Yo, technology. What is it all about?

You know, I like to say that, you know, it took Homo sapiens about 200,000 years, 150,000 years to go around planet Earth.

You know, like, we're on the edge of our next big journey.

Where will be in another 200,000 years?

I hope across the galaxy.

You know, and literally, we are about as basic right now

when it comes to spaceflight as we were trudging around the sub-Saharan desert.

Hello and welcome to Danny in the Valley. I am your host, Danny Fortson, and this is your weekly dispatch from behind the seeds and inside the minds of the top people in tech.

This week, we come to you direct from the Mojave Desert and the headquarters of Virgin Galactic, which is Sir Richard Branson's space tourism company.

And it is getting closer and closer to their maiden flight,

where in theory Sir Richard and five other paying passengers,

each of whom will have put down between $200,000, $250,000,

to be fired into orbit for a few minutes of weightlessness. And steering the ship,

so to speak, toward that momentous day is George Whitesides. And he is a former NASA executive,

who's this week's guest. And it is a fascinating conversation.

Now, we actually recorded this last year, and since then, much has happened.

So Virgin has moved a bunch of its people to this new spaceport in New Mexico, as things

get closer to kind of the launch of commercial operations.

And then a few months ago, Virgin Galactic merged with an investment vehicle that is controlled

by Chamath Polyhapatia, who is a Facebook billionaire.

He's also now an owner of the Golden State Warriors, his venture capitalist, and he pumped

in a bunch of money to keep the party going.

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