How the "Billionaire" Space Race Will Affect You

What Does the "Billionaire" Space Race Mean to You?

We have Sir Richard Branson up in space.  The race of the billionaires, Jeff Bezos, of course being another one. What does this mean to us? Does this mean that space is solely for the rich? Is it going to help our businesses, our economy, what's behind all of this, and where are we going? That's exactly what I discussed this morning with Mr. Christopher Ryan. Let's find out how it's going to affect you and me.

[00:00:29] Chris Ryan: Yeah, Richard Branson is in the news day, Sir Richard Branson to you, Craig, as he reached the outer space and was able to bring individuals up there and do in your view, is this going to be a thing where commercial space travel is going to be something that we see and have access to. No average Americans.

[00:00:52] To me, I feel like it's taken decades for even this type of space flight to take place. And I feel we are still so far away from an average Joe, like you, or I will be able to afford to go into. The areas almost to outer space.

[00:01:12] Craig Peterson (2): [00:01:12] Yeah, the black-blue yonder, as it were.  First of all, let's get something straight here. Sir Richard Branson made it almost into space, correct? They were 80 kilometers out. A hundred is generally considered. But where we're headed here is not really getting into space, which I think is totally cool. Where we're headed is being able to get up to those sorts of altitudes and then travel around the world.

[00:01:39] So we could see a trip from Boston to Tokyo taking just a few hours, rather than thinking the better part of a day.

[00:01:48] Chris Ryan: [00:01:48] Yeah. And very often, when we see these types of things, I mentioned this earlier, it leads to thoughts of what else is possible. And you may look at this and be like, oh, okay, it's these fancy-free billionaires trying to say they wanted outer space when they're actually, in the.

[00:02:04] Area between the black and the blue and achieving levels of weightlessness, et cetera. But the time that traveled took place and the propulsion of the flight indicates that higher speed. So travel is right around the corner. And to many, that may be as attractive as the actual joy ride aspect of it.

[00:02:25]You're going to be going at a great, at a greater speed. So some people that's not going to be what they want, maybe there'll be able to achieve elements within the aircraft in which people don't feel as though they're traveling at the speeds that they are certainly in this particular.

[00:02:40] A joy ride. That is exactly what they wanted. They want you to feel the propulsion. They want to feel the waitlist. They want all those elements. As we know, most commercial airline folks don't want to feel like they're dry; they're going 500 miles an hour. They want to feel.

[00:02:55] Relaxed during that.

[00:02:57] Craig Peterson: [00:02:57] And you have the problem of having the Sonic boom when you're lower in the atmosphere going those higher speeds you don't hear. But I think what we're ultimately looking at is as a whole change where our speeds really get into higher altitudes. And if we look at the history.

[00:03:15] In the tech business, we will remember when these flat-screen TVs, oh my gosh. 48 inches, only $15,000. And, of course, they'd never be achievable. We'd never be able to own those things, but people bought them. The people that had the money. Now you go to Walmart, and you can buy one of those for 150 bucks.

[00:03:35] That's where this is all going. All of these people competing with the billionaires in space. They are funding the research and development for the types of flights. You and I, Chris, will be able to afford it. It's not going to be as expensive as the Concord was. It's not going to be cheap, but it is going to provide real.

[00:03:57] And I think that's a fantastic thing. Yeah. Now

[00:04:00] Chris Ryan: [00:04:00] the 90 inch TV is something that is not out of the realm of possibility for individuals creating basically their own movie theaters to view sporting events, political shows, and movies, as they wish to in their home. And you're absolutely right. I The there, and as I mentioned before, this.

[00:04:16]Creates an environment where we start to think further about exploration and what is next; very often, people will look at the current state of technology and say this is where we're going to be. What more could we possibly do, but to scientists and inventors, it's always wondering what is next and what is possible, looking at the optimal, and figuring out a path to get here.

[00:04:42] Yeah.

[00:04:42] Craig Peterson: [00:04:42] And w where we're looking right now, NASA is working on this as are others, is having a space station in orbit that is designed for refueling and trips. So if a Virgin can get you up into lower space as work or one of these others, and then from there now you get onto another ship to go to Mars, or maybe the moon colony.

[00:05:06] The biggest problem we have in the largest expenditure of fuel is getting to. So point that at that edge. So we're going to be able to see tourism in space that normal people could afford. And that's going to allow us to colonize other planets, which of course, has been a wish of Elon Musk and many others for generations.

[00:05:28]What happens if we have another catastrophic event here that we. With the dinosaurs that wipes out everything, we're gone, but this is really the next step. And it's absolutely amazing. I'm so excited about what's ahead.

[00:05:46] Chris Ryan: [00:05:46] Do you think we are from that? Cause you mentioned this had been the talk of generations now at this point and decade after decade, even this type of space travel to lower space has been talked about.

[00:05:57] And two commercial flights have been talked about for decades. At this point, I feel like we're still really far away from anything of that nature taking place. And I'd be surprised to see colonization until the latter portion of my lifetime.

[00:06:13] Craig Peterson: [00:06:13] Yeah, you're probably right about that. However, as far as the moon goes, I think we will see.

[00:06:20] Stop starting, but it's not going to be your regular person. As you had mentioned, it's going to be the scientist. It's going to be the real explorers who are going there. But the original plan for the moon launch in the sixties was to have a refueling station in orbit around them. And that's been in the back of everybody's mind for a long time.

[00:06:38] I think that within the next 20 years, we will have that station up in space. That is the halfway point of here. That you can go to, and from there, continue onto the moon. And Elon Musk is really into Mars. And I don't know; he might just jump past everybody else who was there. There's a massive rocket that he's building to truly colonize Mars.

[00:07:03] He's thinking he's going to be doing this. You ask him, and it's within the next year or two, but the scientists are saying within the next five years, So we might be surprised because technology can jump just like

[00:07:15] Chris Ryan: [00:07:15] that. Yeah. Then, in conclusion, I think that this goes to a broader message about where we are at as Americans.

[00:07:24] And we spend all this time fighting over the political scraps instead of having a vision. Towards the future and the things that we can achieve together as Americans and whether it's a disease, whether it's expiration underwater into outer space the new inventions like we need to get back to a place where we're not focused on the little things that divide us as human beings but focused on what we want to achieve and talking about that.

[00:07:54] And not. Figuring out which Mame is the best to mock Trump or Biden, but to focus upon our society's mutual and shared goals. And to me, this type of stuff, that's talk about tech, the topic about inventions, the talk about what we could do, what we could optimize, optimize moving forward.

[00:08:14] That needs to be at the forefront. And that's what people are looking for in politicians too. They want somebody that's going to say; this is what we want to do. This is what we're going to do. And this is how we're going. I think we've

[00:08:25] Craig Peterson: [00:08:25] got to move towards looking to that future. Being excited about it rather than having the parties digging up.

[00:08:32] Tribalism.

[00:08:33] Chris Ryan: [00:08:33] I agree that Craig has always thank you so much. Take care. Craig Peterson host of tech talk on news radio six, 10 and 96, 7 Saturday and Sundays at 1130.