I've been now for a closer look at one of
the big stories that we've been following throughout the day
throughout the week, Jeff Bezos Blue origin space tourism
companies successfully completing it's fourth crewed spaceflight. As the
popularity for human space tourism does continue to reach new
heights. So joining me now is former Nasa astronaut
Leroy chow Leroy, thank you so much for joining
me on the show. I was watching and covering
this launch live another beautiful perfect landing in the west
texas desert. How significant was today's launch? As
as you just said, it looked like a perfect
launch and recovery of the new Shepard spacecraft. The
fourth crewed space mission for Blue Origin. So congratulations
to them. Uh, you know, it's kind
of a significant deal to um, it's kind of
a significant deal that they have been successful four times
in a row and they will continue, I believe
to be successful. All these new commercial space companies
recognize that it's important to make safety paramount and everything
looked like it went flawlessly. So this is opening
space up to more people raising more awareness, which
is good for the entire industry. Um look,
it was quite a day, beautiful, crystal clear
day, crystal clear skies. Couldn't ask for a
better launch that had been delayed twice, which isn't
necessarily a typical here when it comes to launching these
vehicles. But you're a former Nasa astronaut. You
are a professional and these were six civilians launching to
the edge of space for the first time ever.
What is the difference? What is this flight like
? That's a bit different from other astronauts? Historical
astronauts who have worked for Nasa. That's right.
So this this vehicle, this flight profile is extremely
different than the ones that Nasa astronauts go through.
The biggest one is that it's what we call a
parabolic flight to touch space. So it's suborbital.
The vehicle does not go into orbit so it does
not go nearly as fast as an orbital spacecraft,
which is about 17,500 miles an hour. The velocity
needed to achieve orbit around the Earth. Instead,
this spacecraft goes about 3.5 times the speed of sound
. It's just enough to get to that 50 mile
mark or 60 mile mark a little bit above that
so called von Karman line around 100 kilometers so that
the people can actually be officially in space. Have
a couple of minutes of weightlessness. Get unstrapped and
float around, look out the window and then strapped
back in before coming back down. Very quick flight
only around 11 minutes in duration, but certainly exciting
. Nonetheless, Leroy Leroy let me jump in just
so because we're tight on timing. So SnL comedian
Pete Davidson, we all know him. We all
love him. He was scheduled to be on this
first flight backed out citing scheduling issues here when it
got delayed the first time. Is it safe for
the average civilian to take one of these 10 minute
joy rides to the edge of space and back.
It's a relative safety factor. So certainly it's there's
more risk in getting on a rocket loaded with a
lot of propellant than say getting on a commercial airliner
. But so it's a risk reward ratio, kind
of a judgment on each individual. So this is
what we call informed consent. These passengers do have
to sign informed consent that they are aware of the
risks they're taking. But having said that these commercial
companies know it's vitally important that they provide a safe
ride, a safe experience so that they can continue
with their businesses. Any indication from your standpoint what
one of these tickets might cost virgin galactic. Another
space tourism company wants to charge$450,000. You might
think that that's the right price. As a former
astronaut, Nasa astronaut yourself Blue Origin, we know
at least one paying passenger Been as much as 28
million to be on that first flight. With Jeff
Bezos are these prices that civilians are paying just absolutely
out of this world? Or do you think it's
priced to perfection. They've come down quite a bit
, you know, from the orbital prices. I
mean, the tourists that flew with the orbital program
on Russian spacecraft, you know, paid somewhere between
20 million in the beginning to up to around 75
million towards the later parts of the program. And
so these it's really what the market will bear.
Right. And so spaceflight has never been an inexpensive
endeavor. These commercial space companies are bringing the cost
down but not quite to the point where people like
you and I could go out and buy a ticket
tomorrow. Like we might get a commercial airline ticket
. That's that's still some time off. But the
prices for an experience into space have come down pretty
dramatically. Yeah, I think that price point is
out of this world definitely for the foreseeable future.
Ah Leroy for me but we appreciate you taking the
time. Former Nasa astronaut Leroy chow. Thank you --> .