Going Off World EP 1: Reaching for Venus with Guillermo Sohnlein and Ro Muhundran

Going Off World is your gateway to the cosmos, where we explore the future of space exploration, settlement, and industry. Hosted by Steve Fisher, this podcast and YouTube series takes you beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, Venus, and beyond—diving into the cutting-edge technology, bold ideas, and visionary leaders shaping our interplanetary future.

In our inaugural episode, we unravel the exciting prospects of human settlement in Venus' atmosphere through captivating conversations with space visionaries. It delves into the challenges, technological innovations needed, and the broader implications for life on Earth as humanity seeks to expand beyond its home planet.

• Explores human settlements in the atmosphere of Venus 
• Discusses the backgrounds of guests Guillermo Sunline and Ro Mahandan 
• Highlights the excitement surrounding the future of space exploration 
• Examines challenges and opportunities facing the space industry 
• Investigates the impact of space exploration on life on Earth 
• Outlines necessary technological innovations for human habitation on Venus 
• Features the mission and goals of Waypaver Foundation and Humans to Venus Foundation 
• Analyzes reasons for exploring Venus and its benefits to humanity 
• Predicts future breakthroughs in space travel and exploration

🎧 Listen Now On:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-off-world-moon-mars-venus-and-beyond/id1737881627

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6WjqRL2AZnLWO7Z3DTDjS1?si=d47c055cca1e4df7

Web: https://goingoffworld.buzzsprout.com/

Thank you for joining me on this ongoing journey into the future. Until next time, stay curious, and always think forward.

Episode Transcript

Steve (00:00):
Welcome to Going Off-World, your gateway to the
cosmos beyond our Earth.
Join us as we embark on thisjourney together to the Moon,
mars, venus and beyond.

Ro (00:11):
Welcome to Episode 1 of Going Off-World.
I'm your host, steve Fisher.
This show has been a long timecoming and it's near and dear to
my heart.
If you're coming to checkthings out, then welcome.
Those who know me they know I'ma space junkie and I aspire to
do great things to help humanityreach for the stars.
This show is a way for me toconnect with amazing people

(00:33):
doing amazing things to push usforward.
The show is going to evolve, butright now we have some great
conversations in queue and today, for our inaugural episode,
we're exploring humanity'sfuture beyond Earth, with two
visionaries who are working toestablish human settlements in
the atmosphere of Venus.
That's right, venus.
Guillermo Sunline, founder ofthe Waypaper Foundation, and Ro

(00:57):
Mahandan, from the Humans toVenus Foundation, share their
fascinating perspectives onmaking humanity a truly
multi-planetary species.
From discussing the challengesof building floating cities in
Venus' atmosphere to exploringhow space development can
improve life on Earth, theyoffer unique insights into the
future of human spaceexploration.

(01:18):
As leaders of organizationsworking to expand humanity's
presence in space, they explainwhy Venus might be a more viable
destination for humansettlement than many realize.
Whether you're curious about thenext frontier of space
exploration or how we'llestablish permanent settlements
beyond Earth, or whattechnological breakthroughs will

(01:38):
transform our future in space.
You will not want to miss thisconversation.
Join us on the journey wherethe sky is not the limit and the
stars are just the beginning.
So welcome, guillermo Ro.
Let's start with each of you abit about yourself, guillermo,

(02:03):
why don't you start?

Guillermo (02:06):
You want me to go first?
All right, so let's see Longstory short.
I've basically spent 25 yearsdoing a bunch of different
startups, starting with a techstartup in Silicon Valley during
the height of the internet boom, and that basically launched me
into this kind of series ofadventures with different

(02:30):
startups.
I've probably done over a dozenfor-profit and nonprofit
organizations, and at least fouror five six of them have been
space related, since that's oneof my passion areas, and we can
talk more about those in detailas we go through.

(02:52):
Just one thing that I usuallynote for people just as far as
my background, because I do somuch in the space world, I do
this even though I'm not ascientist or an engineer by
background.
I studied economics in collegeand then I went on to law school
, so that's my background.

Ro (03:14):
Ro, what about you?
Yeah, I mean so for me.
My background again, isn't fromspace originally, so I started
off with a degree inbiochemistry, uh, and then went
on to study.
Well, I didn't really know whatI wanted to do in my life as
I'm sure many people who arelistening to this have the same
kind of issue and you know, Iwent down the path of management

(03:35):
consulting, which is acompletely a straight path to
what I studied at university.
So went down that path uh,started to enjoy I mean, it's
more of a a generalist path asopposed to something that's more
targeted.
So I thought that that was thebest path for me to try to
figure out what to do.
But it never really satisfiedthat gap in my heart for space,
which has been there since I wasa kid.
So eventually realized, youknow, I wanted to kind of get

(03:58):
involved in the space sector.
But management consultingwasn't really doing that for me.
So I thought let me just networkwith people on linkedin and

(04:21):
eventually came across guillermoand the human subvenience
initiative.
And you know, fast forward acouple more months and we are
where we are.
So, guillermo, what?
What about you?
How did you start your journey?

Guillermo (04:32):
I know've talked about your background, but, like
what really was it when youwere a kid?
Was it kind of?
How'd you get involved?
I mean, really, I have verydistinct memories of when I was
11 years old, having a recurringdream of being the commander of
the first Martian colony.
Unlike Roe, I grew up in theUnited States, where we had the

(05:03):
best path for me was alwaysgoing to be as a pilot and to
become a commander in the oldNASA.
Now it's changed a bit, but backin, when I was coming through,
to become a commander of amission, you had to be a pilot
and you kind of work backwardsfrom that.
You had to be a test pilot andbe a test pilot.

(05:23):
You had to be a fighter pilotin the military and
unfortunately, when I was 19, myeyesight went bad and at the
time, having 20, 20, perfect 20,20 vision was a prerequisite.
So my entire astronaut careerwent up in flames when I was 19
and my eyesight went bad so.

(05:44):
So that kind of threw me for aloop and I ended up meandering
for a while.
And it wasn't until 2002, ayear after we sold my first
company that I really startedlooking at space again, and this
time coming in as anentrepreneur instead of coming

(06:04):
in as an entrepreneur instead ofcoming in as a um, as an
astronaut I can relate to that.

Ro (06:10):
I I'm a pilot and I wanted I took the same year I test.
It went from commander to testpilot to fighter pilot and
usually air force academy,because you're flying the best
stuff you know and you have thetop seat on.
I didn't get my nomination butI uh, yeah, it's uh.
It's that journey.
It's changed a bit.
Hopefully it's going to changeeven more the next 20 years,

(06:32):
which basically leads to thenext question of for both of you
I'll kind of continue with you,guillermo and Cody you wrote
like what excites you most aboutthe future of space exploration
.

Guillermo (06:45):
Well, just real quick .
You said the Air Force Academy.
For me.
I wanted to be a Marine Corpsfighter pilot, so I had to go
through the Naval Academy.
And I did get an appointment tothe Naval Academy.
But interesting tidbit here I'mjust going to digress a little
bit because most people don'tknow this story about me.

(07:08):
I got an appointment to theNaval Academy and because of
that I declined all my othercollege admissions that I was
given.
And then, a month before I wassupposed to report to the Naval
Academy, someone over thererealized suddenly that I wasn't
an American citizen because Iwas born in Argentina.
And so they called me up andsaid hey, there's a problem here

(07:31):
.
It says you're not an Americancitizen.
And I said well, yeah, you guysknew that.
No, we didn't.
You have to be an American.
For the academies, you have tobe an American citizen before
you go in.
So, as you know from your ownefforts, to get an appointment
to an academy you have to get anendorsement from one of your
congressional leaders.
So I had an appointment fromboth of California senators and

(07:55):
a US representative, and somehowmy application made it through
all three of them withoutanybody noticing that I wasn't
an American citizen of them,without anybody noticing that I
wasn't an American citizen.
So, um, so, anyway.
So I ended up losing myappointment to the Naval Academy
cause I wasn't a citizen.
I became a naturalized citizena year later, but by then it was
too late.
Anyway, quick little littlestory that most people don't

(08:16):
know about me.
Um so, what excites me the mostabout, uh, about space?
Uh, do you mean today, orlooking forward or ever?
That I've always been excited.

Ro (08:28):
I would say let's look at the look at the horizon of like
20 years, in 25 years, do you?
You know, it kind of relates toyour, the mission for humans to
venus and the and the colony onthe like you know, a human
settlement you know on on Venus,is that vision and we'll come
to.
But Wayfever has a broadermission itself.

(08:50):
But I think what excites youthe most over these next 20, 25
years?

Guillermo (08:55):
Well, I think what excites me the most is I think
I've said this a few times, butwell, let me broaden it out a
little bit I think one thingthat excites me the most is,
finally, over the last 20 years,we've gone through this
transition of space going frombeing the exclusive purview of

(09:19):
just a handful of nationalprograms to basically a global
public-private space ecosystem.
So I think there are a lot moreopportunities available today
and over the next 20 years to gointo space than there were even
when I was coming up.
Number one.
Number two it's very global.

(09:43):
Just a couple hours ago, afriend of mine's at a conference
in Japan and sent me slidesfrom the presentation from JAXA
that they're planning a lunarbase by the year 2040.
Likewise, I was just looking ata presentation that China just
an updated presentation on Chinaand Russia's plans for the
International Lunar ResearchStation.

(10:04):
So there's just a lot ofdifferent opportunities for
people to go into space and forhumanity to expand beyond planet
Earth.
So I think, in general, thenext 20 years are going to be an
exciting time to see how allthis plays out.

Ro (10:21):
Naro, what about you?
Yeah, I mean, I think Guillermotouched on the main point,
which is that space is going tobecome it out.
Nauru, what about you?
Yeah, I mean, I think Guillermotouched on the main point,
which is that space is going tobecome a lot more accessible to
everybody else, and especiallythe general public, right?
So I think that's a great thingand it's going to be very much
a collaborative effort as well.
So, globally, like Guillermosaid, you know countries are
coming together.
It's going to be.
You know, all the work we needto do to get humans into space

(10:42):
and beyond is going to take allof that collaboration from
across the world, right?
So that's really exciting andspace, in my opinion, really is
a global frontier as opposed tothe final frontier.
So, yeah, that's reallyexciting.
And, you know, I think, interms of my personal perspective
, I think, understanding wherewe come from in terms of
humanity, you know, as a species, as a, you know in terms of the

(11:06):
physics of you know how we cameabout into existence, where
we're going to go, where we cango, our understanding of physics
, you know, all of this stuffhas unanswered questions and I
think going out into space andcarrying out.
Research will help us to betterunderstand where we fit into the
universe, and that prospect forme, is really interesting and,
uh, it's very motivating as welland inspiring to just, you know

(11:26):
, be a cog in a machine that'sworking towards that purpose,
which is a lot greater than uswell, as you've worked in on the
humans to venus initiative andthe foundation, tell me about
the challenges you're seeingfacing the space industry, not
just for venus in particular,but just as you've gotten to
you're kind of the spaceindustry, not just for Venus in
particular, but just as you'vegotten to, you're kind of the

(11:46):
newer perspective.
Well, kind of jumped toGuillermo to kind of get a more,
you know, the longer seasonperspective.
It'd be interesting to see ifthere's a common ground or yeah,
what do you think are thechallenges?
Yeah, I mean, I think one of thebiggest things for me with
space from my perspective comingin yeah, I mean, I think one of
the biggest things for me withspace from my perspective coming
in, the first one would havebeen you know, it doesn't seem

(12:07):
very accessible.
So I think the marketing sideof space in the space sector
really isn't where it should bein terms of capturing the public
imagination.
And I think with things likehuman space exploration, you
really do need to capture thepublic's imagination in order to
drive that forward, because atthe moment, you know, we don't
really have that because wehaven't been to, you know,
beyond low earth orbit.
It's in southern 1970s orwhatever.

(12:29):
So I think, to try and emulate,you know, what kennedy did in
the 1960s with the moon target,being that it really just
brought the whole world togetherand I think at the moment it's
very siloed, I think people areworking in siloed sectors within
space.
There's not really muchvisibility over what's going on
outside of their own silos.
So trying to break down thosebarriers and bring people
together and really capture theglobal public's imagination

(12:52):
again is going to be the biggestproblem and the biggest thing
to tackle, and that applies toVenus as well.
Right, it's more of a marketingcampaign and a publicity
campaign and getting people toknow about what's out there,
what we understand, what thereis to look forward to.
That's the biggest issue, Ithink, at the moment to deal
with.
Guillermo, what about you?

Guillermo (13:15):
I don't know if I'm going to give a bigger, longer
term perspective, but I'll tellyou that if I had to pick one
challenge going forward, it'sthe same one, one of the same
ones that I've seen over thelast 20 years, which is access
to talent.
I think one of the problems,one of the byproducts of what Ro

(13:35):
was just talking about, aboutnot doing a great job of kind of
promoting space and makingspace seem accessible to people
is that a lot of people whosecareers were not as aerospace
engineers or as pilots, slashastronauts, have a personal
interest in space, would love towork professionally in the
space community, and yet theydon't feel it's accessible to

(13:58):
them, they don't feel that theycan add value, they don't feel
like they could get anopportunity to work in that
space.
That value, they don't feellike they could get an
opportunity to work in thatspace.
And and the problem is thatthose are precisely the kind of
people that add the most valueinto everything that we're doing
.
So we need more people fromfinance, from marketing, from
sales, you know, from a lot ofthese um, uh arenas that, uh,

(14:19):
that would approach a lot ofthese problems with a fresh
perspective, and, and we'regoing to need a lot more these
problems with a freshperspective and and we're going
to need a lot more people.
So, for example, I was just inum in India last week, uh,
speaking at a space conference,and I was shocked that probably
five or six people came up to meand said that their greatest
challenge for whether it's aspace startup or any other sort

(14:42):
of space initiative was accessto talent.
And it shocked me, becauseIndia's got over a billion
people, they've got decades ofsuccess as a space-faring nation
.
How could they possibly have aproblem with talent?
And what they were telling meis that the bulk of that talent

(15:03):
is in within israel, within the,the national space program, and
so there isn't a big pipelineof either junior or uh, middle,
uh, middle management, middle,mid-career kind of people in
china, china, in india, that umthat feel, that feel that they

(15:26):
can add value within the spaceworld, and there are people
outside of the space communitythat don't feel that they can
add value coming in.
So I think that's one of theproblems that we're going to
have to fix globally over thenext 10, 15, 20 years.

Ro (15:43):
Yeah, Sounds like an opportunity.
Problem in an opportunity.
So it sounds.
You know, creating thatpipeline.
Yeah, I share those experiences, you know personally.
But what do you think is apromising opportunity in the
industry, based on some of thechallenges to solve it?

(16:10):
based on some of the challengesto solve it.
I think pretty much whatGuillermo said in terms of
getting people from otherindustries, other fields, things
that we see in commonindustries at the moment within
work, getting those into thespace sector.
I think space is pretty much asector that amalgamates all of
the other sectors we have, butit just pushes it out to a far
greater cause.
So having all of those, youknow, sales, marketing, people

(16:30):
who work in finance all of thosethings will be needed within
space as well.
And I think getting thosepeople in there, getting the
word out there that people canbe involved in the space sector
and, like Yemo said, you knowmany people have an interest in
space and they have done since ayoung age, but it's just not
been something they've been madeaware of that they can
contribute to.
And, given their career paths,they may have pursued something

(16:51):
for years and years on end andthey think you know that's my,
that's my life done Right.
So getting that message outthere really is important, I
think.
And, yeah, getting peopleinvolved and letting them know
that they can really add valueto the sector from from
different, diverse backgroundsis really important I think.
So this leads to you knowlooking and we've kind of kept
on this 10, 20-year lens,25-year lens.

(17:13):
You know what do you see theimpact?
Because the individuals workingin the industry itself and the
people that are passionate aboutspace, how do you see this
impacting life on Earth?
You know how does it impacteveryday life for people.
What do you like theadvancements, what does it do?
Do you put your futurist hat on?

(17:34):
A bit like, what do you thinkit does for humanity, for just
the population at large?
so I just to clarify then.
The question you're asking meis are you saying what will
space give back to the generalpublic or to to the people?
Are you saying what would thepeople who get involved from
outside the space that give backto the general public or to the
people?
Are you saying what would thepeople who get involved from
outside the space give back tothe entire cause, type thing?

(17:55):
When you think ofcommercialization of space space
is a business right and whenyou think about innovations here
on Earth drones, self-drivingcars there's an impact or
benefit.
What do you think that could be?
One thing, many things, becausethere's people have to care.

(18:16):
There's going to want to beinvestment in it, there's going
to want to be interested in it.
What do you think it?
What do you think that might be?
yeah, I mean, I think is there'sa few key issues.
I mean, I think the big one atthe moment is sustainability.
So, you know, technology isspecifically around
sustainability.
So, for example, starship,using that reusable rocket
technology, is really importantand actually expanding that

(18:38):
outwards is going to beimportant for space exploration.
I think being considerate ofthose things is going to be
important when we talk about,you know, replicating space
missions on a more regularcadence as well to reduce
pollution, all of those thingsand make sure we're not
financially exhausting resources.
And I think, in terms oftechnology as well, artificial

(19:02):
intelligence is something we seeall too often right now, but
it's something that's beendeveloping at an exponential
rate.
So, considering where it couldbe in the next five to 10 years,
I think, you know, potentiallywe could see that guiding
spacecraft, for example, whichcould be a really great thing,
you know, obviously hoping it'snot going to be like a Skynet
scenario, like in Terminator,but it's something that could be

(19:23):
really good to see in thefuture and I think that's
something that would bebeneficial as well.
Yeah, I would say it's kind ofprobably a cautionary case study
, yeah, potential future.
Where I go with that is, Ithink, of what the Apollo

(19:43):
program gave us.
So it gave us microwave ovens.
It gave us Velcro.
It gave us Tang.
We have ovens.
It gave us velcro.
It gave us tang.
It gave us the.
It gave us a lot of innovationsthat we now that ripple through
society.
That's what I was kind of theend of, you know, getting into
that, like the people that maynever touch space to go to space
, that it could benefit, andeven cancer research, there

(20:04):
could be orbital labs forpharmaceutical companies.
Right, it's just there's a lot.
So, uh, cameron, I ask you, ifyou come back, what do you think
?

Guillermo (20:15):
Well, let me try answering it from a different
perspective.
Um, because I kind of took umissue with the way you phrased
the question, because youstarted with what benefit the
space industry is going to givethe general public.
And I, as you know, becausewe've known each other a long
time, I really have never likedthe term space industry, because

(20:36):
space is not an industry.
Space is a geographic location.
So one way of looking at thisis this question of what benefit
we get is don't look at spacelike an industry.
Look at it like a geographiclocation where other industries
play right, or where otherindustries operate, and then you
start seeing the benefits thatyou can get by going through the

(21:01):
different industries.
So, whether it's atransportation services or
manufacturing or, as Ro pointedout, pharmaceutical companies or
agriculture right.
Commercial agriculture isleveraging GPS and Earth
observation data, right.
So now you're going to getbetter, more efficient, more
effective agriculture because ofspace assets, right?

(21:21):
If you got rid of the spaceassets, then you know we'd be
knocking agriculture back a bit.
We'd be knocking agricultureback a bit.
So I think that's another wayof looking at that question is
just seeing how other industriesbenefit from having space as
part of their strategic plan.

Ro (21:38):
Would you draw parallels to, like the age of exploration
when it came like looking at theAmericas Because as a place, it
created new opportunities, newpeople think Ireland had the
potato.
America's because it because asa place it created new
opportunities.
New thing People think Irelandhad the potato.
It was.
It was the Andes, like we tookthe potato from South America.
It's like most people don'tknow that right or tobacco right

(22:00):
, those things that createdwhole new markets and whole new
entrepreneurial classes ofpeople.
Right, it's a fair assessment.
I appreciate the realignment.
In that perspective it's good.

Guillermo (22:14):
Well, you don't even have to get that specific.
You can go much more general,like, for example, the tourism
industry, right, so you hadtourism and people going from
point A to point B and visitingdifferent places, let's say,
within their geographic area,wherever they are.
Well, then we have the age ofboats, and now people are going

(22:37):
out and being on the water,whether it's like cruise ships
or sailing or whatever it is.
And then we had the age ofairplanes, and now you've got
people taking trips by flying todifferent places.
Got people, um, taking trips byflying to different places.
So, um, so it's, it's still thetourism industry, but it's
benefiting from these differentlocations with where they

(22:57):
operate anyway.

Ro (22:59):
No, it's great, it's great row.
You want to add anything kindof come back to that.
You want to add anything to it?
yeah, I know, I mean yeah, and Ithink I understand the question
better now that you'veexplained.
That game has kind of gonethrough that now.
So, um, so what game is it wasgreat because I mean it's it's
in terms of the strategic planof other industries.
It space really is just anexpansion of what they're
already doing.
So if they incorporate thatinto their vision, then that

(23:21):
would, in turn, increase or itwould alter what they're trying
to create and their internal youknow operations.
So I think that would generatein itself, it would benefit a
load of industries just byincorporating space into their
plans.
Like I said, I think, yeah, likepharmaceuticals is a great one.
Additive technologies, forexample, like 3D printing that's
going to have some great usesin space, but then also in, for

(23:44):
example, biology, chemistry, inthe medical setting, 3d printing
, organs and medical body partsand things like that.
That's going to be somethingthat could potentially be of
great value in the future for us, you know, and in terms of
scientific research, in terms ofin the clinical setting.
So there are a lot of thingsthat we can just extrapolate
from space and say that it couldbenefit humanity.
I think it's going to be one ofthe things where we have to go

(24:10):
through it, and then, fromeveryone knowing about space,
they can then, you know, alignon what their path will be in
terms of their company andorganizations and their products
.
That's great space area, space,the geographic location of space

(24:31):
, and kind of talk about theWaypaver Foundation as its
broader mission and then kind ofnarrow down and talk about
Humans to Venus, sigirmo.
Can you tell us about themission and the vision for
Waypaver, which is ourunderwriter for this podcast, so
I'd love you know the audienceto learn more about it and its
history and journey.

Guillermo (24:50):
Yeah, I mean at its core, waypaver is essentially a
grant making organizationfocused on kind of twin
objectives One is to help makehumanity a multi-planet species
and the other is to help improvelife here on Earth, which is a
nice segue from your lastquestion about the benefits of

(25:11):
space for Earth.
So essentially we don'tcurrently have any of our own
programs.
What we do is we give grants toother nonprofit organizations
that are operating in those twospheres either helping to make
humanity a multi-plant specieswhich is how the relationship
between Wayfaver and Humans toVenus Foundation where Humans to

(25:34):
Venus Foundation is one of ourgrantee organizations and then
organizations also helping toimprove life here on Earth.
And basically for that we useas our guidelines the United
Nations Sustainable DevelopmentGoals, the 17 SDGs.

Ro (25:55):
Well, I know that it existed before you.
So how did you kind of getinvolved?
How did you kind of take thingsover?
It's had its interesting kindof starts and stops.

Guillermo (26:06):
Yeah.
So the organization was foundedin 2015 with the same general
vision right to help makehumanity a multi-planet species
and over a period of I don'tknow five years or so, it kind
of meandered a little bit,trying to figure out exactly how
it was going to distinguishitself.
The group decided very early onto focus on lunar, since that

(26:37):
seemed to be the nearest termopportunity.
So Waypaper was really focusingon helping to get humanity to
the moon on a permanent basis,and that was the direction it
was going.
I became involved, I think likea year after it started, like
in 2016.
I was an advisor, then I joinedthe board of directors and then
I was chair of the board.

(26:58):
But about two years ago two,three years ago I think it
started kind of faltering,trying to figure out exactly
where to go, because the currentevents kind of caught up to it,
because now, all of a sudden,artemis was taking, taking off
and things were going with withthe moon, and so, uh, it was

(27:20):
trying to figure out where to gonext, cause it seemed too early
to look at, uh, to look at Mars, um.
So about two years ago, um, thethe CEO was was effectively
going to shut it down.
But I told him before I shut itdown, why didn't he just give
it to me and I'll see if I canfigure out a path forward for it
?
So really over the last year iswhen we started honing in on

(27:43):
this idea of kind of becoming agrant-making organization, other
nonprofits, both on themulti-plant species site and
then also on improving life hereon Earth.

Ro (27:55):
So what initiatives do you have on the list for this year,
like what's the current missionplan?

Guillermo (28:06):
Well, so the biggest near-term objective is part of
what also distinguishes the, youknow way, paper 2.0, as we're
calling it.
We're also going to dosomething a little bit
innovative.
Rather than doing what mostnonprofit organizations do,
which is continually raise moneyand then give out grants, we're

(28:27):
looking to build an endowmentright from the beginning, and
the way we're going to do thatand kind of grow it and manage
it ourselves is to make a bigpart of the endowment be a space
venture studio, which you knowabout because we've talked about

(28:51):
it.
We really want to create aspace venture studio where we
are helping to create newventures, for-profit ventures
that are providing the piecesfor humanity's roadmap to become
a multi-planet species.
So in doing that, we kind ofboth fulfill our ultimate vision

(29:12):
of helping humanity become amulti-planet species, while also
hopefully deriving an ROI fromthe portfolio that will help
grow the endowment, which willthen allow us to make grants to
some of these nonprofits.

Ro (29:28):
That kind of dovetails into my question of how you measure
impact and success.
Is there anything above andbeyond the venture studio you
would qualify, say five yearsnow, how has the foundation been
successful?

Guillermo (29:41):
I think one general corporate measure of success is
can we get this to beself-sustaining?
Right, be an evergreengrant-making organization,
because the worst thing you cando is have to raise money every
year to be able to give outgrants.
So hopefully, within the nextfive to seven years, we can get
this thing to be completelyself-sustaining.

(30:02):
So I think that's probably theultimate goal, because once you
do that, then it's just a matterof growing it from there.
Initially, what we're going tofocus on is giving let's call
them micro grants anywhere from$5,000, $10,000 to these
different grantee organizationsand in that way, hope to help

(30:24):
make an impact within thoseorganizations.

Steve (30:28):
So w here does education and outreach play into this?

Guillermo (30:34):
Right now we don't know if we're going to be doing
our own programs.
I think we're going to,probably for the foreseeable
future, stay as a grant-makingorganization, which means that
the education and outreach iswhat's done by the grantee
organizations.
So, for example, humans toVenus Foundation being one of
our grantee organizations, thatis, one of Humans to Venus

(30:56):
Foundation's primary missions isto do education and outreach,
so we'll kind of do it throughthe grantee organizations.

Steve (31:05):
That's an excellent segue to Humans to Venus.
So, Ro, You're welcome.
Thank you, Ro.
Thank you very much.
I know you kind of sparked itwith Guillermo, but since Ro is
the ED hero, like pitch me, bro,Like.
So what inspired the creationof this?
What's the goals and objectives?

Ro (31:24):
Yeah, I mean so in terms of the creation, I think Guillermo
is probably better prone toanswer that one because he's the
one who created it right.
Yeah, I mean so in terms of thecreation, I think Guillermo is
probably better prone to answerthat one because he's the one
who created it right.
But I think if I speak on hisbehalf, guillermo, you can
interrupt me if I'm sayinganything that's not in
accordance with you.
But I think Guillermo kind ofrealized, you know, with this
perseverance of the pursuit ofMars and the moon, you know,
people have neglected Venus interms of its traits and its

(31:48):
proximity to Earth as well,terms of its traits and its
proximity to Earth as well.
And I think there are a lot ofscientists out there who are
working under space agencies whodon't have the funding to
particularly work on Venus inmore detail as opposed to Mars
and the Moon, but they dobelieve that it's a feasible
target for humans to strive forin terms of establishing a

(32:10):
presence there.
So there are traits of Venusthat are similar to Earth in
terms of gravity.
The gravity there is roughly0.9 Gs.
Atmospheric pressuretemperature in the Venusian
atmosphere, specifically 50 to60 kilometers above the Venusian
surface, is a bit of aGoldilocks region in terms of we
can survive there if we havethe technologies and we

(32:30):
implement what we have at themoment, to you know, establish a
presence there.
So there is grounding,scientific grounding, behind
venus.
So I think guillermo thenlaunched the humans to venus
initiative to explore that inmore detail, um, to flesh out
and see if it was indeed afeasible idea and if it was then
to insert that into the globalnarrative of moon, mars, venus

(32:53):
and beyond in terms of the humanspace, like programs.
So that's more of a beginningof like where it came from.
But I'm sure guillermo can gointo that and more detail after
this.
But in terms of the goals andobjectives of the humans to
venus foundation at the moment.
So I'd say that the big, thebiggest vision for Foundation at
the moment, so I'd say thebiggest vision for us at the
moment is to probably create thelargest global community of

(33:13):
Venus-focused professionals andenthusiasts to support with
inserting Venus into the globalnarrative of human space
exploration, in particular toadd it as a worthy target of
consideration for establishing ahuman presence off Earth
alongside Moon and Mars.
And the way we do this reallyis through three constituent
parts of the foundation.
So the first of that is publicoutreach.

(33:35):
Like we've touched on before,public outreach is so important.
So conferences, speaking atconferences, guest speaker,
conference gigs and things likethat, our monthly newsletter
which we release with humanspace like updates, our blog,
for example, that's allimportant in terms of driving
that public outreach side ofthings.
The second is private community.
So our private community is ourglobal community, who we kind

(33:58):
of amalgamated from whoever'sinterested in Venus who we come
across, and that pretty muchconstitutes our Venus Speaker
Series, which is a monthlyspeaker event where we get guest
speakers who are within theVenus field or within human
space exploration related topicsand we get them to come on and
give a bit of an informaldiscussion about their topic
area and we have a bit more of ainformal debate amongst our

(34:22):
community every month.
So that's a way of engaging thecommunity.
We also have a Venus Summitevents, which we do twice every
year, one in the US and one inEurope.

(34:44):
But again, that's more of achance for us to get our
community together in person tothen discuss logistical,
technological needs to what itwould look like to go to Venus
over the next 30 years, forexample.
How would we do that?
What are the steps that need tobe in place?
And that's just so we can getpeople who have the resources,
who have the motivation to dothat, to then fit themselves
into that plan and then makethat stuff happen.

(35:07):
So we're just setting thegroundwork for that to happen
and making people aware that itis possible to do.
And then the third and thefinal one I guess it's three
slash four is science andeducation.
So that's more of ourpartnerships with universities
and schools, inserting Venusinto the curriculums you know
across generations and justmaking sure that people are

(35:27):
aware of Venus as a potentialtarget.
Dermot, you have anything to addto that?

Guillermo (35:35):
Just jumping off of the last thing that Rose said
there, one of the let's callthem aspirational goals that we
kind of set for the organizationis to have a thousand people
living and working in theVenetian atmosphere by the year
2050.
Now that's just kind of a pointin time where, as he was talking

(35:59):
about the roadmap, we'll kindof talk about the entire gamut
for like decades.
But if you think about that, ifyou think about a thousand
people living and working in theVenusian atmosphere by the year
2050, which, by the way, isjust a riff off of Elon's
founding mission for SpaceX,which is to have a million
people living and working on theMartian surface by the year
2050.

(36:20):
If you think about both of thosegoals, whether it's our goal or
Elon's goal, a lot of thepeople that are going to be
doing that either haven't beenborn yet or are in grade school
right now, and yet a lot of thepeople that it's going to take
to make that possible for themare currently either in
university or they're justgetting out and they're they're

(36:42):
more like at the beginning oftheir careers.
And so, from from ourstandpoint, we have to kind
development for either earlystage or mid-career
professionals, and we realizedvery early on there's no way one

(37:09):
organization could do all ofthat, and so instead, as Ro
pointed out, we do this throughpartnerships with other
organizations that are focusedin different areas within that
spectrum, and then we just focuson the Venus part.

Ro (37:23):
So let's talk about why.
Why would people even go?
What are the benefits ofexploring and creating this
human settlement?
What does this do for humanity,writ large beyond the
multi-planet species need?
That we all agree, but I thinkjust the creating a level of

(37:50):
full tolerance with the humanrace.
Why, ro, you want to take thatfirst and then maybe Ro yeah.
I think it's different to that.
So I mean, I think humanity isnaturally a curious species, so
I think we naturally have aquest for answers, right, and it
comes down to you know why gointo space at all, why go to
Mars, why go to the moon, why gobeyond there?

(38:10):
And I think, really, with thesekind of pursuits, because
they're so out there, it's, it'ssomething because you know to
understand where we come from,to understand you know how to
better our lives here on earth.
You know, I think space offers alot, of, a lot of answers and I
think going to to venus, forexample, establishing a presence
in the buddhist atmosphere inin flow routine as possible,

(38:32):
that would in turn havetechnological advancements that
we can apply to earth.
We can use venus, for example,to test technologies, for
example, maybe drones to go downto the surface under the high
pressure environments, thingsthat would not otherwise be done
on earth if we didn't exploreoutwards, and these, in these
foreign environments, I think,and unfamiliar situations,

(38:53):
really help us to develop inthose areas.
So I think going to venus andbeyond, establishing a
multi-planet species, forexample, all of the other
aspects of technology, of ofknowledge, of science, all of
that will progress and that willbenefit humanity in, in
inadvertently, basically, Ithink, um, and I think that's
pretty much the main reason forwhy.

(39:15):
Probably, why not is a betterquestion, as we say on our
website.
Okay, so, guillermo, why?
And maybe why not, but why?

Guillermo (39:26):
You know it's funny.
A few years ago a friend ofmine, will Pomerantz, gave a TED
Talk on why go into spacegenerally right, the way you
frame the question.
And, um, and I loved his answerbecause he said look, the
problem with trying to answerthat question of why is that
every single person that you askwould have a different why.

(39:48):
So it's kind of pointless toask it so like.
For example, in this context,let's say it's a national
government that wants to go toVenus.
Every different government willhave a different why for why
they want to go.
And yet all of the nationalgovernments are going to have

(40:08):
collectively different whys thana private company that wants to
go and every individual isgoing to have a different answer
than every company.
So it's tough to answer thequestion of why, especially for
the question you don't want usto answer, which is the

(40:29):
multi-planet species, thebroader one, the more
philosophical one, morelong-term one, for Venus in
particular.
So the part that I think Rowedidn't emphasize as much as he
usually does when he wasanswering earlier is, of all the
different environmental issueson environmental risks that we

(40:53):
face when we go into space, theone that we can't control is
gravity, and he did mention thatVenus has similar gravity to
Earth.
But the reason that's importantis because if we are going to
become a multi-planet species,it means we're going to have to
reproduce wherever it is thatwe're going, and as of today, we

(41:14):
don't know if humans or Homosapiens can reproduce in less
than one G of gravity.
So anyone who's kind of takingus to Mars we could all be going
to Mars and die out within ageneration because we just can't
reproduce there.
So that's the main advantagefrom a human spaceflight
standpoint Well, from along-term human spaceflight

(41:36):
standpoint, why Venus would beof interest to folks.

Ro (41:42):
What kind of technological innovations are still needed?
Like suits, systems, like whatis needed to successfully create
the settlement, like what do westill have ahead of us to
figure out?

Guillermo (41:54):
So, first of all, first of all, uh, bro mentioned
this roadmap that we're helpingto put together, our communities
helping to put together, um,that one we're going to launch
in October.
Uh, it'll be a website kind oflike a wiki kind of thing, where
everyone can contribute to it.
Um, that is going to be thebasis for answering a lot of the
question that you're just asked.

(42:15):
So there's just like withanything else, especially with
an exploration effort, there arethings that we know we need,
and then there's going to be abunch of stuff that we don't
know today that we were going toneed, that is going to come up
as we start going down this path.
So we're kind of creating thisroadmap as a depository of all
this kind of information that wecan share with each other

(42:40):
globally as we go forward.
That being said, the generalcategories of things that we
know today that we're going toneed number one well, obviously
we need to know more about Venus.
We need to send more sciencemissions to Venus, because we
know much more about Mars andMoon than we know about Venus.

(43:01):
So we need more scientific data, especially about the
atmosphere.
Number two, which is going tobe the same for Mars, is, we
need to figure out how to dointerplanetary travel, human
spaceflight.
To date, no human has everflown beyond the relative safety
of the Earth-Moon system.

(43:22):
So once you go beyond that,you're exposed to all sorts of
solar radiation and all sorts ofother things and we have no
idea really how to best do aninterplanetary flight.
We're going to need to knowthat for Mars.
We're going to need to knowthat for Venus.
We're going to need to knowthat for Mars.
We're going to need to knowthat for Venus.
We're going to need to knowthat for wherever else we're
going.

(43:42):
Then, specific to Venus, thereare four general categories of
things we're going to need tofigure out.
One is how to do atmosphericoperations.
Everything that everyone's beendoing for Leo, moon, mars and
beyond involves landing on hardsurface, uh, whereas we're gonna
have to, um, drop into theatmosphere, dock with something

(44:04):
that's floating in theatmosphere and then at some
point take off from thatfloating platform and get back
to orbit.
Those are capabilities that wewe've played with, uh,
humanity's kind of tested a bit,but we haven't.
We're nowhere near perfectingthat and certainly not doing
that in Venus.
And then the other threecategories are more chemistry

(44:25):
kind of stuff.
One is converting the CO2atmosphere into breathable air.
The other is extractingdrinking water out of the
sulfuric acid clouds and,related to that, number three is
developing habitats out ofmaterials that are resistant to
sulfuric acid.
The prime two that we use hereon Earth is glass and Teflon.

(44:50):
That's the brand name.
I don't remember the chemicalname for that.
But those are basically the bigsix categories of things that
we're going to need to figureout so easy.

Ro (45:03):
Things yeah, simple.

Guillermo (45:07):
Well, hold on, it's not necessarily simple.

Ro (45:13):
You're right, oh no, no, that was sarcasm, if anyone
didn't understand that?

Guillermo (45:18):
No, I agree with you.
But here's the thing None ofthat requires huge innovation,
right?
Like even going to the moon andlanding on the moon the number
one.
Remember that Waypaver startedfocusing on lunar settlement,
right?
So when Waypaper was looking atthis early on, the single
biggest challenge that we had,and continue to have, if you're

(45:39):
watching the Starship test, iswe don't have a landing system.
We have no way of landinghumans on the moon.
We had it back in Apollo andthen we lost it.
So, humanity, today, no one hasa system for landing people on
the moon, and that is the singlebiggest roadblock for getting

(46:00):
humans onto the surface of themoon.
So that's a huge innovation thatneeds to happen, whereas
everything I just described forVenus are things that we
currently know how to do.
We have it.
We have rebreathers.
Scuba divers have been usingrebreathers.
We know how to convert CO2 intobreathable air.
We know how to extract drinkingwater, sulfuric acid.

(46:21):
We know all these things.
We just have to figure out howto do them on Venus and how to
scale them up to support afloating community there.

Ro (46:31):
What are your thoughts?
I think Guillermo has coveredthat in a lot of detail.
To be honest, he's covered allthe key things there and, like I
said before, I think it's moreof a case of all of those
technologies that we do to kindof reach to Venus and to
establish a presence there.
They will have benefits andrepercussions down on Earth as
well, and those are going to beimportant.

(46:53):
So what is the Actually?

Guillermo (46:56):
Go ahead.
Guillaume, can I jump in onthat?
Because it just reminded me ofgoing all the way back to when
you asked earlier about benefitsof space for earth.
And and Steve, I think youmentioned, as you were engaging
with Roe, about you know, fromApollo we had, I don't know,
tang, velcro or whatever it is.
You know that.
We say that we got from it, buthere's the thing Before we did

(47:19):
Apollo, we did not know that wewere going to have those things
right.
So before you do you embark onthis kind of journey, you have
no idea what you're going todiscover.
You have no idea what you'regoing to develop.
You have no idea what you'regoing to innovate.
It's going to be the same thingfor going to Venus.
We have no idea what we'regoing to develop that's going to
benefit humanity here on Earth.

(47:42):
The one thing that I will saythat's unique about Venus versus
, let's say, mars or the Moon asfar as benefits to Earth is
that's the place that has anatmosphere just like Earth.
That's the place that hasrunaway greenhouse effect just
like Earth.
So I'm guessing I'm just kindof prognosticating and

(48:04):
estimating that in order tosafely put humans in the
Venusian atmosphere, we're goingto come up with a lot of
technologies and medicalbreakthroughs to deal with that
atmosphere that are going tohelp us here on Earth.
I have no idea what they are,but I'm guessing that we're
going to derive more benefitfrom Venus on that front than we

(48:27):
will from, let's say, the moonor Mars.

Ro (48:30):
I've often wondered if, in the next 20 years, the work we
do to help people deal withsolar radiation and long-term
space travel actually doesthings to.
I don't want to say bear, curecancer or how about the
treatments to deal with, becauseit would like, just like

(48:51):
radiation sickness it wouldcreate like how do you prevent
that?
Well, you could affect the cellright at a cellular level.

Guillermo (48:58):
I've often thought about that um, yeah, yeah,
that's great, that's a greatpoint.

Ro (49:03):
Yeah, yeah wrote a joke, anything, you want to add no?
no, I think that's covered indetail.
To honest, nothing from my sideto add on top of that yeah, as
we kind of get toward the, youknow, toward our podcast close,
I wanted to.
You know we talked about thekind of the long journey in this
and the but right now, what isthe most exciting technological

(49:24):
advancement in the industry?
Like right, kind of right overthings, you're seeing trans like
what do you think what isreally exciting to you?
That's kind of maybe be a bitof a game changer and that could
be anything I'll go with.
Yeah, ro first.
I'll go with.
Yeah, ro first.
I'll go with you first.
Sorry to interrupt you there.
Yeah, I think it's a prettystraightforward question and an

(49:45):
answer.
I think the answer is reusablerockets, sorry.
And specifically Starship,right.
So Starship, we're seeing themnow with their launches,
starship's had their fourthflight test and honestly, I
think, once that Starship is upand running, that's going to be
our means of going to Venus, tothe moon, to Mars and beyond.
So I think companies at themoment are really

(50:07):
underestimating how much of animpact, how much of a paradigm
shift Starship will have on thespace sector, and I think, once
it's up and running, it will bea complete inflection point and
having that reusable technologyin itself is going to be really,
really beneficial in terms ofsustainability and sustainable
space exploration, but also interms of making space a lot more
accessible, a lot more costeffective, cheaper to access

(50:30):
space and send higher payloadsup into space as well payloads
up into space as well.
So that's going to be for me,starship and reusable tech is
going to be the most near-termbenefit we'll see in terms of
really causing an inflectionpoint in space.
Guillermo, how about you?

Guillermo (50:48):
So I'll just add one more thing on the Starship,
because that's a plus one for me.
That's what I always say isprobably the most um,
fundamental shift in the nextfive, ten years is going to be
starship, um.
But I always like to add alittle detail to this, which is
so huge that even people in thespace industry I'll see now you

(51:11):
got me saying space industry uhyes, that's right, blame blame,
blame your host, that's okay, Iunderstand exactly no, but I
think even people that work inin space um, have forget is the,
the, just the scale of whatstarship is, right?
so starship is being tested nowand people are kind of watching

(51:33):
these.
These tests, um, and a lot ofthis is under contract with nasa
for the artemis 3 mission,right as part of the human
landing system.
So they're trying to land onthe moon, and then people from
outside space are always like,well, we did that 50 years ago,
we knew how to do that, right,it's like because we sent the
apollo missions there, yeah, butapollo, this is a sense of

(51:54):
scale.
Apollo is like a minivan, right, starship is like a 20-story
building.
I think people forget that andthat's why it's such a huge
shift.
That's why so many peopleanswer that question the same
way.
It's like Starship.
You're going from a minivanthat can carry two, maybe three

(52:15):
people, to you know, crew Dragontoday carries four, maybe it's
designed for seven, right, butusually takes four to something
that can carry a hundred people,like it's.
It's a massive difference.
Okay, so now I'm going toanswer your question, adding on
to what Rose said.
Up until about a year ago, Iwould answer that question the

(52:36):
same way Starship.
But over the last year I'veadded another bit to this, which
is a company called MaxSpacewhich is developing inflatable

(53:02):
habitats, initially for LEO, butthey have plans to expand
beyond that and the focus oftheir company as you can infer
from the name of the company isto maximize the volume, the
internal volume, of theirstructure, and for that kind of
objective, inflatables are thebest way to go.
So, to give you an idea, theystill have to fly, like their
prototype, I think within thenext year or so, but after that
they've got their firstfunctional module which fits

(53:25):
inside of a Falcon 9.
So they don't even require abigger this isn't even a
Starship thing a Falcon 9.
And within one launch of aFalcon 9, they can have the same
internal volume of the currentISS.
To give you perspective, theISS took multiple launches over
10 plus years to assemble.

(53:46):
They can do it in one Falcon 9launch at least to get the same
internal volume.
Um, so they do have plans for abigger uh uh uh model that would
fit inside of a starship and ifthey can ever get to doing that
in one starship launch, they'llhave the same internal volume

(54:09):
as a football stadium.
And the reason those two gotogether is, if you think about
it uh, I just said starshiplaunch, it takes a 100 people,
right, the most number of humans.
The maximum number of humansthat humanity has ever launched
in any one launch was alwaysseven, because that's how many
the space shuttle was capable oftaking up, and Starship can

(54:32):
take 100.
And Starship can take 100.
So we modeled the ISS as adestination in space that at
most it can hold nine people, 12during an emergency, and some
of the private space stationsthat are coming up are I think
the biggest plan I saw was for24 people, but that's based on
Crew Dragon taking seven peopleup max.

(54:59):
But what happens when Starshipcomes online can take 100 people
.
It needs somewhere to takethose 100 people.
Not only that, spacex isworking to have the ops tempo on
that be a launch per week.
Actually, they want to do itmultiple times a day, but let's
say, in the next five years theyget to launch one per week,
which means they're sending up100 people per week.
They have to have somewhere togo and the ISS and some of these

(55:20):
private space stations are notgoing to have the capacity for
it.
So something like MaxSpacewould be an ideal solution.
So anyway, those are the twothings Starship and MaxSpace.

Ro (55:32):
I will plus one, the Starship.
I was just doing, as I'mlistening to you, I was just
doing some uh quick, uh check onsomething, um yeah, so it's
basically the equivalent Ialways look at the equivalent of
going from a cessna or a cirrusaircraft, which are single

(55:55):
piston aircrafts, to a 737.
Yeah, exactly, it's huge, slow,clunky.
I mean now we have basicallyBoeing is not doing well as they
have stranded, but I think ofthe iterations of this and
you're right, that is excitingto me because then it also

(56:15):
lowers the cost of payload, thecost of people, and I know
there's a factory like agigafactory.
He's building a Starshipfactory.
I mean there's going to befleets of these.
So, as we kind of look to kindof close this podcast, which I
think has been a greatconversation as far as inaugural
podcast for Offworld, which Ithink has been a great

(56:38):
conversation as far as inauguralpodcast for Offworld, I would
love for you both let's talkabout looking ahead.
This is where the boldprediction about this, the
exploration of space, what doyou think people should be
prepared for?
So I will Ro row, I'll startwith you and then I'll come back

(57:01):
to garamo and then I will moveto my next question.
These are kind of a little bitof rapid fire, so just kind of
what comes to your mind for sure.
I mean, I think, for forhumanity to be prepared for.
I think the big thing is goingto be human space exploration.
I think definitely in the nextfew decades we'll be seeing a
lot more progress on that front,in particular, with the Artemis
missions.
We're seeing that, you know,missions to the moon, the first

(57:23):
woman on the moon, the firstperson of color on the moon
great initiative, and I thinkthat's literally just the
beginning.
So I'd say human spaceexploration is something that
you should look out for and beexcited for.
What's your bold prediction,Yermo?

Guillermo (57:39):
Well, I'll just take Rose maybe one step further.
I think human space explorationwill be more like Mars and
Venus beyond Earth.
I think what people need to beprepared for is just permanent
presence off-world, where,whether it's orbiting space
stations or the moon, will bemore permanent structures.

(58:02):
You'll actually meet people whospend years in these places,
rather than just going for aweek or two.

Ro (58:14):
My, if I will add, my bold prediction is we're going to
have a propulsion breakthroughthat's going to change the speed
in which we just enter.
You know, inter-solar systemdefinitely, but you know,
possibly interstellar.

Guillermo (58:28):
So that's, that's what I believe, with the and so
and so and so, when we developthat warp drive, we'll contacted
by by the Vulcans.

Ro (58:38):
I am not even going there.
I'm thinking Epstein drive.
I'm thinking, you know, youknow I don't know about FTL, but
you know, hey, let's just,let's just speed it up and slow
us down, solar sailing you know.

Guillermo (58:53):
I will tell you what what I do agree with.
On on that, I think one thingpeople need to get ready for is
just the common use of nuclearpropulsion in space.
I agree.

Ro (59:13):
For some reason there's a stigma around that here on Earth
.
But in space iton, andlistening to him talk about the
orion project in the 60s, he, hefelt strongly we would be like
on mars in the 70s.
But the for those of you don'tknow, look it up, it's a wild uh
project.
But uh it was.
And he always fought withverner von braun because he had
a different way of.
He wanted to create a kind ofspace.

(59:35):
He wanted to create a kind ofspace ring, kind of a tour, and

(59:59):
then have people launch, whichwe're kind of doing now.
But the Orion project was aboutdropping literally nuclear bombs
through a above the earth as ittook off and kill everyone.
And I also wonder if it was theoil and gas companies, just you
know, maybe lobbying Congressto kill it.
Just a thought, not that kindof podcast.
Maybe not.
Yet the other side of it if wehad to, the interplanetary,
inter multi-planetary species Ithink of Ray Bradbury's Mars

(01:00:23):
books.
Like if we had to restartcivilization, if you're taking
some books, music, two thingswhat would you bring to start
that civilization on?
I'll go with you, ro.
Yeah, you know, I'll go withyou, ro.
Yeah, you go first, ro.

(01:00:44):
Yeah, I think it's Okay.
So two books.
I'd say Carl Sagan.
Cosmos is a great one.
That's always going to be arelevant book.
I think it emphasizes theimportance of science in our
lives and I think that would bea good read to just have on deck
if you're repopulatingcivilization.
Um, I'd also probably have abook that's more philosophical.

(01:01:04):
So just a book on the greatphilosophers is a book by
stephen law, I think.
On that, and uh, yeah, justjust having different minds,
different perspectives onreality would be a healthy thing
to have when you're in thatsituation.
I think that'd be quite cool.
So I'd take that book as well.
In terms of music, I am aMichael Jackson fan, so I'd take

(01:01:24):
you Rock my World from theInvincible album from Michael
Jackson.
That's a timeless classic.
And I'd also take from thehip-hop world I Know what you
Want Busta Rhymes, mariah Carey,that is another timeless song.
Um, and to go with that, interms of equipment, probably a
good speaker system is going tobe essential, I'd say.

(01:01:45):
So those are my takeawaysexcellent, I, I appreciate.
I like your uh various, yourspecificity and uh, in this, uh,
guillermo, what are you?
You've probably been asked.
You've probably been asked thisquestion before, so you might
have something on deck, so goahead.

Guillermo (01:02:02):
No, usually I answer this by like I don't know,
because whoever's going to gothey'll decide, not me.
But if I had to pick I'dprobably pick two.
Now I'm going to cheat becauseone's a trilogy is the Red Mars,
green Mars, blue Mars trilogy,mostly because it just shows the

(01:02:22):
development of the relationshipbetween an off-world community
and Earth over 400 years overtime.
Likewise, maybe not a littlebit more recent Seven Eves by
Neil Stevenson.
For those of you who've readNeil Stevenson, he tends to

(01:02:43):
write really long books, so thisis like a 700-page book.
It's basically three chapters,so it's like a trilogy in one.
But again, it's what happens tohumanity when it's faced with
an existential threat.
How do they react to it and howdoes that carry forward?
How does humanity carry forward500 years in the future?
So so I really liked, like that.

Ro (01:03:08):
That's great.
So kind of to wrap, like, howwould you want this work to be
remembered?
How would you like to you knowit?
It's about legacy, the impactyou hope this the way paver and
humans to venus will have on theworld.
So, guillermo, you want tostart and I'll, we're up with
bro uh, so wait, but I've gottwo of them.

Guillermo (01:03:30):
Then I've got way paver and and humans to venus no
, let's cover way paver, andI'll let Ro do.
Humans to Venus.
Okay, sounds good, I think thebig thing.
So I guess there's two withWaypaver.
One is just the operationalaspect of it as a nonprofit

(01:03:50):
organization that has a kind ofself-sustaining model using the
Space Venture Studio.
That's not specific to Waypaveror to space, it's just an
organizational innovation.
But for Waypaver itself, Ithink the way we've kind of
structured this by helping tomake humanity a multi-planet

(01:04:12):
species while also improvinglife here on Earth, I hope that
if we push that narrativestrongly enough, we will get to
stop answering that question ofwhy are we going to space?
Because it is by far the mostpopular question that anybody
working in space gets fromoutside the space world and

(01:04:36):
hopefully we can kind of putthat to rest because there's
plenty of opportunities on thisplanet to do both.
We can go into space and we canpreserve our planet.

Ro (01:04:48):
Well, what about you?
Yeah, it's a good question.
I think, from the HumanCivilization Foundation
perspective, it's probably notas much focused on being
remembered for the work thatwe're doing.
I think it's more of a case ofbeing or setting a foundation,
setting their foundations for amuch greater purpose, and that's
going to be expanding out intothe cosmos, right?

(01:05:08):
So the human civiliansfoundation is literally just in
place to one expand the publicknowledge of Venus as its
potential to be a destinationfor humanity, but also to lay
down the steps necessary inplace to get humans to Venus,
and those people in the relevantparties who want to be a part

(01:05:30):
of that can do that.
So I think being a cog in thatmachine and that greater
mechanism is what we're tryingto do and just trying to get
things in motion.
Seeing, you know, humanityexpand down to the cosmos, to
mars, to moon, to the moon andbeyond, to venus, um, really is
going to be the success of thehuman species foundation in
terms of down the line.
I think it's going to be a caseof just setting things in

(01:05:52):
motion and getting thosefoundations there.
So, yeah, yeah, that would bemy answer.
So how do people Go ahead?
Yaro, yeah, please.

Guillermo (01:06:02):
Just a quick thing to tack on to what Rose said.
One of the things that we'vetalked about internally is it's
entirely possible that we may bevictims of our own success.
Right, If we are successful inour mission to get Venus out
there in the general dialogueand people are excited about
establishing a permanentpresence in the Venusian
atmosphere and it happens, thenthere's no reason to have the

(01:06:23):
Humans to Venus Foundation Inthe future.
We may find some ancillarymission, but if humanity does
actually set up an off-worldcommunity in the Venusian
atmosphere, there may be noreason for us to have, uh, the
humans to venus foundation.

Ro (01:06:39):
I think you just replace.
That's great.
I think you should just replacethe two with the at the the
ampersand, or the at the atsymbol.
So humans at venus instead ofhumans to venus.
There you go, there, you go,there you go.
So, uh, how how do people findthe, uh, the foundation, and
check things out?
Yeah, to show I mean.
So.
We have a website,humanstayvenusorg.

(01:07:00):
You can visit more informationthere.
There's a lot more informationon our community.
If you want to get involved,you can sign up to be a part of
our private community, to oure-newsletter as well, for
regular updates.
And yeah, if you want to haveaccess to our Venus Speaker
Series recordings, then go toour page as well on our website,
and you can sign up to theprivate community and gain
access to our online membersportal.

(01:07:20):
So, hopefully, see a lot of youthere.
That's great, and Guillermo forWayfaver.
How would people find that?

Guillermo (01:07:27):
Hey, just a quick thing on the Humans to Venus
Foundation.
I found that I have to remindpeople that it's the number two,
not the word two.
Excellent point, although Ithink we do own both domains.
But and Waypaver, it's easywaypaverfoundationorg.

Ro (01:07:47):
That's great.
Well, I want to go.
Thank you both for coming onthe podcast today and thanks for
everybody for listening on ourjourney from Earth, moon, mars,
venus and beyond, and we'll seeyou all next time.
Thanks a lot.

Steve (01:08:02):
Thanks for listening to Going Off World.
You can find us on all themajor podcast platforms and at
wwwgoingoffworldcom, as well ason YouTube under Going Off World
.
See you next time.