As it was so eloquently explained in Jurassic Park III, by Sam Neill’s character Alan Grant: “I have a theory that there are two kinds of boys. There are those that want to be astronomers, and those that want to be astronauts. The astronomer, or the palaeontologist, gets to study these amazing things from a place of complete safety.”
He is then interrupted by Trevor Morgan as Eric Kirby, who realises that “but you never get to go into space.”
This was sadly, the reality of millions of individuals, in the wake of the International Space Race, and the successful Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. No matter how fleeting, many dreamed to see the world from space, to feel that awe of seeing how small we really are, just how Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins described it.
But, after July 2021, Space Tourism is no longer light-years away.
Although, it seems it is for the super-rich at the moment, on the doorsteps of the billionaires: with Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Elon Musk independently using their riches to develop a new business opportunity for each of their companies.
Economist, Carlotta Perez acknowledged that “every time. Every technological revolution has changed the lifestyle [of the masses] buy it doesn’t just change it in any direction, it changes it in the direction that has already been signalled by the young by the educated and by the rich.”
The young, the masses, the billions of young people inspired by planetariums, science fiction and the stories of Apollo 11. The young that have grown up, like a five-year-old Jeff Bezos, who watched Apollo 11 land on the moon.
The educated, every single individual that stepped through the doors of space camp, of NASA, of the independent space tourism programs that Bezos, Branson and Musk are creating.
And, of course, the billionaires creating these exclusive experiences. With Richard Branson being the first to embark on the flight into the cosmos via his company, Virgin Galactic’s, spacecraft: the VSS Unity spaceplane.
Just nine days later, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and richest man on the planet, became the richest man in the known universe, flying out to space, on the first manned flight of his own spacecraft: New Shepard of his space travel company Blue Origin (est. 2000), to ensure that when this was to become commercial, there would be more faith in Bezos’ company due to him being the first to put his life on the line for the sake of the dream of the masses; to go to space.
Although Blue Origin have yet to release a price for their tickets to space, Branson and Virgin Galactic have provided a hefty £250,000 price for their tickets, of which, according to The Wall Street Journal, Elon Musk has already purchased, despite having his own company invested in space travel!
Innovation is defined as finding solutions to a problem. The problem, in this instance, being that the average Joe cannot be amongst the stars, no matter how much he daydreams about being Luke Skywalker or Spock, or one of the members of Voltron.
Could you imagine actually being able to see outer space, not from satellite imagery? Living the fantasy of being one with the stars; gazing through large spacecraft windows at the endless void of the universe. It’s just around the corner for the rich, and perhaps, closer to our doorsteps than we think.
Based in London, U.K., and founded in 2016 by Arvind Mishra The Agile Works (www.TheAgileWorks.com), is an up-and-coming recruitment and Agile consulting company. Arvind is a Certified SAFe SPC and regularly delivers both private and public SAFe certification workshops.
He is a design thinking expert, Sr. enterprise, portfolio Agile Coach with over a decade of experience working as an Agile coach in diverse industries such as banking, pharma, retail, auto, oil, gas, consulting and government.
The Agile Works; a small team of three strive to help shape the leadership's mind-set and values in readiness for their business transformation journey challenges. With Arvind at the helm, we strive to provide you with the agility tools to make your company that can thrive, and not just survive.
To book a consultation, or for any enquiries, you can contact Arvind via the following email address: arvind@theagileworks.com
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