Jared Isaacman

cancer treatment or the human body's ability to endure microgravity for long periods of time.

You want to play your part in learning that, and you do.

And it's kind of amazing how much time you have to get stuff done because it's not like you have to go far for anything.

People were telling me, oh, yeah, when you brush your teeth, it's going to take five times longer than it is here on Earth.

It was like...

I literally floated a foot, grabbed the toothpaste, and then I floated a foot and I picked up an experiment.

Like things just, you're just sailing through things super fast, you know?

I don't know if we think it, I think it's more we hope, right?

And it doesn't, we hope that there is something that we will find in space, in the unique environment of microgravity, or say on the lunar surface with lunar regolith, that unlocks an economy that creates a justification for us to be there.

Because right now we are there mostly for national prestige.

We have an International Space Station.

We have American astronauts there.

I think if you ask anyone at NASA, like, what is the single greatest accomplishment we've gotten from the International Space Station, they won't say cancer-treating pharmaceutical drugs, even though we've done lots of experiments.

They'd say we kept astronauts alive continuously.

We've had a continuous heartbeat on the International Space Station for nearly a quarter of a century.

It's a hell of an accomplishment, but you need that orbital economy to pay for everything we want to see in space someday.

It can't be perpetual taxpayer funding.

Whether it's cancer treating drugs, you can use microgravity to create crystal formulations of pharmaceutical compounds to increase the density of the treatment, which might increase the effectiveness.

People talk about 3D printing organs in microgravity.

But none of these things have truly come to fruition yet.