Closing Bell - Manifest Space: Cities of Success in Aerospace with Voyager Space CEO Dylan Taylor 4/11/24

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

Aerospace has grown 88% over the past two decades – more than any other emerging industry in metro Denver and Boulder in that period. With 191 aerospace companies in the region, Voyager Space stands out as a rapidly growing multinational space conglomerate. Founder and CEO Dylan Taylor joins Morgan Brennan to discuss how and why the aerospace industry is thriving in Denver and how one entrepreneur is channeling the economic boom to build the Berkshire Hathaway of space. Tune into “Cities of Success” tonight at 10PM ET tonight for the latest episode of “Cities of Success” – an hour-long special highlighting business and cultural powerhouses across the country.

Dylan Taylor is the chairman and CEO of Voyager Space, a multinational space conglomerate he founded in Denver back in 2019. Voyager has grown quickly, in large part through seven acquisitions, two of which were local startups. And the company's Starlab is currently being built to replace the aging International Space Station. But Voyager is also a key example of how and why the aerospace industry is contributing to the region's economic boom. And a reason Denver and Boulder are the subject of CNBC's New Cities of Success. Why base the company here? So when we were creating Voyager and thinking through the best growth markets where we could have access to talent, Denver really rose to the top. Over the past two decades, aerospace grew 88 percent, more than any other emerging industry in Metro Denver and Boulder over that period.

191 aerospace companies, from the biggest defense primes to the youngest startups, support 29,000 jobs in the region. Everyone from Lockheed Martin to Northrop Grumman to Ball Aerospace, Sierra Space, ULA, and of course, Voyager, call it home. But now that we have scale, we're circa 700 employees now and, you know, quite a bit of revenue looking to enter the public markets at some point. Taylor is also a prolific space investor, having backed 50 startups and an astronaut himself after a flight on Blue Origin's New Shepard. On this episode, a trip to the Mile High City to discuss what makes Denver so conducive to aerospace and how one entrepreneur is channeling that to build the Berkshire Hathaway of space. I'm Morgan Brennan, and this is Manifest Space. Joining me now, Dylan Taylor, Chairman and CEO of Voyager. It's so great to be here

in your headquarters in Denver. Thank you. Thank you, Morgan. So we're at Voyager Space's headquarters in Denver. Why base the company here? Well, Denver's actually a key, in Colorado more generally, a key aerospace hub. And so when we were creating Voyager and thinking through the best growth markets where we could have access to talent,

have access to people who are like-minded in terms of creating this industry and growing this industry. There's a very short list for states and cities that are in that category. And so Denver really rose to the top. It's a nice place to live as well. And we were thinking through how to attract and retain the best people. So I'm going to circle back on that because you touched on it a little bit, but the primary benefits of being located here at this center of an aerospace or space cluster. Yeah. So I think the primary benefits, again, human resources, right? So you want access to talent and presumably access to talent that

actually has more industry expertise as well. So there are a lot of companies in the aerospace arena based here. The Air Force Academy, of course, is just down the highway, so to speak, in Colorado Springs. So deep talent pool, that was the key thing. And then alignment, you know, with state officials, city officials around this market and this industry really being important. So I think talent coupled with alignment from the government, I think were really important considerations. And then also if you look at other elements of Denver, whether it's access to capital, This is an emerging venture capital market, especially the Boulder Corridor. So that was another factor.

How important is it to be located, physically located, near some of your partners like Lockheed Martin, like Northrop Grumman, and others? I think it's important. Obviously, one of our key partners is NASA, and they're not located here. We're primarily dealing with Johnson, which is in Houston. But you mentioned Lockheed Martin. Blue Origin has put a large facility here locally as well recently. But there's also many of our vendors in Colorado as well, whether it's Ursa Major, Orbit Fab. These are other companies that are based here. So many of your key partnerships are located in the area and it makes sense to be physically in proximity to them. Yeah. Yeah. I think having partners nearby is really important.

I mean, post-COVID, you know, not everyone's going to the office. But in reality, if you're especially if you're designing very complex infrastructure projects, it's really important to be in the same room and proximity matters for sure. How would you describe the space community here? Is it collaborative? Is it competitive? Is it a combination? Yeah, definitely collaborative. So for example, there's a space happy hour event monthly. It's actually run by Brad Sheetum, who's at Advanced Space. And there might be 70 or 80 people at each of those events from all different companies. Not a lot of shop has talked.

It's just mainly getting to know each other and making sure that we have good relationships and good communication across companies. So that's one example. But, yeah, definitely collaborative. I think space in general as an industry is collaborative. But certainly here in Colorado, that would be the case. Why do you think the cluster of startups and established aerospace businesses have found success here in the Denver area?

Yeah, I think the startups have found success here in particular because you have all the key ingredients, right? You have access to talent, as I mentioned earlier. You have access to early stage capital. Many companies are based in Denver and Boulder, focusing on that area. Frontier tech, if you think of the spirit of Denver and Colorado, it's really about sort of what's on the edge of possible, you know, very much a frontier pioneering spirit. And I think that factors into it as well.

So I think frontier tech space being, especially new space being a frontier tech, I think has a lot to do with the ethos here in Denver. Is that ecosystem growing? Yes, the ecosystem is growing. You know, recently Orbit Fab moved from California to Denver, as an example. But there are other examples of companies. I mentioned Blue Origin earlier. They built a major facility here and are hiring upwards of 1,000 people here in the Denver market. How important is policy to catering to and growing and fostering the businesses and this ecosystem that we see here? Right. I think policy is really important. So for example, Colorado has an attache or liaison

focused on the aerospace cluster. And I believe there are eight clusters at the Metro Denver level that they're focused on growing as well, aerospace being one of them. We have a very large airport, I think now fifth busiest in the world. So you have that part of it, that part of the aerospace community as well. So I think coupled with state policy, John Hickenlooper, of course, was mayor in Denver. He was later governor of Colorado. He's a proponent of this industry. He's now a U.S. senator. So I think the continuity with John's had a big uplifting effect on the industry as well. Do you think the policy here has always been positive in terms of being able to cater to

the space industry? Has it continued to grow and evolve? I guess, what does that process look like? It has. I think the rub with policy is what part of the market do you want to focus on? So I think we do a very, very good job supporting the larger companies based here in Denver, where I think we need to continue to do a better job. And I mentioned this to Mayor Johnson and Governor Paulus, is this nascent new space market as well. Because they're not mutually exclusive. In fact, they complement each other. I think we're doing a really good job at the big company level, and I think we're doing

a pretty good job at the startup level. So I'd ask us to focus a little bit more on that piece of it. When you talk about them complementing each other, what does that look like and how does that continue to evolve and grow? Right. So there is a very complementary effect. So if you look at the aerospace primes, they're typically controlling the supply chain, right? They determine whether they should buy something or build something in-house. They determine who the vendor should be.

To a large degree, they determine pricing. So if you look at what their challenges are, it's throughput. It's getting these projects staffed and done. So they're very much into supply chain. And as we mentioned earlier, having your partners close is an advantage. So they benefit from having a rich ecosystem of smaller companies, fast-growing companies that are bringing capabilities to the table and innovation to the table that they might not have in-house. So I think that's a big compliment. And then similarly for the startups, having a ready market, having a large, credible customer,

that you can say, look, we're now doing business with this company, whether it's Lockheed or ULA or Blue Origin, I think has a huge advantage for them to raise capital and to continue to execute on their business plans. The fact that you have a large government footprint here too, whether it's the Air Force Academy down the highway, so to speak, or whether it is an Air Force and Space Force base even here in Denver. How crucial is that to, I guess, this ecosystem continuing to sustain itself? Yeah, I think it's critical. So one of the bigger space conferences in the country is Space Symposium that's held down in Colorado Springs.

But a huge amount of infrastructure from Denver-Boulder goes down to that conference. And that's sort of a confluence of private industry and government users. So I think that really exemplifies that. You mentioned Space Force and Air Force, but it's also U.S. Space Command based down there as well. And that's a really important part of the story as well. So I think that's important. As you know, we have a large federal center here in Denver as well. So there are a lot of areas of the government as it relates to compliance and things of that nature that is much easier to deal with here locally than it would be in Washington, D.C. How important is the pipeline of talent for companies in the area? Where is that talent coming from? Yeah, the pipeline of the talent is honestly the biggest constraint.

You know, people ask me, what keeps you up at night? It really is talent. It's attracting, retaining the best talent. So Colorado and Denver in particular, I think it does a very good job of luring talent, not only out of undergraduate, so fresh graduates, but also people who might be mid-career in other cities that might have cost of living issues, where they're at, or quality of

life concerns. So we're getting a lot of talent really from coastal cities. So I would say Los Angeles, Seattle would be two on the West Coast. And on the East Coast, it would be DC and New York. Makes sense. Just in terms of Denver as a space hub versus California, Southern California, or Florida with a space coast. I guess walk me through what differentiates it and whether there is competition between these three different markets. Right. There's definitely some competition. But I think, you know, if you look at Florida, for example, their key capability that their ecosystem is built around is launch. Right. That's the key thing. We do have a spaceport here in Denver, Colorado spaceport,

but it's not set up to do vertical launch. It's only horizontal, which at the moment is really not a market. So I would say we don't necessarily compete with Florida because they're really focused on the launch piece. Los Angeles is probably more of a competitor because they're doing not only a launch at Vandenberg, and they have a lot out of Vandenberg, and they have

a lot of launch companies based there, including Relativity and SpaceX, of course, but they're also doing a lot of what I would call traditional space infrastructure projects. They have a very large supply chain in Los Angeles. So it's a very formidable market. For the reasons I said earlier, though, I think it's a difficult market to recruit to. Cost of living is high. People perceive that the quality of life might be a bit lower due to traffic and other concerns. But I would say we compete more with Los Angeles than we would with Florida. Okay. I want to circle back on the policy piece, and then I want to get into Voyager's work specifically. The city is facing some challenges along with its success as it does continue to grow. So what do city officials need to do to maintain this thriving

space industry? Yeah, I think housing is probably a key issue as I observe it. Because again, if you're recruiting someone into the market, they need to be able to afford to live here, right? And I believe Denver is the most expensive housing market in the country that's not on the coast. I believe that's true. So even though we're a bit cheaper than the coastal cities, it's still quite expensive to live here. So I think housing is a key consideration. I think access to amenities like the mountains, which is a key consideration for people moving here. The traffic to the mountains has actually gotten quite bad. It's a bit of a punchline of a joke for some people. So I think solving that is important as

well, because if you don't have access to the quality of life amenities readily, then it's not going to be an advantage compared to other cities as well. So those would be two areas I would focus on. Okay. So if we shift gears to Voyager specifically, why did you start Voyager? I guess lay out the origin story. Right. Yeah. So Voyager really was born from the idea of what does the industry need? As you know, Morgan, I was doing a lot of early stage investing in the industry, mainly because that's what the industry needed at the time. And I was trying to help facilitate early stage capital so that we can mature companies to the point that venture capital and others would be interested in it.

We largely solved that problem. But if I looked at what was up and coming as a challenge is the industry wasn't scaling particularly well. What do I mean by that? Well, a lot of the companies, new space companies, were sort of 40 or 50 employees. They were doing great work within their particular niche, but they weren't really doing larger projects because they didn't have the integrated capability to do that. The primes, of course, have the capability to do just about anything, but they're not going to take on new

ambitious projects because they don't have to, frankly. So the idea was, how do you create the best of both worlds? How can you create a company that is new space anchored in terms of innovation and entrepreneurialism, but has the capability of a prime or a mini prime to do big projects? That was the idea behind it. And when you started the company, you started the company here in Denver. Yes. We started the company here in Denver for the reasons I mentioned earlier in terms of workforce and quality of life. But interestingly, the first two acquisitions we made were both Denver-based companies as

well. So I think that obviously factored into it also. Was that because you were in close proximity and got to know these companies so well so quickly or was it coincidental? I think it was coincidental, honestly, which I think speaks well to the ecosystem that two of the most interesting companies for us to acquire were based here. I guess just to sort of build on this thesis around Voyager, is it fair to say that Voyager is an incubator of sorts? That you buy, you bring together some of these most innovative companies, and then you help them to grow under this common goal?

Yeah, that was the initial impetus for what we were creating. We're now beyond that because we've now made seven acquisitions, and those have all been integrated into a traditional operating company. So now we operate in three segments. But the initial impetus for that was, yes, let's acquire fast-growing, highly innovative new space companies. Let's give them all the shared services that they need to be successful. Let's centralize things like business development and client relationship management and finance, accounting.

And that was very successful. But now that we have scale, we're circa 700 employees now, and quite a bit of revenue looking to enter the public markets at some point, as we've discussed previously. So now that's all been reorganized into a three-segment operating company. Will you make more acquisitions? I think we will make more acquisitions. The question is, do we do that now or do we do that later? If we make material

acquisitions, it impacts our ability to file our S-1 and go public and things like that. So I think we need to think through the timing of those. That being said, we're actively looking at a couple of acquisitions right now. So one of the things we're thinking about doing is vertically integrating our supply chain. Starlab, our signature infrastructure project, has a supply chain associated with it. We've already acquired one company within that supply chain. So I could see us making another acquisition there. And then we're always looking to expand our capabilities.

Because as we expand our capabilities, then we can go further up on the food chain, so to speak, and capture more of the economics of the industry, right? And that's really the game. If you look at the primes, they control about probably 70 or 80% of the economics and it's because they're in the catbird seat, right? They're the most capable. They're the prime contractor. They determine pricing in their supply chain. So we're trying to continue to add capability so that we're climbing up the apex. I want to talk about that capability. But first, just to backtrack a little bit here, in less than two years after Voyager's founding, you won a major NASA contract. Tell me about it. Yeah. So it was actually 20 months after we were founded. We were awarded the replacement contract under CLD

to build the replacement to the International Space Station. There were three awardees under that program, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman. Subsequent to us winning that, Northrop Grumman then merged with our team. So we're really now down to Blue Origin and ourselves under CLD. And subsequent to us winning that, Northrop Grumman then merged with our team. So we're really now down to Blue Origin and ourselves under CLD. So yeah, that was a huge win, obviously, for the company.

So you ask yourself, how do we do that? I think part of it is, back to what I said earlier, being a credible, safe pair of hands. You know, as the adage goes, no one ever got fired for hiring IBM. So you want to be a safe company where NASA can award a contract and people aren't saying, how, you know, why, why would this company win that contract? But if you look at what NASA's needs are, they want more innovation, right? They want more capability. They want a fresh look at these different technical problems that they've been trying to solve for years and years. And I think if you look at commercial cargo and commercial crew, probably best exemplified by SpaceX and having the ability to reuse rocket boosters and things like that, I think they were

thinking, you know, we need some innovation as well. The other thing we had done was we had acquired a company that is the largest commercial user of the International Space Station. So we immediately became the most credible service provider in the mix, right, because we were doing services on the ISS. And then lastly, we had just installed an airlock, the only permanent fixture on the International Space Station owned by a private entity. And we had just installed that. That's human-rated. So we demonstrated the ability to put human-rated hardware on the International Space Station. So for all those reasons, I think we were a logical choice for NASA to award a contract to. So if you had to describe Starlab and explain how it differs from the competitors in the marketplace, what would that look like?

Well, it's a free flyer. So if you look at another competitor, Axiom, which comes up from time to time, they're building a module attaching to the International Space Station. At some point in the future, they intend to make that a free flyer, but currently it'll be a module to start. So free flyer means the ability to put the station wherever you want in terms of orbit, but also to be able to maneuver the station in free space. So that's one thing.

Second thing is we have an eight meter design. And of course in space, it's all about volume. The modules on the International Space Station are about 4.1 meters. So these are roughly twice the diameter. And of course, it's all about volume as I mentioned earlier. So you're gonna actually get three times the volume

given the same distance. So that's a big innovation. How are we able to do eight meters? Well, we're taking advantage of the new Starship rocket. We've announced that we've signed a launch agreement with SpaceX. So the eight meter design makes a big difference. And then lastly, ours is completely optimized for research, right? That's why we call it Star Lab. Not to say we won't have tourists, and of course we'll have NASA astronauts on board, but we're really focused on optimizing it for research purposes, and I think that is

unique compared to the other solutions. When will it go to space? 2028 is what we're targeting, and that's what we've said publicly. What we are definitely focused on is getting it in orbit before the ISS comes down. I was just before Congress on the Hill last week testifying on this issue, and it became clear amongst the Science and Technology Committee that they're focused on 2030 being a hard and fast date for the ISS to be decommissioned. So it's really important we don't have a space station gap, and it's really important we get Starlab in orbit prior to that. So in terms of the development process and production process of Starlab, where is that happening? And if we were to walk through those facilities right now, what

would we see? Yeah, so it's happening all throughout our ecosystem. So our major facilities are here in Denver, Houston, San Diego, Cleveland, and DC. So literally all of those different locations have some role in Starlab. The primary anchor for design is in Houston at the moment. So if you went to Houston, you'd see a mockup, literally something you could actually walk through that would be the volume of Starlab. It would show some of the racking systems that we've designed,

some of the mockup for crew quarters. So we intend to build a prototype essentially, and hopefully we'll have one here in Denver. That would be my intention, because I think it's really important to be able to take customers and take potential clients, you know, through something that's actually physical space that you can see what this will look like. And then we're also doing quite a bit of work in Cleveland. Zinn Technologies, which is one of the companies we acquired, is focused on human habitation, supply chain, and that's a key consideration for Starlab as well. In terms of the market, which we know is new and emerging and sky's the limit, I guess pun intended here,

what will this look like, the market for commercial space stations? Yeah, I think the market's huge, Morgan. I mean, this is an example where I think supply doesn't address demand, it creates demand. And what do I mean by that? You know, the example would be with SpaceX. If you would have said 10 years ago, well, SpaceX is going to have this capability. They're going to launch all the hardware from all the manifests in three weeks, and the rest of the year, they're going to have nothing to do. Well, that's not what happened. What happened is because we have this

capability, many, many, many more constellations were born because those business plans now make sense. And we now have launched more satellites in 2023 than we did previously in the history of the world put together, right? Many thousands of satellites launched last year. So that's a key consideration. Very similar with Starlab, just take research and development, right? The science piece of this. There's roughly $400 million of that research happening on the International Space Station today. Why not more? Well, astronaut time is a constraint. It's very difficult to get astronaut time scheduled. The astronauts are busy, including doing maintenance on the station because the station is aging. So that's one consideration.

Second consideration is you have to go through the CASIS process, which is the national lab associated with doing research on the International Space Station. It can be upwards of two years to get an experiment flown. And that's part of the reason why our business flourishes, because we help companies design those missions and shepherd them through that, which they appreciate. But it's still a long lead time item. So imagine a brand new space station optimized for commercial purposes,

much more streamlined to get research done. There's going to be a huge boom in demand associated with that capability. So if I zoom out, you said the last 10 years were about access to space. The next 10 years will be about building destinations. Yes. What role does Voyager play in that process? Yeah, so think of it as lily pads, right? We've got key markets we're focused on. One is low-Earth orbit destinations. The second is cislunar infrastructure. That's everything from

geosynchronous orbit to the moon and getting that infrastructure and those railroad tracks built. And the third is lunar. I think it's sequential. I know we've got a spacecraft, the industry does, going to the moon this week. That's fantastic. But if I look at actual infrastructure and the ability to support human habitation and commerce, I do see it as sequential. So I think LEO destinations unlocks lunar, assuming we get the cislunar infrastructure also built at the same time. So that's the way we think about it. This is an enabler for humans to take that next step out there. And my vision would be by the end of the 2020s, and hopefully in the early 2030s, we would have multiple space stations in low Earth orbit.

Think of it as a village, if you will, that's enabling commerce, enabling many more humans to live in space, but also putting us in a position where we can plant roots on the moon and then ultimately go deeper into space. So for lack of a better term, space colonization is nearer than we think. Yeah, colonization is a tricky word. I would say space evolution or the ability to live further and deeper into space. Yes. Settlement, maybe. Okay. You mentioned the fact that you will continue to build on capabilities at Voyager. What does that look like? So there are a couple of key capabilities I would like to add.

One is flight software. So if you look at what the industry does well and doesn't do well, I would say flight software is not a particularly core skill for the industry. So we definitely want to add that to our capability. I think that's really important. And then I would say base manufacturing is another key capability, whether that's the ability to manufacture satellites or components or subsystems that would go on Starlab. I think that's another key thing we're focused on. IPO?

IPO is in the consideration, I would say. It's one of many things we're considering. But as you know, I grew up in the public markets, Morgan. I actually like the public markets. I believe in the public markets. And if you look at Voyager as a multi-billion dollar enterprise value potential, which I think it is, I think our natural place is in the public markets. Sooner rather than later? I think it depends on what sooner means. Right now, I would say the IPO window is not necessarily open. There are some IPOs getting done, but I think we're down, I think 2023 was down circa 85% versus 2021. 2022 is also a down year.

Now, I think that's changing a bit. But what I would say is once the window opens, we'll be in a position to take a very close look at it. And I don't think we're too far away from being ready. Now, you've personally invested in, I believe it's about 50 space companies? Yes. Why did you start investing and how have you approached it? Yeah, so the reason I started initially was not because I thought it was some great investor, but I did think the industry needed more early stage capital. I thought the founders needed some self-confidence, for lack of a better word, maybe some business

mentorship because a lot of those founders hadn't run companies at scale. That was something from my background I could bring to the table. And then from my vantage point, it was a way for me to get to know the industry, get to know many of the founders, get to know the business plans, and just sort of educate myself on it. And so the way I approached it was I was really focused on sectors that I knew were going to be successful. So, for example, let's talk about launch. I didn't have the ability to invest in SpaceX, but there were several other launch companies that were available. I didn't feel confident that I could pick winners and losers, so I made three or four bets, for example. Earth observation, the same thing. I think I invested in about a dozen Earth Observation companies.

Some worked, some didn't, and some were massive successes. But primarily what I was focused on is the team. And I know that sounds perhaps like an oversimplification, but to me, team is really the only thing that matters. So when someone would send me, let's say, an email saying, I want to talk to you about our company. By the way, I want you to sign an NDA because we have this very secret idea that it's the best thing ever. I just decline all that because to me, the idea is irrelevant. It really is about execution.

And as far as I know, there's never been a business plan drafted that was implemented the way it was written. So it's all about the founders. It's all about, you know, can they pivot? When they hit a brick wall, what do they do? Do they go around it, through it, over it, or do they give up? So to me, it's really all about the team and also how the founders get along with each other. Because you can have brilliant founders that are oil and water. And so it really is about the team.

I know that sounds, you know, probably cliche, but there are companies I was so sure about technically that weren't successful and vice versa. And it really always comes down to the personalities and the people running it. Do you still actively invest in space startups? I don't, mainly because, as you mentioned earlier, in preparation of perhaps going public down the road and things like that, it's easier for me to de-conflict those things. Voyager does have a ventures capability, and we've made some small venture investments at the Voyager level. But yeah, my own personal space investing, I'm minimizing that. It's basically follow-on investments from things I've already invested in. Some of those investments are Denver-based as well.

Yes, several. Yeah, many. OrbitFab is one of them. It's a startup that's building gas stations, for lack of a better term, in space. Why did you invest in that company? Daniel Faber was known to me. I was a mentor within Techstars, which, by the way, Techstars is a whole other part of the story here because it's based in Boulder and does a great job with early-stage mentorship, incubation, early-stage funding.

So I was part of the Techstars mentor group, if you will. They had an aerospace cluster based in Los Angeles. They asked me to be a mentor to that program, which I agreed to. And OrbitFab became the company I was mentoring. And I knew Daniel before because I had invested in another company he was running, which was Deep Space Industries. So I knew Daniel and had a lot of respect for him and the team he was building. And then after mentoring him and understanding Orbitfab well, I agreed to invest. I did not talk him into moving to Denver. They did that all by themselves. In fact, they

didn't even ask for my advice on that particular point. So I was pleasantly surprised when they moved here. They also have a contract with the Space Force for refueling. Is that exciting? It is. Yeah, yeah. I mean, refueling is critical, right? I mean, even if you look at SpaceX at Starship, the only way that works is the ability to do orbital refueling. So there's no doubt in my mind that orbital refueling is a key capability the industry needs for us to be successful long term. Is the hope that they're going to become like an Exxon or Chevron of space or think about it differently? Well, I think that's one way to think about it. I think

the capability to transfer fluids in space is even more robust than just fuel, right? There might be other capabilities that we, you know, let's say transferring oxygen on orbit for whatever reason, right? Breathable oxygen, let's say. So I think there are other reasons you might want to transfer fluids, but I think gas stations in space is a good slogan because I think, you know, people understand it easily. But I do think the ability to grapple in space is a key capability if you want to service a satellite, for example. So that's a key capability. If you want to clean up space debris, grapple is an important technology. So I think OrbitFab is touching

on a lot of different things the industry needs, actually. And there are a number of other companies, as you mentioned, that you've invested in that are in the Denver area or in some cases have partnered with a recent partnership that was announced or I guess a memorandum of understanding with Palantir which is another transplant to the area. Yeah that's right so we did announce a partnership with Palantir as you mentioned they're based here in Denver we've gotten to know that executive team well we do quite a bit of national security work, as I know you know. And of course, their business is based on national security. We were really focused on their capability regarding edge computing and AI. So if you think about Starlab as a flying laboratory, you might want to have, it will have quite a bit of

power to the station. And of course, with power, you can have compute. So the idea is, could you actually, instead of transmitting the data from station to ground and processing it here on Earth, could you actually process that data on orbit and just transmit the answer, so to speak? So Palantir is helping us think through that. And so that's something that you're aspiring to and could become a reality? Yeah, yeah for sure. I think edge computing in general is a thing.

People are trying to get the answer calculated as close to where the data is collected as possible. I think that's wise. It makes a lot of sense to me to do it that way. And on orbit, the constraint's always been power, right? But if you have a large station with large solar panels, as we will, we can actually have quite a bit of compute on orbit. Very cool. Okay, I want to shift gears here again, because not only are you a space investor,

not only are you an innovator and an entrepreneur and the CEO of a fast-growing space company that's poised to take on the primes increasingly. You've also traveled to space. I have. So take me back to December 11th of 2021 when you made your trip. What was that day like for you? That was an amazing day. So we had, originally we were supposed to launch on December 9th. We got pushed two days due to weather. So I was anxious for that reason. But on December 11th, they wake you up about 3 o'clock in the morning. I was a crew of six. Michael Strahan was on that flight, as I know you know.

Then you go to the astronaut center. You get in your flight suit. You have a light breakfast. You don't want to overdo it. You check in with family. The family's there. They want the ability for you to not say goodbye, of course, but to have them wish you well on this journey.

And then you get into these large Rivians, because Rivian, I think, was sort of the transport. This is important later in the story. So remember Rivian. And then you go out to the launch pad. And then from there, we actually are in a part of the launch area where the astronauts were to stay before we climb the stairwell to enter the capsule, essentially. So I remember just being super excited I wasn't nervous shockingly I would have thought I would have been terrified but I wasn't I think it's because the training is so good we had rehearsed this moment over and over and over again so your brain it's like okay well this is exactly what I've already done before then you get the call we actually climb the stairs as

you're walking across the the bridge you ring the bell, which is sort of tradition, and then enter the capsule. I was in seat two. And from there, you're in your chair, you harness up, and you're getting audio feedback from mission control. They're talking to you about what's happening. A lot of this you've already practiced, so you know what's happening. And then they start informing you as to what the countdown is.

Then it's getting real, right? Then it's getting very real. And then we had a couple of holds, and honestly that's the only thing that made me nervous, is I was like, why are we holding? Is it weather? Because I didn't want to get scrubbed that was my biggest concern but finally we got to final countdown I think on launch my heart rate was around 62 which is shockingly low in my mind and again I think it's because the training was so good

so I wasn't afraid I trusted the technology technology. I trusted the team. And then, yeah, once you have liftoff, I mean, by the way, I think I might be the only human to have ever been on a launch to space that actually always strapped in, there's no window next to you at all, right, you're facing forward. With Blue Origin you have the ability because of the large windows sloping down to look out the window and I thought to myself why can't I get permission from Human Factors to actually tilt my head in the chair so I'm actually looking out the window downward. So earlier in the week I'd asked the Human Factors team if I could do it, and they thought about it and they talked amongst themselves and they finally said yeah, that is something we would allow because as long as your head's back in the seat, it doesn't matter if it's twisted one way or the other because it's supported. And so the whole way up I'm looking out the window watching the Earth fall away, which

is a complete and utter mind blower. You go supersonic in about 27 seconds. You get up there. They tell you to unstrap. You unstrap. You're in microgravity. You're floating. And you look out the window, and it's the most mind-blowing thing you've ever seen in your entire life. In fact, it did take my breath away. And I later watched the video, and I literally gasped. And I think I said something like, oh my god, something like that. I don't remember saying that, but that's what I did. So yeah, it was unbelievable. And even though I had high expectations going in and I told myself I shouldn't, but I did, it was a thousand acts better than that. And I went to the window, I turned myself upside down because the windows are

sloped it's basically like you're hovering because there's nothing in your field of view just the earth so yeah that was amazing then you strap back up you come back in you're pulling a lot of G's on the way down because you hit the atmosphere so you hit two initially then three three, then four, then we hit six for about 10 seconds, which is uncomfortable. And then six, five, four, three, two, and then ultimately one. The drogues deploy, parachutes deploy, and then you just have this beautiful ride down where you're just thinking, my mind has just been completely blown.

Then you land, a little bit of a shocking landing, not too bad, but it definitely, you know, gets your attention. And then they give the crew about five or 10 minutes to kind of collect their thoughts because the second you open the door, you know, we were live on CNN and there were other media there. You're immediately mobbed by media. So you have to kind of get your head straight. And then we did the wing ceremony right there. Jeff winged us all live on television, which was cool. And yeah, that was the day. It was an amazing, best day of my life. I can honestly say that. I have so many questions. It never gets dull hearing a story like this. I have a few more questions about it, though. We have to get you up there, Morgan. We have to get you up there. I agree. What is it like to travel inside of a rocket that's going supersonic, that's going

2,000 miles per hour? It's pretty amazing because, again, everything is surreal, right? I mean, I think it's one of these things where intellectually you know it's happening, but it's so strange. You know, even if you're a fighter pilot or somebody who's used to high-speed action, this is still, you know, much, much, much faster than that in terms of the speeds that you're generating. I think we got up to a Mach 3.3 or something like that, right? So you're going 27, 2800 miles an hour. Still much less than you would for orbital, of course, but it's still really fast. But I enjoyed it. And I'm not a huge speed demon,

but I did enjoy that. But by far the best was being in zero-g looking at Earth. I mean, that was by far the most important and enjoyable part. Was there anything specific you did while you were enjoying those several minutes of weightlessness? You know, I told myself to be 100% present because I've been thinking, you know, this is a lifelong dream, right? So I've been thinking about this literally my whole life. Like, what do you do? And we've actually, they ask you to file a zero G plan where you tell them what you're

going to do and you tell your colleagues what you're going to do because people need to understand what everyone's doing so there's not collisions or anything like that. So I had designed my mission around going to the window, turning myself upside down. People say, well, why turn yourself upside down? There is no up and down in zero G. And that's true. But when you're in a capsule that you've been in under gravity and you see a chair in front of you, your brain intuits that's up, that's down. And I wanted to disrupt that. So when I went to the window and turned myself upside down, just basically kind of turned your thinking brain off. And then similarly, when I was, this was on the way up, I could see the Rocky Mountains within probably 25 seconds, which is amazing when you think about it, because we're all the way up, I could see the Rocky Mountains within probably 25 seconds, which is amazing

when you think about it, because we're all the way down in West Texas. But the second I started seeing features that I recognized, I immediately tried to turn that part of my brain off, because I wanted to just experience as opposed to process and think. So I do remember when I was up there, I could see Panama or Alaska to Panama, roughly. But when I started attaching names to those different things, I immediately told myself, okay, that's not the experience I want to have. I want to just exist and just be 100% present. And thankfully, I was able to pull that off.

Will you do it again? I would like to do it again. I'm working on something. Yeah. Ooh, okay. working on something. Yeah. Ooh, okay. Working on something. The experience you had actually traveling to space, how does that now affect or color the way you're running a space company?

Yeah, a sense of urgency. Morgan, when I got back, you know, I always believed that space was this powerful tool for transformation that was the next big thing for civilization and for humanity. I always believed that intuitively, but now I know it and I experienced it. So when I got back, I'm like, everything we're doing is the right track, but we need to do it faster. And, you know, I had founded the nonprofit, I know you're aware of Space for Humanity. And to date, I think when I had flown we had actually flown no astronauts mainly due to capacity but after I flew we have subsequently flown a four astronauts via that nonprofit including the first African born female first Mexican born

female so I'm really proud of that but again that was really the impetus to focus on you know these are all the different projects that matter, but we need to do it quicker and we need to make sure it's a reality. Including Voyager, by the way, and Starlab, right? I mean, it's really, really important that we get that infrastructure layer built. What have you learned about space travel that might surprise our viewers? It's not risky. And what do I mean by that? If you look at Blue Origin's design, there are so many levels of redundancy, and there

are so many things that protect you if something bad happens, that it's not as risky as people think. And I'm specifically talking about what I flew on Blue Origin. It might surprise people. This is why you need to do it, Morgan. It's not dangerous at all. You're not twisting my arm. I'm hoping it happens.

Okay. So if we take all of this and we put it together, when do you think we could be living and experiencing space like, I don't know, the Jetsons? Flying over to gas stations to fill up our flying cars or traveling around space like a cross-country trip. I mean, is this where the future's going or is that too cartoonized, too Hollywood? What does this look like? You look at 10 years, 20 years, 50 years from now. Right. Well, one thing I think you mentioned that I think we will have is point to point transportation. I think Starship, when it makes orbit and once it's refined and once it's flying humans, I think further down the road, subject to regulatory approval, we'll have the ability to go Florida to Australia in 30 minutes. And you get your astronaut wings along the way.

I think that will be a thing because the technology is sound and it makes a lot of sense, especially if you can get the price down to an international business class ticket, why wouldn't you do that? So I think that is a thing. When will that happen? I think it's possible that could happen in the next 10 years. So that would put us like mid-2030s. That would transform society for sure because it would be a thing to travel by rocket.

In terms of getting humans living in space, I think obviously we've had humans living in space for 22 years on the ISS, but I think at scale, the most likely would be the moon because we actually have access to things like oxygen on the moon. We actually have, Voyager does, some of the core technology to transform moon regolith and extract oxygen. But once you have oxygen, you have transform moon regolith and extract oxygen. But once you have oxygen, you have fuel, you have breathable oxygen. And my dream would be, imagine sitting on your porch. You're in Maine on your porch, and you look up at the moon, and there are stars on the moon.

Or lights on the moon, sorry. Lights on the moon, because there are humans up there working and living on the moon. I think that would be amazing, right? I mean, that would be a permanent reminder that we have humans out there. I think deeper into space is going to be harder, right? Because Mars is very far away. Radiation is a real challenge. It's probably the biggest design challenge we have for human spaceflight in deep space.

So I think, you know, could we get humans to do an out and back to Mars or go to Mars and maybe orbit a couple times until the ability to come back? I think that's possible probably in the mid-2030s. But actually landing on Mars, living on Mars, I think that's going to be much more difficult. I think that's probably, you know, late 2030s if we're lucky. Final question for you. Will Voyager be a player in these emerging lunar and Martian economies? Yes, absolutely. As I mentioned earlier, we're thinking about the industry in terms of lily pads. So we're focused on the orbit destinations, cislunar infrastructure, and lunar. And then

the next logical lily pad from that is deep space. And deep space would include Venus, which is something we're looking at actively, and Mars. Dylan Taylor, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you, Morgan. That does it for this episode of Manifest Space. Make sure you never miss a launch by following us wherever you get your podcasts and by watching our coverage on Closing Bell Overtime. I'm Morgan Brennan.