Business Daily meets: Jane Poynter
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 13 June 2024
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
23 years ago, the US multi-millionaire Dennis Tito became the world’s first-ever space tourist, funding his own trip into orbit.
There was clearly money to be made, and now the lure of making space tourism more accessible to the masses is even greater - with several private companies jockeying for position.
Jane Poynter’s firm is among them.
It’s an industry experiencing dramatic growth – but the price of any of these trips is out of reach of most of us.
We explore whether this firm could achieve its aim of launching more of us into stratospheric heights.
And we hear how Jane went on her own journey: from ecologist working in the famous Biosphere 2 experiment in the early 1990s, to looking skywards and the possibilities of a career in space tourism.
Presenter: Ed Butler Producer: Amber Mehmood
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I did that Jim. |
| 0:08.3 | I love the space. |
| 0:10.8 | 23 years ago, a US multi-millionaire Dennis Tito |
| 0:15.3 | became the world's first ever space tourist, funding his own trip into orbit. |
| 0:20.1 | Come on here. |
| 0:21.8 | This is it. |
| 0:23.0 | Great to be here. |
| 0:24.9 | There was clearly money to be made back then, |
| 0:27.8 | and with technological advances, |
| 0:29.8 | the lure of making space tourism today |
| 0:32.4 | has become even more accessible. |
| 0:34.6 | With major private companies jockeying for position in the arena. |
| 0:39.1 | Jane Pointer's Firm is one of them. Her version, though, comes with a twist. |
| 0:43.6 | We, instead of using rockets, use enormous balloons. We're literally going to space at the |
| 0:50.2 | roaring speed of 12 miles an hour. This is Business Daily from the BBC World Service, |
| 0:55.2 | where we often speak to fascinating people in economics, business and technology. |
| 1:00.9 | And today is no exception. |
| 1:02.9 | I'm Ed Butler and I've been chatting with Jane Pointer. |
| 1:05.6 | She's the CEO and co-founder of Space Perspective, |
| 1:08.6 | the latest entrant into the space tourism game, |
| 1:12.0 | a firm that's boldly hoping to compete with the likes of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin |
| 1:16.9 | and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. |
... |
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