Surveillance: Bezos Blasts Off Into Space

knows the story better than anyone I know. Brad your thoughts on Mr Bezos into space frame his path in his life to this moment. Yeah, Hey, Tom, you know this is a story that started probably forty years ago when he spent his summers with his grandparents and their ranch in South Texas, and his grandfather had worked on the space program. Bezos got the space bug watching the Apollo Moon landings. He gave his his UH speech at

his at his high school. He was a valedictorian about space travel, and really he's he's been consistent with the vision. That speech was all about opening up the space frontier, having humans living and working in space, and today is the first step on that journey. It's been a long path. He founded Blue Origin in two thousand. The company hasn't had a lot of success to show for it, but as you mentioned, they're working on orbital rockets and moon landers,

often in competition with SpaceX. But today, even though it's a more modest suborbital flight, it's an important step for Bezos and for Blue Origin brand have tried to be transparent and balanced about the moment we're in right now because myself, Tom, others get a lot of criticism for countering an event like this. This is an event that is very, very divisive. Jeff Bezos has taken a lot of criticism about it. How has he confronted that issue

as he makes these kind of steps forward. He's ignored it. I mean, he's he He's someone who probably has pretty thick skin over the years, being criticized for so many things at Amazon, some quite justifiably. But as Emily mentioned earlier, there's kind of a palpable excitement here in in in West Texas. Right now, the criticism seems kind of distant. Um. I'm sure we'll return to it in the press conference later today, but Bezos is just consistent. He's got this

long term vision. He kind of knows that not everyone's going to buy into it. But you know he's been right about these things before, particularly with Amazon, not saying he's right here. It seems kind of wacky, this idea of millions of humans working and living in space one day, generations from now. But you know he that's he believes in it. It's his Money's got two hundred billion dollars and this is what he wants to spend his money

in his time doing now. Brad Blue Origin actually has two astronauts on staff, and the understanding among employees was that those astronauts would be the first to fly on the New Shepherd. Instead, Jeff Bezos seemed to surprise many people saying it would be him. In all your years reporting on Amazon, in all your years reporting on Bezos, did you ever think he'd be the first person to ride on his own rocket. Yeah, definitely not. I don't think a lot of Blue engineers and executives thought that

he would be going first. As you say to NaSTA X, NASA astronauts are on staff. The idea was that they would go first and kind of test the customer experience. But in some ways that it's it's consistent. I mean, Bezos is all about bold moves. He uses the word adventure, swashbuckling adventure, and right, this is the greatest adventure that

there is. And he's sending a signal here to his company into the world that he believes in the spacecraft, he believes in the mission, and he's willing to put himself at some small amount of risk to go see it to fruition. Now Bezos is doing this just a couple of weeks after stepping down as CEO of Amazon. He has said he could have done this as a CEO of Amazon. But but do you believe that? Do you buy that? Or do you think this was some part of some sort of coordinated timeline. He wanted to

do this, but not while he was CEO. I mean, it does appear orchestrated, right that he would have announced his resignation s CEO back in what was a late January and then stepping aside in early July, and now a few weeks later going to space. I mean, I think if Blue Origin had ready New Shepherd two years ago when I was supposed to launch the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo eleven moon landing. He probably would have gone as CEO. But like, it's just neater now, it's cleaner.

You're not you don't have Amazon investors maybe worrying as much. So, No, I don't think it's an accident. We have fifteen minutes away from the first human flight for Blue Origins New Shepherd. You can hear a round of applause from the headquarters of Blue Origin. You can see Jeff Bezos just inside the capsule. The final checks taken place, Tom, They're secured and their harnesses. We've had the final communications, the hatches closed as team on his fifteen. Yeah again, team ONUS fifteen.

And you wonder about the sequencing uh, the sequencing year as well. What's interesting with the modern technology of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, John, It is a shockingly simple system. It is radally simpler, cleaner, and better than what we were used two years ago. Remember the Saturn's they'd start flaming up ages before they take off. This is a piece of cake with a much, much less heavy payload with US now. Jennakavandi Sierra Space executive vice president, and

she is a former NASA astronaut as well. Will these be astronauts. Astronaut Cavandi, Well, technically speaking, once you passed that sixty two mile mark, you will be in space and therefore have traveled in space, which is the definition of an astronaut, not necessarily a career astronaut, but an

astronaut Nolla. What is so interesting year is the simplicity of the systems identify this experience versus our stereotype of Ron Howard's you know the right stuff and the rest of it a Pottle thirteen, all the back and forth of hundreds and hundreds of people. How do you experience this simplicity? Mr Bezos is invented. I think it's very elegant. You know, the more we learn, the more we learn what we need and what we don't need. Um. He

has gone a very simplistic route. I think it's a wonderful achievement for someone who's essentially done this on his own because of his own desire to go on space, his own desire to see the Earth from that viewpoint. Uh. And I think he will continue to do great things, bigger and better things, just like NASA did through the generation and the evolution of the rockets that were that came before this one, Jennet, I understand we will have the oldest and the youngest, both the oldest and the

youngest ever into space. Can you walk me through the degree of training that these particular astronauts to be have experienced versus what would have been experienced ten twenty years ago for similar mission. Probably not all that different. I mean, you have your space dot that you have to learn how to operate if there are any emergencies. You have those kinds of equipment that you have to learn to do. An e grows from when you go up to the space you have to unbuckle and then blow it around

without kicking each other in the head. Then you have to get back in your seat, which is probably one of the more trying things to do, and since you will only be there for a few minutes, and then get yourself in a spact position so that you can come back down on land without hurting anyone so uh. And then probably an emergency egress out of the castle once landing. Uh, once they have landed. So those kinds

of things are what you practice. UM. Just in case something you know somewhere we're not there or something where to go wrong, you can you can help yourself get out of the vehicle. Johnny, just experiencing a brief hold here at team on as fifteen. How typical things like this to have a brief hold fifteen minutes out? So very very typical. I don't think there was ever a spaceflight that I was on that didn't have a hole at some point during the countdown. Uh, sometimes a built in,

and sometimes they're unexpected. Um. It does kind of, you know, raise the tension inside the cockpit because you're excited and you want to go, and and there may be a delay and but it is. Um, it doesn't matter and the end, whenever you fly, it's all as to the commnity, I've got to get in a geek questionnaire because it's something we have not talked about as we've prepared for this launch today. Your PhD at Washington is an analytical

chemistry and in materials science. How original are the materials of this Blue Origin rocket and capsule versus our stereotypes sitting in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I mean, I think they're all relatively similar. Every evolution, like I mentioned earlier, you try to learn something new, use a better material, a better fuel less toxic fuels, less toxic materials.

As as you well know, Jeff as all about the environment and keeping the planet healthy and making it a sacred place in a and longevity of the Earth is really paramount in his mind, so he wants to protect there. So I'm sure he's gone to every extent to try to use the least toxic materials possible. For audience worldwide on Bloomberg TV and radio and for our audience joining

us over on Blinberg Quick Take. We've been on hold now for a little more than six minutes term a Team minus fifteen, just a brief hold that's lasted about six minutes. As we are White Blue Origins first human flight six minutes. We've been on hold at Team Honus fifteen. So we'll see. We'll have to see where this goes. Is astronaut tells us this is not unusual. Jennet Convandi, I've got to talk about the fresh air of your Missouri coming out of Carthage there in the University of

Missouri and really funk to the south in Oklahoma. What is it about the Midwest aviation heritage that puts people like you into space? You know, I thought about that a lot. There are a lot of Midwesterners that love to go to space. I don't know. I think in part for me, at least, it was seeing the night sky from the Midwest. It's very beautiful. You can see all the stars, you can see the Milky Way, and it's just so majestic when you look at space from

that vantage point. And I know from a very young age I would tell my dad that I wanted to go up there and see what would be like to be in space and look back at the Earth. So maybe it's that, And maybe it's just that, you know, there's not the other distractions that you have in a a more urban life. Um. You know, you have time to dream, you have time to look out there, you

have time to think about exploring. So maybe a combination of all those things is it's what inspires as was Midwesterners and Dr Cavandy, thank you so much, greatly appreciate it. With cr Space or Executive Vice President of course NASA astronaut and former director of NASA's Glenn Research Center, we continue with one final discussion here on our moment in space, and that is the engineering of our many space programs.

Daniel wood is expert at this director of Space Enabled Research Group at m I T Media Lab, who dovetails a lot of social efforts and social policy into grunt engineering. And I say that Danielle with immense, immense respect. There's that See Danielle in Apollo thirteen where they're gonna die and the three engineers are in mission control and they got the canister and they're gonna purify the oxygen or the astronauts are gonna die and they all pull out

and sink their Coo Flanasser slide rules. We are so far removed from the slide rules of a busted Apollo mission. What is the technology forward that we will see from this private enterprise. It's wonderful to celebrate today. I'm so happy for Wali Funk and for somebody like her who's had too long road to this road to space. And we can think about the technology by asking, you know, what has been the road for all the companies. I

was in college watching the Ansari X Prize. I want to appreciate Anisia and Sary who helped fund some of the early investments by private companies trying to demonstrate the ability to put a human into space. There's Abordall mission several times in a row, and we're seeing today with multiple launches by private companies. Is part of this long journey. Has also been a great coordination between government and private sector.

I used to work for NASA, and NASA has within its congressional mandate something called the Space Act Agreement capability, meaning they can make agreement with organizations that are private sector organizations to share engineering knowledge and experience on space flight. Professor, Would you were a Kennedy Center Canna, I'm gonna. I'm sorry, it's Cape Canaveral, professor, Just so you know, for some of us that are of a certain age, you were an intern air and I'm sure in your Orlando and

your Central Florida you were grilled. Why are we doing this? Explain now? Why are we doing this? In two thousand, everyone on Earth is benefiting from the investments that governments

and the private sector are making in space. I travel all over the world and I engage with leaders of countries in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, countries on every continent are investing in space infrastructure and looking for ways for private companies to play a role in the space ecosystem because phrase brings us many benefits through observing the environment, understanding responding to climate change, managing our

fragile coastlines, and also thinking about providing services. But even human spaceflight and micro gravity research helps us transfer benefits from space back to Earth. We understand better how to recycle water, how to recycle air, and make ecosystems that are clean, whether they are artificial, but also on Earth. And we also understand better how our bodies and plants and animals respond in an environment like a microgravity which

explains the fundamental physics better. There's also the inspiration side. I am running a program at a m I T called Zero Robotics, and we're inviting middle school students from around the country to learn about space robotics and how to code. And one day we hope to do this with the collaboration of the space station and expose them to the space stations has be done in four in the past, and so these opportunities inspire the next generation of leaders as well. The great fear here is that

will be a success for the elites. As you well know, we have two America's. How do we translate technological innovation, how do we translate as Bryn Jolson and McAfee talk about the race against the machine, how do we translate this technology over to the have nots, the technological have nots of America. I spent a lot of my time thinking about how we can do engineering design in a

way that's equitable, advances environmental sustainability and economic justice. This means first asking who's involved, ensuring that we have increased diversity and access to technology. It also means designing these space systems in a way that directly serves the needs of those who experienced environmental injustice or long term discrimination.

It also means listening to groups like indigenous communities that have a concerns cultural questions about what humans do in space, for example, thinking of the moon as a sacred place. There's a lot of ways we can use space technology

to write services like disaster response, for example. And we can also then listen to those who usually don't have a strong chance to give their view on it what we do in space, because we're about to make some key decisions as a human race and how we treat the space environment, and I think we need more voices involved in this going forward. Daniel, just a final word from you. You mentioned the public private partnerships, and I

think it's spot on to point that out. But for many of these efforts, they're increasingly privatized and the gangs will be shared with the shareholders, and I wonder your thoughts on that as we move away from strictly a

government effort towards something much more highly privatized. I think it's so important that we continue to see government infrastructure allowing services like research opportunity for universities like UH internationally shared climate data that's important for everyone around the world. I hope that that becomes a private sorry public service that continues for years to come. There will also be private activities that kind of build on the government infrastructure.

I think it remains to be seen whether that's going to be only open to the elite. It is possible for private companies to consider how they can have business models that provide further openness to those who have less access to lessibility to pay. This is a choice that they need to make, and I hope they do make it. Professor Wood, thank you so much for joining us for the m I T Media Outlab. Daniel Wood, Chad Anderson

where this was a final thought here. He has been more than patient Space Capitals managing partner of the dovetail of all of this innovation, the NASA that we used to know and maybe the NASA that's still there with where we're moving forward. And you know, we've talked about the next steps of these people. But to John's point, does private enterprise and private competition get in the way of space success? Absolutely not, it's driving it forward. We started off in a place where we had never been

to space. Then we launched a satellite, then we launched a human and then we landed on the Moon, and we've been regressing ever since. And it's only thanks to private efforts that we are now accelerating back into So what does to think of this event today? I think they think very highly of this event, and then they're very happy to see this success again. They're benefiting from this um. They are going to now be able to rely on low cost innovative partners UM, leveraging reusability and

enabling them to do more with their limited budgets. I mean this, this hits on a few different notes, one the inspiration front um to the competition. It's driving innovation forward. And three, we wouldn't be we wouldn't have the capability that we have today without space technology. These guys in Texas cowboy hats. Teach anybody at jp L anything. I'm serious, I mean or it might not not the media and M I T, but M I T or an X, the legacy of Harold Atton and the rest of it.

Can they teach the pros anything? It's a great question and one today, so you better go that D percent. Yes, and they learn from each other. It's a symbiotic relationship. So NASA has a lot of heritage and a lot of great you know, embedded expertise. They've been there and they've done that. The private sector is challenging a lot of the embedded assumptions and doing things in new ways, allowing them to do things more effectively and more cost effectively.

Chat just quickly investable opportunities. Right now, let's close right there? Is this a single night and name opportunity? Say or do you want to apply the industry as a whole. We've gone from a very limited market ten years ago, handful of defense contractors on one side and the government on the other. There has now been two hundred billion dollars invested in over fifteen hundred unique space companies over the last ten years. This is a massive market opportunity.

UM cuts across the infrastructure of the distribution and the applications of that satellite data UM in space technology stacks such as GPS, geospatial intelligence and communications. This is a massive market opportunity that we're just on the forefront of. I love asking that question and saying and invest It's home. Lean in, just lead in and give the pitch. Give the pitch. Chat on us in there with the pitch. Spice Capital Managing partner Chat. Thank you for being with

us through they lost couple of ask. This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Thanks for listening. Join us live weekdays from seven to ten AMI Eastern on Bloomberg Radio and on Bloomberg Television each day from six to nine am for insight from the best in economics, finance, investment, and international relations. And subscribe to the Surveillance Podcast on Apple podcast, SoundCloud, Bloomberg dot com, and of course on the terminal. I'm Tom Keene and this is Bloomberg