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Former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Three Crewmates Prepare to Launch into Space on Private Spacecraft; Oldest and Youngest Space Travelers to Accompany Jeff Bezos on Space Flight; Soon: Jeff Bezos Blasts Into Space Aboard New Rocket Ship. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired July 20, 2021 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: And welcome back. You are looking live at a launch site where -- launch site one is where we're at here in Texas. History about to unfold just minutes from now. The richest known human being in the universe about to leave earth for just a few spectacular minutes, blasting off into that spaceship you see right there called New Shepard, named, of course, after Alan Shepard, the first American to make it into the space.

Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Anderson Cooper. It is Tuesday, July 20th. I'm near Van Horn, Texas, very remote area about two hours southeast of El Paso, Texas. Billionaire Jeff Bezos and three crewmates are less than an hour from lifting off on an 11 minute journey to the edge of space and back. Space flight comes on the 52nd anniversary of another historic mission.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEIL ARMSTRONG, ASTRONAUT: It's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: More than five decades after Neil Armstrong mesmerized the world with his small step for man, Bezos is taking a very big step for an entirely new industry, space tourism, and beyond that, the privatization of space. This is a project 20 years in the making for Bezos. The founder of Blue Origin and Amazon will be the second billionaire to blast off from earth in his own spacecraft. Richard Branson and his Virgin Galactic space plane soared to the sky from New Mexico earlier this month. The youngest and oldest humans ever to travel to space will be onboard the New Shepard rocket along with Bezos and his brother Mark. Wally Funk is an 82-year-old pilot trained to be an astronaut back in the 1960s. She was part of the group known as of the Mercury 13. Never made it to space because back then only men were sent at the time even though the women there proved that they could pass the rigorous physical requirements that NASA had set up.

Also aboard today, an 18-year-old, recent high school graduate will be Blue Origin's first paying customer and also the youngest person by many years ever to go into space.

New Shepard has flown 15 times so far. It's never had humans on board. The capsule is fully autonomous, it means there is no pilot, which they say is actually safer than having pilots because most problems with aircraft and spacecraft are due to pilot error. If Jeff Bezos turned space traveler is nervous about his historic mission, he's not letting anyone see him sweat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF BEZOS, AMAZON CEO: We really believe this flight is safe. We wouldn't -- people say -- I had friends say to me, how about the second flight or the third flight? Why do you have to go on the first flight? And the point is, we know the vehicle is safe. If the vehicle is not safe for me, then it's not safe for anyone.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: In just moments, Bezos and crew will enter the capsule.

Joining me now, my colleagues Rachel Crane, CNN business innovation and space correspondent, and Kristin Fisher, CNN space and defense correspondent. It's really exciting. This is not just about the kind of rise of space tourism, which we've seen with Richard Branson, but also really a whole new chapter in space exploration.

RACHEL CRANE, CNN BUSINESS INNOVATION AND SPACE CORRESPONDENT: You're right, Anderson. The whole motto the Blue Origin step-by-step ferociously. And the capsule here today is called RSS First Step. That stands for Reusable Spaceship first step. This is the first step in their grander space missions of colonizing the moon and beyond. Bezos has had these grand ideas of O'Neil colonies, which are sort of these floating space colonies out in space. So they think the New Shepard program and these suborbital journeys is really the first step for the company to create the infrastructure to be able to get to those deeper space missions. And reusability is key to that. The system that we're seeing fly today, this will be the third flight for the system. But Gary Lai, who is the architect of New Shepard, he told me yesterday they expect to be able to fly the system 25 times. So before, missions of the past, it was one and done.

COOPER: Right.

CRANE: It was incredibly costly as a result. And in order to be able to do these larger space missions, to colonize the moon and potentially get to Mars, we have to have the cost go down dramatically. And a key part of that is reusability.

COOPER: We've seen obviously, we saw Richard Branson. This is a very different kind of journey today. It's a much more traditional -- it's a rocket, it's a vertical takeoff. It's actually going higher than Branson went.

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's a good old-fashioned booster and capsule system. It's going to be a much shorter flight than what we saw with Virgin Galactic and Richard Branson, just 11 minutes. But there are a few other key differences, right. We're going to actually see this capsule descend with three big parachutes bringing it down to the desert floor. And then the big thing, is Rachel was just talking about, is not only are we going to have a rocket launch. We get to watch a rocket landing.

[08:05:04]

This booster is going to land just one or two miles an hour. It's incredible. This had only been done a few years ago. Blue Origin was actually the first to do it with a suborbital rocket. Elon Musk and SpaceX followed less than a month later with an orbital rocket. But NASA, governments, they were not able to do it. It took private companies to do it.

COOPER: And let's just explain a little bit about what this 11-minute space flight is going to be like. This thing takes off, it builds up to Mach 3, three times the speed of sound, as I understand it, more than 2,000 miles per hour. The testing that has been done, there is safety testing that's been done which you mentioned, that even if there is a problem at the launch, the capsule can separate from the rocket itself.

CRANE: Yes, that is why Gary Lai, the architect that I was speaking of, he says that this is the safest spacecraft for human spaceflight that's ever been created. He worked for NASA. He's been with Blue Origin for 17 years.

COOPER: There are no pilots on board. So the crew is just, they are passengers.

CRANE: And Wally Funk.

COOPER: Yes.

FISHER: But she won't be piloting this.

COOPER: I think Bezos has a -- I don't know if he has a license, but I know he's taken --

CRANE: But yes, so no pilots on board, fully autonomous. And they have what's called a full envelope escape. So at any point during that ascent path, the capsule has the ability to jettison itself away from the rocket at get to safety, 70,000 pounds of thrust in just two seconds. So all across that ascent path, that full envelope escape, that's what they say makes this spacecraft so safe. They do have supplemental oxygen on board just in the off chance that there is a cabin depressurization.

COOPER: It goes about 62 miles up just to the edge of space, so the Karman Line. Explain the Karman Line, because it's not a term I had heard much about before, but obviously given -- they pointed out that Richard Branson did not go above the Karman Line. It's an imaginary line.

FISHER: It is the internationally recognized boundary of space. But the U.S. government and the U.S. military, the FAA, they recognize it a little bit lower. So Virgin Galactic says, hey, we were all astronauts. We became astronauts because we crossed the threshold that the U.S. government recognizes in space. While Blue Origin right before Branson's launch, they put out that graphic saying, hey, we're going to go further.

COOPER: When it gets 62 miles or so up in the air, the capsule separates. The booster falls back to earth, as we said. It's going to land vertically. How long is the capsule up there for?

CRANE: Actually, the separation happens before they hit the Karman Line. So the separation happens right before that moment, and then both the booster and the capsule pass that Karman Line. So the booster also gets its astronaut wings, it's internationally deemed astronaut wings. But so then the booster lands about eight minutes after take- off. And as we pointed out, the whole journey is just 11 minutes. The parachute is not -- sorry, the capsule lands via parachute, so it takes a little bit longer to land here in the --

COOPER: There's three parachutes. They said that they tested it, so even if one fails it can still safely land with two parachutes.

CRANE: Right. And actually before those three main parachutes come out, there's what's called the drone parachute, so that's what it slows down that capsule before you see those huge three parachutes -- hopefully three parachutes. But as you pointed out, if there is the off chance that there is some kind of an issue with the parachutes, the capsule can safely land with just one. The seats actually have what's called a scissor mechanism underneath. So there is a retro thruster right before the capsule hits the ground. You'll see all this dust kick up in the west Texas desert, because obviously it's very dusty, to make an air cushion essentially for the capsule. But if there was only one parachute that was released, the scissor mechanism would help absorb some of the shock and keep the crew passengers safe inside.

COOPER: And once the capsule is up there, they have about three minutes of weightlessness, right?

FISHER: They do. And Rachel and I actually got a chance to go inside that capsule, experience the simulator, and see what it's like. And it is, it is much bigger than I expected. It is very sleek. And so Wally Funk has said she is incredibly excited. After all these years of wanting to go into space, she's excited about doing some summer salts.

But just think about what these soon-to-be astronauts -- I know a lot of people are frustrated and they say they're not astronauts, they're tourists. But they believe they are crossing that Karman Line, they are going to become astronauts. In that moment they take that ride from launch site one to the launch pad and then walk across that plank to the capsule, every astronaut says that that is a moment that you will remember for the rest of your life.

COOPER: There had been an open seat. There was an auction, thousands of people participated in it. Somebody who has not been named got the winning bid of $28 million, according to Blue Origin. Blue Origin says that person had a scheduling conflict, which seems odd to me, but OK, and is going to go on a later flight.

[08:10:09]

That's why this 18-year-old, Oliver Daemen was picked. He's Dutch. He graduated high school. This is the luckiest 18-year-old. His dad, I guess, runs a private equity firm in the Netherlands. They were part of the auction, but he didn't expect to go on the first flight.

CRANE: He's also on a gap year right now before college. So talk about like coming into his first year of university with a bang. He gets to say that he's the youngest astronaut. That's pretty cool. But as you pointed out, it was his father that placed the winning bid for him. Blue Origin also has said that they have two more flights that they are planning to operate in 2021, and those seats have already been sold. They're selling tickets right now. We don't know the going price for those other tickets right now. We don't know what Oliver and his father paid for this flight, but we do know that that one auction winner paid $28 million. And Virgin Galactic's flights, they sold nearly 600 of them. They were going for around $200,000.

COOPER: And Blue Origin says the $28 million is being donated to a number of different charities. We're going to have a lot more here. We're counting down to the launch of the New Shepard rocket, as I said, named after Alan Shepard, first American into space. Jeff Bezos, three crewmates about to leave the training center for the launch pad. Stay with CNN for live coverage.

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[08:15:20]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF BEZOS, BLUE ORIGIN FOUNDER: You're in zero gravity for four minutes. You come back down. We land gently on the desert surface. We open the hatch and you step outside. What's the first thing you say?

WALLY FUNK: I would say, honey, that was the best thing that ever happened to me.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: That's Jeff Bezos talking to Wally Funk. She's kind of a legend. She'll be the oldest person to launch into space, joining Jeff Bezos on this historic rocket launch. The crews expect today walk out of the training center any moment.

Joining us now for all of this and our coverage in this hour, CNN aerospace analyst Miles O'Brien, astrophysics professor at the University of Rochester, Adam Frank, and professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York, Michio Kaku.

Thank you both for being with us. We appreciate it.

And, Miles, it is great to see you.

Miles, I mean, you've seen a lot of space flights. This really is kind of the beginning, obviously a lot of attention is paid to the space tourism aspect of this, but this is really kind of a cross-over point for the entire privatization of space and the building of greater infrastructure in space.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AEROSPACE ANALYST: Yeah, it's taken a little bit longer than I think we all hoped it would, those of us who care about these kinds of things. It was back in 2004 when we saw space ship 1 win the Ansari X prize, proving you could go to space on a civilian- built private aircraft twice in as many weeks.

Seventeen years later, here we are, suddenly it is becoming more real and it is an important milestone, I think, Anderson, along the way, as we look toward broadening access to space. And that has all kinds of possibilities, not just for the exploration of space, but for --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: And there you see -- miles, we're seeing Jeff Bezos and his brother Mark as well as Wally lamb. They are just leaving the -- Oliver, the 18-year-old, Oliver Daemen as well. They're leaving what they called the astronaut training center which, you see there, it's basically corrugated sheds. This is a very desolate area, very remote area.

They have built up this place over the last 20 years or so, but it's pretty bare bones as things go. They're going to be now taking that vehicle, driving over to the launch site itself where they climb into the launch tower.

I'm sorry, Miles, for interrupting. Continue, please.

O'BRIEN: No, I just -- the point I was trying to make, Anderson, there's been so much talk and controversy, whatever you want to say, about the billionaire race into space. But it's important to look at this in the broader context of making space cheaper, more accessible, more routine.

There are all kinds of things that could come out of that that we probably can't even envision, and this component of space tourism for billionaires and millionaires, and then just sort of rich people may seem distasteful. But it's going to lead to things I think will help us all here on this planet.

(INAUDIBLE)

O'BRIEN: Yes, you know, you have to go back and think about the long context of this, Anderson. This began with the Ansari X, $10 million prize in 2004. That was won by the team led by (INAUDIBLE) and the Spaceship 1, the successor aircraft or the predecessor aircraft for Spaceship 2.

COOPER: Yeah.

O'BRIEN: That prize is what brought us to this day. It took a lot longer than we expected. You have to go back to --

COOPER: Yeah, the --

O'BRIEN: -- 1920s and Charles Lindberg flying the Atlantic. That was basically to win a prize, the $25,000 Orteig Prize. At that time who could have predicted the global aviation enterprise we have today. Whether it's wide body aircraft, tramping all around the world, inexpensive travel, and for that matter, the scenes we've seen this past -- duking it out on the aisle.

So, it's very difficult to predict where this all leads.

COOPER: Miles, let me just tell our viewers what we saw. Those were some of the employees of Blue Origin who had been working on this now for years, as we watch them drive to the launch site.

[08:20:09]

Adam, as you watch this, what are you going to be looking for in terms of the launch this morning? Because, obviously, any time humans are going into space, there is, you know, it's a lot more dangerous obviously than a commercial airline flight.

ADAM FRANK, PROFESSOR OF ASTROPHYSICS, UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER: Yeah, well, the first thing I think is this is going to be a bad day for flat Earthers because we're going to get even more people who have seen the curve of the planet.

But, yeah, these machines, these rockets are some of the most complex machines human beings have ever built. Basically, they are always a giant bomb with some humans strapped to the top. So the main thing you're looking for here is just the safety, to make sure all these components are working as they should. But what I'm really amazed by here is two things.

First of all, that a private company could do this. That we've gotten to the point where this technology has diffused through, you know, commercial infrastructure that a private company -- right, obviously you needed a billionaire to do it. But that it is possible.

And the other thing I'm really interested -- always amazed to watch is the landing of the boosters by themselves upright.

COOPER: Yeah.

FRANK: That is something from the dream of science fiction movies in the 1950s. And the fact we have that now really demonstrates the quantum leap in technology that has happened through these private companies.

COOPER: And, Michio, obviously today, this is bringing a paying customer up into space. In the future, there will be more paying customers obviously. And the cost right now is prohibitive. I mean, it's ridiculously. Somebody, you know, paid $28 million for a later flight now. But the idea, as Adam was saying, more and more prices will come down.

Not just for customers going up for space tourism, but for these kind of launches, for actually space exploration.

MICHIO KAKU, PROFESSOR OF THEORETICAL PHYSICS, CITY UNIVERSITY OF NY: That's right. We're now entering the second golden era of space exploration. The first was, of course, Apollo space program, but that consumed 5 percent of the entire U.S. federal budget. That was unsustainable and, of course, the moon program fell flat on its face.

Now prices are dropping. It cost $10,000 to put a pound of anything into near earth orbit. That's your weight in gold. Imagine your body made out of solid gold, and that's what it cost to put you into outer space.

But costs are dropping. Rockets are now reusable. They weren't reusable before. Now we have billionaires underwriting much of the cost of the exploration of outer space for space tourism. We have competition now between not one, not two, but three different groups offering tickets to outer space. And that competition is also helping to drive costs down.

So that's the trajectory of -- like the railroads, the railroads originally were used for freight, for military purposes, for supplies. That's the railroad. Then millionaires started to buy tickets on the railroad, and it began to slowly become democratized and now, of course, mom and dad can buy a train ticket with ease.

Same thing here. I think we're now entering the second phase where, yes, billionaires can go into outer space, but eventually it will be mom and dad.

COOPER: There you see the crew, four people now at the actual launch site. That's about three miles or so from the location where we are at right now in that direction. They obviously have a certain amount of distance for safety reasons.

As soon as the four crew members get the go ahead, they will actually go into the capsule after posing for some pictures right now.

Miles, let's talk about this being an autonomous vehicle. There is no pilot on board this rocket. There was with Virgin Galactic.

There is a safety benefit to not having a pilot, correct?

O'BRIEN: Yeah, and as a pilot, I hate to say that, Anderson. But we are the problem. If you can build a craft that is autonomous like this one, you take a point of failure out of it. So, you know, think about what Jeff Bezos has done with Amazon. Much of what he built has been used around using robotics and autonomy in order to prove efficiency in delivering packages from point A to point B.

He's applied that same principal here to space. While there is no pilot on board, it might seem disquieting at first, but it actually is safer.

COOPER: Yeah, you know, at first blush, I thought, well, I'm not sure I'd want to be in an autonomous vehicle.

[08:25:02]

But as you look at safety considerations, 75 percent I think of problems with aircraft are due to pilot, to pilot error. So it certainly seems to be safer.

Can you talk also, Miles, just a little bit about the experience they are going to have, that three minutes of weightlessness, what they're going to be seeing out the window? They will see the curvature of the earth as Adam was pointing out, but they will also see the blackness of space above them.

O'BRIEN: Yeah, the blackness of space, the curvature of the earth, and about three to four minutes of floating around. So that is the space experience, but just a sampler, right, Anderson.

So imagine what it's going to be like to unbuckle those belts, look out -- they have huge windows. It's going to be a nice view for sure. But it's going to be sensory overload. And on top of that, you know, your inner ear is going to be screaming at you.

A lot of people get pretty, you know, space adaptation sickness is a real thing. So I presume they have thought about that, maybe have taken a little medication in advance of that.

You know, the thing about it is they're going to be taking in so many things at once and for such a short period of time. It's almost kind of saturating the processor. So I hope, you know, they have an opportunity to fully enjoy it over that period of time.

I think you talk to a lot of astronauts. They usually tell you it's their second flight when they really savor the essence of what it's like being up there.

COOPER: Yeah, Wally Lamb is leading the way. She is 82 years old, leading the way in many ways. Not just up the steps. She led the way in terms of women getting into space, trained in the 1960s. She underwent training, part of the so-called Mercury 13, underwent training privately funded to show that women could pass the strenuous requirements that NASA had set up for astronauts, but they only allowed male astronauts at that time.

Her dream was to get into space. She has had a remarkable career. She was the first female FAA inspector, the first NSTB safety investigator to be a woman.

So she has had a remarkable career as a pilot obviously in her own right. And now she is getting to fulfill a lifelong dream. Wally Funk, excuse me, I think I said Wally Lamb. Wally Funk. Her full name is actually Mary Wallace Funk. She's called Wally Funk.

Also, Oliver Daemen, 18 years old, we were talking with Rachel and Kristin. They are -- he will be heading to college this fall. Quite a lucky young man, and Jeff Bezos' brother Mark, who works in finance, who's also a volunteer firefighter, he is also making this trip with his brother and best friend.

That is what we have, Kristin and Rachel, here as well.

As you watch this, Rachel, what do you think?

RACHEL CRANE, CNN INNOVATION AND SPACE CORRESPONDENT: I mean, I can't help but start to get a little excited here. When you cover launches, Anderson, as you know, they usually don't take off on time. So you can't get really too excited until the astronauts are strapped in their seats and on board. This is obviously not an orbital mission so they don't have to do that as far in advance.

But we're seeing them in that holding bin up there. So shortly -- in just a few minutes we're going to see them cross the gantry and do the process ingress where they get into their seats. Crew member 7, it's a role unique to blue origin. That's the 7th crew member because there are six crew members that can possibly be in the capsule. As we know there are four today.

They'll help them buckle in, strap in, and they'll do the comms checks and make sure the systems are going -- moving in the right direction. Two minutes before lift off, Anderson, that's when the capsule goes into autonomous mode and that's when the domino effect of all the major milestones that we're going to see will start to happen. There'll be a hydraulic check, gimbal check. You'll see that engine underneath the booster start to move, to make sure that all citizens are a go for launch.

And then we'll have this historic launch. As you pointed out, this is the first crewed mission for Blue Origin. I had the opportunity to speak with Bezos yesterday. You know, his loved ones said, maybe the second or the third mission. Why do you have to be on the first? And he said, you know, if it's safe for me, it's safe for everyone. So --

COOPER: Certainly sends that message to people who may be wondering.

Kristin, it's interesting, Bezos is wearing his cowboy hat. People may not know this, he grew up spending summers in south Texas on his grandfather's ranch from the age of 4 I think to 16.

His brother, which we were just seeing as well, is going with him. They call each other their best friends. It's interesting that he chose to take his brother and also that he reached out to Wally as well.

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: Said he wanted his brother with him for this flight. And, you know, back to kind of growing up or spending his summers here in West Texas.