Earth is not enough

Summary

The Times Tech Podcast – “Earth is not Enough”

Episode Date: September 24, 2024
Host(s): Danny Fortson (from San Francisco), Katie Prescott (from London)
Series: Tales of Silicon Valley, Episode 5

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Times Tech Podcast, “Earth is not Enough,” explores the renewed race to colonize the Moon and the rise of a new era in private space exploration. With insights from leading entrepreneurs, engineers, and would-be astronauts, Danny Fortson investigates why billionaires are fixated on expanding humanity’s presence beyond Earth, discusses the economics driving this new space rush, and asks: Why now, and what’s really at stake?

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Key Topics & Segments

1. The Historical Lull and New Beginnings (02:05–06:13)

• Recap of the “Golden Age”:
  Danny reviews how the Apollo missions once fired imaginations, but after 1972, enthusiasm waned due to cost, risk, and tragedy (Challenger 1986, Columbia 2003).
  • “Since then, the surface of the moon has been untouched by human boots. The ends didn't justify the means.” (02:15)
• America’s Human Spaceflight in ‘Deep Freeze’:
  With the grounding of the Space Shuttle (2011), American manned missions stopped.
• Billionaire Moonshots:
  Naveen Jain, Jeff Bezos, Sir Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and the late Paul Allen emerge with bold proposals for lunar settlement.
  • “I absolutely believe in 10 years we're going to be having a permanent settlement on the moon.” – Naveen Jain (04:12)

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2. The Billionaire Mindset (06:13–08:36)

• Why Aim For the Moon?
  Is this the “ultimate ego trip,” or something more?
  • “If you're that type of person who's done the impossible before, is settling a celestial body 240,000 miles away actually that crazy of an idea?” – Danny Fortson (08:04)
• Potential Benefits:
  Speculation that off-world colonies could provide economic opportunity, “clean slate” for governance, and even social laboratories for humanity.

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3. Virgin Galactic: First Steps and the Space Tourism Model (06:49–11:45)

• Scene Setting:
  Mojave desert, Virgin Galactic HQ—where Branson’s team prepares for commercial suborbital flights.
  • “A single 90 minute round trip will set you back $250,000. Branson is confident customers will be willing.” (07:38)
• Technical Innovations:
  Mike Moses (Virgin Galactic Ops, ex-NASA) explains the White Knight 2/Unity launch system.
  • “You've got to ride a rocket at Mach 3 to get there… that's a good part of the ride.” – Mike Moses (09:47)
• Milestones:
  Recalling Burt Rutan’s Ansari X Prize win (2004) as the start of private spaceflight competition.
• Broader Vision:
  George Whitesides (CEO, Virgin Galactic): tourism is only the beginning—moon missions are “four steps down the road.” (11:22)

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4. Other Players: Blue Origin and SpaceX (11:45–13:36)

• Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin:
  Unveiled “Blue Moon” lunar lander; commercial test flights to start soon—goal: “This time to stay.” (12:01)
• Elon Musk’s SpaceX:
  Falcon Heavy is powerful enough for lunar missions—the most capable rocket since the Apollo era.
• Comparison to Apollo:
  Then: national, public-sector driven, existential threats (Cold War). Now: billionaire-funded, opportunity-driven, private innovation.

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5. Why Now? The Economics and Technology Shift (15:08–17:21)

• Rockets & Water:
  • Rockets: Cost has “collapsed tenfold” due to tech advancements and NASA's embrace of private partnerships.
  • Water: Discovery of massive lunar ice in 2009—game changer for lunar habitability.
    • “A simple cost threshold for setting up a little base on the Moon… has changed from hundreds of billions of dollars to maybe a few billion dollars.” – Will Marshall (16:57)
    • “There's enough [water] for tens or even hundreds of millions of people to be there for hundreds of thousands of years.” – Will Marshall (17:32)
• Private Opportunity:
  Individuals in the Bay Area could now theoretically fund a lunar base—costs have democratized (for the ultra-wealthy).

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6. Motivations: Survival, Economics, and New Societies (18:04–19:37)

• Backup Planet:
  Moon as a “Plan B” against extinction events (asteroids).
• Societal Experimentation:
  Could be a testing ground for new governance systems.
  • “What rules are we going to use? ... Do we allow war? Under what circumstances? ... Clean slate opportunity is a tremendous one.” (18:36)
• Historical Parallels:
  Birth of the American Republic cited as a previous ‘clean slate’ opportunity—moon as the next.

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7. The Visionaries’ Perspectives (19:37–21:49)

• Jeff Bezos’ Vision:
  • Necessity from impending resource exhaustion on Earth.
    • “We will run out of energy on Earth. This is just arithmetic… we have unlimited resources [off-Earth].” (19:47)
  • Proposes O’Neill Colonies: human population could reach 1 trillion, with Earth as an “interstellar suburb.”
    • “These are very large structures… miles on end, and they hold a million people or more each… This is Maui on its best day. All year long. No rain, no storms, no earthquakes.” (20:59)
    • “Earth ends up zoned residential and light industry… But heavy industry and all the polluting industry, all the things that are damaging our planet, those will be done off Earth.” (21:49)
• Danny’s Wry Tone:
  “Would you expect anything less from the guy who brought us Prime Day?” (21:49)

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8. The Human Element: Early Astronauts and Real Risks (22:04–26:57)

• Virgin Galactic’s Test Pilots and Customers:
  • 600+ people have already paid $250,000 for a ticket; some waited a decade.
  • Michael Gammerl (customer): “It’s the adventure of a lifetime, and I’m not worried about things like dangerous or scary stuff like that.” (22:55)
• Tragedy and Perseverance:
  • 2014: VSS Enterprise disaster; test pilot killed.
  • Richard Stiber (future customer): “Even though people were dying and the engine was explosing, I didn't ask for the money back… I want to ride a rocket.” (24:20)
• Astronaut’s Awe:
  • Space changes people; awe-inspiring views, a sense of the planet’s fragility.
    • “Going into space gives you a sense of scale of the planet… the atmosphere is incredibly thin. And then you’re staring into this, you know, empty blackness.” – Dave Mackay (test pilot, paraphrased, 25:40)
  • Beth Moses (first non-pilot with commercial astronaut wings): “Space is indescribable. But I think Earth was wearing her diamonds.” (27:06)
  • On colonization: “I think the moon should be colonized. I'd love to go live there for a while. Sure. I think the human spirit is inconquerable…” (27:32)

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9. Reality Check: Who's Likely to Succeed? (27:44–28:38)

• Virgin Galactic’s Crowdfunding:
  $150 million pre-paid for tickets.
• Moon Express:
  Early pioneer now “failed to launch”—missed NASA contracts, staff cuts.
• Blue Origin/Bezos:
  Jeff Bezos is seen as the likeliest to deliver.
  • “Please, make no mistake about this. Earth is the best planet. We must have a future for our grandchildren… We cannot let them fall prey to stasis and rationing… you will see amazing things happen. And it will happen fast.” (28:38)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Naveen Jain (Moon Express):
  “I absolutely believe in 10 years we're going to be having a permanent settlement on the moon… in the next 20, there's going to be a baby born on the moon.” (04:12)
• Beth Moses (Virgin Galactic):
  "I've not heard language to describe what I just experienced… closest thing I've ever had to a spiritual epiphany." (06:23)
• Will Marshall (Planet, ex-NASA):
  “There's enough [lunar water] for tens or even hundreds of millions of people to be there for hundreds of thousands of years.” (17:32)
• Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin):
  “For all of human history, the Earth has felt big to us. That's not true anymore. The Earth is no longer big. Humanity is big.” (20:14)
• Beth Moses (on astronaut wings):
  "Mine happened to be number 007, which I quite love." (26:57)
• Richard Stiber (future astronaut):
  "Even though people were dying and the engine was explosing, I didn't ask for the money back.... I want to ride a rocket." (24:20)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:05 — Recap of Apollo, shuttle era, and historic context
• 04:01 — Naveen Jain’s “eighth continent” vision
• 06:49 — Mojave setting / Virgin Galactic intro
• 08:36 — Interview: Mike Moses, Virgin Galactic (launch process explained)
• 11:45 — Blue Origin, SpaceX, and the economics of moonshot
• 15:08 — Virgin Galactic ‘by hand’; new technology & water discovery
• 16:57 — Will Marshall on cost & water
• 18:36 — Governance, society, and experimentation in space
• 19:47 — Bezos’ logic of finite resources and new habitats
• 20:59 — O’Neill colonies described
• 22:04 — The human angle: customer stories, test pilots, danger
• 27:32 — Would a real astronaut move to the Moon?
• 28:38 — Bezos: “Earth is the best planet” and closing vision

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Episode Tone and Style

• Richly narrative and personal, blending on-the-ground reporting with big-picture analysis.
• Wry humor and skepticism, particularly in reference to billionaire ambition.
• Awe and almost spiritual reverence from actual astronauts and space tourists.
• Optimism about humanity’s “inconquerable” spirit, leavened with realism about the risks and economics.

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Summary

“Earth is Not Enough” delivers a sweeping look at the new space race, charting the convergence of technological progress, billionaire ambition, existential risk, and the lure of new horizons. Through expert voices and first-hand encounters, the episode asks whether a Moon base is just ego-fuelled fantasy, or a logical next step for our restless species—right as the practical barriers to getting there seem to fall.

Transcript

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[Danny Fortson]

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[Danny Fortson]

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[Danny Fortson]

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[ServiceNow Representative]

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[Narrator/Interviewer]

Roger Nail.

[Danny Fortson]

50 years ago, it happened.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

[Danny Fortson]

Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. It fired the imaginations of people around the world, and it opened a new era of space exploration. Kind of. After that summer day in 1969, there were just five other manned missions to the moon, the Last one in 1972. Since then, the surface of the moon has been untouched by human boots. The ends didn't justify the means. Attention turned to developing the space shuttle. But the cost and tragedy began to chip away at America's verve for the great beyond. First, on January 28, 1986, the shuttle

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Challenger had blown up 73 seconds into its flight. Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation.

[Danny Fortson]

Obviously a major malfunction. And in 2003, the engines running normally, three good IBUs.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Columbia, Houston, Comcheck,

[Danny Fortson]

Columbia Houston UHF Commcheck.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

My fellow Americans, at 9 o' clock this morning, mission control in Houston lost contact with our space shuttle Columbia. There are no survivors.

[Danny Fortson]

Flights were suspended for two years after the Columbia disaster. And in 2011, Barack Obama grounded the space shuttle for good. America's human space flight program was put into deep freeze. The first time I met Naveen Jain, I thought about all this. It was a couple years ago and I was in New Orleans sitting on a couch in a giant convention center listening to this fast talking software billionaire tell me about his next big idea. It was called Moon Express, where going

[Narrator/Interviewer]

to the moon simply becomes as easy as hopping on a Greyhound bus.

[Danny Fortson]

He thinks the moon will become the eighth continent. You believe that that's.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I absolutely believe in 10 years we're going to be having a permanent settlement on the moon. I believe in the next, next 20, there's going to be baby born on the moon from the people who are living on the moon and they're going to be parents who are going to be looking up and saying we come from that planet.

[Danny Fortson]

I thought he was nuts. A rich guy looking for a metaphorical mountain to climb. Turns out I was wrong. It was a handful of rich guys. Jeff Bezos, Sir Richard Branson, Elon Musk. And until his passing in 2018, Microsoft co founder Paul Allen have all set their sights on the moon. And not just to visit, but to stay. A new space race has broken out. The goal to colonize the moon. And they may just pull it off. The most obvious question, why? Last week we dived into the dystopian side of our technocentric era. Homelessness, social division, drug addiction. We have a lot of problems here on Earth. So why risk life and limb to go into outer space? Is this just the ultimate ego trip? I wanted to find out. So I booked a flight to Burbank in Southern California, rented a Ford Focus and drove dead east past the Joshua trees in Tumbleweed and into the Mojave Desert. Foreign. I'm Danny Fortson, West Coast Correspondent for the Sunday Times and this is Tales of Silicon Valley, an eight part documentary series on the tech industry. This is episode five, Earth is Not Enough. What everybody's trying to figure out is, you know, what are the right economic models for the expansion of humanity into space. Because I mean, it's inevitable, right? I mean we are going out into space. There's no question.

[Acast Host]

We could try out new political and governance systems, how to organize society that could be quite radically different and that might have benefits for people on the Earth.

[Beth Moses]

I've not heard language to describe what I just experienced. Well, it's the closest thing I've ever had to some type of spiritual epiphany.

[Danny Fortson]

Good morning. Hi. How you doing?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Good, how are you?

[Danny Fortson]

Great. I'm here to see Alana.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

What's your name?

[Danny Fortson]

Danny.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Danny. Okay.

[Danny Fortson]

The Mojave desert is dry and monochrome. Its most famous landmark is an airline boneyard. Hundreds of out of service airliners awaiting their fate. With a population of just 4,000 people, Mojave is the perfect place to test jets and rockets. Locals don't flinch at the sonic booms. It is home to Virgin Galactic, Sir Richard Branson's space company. Galactic is on the leading edge of the moon race. Its first step, tourism. It is building a fleet of spaceships to shoot people into orbit, give them a few minutes of weightlessness and then bring them back to earth. A single 90 minute round trip will set you back $250,000. Branson is confident customers will be willing.

[Acast Host]

People only live once and you know they'd love the chance to go to space, which NASA and the Russian governments would never be interested in letting people do. And they can afford it. Why shouldn't they have the pleasure of being able to do it? And it could be the beginning, the start of people being able to go to the moon on a regular basis. It could be one day the start of people going and staying in a hotel off the moon.

[Danny Fortson]

It sounds outlandish, but I'm going to ask you to take a moment and think like a billionaire. Someone who has faced long odds, succeeded when no one thought it was possible, and reaped the rewards. If you're that type of person who's done the impossible before, is settling a celestial body 240,000 miles away actually that crazy of an idea? And what are the potential benefits? The answers will surprise you. And you worked at NASA, correct?

[Mike Moses]

Yeah, I was with the space shuttle program for about 16, 17 years working mission control down in Houston. I was a flight director directing missions and then eventually the deputy program manager for shuttle Right. In Florida.

[Danny Fortson]

So, yeah, this is Mike Moses now. He runs operations at Virgin's Mojave hq. We're standing inside a hangar in front of White Knight 2, the plane that is the launch vehicle for Virgin spaceship Unity, which is sitting right behind it. Unity is a different type of rocket than what you probably think of. It doesn't launch vertically from the ground, but from the air. White Knight carries it up to an altitude of 45,000ft and then drops it after a few Seconds of free fall.

[Mike Moses]

The pilots, they light the rocket motor, and then they basically accelerate straight ahead for about 10 seconds or so. And that gets us supersonic. We go through Mach 1, the shock waves form supersonic. About 10 seconds, turn on our tail and go the rest of that straight up. You're going, like, vertical, and you're going near vertical.

[Danny Fortson]

Yeah, that is about 2,300 miles an hour. And a minute later, the rocket motor cuts off and you're in space.

[Mike Moses]

So our trajectory is just like if you took a softball and threw it up as high as it would go, it would arc up. But eventually it starts to fall right back down again. So within the ship, you are inside going the exact same speed as the ship itself. So you're weightless. I mean, so everybody talks about the serenity of space and the nice quiet and the serene views. You've got to ride a rocket at Mach 3 to get there. So that's a good part of the ride. I don't like skipping over that part.

[Danny Fortson]

After 15 years of delays, testing, and tragedy, Galactic is almost ready to start commercial operations. But the original idea goes back to 2004, when famed aeronautics engineer Burt Rutan won the Ansari X Prize. $10 million for the first privately built ship to make it to space. Release Far fire

[Narrator/Interviewer]

radar 328.

[Danny Fortson]

Not too bad.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Wow. You would not believe the view.

[Danny Fortson]

Since then, Branson and his partners have invested well over a billion dollars to get to a point where they are nearly ready to replace test pilots with civilians. The first flight from a specially built spaceport in New Mexico could take off in the first half of next year, and Branson will be on board. And in preparation for this new age of space tourism, Galactic is building two more ships. The moon is not far behind. George Whitesides, another NASA refugee, is Virgin Galactic's CEO. So we are sort of solidifying and proving the market for people. And like, this will be one step, you know, Another step is going on a moon journey, and that's like four steps down the road. If Jeff Bezos has anything to do with it, that road will be short. The Amazon founder this summer unveiled a lunar lander that his space company, Blue Origin, has been quietly working on for three years.

[Sponsor Voice (ServiceNow/Blue Origin)]

Let me show you something. This is blue moon.

[Danny Fortson]

Bezos to put his blue moon on the lunar surface by 2024.

[Sponsor Voice (ServiceNow/Blue Origin)]

It's time to go back to the moon.

[Danny Fortson]

This time to stay like Virgin Galactic. Blue Origin's first step is tourism. It will start test flights for its rocket this year. That stream of Tourist dollars will help fund his grander vision, a bigger rocket called New Glenn for the moon mission. And SpaceX, Elon Musk's company has built a rival spacecraft. Its Falcon Heavy rocket is the first powerful enough to make the three day journey since the 1970s. We're living in a time when these four amazingly successful entrepreneurs, Richard, Jeff, Elon and Paul Allen, before his passing, have decided to, you know, spend a significant portion of their net worth on expanding humanity's presence into space. Given the history, it is an extraordinary turn of events. The Apollo mission that took Armstrong to the moon chewed up 4% of America's gross domestic product. It involved 400,000 people. And the motive was existential. The Soviet Union had beaten America to space with Sputnik. The US Needed a show of strength, something to put the communists back in their box. But once we had done it, the imperative faded. There were three subsequent pushes to get back to the moon. Once by Nixon, once by George W. Bush, and once by his father, George H.W. bush.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

It took a crisis, the space race, to speed things up. Today we don't have a crisis. We have an opportunity. And next for the new century, back to the moon, back to the future, and this time, back to stay.

[Danny Fortson]

Back to stay. Sound familiar? George Bush Sr. S grand vision, like the others, was quashed as soon as NASA told him how much it would cost.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And they quoted $500 billion to return to the moon and go on to Mars.

[Danny Fortson]

Charles Miller is an industry consultant.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And it was just completely shocked everybody. They did this 90 day study.

[Sponsor Voice (ServiceNow/Blue Origin)]

It was completely unrealistic.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

In today's dollars, it'd be a trillion dollars about.

[Danny Fortson]

Despite the setbacks, hope springs eternal. In March 2019, Donald Trump became the fourth president since Kennedy to declare his lunar ambitions.

[Sponsor Voice (ServiceNow/Blue Origin)]

Just as the United states was the first nation to reach the moon in the 20th century, so too will we be the first nation to return astronauts to the moon in the 21st century.

[Danny Fortson]

Oh, there's a virgin. I see a virgin tail fin over there.

[Acast Host]

Yeah.

[Danny Fortson]

So that's the. We can do a quick drive by when we head to the test site. That's the 747 cosmic girl for a little bit. So we can. Amid all the grandiose visions and mission statements, it's striking how artisan the space industry can feel. It's almost hipster.

[Acast Host]

We'll go back in there and I

[Danny Fortson]

can show you the next two spaceships. Enrico Palermo, who runs the unit charged with building Virgin's ships, took me on a tour of the factory. Finally answer Your question? This is the tool or the mold? It's made of carbon fiber, because we have to cook this. And so you want to have the same. Actually, maybe don't touch it too much. They're not cooking there. But still, those two spaceships being pieced together in Virgin's Mojave hangars, much of it is being done by hand technicians meticulously laying one layer of carbon fiber over another. So this is space and this is you. This is. So that's what, a centimeter? Yeah, maybe centimeter and a half? Yeah, just. Just over a centimeter between you and instant death. One way to put it. So what's changed? Why do a handful of rich guys feel like they can credibly talk about doing something that the world's richest nation has for decades failed to do? Why is this time going to be any different? Two reasons. Rockets and water. Many of the aeronautical and material science problems that had to be cracked in the 1960s were cracked. Layered on top of that is half a century of further innovation. The result is that the cost of rockets has collapsed tenfold. And having been rebuffed time and again, NASA changed its tune. Rather than insisting on doing it all itself, it asked for help from private enterprise, giving out contracts, for example, to take cargo to the International Space Station. Suddenly there was opportunity and incentive.

[Acast Host]

A simple cost threshold for setting up a little base on the Moon and, you know, with 10 or 15 people has changed from hundreds of billions of dollars to maybe a few billion dollars.

[Danny Fortson]

Will Marshall is a former NASA physicist who now runs Planet, a private satellite company.

[Acast Host]

There are people in the Bay Area for which they could do that, and they would barely notice it disappear from their bank account.

[Danny Fortson]

Water is the other factor. A huge mass of ice was discovered in a 2009 NASA probe in which Marshall was involved. That ice was a game changer.

[Acast Host]

Water is by far the biggest consumable for humans to live. Firstly, to drink, of course, and to grow plants. Secondly, to split into hydrogen and oxygen for fuel and getting the oxygen to breathe. So the vast majority of what we need to consume is suddenly there and readily available. If it extrapolates to the other dark craters of the moon in a similar sort of way, there's enough for tens or even hundreds of millions of people to be there for hundreds of thousands of years.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

The moon, the poles and the moon become the Middle east, right, with oil.

[Danny Fortson]

So it's possible. Great. But why do it? The most common answer is that we are living on borrowed time. Remember the dinosaurs? They were pretty big, but it's thought that they got wiped out by a single asteroid hit to the planet. It's only a matter of time before that happens again. We need a backup. The moon could also serve as a social laboratory.

[Acast Host]

Remember, when we go to the moon, it will be the first time we establish an off earth permanent base. And the way we do it I think is super important because it will set precedents for the future settlements beyond that too. That's why these governance questions are really important. It's how we figure out how to work together. What rules are we going to use? Rights to property? How do we interact? Do we allow war? Under what circumstances? To whose laws prevail? Clean slate opportunity is a tremendous one. And yeah, you can have more radical ideas and experiment. And the birth of the American Republic in some senses was because of that clean slate that actually wasn't a clean slate. But Europeans sort of took it that way and established this new sort of political system with certain, at least factors that were new, like the attitude towards religion. I think that's really, you know, there's not many opportunities like that.

[Danny Fortson]

Bezos goes a step further. Settling the moon is imperative because sooner or later we're going to exhaust the resources of our home planet.

[Sponsor Voice (ServiceNow/Blue Origin)]

We will run out of energy on Earth. This is just arithmetic. It's going to happen. What happens when unlimited demand meets finite resources? The answer is incredibly simple. Rationing. That's the path that we would be on. It would lead for the first time to where your grandchildren and their grandchildren would have worse lives than you. The good news is that if we move out into the solar system, for all practical purposes, we have unlimited resources. For all of human history, the Earth has felt big to us. That's not true anymore. The Earth is no longer big. Humanity is big.

[Danny Fortson]

His long term vision is out there. He speculates that the human population could reach 1 trillion. That's 150 fold increase from today's population. How? By freeing ourselves from our earthly constraints and instead sprinkling ourselves across the galaxies on moons and outer space. Structures that he calls o' Neill colonies after the physicist Jerry o' Neill, who came up with the idea.

[Sponsor Voice (ServiceNow/Blue Origin)]

These are very large structures, miles on end and they hold a million people or more each. There'd be whole new kinds of architecture. These are ideal climates. These are shirtsleeve environments. This is Maui on its best day. All year long. No rain, no storms, no earthquakes. What does the architecture even look like when it no longer has its primary purpose of shelter? We'll find out. What does it mean for Earth. Earth ends up zoned residential and light industry. It'll be a beautiful place to live. It'll be a beautiful place to visit. It'll be a beautiful place to go to college and to do some light industry. But heavy industry and all the polluting industry, all the things that are damaging our planet, those will be done off Earth.

[Danny Fortson]

A trillion people. The Earth zoned as the interstellar suburb to factories and colonies floating in the cosmos. Would you expect anything less from the guy who brought us Prime Day?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Great to meet you. I'm sure I'll see you around.

[Danny Fortson]

I'm at a bar in San Francisco being served shots by Hostess dressed like an extra from Mad Max. It's the opening of a new Virgin Hotel. Branson is here. So is comedian Dave Chappelle and the world's most interesting man. For those who have seen those Dos Equis commercials, I'm here, however, for the astronauts. More than 600 people have paid up to $250,000 to reserve their spot in line for a flight to space. Some have been waiting for a decade.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

You're just looking at the dial to see how the signal's coming in.

[Danny Fortson]

Yeah. And you're looking good.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

All right. You're not looking so bad yourself.

[Danny Fortson]

Michael Gammerl lives in Orange county and was one of the first to sign up.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I got the information in 2008 when I sold my company, which I think is a theme that I've heard among many of my future astronaut colleagues. But I was busting my butt when Burt Rutan won the x Prize in 2004, and I just started cranking and working hard and sold my company in 2008 and then signed up in 2009. It's the adventure of a lifetime, and I'm not worried about things like dangerous or scary stuff like that. And I understand there are risks, but I'm far more excited than I am worried or nervous.

[Danny Fortson]

Gamerl may sound as if he's talking about going on safari, but the dangers are not trivial. In 2014, Virgin Galactic's VSS Enterprise, the sister ship to Unity, disintegrated in midair. A test pilot was killed and the other, thrown from the craft 10 miles above the Earth, parachuted to safety. Virgin's program ground to a halt. A government investigation found that the accident was due to pilot error and inadequate safety measures. Virgin had to overhaul Unity to make it impossible for that same mistake to happen again. But for a while, it was unclear whether they would continue. Richard Stiber, an ex Google executive, future Virgin astronaut And a father of two didn't waver.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Even though people were dying and the engine was explosing. I didn't ask for the money back. The reason that Richard was kind of keep going was that people stuck with him. I think the best thing is not to think of them as the space tourists, but more as the people who are supporting the Wright brothers. It's not that they want to have this 10 minute weightlessness in space. There's something bigger. I don't bungee jump. I don't do that kind of stuff. I want to ride a rocket. That's going to be an amazing experience. And I really don't care about the weightlessness per se. But to be up in space and to look down and to see the curve of the Earth, that is the thing for me.

[Danny Fortson]

People who have been to space speak about it reverentially. It changes people. And everyone involved seems to view themselves as part of something bigger. The few who pave the way for the many into new frontiers just like generations before. Whether it was sailing for the New World or braving the Oregon Trail, if space colonies do happen, hopefully Marshall is right and settlers won't have to lay waste to alien civilizations to set up our outposts out there. In February, Virgin Galactic's Unity passed a major milestone. It flew 56 miles straight up into low Earth orbit. On board test pilots Dave Mackay and Mike Such Masucci as well as Beth Moses, who rode along to test what the experience was like in the back of the rocket as a passenger. Makai's job is to face down death to test the limits of the new ship and its rocket motor. He's one of those people who is paid to have ice water in his veins. In other words, he is not easily impressed in the actual flight. I looked out left and I could see so much it was almost disorientating. It looked like I could see half of American up into Canada and the Earth was just brilliantly lit. There's no force in your body, there's no noise, there's no movement. Going into space gives you a sense of scale of the planet. And it's not actually very big and the atmosphere is incredibly thin. And then you're staring into this, you know, empty blackness. Beth Moses was the seventh person in history to be awarded commercial astronaut wings and the first non pilot. As soon as we sat down, she proudly pulled them out of her pocket to show them off.

[Beth Moses]

Mine happened to be number 007, which I quite love.

[Danny Fortson]

She too sees herself as the first of many.

[Beth Moses]

I don't know if you've ever been in a snow covered field in bright sunlight and it almost hurts your eyes. It is so faceted and brilliant and magic. It's like white, but crystal. I can't describe it. Space is indescribable. But I think Earth was wearing her diamonds.

[Danny Fortson]

I had one last question. Having got a taste of the great beyond, did she fancy moving permanently to outer space?

[Beth Moses]

I think the moon should be colonized. I'd love to go live there for a while. Sure. I think the human spirit is inconquerable. I mean, you know, barring major disaster, you know, if the Earth is still here, if humans are still here, of course, someday we'll live on the moon.

[Danny Fortson]

Convinced? Ready to mortgage your house for the sake of human progress? I didn't think so, but enough people have. Branson has pulled off one of the great crowdfunding campaigns in history. The money that people have paid to save their place in the space queue adds up to $150 million. Blue Origin has not started taking reservations yet, but you can sign up for updates. They are all hurtling toward this improbable vision becoming real. And what about Moon Express? In the last year, it has laid off half of its staff and just missed out on the first round of NASA contracts for companies who will start shipping equipment and conducting tests on the lunar surface. Moon Express, in other words, has failed to launch. And so will countless others. But the smart money wouldn't bet against Jeff Bezos.

[Sponsor Voice (ServiceNow/Blue Origin)]

Please, make no mistake about this. Earth is the best planet. We must have a future for our grandchildren, their grandchildren of dynamism. We cannot let them fall prey to stasis and rationing. When that is possible, when the infrastructure is in place, just as it was for me in 1994 to start Amazon. For the future space entrepreneurs, you will see amazing things happen. And it will happen fast.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Thank you.

[Danny Fortson]

Next week on Tales of Silicon Valley. We come back down to Earth to dive deep into an equally mysterious, mysterious place, the human brain, which Silicon Valley is exploring with as much urgency as the great beyond. And the implications of that quest could be far greater than anything we find in outer space.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Problem is, particularly in Silicon Valley, they'll all think I'm the only person that knows the right thing. You know, the same people that move fast and broke things and created norms before. Before anyone really understood what was going on. These people now want to do the same thing inside our brains.

[Danny Fortson]

Tales of Silicon Valley was written and narrated by me, Danny Fortson, with production by Chica Ayers at Rethink Audio. Matt hall is the Executive Producer for Wireless Studios. It was a Wireless Studios production for Times Newspapers. And one last thing, if you like this series and want to hear more tales of Silicon Valley, subscribe to my other podcast, Danny in the Valley. It is an interview series with everyone from Bill Gates and Mark Andreessen to the little startup working on the next big idea. Sign up wherever you get your podcasts.

[ServiceNow Representative]

This episode of the Times Tech Podcast is sponsored by ServiceNow.

[Danny Fortson]

There's a lot of excitement around AI right now, but the problem is what happens after the demo when you have

[ServiceNow Representative]

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[Danny Fortson]

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[ServiceNow Representative]

ServiceNow's platform is designed to help people by connecting these pieces, enabling organizations to coordinate work across departments, tools, and increasingly, AI agents.

[Danny Fortson]

In fact, the company says more than 80 billion workflows run on its platform

[ServiceNow Representative]

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[Danny Fortson]

Learn how ServiceNow puts AI to work for [e-mail].

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[Danny Fortson]

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