>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made at the Karman line.

The internationally recognized boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space.

It's 100km above sea level.

It's the point at which the air becomes too thin for conventional aircraft to maintain lift, and got to be in a spacecraft at that point.

It's the gateway to space.

And last week, a Rochesterian became only the 717th human to cross the Karman line.

Aaron Newman has become a kind of extreme explorer.

He had already been to the lowest depths of the oceans.

So human has now earned the distinction of being only the seventh person ever to have been to the top and the bottom of our planetary scale.

Here, down at the bottom of the oceans and crossing that line into space.

And he understands what the cynics say.

Newman traveled to space as part of a Blue Origin crew.

That's the company created by Jeff Bezos to bring more people to space.

But the cynics tend to scoff and call it a rich person's version of tourism, unreachable for almost everyone else.

And for the moment, it's hard to argue that point.

But Newman has a different idea, he told News10 NBC last week that when the airplane was invented, it was initially viewed with skepticism.

Only the richest of the rich would fly a playground for the 1% of the 1%.

What would happen?

Newman wonders, if spaceflight became more common the way commercial flights have become common.

One effect, he believes, would be the reduction in tribalism that divides people around our planet, he says.

Just seeing the Earth from that perspective can change a person.

Let's talk about all of that and more with our guest, who is fresh back on the ground here.

It's probably good to be on the Araghchi Aaron Newman probably don't even like being on the ground.

Welcome to the program.

He's a Blue Origin astronaut, founder of Exploring Our Deep World.

Thank you for being here.

>> Thank you.

And you did an amazing job explaining that better than I could.

Well.

>> I've heard what you've said for the last week here.

That's part of my job.

>> Very eloquent.

>> But you're going to have to speak for yourself this hour.

Thank you.

So first of all, I want you to tell listeners a little before we talk about the the trip to space last week, a little bit more about yourself and how you ended up pursuing some of this.

I mean, even the interest in our deep world and, I mean, this isn't just a I'm going to go to space one time and be done this you do a lot of really interesting, in my view, extreme stuff here.

>> Yeah.

Well, I did software companies for 25, 30 years and it was right time, right place.

I ended up very successful.

and then I was going to retire.

But what am I going to do, retire and sit around and play golf or twiddle my thumbs?

I need a passion.

I need something to do.

And so I started traveling and and kind of getting into some of the history and, you know, I ended up on a on in the ocean gate vessel.

And that was really for me kind of sparked the passion of this is something I want to do.

This is something where we can move the needle with humanity and, you know, go explore and do things that can help the world.

So I kind of wrap my mind around that and dug into it the way I did startups previously.

And, you know, started traveling.

And the more I traveled, the more I wanted it.

And, you know, once you're in that group, it's all everybody's kind of connected.

You go to a party with these people, you go to a different one, and all the same people are there.

So ended up in, on, on on Blue Origin.

>> So OceanGate is the one that now sort of sadly and tragically had that accident in which I think five people I don't remember exactly five people were lost.

how far in advance of that were you on OceanGate?

>> I was on two years before that.

>> So I wonder what it was like when you saw that news.

>> I mean, it was it was tragic.

Listen, we're all you know it was interesting to see how the world has done a bit of vilifying OceanGate and vilifying Stockton rush, who was a friend of mine.

and it's not fair, right?

I mean, listen, they made mistakes.

We know that but they were pushing the boundaries.

They were trying to do incredible things.

They were trying to democratize access to the bottom of the ocean to for humans to see that.

And there's so much that we need to do to get there.

So some of the, some of the, the vilification, the media was not fair.

but it was what it was for me.

The first I heard about it, you kind of knew right away, you know, this is not something this is you know, this is a whole implosion.

And you kind of knew right away what was happening.

And so it was tough to handle.

But this is part of if you're going to choose this route, that's a this is a risk you have to take.

>> so where and why did you do that?

I mean, so take me through.

You said you wanted a passion.

I get that, but why the bottom of the ocean?

>> Well, and I don't think I knew going into the Titanic, but actually, Stockton was one of the people who really educated me and first opened my eyes.

And the idea that the bottom of the ocean is less explored than the surface of the moon, right?

We know more about the moon and what's there, you know, versus the bottom of the ocean.

This is our planet, right?

And we don't know anything about it.

And it's 71% of the Earth is the ocean.

It's where most of the biomass is.

It's where most of the carbon is, is sequestered.

So where most of the oxygen is, is generated, and yet we don't have a clue what's going on there.

And that's if you want to if you want to protect and and be good.

good guardians of of the Earth.

We have to understand what's going on there, and we don't have a clue.

We don't know.

We have no idea.

And so for me, if I can help, you know, and that's the idea behind exploring our deep world.

My nonprofit is enabling scientists to get access to this so we can measure it so we can know what's happening there.

I mean, right now we've fished out 90% of everything in the ocean.

and it's just ridiculous.

You know, 90% of sharks, 90% of fish, 90% of whales, you know, and now we have we've just started this new thing of sending factory trawlers down to Antarctica to start to start just tapping into the krill that's there, which is going to destroy everything in our oceans, which is going to destroy everything on our land.

So it really is a huge concern that most people don't understand.

>> It wasn't just going down to see the Titanic then.

>> No, that was, you know, and let me let me put it this way.

A lot of this is yes, you have people that have means spending money on this, but it's an investment, right?

It's it's building out the infrastructure that will then make the next trip cheaper, more accessible.

As the technology gets better.

you know, it's going to become more and more democratized and accessible.

>> There are entire mountain ranges at the bottom of the ocean, aren't there?

I mean, like, similar to the mountain ranges on on the surface of the planet.

>> Yeah, we have seamounts is what they call them.

Seamounts are down there and we have ridges.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is where the crust separates.

I mean, there's just hydrothermal vents where there's life and ecosystems that are what they call chemosynthesis, which are not dependent on photosynthesis.

All the life we know about is dependent on photosynthesis.

There are entire ecosystems that don't depend at all on that chemosynthesis where they use chemicals to generate carbohydrates, which feeds, you know, so there's if you want to go study a different world, it's at the bottom of the ocean.

>> Why do you think that there has been less emphasis on this kind of exploration and travel?

in the past?

>> Well, I mean, particularly at the bottom of the ocean is not nearly, I'll say, as sexy a space.

Okay.

Right.

I mean, you can see a rocket go up if I drop a deep sea vessel in the ocean and it goes to the bottom, nobody sees that.

and like, when we walked in this room.

Evan, what was the first thing you told me?

I'm scared of the ocean.

>> Oh, I'm very scared of the ocean.

Right.

That's a big one.

>> It's dark.

We don't know what creatures are down there.

It's scary.

People are not as enthralled with what's down there.

Because it's not as cool as a rocket blasting into space.

but it's more important to what we're doing today.

It's more important to our life livelihood on land.

>> I could outturn you by ten.

Factor by a factor of ten.

And you would never convince me to go to the bottom of the ocean.

Never.

It's not about resources.

I would never be.

I never want to do it.

But I recognize what you are saying about the scientific value.

Especially because as the climate warms and ecosystems either collapse or are changed and oceans possibly rise, it affects all of us, but we don't have.

I mean, I'm sure scientists could sit in this room and give us better understanding, but the general population is not very well plugged into that.

I don't think.

>> Right, because it's not what you see.

Right?

I mean, and if you think about it, it's even worse than that.

The real problem is it's not owned by anybody.

Right.

So we have these, you know, within 200 miles of every coastline is what they call the EEZ exclusive economic zone that kind of belongs to that country.

But outside of that, it's shared resources.

And we know what happens with shared resources.

Everybody takes and nobody cares for it.

Yeah, right.

And that's exactly what we're seeing.

So the oceans are not protected.

you know, and yeah, we protect some of it that's within our, our, our, our zones.

But we're missing, you know, and it's, it's going to continue to be just devastated at the current rate.

>> So your website is Deep.org.

>> Correct.

>> Exploring our deep world is the organization.

And I mean, I'm reading a little bit about the mission, but how do you describe what what it is you do with that?

>> Well, I mean I'm not a scientist.

you know, I like to think that I'm fairly intelligent, but, you know, I don't know the first thing about some of these processes and all that.

So the idea with this is to help gain access to what's underneath the oceans, to help scientists.

So we support archeologists, we geologists in this effort to try to learn what's down there, to start documenting it.

And we just need more science happening in the oceans as soon as possible.

so, you know, my goal is to die penniless, right?

And the idea is to spend all this money that that I've, I've made through software into invested into researching and learning about the oceans.

And that's the legacy I want to leave is to as to have moved the needle in terms of science that's occurred around the oceans that can help humanity.

>> Are there missions going on right now through exploring our deep world?

>> Yeah, a lot of archeologists.

We've done a lot of maritime history.

For instance, in Lake Lake, Ontario this year, we've surveyed two dozen different, shipwrecks.

There.

and we've discovered a bunch of shipwrecks that are just in our backyard here that people don't know about.

I mean, you don't know there's diving and shipwrecks right off the coast of where we live.

again, you know, people don't know what's happening in the in the oceans and the Great Lakes, and we're trying to move the needle there.

>> So to your point, though, this is the first time you've been on this program.

It's my first time meeting you.

And it wasn't because you were on you know, you went down to see the Titanic or you were in deep sea, or you were exploring the depths of the ocean, or you created this company to to support science is because you went to space.

So, I mean, that is kind of the point that you were making.

>> Yeah, exactly.

>> That's why you're here.

And why don't you tell people what you did last week?

>> so last week, we you know, I was on the 15th manned mission of Blue Origin.

Same one.

Katy Perry went on.

>> That's when everybody remembers.

>> Start the jokes, I get it.

But got on that and we we got to touch space.

Right.

And that's what this is.

This is I like to compare this to the Oregon Trail, right where Lewis and Clark were the first ones to go out there.

Somebody followed them, then more people followed them, then more people followed them.

And and I believe that's the road we're on now with space is, you know, here we are, the Blue Origin flight.

It's not exactly like we're scientists out there for for months at a time, you know?

But we're passengers and cargo that's going into space and paying money that's putting into engineering and research.

And the Blue Origin team who's funneling that into other projects like the lunar projects, like there, like their New Glenn project, which is which is putting large cargo.

You know, they'll be they'll be at the cusp of building the next es.

So so we went went last week out to Texas, Van Horn, Texas, got a rocket.

It was five days of of training.

And it was an incredible experience.

the, the rocket, you know, the launch was everything you could imagine, right?

You know, being propelled up at 2000 miles an hour through the clouds very, very exciting.

>> I think we've got video we can share if you're watching on YouTube, on the WXXI News YouTube channel, we can share some of what the Blue Origin team has shared about the launch and some of the images.

but you're looking at some of the launch right there.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Aaron.

Yep.

>> Yeah.

And I mean, then a couple minutes of of this weightlessness and the weightlessness is interesting, but way more compelling is to look down at the Earth.

And you really are looking down.

You can see this thin blue line right on the curvature of the Earth.

And you start to see how fragile this ecosystem that we live in, that that thin blue line is the only thing that we're able to breathe and survive in.

Without that, we're toast.

>> And so how long was the total trip?

>> Ten minutes and 25 seconds.

That's it.

So yeah, I mean, it's just about touching space.

It's about we're taking the first baby steps to getting us colonizing the moon, colonizing Mars, just expanding us out beyond this Earth.

You know, it's the it's the human evolution.

>> So there's a number of different sort of threads here that I want to touch on.

And if you're just joining us, we're talking to Aaron Neumann, who is the founder of Exploring Our Deep World and joined the Blue Origin astronaut team last week as part of the this crew, the 15th manned crew for Blue Origin.

Correct?

Yes.

So he becomes the 717th human being to cross the Karman line, which is that boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space.

And we're talking about what Aaron experienced from the perspective you get there.

We're also going to talk a little bit more about the possible democratization of this, the possible accessibility for, you know, future human beings.

I mean, right now, it's still pretty prohibitive for most of us.

But let's start with the perspective.

So you said the weightlessness is cool, but it's the perspective I got.

Ask about weightlessness anyway.

I mean, is that pretty funky to to it is.

But listen, that.

>> Are you scuba diver at all.

>> No.

Absolutely not.

>> If you want to experience weightlessness, go scuba diving.

Right.

You know, I'm.

>> Scared of water.

man.

>> As he's got a glass of water.

>> In his.

>> Face, right?

Yeah.

I mean, people are we're not natural creatures.

We're not whales.

It's not programmed into us.

But you know, the, you know, the it's very interesting to be weightless, but more important.

And anyone that goes on this trip knows many people don't even get out of their seats, right?

They just sit and look at the view.

And that's what's more important here, is that you go out there and you see the earth.

You see that it's round.

We prove that again.

and we see the thin line, and you see a world where you don't have boundaries, right?

And you see that it's one piece of land and there's one, one set of humans here, and that we need a little different perspective.

They call it the overview effect.

And there's a whole kind of book on it by Frank white.

and so that's a lot of what this is.

>> Well, yeah.

And I was having a conversation before the program, you know, in which I said, it's, again, easy to get cynical about some of this stuff, but what you're talking about, that overview effect and the way that that perspective might start to blur or eliminate a feeling of tribalism, it's it can be pretty powerful.

It's been studied in other people.

and, you know, you strike me as a guy who maybe didn't need too many lessons and, and you know not being such a fully tribal species, but at the same time, did you, did you find yourself changed by that experience?

>> Yeah.

I mean, I'm still processing it, right?

I mean, it's only been four days, so it's still.

And it was much more tiring.

I've been walking out of there and I'm exhausted, and I don't know why.

I sat there for 12 minutes, but it's I'm still processing it, but it definitely is a life changing type of wow, you able to have the privilege of escaping the Earth?

Just see what it's like to look down, to see how fragile it is to see, well, our our our planet is huge.

It's also tiny and realized that look in in I don't know, it's 50 or 100 years.

I don't know if it's in ten years or 50 years, but I know in 50 years, 100 years, you're going to have your grandchildren.

My grandchildren will have the ability to go spend a vacation on the moon.

>> You really think so?

>> I know, so, yes, absolutely.

Right.

Humanity.

It's just a matter of time and.

>> Well, I mean, so you made an interesting comment to News10.

ABC's Jenn.

Lucky you said that the original commercial aircraft.

There was a lot of skepticism about whether that would be for the masses, whether just average people could get on a plane and never fly.

That it might just be a playground of the super elite.

And so now here we are, and there's thousands upon thousands of commercial flights every single day.

Most of them are late, but some are on time.

And you know, it's an incredible experience that a lot of people have had.

Again, I understand there's still some socioeconomic barriers for that, but it's become much more accessible and democratized than maybe people originally thought.

I can see the idea that this kind of travel and experience could go in that direction, but I could also see the argument that says it's too resource heavy.

It will always be too expensive, it will always be too much risk, and that this will remain sort of unreachable for a lot of people.

You don't think so, though?

>> No, not at all.

I mean, you could have said all those things about the first air, air, air aircrafts and flights, but this is absolutely about driving the price down.

to the point where this will be.

I mean, think about aircraft.

What did airplanes do for us?

You know, you know, yes.

It was a neat trip.

And, you know, it's amazing to see the view.

But more importantly, it's it's it really has torn down barriers.

Right.

The fact that we can go travel and see other countries has really brought people together.

you know, ideas and everything have come from it.

And I think you're going to see the same thing out of space travel is you're going to have, like I said, colonies on the moon, and it's going to enable a lot of things that I don't even know about yet, but it will.

>> can we see if that Mark Twain quote that everybody talks about, is that apocryphal, or did Mark Twain actually say that travel is the antidote to bigotry?

Something along those lines, regardless of whether I think I think he did.

But we're going to see regardless, everybody knows the quote because it's such a powerful quote.

So and that's just about travel outside of your own town or your own state or your own country, let alone sort of breaking out of the atmosphere here.

So it's almost like that overview effect that you're talking about is the travel is the antidote to bigotry on steroids.

>> Yes, absolutely.

And again, I don't have all the answers.

I don't know where this perfectly goes, but I know that us enabling access to to reach out beyond this planet is is a good thing for humanity.

And this is where we need to go.

>> apparently he did say it, though.

It looks like he did the actual full quote, because we've got the time here, so let's get it right.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the world.

So, yeah, you want to endorse that?

That's pretty good.

>> I absolutely agree.

And, you know, I've read his book.

Watch his travel abroad or where he actually goes into the Middle East and he, he.

>> Goes the Innocents Abroad.

>> Yes.

>> The producing team just told me in my ear.

Yeah, yeah.

I didn't know it.

Off the top.

>> He goes and he visits the Dead Sea and he visits Jerusalem and he visits.

And, you know, here's a guy who got it I think wasn't Mark Twain also the one that started one of the forest fires in Tahoe?

out in Nevada.

>> Don't.

>> Burned down.

>> We're having a nice conversation about his son.

I don't know the answer to that, but no, the Innocents Abroad is.

I have not read it myself.

But the sentiments are there for a reason.

You believe that the the democratization of the experience you had is possible.

For the moment, though, this is like this is the one thing that you were saying last week that was like, there's no way I. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I think you said to reporters last week that, you know, while there aren't people in poverty on these flights, it's not all just rich people on these Blue Origin flights is that.

>> They they do take some some people outside of that.

I mean, the vast majority is, is people that are willing that are willing to pay this immense ticket.

And some of them are people that are, you know, it's very easy to go, go to, but some of them are people that are somewhat successful.

But it's been a dream of theirs since the day where they were born, right?

Some people just have this space.

It's a little of the there's there's many of us who grew up watching Star Trek, right.

And you know, and, you know, the whole beginning diatribe, you know, the whole beginning.

Talk about searching and going out.

And that's built into many people.

I mean, we want to explore.

And so this is a this is a step, you know, I wish we could snap our fingers and go to a different galaxy.

But this is the best we got right now.

>> Everything I've read indicates that to get on the waiting list, it's 150 K. And then I still think you're bidding for a ticket.

Is that correct?

>> No.

>> That's not correct.

>> You're way off your and and.

>> Well, you can break some news then.

>> I absolutely am under NDA and.

>> You can't.

>> Tell us.

>> What you paid to get.

>> On there.

I can't tell you.

But go ask.

But you're not close.

>> I'm too low.

>> I can't tell you that.

Too high.

I can't tell you that.

>> Just write it down and pass me the number.

You can't, but can you at least say that it's prohibitive for most people?

Still.

>> The currently the published price of Virgin Galactic, which is the other people that are trying to do it but not there is $450,000.

>> Okay.

That's prohibitive.

>> Yes.

>> Yeah.

Obviously.

Yes.

so okay.

In the future, you think it wouldn't be not dissimilar to what people are paying for air flights right now?

And again, I'm not talking about today's dollars in the future.

I'm talking about like a rough equivalent, which would be, you know, not $150,000 going to a waiting list or 400,000.

But people might be able to do this for 500 or 1000 bucks.

>> You think so?

I think so, I mean, if you think about it this way too, I mean, they don't use fuel, you know, it's what's what's fueling these things is hydrogen and oxygen, right?

Hydrogen is the propellant.

And they use an oxidizer, liquid oxygen as a as an oxidizer.

And the byproduct of it is water.

Right.

So one of the reasons that they've gone down this you can also use few other fuels that are more methane based and all that.

But Blue Origin specifically uses hydrogen because when we get to Mars there's plenty of hydrogen there to mine, which will allow us to expand beyond that.

So it's it's as well it's not a huge you know, it's a little ironic.

People that are like flying their private jets to a. Conference on global climate change.

But hopefully what we're seeing here is a little bit smarter use of you know, because if we look at it, we don't really have an energy problem.

There's plenty of energy in the solar system.

It's just how do we tap into it in a smart way?

>> Well, one of the very first conversations I had hosting the show more than ten years ago was with astrophysicist Adam Frank, who said that he wished more people would be in tune with the fact that right now, you can stand under our sky, look up at the sky, inhale deeply.

Breathe into your lungs and be just fine.

And there's nowhere else in the known universe where you can just be outside, under a sky and breathe without dying.

And obviously, that's kind of a tautology.

Things have evolved this way for a reason, and we're here.

But his larger point was don't be so quick to think that we could screw this up and just figure it out somewhere else, that it's pretty special here.

It's pretty special.

And that we ought to value that more.

What do you think?

>> I absolutely agree because.

And it is weird, like every science fiction show you watch, you get to another planet and exactly the right atmosphere and everything is perfect.

And and it's ridiculous, you know?

But I also believe there's such a vast amount of stuff out there that there are other places where I'm sure there's life.

Right?

It's not a question.

It's just it's almost a. Certainty, given the randomness.

>> Just the math.

Right?

>> Yeah, exactly.

So so there's other life out there.

Why are they not here?

Why?

I don't know.

>> Well, travel's hard, distances are hard.

This is.

Oh, man, I, I love telling this story.

I think I've told this on this program before, but this past summer, my 13-year-old son and a friend of his were playing this this game.

Wits and wagers, where you have to make these, like how many grains of sand in a cup of sand?

I mean, ridiculous numbers.

So one of the questions was, if you could get on the current fastest spacecraft that's ever been created, that does exist now and just go in a straight line to the nearest star system without stopping.

How long would it take you to get there?

And my son's friend said, five days.

And my son doubled over with laughter.

Five days.

But like like, that's not a bad guess for for those of us our brains can't get around the fact that the actual answer is 80,000 years.

That was the answer.

80,000 years.

That's the nearest star system, right?

So I think the reason we haven't been visited yet is it's so much bigger than people realize.

Yeah, space is so much bigger.

the amount of energy or planning or anything required to get, you know, any sort of living being to the next star system seems really, really tough.

Maybe out of reach, even with great technology, even the most civilized technologies out there.

Right?

I don't know, I don't know if we're ever going to see.

I think that there is life like you.

I think it's almost inevitable that there is probably civilized technological life.

And I think it's just as possible that we would never be able to find it.

>> Yes.

And these are complex topics.

I like to say.

My analogy is we're trying to figure this stuff out.

It's a bit like trying to teach a dog calculus, right?

I just don't know whether our brains are big enough to handle these problems or questions.

>> I mean, look, you've got some big ideas here.

And on the other side of this break, I want to talk to Aaron Newman about what he wants to do next, because, you know, in some ways, he could look at his post software career and say, well, now I've been to the depths of the ocean and now I've crossed the Karman line.

I've been to the top of our atmosphere and into space, you know, like what's left.

Well, we're going to talk about maybe if that bucket list has some other things I want to.

We're going to share more on YouTube.

If you're watching on the WXXI News YouTube, I want to talk a little bit about everything from some of the images that you did get from space, what it looks like up there to the landing.

And and then we'll talk a little bit more about the future with a gentleman who has been doing a lot of really interesting stuff, a Blue Origin astronaut last week, the founder of Exploring Our Deep World.

Aaron Newman is our guest.

And we'll come right back on Connections.

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And we're going to talk metastatic cancer as well.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

I told Aaron Newman earlier this hour.

There's no amount of money that you give me to get in a vessel to go to the bottom of the ocean just would never happen.

I don't know about space like I think I might if resources weren't an issue, would I go cross the Karman line?

I think so, I think I'd be nervous.

I think I'd be scared.

but I think I would be very curious about that.

That overview effect, that idea of seeing a whole new perspective on where we are and what it looks like and what it feels like.

Can you talk a little bit more about just some of the sights and what it was like for you?

>> Well, well, let me start with, you know, let's go back to Kitty Hawk.

And if I got ten people there, how many of them would have said the same thing?

You're saying?

>> Probably it was.

>> There's no way I'm doing that.

>> Yeah, there's probably plenty of people who would have said, no way.

>> Yeah.

So hopefully that just evolves with, you know, with our children and they just become, this is what the world is.

So okay.

But your question, the experience I you know, I do I'm going to start with saying the experience itself was fairly irrelevant, right, of going to space.

>> Irrelevant.

>> Irrelevant.

Right.

It's a, you know, yes.

It's a roller coaster.

Yes.

It's weightlessness.

It's all extremely neat.

but it's more about the investment and being in the room where this next step in human evolution is going and the we have to take a first step to get to the next step.

Right.

So is this, you know, a rich person's carnival ride, whatever.

You could say what you want.

maybe it is, but it doesn't matter.

It's about somebody's got to take the first step to get to the next step, to get to the next step, to the point where we are an interplanetary species, where we have evolved beyond where we are for many reasons.

So that's what's important.

And the fact that I had the privilege to be in the room is more important than the fact that this was a cool, cool ride.

It was to be sit in a spaceship, accelerate a thousand 2000 miles an hour through the clouds, watch them whiz by like a like a sci fi movie is mind blowing.

>> I think that's what we're looking at here on the YouTube channel.

For those watching on the WXXI News YouTube channel it was a thousand miles an hour.

>> I mean, you're you're hitting 2500 miles an hour.

By the time you hit apogee.

And when you're going through those clouds, I think your first cloud layer was 1000 miles an hour.

I think by the time we hit the third cloud layer, we were flying at 2000 miles an hour.

That's mind blowing.

>> Mind blowing.

>> Right?

The physics and the scientists and the people that made that happen.

That, to me, is what's mind blowing.

>> The the view of the you actually see the curvature of the planet?

>> Yes.

It was definitely more space than I thought it would be.

>> That's kind of what I wanted to ask you, because a lot of people, I think, hear about the Karman line, and they think it's like going from the blue sky to all of a sudden black space with stars and everything popping, and it's not quite like that.

So but it felt more like a space experience than maybe you thought.

>> Yes.

Once you get up to, you know, above, you're going through and you're, you know, you're at the level of a jet, 35,000ft and you look out and it's what you see.

And then two minutes later, you're literally like looking down and you're in space, right?

You could see the curvature of the Earth.

You could see, you know, it's not like you're at the moon and you could see it as a ball, as, as a pale blue dot.

But you do see a big part of it.

You could see a third of the earth, and you're looking out of this giant window and it's mind blowing to see.

And you can see that blue.

That blue line is the most important piece of it.

>> What surprised you the most?

>> what surprised me the most?

I think just looking down, looking at the view, that's.

And it went so quickly.

I mean, you're there in weightlessness in that place for 3.5 minutes and and a I think I had so much adrenaline and so much excitement.

A lot of it's fuzzy, right?

I didn't remember it.

Like I remember going up.

I remember coming down and we had GoPros in our hands, luckily.

And as I watched the video, I kind of remember it, but I had I feel like I had a lot of memory loss because of the acceleration and the fact that it was just mind blowing.

>> I think when I saw some videos of, you know, preparing for this program, looking up the Karman line and looking at some of the videos that other voyages have shot.

one of the things that like, initially surprised me was I'm looking for continents, you know, and I'm going, boy, there's a lot of water.

But that doesn't surprise you at all.

If anybody is surprised that that you would not be surprised at just the right, the preponderance of water on our planet.

>> If somebody, if an alien came to this planet looked at it, they'd registered as a water planet, right?

It's a water planet.

It's not a land planet.

It's a water planet.

>> Well, it's rocky, I mean, it's.

>> Yeah, there's some islands, you know.

>> Pretty big islands, but but it's not majority, right?

Rocky land.

It's it's majority.

Deep blue water.

And so what was it like for you to see some of that?

I don't know what continent you're like, what direction you're pointing in.

What were you looking at?

Did you know.

>> We were?

I mean, you're going straight up and straight down.

So we're looking at North America mostly, and the capsule spinning.

So you do get we're very fortunate to that.

We we had a harvest moon full moon, 94.4% of the moon was visible at that time.

So we have these incredible shots of not just the Earth, but the moon there as well.

so this is, I think, the second or third flight that that happened.

So very lucky to be there to see that.

>> And then I think we've got a little bit of video of the landing that we can share if you're watching on the WXXI News YouTube, which like and subscribe, we'd love you to do that.

I, I'm always amazed that you can even land these things.

and can you describe what that was like coming?

Because you talk about going up at 1000 miles an hour or 2000 miles an hour.

What about coming down?

>> Well, so coming down, that might have been what was the most interesting thing, is that going up, you hit about three G's coming down, you're hitting five and a half G's.

So you're actually.

And it's very counterintuitive, right?

Why am I hitting G's?

Falling down.

You'd expect weightlessness.

Because as you fall, you're accelerating.

You're accelerating.

You hit the thick atmosphere.

It's like a giant brake.

So you're actually experience much more being pushed into the seat, coming back down from that atmospheric brake than anything else.

>> That's what five G's feels like.

>> Yeah.

And it was it hurt, I mean, it I don't want to say hurt, but as we crossed that five G's, I had a little bit of panic there because I was like, if this continues, I'm going to get crushed.

You know, it was definitely your face is pushed back and you're a little bit it's only for a couple seconds, but you start to get a little hard to breathe in all of that.

>> And so now we're seeing what looks like a couple of big parachutes there.

>> Aaron Newman and you slow right down.

>> Yeah.

>> you know, to where, you know, you have a minute, two minutes left, and you're 1000ft off the ground, and they they have parachutes there.

You're coming in at 20 miles.

You're down to ten miles.

By the time you hit little puffs of air come out and they they it's a little bit like you're just landing and getting dropped a couple feet.

>> Is it surreal that when it's over, you're sitting there on the ground trying to process what you did for the last 12 minutes of your life?

>> It really is.

It's your adrenaline's pumping.

Like I said, you kind of are not as aware as you want to be because it's so much.

The other thing is, there's different points where things happen.

For instance, the capsule separates from the rocket and you're expecting it, but it doesn't matter when you're in space.

When that happens is like a shot going, going off.

And for a second you're startled and you're like, I hope I'm still alive, right?

Because, you know, just this loud boom on a rocket ship and, and you didn't know was coming.

That's startling.

And then the same way when those drogues deploy, which the those are the first parachutes and then the main parachutes, when those deploy, it's like it's literally like a shotgun in your ear.

And it's startling.

And you just have a second of am I still alive?

>> It's kind of it's kind of dark.

And I'm it's probably very natural.

And we've all know the high profile losses we've had in space, but turned out that was just part of the mission.

That was part of the process.

And and then you're on the ground and and that's it.

And it's over and you're changed and you got to figure out what it all means.

And you say you're sitting here four days later, still processing.

>> Yeah.

Well, I think now the goal is to to leverage this to get some word out to help people understand where we should move as as human race.

I mean, and for me, it's also focusing people on the oceans, right?

So a lot of the view from above, I like to say that space for me was a bit of a side quest.

Right?

and a lot of it is.

So I could see the oceans from there.

and create a voice that I can use to kind of further some of this exploration around oceans.

>> are you thinking in the future you're done with space travel?

I mean, like, can you take me through a little bit of your mindset now that you've.

I don't know if you've used the word conquered it, but you've done it.

So what do you want to do next?

And does it involve space?

>> I would love to be one of the four foremost people in space exploration.

Right?

I can't afford it.

Right.

So I like to draw this analogy of what did we do?

Right?

You know, our trip was there was a giraffe near the road.

We drove by it and slowed down to about 15 miles an hour, looked out and saw the giraffe.

Right.

I didn't get to touch the giraffe.

I didn't get to interact with the giraffe.

I didn't get to really know what a giraffe was.

Right.

I think you need a weakened space to really develop that type of relationship and understanding of it.

I would love to do that.

I can tell you I'm not under NDA for those type of things.

That's a 30 to $50 million trip, right?

So somebody you're going to have to be a billionaire to do that, right?

So I would love to do that.

But it's just not going to happen.

Right?

unless I win the Powerball.

So so for me, and if you want to build a space rocket, you better be better be Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, where you can afford to throw away tens of billions of dollars with a B billions of dollars, you know?

So for me, ocean exploration, which I think is very compelling and even more relevant because this is still our planet, half of leaving our planet is to also look back and realize that we need to be better stewards of our planet, that the moon is wonderful to colonize, but nothing is as your point earlier.

Nothing is as beautiful as the earth and built for us, and we're going to need this for a long, long time.

>> So let me read some emails from listeners.

so a little bit of dissent from Beth.

Beth says I disagree with the statement that air travel today is accessible for the masses.

That's not true.

How many people living in India, China, all the countries in Africa and Latin American, even in the United States?

Yes, in our own rich nation, have never traveled by air and never will because it is too expensive.

yeah, it's a fair point.

I don't think Aaron Newman was saying that it it has been democratized to the point where literally everybody has flown on an airplane and could do it tomorrow.

I mean, I think certainly it remains expensive and it's gotten a little bit more expensive as it's ticked back up.

The point is, when there are thousands of flights a day commercially around the world, that is not the same thing as what's going on with Blue Origin or what are the other companies in space in this category?

>> SpaceX, Virgin Galactic.

Virgin Galactic.

>> And Blue.

Origin and Blue Origin?

That's all I think Aaron was saying is that if you look at those three small companies today, that Aaron cannot he says he can't tell us what he had to pay.

but, you know, it is not cheap.

It is not accessible to a lot of a lot of people on the planet.

It's much more accessible now to fly in an airplane.

That's all.

I think Aaron was saying, and I don't disagree with that.

But I also think it's sure it's fair to say that, you know, there's still a cost to flying.

Not everyone can do it.

>> And we can all do better.

And I mean, like all of this around pushing humans forward is creating a world in which everybody is more accessible to everything from health care to all of that.

And and we are going to have to use technology and evolve to create a world in which everybody has access to it.

>> Roger says we should obviously explore the deep sea.

I just can't help but think that one of the more depressing things we will find is a lot of human generated garbage that is probably down there, not just shipwrecks, but trash that has managed to find its way from our rivers to our oceans.

From what I understand, there's a huge floating island of garbage out there right now.

That's sad.

That's from Roger.

What would you say to that?

>> Absolutely.

There will be.

I mean, they did find a plastic bag or a bottle in the Marianas Trench.

but that, you know, and and it's not going to discourage me.

And it's, you know, and and now we're going to go clean some of it up.

So, you know, it is what it is.

you know, absolutely.

The, the oceans are a shared resource, which means we have a garbage patch that's the size of Texas floating around the Pacific Ocean.

and it's going to cost us hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars to clean it up.

I don't even think that's our worst problem.

It's disgusting, but it's not our worst problem.

The worst problem is, is that we've fished out so much of the biomass that it's starting to crack.

It's starting to generate cracks in our ecosystem.

Right.

And the fact that we now have factory trawlers in Antarctica, that's going to start taking chunks out of the krill base there.

And krill is is the base of the whole world.

If you mess with that, if you mess with that chunk, everything's going to come toppling down.

So we need to stop this insanity.

>> You have not been to Antarctica?

>> Yeah.

Yeah, I've been to.

>> Okay.

I'm sorry.

So you have.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's like.

>> On one of these trawlers.

No, no.

No joking.

>> No.

Okay, so you have been there.

Mike says space is a waste of time, energy and money.

There's plenty of problems on Earth to solve.

>> Yes, we hear this all the time.

you know, let's.

Why why won't the people use their money instead of going to space to, you know, solve world hunger?

And I think we have to do it, all right?

We don't just focus on one problem.

But but absolutely, we have to push forward with with advancing.

technology and our capabilities because that does have and I'm going to say it, the trickle down effect.

And I know people don't like that, but it has a trickle down effect on on humanity.

And we need to be doing those things.

Doesn't mean we're not going to try to solve those problems.

But most of those problems we face are not a question of resource.

They're a question of politics, religion, those type of issues that are creating a lot of these local problems.

We have.

>> Diego writes in to say, I think the more accessible way for the general public to explore themes of space and humanity is by watching Gundam, a mech anime.

I don't know this one, Diego, he says.

There are many series in the franchise where humanity has technology and ships to get into space, but still has to grapple with division and war.

I've seen a few of them, and yes, the giant robots and their pilots are cool, but so is the way of storytelling in different societies with advanced technology.

That's from Diego.

Interesting from Diego.

I've not heard of that myself.

but the general idea there is that even if we have a future where we can colonize the moon or we can travel more widely, we're probably still going to have division in war and fights over resources.

And we saw that in the space series, The Expanse.

you know, are you an optimist that that this species can figure out a future that isn't so divided by.

>> Very much an optimist.

And, you know, I don't want to get into arguments about it, but my own personal view is we are so much better than we were 20 years ago when we were 50 years ago, than we were 100 years ago.

And and we like to we like to talk about the the divisiveness and the and but the amount, how far we've come is amazing in 100 years, I think even 20 years.

You know, when I was growing up, being gay was was considered, you know, evil.

And we've gotten over that and we've, you know, and and we're the humanity is going to evolve and it's going to get better.

And I think we're so much better.

And the, you know, it's a beautiful world so.

>> Well, here's Dallas who says, John Glenn said that after going to the moon in his 20s, everything else paled by comparison.

So he became an alcoholic.

Good Lord Dallas, that.

>> Is.

>> I don't know if John Glenn actually said that.

By the way, I probably should have fact checked that email first, but the larger sentiment is that John Glenn has said that once you've had an experience like that, it's hard to get the same adrenaline rush on day to day activities.

Are you worried about that?

>> Well, this is the best comment ever.

So I loved that he just brought that up because I. I'm now looking at myself and not that I'm 20, but I'm like, well, what am I going to do to top this?

I don't know that I can.

And so, you know, do I need to top it?

Maybe not, but right now it's like, okay, everything else I do may compare pale in comparison to this, but it is what it is.

I don't think I'm going to become an alcoholic, but and again, I didn't do this for the exhilaration, the adrenaline.

It was about, you know, just being a part of being in the room where this is happening and and being just my small contribution of whatever that price was to the engineering and to and to making this more accessible to everybody else.

>> I wish I would have thought to pull the Brian Regan clip, because this is one of the few guests I'll ever have on the show who could be.

So.

Brian Regan is a comedian who talks about the meme monster, the person at the parties who can't stop talking about themselves, and he says he always has wanted to go to the moon just so he can be at a party with these very selfish people and just let them go and then wait to drop in and then just say at the last second, oh yeah, I've been on the moon and, you know, and then the whole room, he says, just stops because nothing can top that.

And now you can say, well, you've crossed the Karman line.

You're just going to drop that at parties and just shut the room up, I guess.

Aaron.

>> I'm just gonna wear my spacesuit around all the time.

I was gonna wear it here, but.

>> let me get Chad and Auburn on the phone.

Hey, Chad, go ahead.

>> Hey, nice to hear the story.

I'm feeling a little bit guilty every time I get in an aircraft and fly somewhere for the pollutants.

That apparently is sending out.

How is that compare with trips such as yours?

>> The pollution generated from a trip.

You mean?

>> Yes.

>> Okay.

Good question.

Chad.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

>> Well, listen, there's probably resources that are consumed.

I mean, on the positive side, this is hydrogen mixed with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, which generates water.

So it should have a net zero carbon effect.

So, you know, from that perspective, you can sleep well, but I'm sure there are resources that have been consumed by this.

But again, you know, it's it's good.

You're very noble to feel that way when you're, you know, but I hope that we use technology that all of this advances technology to the point that we can do better.

So I don't want to just sit in my house doing nothing for life because I'm afraid of consuming but I do have to make an effort to say, well, what can I do with technology to offset what we've done?

>> So as we get ready to wrap up here I just want to ask you one more question about what you think about future.

You said I think you said you wanted to.

You want to die penniless.

Having really made a contribution to science, especially the kind of the difficult and challenging exploration that hasn't been done but would really benefit us, understand our oceans, the depths of the planet that are largely unexplored.

And, you know, again, I keep going back to this, this this conversation is on the knife's edge, where the cynics are like I mean, you've heard some about this hour, and I'm sure you will.

And the cynics might say, well, that's just ego.

You know, that's a guy with a lot of money.

And he he wants to think that he's going to be remembered and we're all going to be forgotten.

Well, that's what the cynic will say.

But, you know, on the other side of that, you are not out there, as you said, just playing golf every day, just kind of spending money in ways that don't have any effect on others.

So why why did you why do you think you're in that category of person who says, I've been fortunate, I've made a lot of money, I've done well in software.

but I have a new goal.

And that goal is making a difference in one way or another.

In my remaining time, even if that means draining all the resources I have.

Why is that the category you're in?

>> I think we're all just a product of our environment, right?

And even our political views are our own history and our own, you know what's happened to us in our own experiences.

So, me, I grew up you know, farming community in upstate New York here you know, not a lot of opportunity there.

went to state school and then have been very successful because of the country and the world that we live in, that if you work hard, there's opportunities.

And so for me, I want to help create those opportunities for other way and other for other people and for other generations.

And I think what we do now can be appreciated by a thousand generations after us.

So why why not go there.

>> If they're if they're here for it, I hope they're going to be here for it.

You say they're going to be here for it.

Absolutely.

>> Yeah.

You can't get rid of us now.

>> What town did you grow up in?

>> Oswego, New York.

>> Oswego?

>> Yeah.

Middle of nowhere.

Sad town with not much going on.

>> It's got a great.

It's down near Binghamton.

>> Yep.

>> It's got a great annual Little League tournament.

I can tell you that, having coached in the tournament the last few years.

Good.

But yeah, it's quiet.

There's not a lot around.

And it's an interesting drive down.

So far.

A far cry from Oswego where you grew up.

I want to thank you for telling the story and for being here.

And in the future, if people want to learn more about where where you're doing and where you're going, Deep World Org is a good place to go.

>> Please.

Yes.

>> Deep world org.

It's exploring our deep world.

And the founder is Aaron Newman.

He's a Blue Origin astronaut.

15th manned mission that happened just four days ago.

Is back with two feet on the ground for now.

Thanks for being with us this hour.

>> Thank you.

I really appreciate that.

>> We got more Connections coming up in.

>> A moment.

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