Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:07:33 · Dylan Taylor
[00:07:33] S1: Yeah. Believe it or not, twenty months after we were founded, we weren't even two years old, we won one of the three contracts awarded what's called commercial LEO destinations, which is the commercialization that NASA is going through. So very similar to what they did with the space shuttle, right, they sunsetted that, and they basically said, we're not gonna own and operate our own rockets any longer. We're going to put that out for bid. We're going to see what's available in the commercial markets, and of course that gave birth to SpaceX and Rocket Lab and other companies. Very similar on the space station side, the International Space Station, which is one of the greatest things humans have ever done in my view, right, deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, it's old. It's been up there for twenty five plus years, and the plan is to have that come down in 2030, 2031, something like that. It's going to be decommissioned. They're going to drop it into the Pacific, South Pacific Ocean, if you... Sadly, that's what its fate's going to be, because it's too big to burn up in the atmosphere, and you can't really disassemble it. That's what is going to happen to the ISS. You have to have these commercial replacements online prior to then. Our project is called Starlab. It's focused on the research and development aspect. A lot of people don't realize microgravity, which is the environment you're in on the space station, that's why people float around, is really a magic laboratory. You can grow perfect crystals. You can do biopharma drug development you can't do here on earth. You can grow essentially perfect semiconductors. So there's a lot of R and D that can happen in microgravity, and we're optimizing our space station to do that. We brought in partners from around the world on the project, Airbus, Mitsubishi, Palantir, those are the main partners on it. But even companies like Hilton Hotels are involved. Northrop Grumman, we designed a partnership with a quantum computing company, so it's a pretty fascinating project.
00:09:38 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:09:38] S2: That's incredible. So you grew up watching television about space, and now you're literally helping build the Starlab, which is sort of a pinch me moment, I'm sure, to your little kid self. When you went to space, so actually in 2021, flew aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard Mission 19 becoming the six hundred and sixth human to ever go into outer space. Can you just like, for fun, because that's just such a wild thing to get to do. And you went through a different door because you were not a trained astronaut. So one, what the heck made you do that? Because it's pretty exciting and terrifying thing to do. Two, what was it like? And walk us through that day.
00:10:24 · Dylan Taylor
[00:10:24] S1: Yeah. Well, it was a life changer, Alexa, truly. So lifelong dream to go to space. Never thought I would be able to go. Right? I mean, it's like saying you wanna be a hall of fame NFL quarterback. Right? It's like one of those things that just seems too insane to even dream about. But had an opportunity. Blue Origin, of course, Jeff's company Yep. Put out basically the ability to compete in a lottery. You know, you had to pay, of course. I participated in that lottery. My strategy was, novel, I thought. I didn't want to be the highest bidder, but I wanted to bid high enough to where I had their attention, and I could be on a future spaceflight. The deal I had with my wife is that she said, Look, if you want to go to space, let's wait at least until our daughters are out of high school before you do that. But I jumped the gun on that, I ended up going while they were in high school. The reason for that was, I think I was on flight 10, human space flight 10, which means I wouldn't have flown today, because they haven't had 10 human space flights. But I kept on getting moved up in the manifest, and ended up going on one of the very early flights. I was on the flight right after Jeff and his brother went, and I was on the flight, you might recall, with Michael Strahan, the daughter of Alan Shepard, who was the first human to orbit the earth, or I'm sorry, first American to orbit the earth. So that was sort of the context of it. I had founded a nonprofit called Space for Humanity. This was, actually my Henry Crown venture. Alexa, you'll remember.
00:12:00 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:12:00] S2: That's incredible. Dylan, that context is amazing. That's so cool.
00:12:04 · Dylan Taylor
[00:12:04] S1: Exactly. So it all comes full circle, and of course, space for humanity was meant to democratize access to space. So we've sent the first Mexican born female to space. We've sent the first, Arab female to space. We sent Ed Dwight to space, who was the first African American astronaut candidate picked by JFK. Did not go to space with NASA. In my opinion, he was discriminated against. And at age 92, we were able to send him up on Blue Origin and co sponsor his flight for that. Democratizing space was a passion of mine, and I think Blue Origin was looking for people to be on these early flights that were passionate about space, had a tie in to why space matters, and so I think that's probably why they moved me up to flight three. The day... So first of all, you trained for about a week and a half on-site there, and our flight was actually delayed a couple of days due to weather, and I had a lot of friends texting me saying, I'm so sorry, you must be so disappointed. I'm telling them, I'm having the time of my life. This is like fantasy space camp, right, because you're training, you're doing all these simulations, you're learning about the systems, you're meeting the designer of the spacecraft. So I really loved it, and day of the flight, you're up early, you meet with your friends and family at kind of a breakfast before you go out to the pad. It was the best day of my life, and I have permission for my wife to say that. It it was really fantastic. And, you know, here's what's fascinating to me. People say, were you scared?
00:13:45 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:13:45] S2: I was about to ask that just to be clear. So, yeah, keep going.