all the way to the moon,
Speaker 1: you'd land on the moon, you would actually be on
Speaker 1: the moon itself, then return home because you know, just
Speaker 1: going to the Moon and leaving you there apparently is
Speaker 1: not such a crazy vacation. Um, it's the last one
Speaker 1: you'll ever take, would be terrible, So it's it's Um,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit of a wallet buster, as they're
Speaker 1: currently projecting it out to be at seven hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty million dollars per passenger and a required to passenger
Speaker 1: uh minimum minimum. Yea. Well, so you either pay seven
Speaker 1: million dollars and get a friend to go with you, right,
Speaker 1: or you pay one point five billion young stretch out
Speaker 1: your legs. Yeah, exactly. Uh So the lot the craft
Speaker 1: would allow for three people, right, you'd have a pilot
Speaker 1: and then two passengers, and so if it were just you,
Speaker 1: you'd have to end up spending the extra money in
Speaker 1: lieu of a second passenger. Very much as if you
Speaker 1: were taking a cruise. You know you're going on a cruise,
Speaker 1: but you're just going by yourself. Well, you got a
Speaker 1: book a room based on double occupancy, even though it's
Speaker 1: just you going The same sort of thing, although I
Speaker 1: don't think they'd have as many bands playing Jimmy Buffett
Speaker 1: hits on the Lunar Lander Fingers crossed. Um, they are
Speaker 1: partially serious about it. It's serious enough anyway to have
Speaker 1: contracted Northrop Gremman for a new lunar lander design. Yep,
Speaker 1: and they company that's known for its engineering, so you
Speaker 1: know that's pretty serious. Space Adventures also has talked about
Speaker 1: trips to the Moon, however, not not getting out though, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what what's said? Not not walking on the moon? No, no,
Speaker 1: get like getting out of what the orbit? No, no,
Speaker 1: just look up there and they'll pay me a hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: These are quite different experience. Yeah, no, I was going
Speaker 1: to get to that. Yeah. Space Adventures approach is not
Speaker 1: landing on the Moon at all. It's to go do
Speaker 1: one an orbit around the Moon and then return to Earth. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, you would travel out to the Moon.
Speaker 1: You would travel around the far side of the Moon.
Speaker 1: We don't say dark side people, There is no real
Speaker 1: dark side of the Moon in the sense that you know,
Speaker 1: the dark side is whatever side happens to be facing
Speaker 1: away from the sun at that moment, but all sides
Speaker 1: of the Moon eventually gets sun exposure. Um, it would
Speaker 1: be the far side of the moon, so you get
Speaker 1: to see the far side and then you'd come back.
Speaker 1: It looks weird, it's totally covered in craters, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it's essentially doesn't look like the moon. We know you
Speaker 1: can because we never see that side, and there's a
Speaker 1: side that's always facing the Earth. But there that side
Speaker 1: is not the one that always gets the sunlight. So
Speaker 1: why I go crazy when I hear people talk about
Speaker 1: the dark side of the moon. But yeah, you get
Speaker 1: to see the far side. Not a lot of people
Speaker 1: have done that, so you get out there and back.
Speaker 1: That would be far less expensive than softy million dollars,
Speaker 1: only a paltry hundred million. Yeah that way. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: the you know, again, we're talking about in incredibly expensive
Speaker 1: trips that only a tiny portion of the population could
Speaker 1: go on. Okay, I've got my hand raised. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: got a question. What was it, Joe. Somebody's got to
Speaker 1: be talking about Mars, right, A lot of people talk
Speaker 1: about Mars. Who is anybody actually saying I will take
Speaker 1: private astronauts to Mars for for space tourism. There David
Speaker 1: Bowie did, but don't think he was being serious. I've
Speaker 1: read about one the Inspiration Mars Foundation that was planning
Speaker 1: a privately funded Mars fly by for eighteen um, and
Speaker 1: that would be a two person flight using existing commercially
Speaker 1: available space equipment um lasting five and one days around trip.
Speaker 1: Do they look legit? Uh? There have been no contracts
Speaker 1: or anything like that announced, which either means that they're
Speaker 1: serious about it, but no one else believes them um
Speaker 1: or or it's just smoke. Yeah, and it's hard to
Speaker 1: say that this Martian smoke. And I don't knowen is soon.
Speaker 1: It's planned for specif because the orbits of Earth and
Speaker 1: Mars are going to be such that we could have
Speaker 1: that kind of short trip. But yeah, so I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's a that's an awfully short deadline.
Speaker 1: That's pretty that is pretty tight. And then of course
Speaker 1: there's the Mars one project, which is not so much
Speaker 1: about tourism as it is relocation. Uh that you could say,
Speaker 1: I guess those are technically private astronauts, right, Yeah, those
Speaker 1: are private astronauts, yea, Because I mean they were talking
Speaker 1: about the whole uh you know, reality television show aspect
Speaker 1: where people are essentially competing for the ability to be
Speaker 1: one of these early settlers of Mars because you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be coming back. It's like a vacation in that like
Speaker 1: Gilligan's Island was a vacation. Yeah, just giving three more
Speaker 1: coconuts and I we'll get us back to Earth. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so again, not really space tourism in that sense,
Speaker 1: but it's the sort of thing that if it were
Speaker 1: to work out. And by the way, we should point
Speaker 1: out that we pointed out before on this show. But
Speaker 1: I'd say that the majority of folks out there who
Speaker 1: are in the space industry are at best skeptical of
Speaker 1: the Mars One plan. The more that I hear about
Speaker 1: Mars One, the more skeptical I am in fact. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But but but if something like that worked, whether it's
Speaker 1: on the timeline that they have proposed or one that
Speaker 1: actually is what people would consider to be more realistic, whatever,
Speaker 1: if that were to work, that would at least lay
Speaker 1: the ground for the potential for space tourism down the road.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things where you know, this has
Speaker 1: to happen first before we ever get to a point
Speaker 1: of you know, when are we going to go there
Speaker 1: for fun? If no one had landed on the Moon yet,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't really be talking about space tourism trips that
Speaker 1: could potentially go to the Moon. Okay, I've noticed two things.
Speaker 1: All these trips have in common one. They sound really
Speaker 1: cool too, I can't afford them. Yeah, we'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: What we're gonna do is, we're gonna have another discussion
Speaker 1: about space tourism in our next episode, where we talk
Speaker 1: about what are the barriers, why is it so expensive
Speaker 1: to go into space? And are there any proposals that
Speaker 1: could make it less expensive. So that's gonna be all
Speaker 1: an entirely different conversation, but we look forward to having it.
Speaker 1: We hope you guys enjoy listening to it. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you've enjoyed this episode, make sure you go to
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