September 30, 2021 • 24 mins
On September 15th, the first all-civilian spaceflight took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The commercial mission run by SpaceX successfully reached orbit and splashed down in the Atlantic three days later. Could the future of spaceflight be within reach for the non-wealthy? Christian Davenport, staff writer at The Washington Post, joins us to break it all down.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
From the recount on Marina nine and and you're listening
to the Recount Daily Pod Today's Thursday Septe. Ultimately you're
going thousand, five hundred miles an hour, and at that
speed you need to burn so much propellant it's like
you're sitting on top of a bomb. That was Christian Davenport,
staff writer at The Washington Post, talking about the US
(00:30):
first all civilian space flight. Christian joined me to talk
about the future of civilian space travel. We'll dig into
that a little later. On the first Your Morning Headlines,
we began in California, where Brittney spears fight for freedom
from her father's control came to a happy end, at
least for her. Brittany has been trying for months to
(00:51):
remove her father as a conservator, a role he's had
for thirteen years. On Wednesday, the judge granted her petition
and suspended Jamie Spears as conservator, and a temporary one
was appointed. Brittany's conservatorship remains in effect while the court
considers Brittany's request to end it completely. Next to Washington,
(01:12):
d C. Where the clock is taking for the Senate
to pass a measure to avoid a partial government shutdown.
Funding of the government is set to run out on
Friday at twelve or one am. The Republicans have agreed
to a vote on a measure to extend funding only
if it's a standalone bill and does not raise or
suspend the debt ceiling. If the Democrats agree, a vote
could happen as early as late afternoon or evening. The
(01:36):
measure would only keep the government funded through December three.
Democrats are also hoping to pass their one trillion dollar
infrastructure plan today. On top of all that is President
Biden's three point five trillion dollar economic plan. Worry over
the bill not passing the Senate caused Biden to cancel
his plan trip to Chicago yesterday. The two Democratic senators
still holding up the bill are Senator's Kirsten Cinema of
(01:59):
Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Both are resistant
to the idea of increasing taxes on higher earners and
corporations to pay for it all. We end with COVID.
In a nod to supporting vaccinations, social media platform YouTube
announced that it will be removing any video that contains
misinformation on the vaccines. The band will also apply to
(02:21):
other vaccines like measles, mumps, and rubella, as well as
to falsehoods about vaccines in general. Since last year, over
a hundred and thirty thousand videos were removed for violating
YouTube's COVID nineteen vaccine policies. In India, there's finally good
news on COVID. Indian health officials have said that Wednesday's
count of new coronavirus cases its lowest number they've recorded
(02:44):
in about six months. It's daily death toll has also
sharply declined, with only three hundred and seventy eight. Back
in May, the country was seeing an average of over
four thousand deaths a day and now to our daily
deep dive. On Sptember fifteen, the first all civilian space
flight took place from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The flight was
(03:06):
launched by Elon Musk SpaceX and it was called inspiration
for the flight could be a game changer for the
future of space travel, So we'll space travel ever become
a normal thing for regular folks. I'm joined by Christian Davenport,
staff writer at The Washington Post, to dig into it further.
Hey Christian, thanks for joining us. Sure, thanks for having
(03:26):
me you bet so. On September fifteenth, we saw the
launch of Inspiration for It was a three day journey
for space X. First, all civilian crew walk me through that.
Why was this so significant, Well, there have been civilians,
I mean i e. Non government trained astronauts, not professional astronauts,
who have gone to space before. In the two thousands,
(03:48):
there were a number of people, wealthy individuals who paid
to fly to the International Space Station. I think they
paid about twenty million dollars or so each and they
spent a week on the International Space Station, but they
always flew with professional astronauts alongside them. And if you
go back in history too, this was sort of NASA's
(04:08):
goal from the beginning to fly civilians more frequently. That's
what they were hoping to do on the Space Shuttle,
and they first chose a teacher and then a journalist
was going to go. The teacher was Christian mccauliffe, and
that program came to a tragic ending when the Space
Shuttle Challenger blew up in n um. So now we've
(04:29):
gone sort of into this new generation of space flight
and companies like SpaceX are trying to make space more
accessible to people and they flew a crew made up
entirely of private citizens. There was not a single professionally
trained astronaut on board that spacecraft. None of them had
been to space before. They were all strangers as of
(04:51):
a few months before the spaceflight. And yeah, they were
trained on some emergency procedures here and there. They were
familiar with the spacecraft, but they didn't fly it. This
was an autonomous spacecraft that was flying them on this mission,
and SpaceX hopest to be doing a lot more of these.
So you say these were all civilians, but they weren't
just average civilians. Tell me a little bit about how
(05:12):
they got picked in who they were, right. So this
was funded by a billionaire entrepreneur named Jared Isaacman, who
you know, it's really interesting. He could have, presumably, you know,
picked three of his friends, three of his buddies, three
members we flies jets with, because he does is an
experienced pilot flying jets and even fighter jets. But instead
(05:34):
he turned this into a fundraiser for St. Jude Children's
Research Hospital, and the first person he picked for this
was Hailey Arsenal, who's a physician assistant at the hospital.
Childhood cancer survivor of her own. She had bone cancer
and actually as a result of that, has a prosthetic
in her leg and then became the first person with
(05:55):
a prosthetic to go to space. And then he did
something interesting where for the fundraiser he made that into
a sweepstakes and people who donated you entered the fundraiser
and you could be picked for a trip to go
to space. And actually the winner of that seat was Kristmbrowski,
who did donate as part of the fundraiser, but actually
didn't win. It was a friend of his who won.
(06:17):
Knew that Chris was a huge space fan, and his
friend actually gave him the ticket. And then the third
seat went to Dr Scion Proctor, who's a community college
professor and an artist and a poet, and she participated
in the sort of entrepreneurial contest where she used Jared
Isaacsman's business platform to sort of create a business for
(06:39):
herself and she made a video and was chosen for
that reason. But you know, again all rookies. And then
a few months later they're in space and they're in orbit.
So did they break any records? Was there anything big
that they did during the space flight? Yeah, I mean
they went really high. I mean they went higher than
the International Space Station, they went higher to the Hubble telescope,
(07:02):
and higher than most Space Shuttle missions had gone. And
so there was some real risk involved. It was higher
than the Dragon spacecraft, that's the spacecraft that SpaceX flies.
It had never been that high before, so the engineers
had to take a hard look um at this and
whether it would be okay to fly at that altitude.
(07:23):
And of course, the higher you go, the better view
of Earth you're you're going to have. And because they
were just in orbit, they didn't dock with the International
Space Station, and so what SpaceX did was they took
the docking adapter and they put a clear dome in
there so that they could have these amazing views of
Earth from inside the spacecraft. You talked a little bit
(07:47):
about risk of this space flight, and you also mentioned
earlier about the Challenger Lodily back when that Challenger explosion happened,
I remember it so vividly. That was eight in elementary school.
How did that set back the space program? It was
an enormous blow and I remember it too. I was
actually homesick that day watching the news over and over
(08:09):
and over again. But It was a reminder that space
flight is so hard, it's so risky. You know, humans
are just not made to live in space, and to
get to space it requires an enormous amount of energy.
I mean you need to be going to get out
of Earth's gravity to be in orbit. Ultimately you're going
five hundred miles an hour, and at that speed you
(08:32):
need to burn so much propellant. It's like you're sitting
on top of a bomb and if one thing goes wrong,
it could be have disastrous consequences. You mentioned the idea
that about humans could one day habitate other planets. Do
you find that this space flight might have bolstered hopes
of that? Do you really see that happening? Yes, I
(08:55):
mean it shows another step forward in the technology and
the way in which we're moving forward, you know, in
the commercialization of space and companies like SpaceX standing on
the shoulders of NASA and doing things in a way
that you know NASA couldn't. NASA had wanted to fly civilians,
and you know that they ended that program and now
(09:17):
here's SpaceX to pick up the baton and going forward.
And you see NASA too, that the dynamics changed and
that NASA is looking at companies like SpaceX and blue
Urgein and others and saying they've got some chops in space.
We need to harness that capability and partner with them,
just like you know we do on the International Space Station.
We do that with other countries. Now they're looking at
(09:40):
other companies and saying, if we're going to go to
the Moon, and if we're going to go to Mars,
we need to all do it together. There's a lot
of pushback on social media about these space flights that
have happened over the past few months, saying they're bigger
issues in the world to focus on COVID hunger, climate change.
I'm curious that Richard Branson's Jeff Bezos, how are they
responding to the optics of people saying this is a
(10:03):
little extravagant. Do we really need this? I think they
would say that, yes, we need to solve the problems
here on Earth. But if you think about space for
a minute, um, there have only been about five seventy
people who have ever been to space, who have ever
seen Earth from a distance, The curvature of the Earth
land masses without borders, the thin line of the atmosphere um.
(10:24):
And if you think about the picture that was taken
during the Apollo program of the Earth from the Moon.
I mean, it's the most reproduced image and like the
history of photography and lead directly to Earth Day and
that's the sort of symbol of Earth Day and realizing
when you leave the Earth that ultimately that's what we
need to protect. And yeah, this is not opening up
(10:45):
space to the masses, even though that's what they talk about.
It's not the democratization of space, at least not yet.
It's enormously expensive to go virgin galactic. It would charge
four hundred and fifty thousand dollars for these suborbital trips SpaceX.
You know some of these tourists. If you go to
the International Space Station for a week or so, that
price tag is fifty million dollars. It's still very expensive.
(11:09):
But the hope is that the very wealthy are the
ones that do it at first, and their wealth subsidizes
these programs and the technology so that they become they
contested out, they become more efficient, the price comes down,
more people can go. We've got to take a quick
break and then we'll be back with Christian Davenport, reporter
for the Washington Post. He covers NASA and the space industry.
(11:32):
You're listening to The Recount Daily Pod. Welcome back to
the Recount Daily Pod, a podcast from The Recount and
I Heart Radio. I'm here with Christian Davenport, staff writer
at the Washington Post. We're talking about the privatization of
space travel. What do you think the downside is to
(11:55):
privatizing space. Space is big and it's vast, but it's
also congested in a way. There's a lot of debris
that's floating around out there that you know can have
catastrophic consequences. If you've ever seen the movie Gravity, for example,
where the International Space Station literally has to sometimes maneuver
(12:18):
to dodge space debris out there. And there's no real
rules to the road governing space traffic management. You put
a satellite up, but there's no rule that says, oh,
that satellite make collide with another satellite, you have to
move it. There's no rules that say you have to
have propellant on that satellite so that it can move.
Some of them can't maneuver if you do get to
(12:42):
the surface of the Moon. What are these sort of
international norms of behavior in terms of say you make
a scientific discovery, do you share that with the world,
Do you talk to the world about what you're doing
on the moon? Do you have the rights to things
you mind on the moon? And NASA is trying to
work on that right now. For example, with the Artemists,
they're called the Artemis Accords, which are these treaties with
(13:02):
other nations that say you have to share your scientific data,
you have to tell people what you're doing and where
you're operating and be transparent. But not everybody signing up
to that, So clearly there are some problems even within countries.
But now imagine when you've got more companies doing this.
How do you think privatization impacts national security concerns? There
(13:23):
are a couple of things. One, the Pentagon is looking
at some of these companies and saying we want to
work with you because you know you can put up
a satellite quickly. And you think about satellites, you know,
traditionally they're massive, the size of a school bus. But
like the Revolution and personal computing, your computer the size
(13:45):
of an iPhone in your pocket, satellites can be really small,
and they can be the size of a loaf of bread.
And there's new rocket technology, smaller rockets that can be
responsive and launch quickly. A company called Virgin Orbit, which
is Richard Branson company, has a small rock that they
tether to the side of a wing of a seven
forty seven airplane and then it's air launched. And so
(14:06):
say the Pentagon or the CIA says, hey, we need
a satellite up to look say over North Korea. Get
that plane on the runway, get that rocket off, and
you can go. So the Pentagon is paying very close
attention to all of this as well. But again, you know,
there's some real questions about where the rules of the
road are. You mentioned NASA funding Space AX, Blue Origin,
(14:26):
Virgin Galactic billion dollars. Why should we be prioritizing funding
for space travel right now? And there's so many other issues.
But the NASA budget is compared to say the Pentagon,
it's it's tiny. You know, we are focused on the
human exploration, right and the billionaires, and the human exploration
sucks up a lot of the oxygen in the room.
(14:47):
But you know, I think NASA would say, if you
are able to build a permanent presence on the surface
of the Moon, there could be some significant scientific discovery.
So I mean, we now know that there is water
in the form of ice at the poles of the Moon,
which we didn't know during the appoll era. And that's significant,
not just because water can sustain human life to drink
(15:09):
or for air to breathe, but hydrogen and oxygen also
can be used as rocket fuel, and so the Moon,
for example, then becomes a gas station in space that
lets you go deeper into space, deeper into the universe.
So there are a lot of scientific discoveries that you're
trying to go on about space that will ultimately, NASA hopes,
(15:31):
fuel our understanding of the Earth and how it was formed.
So with these big discoveries and and this hope and optimism,
any indication how space will be regulated if in the
future it becomes open for tourism, are we all going
to need passports? NASA is you know, trying to work
on that right now. And you've had this international collaboration
(15:52):
um and one of the interesting things that's going on,
for example, is the International Space Station. Right We've got
all these nations coming together. We partner with Russia and
things you know on the ground between the United States
and Russia is not great, but there are key partner
on the International Space Station. But the space station is
getting old. It's been up there for twenty years, and
NASA starting to think what's going to come next in
(16:14):
Russia and China are now in discussions about building a
space station of their own, and NASA is trying to
figure out, well, maybe we work with the commercial sector
to build a commercial space station. And we're here talking
about all of the space tourism flights from from the
United States. But there's a Japanese billionaire it's going to
go up on a Russian spacecraft to the International Space Station.
(16:35):
There's a Russian film crew that's gonna go up to
the International Space Station. So there's all of this going on,
and there's gonna be a lot more traffic, and yet
there aren't any rules to the road. It's still very
much the wild West, and so a lot of people
think this ultimately has to be handled by some international body,
like the United Nations. We're gonna take a quick break
(16:56):
and then we're gonna be back with Christian Tavenport, reporter
for the Washington Post, covers NASA and the space industry.
You're listening to the Recount Daily Pod. Welcome back to
the Recount Daily Pod podcast from The Recount and I
Heart Radio. I'm joined by Christian Davenport, staff writer at
(17:19):
The Washington Post. We're talking about privatizing space travel. So
fast forward fifty years from now, where do you think
space travel will be. Will the non Bezos billionaires of
the world be jetting off to space. Let's, you know,
for a minute, take the optimistic view, and we can
talk about, you know, camps on the Moon and people
on Mars. Maybe in fifty years you could see humans
(17:41):
getting to Mars. It's just that difficult. But the space
tourism thing, I think it's really interesting. And if they're
able to do it successfully, and you have not just
one but a series of commercial habitats like space stations
that are made by private companies, and there are come
pies that are working on that right now, and you
(18:02):
have a commercial service that wants to pay people to
go to space. I mean, I think that could be transformative.
If you talk to astronauts have been to space, they
talked about the overview effect, which is sort of a
clunky term I think for what it means to view
the Earth going to space and they'll tell you the
pictures don't do it justice that when you see the
Earth from space, it really has a profound effect on you.
(18:25):
And instead of being seventy people have been to space,
but it's five thousand, ten thousand and fifty years, say
it's fifty people have been to space. Are more and
it's you know, some mut of a regular thing. I
think that could have a profound societal effect here on Earth,
but they've got to show that they can do it successfully.
What happens if there's an accident, What happens if people
(18:48):
get killed, as it's happened before and could very well
happen in the future. Will the public have a tolerance
for that? Will Congress will it want to step in? Um?
We don't know the answers to all that yet. Elon
must the founder of SpaceX, hasn't flown into space yet.
He's a billionaire, he owns a space travel company. Why
do you think he hasn't done so? So? Obviously Richard
(19:10):
Branson went, and then Jeff Bezos went, you know, on
the very first flight of his space company, Blue Origins
first flight. They're in the process right now of trying
to sell tickets for a space tourism enterprise. Um Elon
doesn't really need to do that. He's got multibillion dollar
contracts with NASA, with the Pentagon, with commercial companies. You know,
(19:34):
he can sell on the side space tourism flight here
and there if he needs to. But you know, I
think Richard and Jeff did it in part because I
wanted to demonstrate that their rockets are safe, but also
for the marketing and the pr value to sort of generate,
you know, enthusiasm and interest and let's face it, ticket sales.
(19:54):
Um Elon doesn't really need to do that. I do
think he'll fly at some point, but it's sort of
he's in a different league. Frankly, Christian, you cover NASA
in the space industry extensively for the Washington Post. Would
you go to space? Yes? Really, with that hesitation, absolutely,
I would go tomorrow. I think it would be amazing,
and I think it's important for the public to see that.
(20:17):
I mean that NASA was going to send a journalist
to space. I actually have the application that NASA had
in the mid eighties for the Journalist in Space program.
I've gone through the archives that Walter Cronkite was a finalist.
I have his essay, and I do think it's important
for people like you and me to go um. I think,
(20:38):
you know, astronauts get a bad rap because people say, oh,
they're not very articulate and they can't really translate what
the experience is like. I've talked to plenty of astronauts
who have done a great job. I thought about communicating
the experience, but I think that's what you know, people
like you and I do, and I we should continue
to do that. And I think a journalist should go
(20:58):
and be able to talk about independent at lee what
it's really um like. So yes, I would go in
a minute now, SA you're listening, it's Christian Davenport from
the Washington Post. Send them up, Christian, I wanna thank
you so much for your time and for breaking all
this down for us. Sure, my pleasure, and now to
the look ahead. Here's what else we're watching today. Facebook
(21:19):
global head of safety is testifying at a Senate Commerce
Subcommittee hearing this morning on protecting children's mental health online.
Hearing comes on the heels of a bombshell Wall Street
Journal article that said Facebook has repeatedly ignored internal research
showing Instagram's negative impact on teenage girls. In response to
heated criticism generated by the report, social media giant recently
(21:42):
announced it will pause development on its Instagram Kid product,
which was aimed at ten to twelve year olds. Today
marks the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation in Canada.
The date was created to honor the lost children and
survivors of residential schools, their family these and communities. Back
in May, two d and fifteen bodies were discovered at
(22:04):
the site of one former school. The schools where government
controlled religious institutions designed to assimilate Indigenous children into euro
Canadian culture. To learn more about the Indigenous culture, you
can visit Canada dot c A. On this date. Fifty
nine years ago, James Meredith, a black twenty nine year old,
was attempting to enroll at the University of Mississippi. He
(22:27):
was accompanied by federal and U. S State law enforcement.
The campus was a hotbed of racial tension after the U. S.
Supreme Court decision eight years earlier in Brown versus Board
of Education. A riot broke out when an angry mob
of white people confronted law officials. The confrontation resulted in
the murder of two and the wounding of two hundred
(22:47):
and six marshals and soldiers. Two hundred individuals were arrested.
Meredith was finally allowed to register for courses on October one,
nine sixty two. We leave you with James Meredith speaking
about the incident a couple of years later. What I
do uh resent is my being a second class citizen inferior.
(23:10):
And I don't mean by biological means, I mean, in fact,
have a great weekend everyone. I'll see you back on
Monday morning. This is The Recount Daily Pod, a podcast
from the Recount that I heart Radio. Are Thanks to
Christian Davenport, staff writer at The Washington Post, for being
on the show. And if you like this episode, I
(23:33):
hope you'll subscribe to The Recount Daily Pod and do
leave us a rating on the Apple podcast app. I'm
Your Host. Rena nine and Alexis Ramdao and Corey Wara
engineered and produced this podcast. Ariella Martin also produced. Vandemani
did the research. Pierre ben A May is our senior
producer and our executive producer is Laura Beatty.
From the recount on Marina nine and and you're listening
to the Recount Daily Pod Today's Thursday Septe. Ultimately you're
going thousand, five hundred miles an hour, and at that
speed you need to burn so much propellant it's like
you're sitting on top of a bomb. That was Christian Davenport,
staff writer at The Washington Post, talking about the US
(00:30):
first all civilian space flight. Christian joined me to talk
about the future of civilian space travel. We'll dig into
that a little later. On the first Your Morning Headlines,
we began in California, where Brittney spears fight for freedom
from her father's control came to a happy end, at
least for her. Brittany has been trying for months to
(00:51):
remove her father as a conservator, a role he's had
for thirteen years. On Wednesday, the judge granted her petition
and suspended Jamie Spears as conservator, and a temporary one
was appointed. Brittany's conservatorship remains in effect while the court
considers Brittany's request to end it completely. Next to Washington,
(01:12):
d C. Where the clock is taking for the Senate
to pass a measure to avoid a partial government shutdown.
Funding of the government is set to run out on
Friday at twelve or one am. The Republicans have agreed
to a vote on a measure to extend funding only
if it's a standalone bill and does not raise or
suspend the debt ceiling. If the Democrats agree, a vote
could happen as early as late afternoon or evening. The
(01:36):
measure would only keep the government funded through December three.
Democrats are also hoping to pass their one trillion dollar
infrastructure plan today. On top of all that is President
Biden's three point five trillion dollar economic plan. Worry over
the bill not passing the Senate caused Biden to cancel
his plan trip to Chicago yesterday. The two Democratic senators
still holding up the bill are Senator's Kirsten Cinema of
(01:59):
Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Both are resistant
to the idea of increasing taxes on higher earners and
corporations to pay for it all. We end with COVID.
In a nod to supporting vaccinations, social media platform YouTube
announced that it will be removing any video that contains
misinformation on the vaccines. The band will also apply to
(02:21):
other vaccines like measles, mumps, and rubella, as well as
to falsehoods about vaccines in general. Since last year, over
a hundred and thirty thousand videos were removed for violating
YouTube's COVID nineteen vaccine policies. In India, there's finally good
news on COVID. Indian health officials have said that Wednesday's
count of new coronavirus cases its lowest number they've recorded
(02:44):
in about six months. It's daily death toll has also
sharply declined, with only three hundred and seventy eight. Back
in May, the country was seeing an average of over
four thousand deaths a day and now to our daily
deep dive. On Sptember fifteen, the first all civilian space
flight took place from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The flight was
(03:06):
launched by Elon Musk SpaceX and it was called inspiration
for the flight could be a game changer for the
future of space travel, So we'll space travel ever become
a normal thing for regular folks. I'm joined by Christian Davenport,
staff writer at The Washington Post, to dig into it further.
Hey Christian, thanks for joining us. Sure, thanks for having
(03:26):
me you bet so. On September fifteenth, we saw the
launch of Inspiration for It was a three day journey
for space X. First, all civilian crew walk me through that.
Why was this so significant, Well, there have been civilians,
I mean i e. Non government trained astronauts, not professional astronauts,
who have gone to space before. In the two thousands,
(03:48):
there were a number of people, wealthy individuals who paid
to fly to the International Space Station. I think they
paid about twenty million dollars or so each and they
spent a week on the International Space Station, but they
always flew with professional astronauts alongside them. And if you
go back in history too, this was sort of NASA's
(04:08):
goal from the beginning to fly civilians more frequently. That's
what they were hoping to do on the Space Shuttle,
and they first chose a teacher and then a journalist
was going to go. The teacher was Christian mccauliffe, and
that program came to a tragic ending when the Space
Shuttle Challenger blew up in n um. So now we've
(04:29):
gone sort of into this new generation of space flight
and companies like SpaceX are trying to make space more
accessible to people and they flew a crew made up
entirely of private citizens. There was not a single professionally
trained astronaut on board that spacecraft. None of them had
been to space before. They were all strangers as of
(04:51):
a few months before the spaceflight. And yeah, they were
trained on some emergency procedures here and there. They were
familiar with the spacecraft, but they didn't fly it. This
was an autonomous spacecraft that was flying them on this mission,
and SpaceX hopest to be doing a lot more of these.
So you say these were all civilians, but they weren't
just average civilians. Tell me a little bit about how
(05:12):
they got picked in who they were, right. So this
was funded by a billionaire entrepreneur named Jared Isaacman, who
you know, it's really interesting. He could have, presumably, you know,
picked three of his friends, three of his buddies, three
members we flies jets with, because he does is an
experienced pilot flying jets and even fighter jets. But instead
(05:34):
he turned this into a fundraiser for St. Jude Children's
Research Hospital, and the first person he picked for this
was Hailey Arsenal, who's a physician assistant at the hospital.
Childhood cancer survivor of her own. She had bone cancer
and actually as a result of that, has a prosthetic
in her leg and then became the first person with
(05:55):
a prosthetic to go to space. And then he did
something interesting where for the fundraiser he made that into
a sweepstakes and people who donated you entered the fundraiser
and you could be picked for a trip to go
to space. And actually the winner of that seat was Kristmbrowski,
who did donate as part of the fundraiser, but actually
didn't win. It was a friend of his who won.
(06:17):
Knew that Chris was a huge space fan, and his
friend actually gave him the ticket. And then the third
seat went to Dr Scion Proctor, who's a community college
professor and an artist and a poet, and she participated
in the sort of entrepreneurial contest where she used Jared
Isaacsman's business platform to sort of create a business for
(06:39):
herself and she made a video and was chosen for
that reason. But you know, again all rookies. And then
a few months later they're in space and they're in orbit.
So did they break any records? Was there anything big
that they did during the space flight? Yeah, I mean
they went really high. I mean they went higher than
the International Space Station, they went higher to the Hubble telescope,
(07:02):
and higher than most Space Shuttle missions had gone. And
so there was some real risk involved. It was higher
than the Dragon spacecraft, that's the spacecraft that SpaceX flies.
It had never been that high before, so the engineers
had to take a hard look um at this and
whether it would be okay to fly at that altitude.
(07:23):
And of course, the higher you go, the better view
of Earth you're you're going to have. And because they
were just in orbit, they didn't dock with the International
Space Station, and so what SpaceX did was they took
the docking adapter and they put a clear dome in
there so that they could have these amazing views of
Earth from inside the spacecraft. You talked a little bit
(07:47):
about risk of this space flight, and you also mentioned
earlier about the Challenger Lodily back when that Challenger explosion happened,
I remember it so vividly. That was eight in elementary school.
How did that set back the space program? It was
an enormous blow and I remember it too. I was
actually homesick that day watching the news over and over
(08:09):
and over again. But It was a reminder that space
flight is so hard, it's so risky. You know, humans
are just not made to live in space, and to
get to space it requires an enormous amount of energy.
I mean you need to be going to get out
of Earth's gravity to be in orbit. Ultimately you're going
five hundred miles an hour, and at that speed you
(08:32):
need to burn so much propellant. It's like you're sitting
on top of a bomb and if one thing goes wrong,
it could be have disastrous consequences. You mentioned the idea
that about humans could one day habitate other planets. Do
you find that this space flight might have bolstered hopes
of that? Do you really see that happening? Yes, I
(08:55):
mean it shows another step forward in the technology and
the way in which we're moving forward, you know, in
the commercialization of space and companies like SpaceX standing on
the shoulders of NASA and doing things in a way
that you know NASA couldn't. NASA had wanted to fly civilians,
and you know that they ended that program and now
(09:17):
here's SpaceX to pick up the baton and going forward.
And you see NASA too, that the dynamics changed and
that NASA is looking at companies like SpaceX and blue
Urgein and others and saying they've got some chops in space.
We need to harness that capability and partner with them,
just like you know we do on the International Space Station.
We do that with other countries. Now they're looking at
(09:40):
other companies and saying, if we're going to go to
the Moon, and if we're going to go to Mars,
we need to all do it together. There's a lot
of pushback on social media about these space flights that
have happened over the past few months, saying they're bigger
issues in the world to focus on COVID hunger, climate change.
I'm curious that Richard Branson's Jeff Bezos, how are they
responding to the optics of people saying this is a
(10:03):
little extravagant. Do we really need this? I think they
would say that, yes, we need to solve the problems
here on Earth. But if you think about space for
a minute, um, there have only been about five seventy
people who have ever been to space, who have ever
seen Earth from a distance, The curvature of the Earth
land masses without borders, the thin line of the atmosphere um.
(10:24):
And if you think about the picture that was taken
during the Apollo program of the Earth from the Moon.
I mean, it's the most reproduced image and like the
history of photography and lead directly to Earth Day and
that's the sort of symbol of Earth Day and realizing
when you leave the Earth that ultimately that's what we
need to protect. And yeah, this is not opening up
(10:45):
space to the masses, even though that's what they talk about.
It's not the democratization of space, at least not yet.
It's enormously expensive to go virgin galactic. It would charge
four hundred and fifty thousand dollars for these suborbital trips SpaceX.
You know some of these tourists. If you go to
the International Space Station for a week or so, that
price tag is fifty million dollars. It's still very expensive.
(11:09):
But the hope is that the very wealthy are the
ones that do it at first, and their wealth subsidizes
these programs and the technology so that they become they
contested out, they become more efficient, the price comes down,
more people can go. We've got to take a quick
break and then we'll be back with Christian Davenport, reporter
for the Washington Post. He covers NASA and the space industry.
(11:32):
You're listening to The Recount Daily Pod. Welcome back to
the Recount Daily Pod, a podcast from The Recount and
I Heart Radio. I'm here with Christian Davenport, staff writer
at the Washington Post. We're talking about the privatization of
space travel. What do you think the downside is to
(11:55):
privatizing space. Space is big and it's vast, but it's
also congested in a way. There's a lot of debris
that's floating around out there that you know can have
catastrophic consequences. If you've ever seen the movie Gravity, for example,
where the International Space Station literally has to sometimes maneuver
(12:18):
to dodge space debris out there. And there's no real
rules to the road governing space traffic management. You put
a satellite up, but there's no rule that says, oh,
that satellite make collide with another satellite, you have to
move it. There's no rules that say you have to
have propellant on that satellite so that it can move.
Some of them can't maneuver if you do get to
(12:42):
the surface of the Moon. What are these sort of
international norms of behavior in terms of say you make
a scientific discovery, do you share that with the world,
Do you talk to the world about what you're doing
on the moon? Do you have the rights to things
you mind on the moon? And NASA is trying to
work on that right now. For example, with the Artemists,
they're called the Artemis Accords, which are these treaties with
(13:02):
other nations that say you have to share your scientific data,
you have to tell people what you're doing and where
you're operating and be transparent. But not everybody signing up
to that, So clearly there are some problems even within countries.
But now imagine when you've got more companies doing this.
How do you think privatization impacts national security concerns? There
(13:23):
are a couple of things. One, the Pentagon is looking
at some of these companies and saying we want to
work with you because you know you can put up
a satellite quickly. And you think about satellites, you know,
traditionally they're massive, the size of a school bus. But
like the Revolution and personal computing, your computer the size
(13:45):
of an iPhone in your pocket, satellites can be really small,
and they can be the size of a loaf of bread.
And there's new rocket technology, smaller rockets that can be
responsive and launch quickly. A company called Virgin Orbit, which
is Richard Branson company, has a small rock that they
tether to the side of a wing of a seven
forty seven airplane and then it's air launched. And so
(14:06):
say the Pentagon or the CIA says, hey, we need
a satellite up to look say over North Korea. Get
that plane on the runway, get that rocket off, and
you can go. So the Pentagon is paying very close
attention to all of this as well. But again, you know,
there's some real questions about where the rules of the
road are. You mentioned NASA funding Space AX, Blue Origin,
(14:26):
Virgin Galactic billion dollars. Why should we be prioritizing funding
for space travel right now? And there's so many other issues.
But the NASA budget is compared to say the Pentagon,
it's it's tiny. You know, we are focused on the
human exploration, right and the billionaires, and the human exploration
sucks up a lot of the oxygen in the room.
(14:47):
But you know, I think NASA would say, if you
are able to build a permanent presence on the surface
of the Moon, there could be some significant scientific discovery.
So I mean, we now know that there is water
in the form of ice at the poles of the Moon,
which we didn't know during the appoll era. And that's significant,
not just because water can sustain human life to drink
(15:09):
or for air to breathe, but hydrogen and oxygen also
can be used as rocket fuel, and so the Moon,
for example, then becomes a gas station in space that
lets you go deeper into space, deeper into the universe.
So there are a lot of scientific discoveries that you're
trying to go on about space that will ultimately, NASA hopes,
(15:31):
fuel our understanding of the Earth and how it was formed.
So with these big discoveries and and this hope and optimism,
any indication how space will be regulated if in the
future it becomes open for tourism, are we all going
to need passports? NASA is you know, trying to work
on that right now. And you've had this international collaboration
(15:52):
um and one of the interesting things that's going on,
for example, is the International Space Station. Right We've got
all these nations coming together. We partner with Russia and
things you know on the ground between the United States
and Russia is not great, but there are key partner
on the International Space Station. But the space station is
getting old. It's been up there for twenty years, and
NASA starting to think what's going to come next in
(16:14):
Russia and China are now in discussions about building a
space station of their own, and NASA is trying to
figure out, well, maybe we work with the commercial sector
to build a commercial space station. And we're here talking
about all of the space tourism flights from from the
United States. But there's a Japanese billionaire it's going to
go up on a Russian spacecraft to the International Space Station.
(16:35):
There's a Russian film crew that's gonna go up to
the International Space Station. So there's all of this going on,
and there's gonna be a lot more traffic, and yet
there aren't any rules to the road. It's still very
much the wild West, and so a lot of people
think this ultimately has to be handled by some international body,
like the United Nations. We're gonna take a quick break
(16:56):
and then we're gonna be back with Christian Tavenport, reporter
for the Washington Post, covers NASA and the space industry.
You're listening to the Recount Daily Pod. Welcome back to
the Recount Daily Pod podcast from The Recount and I
Heart Radio. I'm joined by Christian Davenport, staff writer at
(17:19):
The Washington Post. We're talking about privatizing space travel. So
fast forward fifty years from now, where do you think
space travel will be. Will the non Bezos billionaires of
the world be jetting off to space. Let's, you know,
for a minute, take the optimistic view, and we can
talk about, you know, camps on the Moon and people
on Mars. Maybe in fifty years you could see humans
(17:41):
getting to Mars. It's just that difficult. But the space
tourism thing, I think it's really interesting. And if they're
able to do it successfully, and you have not just
one but a series of commercial habitats like space stations
that are made by private companies, and there are come
pies that are working on that right now, and you
(18:02):
have a commercial service that wants to pay people to
go to space. I mean, I think that could be transformative.
If you talk to astronauts have been to space, they
talked about the overview effect, which is sort of a
clunky term I think for what it means to view
the Earth going to space and they'll tell you the
pictures don't do it justice that when you see the
Earth from space, it really has a profound effect on you.
(18:25):
And instead of being seventy people have been to space,
but it's five thousand, ten thousand and fifty years, say
it's fifty people have been to space. Are more and
it's you know, some mut of a regular thing. I
think that could have a profound societal effect here on Earth,
but they've got to show that they can do it successfully.
What happens if there's an accident, What happens if people
(18:48):
get killed, as it's happened before and could very well
happen in the future. Will the public have a tolerance
for that? Will Congress will it want to step in? Um?
We don't know the answers to all that yet. Elon
must the founder of SpaceX, hasn't flown into space yet.
He's a billionaire, he owns a space travel company. Why
do you think he hasn't done so? So? Obviously Richard
(19:10):
Branson went, and then Jeff Bezos went, you know, on
the very first flight of his space company, Blue Origins
first flight. They're in the process right now of trying
to sell tickets for a space tourism enterprise. Um Elon
doesn't really need to do that. He's got multibillion dollar
contracts with NASA, with the Pentagon, with commercial companies. You know,
(19:34):
he can sell on the side space tourism flight here
and there if he needs to. But you know, I
think Richard and Jeff did it in part because I
wanted to demonstrate that their rockets are safe, but also
for the marketing and the pr value to sort of generate,
you know, enthusiasm and interest and let's face it, ticket sales.
(19:54):
Um Elon doesn't really need to do that. I do
think he'll fly at some point, but it's sort of
he's in a different league. Frankly, Christian, you cover NASA
in the space industry extensively for the Washington Post. Would
you go to space? Yes? Really, with that hesitation, absolutely,
I would go tomorrow. I think it would be amazing,
and I think it's important for the public to see that.
(20:17):
I mean that NASA was going to send a journalist
to space. I actually have the application that NASA had
in the mid eighties for the Journalist in Space program.
I've gone through the archives that Walter Cronkite was a finalist.
I have his essay, and I do think it's important
for people like you and me to go um. I think,
(20:38):
you know, astronauts get a bad rap because people say, oh,
they're not very articulate and they can't really translate what
the experience is like. I've talked to plenty of astronauts
who have done a great job. I thought about communicating
the experience, but I think that's what you know, people
like you and I do, and I we should continue
to do that. And I think a journalist should go
(20:58):
and be able to talk about independent at lee what
it's really um like. So yes, I would go in
a minute now, SA you're listening, it's Christian Davenport from
the Washington Post. Send them up, Christian, I wanna thank
you so much for your time and for breaking all
this down for us. Sure, my pleasure, and now to
the look ahead. Here's what else we're watching today. Facebook
(21:19):
global head of safety is testifying at a Senate Commerce
Subcommittee hearing this morning on protecting children's mental health online.
Hearing comes on the heels of a bombshell Wall Street
Journal article that said Facebook has repeatedly ignored internal research
showing Instagram's negative impact on teenage girls. In response to
heated criticism generated by the report, social media giant recently
(21:42):
announced it will pause development on its Instagram Kid product,
which was aimed at ten to twelve year olds. Today
marks the first National Day of Truth and Reconciliation in Canada.
The date was created to honor the lost children and
survivors of residential schools, their family these and communities. Back
in May, two d and fifteen bodies were discovered at
(22:04):
the site of one former school. The schools where government
controlled religious institutions designed to assimilate Indigenous children into euro
Canadian culture. To learn more about the Indigenous culture, you
can visit Canada dot c A. On this date. Fifty
nine years ago, James Meredith, a black twenty nine year old,
was attempting to enroll at the University of Mississippi. He
(22:27):
was accompanied by federal and U. S State law enforcement.
The campus was a hotbed of racial tension after the U. S.
Supreme Court decision eight years earlier in Brown versus Board
of Education. A riot broke out when an angry mob
of white people confronted law officials. The confrontation resulted in
the murder of two and the wounding of two hundred
(22:47):
and six marshals and soldiers. Two hundred individuals were arrested.
Meredith was finally allowed to register for courses on October one,
nine sixty two. We leave you with James Meredith speaking
about the incident a couple of years later. What I
do uh resent is my being a second class citizen inferior.
(23:10):
And I don't mean by biological means, I mean, in fact,
have a great weekend everyone. I'll see you back on
Monday morning. This is The Recount Daily Pod, a podcast
from the Recount that I heart Radio. Are Thanks to
Christian Davenport, staff writer at The Washington Post, for being
on the show. And if you like this episode, I
(23:33):
hope you'll subscribe to The Recount Daily Pod and do
leave us a rating on the Apple podcast app. I'm
Your Host. Rena nine and Alexis Ramdao and Corey Wara
engineered and produced this podcast. Ariella Martin also produced. Vandemani
did the research. Pierre ben A May is our senior
producer and our executive producer is Laura Beatty.
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