Off-Nominal - 194 - St. Bart’s on a Tuesday (with Roman Chiporukha)

Episode Date: April 25, 2025

Jake and Anthony are joined by Roman Chiporukha, founder of SpaceVIP, a travel agency for space.TopicsOff-Nominal - YouTubeEpisode 194 - St. Bart’s on a Tuesday (with Roman Chiporukha) - YouTubeSpaceVIP | Your Gateway to the CosmosSpace PrizeBlue Origin’s First All-Female Spaceflight Stunt - The New York TimesRadian Aerospace – World’s First Single-Stage-to-Orbit SpaceplaneFollow Off-NominalSubscribe to the show! - Off-NominalSupport the show, join the DiscordOff-Nominal (@offnom) / TwitterOff-Nominal (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceFollow JakeWeMartians Podcast - Follow Humanity's Journey to MarsWeMartians Podcast (@We_Martians) | TwitterJake Robins (@JakeOnOrbit) | TwitterJake Robins (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceFollow AnthonyMain Engine Cut OffMain Engine Cut Off (@WeHaveMECO) | TwitterMain Engine Cut Off (@[e-mail]) - Spacey SpaceAnthony Colangelo (@acolangelo) | TwitterAnthony Colangelo (@[e-mail]) - jawns.club 🐘Off-Nominal MerchandiseOff-Nominal Logo TeeWeMartians Shop | MECO Shop

TLS and go for main engine, start. Jake, I think we made it. We don't know. We may cancel this show at literally any moment we might cancel this show. But I think we got Roman here with us. How you doing, Roman? I'm good. Thanks, and I appreciate you dealing with the technical difficulties that we have here in space.

I mean, New York City. I'm going to be honest with you real quick. Number one, two things. First of all, this is definitely our fault because right before this, we do a little pre-show in Discord. with the members and Jake and I were talking trash about Discord, how it never works right the first time, and e-cam always works, and then here we are, e-cam doesn't work. Number two, I have, I literally don't know how you're connected to us right now.

I send you a Zoom link that then somehow piped into e-cam. I've never used this feature before. I do not know how this is working. So, again, we may cancel the show at any moment. So there you have it. Keep me posted. I'm happy to repeat myself. We saw that you had a cool drink there.

Do you want to show off what you're working on there? Okay. So I am a raging alcoholic, and this is a non-alcoholic beverage made by Gia, which I discovered randomly in a Miami restaurant, and this is a ginger sprit. So it's, think of like a less sweet, bitter soda. So if you took club soda, added a. a fuckload of bitters. Can I use a...

Okay. And then a little bit of sugar. You want a little bit more, but it's sufficient as it is. And so it's a lot more interesting than drinking water. So I have this in different... It comes in different flavors, and this one, the ginger one is the one I chose today. So, cheers. And you can buy this in normal places.

Did you, like, import this from Miami? Where do you get it? No, I buy it online from gia.com. You're welcome. You now owe me 10% commission, Gia people. Yes. Send me some free drinks. I spend too much money on this shit.

That's awesome. Okay, so mine has a story today. Not a meat, no, no. But I'm following Roman's lead and doing a non-alcoholic today. But this is Cedar Pino. Pine soda? Not quite, no. So the story, this is, this is, I live in Mexico, if you don't know, Roman. And this is a local brand of soda that they had here. And you can- Googling it right now from like a very long time ago. This was founded, like the year started with 18. That's how, that's how long ago this was founded. And they went out of business like 15 years ago after like a long run like Coke ran out of business and then like took over their thing. Well, something bad happened. But, But like maybe three months ago, this huge billboard appeared on the side of the highway with like just this logo.

It was just like Zedropino. And it's like a beloved local brand. Yeah. And everyone was like losing their minds because there like no information, just the logo. And it just sat there for a long time. And then they started appearing in stores. So the story is that the brewery that I buy from Petito, they bought the whole IP whatever. And they're making it again.

And so. We're here. You know for sure that's a fresh batch. It's not like they found the old warehouse and dusted it off. I just Googled it as you were talking. And all I see is vintage Cedropino soda bottles. And I was like, what's this guy drinking? Vintage Cedropino soda bottle from 1940.

I was like, wow, these guys roll deep here. High end. But the pine tree, though, that thing there is it, The founder of this is a Lebanese immigrant to Mexico. So this is the, if you know, the flag of Lebanon, it's got the on it as well. So that's the story behind that. The founder originally or the founder recently. And what does it taste like?

So it's hard to describe, but it's kind of like a little bit cream soda, a little bit of banana, almost bubble gum, but not quite. What? Yeah, it's like a sweet kind of. That doesn't get better each time you added something to it. It's super weird and interesting. but I like it. It's good. I'm taking the bitter thing with a little bit of sugar. If I had to pick between these two.

I have a large collection of weird sodas. And there's this one from Italy that's called Kinoto, which is kind of like the cousin of the grapefruit and the orange. And it's similar. So when my wife asked me to describe it, I had a similar response to you. And you're kind of going like, you keep trying it to assess whether or not you like it or not.

So it's like it has a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I'm not sure if I like it, but I think I do. And I'm sitting here smelling it for hours. And she's like, dude, just drink another one. Don't be weird. Like they're too expensive. It's like $8 for a bottle of soda. It was cheaper being an alcoholic.

Well, I'm the only one doing that today, apparently. I got some field study. I'm dusting off the summer beers, Jake. This one's the best trunk is one there is. It's field study. It's summer. It's the shit. Is that a wheat beer?

Did you say weed beer or wheat beer? Wheat, wheat. I thought you said weed beer. No, it's like an IPA. It's a, yeah, just a... I don't know why they say summer IPA versus... They have one that's just field study IPA, so they must throw a little extra something in the summer one.

They throw a little summer in it, yeah. It makes it seem like it's rare, so you'll pay more for it. I guess. I'm trying to look if they added anything. I love a good marketing tactic. It's like when they put little bat wings on the Cadbury egg so they can sell them at Halloween. Exactly right. My favorite way to drink beer was to do shots of bourbon in between them, which is probably why I don't drink anyone.

Stick with the expensive soda, the expensive richer soda. So you got even higher end taste of space travel and tourism. And also, I've got non-space questions for you about the reef base. We have so many different angles here. We keep trying to find people to talk about submarines on this show, and no one will talk to us, so maybe you will. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got plenty more soda in the fridge. Let's rock it.

Let's rocket roll. Give us the backstory of where this game from. Okay. So I own a lifestyle management company that caters to the world's well-heeled. Because of that client base, we were approached by Axiom Space in 2018, and they were like, we hear you work with the world's wealthiest. And I was like, you guys here are correct. And they said, will you assist us in promoting the first all-private astronaut mission

to the International Space Station? And I was like, game on. And so it took me two years. And everyone in my world was like, you are fucking crazy. You're not selling a ticket to space, let alone a $50 million ticket. And I was like, maybe I will. Maybe I won't. Like, we'll see about it.

Like, I got a lot of soda to buy, you know, come on. I got a lot of soda. I think I had just stopped drinking. Yeah, I stopped drinking in March of 2018. They came to us. I think it was like later in the year, September or October. Yes, I'm already Stop drinking. Yes, I hadn't discovered the soda, but

A trip to Miami didn't happen yet. Yeah. So I have a watch collection too, so that's also an addiction that needs to be fed. So I go out, I start talking to everyone and their mother. It takes me two years, November of 2020, at the end of an abysmal year for travel, lifestyle, and leisure,

we introduce Axiom to the last and final astronaut for this mission thereby making the mission possible. We use the proceeds from that sale to start space VIP, which effectively aggregates all of the space tourism operators in the world, because when we sold a ticket, we were like, wait a minute, there's no one platform anywhere in the world where you can go and read about all of these space tourism experiences.

Because if you want to Axiom or Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic, you know, the website is talking about the dawn of humanity. and I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm not very smart. I need to know what it is, how much it costs, where I go, how long I train for, and what do I tell my wife? Like in very specific order, so I can click down, look at the same kind of format, and so just super easy. So we went out and we created this platform and we talked about, you know,

on Earth in the world's ocean, which we consider to be space adjacent because a lot of astronauts trained in the water. and then, you know, above, above the earth, essentially. And so as we were building space VIP, we were reading a lot of weird white papers and learned a lot about space and how it works and, you know, the rocket launches and the shuttle era and all of this weird stuff. We also realized that women were generally underserved in the STEM community. So with the help of one of our private member clients in my lifestyle business, we started

a nonprofit called Space Prize to promote universal space literacy and promote women in STEM education. I think it's fascinating that like 98% of the public has no fucking idea that at least 50% of the technological innovation that they take for granted actually comes from space technology. Like when they're tweeting or twatting about, you know, their relevant opinion on the Blue Origin launch, they forget as they're talking shit. about Bezos that it's using satellites that are in space.

Or when they order their Uber eats, they forget that it's GPS, which was the unlikely child of the space race, that brought them their shitty lunch. So I find the irony mind blowing and also really infuriating that this sort of ignorance still plagues us. So that's that's kind of the long and short of how we got here. So make no mistakes. I was not like a kid who was like, oh my God, I love space. I want to go to space camp.

And I had, you know, stars on my six. And you went out and you looked at the moon. You said, my God, there's a man on that moon. Did not. I am a Russian immigrant to the United States of America. So when my father started making a couple of dollars, I was obsessed with wearing a valour of Versacee sweatsuit to school. So those were my concerns.

And trying to get drunk, which is, again, why I don't drink anymore because I started way too, way to you. I find the rad soda brands of Miami. And apparently you've got to go down to Jake's house to get this vintage soda that he's drinking. I already sent him a request to ship me a box because I know that glass shipment from the Yucatan is going to be expensive. That's why I want him to bless me. price here for sure. I just mailed in my votes for the Canadian election last week, and it was two pieces of paper, and it was $65. So we'll see about the, we'll see about the, uh, sweet.

Sweet. God bless America. Which dollars that's right? Which dollars are three different currencies you're talking about you, Jake? What are we talking? My dollars. Real dollars? I don't even, I still don't know. I still don't know. I mean, it's not real dollars. That would have been like $2,400 or something, like the exchange rate. It was 900 pesos, so... 900, okay. I was only a little off. Man, crazy.

Yeah, anyways. Okay, so how did the companies feel about this, right? Obviously, there's some element of them wanting you to source them clients or customers, but there's another element like you're talking about with all their shitty websites, which I agree most of the websites are shitty. That's a different rant we've done on other days. They're all the same website, but they like to make themselves like, this is the one that you need to fly on, right?

We are the real one that you should do because X, Y, or Z. So are they, like, comfortable with the approach that you have, where you're letting people see more of a cross-section in the industry, or do they prefer their own pipelines all in their own? Listen, at the onset of the conversation, everyone wants to be, you can only sell us. And I'm like, that's not how this works, because some of these people forget that it's a free market.

So whether or not you're on my website or whether or not it's competing, the client is still going to go out and create their own comparative index. So you might as well do it for them. You just approve the information that I have on my website. And it's entirely up to the client to decide. Like we've had operators who said, if you're selling us, you can't sell them. And I'm like, okay, but that's not how the real work. world works. They're going to say, what about this company? I'm going to say, I don't know. I can't tell you anything about them. That sounds absurd. I do know, and I can tell you about them. And it's a matter of

it's a matter of price. It's a matter of location. So I live in the United States. Do I want to necessarily schlep to Europe to do an experience? No. And vice versa. If somebody's living in Saudi, do they want to fly to the United States to do a zero gravity flight or is it easier for them to go and do it out of Bordeaux where they have the European zero gravity offering? So, you know, I've had clients say to me, well, why can't I go to the company myself? And I'm like, go ahead. Why are you calling me? Do you book the four seasons yourself? And they say, yeah, I'm like, why do you book the four seasons yourself? Oh, because I get, you know, an early check in an elite checkout and an upgrade. I'm like, well, you kind of get. get the same thing with us because we shepherd you through the process. And speaking of Blue Origin, people are like, oh, I reached out to Blue, and I'm like, who'd you email? And they're like, info, bluearche.com. I was like, good luck with that. That's very stupid. And this is like a very wealthy

person. So you would think that their assistant would have figured out that there's a person who handles private astronaut experience at Blue Origin and email them rather than just kind of this blanket. Hi, my boss is a billionaire. He wants to go to space. How much can you send me the details? Send me a quote. Yeah, send me a quote. But you- mail that no one's ever been duped by the wording on that email. Yeah. Right. So it happens in, listen, a lot of the companies that we now represent reached out to us when they heard that we sold a $50 million ticket. And they're like, if you can sell a $50 million dollar ticket. Surely you can sell our million dollar ticket or a $10,000 ticket or however much

the ticket prices. So it was this natural evolution, which was really cool. And we got to learn about all of these fascinating experiences and broker relationships with all of them and invest in some of them on, you know, on a corporate level, which was really cool. And we continue to do that. It's certainly like a dicey game because they're so new. and innovative and sometimes it could fall apart and hopefully you bet big and and you make big. Yeah. It's an interesting market. Like it's also, it's also new.

This market is so so cutting edge new right now for space travel that like I think it's still kind of sorting itself out a little bit. In terms of like, you know, like how it's going to be handled in the long term and especially as it scales, right? My question would be like, how do you feel like you're positioned in terms of like, okay, so take the Axiom flight, for example. You've got like SpaceX and then NASA and then you've got Axiom and then it's you and then it's the actual end user, right? And that's like a lot of, it's a lot of people in the middle of that transaction, right? How does it, how do you make that valuable and how do you keep that?

Like, how do you plan a business around that? Because that feels like a scary thing to me to have it set up that way. Yeah, listen, Axiom was created on the premise of bringing people to the International Space Station. So they bought the rides from Elon and they're slotted in there. So they're saying, hey, we have this inventory. Can you fill it? And the commission on that sort of figure is sizable. And so if you do a couple of those a year, that's a pretty good business.

If you do one a year and it's two people working, great. You're still making a decent living. So if you add other things into the mix to expand your offerings, then it becomes worthwhile because you make, let's just use an even number like 10%. If you make 10% on these zero gravity flights, on these stratospheric balloons, et cetera, then while those are $10,000 ticket or $200,000 ticket, that's not a lot of money. But if you make a couple of percentage points on the big ticket items, that that compounded

with all of the smaller stuff you sell ends up being a viable business. The problem is that right now the only thing you can sell is a zero gravity flight, some analog missions. The stuff that Naster has to offer, which is centrifuge or simulation training, or a $70 million space ticket for attending missions to the International Space Station. So we understood this fairly early on, and we realized that most people didn't know anything about space, which is why it made sense to really,

really focus on the educational component of it. I have a journalist asked me all the time, well, you know, this is only for rich people. How does become more accessible? And my response is always the same is you need to educate the public. When you educate them, they become interested. When they buy, when they buy, you can create economies of scale. I think the stratospheric balloons are slowly coming online with their offerings, and that's probably the lowest barrier to entry, because it doesn't require any training. It's a pressurized capsule. Well, maybe you don't want to show that one.

Maybe shows defa... That's closed and shuttered at this point. That sure is. So, you know, Zafalto is kind of advancing quicker than we would have... realized so I have high hopes for them to be online in the next 12 to 18 months. They're hoping sooner. And so one of the reasons that we bought a couple of capsules from these various operators is, A, we wanted to have our own inventory, but I wanted to use the capsules to create a meaningful narrative about why space is important. So if you guys are familiar, we hired and are partnered

with the number eight restaurant in the world, Rasmus Monk from the Alchemist in Copenhagen, to cook a meal at the edge of space. We didn't do that to charge $500,000 for it. That only helps us break even. We're not making money on that for full transparency. That was to really catalyze and activate conversations about space. Because me telling the general public that they're too fucking stupid for not realizing that most of technology comes from space is not going to move the dial, right?

like who is this guy? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, who is this guy? It's expensive soda drinking asshole. Yeah, asshole, right, exactly. Alcoholic, go fuck yourself, right? In his Versace leisure suit. In his Versace leisure suit,

yes, I've since outgrown that, but now it's quiet luxury. Now you don't know that it's expensive. Let's go out. Only, only hide out. Even more of an asshole. But getting somebody like a meaningful cultural artist like a chef or a musician or an artist. Can you imagine if we got Banksy on one of these stratospheric balloons and he like spray painted something flowing into space?

Like how cool would that be? The website would crash or if Kim Kardashian tweeted that did you know that GPS came from space? Like maybe her comment breaks space instead of her ass. in this case. And that would be actually meaningful. So this is the unfortunate state of the world today that we need to go to influencers who have 100 million followers plus to get involved to move the needle. And I think some of them would be interested on a personal level to get involved,

but then they have managers and mothers and fathers and boyfriends who are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, she's interested. How much? I'm like, can I, I'll, the money's there. Can you just tell me if she's interested or not first? And then we can figure out that component. And it's all like, like, nah. I'm like, she's already rich.

Like, why do you need my money to do something meaningful if all I hear and read about is how much she cares about STEM and girls? And also, does she really care? Is it bullshit? Just like, tell me either way. So I could, otherwise I'm going to keep following up with you. So just like level with me. Yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting, it's an interesting problem.

Although, I don't know, I feel like the, like we just had Katie Perry go up and I feel like that one did not really go the way we wanted it to in terms of raising positive awareness on space because like the coverage on that was pretty, pretty wild, right? Yeah, but think about what they did or what narrative they prepared. There was no narrative. There was nothing prepared. It's Katie Perry goes up, brings a daisy, and then. says, I want to put the ass back into astronaut, which I think is fucking hysterical, by the way.

But it would have been... He doesn't know about ass cans, though. That's the thing. It's already there. So it's in the space industry. So somebody else said to me earlier, I want to put the ace back into space. There was something that he was saying that made... The ass in astronaut was, I think, much more impactful for me personally.

They didn't prepare. Like, if I was in charge of their comms campaign, I would have... said, okay, Katie Perry's going up, Gail King is going up. Great. Have Oprah kick up a million telescopes that we can donate. You guys with me? Yeah.

Your video is frozen. She comes back. She comes back. She donates a million telescopes to a million schools around the country. Or we're going to have a contest or Katie Perry sings a thousand songs and a thousand girls get to go to space camp, some sort of pre-during and post. or instead of all of the ladies going up there, they could have had like this massive space prize,

which I could have administered for them. And you have one winner go from, and then everyone around the world participates and you catalyze all of these women, rather than they're basically promoting the billionaire joyride narrative, which is not great. And you know what's really fucked up?

Is that the story became about Gail and Katie, rather than Aisha and all of the other women, that went like, Aisha is a brilliant woman of color who's a NASA trained rocket scientist, who happens to be really attractive and well educated and well spoken. So like give her a platform to speak and promote rather than ask an astronaut or I want to put some glam into the like, they fucked it up as they have in the past. But, you know, I admit maybe that's the issue when you're dealing with. one of the world's wealthiest people, his coms is not going to be like, hey, Jeff,

uh, you know, maybe you shouldn't spray William Shatner or Champagne while he's crying in, in the back. I don't know. I, I maybe would have handled it differently, but, you know, here we are sitting, talking shit about them, but maybe they're like, we don't give a fuck because we accomplished everything that we wanted. We needed to test the rocket and we had an additional run of it and we put our own things up there that we didn't tell any of you guys.

so we're laughing all the way to the bank. So you just don't know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like to talk good about me, talk bad about me, but God damn it, talk about me. Like, they definitely achieved that. They got some New York Times pieces splashed up on the homepage and whatnot. But do you think that, you know, from your end, right, you're someone that would likely see some portion of inbound sales that are kicked up by those things?

So have you seen on other missions? Has there been a notable uptick? or are you doing such targeted and specific outreach that you don't really track, you know, responses to certain flights? No, the only thing that's increased is people wanting to hear what I have to say in respect to the Blue Origin flight. Oh, what do you think? How much does it cost?

Where does it come on? And it's not like all of the sun people are like, I want to go to space because Katie Perry went to space. You know, Blue Origin doesn't publicize how much. they cost. They operate with their own rubric. So you're rich, I'm poor, you pay five million, I pay a million or I pay zero. It's kind of up in the air. They have their own pipeline. So it's really difficult to assess. I think the most important thing is to focus on educating the public. I think 22 was a really interesting year when Bezos,

and Branson had their launches, and you had the images come down from the James Webb Telescope, and space was, you know, in the cultural zeitgeist again. And then you saw Balenciaga doing, you know, $1,500 NASA branded shirts with holes in it, and people, like, trying to get in on that tip.

And then it kind of subsided. So it's difficult to assess, but people don't know enough and don't take it seriously. People are like, oh, is that the future? I'm like, no, it's now. They're like, when is the axiom client going? I'm like, bro, he went in 2022 and came back and he's fine and he's moved on. Like, Jared Isaacman is not a known name even after he became. He's probably a bit better known after he became, let's call him the space secretary for all intents and purposes. But like, that dude is a legend. He raised a quarter billion dollars for St. Jude's. He brought and did cancer research in space. He became a legendary space explorer and just recently did a spacewalk and had his own Netflix documentary that nobody's seen me.

So it's mind-blowing to me that this guy who has all of this money and has done so much is not really known in the public eye. So I think, listen, from the small man chair that I'm sitting in, the blue origin was a missed opportunity. But to my point earlier, maybe they accomplished all of their goals and they don't care. So, sorry, to answer your question in short, no, I haven't seen an uptick in any interest in flights. People are just like, what do you think about this? We want to get a sound bite. And I'm like, okay, I'm happy to engage and tell you what I think.

So thank you for humoring me. Yeah, we're all about sound bites on this show. That's our beat. Incredibly nerdy conversations. Can we talk about, number one, you have Aquarius Reef Base listed on your website, and I didn't know that you could go there. Can you go there?

And live in saturation? Yeah. Can you go there? You can go. Like, obviously, if you're NASA Astronaut, you can go there. But can I, like, scrounge up some cash and go there? Yeah, of course. What do you mean?

I thought I wasn't allowed unless I was in the National. No, Aquarius. No, no, no, Aquarius. Various reef base will sly you into one of their missions. You just need to kind of like align with the mission at hand, whether it's studying sharks or tidal waves or whatever is kind of the mission du jour. And a portion of those monies will go to future research initiatives. But yeah, you can for sure go and live in saturation.

And they want supporters like that. You know, they would be even better cultivated if Rolex came and said, here's a million dollars. We want to do a campaign. And please wear your watch. Otherwise, where the fuck are you wearing the James Cameron watch that could tell time, a hundred leagues under the sea? I'm like, why did I buy the stupid watch?

It's like this stick, where am I ever going to test it? I'll tell you what, right before I implode underneath next to the Titanic. Yeah, not listed on your website, the whole Titanic situation. But yeah, is there not, what's up with the Challenger Deep expeditions? Is that not something, you have to arrange those yourself? That's not something that they're not operating regularly anymore. That was just a one-time campaign. Or not one-time.

Listen, we, you know, their EOS expeditions does tremendous, tremendous stuff. They worked closely with Victor Viscovo and the Five Deep's expedition. And if you recall, those guys went to the Mariana Trench, which is three times as deep as the Titanic with no issues. James Cameron went to the Titanic, I don't know, 35 times and had nothing happened. So those were rated unlimited depth subs and made that a titanium. So this was what had happened was unfortunate. I think it activated a lot of people to, yeah, Victor Ruscova, the man the legend. I didn't realize this somebody was still doing their thing.

This is the Eos crew. No, they are no longer doing their thing because he's since sold a tour or something, right? Yeah. Well, they sold off the vessel because the vessel housed the sub and it was built to do these expeditions. And there was like a year and a half to two years when they were doing the dives to kind of subsidize some of their costs. and that's no longer available because it was sold to a research institution, and they've now shut the commercial aspect of that down, which was too bad because it was a fascinating experience.

I mean, those ocean guys, you know, the ones who unfortunately perished, they were doing dives off the coast of Staten Island because there's a massive, like, Titanic, Titanic. There was a massive, like, tectonic divide. And I didn't know this. They're like, oh, Titanic. is a quarter million dollars, but you can go to Staten Island for 50 grand. I'm like,

really? Not that expensive to get there. You can go there for cheaper than that. On the ferry? Life insurance that you need to get there is probably 50 grand, but you can get there for cheaper. You know, people ask about that and they're like, because we've had a couple of

production studios of purchase to do a documentary on some of these like on the Rasmus meal and spaceflight, and they're like, we need insurance. And I'm like, you can't get insurance and they're like, why not? I said, there's no actuarial data on on this. It's like, well, how do you, how do you promote safety? I said, I don't promote safety. I use what I typically call the unsell method, which is if you're concerned about dying, like, don't go. It's that if you guys

have ever been skydiving, you know, they make you go on video and say, I, Roman Chippuruka, know, that I may die, my estate will not sue XYZ parachuting company, etc. So you need to fully disclaim and just make that statement. So, like, if you're concerned, then maybe this is not for you, but the people who are going. Go to Staten Island. Just go to regular Staten Island. Yeah, just go to regular Staten Island. It's also scary. You do have to make one of the videos when we get on the ferry to Staten Island, though.

go to Stan-Nine. Hey, Pete Davidson, can I borrow your Stan Island Ferry that you bought to throw a party? Hook-hook-up brother up. Well, I think he's sobered too, actually. Well, he smokes a lot. He was like momentarily going to go on a new shepherd at some point, but then he did not happen. That's right. Did we know any backstory?

Why did he get to the part of making the video? I was like, I can't do that. No idea. Maybe he made a little poopy in his pants and was like, I'm not, I'm not doing that. Who knows? It's like they play it real close to the chess, so nobody knows. I'll probably get a cease and desist right after this podcast. I'm pretty sure.

I'm like, I don't know, 85 to 90% sure that we sank the opportunity for Tom Cruise to go to the ISS and film a movie because the van NASA administrator announced that on this show when it had not been announced previously. So I'm not unconvinced that this show killed that opportunity. No, no, no, no. The Russians filmed a movie first. That's what killed it. Oh, yeah. Did you ever watch it?

Oh, we should have you watch it. No. You don't want to watch it? In Russian and translate it. No, that's not what they said. No, I just want to get your take on it. We had a bet on this show, but the Rotten Tomatoes score would be for that movie. And I think it was pretty bad.

It was really a bad movie. No, it was like, I think the premise was somebody needs to come back. Like somebody's sick and they need to have an operation. Something like that. They said a doctor-off or something, didn't they? I don't remember. I think so. Yeah, no, I did not watch that.

Most Russian movies don't end well, unlike American movies. Like, the, like, there's no happy ending in a Russian movie. That's what there's, like, that. That's the general ethos of... Everybody dies gloriously, yeah. Not gloriously. Not ingloriously. You die.

You die. Your wife has to sleep with a man she doesn't love and your children are like, you go to the gulag like it's bad. They have a video that's like, I'm okay with all of this. Yikes, yikes. All right. Okay. So what's the prospects for like the future market?

What are you looking forward to in terms of like new experiences coming online or scale? Like what's what's the positive outlook right now? Positive outlook is single-staged orbit aircrafts because they are, yeah, do you hear about this? You know about this shit? I mean, I hear about the dream of single-staged orbit for a long. That's all, our reaction. Damn, he's got some work to do on this one. Let's go.

You've got a couple of skeptics in front of you in that one, I think. But you'll have to see it. Oh, yeah, of course you're going to have skeptics. Because you have, like, the old school people who are just basically saying that the materials are simply not there to support that, which is fine. But we've come a long way since, you know, like the last century. And they've created some really interesting properties and materials that. I could withstand reentry. So to me, that's the most, that's the coolest thing coming online, probably in the next

three to five years, because if they could build this aircraft, there's a reusability component to it. These guys are talking about doing five orbits around Earth coming back down, doing it all over again. That takes seven and a half hours. You could be home for dinner. That gives you the overview effect. that gives you weightlessness.

You see five sunrises and sunsets. And, you know, the SSTO folks are meant to be kind of like the Uber and the FedEx between space stations. So that's really interesting. I'm curious to see how that develops the next couple of years. Who are we talking? Who's your name on this? Is this like Radiant Aerospace? Like who's the...

That is radium. Yeah. It's radian. Yeah. Radian. I think speaking of space stations, I think VAST is poised to do some really interesting stuff because they're, you know, Axiom, as we know, ran into some funding issues and had to pause for a moment. I don't see VAST having the same type of issues, even though they're probably going out and raising some money too. And that'll be a fraction of the size of the space station, but they're moving very, very quickly.

I think it's really interesting to see new players to the rocket and payload game like relativity that was bought out of bankruptcy by somebody with substantial means. Curious to see how that evolves. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of energy. There's a lot of, you know, heat coming from the undercarriage. In a good way. Not a bad way. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm now thinking about that movie, that terrible movie we watched, Anthony. Star Flight. Star Flight. Yeah. Flight that couldn't land or something. What was it? Yeah, the flight that couldn't land.

It was like some airplane that went too fast and actually went to orbit. They were testing new engines and then they tested it. They went so fast. They made orbit and then they couldn't come back. Yeah. I didn't see this movie. Oh, you shouldn't have. I still have.

It was from the 60s or 70s. It's completely awful and hilarious. Better than the Russian challenge. It's from the 80s. It featured the space shuttle, right? The space shuttle was like the rescue vehicle. They had the space shuttle Columbia go up to the, and like rendezvous with the airplane, like four or five times in a day.

Yeah, that's right. In an hour and a half. It was like, it was in that period where everyone thought the shuttle was going to be able to do everything. I forgot about that. I've been obsessed with the fifth element and going to Flost and Paradise on vacation. You know, being in the travel industry. and in the space industry at the same time.

That's like, you know, you get Chris Tucker as my, you know, concierge. That's, uh, listen, I'm also hopeful that these stratospheric balloons get their shit together and they start going because if and when that happens, that's much more affordable than these, you know, nine, 10, 50 million dollar seats. You get a little bit of a taste of, It's not overview effect in full. It's overview effectee, right? You kind of see the curvature, you see the darkness, you hang out, you have a gea.

You use the bathroom. You go home. And, you know, space perspective was meant to be a buck 25. Zafalto is like almost 200 grand. Like that's a night out for some people of spraying shamp, you know, models and bottles and bullshit like that. Like, I see that insane Bart's on a Tuesday. So that has the potential to really activate it in a more meaningful way.

If they can figure out a way to pressurize these capsules at that altitude, because you need to go high enough and you need to have enough people on it. Like, you know, the Japanese company has a two-person capsule, but that's okay. No, no. It's cool to take your whole. in the middle and there's like 20 people in it right that's the one i want to do right yeah yeah well that's how we came up when we came up with the idea of the chef in space i had to work with tabor pretty closely for a while to say okay just so my idea is for the guy to cook in space i don't want him to play it in

space and we're not cooking with citrus because that's a fucking gimmick um i need i need him to bring something to heat. So what can I do? Can I suvi? Can I boil? Obviously, I can't have an open flame and a pressurized capsule. So what can I do? And then the notion was, is that we're going to build a capsule and they're going to test the capsule and fly the capsule. Then they're going to remove one of the seats and build a prep station for the chef and recalibrate the weight distribution to make sure that it's the same as if there was a seat. So the reason that the ticket price was as much as it was because you need to pay for the chef and you need to pay for the extra seat that was the the prep station.

So we've now pivoted and are working closely with Zafalto to actualize the same thing. Obviously they have two less seats there, but we're hopeful. Yeah, that's cool. I think that's like to me the key to like kind of growing space tourism a little more. is to have, like, some people, there's always going to mean someone that wants to just go to space because it's in space, but like most of this kind of stuff, people are going to want to go and have a good time and have a vacation and enjoy themselves and space is the way that they do it, right? Like, some people go to tropical places because they want to see tropical places.

Some people go there and just rent the hot weather and they have fun with their friends, right? Like, you know, there's, there's like a difference between those kind of things, right? And I think that's key to it. So I think this, the chef thing sounds like a, like, a good bed on kind of what that could look like and same same ideas like the mini bar and having a we always joke but having the next off nominal meetup and one of these balloons and that'd be really fun but uh yeah we're not we're not that level of you could yet nor yeah right that's a different that's a different market so uh if you need some extras to fill out one of the balloons let us know but otherwise we're saving up for the the booze crews uh if there are if there are uh people that are listening that

happen to have St. Barts on a Tuesday level money. What is the, what is the approach here, Roman? What are you plug in to put them in contact with you? I mean, just, you know, call me. It's not easy to, it's, it's not hard to get in touch with us. We're not, I'm not protected by 20 different personal assistants. We're not at that level yet.

Space VIP or spaceprise.org. I'm RC at spacevip.com. So if you have questions, if you want to get involved, I think it would be meaningful. I'm at this stage of the game because there's not much to sell. We're really focused on the education aspects. And what I think people forget is that it's not just about being philanthropic, but people can promote their own goodwill by virtue of getting behind a Space Prize foundation. Like if you're from Nashville and you make 100,

million dollars a year, then maybe we could do a Nashville space prize. That way your name gets out there as a gesture of goodwill and altruism. And we do something meaningful for the community. And sometimes when I reach out to people of wealth, are like, oh, I've allocated my philanthropic dollars for the year. And I'm like, it's not just like you could use your marketing dollars for that because maybe you're trying to push, I don't know, a new soda can or a new flavor. So use this opportunity and platform to promote that. I've seen a lot of action from the Gulf and from the MENA region in them wanting to really educate the next generation of scientists and engineers. And there's a deep desire to do that.

Also out of India, because a lot of them read, write and speak English, and they just had great success in their launch last year. And they're really tech savvy. So there's a lot of interest, India, the Gulf, and also Southeast Asia and kind of building their own space hub. You know, people forget that space also gives you access to SATCOM and primacy of launch, because right now that's monopolized by Elon. So, okay, I'm, I don't know, a Zerberjan or Djibouti and I want to have my own space program or sadcom program.

I need to get in line and wait for Elon to bless me to get my satellites up there. Or he can be like, or you can just pay me and use my satellites. And you're scheduled for seven years from now. Enjoy that time slot. So it's important for countries to engage. Like, I think the Radiant example is perfect where you get, one of those planes. You fly up and leave whatever payloads up there and have your own SATCOM capabilities and not depend on this one provider. Yes, he's kind of cornered the market

because he's an ally. He's been at the game for God knows how many years. So use what he's done in an intelligent way and try to make it better maybe for your own country. Like if you're Lichtenstein or whatever else. They're really keen on space. They're always doing like space events. Strangely, I'm not sure why. So I think the education aspect is really important. We need to get like the court of public opinion behind the cause and for people to realize that like,

I said to somebody the other day, did you know that all exercise equipment were created to battle muscle atrophy? And she was like, no, I had no idea. I'm like, yeah. I was giving somebody this example earlier where I was at some fancy art event a couple of months ago. And some ladies like, you're in the space business? I said, yeah, yes, I am. I hate Elon Musk. And I said, like, okay, okay.

I was like, there's so many reasons to hate him. What's your reason? And she goes, you know, what's your favorite? And she says, I'm an environmentalist. He pollutes the planet. I said, what does he pollute the planet with? And she goes, you know, with all of his rocket launchers. And I said, oh, I'm like, okay.

And I'm enjoying this already clearly. I know what dirty river I'm going to lead her to drink from right now. So I'm like, do you eat meat? And she says, I do. So do you know that methane gases from the meat industry are actually the largest polluter of the ozone layer. And she said, I did not know that. I was like, well, think about that.

Have a nice day. And this is a really well-educated person of wealth. So if she has no idea and kind of participates in this single narrative approach, then what are people who are less fortunate doing? because it's easy to call somebody a rich billionaire asshole, and I don't have to look deep at myself to realize my own faults because it's clearly your fault that I'm not as successful. And look at you wasting all of this money.

Didn't actually, Elon, a couple of years ago, say that if you can give me a plan of how you will solve world hunger, I will sell $2 billion of Tesla stock. Nobody took them up on it because it's not a money issue. It's a supply chain issue. Like, how are you getting, food to villages that don't have roads. Now it might be a Tesla stock issue. I don't know.

It might be. No. Then it wasn't. But yes, chay. Roman, it's awesome hanging out. We always love someone that is not afraid to spout the opinions. So, yeah, it's awesome to have you out here with us. And we'll be fond on.

Thanks a lot, guys. I'm curious to see how the balloons go because I'm a balloon. I'm a balloon skeptic, but it'll be interesting. Jake, you're, I'm curious too. I like, I'm pro. I'm, listen, I'm pro anything. My wife, I like you, Jake and I are, I don't know, where we're out on the balloons these days, but we'll figure it out.

I like the balloons. I like, I'm probably. I would go. It's just a matter of will they go. I would go. That's exactly right. That is exactly right. I mean, I would even go as far as, what's his name?

Felix Baumgartner went. Just give me a small pressurized balloons so I could go have a look by myself. And then just jump off. You know, it's one way out. I'll bring the gear with me. It could explode. in my suit due to the pressure. Jake, I don't know

if we know enough to say what's happening next week. Do we know enough? Are we feeling cocky enough? Let's be safe. Let's be safe. Let's be safe. It'll be good show. Katie Perry. Katie Perry, I know.

You're already concerned her. Assume Katie Perry until proven otherwise. We're going to put the ass back in that. You should have Aisha. You should have Aisha. We should get her on. We should. Let's do that.

All right, y'all. She's cool. Thank you all for hanging out. Take an easy. Thanks. Thanks for the soda. a recommendation. I appreciate it. I'll be ordering that. Cedra Pino. Get it, everybody. All right, y'all. We will see you later.

Take it easy. Hi, everybody. Thanks, guys. Bye. Bye.