The "New Space Race" offers staggering potential for investors. From mining for valuable resources, to satellites that help us mere earthlings in matters of climate change, maritime operations, communications, energy, even world hunger -- we can see why companies are investing billions into this exciting new frontier.
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But it's space tourism that's grabbing most of the headlines these days, thanks to the battling billionaires.
SpaceX's Elon Musk, Blue Origin's Jeff Bezos, and Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson offer experiences that vary sharply in duration and altitude. But the costs -- reportedly from about $450,000 for a 90-minute ride on Virgin Galactic's spaceplane to $55 million for a three-day orbit in a SpaceX capsule -- are well beyond the reach of, well, you and me.
But if $50,000 seems doable (financing available), you could consider World View's solution: A 6-to-12-hour journey in a pressurized capsule lifted to the edge of space by a giant balloon. The first launches are planned for 2024 from a variety of "spaceports" around the globe.
The South by Southwest conference in Austin, Tex., for the first time featured an entire track devoted to space technology, including "Democratizing Access to Commercial Space Travel."
While there, I spoke with World View CEO Ryan Hartman inside his company's replica space capsule. In the video below Ryan talks about World View's vision of bringing a life-changing experience to the masses, as well as other companies in the New Space Race that might be worth a look from investors.
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Transcript:
Rex Moore: Alright Ryan, here we are inside the World View space capsule. Take me through a little bit of this; what someone might expect if they become a space tourist and use your company.
Ryan Hartman: Well, thanks for being here. This is an exact replica of our space capsule. We call it Explorer. What you see here is the structure around customer experience. We've designed this to really optimize how a customer can experience viewing space. When a customer flies on World View, they're going to ascend to greater than 100,000 feet. They're going to be able to see the curvature of the Earth. They're going to be able to see the darkness of space, much like what you see on the screens here. What's more important is that they're going to be able to see an area that they just explored. The World View Space Tourism solution starts with a spaceport. It starts with coming to one of our seven wonders of the world's stratospheric condition. Some places like Spaceport Grand Canyon, Spaceport Great Barrier Reef, explore that area and then see it from above.
Rex Moore: Tell me, why do you think it's important to make space travel accessible to more people?
Ryan Hartman: Well, World View exists to inspire, create and explore new perspectives for a radically improved future. That really embodies the importance of space tourism. So when we say inspire new perspectives, it's all about creating opportunities for customers to understand the fragility of the Earth, to understand the beauty of the Earth, and really to turn space tourism into eco-tourism. "For a radically improved future," I think embodies why we're all in space tourism. All companies are in space tourism. That is that the more people we can deliver this experience to, the higher number of people that will have a newfound respect for our planet. They will become earth advocates and embody the importance of taking care of our Earth.
Rex Moore: Your solution is a low-cost way. How do people get involved in this if they're interested?
Ryan Hartman: Yes. Our solution is a $50,000 ticket with a $500 deposit. We offer available financing, all of that is available on worldview.space, where customers can review the experiences that are available to them, through our seven spaceports around the world. They can look at the technology and even do a preview of their flight at worldview.space.
Rex Moore: World View is involved in more than just tourism. Tell me about the sensor part.
Ryan Hartman: The technology we have is applicable to a lot of different use cases. Space tourism is a really exciting one. But there's another really important use case and that is remote sensing, the ability to provide insights into what's happening on our Earth. So we use our stratospheric balloons coupled with different types of sensors to collect data, analyze that data, and deliver insights for customers. This is applicable to oil and gas industries, electric utility industries, defense and intelligence customers, and a number of different other commercial use cases. By doing the work we do in remote sensing is just yet another way to provide a new perspective, an inspired perspective that can contribute to a radically improved future for those customers as well.
Rex Moore: What kind of potential do you see now, as the world is getting more interested now, with the billionaires who've publicized it right? What lies out there potentially for investors?
Ryan Hartman: Well, one of the things that is really exciting is space is the next trillion-dollar industry. There's a number of different companies, a number of different types of applications that create value for investors. Companies like ours that have both remote sensing and space tourism, there's companies now on the Nasdaq that are space tourism businesses. And the number of different commercial space companies that exist today that are public is incredibly exciting and it's only going to grow in the future. Looking at it as a trillion-dollar economy, looking at it as the next big market, I think is really exciting because there's a ton of growth in front of it.
Rex Moore: Do you have some companies in mind that you admire in a way that you think might benefit?
Ryan Hartman: Well, for me, I'm excited about any company that's operating in commercial space. There's all kinds of different companies like Spire Global (Nasdaq: SPIR) and Planet Labs (Nasdaq: PL) that are all about remote sensing, that are now publicly traded companies. I'm excited about companies like Virgin Galactic (Nasdaq: SPCE) who are in space tourism specifically, and Virgin Orbit (Nasdaq: VORB). All of these companies, they represent the wide spectrum of different types of space companies or space use cases. I'm excited about all of them. I think there's growth in front of all of those companies. Space is a great place to invest.
Rex Moore: Awesome. Final question, where is the restroom in this? [LAUGHTER]
Ryan Hartman: Behind you. [LAUGHTER] The space capsule itself, what you see here is the customer experience, but the capsule is designed to carry 8 passengers, 2 crew, for a total of 10. It'll have a bar, it'll have dining available, and of course, it will have a restroom.
Rex Moore: Great. Thank you, Ryan.
Ryan Hartman: You're welcome.
