Amazon¡¯s Blue Origin envisions to open space to biz and build infrastructure

[Photo provided by Blue Origin]

Space development will be another solution to make the current ecosystem sustainable on earth where seven and a half billion people are probably in excess of the earth¡¯s carrying capacity, said Brent Sherwood, Senior Vice President of Advanced Development Programs at Blue Origin, a space company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

His company¡¯s goal is to open space to entrepreneurs and build the infrastructure to allow them to get there.

¡°Once they're operating in space, we will be able to use what they find in space to benefit the earth. And that's our only objective,¡± Sherwood said in an interview with Maeil Business Newspaper on the margins of the 22nd World Knowledge Forum held in September.

The earth¡¯s biological system is not infinite, but there are ecological niches in space and space resources will help humanity create new biospheres and new places to live and expand, he said.

Sherwood is a space architect with 30 years of professional experience in the space industry. In a 17-year career at Boeing, he led concept engineering for human planetary exploration, manufacturing engineering for ISS module integration, and program development for many commercial and space science projects. He has a B.A. in liberal arts from Yale, a Master of Architecture from the Yale School of Architecture, and an M.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of Maryland. He has published and presented over 50 papers on the exploration, development, and settlement of space.

He also argued business needs in private sectors such as media, travel, materials, and energy must be added to space development since all space development activities carried out by the government require an astronomical budget.

Regarding the growing competition in space development business, he said competition is good because it is what drives progress.

The following is the interview transcript.

Q) Space travel was a fantasy in science fiction movies until a few years ago. What is the reason for the rapid increase in the possibility of private space travel in recent years?

A) So two aspects of spaceflight, have historically prevented large numbers of people from flying. One is it is risky. And the other is that it's expensive. So thinking about risk, if, if I'm a professional astronaut, and my job is to fly in space, then I accept that risk, which may be a 1% chance that my rocket does not work. Right? That's it. But as a as a private citizen, not a professional astronaut, that's a very high risk. Right. So like, fly from Seoul back to Seattle, because I know I'm going to get there. So we have in commercial aviation, we have what we call five nines reliability. So point 99999, is the probability that you'll be able to take off and fly and land safely and get there in spaceflight is, at best two nights, we have a lot more progress to go to make it less risky. And then that will encourage more people to be willing to fly. However, that's not the current limit. There are lots of people who would fly despite the risk if they could afford it. And so that's why reusability in space systems is so important. Because if you were to buy a ticket on an airplane, and the airplane got us once, and they got thrown away, and replaced by a new one, you couldn't afford the ticket, right. And so being able to reuse space systems is critical to getting the cost down. That's why you're seeing now an acceleration in interest in space tourism, because now we have reusable systems. So our own new Shepard is a fully reusable rocket, volt approved capsule and, and the propulsion module. And there are others that are reusable as well. So our large orbital rocket, new Glenn, which will fly in a couple of years, is the first stage is fully reusable. And we're also working on making the second stage reusable as well. Once the system is fully reusable, then the cost can dramatically come down. Because you can amortize the cost of the system over many, many flights. So those two things risk and cost are there the risk is coming down and the cost is coming down. And therefore, more and more people will be able to fly. And the the reasons why people might want to fly. Sort of the other part of the question, I think, and at the moment, there are people because it's still expensive. There are people who want to fly just because it's unique. They can It's a special thing, you know, and then they've done it and their friends have a sort of that's fine. But as time goes on, and we normalize and reduce the cost, then what matters more and more Is the experience and the experience of orbital flight is think of it as an eight-and-a-half-minute ride on, like in an amusement park on a roller coaster with acceleration only this is real acceleration lasts for eight minutes. So it's quite a ride. Then when you're in space, you have the experience of microbead, which is a sensation that you can't get any other way. You can't duplicate it on Earth, this the feeling of being in freefall, like permanent fall. And so that's a novel sensation. And what comes with that is a lot of fun things. Like, you see videos of astronauts playing with their food and throwing things back and forth at each other and you have a sphere of water, you know, and all those kinds of things.

And then the view out the window is the best view in the solar system. You've heard or read about astronauts saying that it changes them and changes their perception. You don't see borders on the earth. But you can see environmental destruction, you can see river runoff and erosion, you can see forest fires in the Amazon, and so forth. But you get the sense of earth as one planet swept Frank white calls the overview effect. And that changes everybody who experiences in addition to the view being very meaningful in that way and interested, it changes all the time, it's never the same twice. So here, you look out the window. And the only thing that really changes is the time of day and the weather, and maybe construction a little bit, right. But pretty much it's the same view, from space, the view is never the same. Even when you fly over the same coastline or the same part of Earth, the lighting conditions are different. And you experience sunrises and sunsets very fast, very colorful 16 times a day.

[Photo by Lee Chung-woo]

Q) As we know you received a Bachelor in liberal arts from Yale and a master of architecture from the Yale School of Architecture and a master's in aerospace engineering at the University of Maryland as a NASA Graduate Student Research Fellow. So how does various academic backgrounds affect your career and how this can connected to the space project and also your company?

A) So, when I was in school, there was no such thing as space architecture. And I somehow realized that I, I had to put these two things together. And so I had to get educated in both of them. So I did architecture first. And then I went back to school for aerospace engineering. So the architects would listen, and so that the engineers would listen. And I could put the two together myself, that now today, there are programs around the world that provide curricula in both things. It took me more years than that to put it together. So I guess that's how it's affected my career, as I've built my career based on those two things. As far as how it affects running my business? That's a very interesting question. that arose aerospace, manufacturing, aerospace system development is a very technical manufacturing field, right? It's all it's rocket science, as they say. So it's very hard engineering and manufacturing and test and operations. So it attracts people who are engineers who think like engineers, very analytical thinkers, do reasoners. Because that's the kind of people you have to have. And so those are the people who love that kind of work.

At the same time. To me, it's ironic that it's a hyper technical field. But it's still just people. And all these amazing things that we build and fly, and it's still just people. And the way you make an organization run isn't, with all the technical stuff. That's just the work that people do, the way you make an organization run this with the humanistic side. So that's actually my first degree in liberal arts is how to help to think, how to be a critical observer, how to ask questions, how to write, how to speak, how to formulate a position, and be persuasive about it, and lead people in a direction. All of those things have nothing to do with technical work. That's just how you operate the human organization. So I would say all three components of my education are useful for running the business.

Q) You once mentioned the space has infinite resources, and the earth has not. So for us to sustain civilization for the future without destroying the earth, we need to access the resources of the space. So he wondered that if we reach space, then the destruction of it may be similar to those on Earth, the effect of the destruction. So what do you think regarding this substitution?

A) So first, let's look at the phenomenon of Linux on Earth has essentially infinite resources. There's a lot of dirt, you know, that has minerals in it. And we receive a lot of energy from the sun. We can also make nuclear power. So technically, there's no shortage of either energy or material resources on Earth. The problem is that we live in a biological system, which is the ecosystem and that is not infinite. It has limited carrying capacity and we're probably in excess the carrying capacity already seven and a half billion people. So we're already overfishing the oceans and we're over harvesting wood. And we raise a lot of cattle and sheep, which causes CO2 and methane in the atmosphere. And so the way we live today is not sustainable on earth we have with the numbers of people we have, the numbers of people are increasing. And the standard of living in the undeveloped or developing parts of the world is increasing. They want to live like we do. And so our rate of energy consumption and material consumption will only get worse, as the number of people increase, and those people want a first world standard. We're already seeing how unsustainable things are. So that's only going to get worse, we're at the limits of our ability for the earth to support modern civilization going into the future without being too disruptive to. Okay, so that's a very important drag. At the end of the day, on that road, there is either a solution, which we'll talk about, or rationing, right, which means limiting the resource consumption of those people. If you want a future where there is still the opportunity for unlimited growth, and not rationing, then you have to find a way out. And the way out is to access resources, both energy and material resources elsewhere, not just limited to the biosphere. So that means creating new biospheres creating new places to live for humanity and to expand. And that's what space resources can do. The reason that the destructive use of those resources is not as much a problem in space as it is on earth is because in space, there are no inhabitants yet. So we're not taking anything away from anybody. And there is no ecosystem so we're not destroying other forms of life or eliminating them. There are ecological niches or there's nothing to eliminate, and there's nothing to take away from others. So if we are smart enough to figure out how to take those resources and create new living space, then the distant future for humanity is unlimited. If we cannot figure that out, or if we can't figure it out fast enough, then the distant future for humanity is not at all.

[Photo provided by Blue Origin]

Q) We have several firms now in competition in space travel. We have Virgin Galactic and Space X besides Blue Origin. Do you think this kind of competition is worse than if this competition has overheated in the near future? So that the entire market turns to red ocean? And second question is, what is distinctive strengths or advantages of Blue Origin?

A) So in our view, competition is always good. Competition is what drives progress. It, it keeps you, you know, sharp, competition is always good. It's also it can be very instructive to observe your competitors and see what they do. And things that they do that you like and respect and want to do and things that they do that you don't want to repeat, or don't want to copy. So it's both important and, good, and also help. So everybody who's trying to make space travel happen, I'm a fan, like, one more and more space travel now. And my personal interest is not so much in the vehicles that find a space as the things to do in space. So the more people who go to space, the better. From our standpoint, it's about millions of people living and working in space. They have to get there, but it's about what they do there. And, and that's really what motivates us. I think that's also part of the answer to your second question about what differentiates large, so I'll try to be careful how I say this. There are a lot of aerospace companies. Most of them are actually defense companies that do space as well. We are not a space flight company. We are about flying people in space. That's the only thing we do. So that differentiates us from many other companies with respect to some of the other companies who are doing say space tourism or you know, like Virgin Galactic and SpaceX. But our vision is about what happens in space. A differentiator between us and SpaceX is SpaceX appears to exist for one goal, which is to colonize Mars. And this is an important distinction. Our objective is to open space to entrepreneurs. I don't know what people will do in space, you know, a million people, what are they going to do? I don't know, I can imagine some of it. I've written about some of it, you know, but I don't know what all they're going to do, I can't even begin to imagine the things they're going to invent or create once they're there and operating and in this whole new world. So our job at Blue Origin is not to tell them what you're doing. It's not to say you're going to go here, or you're going to go colonize this planet or that, you know, our job is to just build the infrastructure that lets them get there. And then they will figure it out. We have faith that the next generations of humans, once they're operating in space, we will be able to use what they find in space to benefit the earth. And that's our only objective.

Q) The question is for readers, South Korean wants to experience the Blue Origin services, then how can be access to it?

A) Oh, anyone can fly on new Shepard. There's, since the first paid paying customer flew on July 20. with Jeff now we're filling up the manifest with people who are buying tickets, anybody around the world can buy a ticket for use it. So that's on the show for using new Glenn, which is meant for launching satellites and things into the space. Again, it's a commercial service when it starts flying. It's just commercial. So we have a whole sales department that works with customers. For that purpose. Our future products are going to be similar in that they'll be fully commercial. So one of our initiatives is to develop low Earth orbit for passenger travel, for tourism, for living in space for research, for manufacturing, you know all possible for media marketing, all possible applications. That commercial space station won't be a government space station. It will be commercially developed, owned and operated space station so just like buying a launch on a commercial rocket or a seat on new Shepherd by access to commercial platform will be just like buying a computer or you know any anything else fully commercial and with new land and a commercial station, then you'd be able to buy a ride and accommodations and a ride back. So we have a big sales department.

Q) Do we need any passport for the space experience?

A) Oh, and you know, that's? Well, new Shepard currently only watches from Texas. So yeah, you need a passport together. But there is a depending on how the market grows, there may be additional loss sites around the world. But I think you raise a very important question, which is what about a passport to space? Who, who controls? What's in space? Where's the immigration, you know, Officer when you fly to space, and that raises a whole lot of very interesting questions about legal jurisdiction. And like, who literally controls what happens? Today, there are two space stations, the International Space Station and the Chinese Space Station. They're both government owned and operated. So all the rules are written by the government's right to own them and operate. That's fair. It's their facility. When it's my facility, when it's commercial. I spent our money you know, developing it, and I'm spending our money and operating it. And I'm selling services to commercial customers. Who controls that? What's interesting is that because it's new, nobody knows the answer. these are these are some things that need to be figured out. is very exciting, but it's a little uncertain.

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