S13 E09: Michael Savage, CEO of Space Perspective

[music] You're listening to the luxury item, the podcast on the business of luxury and the people and companies that are shaping the future of the luxury industry. Here's your host, Scott Kerr. Space tourism seems closer than ever before. The now famous space trio of Bezos, Branson and Musk turned their billions skyward, each founding their own space ventures. Space travel is also the new frontier for ultra-high-net, worth individuals, giving the world's wealthiest travelers the chance to view life on Earth from a whole new perspective. Commercial flights into space are becoming more routine, with the race for space travel being led by the aforementioned players, as well as the company space perspective. Space perspective aims to offer wealthy individuals the opportunity to travel to the edge of space. Unlike SpaceX or Virgin Galactic, space perspective will use a pressurized luxury capsule that is pulled 100,000 feet into the sky by a space balloon over a period of two hours at a starting cost of $125,000 a ticket. The company recently completed its first uncrewed balloon flight. My guest on the luxury item is Michael Savage, CEO of Space Perspective. As CEO and long-standing partner and executive coach at Space Perspectives leading investment firm, Prime Movers Lab, Michael brings two decades of experience building organizations and coaching across a wide range of businesses, from startups coming out of Y Combinator to see level executive coaching inside some of the most recognizable companies today. Welcome to the luxury item, Michael. Hey, thanks, Scott. It's so weird. Yeah, so glad you could join me. You know, space tourism is gearing up to become one of the most lucrative markets. Space Perspective is one of numerous enterprises racing to make the sci-fi notion of space tourism a reality. Alongside Elon Musk's SpaceX, Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. Although space perspective is doing things differently, the space space has been very busy. What are your overall thoughts on the emerging space tourism market? I think for years, you know, people looked up at the sky and thought, I wonder what it would like to be up there. Yeah, I grew up in the 80s. So we watched every shun launch on the planet. I think we're at a point now where technology has caught off and people are saying, wow, this can be a reality. And whether it's folks my age, folks my parents age, they've saved up, they have a little bit of money. And they're looking for experience, you know, the experience market, especially after COVID massively increased. And I think people are looking to make this a part of an experience that they put on their bucket list. And I think we're all intrigued by what's happening off of this little pale blue dot that we live on. And the founders, Jane Pointer and Taber McCullum, who have both experienced in the world of human space flight, founded space perspective in 2019. How did the idea come about and how is the company reimagining space travel versus like a space X or a blue origin. Great question. So if we go back again to the late 80s, early 90s, Jane and Taber were part of the original biosphere out in Arizona for our listeners who don't recall. Eight people locked themselves in a building for two years and 20 minutes for a number of reasons, but to prove that we could potentially colonize. And they built biosphere to earth being biosphere one biosphere true was at that time sealed tighter than the international space station. And these eight people explored what we could do inside of this biosphere to take care of you know this ecosystem and possibly eventually use this as a model to live off world. So their focus was space exploration after that they left and built Paragon. Paragon has equipment on every US human space. A capsule today I think even the water that's filtered on the ISS is a system that was built by Taber through that company. Then they went on to found world view, which is high altitude platforms with balloons. Taber grew up around these atmospheric balloons his father used to send up satellites and telescopes for NASA. With these very balloons and a merger of what they learned in biosphere and what they learned in closed systems and capsule manufacturing what they learned in ballooning. Ultimately became all the puzzle pieces that became space perspective and they said you know we think we can take some humans up and you know they broke the record with Alan useless they you know first it was it was Felix Baumgartner with red bull and a couple years later they took Alan uses to 136,000 and then purposely dropped him and that flight in particular proved that we could take humans that height safely. And so they decided they wanted to give that opportunity to more people and that's where space perspective was born. So if you could share with my listeners how exactly it works. Yeah, it looks very simple but in truth we have a full-fledged space capsule that has life support systems, thermal you know all the Eclos systems that we expect in the space industry. But instead of going up under rocket we chose to take a carbon neutral path. So the capsule is full electric and it is taken to 100,000 feet under a balloon. So we can either use helium or hydrogen and take the capsule to 100,000 feet that does allow you to see the curvature of the earth. We have the largest windows ever flown to space. So you have a full 360 view. You're up for two hours which is a huge differentiator. You know our friends that do rockets your your in space for three or four minutes. It's a whole different experience. It's a thrill ride and ours is a bit calmer you go up at a whopping 12 miles an hour and you are sitting inside of a luxury capsule. So this capsule's interior has a bar. It has luxury seats. We have a bathroom. We call it our space spot. It's been nicknamed the Lou with a view by our friends at Mercedes and we do have a partnership with Mercedes Maybach. I always give them massive credit. They believed in us while we were still a slide deck. We hadn't even built the capsule yet and Maybach will be designing putting their fingerprint. Let me say that we have an amazing designer and a gentleman named Dan window but maybach will be putting their fingerprint on the interior of the capsule. So think inspired by Maybach. I think is the way we were kind of socializing it internally and it'll leave a luxury experience for our customers. They can sit and have a drink. Have a small meal through some of our our our partners that are delivering world class culinary experiences and enjoy their view for a few hours from the edge of space. And I think I read it was like 125,000 dollars to start per seat. Right. It is. That was our pre launch pricing and we've held that pricing to date. As soon as we move towards human flight. Our prices will likely go up slightly, but we want to reward people who are early adopters and to date we've. We've got 1800 tickets in our pipeline either full purchase or deposits, but it showed a lot of early support for for the experience that we're providing. And it seems like guests will have a members only type luxury private club experience while they're at the edge of space for these two hours. And like any exclusive club or a luxury hotel hospitality is going to play an enormous role in the guest experience. What type of luxury service offerings will you have to meet those high expectations of these high net worth. Yes. So think, you know, pre and post experience are just as important as the experience during the flight. And there will be brought to mission control. They'll be given a tour kind of guided through a VR experience. The morning of their flight, they'll be picked up in a Maybach, an electric Maybach, you know, we aligned on that carbon neutral experience driven down to Voyager where there's a luxury lounge. They can spend their time in the luxury lounge as we go out to see and they'll be brought up into the capsule for take off and landing and after splash down. They can choose to come back into the luxury lounge and ride back with the crew and have a crew experience or if they'd like to upgrade, there will be experiences from helicopters to sea planes to going back on a. Brabo speedboat, you know, all of the above. We have a lot of brand partners that have leaned into support. I'm hoping we get to a point where we have evitals from companies like Archer that can fly our customers back and forth, continuing that carbon neutral focus. But all of it will be designed to respect our client's time, their desire to travel comfortably both right before and after, and also the pre-imposed experiences with our luxury hotel partners and some additional experiences in each of the regions. Where do you recruit staff from? Are they from the hospitality industry or just a variety of different industries? Well, our engineers are straight from aerospace. You'll know, yes, I could undesign. I would hope so. But yes, our captains will come from a mix of hospitality and safety and go through some rigorous training. Our culinary experiences are designed by some of the best in the world, you know, Rasmus Monk, who has a Michelin star restaurant, is going to be providing a number of Michelin star experiences through Space VIP. Our friend Roman at Space VIP is set up some really awesome high-end experiences. And then folks like Dave Grootman, you know, Grootman owns Poppy Stake and Swan and Costa Dona and Grootman is doing a bunch of the culinary experiences from most of our flights. We're also in talks with the group from Chipprianian and billionaire who'd like to come in and do some experiences in other parts of the world. So those hospitality partners will provide that experience. And then pre-imposed, a lot of it is through the trade industry. And so think signature and virtuoso. We already have great relationships with both of them and a lot of the trade partners that work with them in luxury travel. It's got to, you know, what we envision is a family who, let's say they access the safari through Amber Crombie and Kent. And then they decided next year to go to Antarctica and the third year they're sitting around the table and they say, you know, we've done Galapagos, we've done safari, we've done Antarctica. Let's go to space. So the same groups that manage that kind of travel experience are the partners that we work with. So how do the conversations go when you first speak with perspective? Customers interested in being a guest on one of your journeys. You know, what is the core of your pitch that hooks them? Is it the dream of experiencing the cosmos firsthand? Yeah. And I think many of them already have that desire. I think a lot of the discussion that I hear when I'm listening to the team is them talking about the experience that the astronauts had, you know, Frank White called it the overview effect. This idea that most astronauts say that they became an astronaut to explore space. And what they found when they got to space is that they actually discovered Earth for the first time. Looking back at that pale blue dot and kind of appreciating how thin that thin blue line actually is. And I think one of the interesting pieces of our experience is in a rocket, you are your back as to the earth, your propelled directly into space. And by the time you've kind of taken a look at Earth, you're strapping back into come back down. Our experience actually allows you to understand scale. You know, when you look at that window, it take off. You can see the ship. And as you kind of rise, you'll see the shoreline take a look, maybe see your neighborhood. You know, the air. And as you go up, you know, recognizable landmarks like Florida, Italy, the Caribbean, maybe Palm Island in the Burst, Caliphate, depending on where we're going out, right? But these are all landmarks that people will slowly see change of scale. And as they get to apogee, they look down and understand their size and relation to the planet. And I think a lot of people are interested in understanding what that experience would feel like. They articulate that in so many ways when they're talking to our team. And I think they're interested in having the two or plus hours to reflect, not just to go on the thrill ride. We have people that want to do both. A lot of our early customers are also ticket holders at our friends in the industry and some of them have already flown. And they've expressed the desire to be able to sit and actually enjoy the view and be a little more contemplative. And, you know, for those that have already flown, they talk about being able to go up with their families, you know, take their spouse, take their partner, take their brothers and sisters and go up with a different experience. And so we hear that expressed a lot. Is this is something they feel is a bit more accessible? There's no training required if you can get on a, you know, a commercial airline you can fly on Spaceship Neptune. And so it's a bit more accessible. And I think that's driving some of the interest as well. So what are some of the common questions and concerns that come up when you speak with the passengers? There's a lot of safety questions. Yeah, how to feeling that was the case. Yeah, you know, they want to know, you know, what if something goes wrong with the balloon or what if the balloon pops? They don't understand these are zero pressure balloons, right? They're filled with gas and quite frankly, when we reach 100,000 feet, we're kind of leaky gas the entire time because it expands to that, you know, that, that, that, that sort of place. So we talk about, you know, how the balloons work. And the safety and track record of helium and hydrogen over the past, you know, 50, 60 years. There have been any, you know, in-air incidents with these balloons that it's, it's well proven through atmospheric ballooning and high altitude platforms. And we talk about the safety of our reserve to census system. You know, if for some odd reason, our valves don't work and we get stuck up there, which is actually, you know, the major issues, what if we couldn't open and release the gas to come back down? We do have a well designed parachute system. The gentleman who designed our reserve to census system has eight parachutes on Mars. He knows what he's doing. The parachutes would actually bring the capsule down in a real gentle manner. I mean, at first, it would be kind of a thrill ride. But then you'd come down pretty gently and splash down just as if you were under balloon. And we have, safety is our primary concern. We have, you know, tripled and quadruple redundancy in most of our systems. Double redundancy on major systems that are really robust. We exceed FAA standards, Coast Guard standards for marine operations and any of the standards that you would find at NASA or any other space company. We've taken that as a major priority knowing that we're carrying passengers to that height. Now, your background isn't in space travel. You've been a longstanding partner and executive coach at space perspectives, leading investment firm, Prime Movers Lab, which invests in breakthrough scientific startups. You also have extensive experience building organizations and coaching across a wide range of businesses. So a CEO of space perspective, how do you work with its founders to identify new strategies and maximize value creation? We're joined at the hip and that's a great question. You know, most startups when they reach a point where they've got, you know, their series B and they're ready to scale very often visionary founders and technical founders. They don't want to nor should they be running day to day business. It's important for them to focus on vision. Jane Pointer's amazing at focusing on experience. It's why we have the largest windows ever flown to space. Quite frankly, if it was up to the engineers, we wouldn't have any windows. And you know, Tabor is brilliant and really leads our technical team. He continues to be our CTO. We collaborate every day. We sit at a round table together and work through most of the challenges in the business and focus on how we're going to create great customer experience. Jane goes out and still speaks on the vision of the company and focuses a lot on a lot of the areas of the business that include scientific research. That's her background right from the biosphere. So she's got a passion for some of the things we can bolt on to continue to further kind of research, looking at atmospheric research and, you know, how we interact in these small environments. But we're joined at the hip. I had the privilege of being their coach at prime movers and loved working with them. I'm not supposed to say that I have favorite founders, but they were definitely in the top of that echelon. And we worked so well together that when when I came in about a, you know, a little over a year ago to work in the company full time, I came in as C O O. Jane had held up the seed of CEO for since the beginning since 2019. And, you know, any early stage founder going through the, the throws of fundraising, also managing the experience team, also holding together a number of other elements of the business. Also just needs a break. And so I was happy to be CEO alongside her and be a strong number two. And for now, I'm happy to step into the seat and help lead the company. But we really do it collectively. So right now space perspective serves a very select group of wealthy individuals. Virgins list price for a seat on a future delta flight is $600,000. The origin seed rumor to cost anywhere between 1.2 million and 20 million. The one civilian astronaut supposedly paid for a maiden flight. A seat on space perspective we talked about is $125,000, which is more accessible, if you will. But your mission is to make space travel more accessible. How do you plan on bringing costs down? You know, when I first started working with Jane the Table, I pressed table on this. Our mission at Prime Movers is to only invest in companies that can impact a billion lives. And so I struggled to figure out how this can impact a billion lives. And so well, who said that we're going to charge for every seat? And I thought, oh, that's interesting. And then of course as an investor, I said, don't even into my margins. And then he came back and he said, no, what if a schoolteacher from every school in America? At least one teacher had a chance to go to the edge of space. I thought, well, that's interesting. Both of my older sisters are public schoolteachers. So that tugged at my heartstrings a little bit. And then I understood the mission, which was to get as many people up as possible. And so yes, 125,000 is pretty accessible. And I think our partnership with groups like Oreo, with the Texas lottery, with Hard Rock, with Coinbase, they're doing ticket giveaways. And so I think along with giving people an accessible price point that, as you mentioned, is far below some of the other people in our space. We're also going to continue to make sure that people can access this experience through some of the giveaways, like we did with Mondaleez and Oreo, right? Where they give away all these tickets to space. The Texas lottery did eight tickets. That's a full capsule. And then somebody's going to find out they want a million dollars in space, which I think is great. And ultimately, if we can drive the price point down, maybe we build a larger capsule, take up 16 or 20 people to relatively the same height. We have some weight issues to work out there, but I think we can still work towards continuing to make it more accessible. And that is our goal. So in your mind, when do you think the price of space travel will come down to the point where you can decide? So I want to buy a new car or do I want to go into space? You know, I think within the next decade, we'll see more accessible opportunities to go to space. I really do. I don't think it's going to take long. I think the first five years of space exploration at the level that will deliver will be a pretty stable price point. And I think after that, there will be a number of factors that will help drive the price point down. I don't know if it will happen rapidly. But when we've modeled this out, we've looked at opportunities to do green hydrogen and reduce our costs, take the ship to hydrogen or electric power and sail for a far more efficient price point, automate some of the manufacturing as well as automations and mission control that will ultimately reduce the cost to deliver the experience. And I think we'll get there. Richard Branson, who has already experienced space travel with his company Virginic Galactic, is now on board with space perspective as an investor and will be part of its first human test flight plan. Is it still for this year for 2025? The goal is end of 25 or in the queue on of 26. Okay. So how did Branson's interest and support come about? So what we have to remember, Scott, is one, Richard Branson and his brands at Virgin are very much focused on luxury experience. When we look at Virgin voyages, when we look at his interest in the British Virgin Islands, there's a lot of interest with his hotels, with Virgin Voyagers for some sort of a collaboration. And I think even mentioned in an interview that he sees the collaboration as possibly a feeder even in Galactic because they're two complementary experiences. Very different in nature and you know, you're going to have people that want to do both. That's awesome. Putting all that aside, we look at Richard's history. He loves ballooning. Right. You know, he took all these trips around the world in atmospheric balloons. And I think the thing that excites Richard most is that he gets to go to the edge of the atmosphere and get this beautiful view of the darkness of space from a balloon. And so he asked when they were coming in if he could copilot the very first flight with Jane and Taber. Of course, they were elated. You know, Richard is obviously an inspiration to everybody in this industry. But even more so to Jane and Taber when it comes to ballooning, his ballooning history, very much influence their decision to do this. And so while space is one conversation, you know, I think when we made the announcement, we really, really focused on the fact that his excitement was around what they've been able to do with these balloons. He's, he is a master at this. He knows the science of atmospheric ballooning inside and out. And I think the combination of the luxury experience that aligns with a number of his brands, as well as the fact that he is a deep passion for ballooning are why we, I'm going to say we lucked out and managed the investment in the partnership. So at the end of September, space perspective's luxury balloon lifted space capsule, the Neptune Excelsior completed a full uncrew test flight to the edge of the atmosphere. How did that go and what did you learn from that flight test? We learned that we could have flown a human in that capsule. It went far better than expected. We learned that some of our proprietary systems, you know, are predictive systems on the balloon path, worked to a T, you know, we had our ships waiting at splash down right in the general area where it came down. And that's important, by the way, for luxury experience. We don't want our luxury customers bobbing in the ocean for an hour. You know, so we were able to meet the capsule where it's at and retrieve it rather quickly. We learned a lot about our redundant systems and how effective they were. We learned that our temperature control systems were far more effective than we thought. The windows did their job at a level that was beyond expectation. We learned that the cone at the bottom of the capsule, which attenuates the water to create a softer splash down very much worked exactly as we expected. And that's critical. We don't want somebody to have this, you know, almost blissful experience in space than Ellie flop into the ocean. So all of those things that that we, and I'll say we, I know the technical team had a lot of things they were measuring internally, but we were really looking at experience. And we learned that it would have been very comfortable for somebody to take that flight. Matter of fact, the data that came back and a lot of what we learned is going to allow us to accelerate through some of our test cycles. We still have to do the same number of flights. We just get to balance focusing our testing a little bit differently and it will create a bit of an acceleration towards our commercial operations. So when do you see the first crude test flight beginning? Great question. That timeline is very similar to what I mentioned earlier. We're shooting for end of 2025 and into 2026 for manned flight and commercialization towards the middle of 2026. That would be the goal. Now we are a detect space company. I always put that asterisk up, you know, that as we're developing this thing, safety's first. So we are not going to rush manufacturing at the cost of safety. We've seen too many adventure experiences and horribly because they rushed in cut corners. So we won't do that, but we are within an 18 month window that we feel pretty confident in to get humans into space and move us to commercial flight. Well, so far, US and European firms such as space perspectives, Evalto, worldview, are designing space balloons with capsules for about eight people that slowly travel on both a scent and decent with the ability to see the planets curve and the darkness of space. These flights do not approach the Carmen line, which is a boundary that marks where space begins about an altitude of 100 kilometers or 62 miles. There has been a lot of debate over its exact location and definition. So the space perspectives high altitude balloons actually go to space. Great question. So that Carmen line definition is, you know, at this point over four decades old and was designed at one point as a measure for NASA. You know, we would never call our customers astronauts. An astronaut is a profession. Somebody trains for that and goes through years of experience and rigorous training to become that. So we call our customers explorers. But the FAA regulates our spacecraft as a spacecraft and defines it as a spacecraft. We do go beyond a limit that the FAA defines as space, which is why we continue to call ourselves space perspective and help people understand that we're going right to the edge of space. They're not going to experience weightlessness. That's actually pretty disorienting. If they want that, our friends in the industry, you know, provide that. But according to the FAA, we are a spacecraft and therefore we are taking people through the edge of space. The space craze has gripped every area of consumer goods, including the luxury sector. From Chanel's number five fragrance campaign featuring French actress Mary-Anne Cotear, dancing on the surface of the moon to NASA branded a peril from luxury brands like Balenciaga. Prada has created spacesuits for axiom space. Space was also a key theme of the Deure men's prefall collection a couple of years ago. The spirit of adventure experiences and dreams is something luxury brands value greatly. Where do you see new opportunities created between the luxury industry and space tourism? I so want to tell you things right now that I can't but. Well, look, I will say this. When we started out with Mercedes-Maybach as our first brand partner, it set the standard for some of the filters that we would have in terms of luxury experience. There are no shortage of luxury brands that have been in conversation with us over the last three or four years. I'll say this. We've talked with everyone from Hubello to Ben and Olivesin to Master in Dynamics, some of the audio companies that wanted to be involved in the interior capture, to LVMH, to Diagio, to Hubello. I mean, just I could go on and on and on. I will say this. Our balloon material, the stitching in the balloon material, some of the materials that make up the balloon and the capsule offer a very interesting opportunity to upcycle that material into luxury goods that can also brand that material has actually been to space. And supports a carbon neutral space experience. And so we've talked to some of these brands about not only the acquiring the balloon material, but upcycling it into their products, which we're very excited about. And of course, when it comes to apparel, there's a number of brands that have already sent us mockups, both for broader access. as kind of a lifestyle brand. There are going to be people that become raving fans. And even if they can't experience the flight, we'll want to be associated with us in some way. And then there's going to be that gate for our explorers. Once they've been to space, they'll have their passport. And that digital passport is going to unlock, not only discounts to some of our brand partners, but unique products that are for explorers only from some of these luxury brand partners. So think a jacket that is only available to an explorer that's already flown with us. It is designed by one of the luxury brands that I named, watches, experiences in other places, access to other communities that offer adventure travel that are only curated for our explorers. Most of those things are already in the pipeline. Now, I know you have a relationship with Mercedes-Mibac. Are you expanding on that in this year and the next couple of years to new things? We are. Any day now, we are expected to show our faces at the Mercedes-Mibac headquarters and go to the museum and then sit down with their teams to do what we talked about earlier, which is their mission is to inspire a bit of the design of the interior of the capsule. And we do, look, one of the coolest things about this partnership, frankly, is they gave us an all-electric EQS. The first all-electric luxury SUV. Beautiful vehicle. I mean, gorgeous. And we get to drive investors around in that thing and occasionally take it out to some of our activations. If the interior of the capsule looks anything like the inside of that car, I am stoked for what our explorers are going to see. And our next step is to sit down and kind of go through that process to see how they can inspire the interior. They were very clear. They don't want their logo all over the inside of the capsule. But they would like to inspire the interior in the same way that they've inspired that luxury experience inside of a Mibac. It's clear, by the way, if you have a Mibac, you should have a driver. Because you want to sit in the back of that car. They've got this beautiful stem wear, an opportunity to sit back and relax. And our next step with them is to collaborate not only there, but also with the luxury lounge invoinger. They'd like to put a fingerprint inside of that lounge as well. As the space travel industry grows, so does the scrutiny over who truly benefits critics point to the environmental impact of frequent rocket launches, which release vast amounts of carbon dioxide and amounts of space debris and orbit. Others are also arguing that space exploration program should contribute to making Earth a better place. How do you respond to the criticism? I think people criticized burning coal and cutting through forest when we laid railroad tracks. Then they criticized the movement of land mass for highways through the United States. I think there's always going to be a bit of controversy about how we go about exploring things. And I think it's true space as well. And the truth is we live on a planet with abundant resources, but sometimes those resources become scarce and space exploration allows us the opportunity to possibly find new resources to help us as a culture go further faster. And if we don't send the rockets up, if we don't begin to explore beyond the edges of our planet, I think what we're doing now sets the tone for humanity to not only survive, but thrive for not just thousands, but millions of years. And we all know there's a ticking clock on every planet. And so we eventually have to figure out a way to live beyond this border. And space exploration does that for us. I think we'll get better. We'll get more efficient. But we've already started with the efficiency. What we launched today is far more efficient and far more ecologically friendly than the stuff we were launching in the '80s. And of course, in space perspective, we've taken a carbon neutral approach. We're going to use lift gas, all electric vehicles. We're using things to be recycled very easily in our process. And so hopefully we're setting the tone to inspire a portion of the industry to think differently about how they get to space. And the space economy currently valued about $630 billion is projected to soren and astounding $1.8 trillion by 2035 according to World Economic Forum and McKinsey. What are the key factors that will drive the success of space travel and tourism? I think shared experience. I think people coming back and talking about that amazing experience is what's going to help other people trust that that experience is for them as well to get over their hesitation or their fear. And I think, look, I go back to Roger Bannister. Everybody said it was impossible for humans to run a four-minute mile until he did it. And then that year more than a dozen people broke the four-minute barrier. But prior to that, it was impossible. The human mind couldn't conceive of running a four-minute mile. And they just said, can't do it. And now, when we look at Olympic athletes, they're blowing past that four-minute mark running the mile. I think it's the same with space exploration. The more humans access it in a general way and show it's possible, the more we'll see people jumping in to access that. And I think eventually we will take space exploration to the masses. You know, we as a company have the ability by our second year in operation to take more people to the space than have ever been to space to date. You know, less than 800 people have ever been to space. By our second year in operation, we should, if we hit our goals, have taken more people than that to the edge of space. And I think if we can do that, there will be a tipping point where more people will want to access it. And the price points will begin to match. And look, kudos to groups like Axiom that are thinking space hotels and giving people the opportunity to stay up a little bit longer. I think when we show that average consumers can do that, our minds will shift to think of even more creative ways to get there. - So it's like dipping your toe in the water first. - Yes. - Or in the space. (laughing) - Yeah, absolutely. - So Michael, my final question is the luxury item question which I ask all my guests. So if you was stranded on a deserted island and you could only have one single luxury item with you, what would that luxury item be? It can't be any form of air or water transportation or one of your balloons. Or anything that requires mobile service or you can call somebody at space perspective to pick you up. It's just you on this lonely island with lots of sand, palm trees, endless ocean. What would that one single luxury item you would like to have with you? - Oh, wow. You know, that is, that is a very interesting question. And, you know, I think of a number of these very soft, throw blankets and pillows. And I have to be honest with you, I am a nut for barefoot dreams. I don't know if you've ever experienced a barefoot dreams blanket before. - No, but I'm gonna go look it up online afterwards. - If I was stuck on a deserted island and it couldn't be technology or travel or anything like that and I needed to be comfortable, I would not wanna be separated from my barefoot dreams. Blanket or robe, something from that company. It is so soft and so warming. They're the most addictive blankets. (laughing) My wife has like five of them. We've got them all over the house. They're our favorite gift to give. Barefoot dreams blanket. I could at least sleep comfortably and, you know, get a little cuddle in if I was stranded on the island. If I had my barefoot dreams blankets. By the way, I have no association and whatsoever, so shameless plug. I absolutely love their company. Would love for them to be a brand partner. - Michael Savage CEO of Space Perspective. Thank you so much for joining me on the luxury item. - I appreciate it Scott. Thank you. (upbeat music) - That's it for this episode of The Luxury Item Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you found this useful and entertaining, I would be really grateful if you can share it with a friend or colleague. I would love it if you subscribe so you never miss an episode. And while you're there, be sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcast. It really helps other listeners find us. The luxury item podcast is a production of Silver Tone Consulting. I'm your host, Scott Kerr. Until next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)