{"id":9419,"date":"2023-09-13T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-13T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/?p=9419"},"modified":"2026-03-26T15:10:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T19:10:50","slug":"space-tourism-with-jane-poynter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/on-the-move\/ed-bernardon\/space-tourism-with-jane-poynter\/","title":{"rendered":"Space Tourism and the Overview Effect with Jane Poynter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Listen on your podcast platform of choice\u00a0\ud83c\udf99\ufe0f<\/h2>\n\n\n<div class=\"embed-megaphone\">\n<iframe frameBorder=\"0\" height=\"482\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/playlist.megaphone.fm\/?e=TLFIE3173182770\"\nwidth=\"100%\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><!-- Megaphone -->\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Or watch the video on YouTube \u25b6\ufe0f<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Future Car Podcast | Space Tourism and the Overview Effect with Jane Poynter\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tvSFjCi8I28?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What to expect from this episode: <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What will space travel be like with Space Perspective? \ud83e\ude90<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Jane Poynter describes to Ed what one could expect when traveling on their spaceship, Space Neptune, and it is something quite unique. Something that may sound familiar to standard airline travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Discovering how many people have been to space \ud83d\ude80<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>There are an elite number of only 650 people that have traveled to space. Space Perspective is on a mission to send thousands of people to space to be able to explore space in a new way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Space Perspective is using hydrogen for its balloon \ud83c\udf88<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The controversial idea of using hydrogen gets an explanation from Jane that explains how hydrogen is a better lift gas and would also be deemed a safer gas than others for this purpose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n<div id=\"accordion\" class=\"podcast-infonotes\">\n  <div class=\"card\">\n    <div class=\"card-header\" id=\"headingOne\">\n      <span class=\"mb-0\">\n        <button class=\"btn btn-link collapsed\" data-toggle=\"collapse\" data-target=\"#collapseOne\" aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"collapseOne\">\n          Jane Poynter Future Car Podcast Show Notes        <\/button>\n      <\/span>\n    <\/div>\n    <div id=\"collapseOne\" class=\"collapse\" aria-labelledby=\"headingOne\" data-parent=\"#accordion\">\n      <div class=\"card-body\">\n        <p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cAs a business, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s our job to tell people what to think. What I do think is our job is to give them the experience that allows them to open up to this extraordinary transformation that astronauts talk about\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If given the chance to go to space, would you take it? Most of us share a curiosity of the unknown when it comes to our universe and the wonders that lie outside of planet Earth. For a long time, the idea of space tourism seemed unrealistic and something only available to highly-trained individuals like astronauts. That is, until now\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this episode, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/edward-bernardon-922442\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ed Bernardon<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> interviews <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jane-poynter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jane Poynter<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, co-founder and co-CEO of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/spaceperspective.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Space Perspective<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a company whose aim it is to bring regular individuals to the edge of space, using cutting-edge technology and a spaceship that\u2019s very different from what we imagine when we think of space travel.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In today\u2019s episode, Jane tells us about Space Perspective, the inspiration behind it, and the company\u2019s overall goal. She also provides some interesting details about their spaceship, Space Neptune, and what people can expect to experience when they take a trip in it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Some Questions Asked:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What is the key thing that space perspective hopes to be the first of? (1:28)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What&#8217;s the size of the capsule? (17:03)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">How do you see this as a new opportunity for scientists? (21:16)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What are your thoughts on these different approaches people are taking to open up space travel to the masses? (27:32)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What happens if something does go wrong? (41:10)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When do you think we&#8217;ll have that first biosphere on Mars? (52:54)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>What You\u2019ll Learn in this Episode:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The number of people who have been to space (1:56)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What a trip on Space Perspective\u2019s spaceship, Space Neptune, will be like (14:55)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why Space Perspective has decided to use hydrogen for its balloon (37:24)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">About the Red Bull space jump that Jane was involved with (43:42)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Connect with Jane Poynter\/Space Perspective:\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jane-poynter?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jane_poynter?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/spaceperspective.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Website<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Connect with Ed Bernardon:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/edward-bernardon-922442\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">LinkedIn<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.plm.automation.siemens.com\/global\/en\/resource\/future-car-whitepaper\/87745\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Future Car: Driving a Lifestyle Revolution<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/new.siemens.com\/global\/en\/company\/stories\/industry\/autonomous-and-connected-vehicles.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Motorsports is speeding the way to safer urban mobility<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.plm.automation.siemens.com\/global\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Siemens Digital Industries Software<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>      <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n  <\/div>\n      <div class=\"card\">\n        <div class=\"card-header\" id=\"headingTwo\">\n        <span class=\"mb-0\">\n            <button class=\"btn btn-link collapsed\" data-toggle=\"collapse\" data-target=\"#collapseTwo\" aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-controls=\"collapseTwo\">Jane Poynter Future Car Podcast Transcript<\/button>\n        <\/span>\n        <\/div>\n        <div id=\"collapseTwo\" class=\"collapse\" aria-labelledby=\"headingTwo\" data-parent=\"#accordion\">\n            <div class=\"card-body\"><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:00:00]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On The Future Car podcast, we touch on many aspects of our future mobility, such as autonomous and electric cars, as well as other modes of transportation, air taxis, and electric boats. But today we\u2019re going to take a look at yet another form of our future mobility: traveling to space. In recent years, space travel has changed from something that only a few could experience to becoming more accessible with many commercial companies jumping into the space travel business. With us today is the founder and CEO of one of those companies, Jane Poynter of Space Perspective, where they\u2019ve developed the world\u2019s first carbon-neutral way to travel to the edge of space propelled by a balloon with a goal to change people\u2019s view and perception of earth. Jane, welcome to The Future Car podcast.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:01:03]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello. How fun to be here.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:01:06]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to start right away and ask you about the Explorers Club, which you are a member of. And that is a group of members that are responsible for the famous firsts of humankind: the first to the top of Mount Everest, the first in the north and south pole, the first to the moon\u2019s surface. So tell me, what is the key thing that Space Perspective hopes to be the first of?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:01:34]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, love it! What we\u2019re really about is completely changing the paradigm of space. I mean, you said it right at the beginning that really today space has really been for the few. We are wanting to completely change that so that we can have thousands of people going to space. Remember, to date, only 650 people have ever been to space, fewer than that number. I mean, that\u2019s a minuscule number of people. We\u2019re wanting to be the first to take thousands and thousands of people to space every year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:02:13]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the things when I first heard about you is a completely carbon-neutral way to get to space, and you think, \u201cOh, how could that be possible?\u201d I see these rockets going up into space, all this smoke, and everything going on. Sustainability is a big part of what you\u2019re trying to do. How was that an inspiration? How did it play a key part in what you\u2019re doing at Space Perspective?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:02:36]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s actually core to the business, and it actually goes all the way back to my days in Biosphere 2. So, my co-founder, Taber MacCallum, and I were involved in a project back in the early \u201890s. Actually, we were on the design team in the \u201880s and then lived in it in the early \u201890s for two years and 20 minutes \u2014 though, who\u2019s counting? Just to remind us all what Biosphere 2 was, it, at the time, was sealed tighter than the International Space Station. It was the very first time that we, humanity, attempted to build the world\u2019s first human-made biosphere. It was called Biosphere 2 because the idea being the planet Earth our biosphere on the planet is Biosphere 1. So we lived inside there, and all of our oxygen was coming from the plants around us; we knew moment to moment that all the CO2 was going out to grow our food. We could see the edges of our world with that glass and steel structure around us. It was really interesting. So I went into the Biosphere thinking that this was the closest thing that I\u2019m ever get to going to Mars. I went there because I thought it was about going to space. And when I went in, I realized it was also about discovering a planetary biosphere that we all inhabit together, and it turns out that that is a very akin experience to that which astronauts have when they see earth from space. And what it does is when astronauts see Earth in space, they see that thin blue line of our atmosphere, they see the Earth against the blackness of space, and they get this visceral understanding that we live together as a human family on planet Earth. So this experience actually creates a response that makes one actively, proactively want to solve the grand challenges of today. So it is absolutely at the core of what we\u2019re doing at Space Perspective, wanting to take thousands of people off to have that experience and do something amazing with that experience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:04:46]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This effect that you talk about, and astronauts have it, your passengers on your spacecraft are going to have it, is called the Overview Effect. So you\u2019re up there, and now suddenly, it\u2019s not you\u2019re from a particular country or anything anymore; you\u2019re from Earth. I think maybe what you\u2019re saying is Biosphere 1 is the Earth, Biosphere 2 was, \u201cOh, wait a minute, this is like our mini world here.\u201d So you\u2019ve experienced this firsthand. Tell us about this Overview Effect. So what is it like? You\u2019re up there, and suddenly, you forget about the country that you\u2019re from? Why is that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:05:26]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I can\u2019t speak personally yet from seeing Earth from space. Next year maybe, that\u2019s what I\u2019m aiming for.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:05:34]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are you going up on the first one?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:05:36]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Certainly, on one of the first, you\u2019ve got to believe it, Ed. Oh, yeah. Well, for one thing, I have to know that this experience that we\u2019re offering people is as good as we say it\u2019s going to be. So I have to fall on the sword; I will test it myself. So when you talk to astronauts about their experience of seeing Earth in space, they really do talk about it as this visceral experience. For example, I\u2019ve spoken to a bunch of astronauts about this experience, and this is a different component. Definitely, it\u2019s seeing that thin blue line. When we\u2019re down here on the ground, we look up through the atmosphere, that incredible blue sky, it looks like it goes on forever. No, it\u2019s 20 miles thick, that\u2019s it. Spaceship Neptune is floating on top of the atmosphere. I mean, it\u2019s wild to think about that. So when you\u2019re in space, you see this tenuously thin blue line. You also don\u2019t see boundaries, you don\u2019t see any of those borders, the national borders, those just disappear, and it becomes supremely evident that we are all on this planet together hurtling through space. And what tends to happen is when astronauts come back from space, they get more involved in social and environmental causes than before they left. So it really does have a very tangible effect on people. And one of the things is that it\u2019s been really fun chatting with different astronauts who have been to space, and they all have different stories about their experiences. And certainly, some of the common threads are seeing something you recognize from space.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:07:14]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">One person told me about seeing the farm they grew up on. For us, we\u2019re going to be taking people off over the peninsula of Florida, which is going to be supremely recognizable to all Americans. And because you recognize it and you know how big that thing is you\u2019re looking at, it suddenly becomes apparent how big Earth is, and the ubiquitous comment is \u201cEarth is not that big.\u201d It\u2019s fascinating. So it\u2019s going to be really exciting for us to take people to have that experience. I can\u2019t wait to hear all their stories about what it\u2019s like for them, personally, to see Earth from that vantage point.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:07:55]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like you said, Earth is not that big. And in fact, it seems like it shrinks Earth down so that you can actually call Earth home. My home is not the United States, Europe, or China: it\u2019s that blue thing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:08:10]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it\u2019s both right. I don\u2019t think you ever stop being American or Australian or whatever country you come from and you call home. But it certainly expands it now to include all of the planet and really understand how interconnected the planet is. That\u2019s one of the key takeaways.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:08:33]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You gave a talk. It was a TED Talk about your time in Biosphere. To tie it back to that a little bit, one of the things you mentioned in that talk is when we breathe, we could be breathing carbon from a dinosaur, Julius Caesar, or our great, great, great, great-grandchildren. And, in effect, I think what you\u2019re saying here is when you see the planet without borders, we\u2019re sharing carbon from everything that\u2019s lived on Earth that exudes carbon. But you\u2019re also now sharing this commonplace that we all have, and you start to think of it more as one or something that\u2019s shared by all of us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:09:13]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that\u2019s exactly right. I think what becomes supremely apparent is really the only border that counts is the border of that thin blue line of our atmosphere against the vacuum of space. That suddenly becomes supremely apparent that that black vacuum is not hospitable to life but here on planet Earth, it is our oasis, and that is what becomes so apparent.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:09:42]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what if we could take the right group of people, political leaders from Earth, and bring them up into your Spaceship Neptune, as it\u2019s called, do you think that could be a way we could solve some of Earth\u2019s problems?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:09:57]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love that question because, yes, I do. And I think that, for us at Space Perspective, we want to take people of all sorts to space. So we want to take artists, scientists, leaders, everyone because they\u2019re all going to go to space and have their own experience, and come back and communicate it in ways that haven\u2019t been communicated differently. I think decisions around climate change would be so much easier if we all really, viscerally, at our core, understand that we are part of a biosphere, and we are completely reliant on it as, frankly, it is on us at this point.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:10:45]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, absolutely. It\u2019s the collective us, all of us. Well, let\u2019s imagine that you could put together the right set of people to take up there. So, a two-part question, who would you bring up to solve the world\u2019s problems? But more importantly, there\u2019s going to be that moment. And I bet you could probably look at people\u2019s faces and say, \u201cOh, they\u2019re having it. They\u2019re having the Overview Effect.\u201d What would you say to them? What question would you pose to them at that moment to get them talking about the right things?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:11:17]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it is a super, super interesting question. I don\u2019t know that I have the answer for you, Ed. One of the things we talk a lot about with Spaceship Neptune is it doesn\u2019t really require training. It\u2019s a very gentle experience and a very accessible experience. If you can get on a commercial airline, you can get on Spaceship Neptune. That\u2019s what this space balloon affords us. But now, that means we can take anyone to space but they need to be prepared for it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:11:50]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Prepared mentally?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:11:51]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, exactly, prepared mentally. I\u2019ve talked with people who have been on the Blue Origin flights and they\u2019re like, \u201cOh, I have to really prepare because I\u2019ve only got a couple of minutes in space and I literally have to practice what I\u2019m going to do.\u201d We don\u2019t have to do any of that. But what we should do is go with some amount of intentionality; what do I want to experience? And it\u2019s really interesting. So, our customers fall into two general camps, one is, \u201cI\u2019m going there to really bond with Earth. This is going to be a very meditative experience. I\u2019m sharing it with my family. I\u2019m sharing it with my loved ones. We\u2019re going all together.\u201d Then on the other end of the spectrum, we\u2019ve got the \u201cYeah, I\u2019m going to celebrate! Woohoo! Party in space.\u201d So, great, both are awesome.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:12:37]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are they going to both be together? It seems like that\u2019d be like two different crowds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:12:39]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That\u2019s like having a cocktail party or a dinner where you\u2019ve invited all the wrong people \u2014 oh, no. Thankfully, 50% of our tickets have been purchased as full flights. So, that becomes a little easier; people have self-organized, but we still do need to help the rest to make sure that the right people go together, for sure. That\u2019s part of curating the experience. But I think making sure people really are prepared for this profound experience that so many have talked about of seeing Earth in space is really paramount.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:13:13]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So now you have these world leaders, you don\u2019t have to name them, but if you could say one thing to them, \u201cI would like to prepare you. Because once we get up there, I want you to think about this or talk about this.\u201d I guess what I\u2019m really looking for is you\u2019re going to have this great moment where this Overview Effect takes effect. Now, that\u2019s your chance. What should we really be talking about?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:13:39]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This may sound like I\u2019m ducking the question a little bit, but I don\u2019t think so, because as a business, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s our job to tell people what to think. What I do think is our job is to give them the experience that allows them to open up to this extraordinary transformation that astronauts talk about.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:14:00]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There you go. So getting the experience is probably enough. If they can\u2019t take it from there, that\u2019s their problem. You\u2019ve done everything.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:14:06]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here\u2019s what I will say; what we are conscious of is that a lot of people, when they\u2019ve had profound experiences, they have all this energy that they want to do something with, and they don\u2019t necessarily know what to do with it. So we are beginning to develop partnerships with different groups so that we have some curated list of things that people can get involved with if they want afterward but certainly don\u2019t have to. I mean, a lot of people have the things that they\u2019re already doing and we\u2019re hoping that they\u2019re just going to go for it even more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:14:39]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There you go. And I think you gave that example when astronauts come back to Earth, and they tend to want to work on these causes more. Let\u2019s describe to our listeners the spaceship, describe what\u2019s it going to be like. I get in, and then what happens?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:14:55]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, imagine it\u2019s early morning, it\u2019s dark out. You step out onto the deck of this beautiful marine spaceport and you get into this incredibly comfortable space lounge that\u2019s inside the capsule of Spaceship Neptune, there\u2019s a bar there, there\u2019s a loo there, there\u2019s Wi-Fi, there\u2019s the super comfy chair, you get to sit down. You will be asked to strap in for the first 15 minutes, the pilot will tell you that you\u2019re about to lift off, and you will feel the spaceship being taken up to space by the space balloon incredibly gently. It\u2019s going to be very smooth. So you\u2019re rising up, and for about two hours, you will be going up to space. Now imagine you\u2019re seeing the Sun come up over the limb of the earth. And I\u2019ve seen a video of a sunrise from that altitude, it\u2019s madness, it is astonishingly beautiful. And it starts before sunrise. So, first, you all, of course, see the incredible starscape without the Sun \u2014 so you\u2019ll have no light pollution, it\u2019ll just be amazing. And then you will start to see the Sun, and if you\u2019re seeing a sunrise, you\u2019ll see these crazy rainbows that come across the planet, and then you\u2019ll see the Sun against the deep dark blackness of space. And when you talk to people who have seen this, they talk about the colors being like something they\u2019ve never seen before, like the black is the deepest black you\u2019ve ever seen, which is crazy, actually. And so you\u2019ll see that, you\u2019ll be up there for a couple of hours, and then it\u2019ll take you another two hours to come back down. The capsule splashes gently in the water. Fast boats come over, wave to everybody inside, the ship comes up, picks the capsule, puts it on the deck of the ship, and within about 15 minutes or so of a splash, you\u2019ll be on the deck of the ship and being brought ashore again and having a great celebration of everything you\u2019ve just experienced.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:17:02]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What\u2019s the size of the capsule, the size of the balloon?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:17:07]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It seats eight explorers, as we call our customers, and a captain. Mind you, the captain does not have a whole lot to do. So the vehicle can fly itself, it can be flown from mission control on the ground, and then there\u2019s another mission control on the ship. So really, the captain is just to make sure everybody is super comfortable and got everything they need and curating this experience. So it is 16 feet in diameter, so it\u2019s roomy; you can get up, walk around, go stand on the bar, you can cheer in the middle.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:17:43]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">No seatbelts required for lift-off?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:17:46]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not during the majority of the flight, exactly. I mean, that\u2019s the beauty of this thing, it\u2019s so incredibly smooth. Yes, that\u2019s exactly right. And by the way, you\u2019re looking at the largest windows ever flown to space. One of my parameters was that one of our board members is well over six feet tall and I promised him he was going to be able to stand in the window without ducking. I think we\u2019ve made it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:18:10]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first thing that comes to mind when I hear this is you see these images of the astronauts when they\u2019re going up into space; they\u2019re in their spacesuits; they\u2019re shaking and rattling, and the rockets, it sounds like you\u2019re just floating up like you\u2019d be in a hot air balloon, pretty much. Is that probably the feeling?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:18:28]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You\u2019re right; this is exactly the opposite of how we normally think of spaceflight. That\u2019s the unlock here, that\u2019s what\u2019s really making this so accessible. And then we\u2019re also adding on our own reimagined way of experience base on top of that. So the capsule itself, you don\u2019t have high G\u2019s, you don\u2019t need to be wearing a fancy spacesuit or do all the training or any of that. This is absolutely gentle. You\u2019re in a pressurized capsule with your beverage of choice and your loved ones, and you\u2019re hanging in space. It is just a completely different experience. And then the way we designed the interior actually took a huge amount of work. We originally thought, \u201cOh, we\u2019re taking everybody to space to see the Earth on space. So we\u2019re going to sit everybody in front of their own window and stare out at the world.\u201d And then all of a sudden, when we set that up in a mockup, I wanted to talk to people and I was looking over my shoulder, I\u2019m like, \u201cOh, we just made this a completely solitary experience.\u201d So we flipped it around and now we\u2019ve got this very social space lounge, as we call it, because we also want it to be incredibly inviting and relaxing for people. So there\u2019s a space lounge for people to look out at earth. So, it\u2019s as much a shared, relaxed experience as it is understanding our place in the universe as we look out at our beautiful planet from that vantage point.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:19:55]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This whole idea of sharing, it seems like it\u2019s through the whole thing that\u2019s like a big theme. And I liked the term, \u201cexplorer.\u201d I have to admit I first learned about you at CES; you were in the Siemens booth, and I said, \u201cOh, my god, this is really interesting.\u201d And one of your explorers was there, and I started to talk to him, and that\u2019s when he said he was an explorer. And he started to describe your lounge, and I\u2019m thinking, \u201cWhat kind of an explorer is that?\u201d Explorer, luxury, a lounge, it seems like that usually doesn\u2019t go hand in hand. I don\u2019t see why it shouldn\u2019t, but it\u2019s something new.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:20:30]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, for us, it\u2019s about discovery. People are going to space to discover something new, and in this instance, it is a completely different perspective. It\u2019s a space perspective. That\u2019s why we called the company Space Perspective. That, ultimately, is what we\u2019re offering people. And we want people to go into this with that stance of exploration, discovery.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:20:55]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I certainly can see right away for, let\u2019s just say, the average person that wants to experience Earth in a new way, space travel and space station, pretty much every time we\u2019ve gone up into space has been tended towards being scientists that want to run experiments, and you\u2019ve created experiments that have gone up into space station and all that. How do you see this as a new opportunity for scientists?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:21:21]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We absolutely are taking science payloads on every flight, actually. So we already took science payloads on our early test flights. So one of the huge advantages of what we\u2019re doing for science is repeat flights to an area that people have hardly ever gone and studied. It\u2019s a very difficult place to get to; technically, it\u2019s called the stratosphere. And it is really important for understanding aspects of climate change, for example, upper atmospheric science. There is additional science we can do also that is fairly traditionally done with these kinds of balloons, which is with Helio Physics, Astronomy, and Astrophysics because you can fly these huge telescopes. But for us, what\u2019s really valuable for scientists is that they don\u2019t generally get to do multiple flights \u2014 one or two maybe, maybe three if they\u2019re super lucky. What we\u2019re going to be able to offer is repeat flights because we\u2019re going to be flying so much. And what\u2019s exciting, we\u2019re actually already in discussions with a number of really valuable organizations whose names you would recognize, to fly payloads as part of spaceship Neptune that fly on every flight because it then goes what\u2019s called a transect; we\u2019re doing the transect up through the atmosphere and back down. So you\u2019re constantly taking data about the atmosphere, different parts of the atmosphere, different atmospheric species, temperature, humidity, and all of those kinds of things and other gases as well, that have not yet to date been studied at the degree that we are, and also in the locations. Remember, we\u2019re going to be out over the ocean, which is difficult to get to as well, all around the world, eventually. So we\u2019re super excited about what we can do. And let\u2019s also talk about kids. I\u2019m super excited that we actually got to take kids\u2019 experiments. So on our first flight, it was precious. We ran a competition and we had kids compete to fly their science payloads. The two winners happened to be both girls. And watching the videos of them and hearing that they had won, it was priceless. There was screaming, they were so excited about it. So we also get to take kids along on this journey as well, which is so important, and we also flew kid\u2019s art. We\u2019re big proponents of STEAM, not just STEM but STEAM.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:23:57]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Engineering and art together?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:23:59]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, absolutely.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:24:01]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The whole idea of perspective, if there\u2019s any group of people on Earth that have a different perspective, it\u2019s young kids. \u201cGoing up into space and seeing the thin blue line is something everybody does. I\u2019ve been doing it all my life.\u201d How do you think their perspective would be different?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:24:17]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, my goodness. Can you imagine? Sadly, initially, we\u2019re not going to be able to take small kids.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:24:24]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Test it out first. Make sure it works.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:24:25]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, no, I think the FAA allows us to take people 18 and older. What we can do is involve them though. I don\u2019t know about you, but I remember at that age, I was really wanting to explore the world. So I think it\u2019s just going to be completely mind-blowing for some of these kids. I\u2019m really hoping it is because what a precious experience for them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:24:50]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to go back a little bit; you\u2019re talking about a unique capability of people be able to go over and over again, which makes sense. You go up the first time, and then you land, and you say, \u201cOh if only I would have tried this or would have tried that,\u201d and you have some time to think about it. But there are balloons now without people in them that go up to these heights and come back down. The fact that you have people in the capsule that\u2019s attached to a balloon like that, how does that provide an advantage? Or what can you do with that that you cannot do with just a balloon going to the same altitudes and taking measurements, say, with instruments?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:25:29]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, there are several things there. One is that, actually, not very many space balloons are flown every year. So, a scientist is able to send an instrument up on a space balloon currently, but it may be another couple of years or five years before they get to do it again. Whereas, what we\u2019re offering them, even without flying with their instrument, is to integrate the instrument into the vehicle so the vehicle is flying repeatedly, which is just getting much more data. That\u2019s what\u2019s needed, not just a one-off dataset but multiple data sets. So that already is hugely important. I think it\u2019d be super exciting to think about actually having a laboratory in space. I think that\u2019s super exciting. What\u2019s interesting, as we think about spaceflight, normally, we think about having to spend a lot of time, money, and effort in automating our instruments. So now, if you can send a human with their instrument, you don\u2019t have to automate; you can really, actually, make decisions on the fly whilst you\u2019re up there. The human becomes part of actually enacting that research program in space. There\u2019s a lot of research that doesn\u2019t require a person to be involved, but definitely, there is. I think it\u2019s a super exciting opportunity for researchers around the world, actually.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:26:48]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are other companies\u2014Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic\u2014all taking slightly different approaches in terms of how high they go. Blue Origin is somewhat conventional; you\u2019re strapped to a rocket ship, and it lasts a few minutes. You\u2019re on the other end of the spectrum: a six-hour flight, relax. Virgin Galactic, I think, is somewhere in between, it\u2019s a little bit less time but it\u2019s not the full rocket feeling. And then there are costs too. Although not everyone has announced their price as you have, I think it\u2019s $125k. Could you talk a little bit about how you compare to these other approaches, pluses or minuses? Maybe they complement each other. What are your thoughts on these different approaches people are taking to open up space travel to the masses?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:27:39]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I think maybe the first thing to say is that demand for this is huge. What is actually limiting the number of people that are going to space is by no means in demand, it is how many operators there are. So, because there are so few operators, this is going to be supply-side limited for many years to come, which is actually a great place for us as a business to be in. So the way we think about it is that the rising tide floats all boats. We are not in competition with Blue Origin or Virgin, and certainly not at CME or SpaceX. It\u2019s a very different experience. In many ways, we think of ourselves as a gateway for them. So, for example, think about people going up on a rocket flight and you\u2019ve literally got five or six G\u2019s as you\u2019re launching or as you\u2019re descending. What that feels like, apparently, is an elephant sitting on your chest, not that I\u2019ve ever had an elephant sitting on my chest.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:28:36]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s a good thing to avoid, I heard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:28:38]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it is significant, let\u2019s put it that way, not for everyone. I have one person tell me that they\u2019ve actually gone to one of these centrifuges to train with these high G\u2019s several times so that by the time they get to their flight, they\u2019re truly prepared for it. So, for the right person, that\u2019s an incredible experience, \u201cIt\u2019s the right stuff. I\u2019m going up in a rocket, man.\u201d Well, what we wanted to do was eliminate all of those, for many people, are barriers. When I talk to people about what we\u2019re doing, they often say, \u201cI don\u2019t think I could actually go up in a rocket. It\u2019s a bit scary; I can definitely do your thing because it\u2019s the opposite,\u201d as we were talking about earlier. So, just to break it down specifically, Blue Origin is roughly just over 10 minutes of a flight: go out with a rocket; there\u2019s a parabola at the top, you have a couple of minutes at the top to float around, look out the window, and then you\u2019re coming back down again. It\u2019s not a published ticket price. I understand it\u2019s somewhere between one and two million per person. Then Virgin Galactic, their published price is $450,000. That\u2019s the space plane; you drop off the bottom of White Knight, the spaceship fires its rockets, and now you\u2019re zooming up to space. So again, it is that rocket flight experience where you\u2019ve got high G\u2019s on both ends and then you\u2019ve got a few minutes at the top to look out the window and float around in the cabin. What we are doing is completely focusing on the experience of seeing Earth in space. For many people, that zero-G portion is actually disconcerting, so we have eliminated that as well. So it\u2019s a full 1G, you can walk around with your glass of champagne, or your cup of coffee, or whatever.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:30:32]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The champagne stays in the glass.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:30:34]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You do not need a sippy cup. The champagne stays in the glass. So we just eliminated all that because we wanted to really lower the barrier to entry for people so that\u2019s just really accessible to a lot of people. Just a very different experience. And we actually are partnered with some of those other companies I talked about; what they\u2019re finding is that if somebody wants to go on their flight. And then they want to take their family on something like our flight, just very different. Now, let\u2019s just talk about the altitude. You did mention the altitude.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:31:10]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, exactly. You took the words right out of my mouth. I was going to ask you, what is space, exactly?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:31:17]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, Ed, there\u2019s no ubiquitous definition of space, let\u2019s say that. So, from an experience point of view, whether you\u2019re going to 300,000 feet or 100,000 feet, which is where we are, you really are not going to see anything different. You\u2019d have to have a straight edge to be able to tell the difference in the curvature. All of them, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and us, we all are what\u2019s called a suborbital flight; you essentially have the same view out the window. And the way to think about what is space, if you think that we are floating above 99-point-something percent of the atmosphere, depending on what time of year it is, the last 1% goes out well beyond the International Space Station. We call ourselves going to the edge of space, so we\u2019re also in space.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:32:14]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, there\u2019s this thing called The Karman Line, it seems a little arbitrary.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:32:19]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, a little bit. There is a technical definition about what it is and why it\u2019s there. The confusion is that a professional astronaut gets a wing when they\u2019ve been over the Karman line.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:32:35]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, but it\u2019s not really official. I guess we\u2019ve never really come to an agreement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:32:42]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, there really is not a universally agreed upon definition of space. We\u2019re regulated by the FAA\u2019s Office of Commercial Space Transportation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:32:52]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, this is separate from NASA, I would imagine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:32:57]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so it\u2019s part of FAA. So we\u2019re all regulated by the FAA.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:33:00]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">How old is that organization? How long has that been around?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:33:03]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, that\u2019s a good question. It\u2019s been around a while, at least 10 years or more than that. I don\u2019t actually know the answer to that, Ed. Oh, now I\u2019m going to have to get on my phone and look, but it\u2019s been around a while.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:33:16]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, that\u2019s actually a good thing, I would imagine. Because it seems that sometimes those organizations that, for instance, with electric and autonomous cars, it seems like the electric autonomous cars are already running around, especially on the autonomous side, before the government said, \u201cOh, we better start coming up with some regulations,\u201d which they have. But here, it sounds like they were anticipating it ahead of time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:33:36]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely. Yes, that\u2019s exactly right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:33:39]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to go back to the cost: $125,000. So, the first thing I did is, I wonder what is the most expensive airline ticket you could buy. And what I found was that for $30,000, I think it\u2019s an airline from the Middle East, you can have your own mini apartment with a shower, I suppose it\u2019s on a 747 or a very large, wide-body aircraft. So, you\u2019re getting close. I mean, it\u2019s a factor of four, not a factor of 10 or 100 compared to the most expensive airline ticket that\u2019s out there. What do you think has to happen to get that $125,000 down to like a ticket from London to LA or something like a business class seat, or get it down to $10k or $5k?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:34:34]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think you\u2019re raising all kinds of interesting points. So first of all, when we set the ticket price, we actually looked a lot at what\u2019s happening in the luxury travel industry. So people go on these beautiful safaris, you go to the Antarctic, go on a plane flight around the world, that\u2019s all in the area of $100,000 to $200,000. So we\u2019re right in there with what you might call the luxury travel industry. So,the way we think about it, how exciting it would be for people to be sitting around the dining room table thinking \u201cWell, are we going to go to on another Safari? Are we going to go see the Northern Lights? Or are we going to go to space?\u201d So, we\u2019ve, in many ways, created a new destination for people to think about going to. So that\u2019s incredibly exciting. And the demand is so huge, Ed, that it is likely that the ticket prices are going to go up before they\u2019re going to go down. However, having said that, we are, obviously, of course, thinking about what it would take over the long run to bring prices down. And eventually, they will come down; we\u2019re thinking about tiered products. I don\u2019t know that the higher-end one will go away. But it\u2019s about scale, it\u2019s about getting a lot of people flying. When you\u2019re only flying a handful of people a year, as it\u2019s is really currently happening, it\u2019s going to be very difficult to get the prices down. But once we got thousands of people flying to space, that\u2019s when you\u2019re going to start seeing the prices really rocket down. They\u2019ve already come down a lot over the last few years if you think about just the price of rocket launches. I\u2019m not talking necessarily space travel, per se, but rocket launches, and then the same thing will happen just with efficiency of scale as we start flying more and more people in space.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:36:23]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you think there could be more Neptunes? Or could it be that maybe you have a capsule that\u2019s the size of a 747 and have 100 people in? Maybe both. Have you thought much about how that will evolve?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:36:35]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, honestly, we\u2019re very focused on getting Spaceship Neptune flying. But yeah, something like that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:36:42]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Something along those lines. The other thing is that I thought of it\u2014again, these are the thoughts that came to my mind when I first heard about this\u2014I said, \u201cWow, a big hydrogen balloon.\u201d And I\u2019m sure people have mentioned this to you, but the first thing I thought about was the Hindenburg; I said, \u201cOh, my god, whenever somebody uses hydrogen in a balloon it\u2019s not a good thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:37:03]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hydrogen has gotten such a bad rap because of that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:37:05]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here comes the Hindenburg question. I\u2019m sure, especially if you\u2019re going to be taking the first trip up, or one of the first, that you\u2019re doing everything you can about safety. First of all, why not helium instead of hydrogen? Since you\u2019ve gone with hydrogen, what do you have to do to make it safe?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:37:25]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, helium is completely unobtainium. It is in very, very short supply. And in fact, it is in such short supply that if we were to use it, we would literally be competing with hospitals for their MRIs; that\u2019s how bad it is.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:37:41]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Could you have done it with helium because it is a little bit heavier?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:37:44]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We could have done it with helium, but you\u2019re right, hydrogen is a better lift gas. It is actually a better gas to be using. So now let\u2019s talk about the Hindenburg question, which is obviously what pops into people\u2019s minds who have heard about the Hindenburg. So Hindenburg was not a balloon, and that\u2019s actually critically important. It was not designed for hydrogen; it was designed for helium, which is also important. And actually, the hydrogen is not what caught it on fire. So I could go into all of the gory details of what happened, but remember, it was over 85 years ago. Now, let\u2019s talk about balloons. So balloons have been flying with hydrogen since the 1700s, and thousands of them have been flown around the world. It\u2019s used in sports balloons now, actually, all over the world. And thousands of them have been flown with hydrogen, there is not a single recorded incident that involves hydrogen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:38:45]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, what has technology done to make hydrogen safe?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:38:49]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, there\u2019s just been a lot of people working on it. There are so many ways to think about it. Cars use gasoline; if you get air and the fumes from gas mixing, now you\u2019ve got a highly volatile mixture that could ignite if you\u2019ve got a spark. So, with hydrogen, it takes a lot of work to catch it on fire, you need to have it mixed with air, and then you need an ignition source. And we don\u2019t have any of that. You just don\u2019t have that with balloons. Remember, when you\u2019re launching, you\u2019re going up through, if anything is coming out of the balloon, it\u2019s just going out into the atmosphere, it\u2019s not mixing in a container with air. It just doesn\u2019t happen. So you\u2019ve got, essentially, the hydrogen is a pure hydrogen mix inside the balloon, so there\u2019s nothing for it to ignite with. And then when you\u2019re in space, there\u2019s nothing even outside the balloon. So, it just doesn\u2019t happen. They have been flown thousands and thousands of times without an incident and it\u2019s very safe. There\u2019s a reason we have the hydrogen economy that\u2019s emerging. Hydrogen is used all over the world in many, many different processes, including making some of our food. That\u2019s how you ubiquitous using hydrogen is. It\u2019s just sadly what a tragedy the Hindenburg was, but that is what sticks in everybody\u2019s mind. But honestly, it is pretty irrelevant at this moment in time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:40:25]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I think it\u2019s something that people have to get used to: hydrogen. Like you said, it\u2019s used in sporting balloons, I think you mentioned that. It\u2019s also being used as a potential source of power in cars, as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:40:37]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cars, trucks, ships, planes, a lot of things. You\u2019re going to see it more and more.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:40:43]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But you are going into space. So you\u2019re safe with the hydrogen, it\u2019s a technology that\u2019s become quite mature, it\u2019s not a lot of issues with it. But in the capsule itself, you said there\u2019s a pilot; for the most part, the pilot is going to be able to enjoy himself. Hopefully, he\u2019s not drinking too much champagne. But things can go wrong. I would imagine you have ground control of some kind. What are they doing? There are some remote monitoring control going on? And what happens if something does go wrong?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:41:13]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it is a lot in there. Safety, obviously, is absolutely critical. This is a really safe way of going to space. So, let\u2019s break that down. The balloon is the primary flight system, that\u2019s what\u2019s carrying the capsule to space and then safely returning it to Earth. The balloon itself is the kind of balloon that NASA has flown over 1000 times, ESA, our team has flown it many times. It\u2019s a very well-understood technology. Then, between the balloon and the capsule is a set of four parachute systems, and they\u2019re only used in an off-nominal scenario because the capsule goes up onto the balloon and back down onto the balloon, which also means it\u2019s a very seamless experience because you don\u2019t ever transfer from one kind of flight system to another, that also means you get rid of all of that complexity so you\u2019re just going up and down. It\u2019s pretty straightforward. But the parachutes are there just in case. There are four of them, and you don\u2019t need all of them to work. You\u2019ve even got redundancy within the parachutes. And then the capsule itself, that\u2019s the thing I\u2019ve been working on most of my career is working on those kinds of systems in our team, and there are lots of redundancies within the capsule as well, as we talked about a really simple example; it\u2019s just the operations. It can be operated from the ground, it can be operated automatically, and then it can also be operated by the captain. So, there are just redundancies built into everything.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:42:44]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When you say \u201coperated,\u201d is there steering going on?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:42:48]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You\u2019re right. It\u2019s not operated in the way that we think of flying an airplane. Things don\u2019t happen very quickly in a balloon. Operated is, we\u2019ve got to make sure we\u2019re watching what\u2019s happening with our environmental control inside the capsule, or when we start to descend, make sure that we start that at the right time, those kinds of things. So you\u2019re right; there really isn\u2019t that much.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:43:14]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you said it\u2019s like a parabola, so you go up and you come down. How far away are you from where you started when you get back down?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:43:20]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Roughly, 50-75 miles, it depends on the time of year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:43:25]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it\u2019s not a lot of wind when you get 18 miles up, I think, something like that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:43:32]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it\u2019s almost 20 miles up. That\u2019s exactly right.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:43:34]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You mentioned, in your career, you\u2019ve built these environments and suits for people. And I was reading about the Red Bull space jump that Alan Eustace did, and one of the things I found fascinating about that is you were involved in the design of that suit, I believe. Is that correct?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:43:55]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, our team was. It was part of a former company that Taber and I co-founded called Paragon Space Development Corporation, that\u2019s now run by our third co-founder. And that, actually, technically, that company is what did the StratEx jump. We broke the Red Bull Stratros jump. Paragon built the spacesuit. Believe it or not, it was the first new spacesuit built, tested, and flown in America in 40 years when we flew it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:44:25]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And what year was that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:44:27]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We broke the record in 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:44:29]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, for people that may not be familiar, 136,000 feet up, and how many miles is that?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:44:36]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">People probably wouldn\u2019t be familiar. So everyone would remember the Felix Baumgartner jump because that was heavily promoted. And in fact, they broke the internet with it at the time. Their head of content for that is now our head of content as well. He\u2019s the one who brought you those incredible iconic images of Felix standing on the threshold looking out dramatically over the planet. And then he just throws himself out. It\u2019s mad to watch. I was one of the 10 million people watching real-time. So, that was done in 2012, and he went to 128,000 feet. He was actually taken up in a capsule, and he had to step out of the capsule. It turns out it\u2019s much simpler and counter-intuitively safer for this particular application. To take in this instance, Alan Eustace, who was at the time a Google executive up in a spacesuit, literally just hanging on to the balloon. So, he was connected to the balloon. We took him up for just over two hours; it took him to get up to 136,000 feet; you\u2019re right. Then we intentionally dropped him. He free-fell for almost five minutes; he broke the speed of sound. And then he opened his parachute and came in for a safe landing. It was incredibly exciting. And the reason that you wouldn\u2019t have heard about it is because we didn\u2019t want it, Google didn\u2019t want it, Alan didn\u2019t want any press to speak of. So we had just a smidgen; we had a New York Times reporter at the final record jump, just because if it\u2019s not in the press at all, it didn\u2019t happen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:46:04]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, what I found interesting about this and the challenges of developing a suit like this is there were some unique combinations of temperature going up and pressure going down. And I don\u2019t know if this is that much different than a space suit that you would wear for a spacewalk, say, where you go from the environment we\u2019re used to here on earth to the weightlessness and no atmosphere space. But here, sometimes the temperature is going up, the pressure is going down, sometimes it was a reverse. How did that make it more challenging in, say, making a conventional, if there\u2019s such a thing as a conventional spacesuit?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:46:38]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it was the number of different kinds of environments that he had to go through. When you\u2019re in a typical spacesuit going on Eva, you\u2019re dealing with one kind of environment, and that\u2019s the vacuum of space. In this instance, he had to go up through the troposphere, which is a thick atmosphere that gets very cold. It\u2019s -90 at one point when you\u2019re going out through it, so you have to deal with this very cold atmosphere. Then, finally, you get up into a vacuum with the sun beating on him. And if he was up there for very long, now he\u2019s going to overheat. So, you have this very interesting environment. And then he\u2019s hurtling back down to space and the aerodynamics are super important. If you\u2019ve ever seen images of his suit, you\u2019ll see that there\u2019s an aerodynamic shell on his front that covers all of his life support systems because he was falling down at the speed of sound, and just very slight changes in the dynamics of what was happening on the front body affected his aerodynamics very significantly. So, there are all these different things. And then, of course, we at one point had a spacesuit with rollerblades on it, which is the only suit you will ever see with rollerblades because for testing, the plane doorway where you jump out was too short for him to stand up, so they literally put him on his chest and pushed him out the back of the plane so that he could test the suit and all of the parachute systems.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:48:07]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, it had nothing to do with landing. It wasn\u2019t like landing gear or anything like that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:48:14]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was just to get him out and play. It was pretty funny.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:48:17]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did you learn anything from the design of the suit?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:48:23]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, absolutely. We learned a huge amount about operating in that environment. It\u2019s the same kind of balloon that we\u2019re using to Spaceship Neptune. So, exactly, we have a deep understanding of operating in that environment because we did all those flights with Alan a number of times going up through this. And subsequently, we\u2019ve flown a lot of balloons since then as well for science. So, there\u2019s lots to learn that has been applied to what we\u2019re doing at Spaceship Neptune.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:48:54]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What about Biosphere 2? What did you learn from that that\u2019s impacting what you\u2019re doing on Space Perspectives?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:49:01]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, my gosh, how long do you have? Fundamentally, what we learned that is directly applicable to what we\u2019re doing is really what I talked about right at the beginning, which is that experience of being part of our biosphere. That set Taber and me off on this course, on this life\u2019s journey to take us all to space. That is really where that desire and that passion was ignited for us, was inside Biosphere 2. So, as we think about what we\u2019re doing today with Spaceship Neptune at Space Perspective, it really is the culmination of everything we have done through our careers leading to this moment, starting all the way back at our time in Biosphere 2.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:49:48]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s more than an inspiration that\u2019s lived on after that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:49:54]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, we\u2019re not using biospheres, per se. I will say that the thing that we really learned there is total systems thinking, meaning to say, you have to think of things in their interconnected nature, not as individual pieces. Because individual pieces, when they\u2019re interacting with other individual pieces, there are these emergent properties that occur. So, certainly, that absolutely fed forward into what we\u2019re doing today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:50:23]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the last part of our talk, I want to talk a little bit about the future of space travel and pick up right here with Biosphere. One thing we haven\u2019t talked about, at least with respect to Biosphere, I think it was two years or a long period of time, what about the mental aspects of being with the same seven or eight people for all that time? I mean, it could be good, could be bad; but too bad, you\u2019re stuck.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:50:52]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ed, you\u2019ve got to read my book about it. We all went completely mad. My book is called The Human Experiment for a reason.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:50:58]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, does that not bode well for future space travel, you think?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:51:03]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think, as humans, we are generally pretty resilient. So it does take resilience, for sure, that\u2019s one of the key attributes for people going on something like this. It was the most incredible thing to be involved with, it was the hardest thing I ever done. It was eight of us sealed inside, talk about Cabin Fever. It\u2019s Cabin Fever, just blown out of proportion. Turns out that there is a constellation of symptoms that tend to occur with people in isolated, confined environments, as it\u2019s called, so it happens to people in the Antarctic, if they\u2019re a long time on a submarine, and there are different aspects of it. One of them is you tend to break into warring factions, which is what we did. We had eight people in there. It turns out that eight is the worst number.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:51:55]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You needed an odd number.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:51:58]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, you need an odd\u2014not three; three is even worse because you get two on one. But other than that, you need an odd number. Otherwise, you get four on four, and it\u2019s really stable, and that\u2019s what happened to us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:52:10]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you think the right number is? Nine?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:52:12]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it completely depends on what it\u2019s for.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:52:15]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like a biosphere, Biosphere 3, let\u2019s call it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:52:17]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, if we had been seven or nine, it would have been better.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:52:21]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There you go; gotta get that deciding vote.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:52:24]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, because it also just makes it more dynamic. We just got in these two clicks that would not break down.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:52:32]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, a lesson is learned there. You\u2019re not signing up for Biosphere 3, I imagine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:52:38]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sure. If there was a reason to do it, I\u2019ll do that. I\u2019m a little busy right now though. I\u2019m a little busy getting us all to space. But once we\u2019ve done that, if there is a good reason, you bet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:52:52]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Speaking of getting to space and biospheres, when do you think we\u2019ll have that first biosphere on Mars? Let\u2019s do Moon and then Mars.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:53:04]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I think Moon is super interesting. There have been so many debates over the years: \u201cOh, we\u2019ve got to do Moon. We\u2019re gonna do Mars first.\u201d I think Moon is super interesting because it\u2019s close because I want us all to be going. I don\u2019t want it to just to be for the few scientists, for the few astronauts, that eventually we\u2019re going to have hotels, we\u2019re going to have people living on the Moon, and that\u2019s super exciting. And that is going to happen before we have people really living long-term on Mars simply because it\u2019s so far away and difficult to get to. And I think that\u2019s super exciting, not because I want us to be leaving planet Earth but because I think these explorations, these outposts, they bring us things that otherwise could not happen here on Earth. There\u2019s a reason why the great navigators explored our world, initially, our planet, that seemed so huge initially. Now, our solar system seems so huge. Now imagine if we\u2019re going out and all of those people will be looking back at us and having that space perspective in an increasing amount, the further you get away, you get a little tiny experience with the pale blue dot the Carl Sagan spoke about when he took that image of Earth from the edge of our solar system in the \u201890s, that was an iconic image. I think it\u2019s very exciting and will definitely happen. Can I tell you when? Probably not.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:54:39]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You think 10 years, maybe, possibly on the Moon?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:54:43]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don\u2019t think people will be living on the Moon in 10 years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:54:45]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But visiting maybe for six days or something.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:54:48]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, we\u2019ll be routinely going, 100%, yes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:54:51]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s interesting, the pale blue dot, for those that haven\u2019t, if you look it up, I think you can find it. I think it was the Voyager turned around and it took a picture of what was behind it, and it was a little blue dot. I would imagine, someday, space travelers from Earth will be coming back, \u201cOh, there\u2019s a little blue dot, we\u2019ll be home in no time.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:55:09]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, exactly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:55:10]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And is it really that much different than the days of the explorers when they were crossing the Pacific or the Atlantic? And they said, \u201cOh, God, who knows what\u2019s out there.\u201d And then, suddenly, they see some trees on land, and they drop people. But at the time, it seems like an insurmountable challenge.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:55:28]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. 100% agree with that. It\u2019s in our DNA. I think some of us just are driven to explore.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:55:34]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you think is the biggest difference between an environment on the Moon or on Mars, let\u2019s just say, wherever outside of Earth? The difference between an environment that holds you just for a short visit, say, for six days, versus one where people could live there permanently born, live out their life in this new place. What\u2019s the biggest difference between those two environments?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:55:59]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think about that a lot because it\u2019s the difference between camping and going home. When you go camping, you\u2019re very happy to sleep on the ground. Well, a lot of people are very happy to sleep on the ground.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:56:12]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Except the glampers, the people that glamp.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:56:14]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, fair point. So, there are different levels. But even with glamping, I don\u2019t know that you\u2019re going to necessarily want to live like that all the time. That\u2019s the difference is that when you see bases that are currently designed for people to live on the Moon or Mars, it really feels like something that you could go for a while, but I don\u2019t know about you, but it doesn\u2019t feel like it\u2019s somewhere where I would feel like is home. We need to be building for the long term, we need to be building places that feel like home. And that doesn\u2019t just mean, \u201cOh, I\u2019m gonna have a more comfortable chair to sit on when I\u2019m on the Moon,\u201d or Mars, it\u2019s like, \u201cOh, we need to take our biosphere with us.\u201d You\u2019ll see we have like a little smidgen nod to that in Spaceship Neptune; we have some plants inside Spaceship Neptune because it is a nod to the fact that we don\u2019t thrive without other life with us. So going to somewhere like the Moon or eventually Mars, we have to take that with us, we have to take our biosphere with us in many ways, and put the human experience at the center of it. It\u2019s not of the same way when you think about space travel as the way we\u2019ve mostly thought about it, it\u2019s the right stuff that\u2019s like, \u201cI\u2019m going to put up with the discomfort. It\u2019s hero stuff.\u201d Well, there are only so many of us that are born to be heroes. Let\u2019s just face it; if we\u2019re going to go live there, we have to change the paradigm of that so that it really does feel like home and somewhere we could not just survive but thrive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:57:46]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And thriving is a great word to use to describe this because we naturally think about all the systems you had, like in the biosphere: we have water, air, food, and all that. But it is also another opportunity. I\u2019m going to leave this as our last serious question, at least, is now, suddenly, and I would imagine if you had a place like this on the Moon or Mars, you\u2019re going to have people from all the places on Earth. It probably gives you a new opportunity to figure out, \u201cWell, what are our rules? Or how are we going to live together? What are the laws we\u2019re going to have?\u201d Because now, we\u2019ve got a chance to do it all over again, based on thousands and thousands of years. Almost an impossible question to answer, and it wasn\u2019t on the list that I gave you, but do you have any thoughts on how would you do it differently?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:58:38]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it\u2019s a really, really difficult question to answer. If we look at the International Space Station as a model, that\u2019s been pretty awesome over the years. People have come to the station from all over the world. People have been up there whilst there\u2019s even been unrest between the countries that are up there. Represented by the people that are up there, and yet they overcome it, they still are together as human beings. I mean, that\u2019s it, they\u2019re up there as human beings. They are representing their countries, but they\u2019re up there as individuals, and they make serious bonds with the people they\u2019re up there with. And the same is going to happen on the Moon; people will make serious bonds. But to be fair, we don\u2019t have a regulatory environment, we don\u2019t have laws that cover what\u2019s going to happen there, and that\u2019s an area where we\u2019re way behind.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:59:36]<\/span> <b>Ed Bernardon: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, an adventure in more than one way. Jane, thank you so much for a really, really interesting discussion and opening up our eyes on The Future Car podcast to the future of mobility in a new dimension. Thank you so much.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[00:59:53]<\/span> <b>Jane Poynter: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You bet. It was super fun. Thanks, Ed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n        <\/div><!-- end #collapseTwo -->\n    <\/div><!-- end .card -->\n    <\/div><!-- end #accordion -->\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n<div class=\"bio-block row\">\n    <div class=\"col-3 order-first bio-pic\">\n        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/32\/2023\/09\/Jane-Poynter-head-shot.jpeg\" alt=\"Jane Poynter | Co-Founder of Space Perspective\" \/>\n    <\/div>\n    <div class=\"col-9 bio-info\">\n        <div class=\"bio-header\">\n            <h4 class=\"speakerintro\">Jane Poynter | Co-Founder of Space Perspective<\/h4>\n        <\/div>\n        <div class=\"bio-biography\">\n            <div class=\"bio-biography\">\n<p>Jane is co-founder of Space Perspective and is charged with ensuring all Space Explorers have the most meaningful and memorable journey possible. As a member of the Biosphere 2 design team and original crew who lived for two years inside the sealed, self-sustaining habitat, the first prototype space base built and operated. She then co-founded and was President of Paragon Space Development that today has technologies on almost every human spacecraft in operation in the U.S. In partnership with the World Bank and United Nations. She holds a patent for the world\u2019s first self-sustaining habitat used in multiple space programs and bred the first animals to complete multiple life cycles in space.<\/p>\n<\/div>        <\/div>\n        <div class=\"bio-contact\">\n            <p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jane-poynter?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Connect with Jane Poynter on LinkedIn<\/a><\/p>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"bio-block row\">\n    <div class=\"col-3 order-first bio-pic\">\n        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/32\/2023\/07\/Ed_Bernardon_Color-1-scaled-e1600198438346.jpg\" alt=\"Ed Bernardon, Vice President Strategic Automotive Initiatives \u2013 Host\" \/>\n    <\/div>\n    <div class=\"col-9 bio-info\">\n        <div class=\"bio-header\">\n            <h4 class=\"speakerintro\">Ed Bernardon, Vice President Strategic Automotive Initiatives \u2013 Host<\/h4>\n        <\/div>\n        <div class=\"bio-biography\">\n            <div class=\"bio-biography\">\n<div class=\"bio-biography\">\n<p>Ed is currently VP Strategic Automotive Initiatives at Siemens Digital Industries Software. Responsibilities include strategic planning and business development in areas of design of autonomous\/connected vehicles, lightweight automotive structures and interiors. He is also responsible for Future Car thought leadership which includes hosting the Future Car Podcast and development of cross divisional projects. Previously he was a founding member of VISTAGY that developed light-weight structure and automotive interior design software acquired by Siemens in 2011, he previously directed the Automation and Design Technology Group at MIT Draper Laboratory.\u00a0 Ed holds an M.S. in mechanical engineering from MIT, B.S. in mechanical engineering from Purdue, and MBA from Butler.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>        <\/div>\n        <div class=\"bio-contact\">\n            <p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/edward-bernardon-922442\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Connect with Ed Bernardon on LinkedIn<\/a><\/p>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen on your podcast platform of choice\u00a0\ud83c\udf99\ufe0f Or watch the video on YouTube \u25b6\ufe0f What to expect from this episode:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85609,"featured_media":9422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[420,2],"tags":[371,373,298,299,385,330],"industry":[19,24],"product":[],"coauthors":[888],"class_list":["post-9419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ed-bernardon","category-on-the-move","tag-digital-future","tag-digital-transformation-tag","tag-digital-twin","tag-digitalization","tag-podcast","tag-xcelerator","industry-aerospace-defense","industry-space-systems"],"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/32\/2023\/09\/02_Siemens_Graphic_1280x720-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/85609"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9419"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9429,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9419\/revisions\/9429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9419"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=9419"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=9419"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}