Branson, Bezos Make Space More Accessible

debut tourism trips next year. Christian Davenport is report at the Washington Post. He covers NASA and the space industry. He's also author of The Space Barons, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and The Quest to Colonize the Cosmos. And Christian joins us on the phone in Washington. D See, Christian, good to have you here. Yeah, thanks for having me. So you've been covering this, you've been writing about it, It's

been a long time coming. Tell us about your feelings seeing Richard Branson actually get into one of his ships and get out there into space. Well, I mean, yeah,

it was exciting first and foremost I was there. Uh it was sort of a you know, beautiful day in Spaceport America in the desert of New Mexico where they've built this gleaming facility, this twenty million dollar taxpayer funded facility, and you know, it was typical Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic with like, you know, a band and a celebratory party. Atmosphere is really sort of almost like it was very festive.

But at the same time, you're watching this and and it's nerve wracking, and it's tense because you know, there are human beings on board and anytime you're you know, shooting humans off into space, it's inherently risky. And so I'm not gonna lie. I mean, I was holding my breath. I think a lot of people were, um, you know,

given the fact also the Virgin Galactic had a fatal accident. Thankfully, you know, uh, it went it seemed like it went perfectly, and uh, you know, Richard had his moment in space, got to float around the cabin with his crew members and then come back down and celebrate. But it was, you know, it was it was really a scene in an extraordinary thing for the company. But really for Richard personally. Well, and you know it's interesting that you say that the

party atmosphere. I'm a daughter of an engineer. Uh. Bloomberg

listeners know this involved in the early space race. Uh. And you know we all got up early and it was nerve wracking because my dad, you know, my dad would say, there's you know, there's so many different systems coming from so many different contractors on these things, at least from the government's perspective, that so many things could potentially go wrong, although they obviously were really careful to make sure the systems weren't and then they had backup systems.

But it is interesting to see how it's become almost like watching a movie to some extent. Yeah, and and right, a lot of people like to romanticize space flight, and there's a lot of hype and a lot of enthusiasm because you've got these billionaires with you know, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson. Uh. It does sort of seem like the movies. But you know, as you knows, as you and your family know that this is it's

incredibly difficult, it's incredibly risky. A million things have to go right, Um, now this isn't you know, this is not this is a suborbital space trip. It's going just up to the edge of space and coming back down. You sound like Jeff Bezos for a moment, right, Right's or or elon because Elon he's going to orbit and you know, so it's like that much. You know, he's going to Mark and Richard's going to Mark three. So it's still maybe not quite as dangerous, but still it's dangerous. Right.

There's a lot of things that that can that can happen. We know that. So all right, so next up is what Jeff Bezos, right, yeah, and on on Tuesday, on July twenty at the anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, and he announced that, um, you know, some time ago, and then you know, Richard kind of beat him to

the punch. He said he wasn't you know, Richard was going to go on a later flight for later the summer, early in the fall, and then all of a sudden moved up its flight, um, you know, which obviously it angered Jeff and the people in Blue Origin, who, as you were alluding to, sort of saying, well, they're not quite going up as high as we're going and are you know, windows are bigger, and it's own a rocket

as opposed to a space plane. Um. But you know, it's just sort of extraordinary that you have Blue Origin Jeff Company, which was founded in two thousand and Virgin Galactic, which was founded in two thousand four, So all these years ago and then the founders go to space within you know, just a few days of each other. I mean, that's just wild. You know these guys from the book you wrote, uh and you've talked with them. You know, what is it that we need to understand about Richard Branson?

And we'll talk more. We're gonna do some news and then we'll come back and talk somewhere. But what do we need to understand about Richard Branson and his pursuit of this. Well, he wants to open up space to more and more people. I mean today there's something like five seventy people who have ever been to space, and he wants to open that up. Now, like you know, he's not opening it up for everyone just yet. It's still very expensive. We don't know how much tickets are

going to cost when they reopened. But before they suspended ticket sales, the flying version Galactic they were two hundred fifty thousand dollars. I think they'll come back on you know, they've said it's going to be more expensive than that. Some analysts have estimated it could be as much as five thousand dollars. So for like three or four minutes of weightlessness. I don't know that that's going to be

in everyone's budget. But if they're able to fly more frequently, and they're working on already sort of a next generation spacecraft in a fleet, and then maybe they can bring that down and send more people. So we've talked about Richard Branson, We've talked about Jeff Bezos. He is up next. So what's the significance Christian? I mean, I grew up

in an environment where this was just so important. It was a it was a new world, you know, new space exploration, you know, going into the unknown and and finding out so much, and then it felt like it waned so only here in the United States, and then now we're seeing the private sector really step up and

push it. What's the significance of all of this? Yeah, I mean that's a great question because I think a lot of people look at these space tourism flights and there's a lot of wealthy people and they're like, you know, we've got problems here on Earth. Why are we spending all this money on space? Um? But I think it's significant for a few reasons. UM. One in terms of exploration and expanding our knowledge and you know, being able

to go out, um, you know, deeper into space. Um. If you start with space tourism, you know, Jeff Bezos and talks about you know, traditionally, I mean really before SpaceX came along, you know, you might have a rocket company or NASA and they might you know, launch twelve rockets a year, right, and that's just not very much.

But if these businesses you know, coming in with being much more efficient, are launching you know, twelve times a month and you know many many times a year, they get better, they get faster, the cost comes down, they may space travel just more accessible. I mean not just for you know, like space tourism, but being able to get to the Moon and maybe even get to Mars. And you know, as you mentioned, like we went to the moon and last time we were there with nineteen

seventy two and nobody's been back. And you know, I think NASA and the government has struggled, and you have one political you know, white White House, comes in, they say, we're going to the moon. And then another president comes into and now we've been to the moon. We're going to Mars. And then you know, then it's like we're back to the moon. They go nowhere, and now you've got these businessmen and they're just like, no, we gotta go, we gotta go now and trying to create a business

case for it. What's the m hmm. But I wanted to ask you is like you said that this feels like it's a rich person's endeavor. Uh, and the people who can partake in it, and there is taxpayer money that goes into it as well. Should the public sector? Should government still be involved in all of this? Yeah, I mean that's a great question. So there's taxpayer money and going into some of it, like ASEX for example, you know, they have contracts with NASA to fly cargo

and supplies to the International Space Station. Uh, they have a contract to fly NASA's astronauts to the International Space Station. And they've taken that money and yeah, I mean they in turn have gone out and built the Falconine rocket and the Dragon spacecraft and they can use that for commercial purposes. If you've got NASA, they say, that's great, that's what we wanted. We want to help build up

the industry. Up until now, Blue Origin has been funded, you know, largely by Jeff Bezos his own personal fortune. He's trying to change that by winning some of these contracts. In fact, he's competing right now for a contract to build a spacecraft that would land on the Moon that actually SpaceX one and Jeff Bezos company, Blue Origin is

challenging that. Um. But I think what you're seeing is, yes, you want these public private partnerships where NASA and the government is investing in them and getting something for it. You know, they're getting a service, whether it's you know, flying satellites to space or resupplying the space station or

flying astronauts there. Um. And then those companies turn around and invest that money in their own companies for a commercial purpose, you know, which should in the long run bring down the cost of the government while increasing their you know, the private sector's capabilities, which really has grown tremendously like in the last decade or so. Well. And I do wonder what's kind of cool about the billionaires who are involved in this, whether it's Elon, whether it's Richard,

whether it's Jeff. I mean, these are individuals who definitely do it differently and think out of the box. If you think about the impact they have had on our world, and especially in terms of disrupting things, especially when I think about Elon, uh and even Jeff right, I mean, retail has been transformed the class just you know, pick

your thing, and I do wonder if it's these things. Ultimately, all of this space exploration, right of all heard the stories about tang and about vel grow and you know, I think it was either even tempera pedic beds, right, Like all of this came out of NASA research and so on and so forth. I mean, is there something above and beyond that if we all kind of just let our minds wander and open that the possibility by exploring space, you know what we might find? They certainly

think so Am I getting too weird on you? But I just feel like this is your world? And are you talking to scientists and academics who say, wait, the reason we need to be doing this is because of X, Y and Z. Yeah. No, I don't think it's too weird at all. And it fits right in for like what Jeff. Jeff talks about this and he says he wants to use space to open up sort of this new economic dynamism like we had with the advent of

the Internet. But with the Internet, like that infrastructure was in place so that you know, Mark Zuckerbert could found Facebook from his dorm room and Jeff could you know, start Amazon because the infrastructure was there, like the phone line to you laid down the cable, and there was this device called the credit card, and Jeff could take people's money, and there was the post office that could deliver the books, um, and so you could start an

internet company from nothing. But you can't today really start a space company because it's too the you know, the the bar getting into access, it's just too high. It's too difficult. The barriers to entry are too hard. And what they want to do is helped build that infrastructure so that some kid in his dorm room could start a space company. And you're starting to see some of these like you know, we pay attention to like the

billionaires and their rockets. But there's a company called Planet out of San Francisco, for example, that has a fleet of satellites and space and they take you know, an image of the entire planet every single day and have this massive database of the Earth going back through time. Um. You know that's you know, a viable company right there

that's had a normal success. So I think what they want to do is, yes, open that up or business and for science, but they need to first build the infrastructure, that sort of highway to space. All right, So just got about thirty forty seconds left here. What are you going to be looking out for for Jeff Bezos in his flight next week? Yeah, I mean so it's it's not just Jeff and his brother who are going. We still don't know the identity of this twenty eight million

dollar auction winner. Uh. You know they auctioned off that seat and they went to twenty eight million dollars. Wait, I have to tell somebody everybody actually it was no, No, it's not me. Oh that it were true. Yes, but it is a little crazy because if you spent fifty five million, you could fly on SpaceX and spend a week on the International Space Station. But we won't get

into that. Um. And the fourth seas is going to Wally Funk, who's eighty two years old, and she was part of this group called the Mercury Thirteen, which was a group of women and there was sort of a privately funded endeavored to train them alongside the men in the show that they were ready. And now she gets or tripped space. Finally. I love that aspect of it. And it's not a week. It's actually July twentie. It's a little bit more than a week that we see

Jeff go up. Um. Christian, this was fun. Thank you so much for coming on. Christian Davenport over at the Washington Post cover space. Check out his book The Space Barrens. That's going to do it for this Monday, folks, get ready for bank earnings. I'm Carol Messer and this is Bloomberg.