August 16, 2017 • 57 mins
This is a re-broadcast of our interview with Sean McClinton of the Space Entrepreneurs. The Space Entrepreneurs, based in Seattle, Washington, is a community of people trying to accomplish amazing things in space and have come together to support, inform, and partner with each other to help accomplish that. They aim to create a stronger space community and industry. The group holds a variety of events and meetups geared towards those interested in space.
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(00:00):
Did you know that someone is diagnosedwith blood cancer like leukemia every three minutes.
For many of those patients, amarrow transplant is their only hope for
survival. Who will you save?Joined be the match registry today that you
could be the cure dot org LoveHope Radio. Welcome to start Up Radio.
(00:48):
This is Charles mud I am yourhost for Startup Radio and I have
today a guest, Sean McClinton,Principle of Space to Travel Consulting. Glad
to have you with us. Sean, how are you good? Charles?
Thanks for having me. You know, I really excited about this particular conversation
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because you know, I started StartupRadio five years ago talking to individuals,
men, women, entrepreneurs, peoplethat you know had a passion and translated
that passion into a startup a business. But you know, today, particularly
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your area right now, space spaceto Travel consulting and the announcement of finding
seven new planets I guess earth sizedplanets NASA released today. I'm really excited
about talking about where we think,where you think that space is going,
and where you hope to see itgo in the future. But before we
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get to that point, I wantto take a step back, and you
know you have quite an interesting UMbackground. So for a long time you
did consulting with ADHD Consulting. Canyou tell us a little bit about that
and then what prompted the change orthe the transition to thinking outside of that
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and looking I guess up to thestars in space. Sure, sure,
yeah, it's it's all. It'sall exciting stuff. What's happening now?
And um, in terms of howI guess I got to where I am
in my career UM, AHD Consulting. UM. You know, listeners won't
be familiar with that name, butfrom a from a career track. I
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graduated with a business major and waslooking for something to do and had a
connection to a company in China thatworked in the alavira industry, and so
alavira was traditionally known it is traditionallyknown as a skincare product, sunburns and
that kind of thing. This companywas trying to take alivir and make and
(03:16):
essentially popularize it as an h forinternal use. And so the skin cells
that are on the surfa of skinare similar to what senior esophagus and GI
tract and helped with inflammation that kindof thing, and so I went over
to China and they were really astartup at the time. I was there
for their very first international container shipmentand was there with the company in its
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mass market retail launch. So wedid Walmart, Write Aid and Walgreens and
etcetera, etcetera, And you know, we really tried to position ourselves as
a natural alternative to be over thecounter heartburn medications that are very popular,
and we made some great traction.Those big companies are tough competitors, but
it was a great experience and didthat for about seven years out of college
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and um, you know, gotmarried, started having children, and decided
I'd better get something a little morestable, and ended up going to Microsoft
and working in sales support there inkind of their enterprise groups selling to the
big accounts. Somewhere in that process, whether it was having children or getting
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a little bit older and further alongin my career, I started to notice
that something was missing, something wasn'tquite right. And I think the realization,
Charles that I came to was Okay, at my age with children,
I bet I better be sure thatwhat I'm going to do next is as
(04:45):
closely aligned to what I am mostmost passionate about. My interest in business
goes back a long ways, growingup the son of a CPA and seeing
his entrepreneurial clients and even even mydad himself starting successful ventures and really kind
of falling in love with that ideaof, you know, starting a company
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that was aligned to your passions,that you could make a great living at
and you could be creative and innovativeand that kind of thing. So basically,
when I was in that moment,I just said, Okay, what
was my earliest career ambition? AndI thought, you know, and when
we were in kindergarten, they theyasked us, you know, do you
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want to be a doctor, ora lawyer, a firefighter, uh,
you know, a policeman, oran astronaut? And I'm like, you
know, I think I think Iwanted to be an astronaut. Out of
those five choices, I think itwas pretty clear. And I went back
and looked and I have my Halloweenastronaut costing picture, And I mean,
I think, like a lot ofkids, I'm a child of the Space
Shuttle generation, um, you know, the Baby booms Worthy Apollo generation.
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But I watched Challenger live on TVin first grade, and I thought,
well, you know, I'm probablya little bit too old mid thirties,
early thirties actually at that time tobe a NASA astronaut and didn't have a
qualifying degree, which are generally inthe sciences and physics and that those types
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of degrees. I have a businessdegree, and I said, well,
I wonder if there's something I thinkI aimed for what was closest, And
so I've been following the X Prize, which was the first commercial launch into
the edge of space human launch thatwas one in two thousand and four by
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Burt Rutan and scaled composites, eventuallylicensed by Richard Branson and the Virgin group
that became Virgin Galactic, and Ibasically started to kick the tires on the
industry. And I went down toa conference in New Mexic called New Mexico
called the International Symposium for Personal CommercialSpace Flight, met the head of sales
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from Virgin Galactic and said, Ijust want to get involved in the industry.
I want to do something. Whatcan I do? And she put
me in touch with actually that travelagency that could sell tickets on Virgin Galactic
flights. So that was the beginningof my forty um into space. And
at that conference, I just Irealized, like, you know, there's
a lot of cool people in space. I mean, here are like former
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astronaut record holders that seem really downto Earth, that are like I'm rubbing
shoulders with and I'm like, wow, this is you know, this is
the epicenter and the forefront of likemaybe the coolest movement you know, on
or off the Earth for a betterway to say it. Um, So
I'll pause there, but yeah,that that was what you raise the entry.
(07:35):
You raised a lot of interesting ideasand things that I'd love to ask
about here. So starting first,I think it's fantastic the way that you
took a step back and say whatwas what was my earliest ambition? What
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was I wanting to do? Andthen learn you know, remembering I guess
recollecting that it was to be anastronaut, and then from their kind of
recognizing the absence of what you had, maybe the degree and so forth.
And I don't know about you,but I'm probably not as physically fit or
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as young as certain people starting offand the astronaut ambition, and so it's
really intriguing to me that you tookthat notion and you made it work.
You looked at what assets you didhave, the business background, and really
looked to get into the space.And then one of my first questions arises
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from where you mentioned you went tothe conference and you went up, you
met some people and you asked themfor advice for other entrepreneurs out there,
for other startups, CEOs and peoplewanting to start their business as How receptive
did you find people that you approach? Is that something that you'd recommend to
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others that if if there's an industryin which they want to be involved or
they're starting to be involved, shouldthey reach out to the people already they're
at conferences? Should they walk upand introduce themselves to those people? How
receptive did you find those people?And would you recommend that to others?
Yeah, a short answer is absolutely, and I think it's played a critical
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role. It's not always easy becauseyou know, you go to these conferences
and you see kind of these highpowered people who are firmly established and have
you know, a strong reputation,and here you are kind of an outsider,
and and you can feel like youdon't have a lot to offer versus
you know, these people are verybusy. But I have learned and I
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have been taught and believe that,you know, human nature is people love
to feel value, to give back, to help out, because I think
all you have to do is tracea person back far enough to find when
they were in exactly your shoes.For me, you know, I'm not
necessarily in close contact with the headof sales of Virginal actually, but another
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person I met who I didn't mention. Her name is Erica Wagner, and
she's in business development at Blue Originhere in Seattle. She was, I
would say, one of the twokey people I met there, and she
essentially went on to serve as kindof a mentor for me, I mean,
helping me map the space industry.I mean this was a number of
years ago now, but we maintainedregular contact and you know, we've opportunities.
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I never would have expected continue tokind of bear fruit from that.
And when I look back, Ikind of asked myself why, you know,
why did she care? Why didshe go out of her way because
she was there to speak and youknow, why did she take the time?
But the bottom she didn't, andhad I not just I think it
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was just an email. I lookedher up in the conference and I saw
she was Blue origin and it wasin Seattle, and you know, she
responded, So maybe I got lucky. But you have to you know,
you have to try. And Ithink you know, if you find somebody
who isn't receptive, there's there's alwayssomebody. There are always somebody who is,
you know, And I think thatthose three words maybe actually forwards.
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You have to try. I thinkthat's so important from my own perspective and
background as well, is that ifyou don't try, you'll never know.
If you do try and you don'tget a response, or you don't hear
from somebody, or you don't getadmitted somewhere, whatever the case may be,
whatever is circumstance, if you don'ttry, you're never going to know.
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And then on the out chance thatyou do try and it does work,
then you're all in the better position. So I completely agree with you
on that, and I think thatthat's kind of I would argue, and
you can tell me what your thoughtsare, but I think that that's kind
of one of the key elements ofa successful entrepreneur or somebody that wants to
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start up, is is even gettingto the point of deciding to do something
they've had. They have to havethat mindset, I'm going to try it.
I may not succeed, but I'mgoing to try it, because if
I don't, I'll never know.Sure. Sure, yeah, I think
the other point i'd make their trials. And this comes through experience for me
and working in a number of industriesand arriving in the space industry later in
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life and having that perspective. Ithink that for me maybe it's experience.
I'm not a philosophical person, butyou know, I do believe that when
you find the area in business orlife that you maybe are predisposed to be
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successful in, doors are going toopen a little bit easier for you.
And so, you know, it'slike sales or anything. You may have
to try a number of things tofind. Um, those areas that do
work in those people who do respond, but you can use those I don't
want to calm rejections, but maybepeople who don't respond, or doors that
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don't seem to open as as maybeum, you know, indicators that maybe
that area is not the best fitfor you. Because when I compare what's
happened in the space industry with mecompared to maybe in previous jobs and roles.
You know, I think part ofthis space industry, but part of
it is this is, you know, this is what I feel like I
meant to do and I should bedoing, and I, you know,
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have the free disposition to do.And you know, everybody has been very
welcoming and the doors have opened easily, and I mean lots of smart you
know, people who are very helpfulin that regard. So I guess I
would just encourage people to keep lookingfor that right fit for them. Well,
that's that's good advice. And talkingabout that right fit for you,
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I mean getting to it in thespace. So let's kind of move forward
and and talk about what is thefit that you now have in the space
industry. And I think that thereare two components, right there's the consulting
and then there's also the space entrepreneurs. And I'll leave it to you to
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choose which, But I I whydon't we start with the consulting and what
you're doing with that? Sure?Okay? So, um, my company
is Space to Travel Consulting and itreally has two I really have two services.
It's and it's just me. I'messentially a solo consultant. UM.
You know, I kind of outsourcesneeded for help, but it's been just
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me. And basically, if Iback up a few years to when I
met UM the Virgin Galactic folks andgot connected with the travel agency. UM,
you know, I thought space tourthem was the you know, the
coolest thing you know in the world. And I said, I, you
know, I want to be apart of this movement, and so essentially
formed a travel business around that conceptthat Okay, you know, I want
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to help people get to space someday. UM. And I started to learn
about the travel business and UM realized, okay, you know, you know
there are still travel agents they callthemselves travel advisors, who are making money
and travel and UM, you knowit's something that Okay, space tourism is
still a long ways off, butif you know, it might there might
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be a bridge there to space tourismin high end travel, and so UM
I got into travel consulting. UM. So that's that's one branch of the
business, essentially, the individual travelconsulting and UM my aim UM eventually is
to help people around their orbital spacetourism experiences. So so getting into orbit,
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looking down on the Earth and havingthat realization that the astronauts talk about
Frank I thee over the effect ina book, the interviews about thirty astronauts
and their experiences going to space.Um, you know the experience. My
takeaway was this nothing short of lifechanging and so, um, you know,
figure out how to do that,Sean, if I could stop you
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there, because you're already it's alreadyfascinating. How soon do you think it
will be to where that kind oforbital space tourism is actually happening? I
mean you hear we read on thenews about um, you know, Virgin
Galactic maybe he's selling seeds or somebodyselling seeds on on a galactic flight.
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Not yet occurring. But where wheredo you see that? Is that in
the next decade, is that thenext five years? Where do you see
that actually starting to take place?Sure? Well, so the very first
private orbital space tourism was dennist Titoin two thousand and one, So it's
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already happened. There is somebody's alreadyalready kind of okay? Correct, Um,
seven people have gone on, oneof whom has gone twice and all
of whom have paid between twenty andforty million dollars a ticket with a going
rate yeah of fifty million ticket.So yeah, it's it's a very un
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niche I mean, really, theseare entrepreneurs who made a lot of money
and exited their business and had themoney to spend on a ticket, plus
had the time to go to Russiato train for their space flight. Because
NASA wouldn't allow space tourism or spacetourists on the Space Shuttle nor originally in
the US module of the Space station. Um, Russia took a different approach
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and UM did allow it. SoUm. But to your question, Charles,
of where I guess I see itgoing? Um, you know,
orbital has been here on a verysmall scale. Sub Orbital is the the
piece has been getting a lot ofpressed. And so for those listeners who
don't know what that means, theedge of space is at sixty two miles
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in altitude above our heads, andthat's called the Carmen line. And a
suborbital launch is a launch that willget you above the carbon line at sixty
two miles, but you will notachieve enough velocity to reach orbit. So
orbital velocity is about seventeen thousand,five hundred miles an hour. So it's
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a whole nother ball game in termsof launch, vehicle and technical complexity,
and so suborbital is really like youknow, Virgin Galactic is a horizontal takeoff,
horizontal landing, essentially an airplane maddmothership ninety minute experience touchdown. The
takeoff, you're going up to aboutfifty thousand feet where the mothership will drop
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the rocket plane, and the rocketplane will then carry you to the edge
of space. You'll get about fourminutes of weightlessness and then you'll you'll land
from where you took off. Andyou have two big competitors in that space.
You've got Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic. Virgin Galactic was the clear leader
for a long time, but theyhad a loss of life accident December of
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I think fifteen, which set themback. I wouldn't be surprised at Blue
Origin leap frogs them and becomes thefirst to send private suborbital tourists into space.
But on the orbital side, ifyou listen to what Jeff Bezos and
Blue Origin are saying, you knowthey're his Jeff Bezos vision and ambitions are
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fairly grand. I mean, theymay not be Elon musk grand of colonizing
Mars, but bezos vision, asfar as I can tell that they've said,
is a million people living and workingin space. So they have several
large launch vehicles in development, oneof which is the new Glen and so
that will be able to take passengersinto orbit. And they just broke ground
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on that facility, you know,a few months ago, and so you
know it's probably it's a number ofyears before the first uh well not first,
but kind of next wave of orbitalspace tourists. But I would expect
suborbital in the next year or twoto launch paying passengers. And so does
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that come back to some of theconsulting that you're doing now in that space
is and you talked about, youknow, the travel consulting and so forth
working there. Is that going totranslate into working to attract people that might
be interested in doing that, toto have them purchase those tickets? How
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is your consulting going to fit inand work in that Niche sure? So,
really I have I have the twoarms of my consulting business. One
of the is the original leisure travelconsulting and it you know, essentially we
as a long term travel planning approachthat that is geared towards larger, longer
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term bucket list experiences and planning fora longer term. Um. The second
pieces, Yeah, I do corporateconsulting because I have a business background in
sales marketing and business development and soum, I actually take both of those
approaches. But again it's all it'sall geared towards you know, how can
I add value in the space industrybut with bigger visions. I mean I
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subscribe to that, you know,a million people in space to look down
on the Earth and have that overvieweffect kind of experience. And I look
at you know, similar to theway Peter Diamandas has approached. If you
look at his career in the spaceindustry. Um, you know he couldn't
become an astronaut because of his eyes, and he took a rising tide lifts
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all boats approach where he built upHe created the Exprise and that you know
kind of launch virgin galacticum indirectly,but you know, so I give the
corporate consult thing with a couple ofclients, and um, we're trying to
build the space industry here in Seattle, UM to the kind of rising tide
lifts all boats approach, and thatthat's part of what space entrepreneurs does,
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which is the second, you know, a piece of what I do.
Sure. And before we get tothere, you just mentioned you know,
you're in Seattle, and I haveheard and I'd like you to elaborate kind
of on what's happening there, becauseit sounds like, you know, in
addition to the uh you know,the the Cape Canaveral or California, southern
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California and now you know SpaceX justjust launch from, of course the historic
launch site. But Seattle, theNorthwest is creating its own seems to be
space kind of launch hub. Isthat correct? That's absolutely correct, Charles.
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Um. You know, we wethink a lot about this and what,
um, what are we good athere in Seattle? UM as opposed
to other space hubs that you mentionedFlorida and southern California and Colorado, and
um, you know, it goeson and on, and I think that
um, it probably starts with Seattle'sspace legacy and that dies directly into Boeing
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and things like the lunar rover beingdesigned here. UM. The Kent Space
Center, where a lot of Bowing'searly space work was done. And so
you've got the space legacy, andthey've got Bowing itself here though they don't
do as much space work here anymore. But I think that the result of
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that has been a lot of peoplewho grew up with a little bit of
space legacy. I mean, you'vegot the space Needle and you know also
known as Space City, you know, so you have a lot of people
grew up and want to be apart and remember that legacy, or we
taught that legacy without lot of umyou know, old space meaning Bowings and
nassas, those type of opportunities aroundhere, but with a with a pent
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up demand. UM. So you'vegot the aerospace infrastructure of Boeing and its
suppliers. And then you've got theIT infrastructure with Microsoft and Amazon, and
I've got Facebook and Google and Appleand everybody's setting up satellite offices here.
UM. So we see those twopieces as a big asset that we can
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we can kind of get a bridgetogether to start forming the space industry.
UM. I think if you lookat the culture of Seattle and the history
from a startup standpoint, UM,you know, there are Seattle has been
very good at incubating new industries andcreating um kind of industry leading companies as
a result. So you know,actually not a lot of people know it's
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but ups started here in Seattle.It's it's it moved a number of years
ago. But of course you've gotcost and Starbucks and Amazon and Microsoft and
sure Noraids from the list goes on. And so I think we feel here
in Seattle that the space industry isthe next great industry that Seattle will help
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to incubate, of course, alongwith the Bay Area and southern California.
But you know, we don't havea NASSA center here. We're kind of
isolated in the top of the country. And you know, some people say,
ok, it's a thought leadership community. I mean, you've got Planetarty
Resources wanting to mine asteroids up here, and you've got Blue Origin. So
it's I've been to the same conferencein the Bay Area and in Seattle,
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and it is very different space cultures. But you know, we kind of
hope that we will be able todo the same thing that there will be
you know, one of these companiestoday will be the next Microsoft, and
then it will spawn an ecosystem ofcompanies and so on and so forth.
So sure, now you mentioned somethingthat just now that's interesting, So that
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they're different space cultures between where youare and in California. Is there really
a difference in the dynamics between thepeople, I mean, in the in
the industry between those two locations.Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I
definitely think so, Charles. Imean, you know, I think you
have to split California into the BayArea in southern California. From a space
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standpoint, um, you know,I think the Bay Area has already produced
the most the most significant true startups. I mean, I think you have
to look at the space industry andseparate a startup from am ultra high net
individual lead backed startup and a youknow, a true private equity funded startup.
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I think the Bay Area has done, you know, the latter better.
I mean, you've got Spire andSkybox and Planet, um, you
know, big acquisitions, big financecingnumbers, um. So the Bay Area
it's culture and capital infrastructure lends itselfwell to that. And I think they're
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they've been on the forefront of thesatellite industry. Um, you know,
Earth observation and that kind of thing. When you look at South in California,
Boeing has a big presence down thereand a lot of their their satellite
work has been down there. UM. And Lockheed a lot of old space
presence in southern California. UM,and some of those facilities and talent led
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SpaceX to locate there. And thenyou have you know, Mojave Air and
Spaceport nearby and Van Deenberg Air ForceBase, and um, you have launched
launch launch capacity in California where youdon't generally in the Bay Area or Seattle.
Um, you know, um,Seattle, I'm sorry, the Bay
Area in southern California have uh NASAcenters so um. Yeah, it's each
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brings its own set. Sure.Well, and let's talk about the setup
in Seattle again. Where you arein Space on Entrepreneurs. How has that
been doing. You started that asa kind of is that a networking group
bringing people together that have shared interestto kind of help build up the space
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industry in the Seattle area. Yeah, that's great, Charles. So let's
see, I think we just hadour three year anniversary, so February twenty
fourteen, and you know, Ihad I had been going to meet up
since I was in college and hadrun a meetup called Bellvey Entrepreneur Meetup which
Belvi's a suburb of Seattle for thosewho don't know, and you know,
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it wasn't quite getting enough space.I mean I realized I really like space,
and you know, after starting thetravel business and thought, you know,
I want to do more. SoI thought, well, I'll just
throw this up there and see whathappens. And you know, I first
meetup was just a few people,and I think it was three people on
the meetup and our very next meetupwas about eighty people. And so.
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And when you say meet up,just for those that may not be familiar,
you're referring to the website or wherethe meetup where it's people can find.
Different groups of people are different organizationsthat have their interests and there the
meetups are just gatherings scheduled that thatyou can come participate in and talk with
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people that have shared interests. Isthat correct? Correct? It is that
the company meet up and meetup dotcom and so, yes, that that
was our original platform. And youknow, they the beauty of meetup is
they do essentially all the marketing youdo pay an organizer fee, but you
know, they have helped us growtremendously. UM. So you know,
we went to we had eighty peopleat the first event. We had Eric
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Anderson, who was the founder ofone of the founders of the space Adventuests,
who sent those seven paying passengers UMspeak and we I would say,
we've went from periods of UM youknow, slow and steady growth to exponential
growth and where at six hundred membersnow wow, yeah, And I think
I never thought that this group wouldbe as big as Belfe Entrepreneur meetup because
(30:14):
it's more niche. But I reallythink it speaks to UM the you know
built in excitement here at seable inthe future of the industry in that area.
It's fantastic and it's fantastic for youto be in that kind of space,
you know, taking a step backwith your consulting and taking that leap
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and making that effort to not onlystart the consulting business, but then also
to create this meetup to get involvedin associated with people in that industry like
minded and so forth. What didyou benefit from most, would you say,
having worked previously in all things,having worked at Microsoft, what do
(31:02):
you think were or are the mostimportant attributes for your success so far in
doing that, and that might beshared or that might be you know that
that an entrepreneur should look for tohelp them succeed. Sure, I guess
(31:23):
I. You know, the interestin entrepreneurship drove me to become educated in
entrepreneurship. And that included, youknow, all of the networking events and
seminars that I could attend on entrepreneurshipso that you know, I could be
an entrepreneur myself and help support otherentrepreneurs. And that goes back a long
(31:44):
ways, you know pretty much,I would say when I arrived to college,
if not before, But I thinklike to go back to what we
touched on in terms of reaching outto people. Um, when I was
in college, I think what whatstarted it? How I got how I
realized the power of reaching out topeople was I went I went to school
(32:07):
in San Diego and went to seeit was a tie of in the INDUS
entrepreneurs. They had an event downdown near lax and drove down there and
it was Nolan Bushnell, who isthe founder of Pity, you know,
and he spoke to a fairly smallgroup and here I am I don't know,
twenty twenty one years old, andhe spoke and I, you know,
(32:28):
I was a little bit nervous,so I went up to a mass
afterwards and I said, that wasreally inspiring story and it was very friendly.
I was like, wow, Ican you know, you can meet
anybody you want, almost anywhere youwant. I mean we were in a
little hotel conference room near Lax,seemingly a random location for you know,
I mean, this is one ofthe fathers of the modern video game industry.
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And you know, he told thestory of of an early Atari employee
who came to him and for fiftyasked for fifty thousand dollars for thirty percent
of his new company. And guesswhat that company was? What's uh it
was? It was Apple So itwas Steve Jobs. Yeah, early employee
of Atari um and no one unfortunatelyturned him down. He said that was
(33:14):
one of the bigger regrets in mylife. But in any case, that
kind of got me going on,Okay, you can meet anybody at any
time. And you know, Ithink, uh, this industry being new,
it's easier to meet people. Andum, I think with my background
as a business person, you lookat the space industry. It's very engineering
(33:36):
centric, rightfully. So, butI can't hold a candle. Uh when
when you talk about orbital mechanics oryou know, you name a propulsion,
I just I know I can't.I mean, I'm trying to be educated.
And but my strength, I think, um is being what I'm trying
(33:57):
to build my strength around is beingable to connect people. Know what people
who are good at you know,who to connect them with because you know,
I think a lot of these engineersare technically brilliant, but thinking of
other issues that might prevent them frommaking their idea real. So yeah,
and and so in that effort ofof trying to help people and others,
(34:22):
who who is your ideal client?Who are you trying to reach out to
right now? Who's your ideal customerfor the you know space of travel consulting?
Sure? Sure, Um, youknow I have a fairly um tight
bandwidth now based on my current clientwork. UM, I would say,
(34:43):
you know, at some point Iwould love the opportunity to work with Blue
Origin, you know, um,in a in a sales marketing business development
capacity. Um. You know,I think what they're doing is awesome.
Um. You know, I Iwork with a company called RBC Signals UM
right now and and dedicating a lotof my time to what they're trying to
do, and that is really um, you know, quote unquote launch the
(35:09):
small satellite revolution, so low costsatellites, UM. And they're trying to
address the problem of how do thesecompanies get their data from space down to
the ground. And so there's acouple bottlenecks to as I see it,
a true explosion, you know,no pun intended of you know, the
(35:30):
space the new space movement and costlaunch is one. Uh. And then
you know, I think making satellitesuseful, what are they going to do
and how are they going to gettheir data down are key pieces of that.
So that's what I'm focused on.UM. You know, I serve
individual travel clients, UM. Youknow, I think I'm looking for people
(35:53):
who are adventurous, who are openminded on the individual travel side, who
how you travel? And then youknow, on the corporate side. You
know, probably any serious entrepreneur lookingto make waves in the space industry and
probably looks at space as much asan economic opportunity. And because it's because
(36:17):
it's a movement, sure, andit sounds like it's an exciting movement,
not only nationwide, but particularly inyour region there in the Northwest, particularly
Seattle. It sounds like it's justa fantastic place to be immersed. And
so somebody who are wanting to join, like your next meetup or to be
(36:38):
a part of Space Entrepreneurs, whatdo they have to do for that?
Where do they go and how oftendo you meet? Sure? So we
still use meetup as our primary platform. And so if you're on meetup,
or if you're not on meetup,you just search Space Entrepreneurs. If you're
(37:00):
not in the Seattle area, youwant to make sure that you're you know,
location radius is wide enough to findus because a meaningful tailor it to
your physical location. So if you'renot in the area but want to kind
of keep tabs, or if youfind yourself in Seattle from time to time,
you can join. It's free.We meet at least monthly, sometimes
(37:22):
twice a month, and uh yeah, so we've got we meet on a
variety of topics and event types.That sounds exciting, and I wish that
I was actually closer in physical proximitiesso I could participate as well. But
there's another way of obviously, communicatingand so forth. And if someone we're
(37:45):
wanting to reach out to you,you know, where can they find out
what's what's going on with you?I see you have quite a number of
followers on LinkedIn. How did youget so many followers or was that just
a surprise one morning? Yeah?No, I uh, I think that
(38:06):
that again goes back to the reachingout thing. And um, you know,
I think I would like to knowas many people in the space industry
as I can, so that onceI start publishing content more regularly, you
know, I will be able tohelp more people. And so I mean
(38:27):
a lot of that is organic growth, just going out and networking, and
then you know, you get abusiness card and you add it to LinkedIn
when you get home, and someof that is okay, well this is
a second degree friend or this personis in the strategic role with this company
and adding them and see if theyaccept And you know, some people there
are different philosophies there, but Itend to like a wider network in that
(38:49):
sense. And so have you haveyou found people that reached out to you
through LinkedIn? Yeah? Yeah,I UM, I would say I do
more of the reaching out, butcertainly, um, you know, I
haven't had a lot of people reachout directly through LinkedIn, UM, but
(39:14):
I have made some incredible connections withum astronauts, former astronauts on LinkedIn.
I mean I was really chatting.Yeah, I was chatting with Story Musgrave
the other day, and I knowI often have to pinch myself thinking like
is this am I really doing?This? Is this is really who I'm
talking to? And Michael Lopez allAgria, you know, he's the I
(39:35):
think he's the American record holder forspacewalks. Uh. You know, I
was able to contact him and talkto talk to him about events here in
Seattle, and um so, yeah, I have a number of astronaut postagree
astronaut connections and part of that's kindof for fun, but part of that
is, you know, these arereal connections and people I'm talking to and
(39:57):
um so, yeah, I backto back, it goes back. You
just have to try, right,you reach out and you connect and you
never know who. They're only humanon the other side, and you never
know who you might end up connectingto. We do have some people listening
and one of the questions that's comein for you, if I can read
(40:19):
it here is how long did ittake for you to take, you know,
to begin with your idea, wantingto shift, wanting to pivot as
the term is often used, fromwhere you were to the new industry,
being in the space industry. Sohow long did it take you to move
from your idea and then going tothe industry conference and being excited to actually
(40:45):
having your business up and running.Sure, so I think I have tried
to go back and map this thiskind of path and trajectory and um,
you know. I went to anEntrepreneur magazine conference in Miami, Florida in
two thousand and nine and I metIvan Meisner, founder of the NI Business
(41:06):
Network International, and he gave aspeech and he talked about knowing Richard Branson
personally. So I'm like, okay, you know, at that point I
thought, okay, maybe he canhelp me get a job at Virgin Galactic.
And he did put me in touchwith think the head of HR for
Virgin Galactic. At the time.This was before I went to that conference,
and at the time they said,well, we're a small team in
(41:27):
London, you know, we're notreally hiring. But as far as I
can tell, that was when Iwas first starting to think seriously about getting
into the industry to where I amnow, I'm essentially full time, you
know, in the industry. Imean, I'll I kind of live,
eat, sleep and breathe space andso. But it has not been a
(41:49):
It's been a gradually increase and arealization and you know, due diligence and
forming a mission and vision statement andthat kind of thing. So do you
think that a term into you know, you mentioned one of the the one
of the impetus or an impetus foryour kind of thinking about where you wanted
(42:10):
to go. Where you wanted tobe was your family. And has that
worked your advantage then? Or haveyou found as many people in the startup,
you know, starting a new business, being an entrepreneur, it often
takes more time away from from otherthings that they'd like to be doing.
(42:31):
So how has that played out inyour transition? Sure, that's a yeah,
that's a good question. I wouldsay that having children did serve as
a catalyst to ask the question,you know, what do I want to
do with my life that will bemost meaningful? Um, you know,
(42:53):
I think maybe if I was onlythinking about myself, I don't know,
you know, I don't know whatlike what have been like, but you
know, I think wanting to setan example led me to think about that
question, or to think more seriouslyabout that question, as opposed to just
well, I may do that someday, especially at my age now. My
(43:15):
wife works full time and I workfull time, and we have three children,
all under eight, and so it'scertainly we don't have a lot of
extra time. And could I haveaccelerated my path maybe though if you look
at space traditional historical space industry development, it's you know, it's often a
(43:37):
multi year proposition, and so youknow that slow, that slow development of
the industry has allowed me to kindof position myself and think about how to
add value and where to position myselfand and that kind of thing. So
yeah, and I think that,you know, going to the children factor,
I have children on my own aswell, and I think there's a
(44:00):
cool factor, at least from myperspective, a cool factor. And what
you're doing right that that you are, that you stepped out, that that
you're doing what you're passionate about andspace space is cool and I have to
give you credit on that. AndI think that in the end, you
know, our kids. They dolook up to us and they see us
(44:22):
as examples. And I think it'sreally um, you know, I think
it's really a great thing what you'vedone and that you're having the success and
that you're out there and following yourpassion. Here's another question that we received
somebody. What was the biggest challengeyou faced in your career so far and
(44:45):
how did you address it? Andassuming that you did overcome it, how
did you overcome it? Yeah?I mean that's pretty pretty simple, but
a but a great question, andthat is how do you make money at
what you're passionate about? And youknow, how do you make money in
(45:05):
the new space industry? And Ithink, you know, when I look
at what I have done and thepath I've taken and the path that others
are trying to take, who areyou know, maybe just getting started,
for example, somebody right out ofcollege. You know, in the new
space industry have a small amount ofcompanies, you have listed employment opportunities,
(45:30):
which I think are the tip ofthe iceberg, and then you have everything
else. And when an industry likethis is being built, that the opportunities
aren't always seen or obvious and haveto be developed in alternative methods. So
for example, you know, myoriginal approach was to try to work for
Virgin Galactic and you know, theydidn't have any opportunities. Maybe they do
(45:51):
now, I don't know. Butinstead of saying, okay, well there
just isn't anything here for me,there was and I forget who said it,
but it's, uh, you know, if you can't find a way,
make one. And so I thought, okay, I'm an entrepreneur.
If I'm an entrepreneur, and Ithink I am, and I want to
be you know, um, that'sthe approach I should take here. And
(46:13):
uh So instead of saying, okay, well there isn't any traditional employment,
there's no way to make money,I'll kind of plant these seeds. And
that approach has worked where uh,you know, all the opportunities I've I've
gotten are not listed, are notobvious. Um, but certainly you're there,
and I firmly believe that there arethere's plenty, uh from what I've
(46:35):
heard of, additional opportunity that couldbe capitalized on by the right person.
Um. And so, but yeah, trying to make money when you have
a family, I mean, ifyou're if you're if you're young. Uh,
maybe that's not such an issue.You can, you can experiment a
little bit more, but without thefamily, you've got those responsibilities. You
(46:57):
not only have to balance the pursuitof the passion, but to make sure
that the food's on the table right. And and it's great when it's great
too, as you've described, I'myou know, speaking from my own experience,
it's great when we have a spouseis also working that that we're all
contributing to the team. Because youknow, I certainly do appreciate UM that
(47:24):
I couldn't do what I do withoutwithout the support there of the whole family.
And I'm sure that it's helped havingthat that support. UM with your
with your spouse working as well interms of allowing you to build this because
it you're right, if we wereif you're younger, single male or female,
(47:50):
UM, you have more you havemore ability to accept risk in going
out and pursuing things, which isall the more admirable than that that you
have done this because it's that muchmore difficult. I think as we get
older, we get more responsibilities withour family or our children, UM,
(48:10):
our spouses want our you know,have time, expectations for us. Uh.
So, yeah, I hear completelywhere you're coming from. Yeah,
and I would. I would.Charles Um brought up a good reminder.
Yes, I would not be ableto do this without my wife. Um.
If you're listening, Eurie, thankyou and I love you for that.
(48:34):
Um. And you know, Ithink that what's been also rewarding along
those lines, as my daughter,I think has met three astronauts. Oh
cool, you know, yeah,I think a couple. I think I've
met in person, like eight orten, and you know, I've emailed
with a number of others. Butum, you know that's been fun.
(48:54):
You know, I thought I didn'tmean an astronaut till I was I don't
know how old. But you know, my wife the other day finally said,
you know, I kind of likespace. It's really it's very diverse,
it's very international. Uh. Andso you know, be able to
bring those benefits home has been reallyrewarding. So well. Talking about bringing
(49:15):
experiences home, you know, oneof the last questions that I have for
you, and then I want toopen it up to anything else that you'd
like to share. But are thereany particular books or are there any particular
people in particular resources that you've particularlyfound guiding or helpful, or something that
(49:36):
that you would recommend as somebody elseor that's been inspirational. Is there a
book like that for you? MI read a lot, I listen.
I don't read very much. Ilistened to a lot of books, um,
and I listened to a lot alot of space related books. So,
um, well, what's one ofthe best space related books that you've
(49:59):
listened to? Then? Yeah,I think uh for for um, for
the average listener. Mike Massimino.He's a former NASA astronaut. His book
called Space Man. Uh you know, we met him, my wife and
I met him and his book.He's got a PhD. He's from New
(50:21):
York. But he is one ofthe most like down to earth, humble,
funny, uh you know, wellspoken people, and he has some
incredible stories from uh you know,how he made it to NASA, from
his childhood and and then his experiencesin space, uh, working on Hubble.
(50:43):
I mean it's just it's it's avery easy listen. So that I
found that super inspirational and entertaining,which is somewhat sometimes a rare combination when
you're listening to astronaut biographies, Butyeah, that that's on the space side.
I love Shoe Doog by Phil Knightfor the newer a startup inspiration.
I mean just you know, clawnand scratching and getting out there and just
(51:07):
running with no pun intended with acrazy idea. So well, those are
two good recommendations that I think thatwe should all probably go out and put
either on our bookshelf, well readfirst and then put on the bookshelf,
or load into the kindle or audibleformat, as the case may be.
(51:30):
Is there anything that you would likeI really appreciate you being a part of
the show here, Sean. Isthere anything that you'd like to share with
the listeners, you know, whetherit's live now or they can continue to
listen to the broadcast as many peopledo later on, that you want to
share that you found particularly important inyour relaunch of your career into space.
(51:58):
Sure, I would just Charles thatyou know, traditionally, you know,
I'm going to make a plug forspace. Space has traditionally been almost a
soul the name of government and sciencefiction. And you know, I think
it's space by nature is vast andexpensive and dangerous, and you know,
things that don't allow people to reallythink about space in a practical context.
(52:23):
But when you think about your everydaylife, I mean GPS and Internet and
all of the space technologies that weuse in our daily lives, most of
them we're not really aware of,and how much space influences our lives in
terms of how you know, thegovernment Space program meaning NASA has has developed
(52:44):
those and how they have benefited us. And just think about what private industry
will be able to do in thatcontext, and then what that means for
the individual. I mean, ifyou if you think about space and you
you like science fiction growing up,or you were inspired by the Apollo,
the moon landing or whatever it mightbe, just take another look at that
(53:07):
and see if you know there mightbe a more practical application for that idea
than you because I think you lookat Elon wanting to get a million people
to colonize Mars. I mean spacetraditionally was this, you know, the
sole domain of you know, thefive hundred people who have ever gone.
But one day it's going to befor everyone, and you know it's going
(53:30):
to be more like Star Trek.We're going to. Space is not you
know, it's a little bit moretaken for granted, a little more accessible.
So I feel that now is thetime to kind of start thinking about
what is it going to mean tobe you know, in my life,
you couldn't have said it better.I think the space is a wonderful frontier
(53:53):
and the way that you just describedthat it's going to be more accessible to
so many more of particularly as you'vetalked today about Jeff Bezos idea of I
think you said, you know,his ambition of a million a colony or
a place of a million out therein space living of course Elon Musk talking
(54:16):
about Mars and moving beyond the governmentto really and I would hope that it
becomes a global endeavor. I meanwe see that with people going to the
International Space Station and that it isan international endeavor there. And it sounds
like from the community that you've describedwith space entrepreneurs in Seattle and that hub,
(54:39):
but generally the space community is reallyinternational and cooperative. In nature,
human potential, there's no limits.So I'm excited to see where that goes.
And I'm actually excited to also seehow your business endeavors set over the
(55:00):
next um, you know, severalmonths year, And i'd love to have
you back, Sean. It's reallybeen a pleasure to have you on Startup
Radio. Great, Charles, Ivery much appreciate you having me and it's
it's you know, great to talkspace and happy to come back on and
hope that I will. I continueto have good news to report and you
(55:21):
know, always happy to update folkson what's happening in the space world.
I look forward to coming back.That sounds great, And to all of
our listeners, this is Startup Radio. It's part of the stem Daddy and
network. I'd like to mention ourtwo sisters shows, Gaming Chords talking about
the gaming industry and STEM voices,those voices in the STEM science, technology,
(55:46):
engineering and math, and that kindof overlapped in our discussion today,
of course with Sean McClinton of Spaceto Travel Consulting in Space Entrepreneurs meet Up
Space on Entrepreneurs meet Up you canjoin them in the Seattle area. Please
check that out. I'd also liketo thank our producer, Lindsay Kramer,
(56:08):
and of course the music that Ibegin and end the show with and have
for going on five years, DianaRain's So Sexy Low Fade, one of
our favorite musicians here Sean again,thanks so much. I wish you a
great week and I'll look forward tohaving you again. Great. Thank you,
Charleston, thank you so Yep.Never no a NAP. A guy
(56:57):
knows more isn't always better, unlesswe're talking about full sized vans. These
beasts do more than get you fromA to B. They have so much
space a man can live in it. With shag carpeting, water bed and
a sweet lava lamp. These mobileabodes have all the comforts of home,
with quality parts and plenty of NAPA. No how you can keep the original
tiny house running longer, stronger,that's NAPA. No HOWA know how
Did you know that someone is diagnosedwith blood cancer like leukemia every three minutes.
For many of those patients, amarrow transplant is their only hope for
survival. Who will you save?Joined be the match registry today that you
could be the cure dot org LoveHope Radio. Welcome to start Up Radio.
(00:48):
This is Charles mud I am yourhost for Startup Radio and I have
today a guest, Sean McClinton,Principle of Space to Travel Consulting. Glad
to have you with us. Sean, how are you good? Charles?
Thanks for having me. You know, I really excited about this particular conversation
(01:17):
because you know, I started StartupRadio five years ago talking to individuals,
men, women, entrepreneurs, peoplethat you know had a passion and translated
that passion into a startup a business. But you know, today, particularly
(01:41):
your area right now, space spaceto Travel consulting and the announcement of finding
seven new planets I guess earth sizedplanets NASA released today. I'm really excited
about talking about where we think,where you think that space is going,
and where you hope to see itgo in the future. But before we
(02:05):
get to that point, I wantto take a step back, and you
know you have quite an interesting UMbackground. So for a long time you
did consulting with ADHD Consulting. Canyou tell us a little bit about that
and then what prompted the change orthe the transition to thinking outside of that
(02:30):
and looking I guess up to thestars in space. Sure, sure,
yeah, it's it's all. It'sall exciting stuff. What's happening now?
And um, in terms of howI guess I got to where I am
in my career UM, AHD Consulting. UM. You know, listeners won't
be familiar with that name, butfrom a from a career track. I
(02:55):
graduated with a business major and waslooking for something to do and had a
connection to a company in China thatworked in the alavira industry, and so
alavira was traditionally known it is traditionallyknown as a skincare product, sunburns and
that kind of thing. This companywas trying to take alivir and make and
(03:16):
essentially popularize it as an h forinternal use. And so the skin cells
that are on the surfa of skinare similar to what senior esophagus and GI
tract and helped with inflammation that kindof thing, and so I went over
to China and they were really astartup at the time. I was there
for their very first international container shipmentand was there with the company in its
(03:39):
mass market retail launch. So wedid Walmart, Write Aid and Walgreens and
etcetera, etcetera, And you know, we really tried to position ourselves as
a natural alternative to be over thecounter heartburn medications that are very popular,
and we made some great traction.Those big companies are tough competitors, but
it was a great experience and didthat for about seven years out of college
(04:04):
and um, you know, gotmarried, started having children, and decided
I'd better get something a little morestable, and ended up going to Microsoft
and working in sales support there inkind of their enterprise groups selling to the
big accounts. Somewhere in that process, whether it was having children or getting
(04:25):
a little bit older and further alongin my career, I started to notice
that something was missing, something wasn'tquite right. And I think the realization,
Charles that I came to was Okay, at my age with children,
I bet I better be sure thatwhat I'm going to do next is as
(04:45):
closely aligned to what I am mostmost passionate about. My interest in business
goes back a long ways, growingup the son of a CPA and seeing
his entrepreneurial clients and even even mydad himself starting successful ventures and really kind
of falling in love with that ideaof, you know, starting a company
(05:06):
that was aligned to your passions,that you could make a great living at
and you could be creative and innovativeand that kind of thing. So basically,
when I was in that moment,I just said, Okay, what
was my earliest career ambition? AndI thought, you know, and when
we were in kindergarten, they theyasked us, you know, do you
(05:28):
want to be a doctor, ora lawyer, a firefighter, uh,
you know, a policeman, oran astronaut? And I'm like, you
know, I think I think Iwanted to be an astronaut. Out of
those five choices, I think itwas pretty clear. And I went back
and looked and I have my Halloweenastronaut costing picture, And I mean,
I think, like a lot ofkids, I'm a child of the Space
Shuttle generation, um, you know, the Baby booms Worthy Apollo generation.
(05:51):
But I watched Challenger live on TVin first grade, and I thought,
well, you know, I'm probablya little bit too old mid thirties,
early thirties actually at that time tobe a NASA astronaut and didn't have a
qualifying degree, which are generally inthe sciences and physics and that those types
(06:11):
of degrees. I have a businessdegree, and I said, well,
I wonder if there's something I thinkI aimed for what was closest, And
so I've been following the X Prize, which was the first commercial launch into
the edge of space human launch thatwas one in two thousand and four by
(06:31):
Burt Rutan and scaled composites, eventuallylicensed by Richard Branson and the Virgin group
that became Virgin Galactic, and Ibasically started to kick the tires on the
industry. And I went down toa conference in New Mexic called New Mexico
called the International Symposium for Personal CommercialSpace Flight, met the head of sales
(06:54):
from Virgin Galactic and said, Ijust want to get involved in the industry.
I want to do something. Whatcan I do? And she put
me in touch with actually that travelagency that could sell tickets on Virgin Galactic
flights. So that was the beginningof my forty um into space. And
at that conference, I just Irealized, like, you know, there's
a lot of cool people in space. I mean, here are like former
(07:15):
astronaut record holders that seem really downto Earth, that are like I'm rubbing
shoulders with and I'm like, wow, this is you know, this is
the epicenter and the forefront of likemaybe the coolest movement you know, on
or off the Earth for a betterway to say it. Um, So
I'll pause there, but yeah,that that was what you raise the entry.
(07:35):
You raised a lot of interesting ideasand things that I'd love to ask
about here. So starting first,I think it's fantastic the way that you
took a step back and say whatwas what was my earliest ambition? What
(07:56):
was I wanting to do? Andthen learn you know, remembering I guess
recollecting that it was to be anastronaut, and then from their kind of
recognizing the absence of what you had, maybe the degree and so forth.
And I don't know about you,but I'm probably not as physically fit or
(08:18):
as young as certain people starting offand the astronaut ambition, and so it's
really intriguing to me that you tookthat notion and you made it work.
You looked at what assets you didhave, the business background, and really
looked to get into the space.And then one of my first questions arises
(08:41):
from where you mentioned you went tothe conference and you went up, you
met some people and you asked themfor advice for other entrepreneurs out there,
for other startups, CEOs and peoplewanting to start their business as How receptive
did you find people that you approach? Is that something that you'd recommend to
(09:03):
others that if if there's an industryin which they want to be involved or
they're starting to be involved, shouldthey reach out to the people already they're
at conferences? Should they walk upand introduce themselves to those people? How
receptive did you find those people?And would you recommend that to others?
Yeah, a short answer is absolutely, and I think it's played a critical
(09:28):
role. It's not always easy becauseyou know, you go to these conferences
and you see kind of these highpowered people who are firmly established and have
you know, a strong reputation,and here you are kind of an outsider,
and and you can feel like youdon't have a lot to offer versus
you know, these people are verybusy. But I have learned and I
(09:54):
have been taught and believe that,you know, human nature is people love
to feel value, to give back, to help out, because I think
all you have to do is tracea person back far enough to find when
they were in exactly your shoes.For me, you know, I'm not
necessarily in close contact with the headof sales of Virginal actually, but another
(10:16):
person I met who I didn't mention. Her name is Erica Wagner, and
she's in business development at Blue Originhere in Seattle. She was, I
would say, one of the twokey people I met there, and she
essentially went on to serve as kindof a mentor for me, I mean,
helping me map the space industry.I mean this was a number of
years ago now, but we maintainedregular contact and you know, we've opportunities.
(10:43):
I never would have expected continue tokind of bear fruit from that.
And when I look back, Ikind of asked myself why, you know,
why did she care? Why didshe go out of her way because
she was there to speak and youknow, why did she take the time?
But the bottom she didn't, andhad I not just I think it
(11:03):
was just an email. I lookedher up in the conference and I saw
she was Blue origin and it wasin Seattle, and you know, she
responded, So maybe I got lucky. But you have to you know,
you have to try. And Ithink you know, if you find somebody
who isn't receptive, there's there's alwayssomebody. There are always somebody who is,
you know, And I think thatthose three words maybe actually forwards.
(11:26):
You have to try. I thinkthat's so important from my own perspective and
background as well, is that ifyou don't try, you'll never know.
If you do try and you don'tget a response, or you don't hear
from somebody, or you don't getadmitted somewhere, whatever the case may be,
whatever is circumstance, if you don'ttry, you're never going to know.
(11:48):
And then on the out chance thatyou do try and it does work,
then you're all in the better position. So I completely agree with you
on that, and I think thatthat's kind of I would argue, and
you can tell me what your thoughtsare, but I think that that's kind
of one of the key elements ofa successful entrepreneur or somebody that wants to
(12:13):
start up, is is even gettingto the point of deciding to do something
they've had. They have to havethat mindset, I'm going to try it.
I may not succeed, but I'mgoing to try it, because if
I don't, I'll never know.Sure. Sure, yeah, I think
the other point i'd make their trials. And this comes through experience for me
and working in a number of industriesand arriving in the space industry later in
(12:37):
life and having that perspective. Ithink that for me maybe it's experience.
I'm not a philosophical person, butyou know, I do believe that when
you find the area in business orlife that you maybe are predisposed to be
(12:58):
successful in, doors are going toopen a little bit easier for you.
And so, you know, it'slike sales or anything. You may have
to try a number of things tofind. Um, those areas that do
work in those people who do respond, but you can use those I don't
want to calm rejections, but maybepeople who don't respond, or doors that
(13:20):
don't seem to open as as maybeum, you know, indicators that maybe
that area is not the best fitfor you. Because when I compare what's
happened in the space industry with mecompared to maybe in previous jobs and roles.
You know, I think part ofthis space industry, but part of
it is this is, you know, this is what I feel like I
meant to do and I should bedoing, and I, you know,
(13:41):
have the free disposition to do.And you know, everybody has been very
welcoming and the doors have opened easily, and I mean lots of smart you
know, people who are very helpfulin that regard. So I guess I
would just encourage people to keep lookingfor that right fit for them. Well,
that's that's good advice. And talkingabout that right fit for you,
(14:05):
I mean getting to it in thespace. So let's kind of move forward
and and talk about what is thefit that you now have in the space
industry. And I think that thereare two components, right there's the consulting
and then there's also the space entrepreneurs. And I'll leave it to you to
(14:26):
choose which, But I I whydon't we start with the consulting and what
you're doing with that? Sure?Okay? So, um, my company
is Space to Travel Consulting and itreally has two I really have two services.
It's and it's just me. I'messentially a solo consultant. UM.
You know, I kind of outsourcesneeded for help, but it's been just
(14:50):
me. And basically, if Iback up a few years to when I
met UM the Virgin Galactic folks andgot connected with the travel agency. UM,
you know, I thought space tourthem was the you know, the
coolest thing you know in the world. And I said, I, you
know, I want to be apart of this movement, and so essentially
formed a travel business around that conceptthat Okay, you know, I want
(15:13):
to help people get to space someday. UM. And I started to learn
about the travel business and UM realized, okay, you know, you know
there are still travel agents they callthemselves travel advisors, who are making money
and travel and UM, you knowit's something that Okay, space tourism is
still a long ways off, butif you know, it might there might
(15:33):
be a bridge there to space tourismin high end travel, and so UM
I got into travel consulting. UM. So that's that's one branch of the
business, essentially, the individual travelconsulting and UM my aim UM eventually is
to help people around their orbital spacetourism experiences. So so getting into orbit,
(15:54):
looking down on the Earth and havingthat realization that the astronauts talk about
Frank I thee over the effect ina book, the interviews about thirty astronauts
and their experiences going to space.Um, you know the experience. My
takeaway was this nothing short of lifechanging and so, um, you know,
figure out how to do that,Sean, if I could stop you
(16:17):
there, because you're already it's alreadyfascinating. How soon do you think it
will be to where that kind oforbital space tourism is actually happening? I
mean you hear we read on thenews about um, you know, Virgin
Galactic maybe he's selling seeds or somebodyselling seeds on on a galactic flight.
(16:41):
Not yet occurring. But where wheredo you see that? Is that in
the next decade, is that thenext five years? Where do you see
that actually starting to take place?Sure? Well, so the very first
private orbital space tourism was dennist Titoin two thousand and one, So it's
(17:02):
already happened. There is somebody's alreadyalready kind of okay? Correct, Um,
seven people have gone on, oneof whom has gone twice and all
of whom have paid between twenty andforty million dollars a ticket with a going
rate yeah of fifty million ticket.So yeah, it's it's a very un
(17:22):
niche I mean, really, theseare entrepreneurs who made a lot of money
and exited their business and had themoney to spend on a ticket, plus
had the time to go to Russiato train for their space flight. Because
NASA wouldn't allow space tourism or spacetourists on the Space Shuttle nor originally in
the US module of the Space station. Um, Russia took a different approach
(17:45):
and UM did allow it. SoUm. But to your question, Charles,
of where I guess I see itgoing? Um, you know,
orbital has been here on a verysmall scale. Sub Orbital is the the
piece has been getting a lot ofpressed. And so for those listeners who
don't know what that means, theedge of space is at sixty two miles
(18:07):
in altitude above our heads, andthat's called the Carmen line. And a
suborbital launch is a launch that willget you above the carbon line at sixty
two miles, but you will notachieve enough velocity to reach orbit. So
orbital velocity is about seventeen thousand,five hundred miles an hour. So it's
(18:29):
a whole nother ball game in termsof launch, vehicle and technical complexity,
and so suborbital is really like youknow, Virgin Galactic is a horizontal takeoff,
horizontal landing, essentially an airplane maddmothership ninety minute experience touchdown. The
takeoff, you're going up to aboutfifty thousand feet where the mothership will drop
(18:51):
the rocket plane, and the rocketplane will then carry you to the edge
of space. You'll get about fourminutes of weightlessness and then you'll you'll land
from where you took off. Andyou have two big competitors in that space.
You've got Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic. Virgin Galactic was the clear leader
for a long time, but theyhad a loss of life accident December of
(19:12):
I think fifteen, which set themback. I wouldn't be surprised at Blue
Origin leap frogs them and becomes thefirst to send private suborbital tourists into space.
But on the orbital side, ifyou listen to what Jeff Bezos and
Blue Origin are saying, you knowthey're his Jeff Bezos vision and ambitions are
(19:34):
fairly grand. I mean, theymay not be Elon musk grand of colonizing
Mars, but bezos vision, asfar as I can tell that they've said,
is a million people living and workingin space. So they have several
large launch vehicles in development, oneof which is the new Glen and so
that will be able to take passengersinto orbit. And they just broke ground
(20:00):
on that facility, you know,a few months ago, and so you
know it's probably it's a number ofyears before the first uh well not first,
but kind of next wave of orbitalspace tourists. But I would expect
suborbital in the next year or twoto launch paying passengers. And so does
(20:22):
that come back to some of theconsulting that you're doing now in that space
is and you talked about, youknow, the travel consulting and so forth
working there. Is that going totranslate into working to attract people that might
be interested in doing that, toto have them purchase those tickets? How
(20:45):
is your consulting going to fit inand work in that Niche sure? So,
really I have I have the twoarms of my consulting business. One
of the is the original leisure travelconsulting and it you know, essentially we
as a long term travel planning approachthat that is geared towards larger, longer
(21:06):
term bucket list experiences and planning fora longer term. Um. The second
pieces, Yeah, I do corporateconsulting because I have a business background in
sales marketing and business development and soum, I actually take both of those
approaches. But again it's all it'sall geared towards you know, how can
I add value in the space industrybut with bigger visions. I mean I
(21:29):
subscribe to that, you know,a million people in space to look down
on the Earth and have that overvieweffect kind of experience. And I look
at you know, similar to theway Peter Diamandas has approached. If you
look at his career in the spaceindustry. Um, you know he couldn't
become an astronaut because of his eyes, and he took a rising tide lifts
(21:49):
all boats approach where he built upHe created the Exprise and that you know
kind of launch virgin galacticum indirectly,but you know, so I give the
corporate consult thing with a couple ofclients, and um, we're trying to
build the space industry here in Seattle, UM to the kind of rising tide
lifts all boats approach, and thatthat's part of what space entrepreneurs does,
(22:12):
which is the second, you know, a piece of what I do.
Sure. And before we get tothere, you just mentioned you know,
you're in Seattle, and I haveheard and I'd like you to elaborate kind
of on what's happening there, becauseit sounds like, you know, in
addition to the uh you know,the the Cape Canaveral or California, southern
(22:37):
California and now you know SpaceX justjust launch from, of course the historic
launch site. But Seattle, theNorthwest is creating its own seems to be
space kind of launch hub. Isthat correct? That's absolutely correct, Charles.
(22:57):
Um. You know, we wethink a lot about this and what,
um, what are we good athere in Seattle? UM as opposed
to other space hubs that you mentionedFlorida and southern California and Colorado, and
um, you know, it goeson and on, and I think that
um, it probably starts with Seattle'sspace legacy and that dies directly into Boeing
(23:22):
and things like the lunar rover beingdesigned here. UM. The Kent Space
Center, where a lot of Bowing'searly space work was done. And so
you've got the space legacy, andthey've got Bowing itself here though they don't
do as much space work here anymore. But I think that the result of
(23:44):
that has been a lot of peoplewho grew up with a little bit of
space legacy. I mean, you'vegot the space Needle and you know also
known as Space City, you know, so you have a lot of people
grew up and want to be apart and remember that legacy, or we
taught that legacy without lot of umyou know, old space meaning Bowings and
nassas, those type of opportunities aroundhere, but with a with a pent
(24:07):
up demand. UM. So you'vegot the aerospace infrastructure of Boeing and its
suppliers. And then you've got theIT infrastructure with Microsoft and Amazon, and
I've got Facebook and Google and Appleand everybody's setting up satellite offices here.
UM. So we see those twopieces as a big asset that we can
(24:29):
we can kind of get a bridgetogether to start forming the space industry.
UM. I think if you lookat the culture of Seattle and the history
from a startup standpoint, UM,you know, there are Seattle has been
very good at incubating new industries andcreating um kind of industry leading companies as
a result. So you know,actually not a lot of people know it's
(24:52):
but ups started here in Seattle.It's it's it moved a number of years
ago. But of course you've gotcost and Starbucks and Amazon and Microsoft and
sure Noraids from the list goes on. And so I think we feel here
in Seattle that the space industry isthe next great industry that Seattle will help
(25:15):
to incubate, of course, alongwith the Bay Area and southern California.
But you know, we don't havea NASSA center here. We're kind of
isolated in the top of the country. And you know, some people say,
ok, it's a thought leadership community. I mean, you've got Planetarty
Resources wanting to mine asteroids up here, and you've got Blue Origin. So
it's I've been to the same conferencein the Bay Area and in Seattle,
(25:38):
and it is very different space cultures. But you know, we kind of
hope that we will be able todo the same thing that there will be
you know, one of these companiestoday will be the next Microsoft, and
then it will spawn an ecosystem ofcompanies and so on and so forth.
So sure, now you mentioned somethingthat just now that's interesting, So that
(26:00):
they're different space cultures between where youare and in California. Is there really
a difference in the dynamics between thepeople, I mean, in the in
the industry between those two locations.Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I
definitely think so, Charles. Imean, you know, I think you
have to split California into the BayArea in southern California. From a space
(26:23):
standpoint, um, you know,I think the Bay Area has already produced
the most the most significant true startups. I mean, I think you have
to look at the space industry andseparate a startup from am ultra high net
individual lead backed startup and a youknow, a true private equity funded startup.
(26:47):
I think the Bay Area has done, you know, the latter better.
I mean, you've got Spire andSkybox and Planet, um, you
know, big acquisitions, big financecingnumbers, um. So the Bay Area
it's culture and capital infrastructure lends itselfwell to that. And I think they're
(27:08):
they've been on the forefront of thesatellite industry. Um, you know,
Earth observation and that kind of thing. When you look at South in California,
Boeing has a big presence down thereand a lot of their their satellite
work has been down there. UM. And Lockheed a lot of old space
presence in southern California. UM,and some of those facilities and talent led
(27:32):
SpaceX to locate there. And thenyou have you know, Mojave Air and
Spaceport nearby and Van Deenberg Air ForceBase, and um, you have launched
launch launch capacity in California where youdon't generally in the Bay Area or Seattle.
Um, you know, um,Seattle, I'm sorry, the Bay
Area in southern California have uh NASAcenters so um. Yeah, it's each
(27:57):
brings its own set. Sure.Well, and let's talk about the setup
in Seattle again. Where you arein Space on Entrepreneurs. How has that
been doing. You started that asa kind of is that a networking group
bringing people together that have shared interestto kind of help build up the space
(28:18):
industry in the Seattle area. Yeah, that's great, Charles. So let's
see, I think we just hadour three year anniversary, so February twenty
fourteen, and you know, Ihad I had been going to meet up
since I was in college and hadrun a meetup called Bellvey Entrepreneur Meetup which
Belvi's a suburb of Seattle for thosewho don't know, and you know,
(28:42):
it wasn't quite getting enough space.I mean I realized I really like space,
and you know, after starting thetravel business and thought, you know,
I want to do more. SoI thought, well, I'll just
throw this up there and see whathappens. And you know, I first
meetup was just a few people,and I think it was three people on
the meetup and our very next meetupwas about eighty people. And so.
(29:07):
And when you say meet up,just for those that may not be familiar,
you're referring to the website or wherethe meetup where it's people can find.
Different groups of people are different organizationsthat have their interests and there the
meetups are just gatherings scheduled that thatyou can come participate in and talk with
(29:29):
people that have shared interests. Isthat correct? Correct? It is that
the company meet up and meetup dotcom and so, yes, that that
was our original platform. And youknow, they the beauty of meetup is
they do essentially all the marketing youdo pay an organizer fee, but you
know, they have helped us growtremendously. UM. So you know,
we went to we had eighty peopleat the first event. We had Eric
(29:52):
Anderson, who was the founder ofone of the founders of the space Adventuests,
who sent those seven paying passengers UMspeak and we I would say,
we've went from periods of UM youknow, slow and steady growth to exponential
growth and where at six hundred membersnow wow, yeah, And I think
I never thought that this group wouldbe as big as Belfe Entrepreneur meetup because
(30:14):
it's more niche. But I reallythink it speaks to UM the you know
built in excitement here at seable inthe future of the industry in that area.
It's fantastic and it's fantastic for youto be in that kind of space,
you know, taking a step backwith your consulting and taking that leap
(30:37):
and making that effort to not onlystart the consulting business, but then also
to create this meetup to get involvedin associated with people in that industry like
minded and so forth. What didyou benefit from most, would you say,
having worked previously in all things,having worked at Microsoft, what do
(31:02):
you think were or are the mostimportant attributes for your success so far in
doing that, and that might beshared or that might be you know that
that an entrepreneur should look for tohelp them succeed. Sure, I guess
(31:23):
I. You know, the interestin entrepreneurship drove me to become educated in
entrepreneurship. And that included, youknow, all of the networking events and
seminars that I could attend on entrepreneurshipso that you know, I could be
an entrepreneur myself and help support otherentrepreneurs. And that goes back a long
(31:44):
ways, you know pretty much,I would say when I arrived to college,
if not before, But I thinklike to go back to what we
touched on in terms of reaching outto people. Um, when I was
in college, I think what whatstarted it? How I got how I
realized the power of reaching out topeople was I went I went to school
(32:07):
in San Diego and went to seeit was a tie of in the INDUS
entrepreneurs. They had an event downdown near lax and drove down there and
it was Nolan Bushnell, who isthe founder of Pity, you know,
and he spoke to a fairly smallgroup and here I am I don't know,
twenty twenty one years old, andhe spoke and I, you know,
(32:28):
I was a little bit nervous,so I went up to a mass
afterwards and I said, that wasreally inspiring story and it was very friendly.
I was like, wow, Ican you know, you can meet
anybody you want, almost anywhere youwant. I mean we were in a
little hotel conference room near Lax,seemingly a random location for you know,
I mean, this is one ofthe fathers of the modern video game industry.
(32:49):
And you know, he told thestory of of an early Atari employee
who came to him and for fiftyasked for fifty thousand dollars for thirty percent
of his new company. And guesswhat that company was? What's uh it
was? It was Apple So itwas Steve Jobs. Yeah, early employee
of Atari um and no one unfortunatelyturned him down. He said that was
(33:14):
one of the bigger regrets in mylife. But in any case, that
kind of got me going on,Okay, you can meet anybody at any
time. And you know, Ithink, uh, this industry being new,
it's easier to meet people. Andum, I think with my background
as a business person, you lookat the space industry. It's very engineering
(33:36):
centric, rightfully. So, butI can't hold a candle. Uh when
when you talk about orbital mechanics oryou know, you name a propulsion,
I just I know I can't.I mean, I'm trying to be educated.
And but my strength, I think, um is being what I'm trying
(33:57):
to build my strength around is beingable to connect people. Know what people
who are good at you know,who to connect them with because you know,
I think a lot of these engineersare technically brilliant, but thinking of
other issues that might prevent them frommaking their idea real. So yeah,
and and so in that effort ofof trying to help people and others,
(34:22):
who who is your ideal client?Who are you trying to reach out to
right now? Who's your ideal customerfor the you know space of travel consulting?
Sure? Sure, Um, youknow I have a fairly um tight
bandwidth now based on my current clientwork. UM, I would say,
(34:43):
you know, at some point Iwould love the opportunity to work with Blue
Origin, you know, um,in a in a sales marketing business development
capacity. Um. You know,I think what they're doing is awesome.
Um. You know, I Iwork with a company called RBC Signals UM
right now and and dedicating a lotof my time to what they're trying to
do, and that is really um, you know, quote unquote launch the
(35:09):
small satellite revolution, so low costsatellites, UM. And they're trying to
address the problem of how do thesecompanies get their data from space down to
the ground. And so there's acouple bottlenecks to as I see it,
a true explosion, you know,no pun intended of you know, the
(35:30):
space the new space movement and costlaunch is one. Uh. And then
you know, I think making satellitesuseful, what are they going to do
and how are they going to gettheir data down are key pieces of that.
So that's what I'm focused on.UM. You know, I serve
individual travel clients, UM. Youknow, I think I'm looking for people
(35:53):
who are adventurous, who are openminded on the individual travel side, who
how you travel? And then youknow, on the corporate side. You
know, probably any serious entrepreneur lookingto make waves in the space industry and
probably looks at space as much asan economic opportunity. And because it's because
(36:17):
it's a movement, sure, andit sounds like it's an exciting movement,
not only nationwide, but particularly inyour region there in the Northwest, particularly
Seattle. It sounds like it's justa fantastic place to be immersed. And
so somebody who are wanting to join, like your next meetup or to be
(36:38):
a part of Space Entrepreneurs, whatdo they have to do for that?
Where do they go and how oftendo you meet? Sure? So we
still use meetup as our primary platform. And so if you're on meetup,
or if you're not on meetup,you just search Space Entrepreneurs. If you're
(37:00):
not in the Seattle area, youwant to make sure that you're you know,
location radius is wide enough to findus because a meaningful tailor it to
your physical location. So if you'renot in the area but want to kind
of keep tabs, or if youfind yourself in Seattle from time to time,
you can join. It's free.We meet at least monthly, sometimes
(37:22):
twice a month, and uh yeah, so we've got we meet on a
variety of topics and event types.That sounds exciting, and I wish that
I was actually closer in physical proximitiesso I could participate as well. But
there's another way of obviously, communicatingand so forth. And if someone we're
(37:45):
wanting to reach out to you,you know, where can they find out
what's what's going on with you?I see you have quite a number of
followers on LinkedIn. How did youget so many followers or was that just
a surprise one morning? Yeah?No, I uh, I think that
(38:06):
that again goes back to the reachingout thing. And um, you know,
I think I would like to knowas many people in the space industry
as I can, so that onceI start publishing content more regularly, you
know, I will be able tohelp more people. And so I mean
(38:27):
a lot of that is organic growth, just going out and networking, and
then you know, you get abusiness card and you add it to LinkedIn
when you get home, and someof that is okay, well this is
a second degree friend or this personis in the strategic role with this company
and adding them and see if theyaccept And you know, some people there
are different philosophies there, but Itend to like a wider network in that
(38:49):
sense. And so have you haveyou found people that reached out to you
through LinkedIn? Yeah? Yeah,I UM, I would say I do
more of the reaching out, butcertainly, um, you know, I
haven't had a lot of people reachout directly through LinkedIn, UM, but
(39:14):
I have made some incredible connections withum astronauts, former astronauts on LinkedIn.
I mean I was really chatting.Yeah, I was chatting with Story Musgrave
the other day, and I knowI often have to pinch myself thinking like
is this am I really doing?This? Is this is really who I'm
talking to? And Michael Lopez allAgria, you know, he's the I
(39:35):
think he's the American record holder forspacewalks. Uh. You know, I
was able to contact him and talkto talk to him about events here in
Seattle, and um so, yeah, I have a number of astronaut postagree
astronaut connections and part of that's kindof for fun, but part of that
is, you know, these arereal connections and people I'm talking to and
(39:57):
um so, yeah, I backto back, it goes back. You
just have to try, right,you reach out and you connect and you
never know who. They're only humanon the other side, and you never
know who you might end up connectingto. We do have some people listening
and one of the questions that's comein for you, if I can read
(40:19):
it here is how long did ittake for you to take, you know,
to begin with your idea, wantingto shift, wanting to pivot as
the term is often used, fromwhere you were to the new industry,
being in the space industry. Sohow long did it take you to move
from your idea and then going tothe industry conference and being excited to actually
(40:45):
having your business up and running.Sure, so I think I have tried
to go back and map this thiskind of path and trajectory and um,
you know. I went to anEntrepreneur magazine conference in Miami, Florida in
two thousand and nine and I metIvan Meisner, founder of the NI Business
(41:06):
Network International, and he gave aspeech and he talked about knowing Richard Branson
personally. So I'm like, okay, you know, at that point I
thought, okay, maybe he canhelp me get a job at Virgin Galactic.
And he did put me in touchwith think the head of HR for
Virgin Galactic. At the time.This was before I went to that conference,
and at the time they said,well, we're a small team in
(41:27):
London, you know, we're notreally hiring. But as far as I
can tell, that was when Iwas first starting to think seriously about getting
into the industry to where I amnow, I'm essentially full time, you
know, in the industry. Imean, I'll I kind of live,
eat, sleep and breathe space andso. But it has not been a
(41:49):
It's been a gradually increase and arealization and you know, due diligence and
forming a mission and vision statement andthat kind of thing. So do you
think that a term into you know, you mentioned one of the the one
of the impetus or an impetus foryour kind of thinking about where you wanted
(42:10):
to go. Where you wanted tobe was your family. And has that
worked your advantage then? Or haveyou found as many people in the startup,
you know, starting a new business, being an entrepreneur, it often
takes more time away from from otherthings that they'd like to be doing.
(42:31):
So how has that played out inyour transition? Sure, that's a yeah,
that's a good question. I wouldsay that having children did serve as
a catalyst to ask the question,you know, what do I want to
do with my life that will bemost meaningful? Um, you know,
(42:53):
I think maybe if I was onlythinking about myself, I don't know,
you know, I don't know whatlike what have been like, but you
know, I think wanting to setan example led me to think about that
question, or to think more seriouslyabout that question, as opposed to just
well, I may do that someday, especially at my age now. My
(43:15):
wife works full time and I workfull time, and we have three children,
all under eight, and so it'scertainly we don't have a lot of
extra time. And could I haveaccelerated my path maybe though if you look
at space traditional historical space industry development, it's you know, it's often a
(43:37):
multi year proposition, and so youknow that slow, that slow development of
the industry has allowed me to kindof position myself and think about how to
add value and where to position myselfand and that kind of thing. So
yeah, and I think that,you know, going to the children factor,
I have children on my own aswell, and I think there's a
(44:00):
cool factor, at least from myperspective, a cool factor. And what
you're doing right that that you are, that you stepped out, that that
you're doing what you're passionate about andspace space is cool and I have to
give you credit on that. AndI think that in the end, you
know, our kids. They dolook up to us and they see us
(44:22):
as examples. And I think it'sreally um, you know, I think
it's really a great thing what you'vedone and that you're having the success and
that you're out there and following yourpassion. Here's another question that we received
somebody. What was the biggest challengeyou faced in your career so far and
(44:45):
how did you address it? Andassuming that you did overcome it, how
did you overcome it? Yeah?I mean that's pretty pretty simple, but
a but a great question, andthat is how do you make money at
what you're passionate about? And youknow, how do you make money in
(45:05):
the new space industry? And Ithink, you know, when I look
at what I have done and thepath I've taken and the path that others
are trying to take, who areyou know, maybe just getting started,
for example, somebody right out ofcollege. You know, in the new
space industry have a small amount ofcompanies, you have listed employment opportunities,
(45:30):
which I think are the tip ofthe iceberg, and then you have everything
else. And when an industry likethis is being built, that the opportunities
aren't always seen or obvious and haveto be developed in alternative methods. So
for example, you know, myoriginal approach was to try to work for
Virgin Galactic and you know, theydidn't have any opportunities. Maybe they do
(45:51):
now, I don't know. Butinstead of saying, okay, well there
just isn't anything here for me,there was and I forget who said it,
but it's, uh, you know, if you can't find a way,
make one. And so I thought, okay, I'm an entrepreneur.
If I'm an entrepreneur, and Ithink I am, and I want to
be you know, um, that'sthe approach I should take here. And
(46:13):
uh So instead of saying, okay, well there isn't any traditional employment,
there's no way to make money,I'll kind of plant these seeds. And
that approach has worked where uh,you know, all the opportunities I've I've
gotten are not listed, are notobvious. Um, but certainly you're there,
and I firmly believe that there arethere's plenty, uh from what I've
(46:35):
heard of, additional opportunity that couldbe capitalized on by the right person.
Um. And so, but yeah, trying to make money when you have
a family, I mean, ifyou're if you're if you're young. Uh,
maybe that's not such an issue.You can, you can experiment a
little bit more, but without thefamily, you've got those responsibilities. You
(46:57):
not only have to balance the pursuitof the passion, but to make sure
that the food's on the table right. And and it's great when it's great
too, as you've described, I'myou know, speaking from my own experience,
it's great when we have a spouseis also working that that we're all
contributing to the team. Because youknow, I certainly do appreciate UM that
(47:24):
I couldn't do what I do withoutwithout the support there of the whole family.
And I'm sure that it's helped havingthat that support. UM with your
with your spouse working as well interms of allowing you to build this because
it you're right, if we wereif you're younger, single male or female,
(47:50):
UM, you have more you havemore ability to accept risk in going
out and pursuing things, which isall the more admirable than that that you
have done this because it's that muchmore difficult. I think as we get
older, we get more responsibilities withour family or our children, UM,
(48:10):
our spouses want our you know,have time, expectations for us. Uh.
So, yeah, I hear completelywhere you're coming from. Yeah,
and I would. I would.Charles Um brought up a good reminder.
Yes, I would not be ableto do this without my wife. Um.
If you're listening, Eurie, thankyou and I love you for that.
(48:34):
Um. And you know, Ithink that what's been also rewarding along
those lines, as my daughter,I think has met three astronauts. Oh
cool, you know, yeah,I think a couple. I think I've
met in person, like eight orten, and you know, I've emailed
with a number of others. Butum, you know that's been fun.
(48:54):
You know, I thought I didn'tmean an astronaut till I was I don't
know how old. But you know, my wife the other day finally said,
you know, I kind of likespace. It's really it's very diverse,
it's very international. Uh. Andso you know, be able to
bring those benefits home has been reallyrewarding. So well. Talking about bringing
(49:15):
experiences home, you know, oneof the last questions that I have for
you, and then I want toopen it up to anything else that you'd
like to share. But are thereany particular books or are there any particular
people in particular resources that you've particularlyfound guiding or helpful, or something that
(49:36):
that you would recommend as somebody elseor that's been inspirational. Is there a
book like that for you? MI read a lot, I listen.
I don't read very much. Ilistened to a lot of books, um,
and I listened to a lot alot of space related books. So,
um, well, what's one ofthe best space related books that you've
(49:59):
listened to? Then? Yeah,I think uh for for um, for
the average listener. Mike Massimino.He's a former NASA astronaut. His book
called Space Man. Uh you know, we met him, my wife and
I met him and his book.He's got a PhD. He's from New
(50:21):
York. But he is one ofthe most like down to earth, humble,
funny, uh you know, wellspoken people, and he has some
incredible stories from uh you know,how he made it to NASA, from
his childhood and and then his experiencesin space, uh, working on Hubble.
(50:43):
I mean it's just it's it's avery easy listen. So that I
found that super inspirational and entertaining,which is somewhat sometimes a rare combination when
you're listening to astronaut biographies, Butyeah, that that's on the space side.
I love Shoe Doog by Phil Knightfor the newer a startup inspiration.
I mean just you know, clawnand scratching and getting out there and just
(51:07):
running with no pun intended with acrazy idea. So well, those are
two good recommendations that I think thatwe should all probably go out and put
either on our bookshelf, well readfirst and then put on the bookshelf,
or load into the kindle or audibleformat, as the case may be.
(51:30):
Is there anything that you would likeI really appreciate you being a part of
the show here, Sean. Isthere anything that you'd like to share with
the listeners, you know, whetherit's live now or they can continue to
listen to the broadcast as many peopledo later on, that you want to
share that you found particularly important inyour relaunch of your career into space.
(51:58):
Sure, I would just Charles thatyou know, traditionally, you know,
I'm going to make a plug forspace. Space has traditionally been almost a
soul the name of government and sciencefiction. And you know, I think
it's space by nature is vast andexpensive and dangerous, and you know,
things that don't allow people to reallythink about space in a practical context.
(52:23):
But when you think about your everydaylife, I mean GPS and Internet and
all of the space technologies that weuse in our daily lives, most of
them we're not really aware of,and how much space influences our lives in
terms of how you know, thegovernment Space program meaning NASA has has developed
(52:44):
those and how they have benefited us. And just think about what private industry
will be able to do in thatcontext, and then what that means for
the individual. I mean, ifyou if you think about space and you
you like science fiction growing up,or you were inspired by the Apollo,
the moon landing or whatever it mightbe, just take another look at that
(53:07):
and see if you know there mightbe a more practical application for that idea
than you because I think you lookat Elon wanting to get a million people
to colonize Mars. I mean spacetraditionally was this, you know, the
sole domain of you know, thefive hundred people who have ever gone.
But one day it's going to befor everyone, and you know it's going
(53:30):
to be more like Star Trek.We're going to. Space is not you
know, it's a little bit moretaken for granted, a little more accessible.
So I feel that now is thetime to kind of start thinking about
what is it going to mean tobe you know, in my life,
you couldn't have said it better.I think the space is a wonderful frontier
(53:53):
and the way that you just describedthat it's going to be more accessible to
so many more of particularly as you'vetalked today about Jeff Bezos idea of I
think you said, you know,his ambition of a million a colony or
a place of a million out therein space living of course Elon Musk talking
(54:16):
about Mars and moving beyond the governmentto really and I would hope that it
becomes a global endeavor. I meanwe see that with people going to the
International Space Station and that it isan international endeavor there. And it sounds
like from the community that you've describedwith space entrepreneurs in Seattle and that hub,
(54:39):
but generally the space community is reallyinternational and cooperative. In nature,
human potential, there's no limits.So I'm excited to see where that goes.
And I'm actually excited to also seehow your business endeavors set over the
(55:00):
next um, you know, severalmonths year, And i'd love to have
you back, Sean. It's reallybeen a pleasure to have you on Startup
Radio. Great, Charles, Ivery much appreciate you having me and it's
it's you know, great to talkspace and happy to come back on and
hope that I will. I continueto have good news to report and you
(55:21):
know, always happy to update folkson what's happening in the space world.
I look forward to coming back.That sounds great, And to all of
our listeners, this is Startup Radio. It's part of the stem Daddy and
network. I'd like to mention ourtwo sisters shows, Gaming Chords talking about
the gaming industry and STEM voices,those voices in the STEM science, technology,
(55:46):
engineering and math, and that kindof overlapped in our discussion today,
of course with Sean McClinton of Spaceto Travel Consulting in Space Entrepreneurs meet Up
Space on Entrepreneurs meet Up you canjoin them in the Seattle area. Please
check that out. I'd also liketo thank our producer, Lindsay Kramer,
(56:08):
and of course the music that Ibegin and end the show with and have
for going on five years, DianaRain's So Sexy Low Fade, one of
our favorite musicians here Sean again,thanks so much. I wish you a
great week and I'll look forward tohaving you again. Great. Thank you,
Charleston, thank you so Yep.Never no a NAP. A guy
(56:57):
knows more isn't always better, unlesswe're talking about full sized vans. These
beasts do more than get you fromA to B. They have so much
space a man can live in it. With shag carpeting, water bed and
a sweet lava lamp. These mobileabodes have all the comforts of home,
with quality parts and plenty of NAPA. No how you can keep the original
tiny house running longer, stronger,that's NAPA. No HOWA know how
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