Josie: Can you briefly describe what your companies do and what their goals are?
Eric Anderson: There are 2 different companies. I am the founder of both of them, and I am also the chairman of both of them. The first one is called Space Adventures. Space Adventures' goal is to provide space flight experiences, from zero gravity flights on Earth, all the way up to flights to the International Space Station and flights around the moon, to the global marketplace. So for Space Adventures, we literally are a space travel company. All of the people who have been to space as private citizens have been to space through Space Adventures. So it's a company that has been in existence for about 15 years. The other company is called Planetary Resources. Planetary Resources is a company whose goal is to bring the resources of space into the economic sphere of influence of the Earth. Basically, what that means is that right now the only resources, everything from real estate itself, to fuel to strategic metals, precious metals, basic materials, [and] elements. Everything we've ever used EVER for ANYTHING that humanity has EVER done has all come from Earth. The reason we started Planetary Resources is because: if we can develop the technology that enables human beings and our projects to use the resources of space, it will radically accelerate the pace of space exploration. Setting up propellant depots and fuel stations in orbit, getting strategic and precious metals from the asteroids. The asteroids are rich with resources. It turns out that while difficult, it is absolutely possible to mine asteroids and so that is what Planetary Resources is doing. It is very cool, and we are privileged to be working on it. It is also pretty difficult. We spent a lot of time thinking about how to do it. The people who work with me on Planetary Resources are by and large people who have landed spacecraft on Mars and completed deep space missions before, so they are very much able to pull this off and really quite talented.
J: At what age did you first become interested in space?
EA: I have been excited by space as long as I can remember. I remember I was in third grade and I had a project on the solar system and I built a model of the solar system for my project. I bought styrofoam balls and built a big plywood board and put the styrofoam balls on tracks and had them on sticks that could go around and painted them all correctly. It was my attempt at building a solar system so I was really excited by it then. I also had the copy of the book Cosmos by Carl Sagan and while it was over my head, I still read it and read through parts of it and enjoyed it. The story goes back pretty far with me and I think the fact is that exploration is a large part of the human genome and for those of us who have that bug space represents the ultimate in curiosity and exploration. It is the last frontier. For the same reason my baby crawls out of her crib and crawls around the corner is the reason why humans want to go to space, because we are curious as to what's out there. We desire new knowledge and new frontiers. To me, space is the ultimate in that and that's why I love it so much and why I was interest from a very young age.
J: I just watched the premiere of the show Cosmos and it was really interesting.
EA: Neil deGrasse Tyson is a good friend of mine and he is going to do an amazing job with that show - no question.
J: I researched your web site and read that you work with Buzz Aldrin. How is it to work with him and some other amazing astronauts?
EA: Buzz is a friend of mine for 15-20 years. He is just a fantastic American hero. In so many ways, he is somebody to look up to. He is in his 80's now and is as energetic and spry as you could imagine. He is very involved and sharp as a tack. Sometimes, those of us who work with Buzz have to pinch ourselves because we are really in the presence of someone who will be remembers for thousands of years if not longer.
J: How many people can go on each of your flights?
EA: On zero gravity flights, which are the only way to experience weightlessness on Earth, there are 35 people that can fly together. For the orbital space flights where we go to the international space station, there are typically 9 or 10 people on the space station, but the person who is flying there as a tourist, he/she is the only tourist on the mission. They are hanging out on the space station with a number of professional astronauts and cosmonauts. For the mission where we are going to circumnavigate the moon, we will have two private citizens fly together with one pilot. They will complete the circumnavigation of the moon as a team.
J: Aside from the fact that you only do tourist flights, what are some similarities or differences between Space Adventures and SpaceX or Virgin Galactic.
EA: Virgin Galactic is selling suborbital space flights. While those are cool, they are nothing compared to what an orbital or lunar flight is. The duration of a Virgin Galactic flight in space is approximately 3 minutes. Of the two hour flight, 95% of it takes place in the atmosphere - it is an airplane. For a brief couple minutes, it flies up into space and comes back down. Where on the Virgin Galactic flight, weightlessness lasts about 3 minutes, on the orbital flight, the weightlessness in zero gravity lasts about 10 days, and for the lunar flight 18 days. So, it is really a different thing and you cannot compare them. SpaceX and Space Adventures are a lot closer in the sense that SpaceX also is building orbital vehicles, not suborbital. The difference of course is that Space Adventures does not build its own vehicles. We are a tour operator, a contractor. We pull together the space flight experience and provide that to the public. SpaceX's main customer is NASA and they can very well be a company that provides the rocket transport for our customers. We follow SpaceX quite closely and those guys are friends of ours. We look forward to the day that we can fly people into space on SpaceX rockets.
J: What's the best part of being CEO of a space travel company?
EA: Working in an industry that is potentially world changing and on the edge of technological possibility is really stimulating intellectually. It is something that scratches that itch of curiosity really well. One of the things I didn't realize when I started I get to help people make their dreams come true. For all the people who get to go to space and all the people who have gotten to go to the space station or participated in one of our programs, they are people like us - people who have dreamed of space flight since they were kids. To be able to be there helping them achieve one of their lives' dreams, is a really cool thing.
J: What are some of your challenges?
EA: The biggest challenge for space exploration is that space exploration by its very nature is a long term investment. The companies that develop technology to be judged for the long term. The customer who are evaluating whether they want to go need to think long term. Investors who want to invest in space companies need to think long term. It is a lot different from the next iPhone app. The challenge is tapping into customer bases and investor bases that are used to, in our world, the faster quicker injection of happiness that we are used to. Space flight is certainly something that takes more time, and has always been a challenge.
J: How do you promote your company?
EA: The biggest way we promote our company is by providing an incredible experience because when we provide an incredible experience to our clients, they talk about us. Word of mouth is probably the best way to promote our company. Since we are doing something that is relatively interesting for other people to read about, we have a large number of articles and write-ups written by the press. There are a lot of people who like to read about it. We don't really do any marketing. All the business that we obtain is from word of mouth or publicity.
J: How old do you have to be for an orbital space trip?
EA: 18.
J: My final question is, what advice do you have for kids who want be entrepreneurs?
EA: 1) There is no substitute for hard work. You have to be willing to do the work and pay the price. Entreprenuership is hard. When I was growing up, I got straight A's in high school and college. Grades matter. It is not to say that if you have bad grades, you can't be successful, because you can, but the better of a start you are giving yourself, the better of a start it is for you. You have be willing to work hard; you have got to be willing to pay the price; you have to be willing to understand the rules of the game, in whatever game or industry in which you are playing and then go and win. 2) You have to think for yourself. While it is important to be willing to respect authority, and respect your parents, you need to be able to think for yourself, challenge what people tell you, challenge existing and long held beliefs. By definition, if something is going to be new, a new way to solve a problem, provide a product or service that hasn't been down before, that's because people didn't think it was the right way to go. Whatever you do, if it's going to be successful, it is because somebody was willing to challenge the status quo. 3) Have self-confidence. In addition to being willing to do the work, and thinking for yourself, you have to believe down to your very core that whatever you set out to do is doable and that you can do it and are the right person to do it. Your confidence will be tested multiple times per day and you have to be willing to accept failure but never give up. There is a difference between failing and never giving up. You might fail at your first product launch, but whatever your big mission for your company is, you never give up. You'll never truly fail if you never give up. Just keep on trying. That persistence and self-confidence is really key.
