- I think the government
makes a good customer,
but not a good venture capitalist.
- Stay tuned for cnn.com.
(typewriter bell ringing)
- [Interviewer] When you
dream about space businesses,
what do you see as possible
five years from now,
10 years from now, 15 years from now,
as viable space businesses
that it's hard for us to see
'cause they're not there?
- You have the obvious existing business
of satellites of one kind or another,
which I think with an improvement
in space transportation costs
will enjoy an increase in
the business, but modest.
And then I think you've got space tourism
or space adventure, whatever
you want to call it.
That, I think, is likely
to be the biggest driver.
And then long-term, I think you've got,
assuming that we fulfill
the president's vision
and we establish a moon base
and then go on and establish a Mars base,
I think supplying those bases
is a huge, huge business.
- [Interviewer] How does what you're doing
help NASA accomplish its goals?
Because NASA wants to set bigger goals.
- I think, fundamentally,
the way we help NASA
is by lowering the cost
of access to space,
allowing us to do more interesting things
for a given budget.
In fact, I think what we're doing
is critical to the future of NASA.
At the current prices that NASA pays
for space transportation,
I don't think we'll be able
to achieve anything interesting in space.
As far as business--
- [Interviewer] You would
occasionally do a job for them.
- Yeah, well I certainly--
- [Interviewer] But you're not going
into business with them.
Well actually, I view all
of the government agencies
with an interest in space as customers.
So, I view NASA as a customer, certainly.
The Air Force, Naval Research Lab,
National Crisis Organization.
Although, NASA certainly is somebody
we would like to be a customer of ours.
- [Interviewer] When you
say space transportation,
we think of transportation,
we always think of moving people.
You're thinking of moving people,
moving satellites, moving cargo?
- Well, we're starting
off with transportation
of satellites to orbit.
Or cargo, you could call it cargo.
We're starting off with
unmanned transportation,
and as we prove out the reliability,
our intention is to move to
human transportation as well.
- [Interviewer] Where do you think we are
in the life of our space exploration?
- We're definitely in a lull,
with respect to human space exploration
on the government's side.
However, what I think
we're beginning to see
is the dawn of a new era
of space exploration.
But one that is driven
by commercial companies
as much if not more than by government.
