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CNN NEWSROOM

Bezos and New Shepherd Crew's Historic Space Flight. Aired 9:30-10a ET.

Aired July 20, 2021 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[09:30:00]

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: And what an incredible day for Blue Origin, but also for Jeff Bezos.

And, you know, there has been a lot of criticism about these billionaires who are trying to spend all their money to go on these joy rides into space. And Jeff Bezos has said that he gets that criticism. He understands it. That they should spend their wealth and their fortunes on things here on earth. But it's OK to do this, too. And this is really the epitome of the American spirit. Jeff Bezos walking out, achieving this lifelong dream.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Let's listen in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Woo-hoo!

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oliver! Congratulations. Congratulations, Oliver. Your dad's been a mess.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Congratulations.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've got to get up there, sweetheart. Oh, my God, it was so good. Oh, I never felt (INAUDIBLE).

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, thank you!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Congratulations

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Congratulations.

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Congratulations.

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Really good.

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We made it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, how about that. How about that.

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mark. Mark.

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Sarah (ph).

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right over there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Congratulations, Mark.

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I can't believe it happened (INAUDIBLE).

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Congratulations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great ride.

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oliver.

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE). There's no time now. Are you ready?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm ready.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Taking him up.

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Now I know what's wrong with this hat. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oliver.

(INAUDIBLE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wally! Congratulations. You deserved this. You waited so long.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, but you did it. You did it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The oldest person in space. The oldest person in space, you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's whack.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's so whack. That's so whack.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

COOPER: Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark, Wally Funk, and Oliver Daemen being greeted by friends and family, some of the folks who have worked here at Blue Origin who have made all of this happen.

[09:35:12]

This is something, Kristin, that Jeff Bezos began in 2000 is when he founded Blue Origin. He has said that he thinks -- and he's now stepped down as CEO of Amazon. He remains the chairman. But he has said that the work at Blue Origin and the future of this work is the most important thing he believes he will do in his life.

FISHER: Because he believes this is about more than space tourism. That, as we've been talking about, it's ultimately about doing something great for all of humankind, for future generations, by preserving and saving the resources on our planet, by moving them to space and ultimately colonizing space.

And you know what is just so remarkable is the fact that just up until a few years ago, only a very select few governments could do this. U.S., China, Russia. Now you have SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and the number is just continuing to grow. I mean what Blue Origin has been able to do, and all of those other private space companies, is truly astounding. I mean people did not think that it was possible for private companies to do this just a few years ago, and now look what they've done.

COOPER: And, Rachel, Jeff Bezos has been liquidating about a billion dollars' worth of Amazon stock, he says, every year in order to fund Blue Origin. The question I guess now is, is he -- now that he's stepped down from, you know, day to day role as CEO of Amazon, is he going to turn his primary focus to Blue Origin?

RACHEL CRANE, CNN BUSINESS INNOVATION AND SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Right. I mean that's the major question here, Anderson. And, you know, now that he has all this free time on his hands, as you pointed out, this -- he has said it's the most important work he believes that he will ever do in his life. So one would think that this is where he would continue to now focus his energy and attention on it.

And, you know, I just want to point out, just the celebration that we're seeing here as they're stepping out of this capsule. I mean this is just the beginning of the celebrations that I'm sure will happen throughout the day and into the coming weeks, Anderson.

And it was incredible to hear their voices while they were on this 11- minute journey. We heard them when they were in weightlessness. We heard Wally Funk say, it's dark up here. I mean just to hear her wonder. And, of course it's dark up there, but just, you know, it's those small things, realizing the darkness of space, the vastness of space, the vacuum of space, looking down on our earth and seeing the border -- it's borderless.

I mean it's so obvious, space is dark. There are no borders on our planet. But what -- seeing that, you know, from above, the kind of impact that that has on those people, I mean, that's what we're all waiting to hear about in the press conference.

COOPER: There were cameras aboard as well. And we anticipate we'll see those probably -- there's going to be a press conference at 11:30 Eastern Time, 10:30 local time here with Jeff Bezos and the others. So we'll, obviously, bring that to you as well.

Colonel Chris Hadfield, I mean how -- how important is this? Because, obviously, look, a lot of people will be looking at this skeptically and say, look, OK, this is, you know, billionaires playing with toys, and this is stuff that doesn't have any impact on, you know, a family's life right now. Hardly anyone can afford a flight like this. What is the importance of this?

COL. CHRIS HADFIELD (RET.), ASTRONAUT: There will always be cynical criticism no matter whatever happens in history. And, obviously, when you're trying to do something that is really hard for the very first time, it takes a lot of resources. I mean, Blue Origin has 3,500 employees all earning salary every single day just to try and make this thing possible.

But now that the door -- and it used to be -- it took entire governments to finance this kind of thing. But now there are private companies that are capable of doing this. That reflects an increase in safety and, therefore, a decrease in cost. So that's not about to suddenly end.

As you were saying earlier, it's a lot like the very first airlines back in 1920, 100 years ago. They didn't have it right. It was only for the wealthy. But look where we are now. And that's kind of the verge -- there's still a lot of things to solve.

But I just wanted to say one other thing. You know, I lived in the U.S. for 26 years. There's no other place in the world that has the combination of, you know, opportunity and capability that allows Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin and SpaceX to do these things privately. People should take a tremendous amount of pride in that, that this can happen now in history in this place, and it's the start of something. So it took 20 years for Jeff and company to do this today, but that 20 years is just laying the foundation for what's coming next.

COOPER: And, Jonathan McDowell, it is extraordinary, to Chris's point, that all of this seems to suddenly be, you know, bearing fruit at the same time.

[09:40:00]

I mean, obviously, there's a competition to be the first one to get customers up into space. But all this progress, it just seems extraordinary over the last few years what we have seen with SpaceX, Blue Origin, and, you know, Virgin Galactic.

JONATHAN MCDOWELL, HARVARD SMITHSONIAN CENTER FOR ASTROPHYSICISTS: That's right. It's been a long time coming, right. They've been working on this for over a decade. I think what this moment in history is telling you is that advanced technology, a lot of which is due to software, I think.

And nowadays, you know, when rockets go wrong, it's rarely the plumbing. It's rarely just it blows up. It's usually issues with software and things like that. So I think it's a new maturity, modern technology. For a long time people were flying these old Cold War derived missiles as their rockets and we've really moved into a new phase in space exploration.

I want to say, though, that a lot of the history of --

COOPER: You know, I -- go ahead.

MCDOWELL: Of space has been, you know, done by industry in the past, just with government funding. And that's still going to be the case. Blue Origin is going to need government funding to do its orbital rocket for New Glenn, get customers, or at least commercial communications companies launching satellites and so on. So I think we're going to see a mix of this private money, and then government money on the frontier.

COOPER: Jonathan, I recently heard about a company called relativity, which is started by this young guy who is building rockets with giant metal 3-D printers, which just seems, you know, kind of extraordinary when you think about it.

But that kind of innovation is what an event like this can spark. I mean that kind of, you know, the money put into Blue Origin, it pays salaries to people who then come up with ideas of their own and go off and try to create even new, you know, unheard of ideas.

MCDOWELL: Right. And what you don't hear as much about are all of these smaller start-ups. Rocket Lab (ph) in New Zealand has been launching small satellites. Relativity (ph), as you say, with the 3-D printed rockets. And Astra launching from Alaska.

It's had a couple of failures so far, but they're going to get there eventually. And so there's this whole eco system of start-up companies with more like Silicon Valley investment than rich billionaires but they're coming along this next wave and we're going to see so many new players on the space stage in the years to come.

COOPER: Well, Miles O'Brien, I mean if you are talking about, which is what Bezos and Elon Musk and all these, you know, people are talking about is -- I mean creating really, you know, an environment for millions of people. I mean Bezos talks about, you know, a trillion people being able to live in space at some point.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AEROSPACE ANALYST : Yes, it sounds like science fiction, but it's not a bad idea to be thinking that way. You could make the argument, Anderson, that we, as human beings, sort of have an obligation to think this way because ultimately the human race will cease to exist. So why -- pushing out beyond our planet is in many senses an obligation.

I know that's how Bezos and Musk think about this, the idea of colonizing Mars and ultimately creating a species that could move even beyond the solar system. As crazy as that sounds now, if we don't take these steps today, we're never going to get to that point.

And what's happening, what you're seeing here, what's fascinating to me, Anderson, is, you know, think about how the Internet began. It was the Pentagon, Arpanet (ph), right? And over time, the government, that whole idea, the government control of that eased away and look at what the Internet is today. We couldn't have predicted that.

It's been a little different journey with space, but basically that's what we've seen. We've seen a lot of government investment initially, initially in the context of the Cold War, beat the Soviets. But over time what has happened is, NASA has pulled out of some of these markets to allow, you know, some risk takers, and that is uniquely American to have that capability to take that kind of risk to get in the game.

And now what you're seeing is kind of this hybrid of government and private sector investment, which, who knows where that leads to. Who could have predicted the Internet as we know it.

COOPER: Yes.

O'BRIEN: And, for that matter, Amazon and overnight delivery.

COOPER: Yes, who knows where this will lead.

It is fascinating to watch. I appreciate all of you being with us.

I want to go to Jim and Poppy.

As I said, there's going to be a press conference shortly.

I'm going to go to that location now.

Jim and Poppy, take it away.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, Anderson. Just remarkable coverage, remarkable for everyone to see live. We're so happy to continue the coverage now until Anderson can get back with a lot more. [09:45:04]

But, Jim, watching it, what did you think?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Listen, we get to cover a lot of things on this broadcast. Our colleagues and I, some of it, sadly, is sad news, and some of it is exciting news that I think you just take moments, right, as I'm sure many people watching now did, take back and soak it in. And these were 11 minutes to soak in, right? Not just as an American, but as a -- as an inhabitant of planet earth, right, watching this unfold before our eyes.

HARLOW: Yes.

So let's watch it again.

SCIUTTO: You know, Poppy, watching that rocket as it rose from the earth, it almost looked artificial, right?

HARLOW: I know.

SCIUTTO: That video. And it's not. It almost looked borrowed from a science fiction movie, right? But it was real before our eyes.

HARLOW: And the debate will go on now for a long time, Jim, about the important question of, you know, where this gets humanity and what this does for humanity. But, I -- you know, Jeff Bezos has called this the most important work that I'm doing, right? After founding Amazon, this is more important.

And I think the question that was so aptly put by Colonel Chris Hadfield, who we have here with us now is, Colonel, you said, you know, the moment that they landed, you said, now they get to choose what they do with this for humanity.

Talk about that.

HADFIELD: Well, there is a broader spectrum of age on this flight than we've ever had before in space flight. Wally is five years older than John Glenn was. He used to have the record. And Oliver is seven years younger than the cosmonaut that flew at 25. So there's a huge wealth of perspective here, life experience and life opportunity.

And then, of course, there's Jeff and his brother. And each of those people now needs to think about what just happened. Like, they need to replay it in their mind over and over again, not just the champagne and opening the hatch, but the actual uniqueness of the human experience. And interplay that with what's coming with our technology. Where is this going to take us?

And then they need to try and share that with as many people as possible. They are rare amongst, you know, humans on earth right now. And if they just keep it to themselves, I think they will have squandered the entire experience. We're not sending robots. We're not sending, you know, iPhones up there. These are human beings and their interpretation of this, their insights into it, and then how that can be applied to future decision makers to inspiring young people today, that is the real quest right now.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HADFIELD: And that was really the whole purpose of this flight.

SCIUTTO: You know, astronauts of the past had often made the point, seeing the blue marble from space makes borders disappear, right, conflict between countries and man disappear, right, and you see us as one human race, right, from afar.

To this point, Miles O'Brien, space has been the sole province of nations, right? I mean, granted, folks went to space decades ago, but these are now private companies, two in the last nine days, going to space. The phrase you've heard many times, space is hard. It's hard for nations. Now private companies are conquering it.

Tell us the significance of that going forward.

O'BRIEN: Well, it just -- it's like if you and I were having this conversation in 1927, Jim, right after Lindberg flew to Paris, and you said to me, well, you know, surely there will be an Airbus A-380. And I'd -- you know, I don't think we could have had that discussion, right?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

O'BRIEN: So where does this lead? We don't know. We don't know. And that's the beauty of this. That's the -- that's the adventure that we can all be a part of, you know.

Chris is one of the lucky 560 or so human beings, add four more today, who can say they've been to space. I'd like to see 500 of them going every week or every day. Why not? Why can't we do that?

SCIUTTO: I raise my hand.

O'BRIEN: And why can't we make this part of the human realm.

Are you in?

SCIUTTO: I've been bothering Poppy with that dream for a while now. I'm in, yes.

HARLOW: Even. I'll be staying right here at the anchor desk. Jim will go for both of us.

O'BRIEN: That's OK too.

HARLOW: Miles, if I could just -- I'm just really interested in what this was like for you personally. I loved reading your "Washington Post" piece. I didn't know that about you. When we were colleagues, a long time ago, that you spent years getting ready to possibly go as a journalist into space.

[09:50:01] And I just wonder, for you, what it was like to watch this.

O'BRIEN: It's fantastic, right? You know, in the late 90s, early 2000s, when I was trying to secure a seat on the shuttle by virtue of the fact that I worked for CNN, which got me access to that idea with NASA and got traction, sadly that went away with the loss of Columbia. That's a whole other story.

But at that time, it was profoundly -- it was a sad thing on many levels, but it was disappointing to me because there really was no alternative at the time. And within two years, I was out in Mohave, California, watching this little Spaceship One coming out of (INAUDIBLE) scale composites successfully win that Ensary (ph) X prize. And suddenly I realized, oh, there's another way to do this. And it's taken a lot longer than we expected. You know, at that time Branson was predicting we'd be doing this in 2008. I was getting ready to go for that.

But here we are, 17 years later, and all of a sudden it's all come to fruition and it's great to see it.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

O'BRIEN: So, hopefully, I'll be able to secure a seat eventually.

HARLOW: I was going to say, you're a young man, so you've got plenty of time, Miles. Plenty.

SCIUTTO: Jonathan McDowell, of course, there aren't just two private sector players in Branson and Bezos. There's, of course, Elon Musk. And Elon Musk, to be clear, arguably ahead of the game, right, because his company has carried payloads for governments. They carried astronauts to the Space Station.

I wonder, for folks watching at home, though, when is a realistic timeline for a trip to space in suborbital flight, as this is, to be something that is not purely the realm of billionaires.

MCDOWELL: Well, unfortunately, I think it's going to be a while. I think, you know, it will be enough just to be a multi-millionaire in about ten years from now, but -- but, yes, before you and I can afford in our pocket money to -- to take one of these flights, it will come. It will come.

But it's going to be decades, I think. And we're going to see -- I think the real change will be when they can bring down the price of orbital tourist flight. And a lot of people have forgotten that there have been tourists on the International Space Station and even, to Jim's point, a Japanese journalist flew on Mir (ph), I believe. So, you know, this has been building a long time. It will come. But I'm afraid we have to be patient about the price coming down because this is a sporty thing to achieve.

HARLOW: Yes. Colonel, let's talk about Wally Funk for a moment. An 82-year-old

woman, pilot, now an astronaut. I believe that I heard, when we hearing the audio when they landed, I believe it was her voice thanking Jeff Bezos, saying, I would never have gotten this far, you know, without you and without this. And then he said to her, oldest person in space, that is you.

This coming from someone who has talked about for years how she was told that she couldn't achieve everything she wanted to because she's a girl. She's quoted as saying that never got in my way. And now she did it as a woman and an 82-year-old. Just, I wonder your thoughts.

HADFIELD: I thought the greatest thing I overheard after they had gotten and opened the hatch there was I heard -- she's such an ebullient and expressive person. But she said to whoever she was talking to, you've got to get up there.

HARLOW: Right.

HADFIELD: And that feeling is just so honest and so straightforward.

You know, it's -- initially, of course, it was just military test pilots and they were all men. What you need to remember, the most experienced astronaut in American history is a woman. It's Peggy Whitson. You know, she's commanded the Space Station twice and done ten space walks and been in space for 665 days.

HARLOW: Yes.

HADFIELD: So, obviously, women are superb astronauts and lead right across NASA. So that bridge has been crossed.

But for Wally personally, who, you know, who was dreaming of it since she was young, to now have been able to have this experience, I think it kind of encapsulated the whole, you know, new space era that this can happen for someone with great legacy at the same time as having an 18-year-old on board. It's, as Miles was saying, and Jonathan, there's still a long way to go, but this was a big step forward.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And, notably, 52 years to the day after that other big step for mankind, Neal Armstrong's landing on the moon. And notable timing that this launch took place on July 20th as that great moment for the nation and for the world took place.

Colonel Hadfield, astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell and, of course, Miles O'Brien, thanks so much to all of you.

And thanks to all of you for joining CNN as we watched this remarkable moment. I know Poppy and I are grateful to see it play out before us.

[09:55:01]

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: I'm sure you are as well.

Stay with us. We'll be right back.

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