Bezos’ space launch is about a ‘larger vision of opening the solar system’

Yahoo Finance speaks with Peter Garretson, Senior Fellow in Defense Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, about JeffBezos’ successful first human spaceflight.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: You guys, let's get some more perspective on all of this. I want to bring in Peter Garretson, he is Senior Fellow in Defense Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council. And you know, Peter, before we get into the sort of weighty implications of the space race and all of this, first, I would just ask for your just general reaction in watching this.

PETER GARRETSON: You know, wow. You know, those of us who are space enthusiasts have been waiting for something like this for a very long time, and it's just wonderful to finally see it happen.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Peter, so what happens next? I mean, the excitement OK, been there, done that. The next step is a private company into orbit, which SpaceX has already done but it's going to be a while before Blue Origin gets there. So all attention on Mr. Musk?

PETER GARRETSON: Well, certainly, there will be additional attention on Mr. Musk, and he has tremendous things planned going forward to do an around-the-moon cruise. And of course, to take tourists to the International Space Station. In fact, even to shoot a movie up there. But I think this is important in and of itself because this is not just significant as a suborbital launch, which can set a potentially huge market of suborbital space transport that could be as much as $20 billion annually but it hints you know, at his fundamental motivation.

So I don't think that Jeff Bezos got into this because he wanted to take a suborbital hop. He's interested in scale and this upper stage was a way for him to practice and get an initial market, to get experience under his belt in order to do the upper stage of his larger rocket and to be able to land on the moon. So this is all about a much, much larger vision of opening the solar system to humanity and to be able to access the vast resources, including renewable energy resources, which both Branson and Bezos have talked about.

BRIAN SOZZI: Peter, we now have two successful space flights, Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic. What might the response be by those countries overseas, China, Russia, how might they respond to these successful launches?

PETER GARRETSON: Well, we're already seeing China have articulated a desire to be able to have their own suborbital and suborbital business. And clearly, they see that this is going to be an emerging market and a stepping stone to something much larger. In their view, they're aiming for a $10 trillion Earth-moon economic zone by 2050.

And having these type of fully reusable rockets is something that they have articulated as important and necessary. So that's going to be heating up. And of course, China and Russia have signed on together in an international lunar research station, having laid out a number of flights from here till the mid-century. And that is part of the fundamental question about what sort of economic system, whether it's going to be private enterprise like this or whether it's going to be sort of a state-sponsored capitalism model.

MYLES UDLAND: Well, and Peter, to that effect you know, we talked a little bit on this program earlier in our coverage about the budget of the US Space Force increasing or has been requested to be increased and kind of thought about this idea as Blue Origin and SpaceX are levers if you will, that get some money flowing towards the government outfit. How do you think about that dynamic, at least here domestically against some of those forces you were just outlining?

PETER GARRETSON: Well, I think there's no doubt that you know, government spending is an initial market that allows us to catalyze a much broader business, and then it is government forces, the military that essentially protects and secures those businesses. So you know, SpaceX certainly was able to leverage what the US government was doing in order to create their business, and the Space Force now as a new actor, is going to be a very important actor in terms of helping to create new business models. And we're already seeing that with the rocket cargo program, which I would imagine that both Blue Origin and SpaceX could be competitors in. And that will help them to bridge to this much, much larger $20 billion annual suborbital cargo and passenger market.

And then you know, as you put it, the Space Force is already thinking about how they're going to protect on-orbit citizen activities and on-orbit business. Which as I mentioned, you know, at least our competitors are thinking are going to be $10 trillion. And today it's only $400 billion.

DAN HOWLEY: Peter, this is Dan. I want to ask what this kind of means, you seeing these private companies go into space as far as you know, ownership of different areas that they may eventually land, right. We have Mars, we have potential for mining different asteroids. I guess at what point do we start to look at the ownership rights to things in space with so many different companies going up there now?

PETER GARRETSON: Well, I think we're already looking to you know, what that means. Now in the traditional sense of national sovereignty over a piece of land, that's prohibited by the Outer Space Treaty but as we've seen in NASA's Artemis Accords, there certainly is an interpretation of the Outer Space Treaty that allows for you to have safety zones and effective property. And US law from 2015 basically says that if you can remove something, much as you can remove fish from the sea, you can't own the sea but you can own the fish. Similarly, anything you remove can be yours.

And so while you might not be able to have strict ownership rights, the reality is that whoever goes first and has the benefit of noninterference in the Outer Space Treaty. So I think already many are thinking about what are the choice locations, what are the implications of being first? And certainly, the United States is as worried about China sort of scooping up the best territory as probably they are about us. And it is certainly time to have a conversation about how we want to ensure that that happens in a way that best protects the larger desires of humanity to make use of the vast resources of space.

JULIE HYMAN: Peter, just hang on one second. I just want to tell folks what we're seeing here on the two sides of the screen, obviously the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange about to be rung, that happens every day. On the right side of your screen, you saw Jeff Bezos giving a couple thumbs up from inside of the capsule as the crew there approaches in order to open it up. We see movement inside the capsule as the folks inside do prepare to exit there and the crew awaits them and gets set up with the little step-stool for them to come out here.

And Peter, to bring you back into this and to talk about all of the various applications that are sparked by this. You know, it has felt like until this latest push that there was really stasis in a lot of ways in the space race, right. And there you see again just to pause here, you see the astronauts emerging from the capsule.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Yeah. There's a meme.

JULIE HYMAN: There's a jubilant Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, Wally Funk, very excited coming out there. And Oliver Damen as well, that Dutch student. It looks like probably hugging his dad, who I believe also was a bidder for that seat there. So a lot of excitement on the ground there in Texas as the astronauts emerge.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Hey, Peter, quick question for you but if Bezos starts talking I'm going to shut up. How long till regular folk like us can actually do something like this?

PETER GARRETSON: Well, I think we don't exactly know. I mean, we had a period where there were the jet setters who were the ultra-rich but fairly rapidly it collapsed as the scale of it increased. And so while going specifically just for tourism might be you know, a market that would be difficult for many of us to reach, if this same technology spins off into suborbital point-to-point globally, then probably your average business traveler will be able to have an experience very similar to what we saw this week and last week.

MYLES UDLAND: All right, live pictures there down on the ground in Van Horn, Texas. Folks gathering around the four astronauts that have safely made it back from that space flight. Peter, really appreciate you spending some time with us this morning talking through some of the implications of this historic event. Peter Garretson, Senior Fellow for Defense Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council. Thanks so much for spending some time with us.