Going Off World: Moon, Mars, Venus, and beyond
Welcome to Going Offworld, your gateway to the cosmos beyond our Earth. We will explore our familiar celestial neighbors and venture into the vast, uncharted territories of our solar system. Each episode, we'll explore the cutting-edge of space exploration, the latest discoveries, and the incredible technological advances propelling humanity into a new era of interstellar adventure. Underwriting provided by the WayPaver Foundation. Join us, as we embark on this journey together, to the moon, Mars, Venus, and beyond.
Going Off World: Moon, Mars, Venus, and beyond
Going Off World EP 1: Reaching for Venus with Guillermo Sohnlein and Ro Muhundran
Going Off World is your gateway to the cosmos, where we explore the future of space exploration, settlement, and industry. Hosted by Steve Fisher, this podcast and YouTube series takes you beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, Venus, and beyond—diving into the cutting-edge technology, bold ideas, and visionary leaders shaping our interplanetary future.
In our inaugural episode, we unravel the exciting prospects of human settlement in Venus' atmosphere through captivating conversations with space visionaries. It delves into the challenges, technological innovations needed, and the broader implications for life on Earth as humanity seeks to expand beyond its home planet.
- Explores human settlements in the atmosphere of Venus
- Discusses the backgrounds of guests Guillermo Sunline and Ro Mahandan
- Highlights the excitement surrounding the future of space exploration
- Examines challenges and opportunities facing the space industry
- Investigates the impact of space exploration on life on Earth
- Outlines necessary technological innovations for human habitation on Venus
- Features the mission and goals of Waypaver Foundation and Humans to Venus Foundation
- Analyzes reasons for exploring Venus and its benefits to humanity
- Predicts future breakthroughs in space travel and exploration
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Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/going-off-world-moon-mars-venus-and-beyond/id1737881627
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6WjqRL2AZnLWO7Z3DTDjS1?si=d47c055cca1e4df7
Web: https://goingoffworld.buzzsprout.com/
Thank you for joining me on this ongoing journey into the future. Until next time, stay curious, and always think forward.
Welcome to Going Off-World, your gateway to the cosmos beyond our Earth. Join us as we embark on this journey together to the Moon, mars, venus and beyond.
Ro:Welcome to Episode 1 of Going Off-World. I'm your host, steve Fisher. This show has been a long time coming and it's near and dear to my heart. If you're coming to check things out, then welcome. Those who know me they know I'm a space junkie and I aspire to do great things to help humanity reach for the stars. This show is a way for me to connect with amazing people doing amazing things to push us forward.
Ro:The show is going to evolve, but right now we have some great conversations in queue and today, for our inaugural episode, we're exploring humanity's future beyond Earth, with two visionaries who are working to establish human settlements in the atmosphere of Venus. That's right, venus. Guillermo Sunline, founder of the Waypaper Foundation, and Ro Mahandan, from the Humans to Venus Foundation, share their fascinating perspectives on making humanity a truly multi-planetary species. From discussing the challenges of building floating cities in Venus' atmosphere to exploring how space development can improve life on Earth, they offer unique insights into the future of human space exploration. As leaders of organizations working to expand humanity's presence in space, they explain why Venus might be a more viable destination for human settlement than many realize.
Ro:Whether you're curious about the next frontier of space exploration or how we'll establish permanent settlements beyond Earth, or what technological breakthroughs will transform our future in space. You will not want to miss this conversation. Join us on the journey where the sky is not the limit and the stars are just the beginning. So welcome, guillermo Ro. Let's start with each of you a bit about yourself, guillermo, why don't you start?
Guillermo:You want me to go first? All right, so let's see Long story short. I've basically spent 25 years doing a bunch of different startups, starting with a tech startup in Silicon Valley during the height of the internet boom, and that basically launched me into this kind of series of adventures with different startups. I've probably done over a dozen for-profit and nonprofit organizations, and at least four or five six of them have been space related, since that's one of my passion areas, and we can talk more about those in detail as we go through. Just one thing that I usually note for people just as far as my background, because I do so much in the space world, I do this even though I'm not a scientist or an engineer by background. I studied economics in college and then I went on to law school, so that's my background.
Ro:Ro, what about you?
Ro:Yeah, I mean so for me. My background again, isn't from space originally, so I started off with a degree in biochemistry, uh, and then went on to study. Well, I didn't really know what I wanted to do in my life as I'm sure many people who are listening to this have the same kind of issue and you know, I went down the path of management consulting, which is a completely a straight path to what I studied at university. So went down that path uh, started to enjoy I mean, it's more of a a generalist path as opposed to something that's more targeted. So I thought that that was the best path for me to try to figure out what to do. But it never really satisfied that gap in my heart for space, which has been there since I was a kid. So eventually realized, you know, I wanted to kind of get involved in the space sector. But management consulting wasn't really doing that for me.
Ro:So I thought let me just network with people on linkedin and eventually came across guillermo and the human subvenience initiative. And you know, fast forward a couple more months and we are where we are. So, guillermo, what? What about you? How did you start your journey?
Guillermo:I know've talked about your background, but, like what really was it when you were a kid? Was it kind of? How'd you get involved? I mean, really, I have very distinct memories of when I was 11 years old, having a recurring dream of being the commander of the first Martian colony. Unlike Roe, I grew up in the United States, where we had the best path for me was always going to be as a pilot and to become a commander in the old NASA.
Guillermo:Now it's changed a bit, but back in, when I was coming through, to become a commander of a mission, you had to be a pilot and you kind of work backwards from that. You had to be a test pilot and be a test pilot. You had to be a fighter pilot in the military and unfortunately, when I was 19, my eyesight went bad and at the time, having 20, 20, perfect 20, 20 vision was a prerequisite. So my entire astronaut career went up in flames when I was 19 and my eyesight went bad so. So that kind of threw me for a loop and I ended up meandering for a while. And it wasn't until 2002, a year after we sold my first company that I really started looking at space again, and this time coming in as an entrepreneur instead of coming in as an entrepreneur instead of coming in as a um, as an astronaut I can relate to that.
Ro:I I'm a pilot and I wanted I took the same year I test. It went from commander to test pilot to fighter pilot and usually air force academy, because you're flying the best stuff you know and you have the top seat on. I didn't get my nomination but I uh, yeah, it's uh. It's that journey. It's changed a bit. Hopefully it's going to change even more the next 20 years, which basically leads to the next question of for both of you I'll kind of continue with you, guillermo and Cody you wrote like what excites you most about the future of space exploration.
Guillermo:Well, just real quick. You said the Air Force Academy. For me. I wanted to be a Marine Corps fighter pilot, so I had to go through the Naval Academy. And I did get an appointment to the Naval Academy.
Guillermo:But interesting tidbit here I'm just going to digress a little bit because most people don't know this story about me. I got an appointment to the Naval Academy and because of that I declined all my other college admissions that I was given. And then, a month before I was supposed to report to the Naval Academy, someone over there realized suddenly that I wasn't an American citizen because I was born in Argentina. And so they called me up and said hey, there's a problem here. It says you're not an American citizen. And I said well, yeah, you guys knew that. No, we didn't. You have to be an American.
Guillermo:For the academies, you have to be an American citizen before you go in. So, as you know from your own efforts, to get an appointment to an academy you have to get an endorsement from one of your congressional leaders. So I had an appointment from both of California senators and a US representative, and somehow my application made it through all three of them without anybody noticing that I wasn't an American citizen of them, without anybody noticing that I wasn't an American citizen. So, um, so, anyway. So I ended up losing my appointment to the Naval Academy cause I wasn't a citizen. I became a naturalized citizen a year later, but by then it was too late. Anyway, quick little little story that most people don't know about me. Um so, what excites me the most about, uh, about space? Uh, do you mean today, or looking forward or ever? That I've always been excited.
Ro:I would say let's look at the look at the horizon of like 20 years, in 25 years, do you? You know, it kind of relates to your, the mission for humans to venus and the and the colony on the like you know, a human settlement you know on on Venus, is that vision and we'll come to. But Wayfever has a broader mission itself. But I think what excites you the most over these next 20, 25 years?
Guillermo:Well, I think what excites me the most is I think I've said this a few times, but well, let me broaden it out a little bit I think one thing that excites me the most is, finally, over the last 20 years, we've gone through this transition of space going from being the exclusive purview of just a handful of national programs to basically a global public-private space ecosystem. So I think there are a lot more opportunities available today and over the next 20 years to go into space than there were even when I was coming up. Number one. Number two it's very global.
Guillermo:Just a couple hours ago, a friend of mine's at a conference in Japan and sent me slides from the presentation from JAXA that they're planning a lunar base by the year 2040. Likewise, I was just looking at a presentation that China just an updated presentation on China and Russia's plans for the International Lunar Research Station. So there's just a lot of different opportunities for people to go into space and for humanity to expand beyond planet Earth. So I think, in general, the next 20 years are going to be an exciting time to see how all this plays out.
Ro:Naro, what about you? Yeah, I mean, I think Guillermo touched on the main point, which is that space is going to become it out. Nauru, what about you? Yeah, I mean, I think Guillermo touched on the main point, which is that space is going to become a lot more accessible to everybody else, and especially the general public, right? So I think that's a great thing and it's going to be very much a collaborative effort as well.
Ro:So, globally, like Guillermo said, you know countries are coming together. It's going to be. You know, all the work we need to do to get humans into space and beyond is going to take all of that collaboration from across the world, right? So that's really exciting and space, in my opinion, really is a global frontier as opposed to the final frontier. So, yeah, that's really exciting. And, you know, I think, in terms of my personal perspective, I think, understanding where we come from in terms of humanity, you know, as a species, as a, you know in terms of the physics of you know how we came about into existence, where we're going to go, where we can go, our understanding of physics, you know, all of this stuff has unanswered questions and I think going out into space and carrying out.
Ro:Research will help us to better understand where we fit into the universe, and that prospect for me, is really interesting and, uh, it's very motivating as well and inspiring to just, you know, be a cog in a machine that's working towards that purpose, which is a lot greater than us well, as you've worked in on the humans to venus initiative and the foundation, tell me about the challenges you're seeing facing the space industry, not just for venus in particular, but just as you've gotten to you're kind of the space industry, not just for Venus in particular, but just as you've gotten to, you're kind of the newer perspective. Well, kind of jumped to Guillermo to kind of get a more, you know, the longer season perspective. It'd be interesting to see if there's a common ground or yeah, what do you think are the challenges?
Ro:Yeah, I mean, I think one of the biggest things for me with space from my perspective coming in yeah, I mean, I think one of the biggest things for me with space from my perspective coming in, the first one would have been you know, it doesn't seem very accessible. So I think the marketing side of space in the space sector really isn't where it should be in terms of capturing the public imagination. And I think with things like human space exploration, you really do need to capture the public's imagination in order to drive that forward, because at the moment, you know, we don't really have that because we haven't been to, you know, beyond low earth orbit. It's in southern 1970s or whatever.
Ro:So I think, to try and emulate, you know, what kennedy did in the 1960s with the moon target, being that it really just brought the whole world together and I think at the moment it's very siloed, I think people are working in siloed sectors within space. There's not really much visibility over what's going on outside of their own silos. So trying to break down those barriers and bring people together and really capture the global public's imagination again is going to be the biggest problem and the biggest thing to tackle, and that applies to Venus as well. Right, it's more of a marketing campaign and a publicity campaign and getting people to know about what's out there, what we understand, what there is to look forward to. That's the biggest issue, I think, at the moment to deal with.
Ro:Guillermo, what about you?
Guillermo:I don't know if I'm going to give a bigger, longer term perspective, but I'll tell you that if I had to pick one challenge going forward, it's the same one, one of the same ones that I've seen over the last 20 years, which is access to talent. I think one of the problems, one of the byproducts of what Ro was just talking about, about not doing a great job of kind of promoting space and making space seem accessible to people is that a lot of people whose careers were not as aerospace engineers or as pilots, slash astronauts, have a personal interest in space, would love to work professionally in the space community, and yet they don't feel it's accessible to them, they don't feel that they can add value, they don't feel like they could get an opportunity to work in that space. That value, they don't feel like they could get an opportunity to work in that space. And and the problem is that those are precisely the kind of people that add the most value into everything that we're doing. So we need more people from finance, from marketing, from sales, you know, from a lot of these um, uh arenas that, uh, that would approach a lot of these problems with a fresh perspective, and, and we're going to need a lot more these problems with a fresh perspective and and we're going to need a lot more people.
Guillermo:So, for example, I was just in um in India last week, uh, speaking at a space conference, and I was shocked that probably five or six people came up to me and said that their greatest challenge for whether it's a space startup or any other sort of space initiative was access to talent. And it shocked me, because India's got over a billion people, they've got decades of success as a space-faring nation. How could they possibly have a problem with talent? And what they were telling me is that the bulk of that talent is in within israel, within the, the national space program, and so there isn't a big pipeline of either junior or uh, middle, uh, middle management, middle, mid-career kind of people in china, china, in india, that um that feel, that feel that they can add value within the space world, and there are people outside of the space community that don't feel that they can add value coming in. So I think that's one of the problems that we're going to have to fix globally over the next 10, 15, 20 years.
Ro:Yeah, Sounds like an opportunity. Problem in an opportunity. So it sounds. You know, creating that pipeline. Yeah, I share those experiences, you know personally. But what do you think is a promising opportunity in the industry, based on some of the challenges to solve it?
Ro:based on some of the challenges to solve it.
Ro:I think pretty much what Guillermo said in terms of getting people from other industries, other fields, things that we see in common industries at the moment within work, getting those into the space sector.
Ro:I think space is pretty much a sector that amalgamates all of the other sectors we have, but it just pushes it out to a far greater cause. So having all of those, you know, sales, marketing, people who work in finance all of those things will be needed within space as well. And I think getting those people in there, getting the word out there that people can be involved in the space sector and, like Yemo said, you know many people have an interest in space and they have done since a young age, but it's just not been something they've been made aware of that they can contribute to. And, given their career paths, they may have pursued something for years and years on end and they think you know that's my, that's my life done Right. So getting that message out there really is important, I think. And, yeah, getting people involved and letting them know that they can really add value to the sector from from different, diverse backgrounds is really important I think.
Ro:So this leads to you know looking and we've kind of kept on this 10, 20-year lens, 25-year lens. You know what do you see the impact? Because the individuals working in the industry itself and the people that are passionate about space, how do you see this impacting life on Earth? You know how does it impact everyday life for people. What do you like the advancements, what does it do? Do you put your futurist hat on? A bit like, what do you think it does for humanity, for just the population at large?
Ro:so I just to clarify then. The question you're asking me is are you saying what will space give back to the general public or to to the people? Are you saying what would the people who get involved from outside the space that give back to the general public or to the people? Are you saying what would the people who get involved from outside the space give back to the entire cause, type thing?
Ro:When you think of commercialization of space space is a business right and when you think about innovations here on Earth drones, self-driving cars there's an impact or benefit. What do you think that could be? One thing, many things, because there's people have to care. There's going to want to be investment in it, there's going to want to be interested in it. What do you think it? What do you think that might be?
Ro:yeah, I mean, I think is there's a few key issues. I mean, I think the big one at the moment is sustainability. So, you know, technology is specifically around sustainability. So, for example, starship, using that reusable rocket technology, is really important and actually expanding that outwards is going to be important for space exploration. I think being considerate of those things is going to be important when we talk about, you know, replicating space missions on a more regular cadence as well to reduce pollution, all of those things and make sure we're not financially exhausting resources.
Ro:And I think, in terms of technology as well, artificial intelligence is something we see all too often right now, but it's something that's been developing at an exponential rate. So, considering where it could be in the next five to 10 years, I think, you know, potentially we could see that guiding spacecraft, for example, which could be a really great thing, you know, obviously hoping it's not going to be like a Skynet scenario, like in Terminator, but it's something that could be really good to see in the future and I think that's something that would be beneficial as well.
Ro:Yeah, I would say it's kind of probably a cautionary case study, yeah, potential future. Where I go with that is, I think, of what the Apollo program gave us. So it gave us microwave ovens. It gave us Velcro. It gave us Tang. We have ovens. It gave us velcro. It gave us tang. It gave us the. It gave us a lot of innovations that we now that ripple through society. That's what I was kind of the end of, you know, getting into that, like the people that may never touch space to go to space, that it could benefit, and even cancer research, there could be orbital labs for pharmaceutical companies. Right, it's just there's a lot. So, uh, cameron, I ask you, if you come back, what do you think?
Guillermo:Well, let me try answering it from a different perspective. Um, because I kind of took um issue with the way you phrased the question, because you started with what benefit the space industry is going to give the general public. And I, as you know, because we've known each other a long time, I really have never liked the term space industry, because space is not an industry. Space is a geographic location. So one way of looking at this is this question of what benefit we get is don't look at space like an industry. Look at it like a geographic location where other industries play right, or where other industries operate, and then you start seeing the benefits that you can get by going through the different industries.
Guillermo:So, whether it's a transportation services or manufacturing or, as Ro pointed out, pharmaceutical companies or agriculture right. Commercial agriculture is leveraging GPS and Earth observation data, right. So now you're going to get better, more efficient, more effective agriculture because of space assets, right? If you got rid of the space assets, then you know we'd be knocking agriculture back a bit. We'd be knocking agriculture back a bit. So I think that's another way of looking at that question is just seeing how other industries benefit from having space as part of their strategic plan.
Ro:Would you draw parallels to, like the age of exploration when it came like looking at the Americas Because as a place, it created new opportunities, new people think Ireland had the potato. America's because it because as a place it created new opportunities. New thing People think Ireland had the potato. It was. It was the Andes, like we took the potato from South America. It's like most people don't know that right or tobacco right, those things that created whole new markets and whole new entrepreneurial classes of people. Right, it's a fair assessment. I appreciate the realignment. In that perspective it's good.
Guillermo:Well, you don't even have to get that specific. You can go much more general, like, for example, the tourism industry, right, so you had tourism and people going from point A to point B and visiting different places, let's say, within their geographic area, wherever they are. Well, then we have the age of boats, and now people are going out and being on the water, whether it's like cruise ships or sailing or whatever it is. And then we had the age of airplanes, and now you've got people taking trips by flying to different places. Got people, um, taking trips by flying to different places. So, um, so it's, it's still the tourism industry, but it's benefiting from these different locations with where they operate anyway.
Ro:No, it's great, it's great row. You want to add anything kind of come back to that. You want to add anything to it?
Ro:yeah, I know, I mean yeah, and I think I understand the question better now that you've explained. That game has kind of gone through that now. So, um, so what game is it was great because I mean it's it's in terms of the strategic plan of other industries. It space really is just an expansion of what they're already doing. So if they incorporate that into their vision, then that would, in turn, increase or it would alter what they're trying to create and their internal you know operations. So I think that would generate in itself, it would benefit a load of industries just by incorporating space into their plans.
Ro:Like I said, I think, yeah, like pharmaceuticals is a great one. Additive technologies, for example, like 3D printing that's going to have some great uses in space, but then also in, for example, biology, chemistry, in the medical setting, 3d printing, organs and medical body parts and things like that. That's going to be something that could potentially be of great value in the future for us, you know, and in terms of scientific research, in terms of in the clinical setting. So there are a lot of things that we can just extrapolate from space and say that it could benefit humanity. I think it's going to be one of the things where we have to go through it, and then, from everyone knowing about space, they can then, you know, align on what their path will be in terms of their company and organizations and their products.
Ro:That's great space area, space, the geographic location of space, and kind of talk about the Waypaver Foundation as its broader mission and then kind of narrow down and talk about Humans to Venus, sigirmo. Can you tell us about the mission and the vision for Waypaver, which is our underwriter for this podcast, so I'd love you know the audience to learn more about it and its history and journey.
Guillermo:Yeah, I mean at its core, waypaver is essentially a grant making organization focused on kind of twin objectives One is to help make humanity a multi-planet species and the other is to help improve life here on Earth, which is a nice segue from your last question about the benefits of space for Earth. So essentially we don't currently have any of our own programs. What we do is we give grants to other nonprofit organizations that are operating in those two spheres either helping to make humanity a multi-plant species which is how the relationship between Wayfaver and Humans to Venus Foundation where Humans to Venus Foundation is one of our grantee organizations and then organizations also helping to improve life here on Earth. And basically for that we use as our guidelines the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the 17 SDGs.
Ro:Well, I know that it existed before you. So how did you kind of get involved? How did you kind of take things over? It's had its interesting kind of starts and stops.
Guillermo:Yeah. So the organization was founded in 2015 with the same general vision right to help make humanity a multi-planet species and over a period of I don't know five years or so, it kind of meandered a little bit, trying to figure out exactly how it was going to distinguish itself. The group decided very early on to focus on lunar, since that seemed to be the nearest term opportunity. So Waypaper was really focusing on helping to get humanity to the moon on a permanent basis, and that was the direction it was going. I became involved, I think like a year after it started, like in 2016. I was an advisor, then I joined the board of directors and then I was chair of the board.
Guillermo:But about two years ago two, three years ago I think it started kind of faltering, trying to figure out exactly where to go, because the current events kind of caught up to it, because now, all of a sudden, artemis was taking, taking off and things were going with with the moon, and so, uh, it was trying to figure out where to go next, cause it seemed too early to look at, uh, to look at Mars, um. So about two years ago, um, the the CEO was was effectively going to shut it down. But I told him before I shut it down, why didn't he just give it to me and I'll see if I can figure out a path forward for it? So really over the last year is when we started honing in on this idea of kind of becoming a grant-making organization, other nonprofits, both on the multi-plant species site and then also on improving life here on Earth.
Ro:So what initiatives do you have on the list for this year, like what's the current mission plan?
Guillermo:Well, so the biggest near-term objective is part of what also distinguishes the, you know way, paper 2.0, as we're calling it. We're also going to do something a little bit innovative. Rather than doing what most nonprofit organizations do, which is continually raise money and then give out grants, we're looking to build an endowment right from the beginning, and the way we're going to do that and kind of grow it and manage it ourselves is to make a big part of the endowment be a space venture studio, which you know about because we've talked about it. We really want to create a space venture studio where we are helping to create new ventures, for-profit ventures that are providing the pieces for humanity's roadmap to become a multi-planet species. So in doing that, we kind of both fulfill our ultimate vision of helping humanity become a multi-planet species, while also hopefully deriving an ROI from the portfolio that will help grow the endowment, which will then allow us to make grants to some of these nonprofits.
Ro:That kind of dovetails into my question of how you measure impact and success. Is there anything above and beyond the venture studio you would qualify, say five years now, how has the foundation been successful?
Guillermo:I think one general corporate measure of success is can we get this to be self-sustaining? Right, be an evergreen grant-making organization, because the worst thing you can do is have to raise money every year to be able to give out grants. So hopefully, within the next five to seven years, we can get this thing to be completely self-sustaining. So I think that's probably the ultimate goal, because once you do that, then it's just a matter of growing it from there. Initially, what we're going to focus on is giving let's call them micro grants anywhere from $5,000, $10,000 to these different grantee organizations and in that way, hope to help make an impact within those organizations.
Steve:So w here does education and outreach play into this?
Guillermo:Right now we don't know if we're going to be doing our own programs. I think we're going to, probably for the foreseeable future, stay as a grant-making organization, which means that the education and outreach is what's done by the grantee organizations. So, for example, humans to Venus Foundation being one of our grantee organizations, that is, one of Humans to Venus Foundation's primary missions is to do education and outreach, so we'll kind of do it through the grantee organizations.
Steve:That's an excellent segue to Humans to Venus. So, Ro, You're welcome. Thank you, Ro. Thank you very much. I know you kind of sparked it with Guillermo, but since Ro is the ED hero, like pitch me, bro, Like. So what inspired the creation of this? What's the goals and objectives?
Ro:Yeah, I mean so in terms of the creation, I think Guillermo is probably better prone to answer that one because he's the one who created it right. Yeah, I mean so in terms of the creation, I think Guillermo is probably better prone to answer that one because he's the one who created it right. But I think if I speak on his behalf, guillermo, you can interrupt me if I'm saying anything that's not in accordance with you. But I think Guillermo kind of realized, you know, with this perseverance of the pursuit of Mars and the moon, you know, people have neglected Venus in terms of its traits and its proximity to Earth as well, terms of its traits and its proximity to Earth as well. And I think there are a lot of scientists out there who are working under space agencies who don't have the funding to particularly work on Venus in more detail as opposed to Mars and the Moon, but they do believe that it's a feasible target for humans to strive for in terms of establishing a presence there. So there are traits of Venus that are similar to Earth in terms of gravity. The gravity there is roughly 0.9 Gs. Atmospheric pressure temperature in the Venusian atmosphere, specifically 50 to 60 kilometers above the Venusian surface, is a bit of a Goldilocks region in terms of we can survive there if we have the technologies and we implement what we have at the moment, to you know, establish a presence there. So there is grounding, scientific grounding, behind venus. So I think guillermo then launched the humans to venus initiative to explore that in more detail, um, to flesh out and see if it was indeed a feasible idea and if it was then to insert that into the global narrative of moon, mars, venus and beyond in terms of the human space, like programs. So that's more of a beginning of like where it came from. But I'm sure guillermo can go into that and more detail after this. But in terms of the goals and objectives of the humans to venus foundation at the moment.
Ro:So I'd say that the big, the biggest vision for Foundation at the moment, so I'd say the biggest vision for us at the moment is to probably create the largest global community of Venus-focused professionals and enthusiasts to support with inserting Venus into the global narrative of human space exploration, in particular to add it as a worthy target of consideration for establishing a human presence off Earth alongside Moon and Mars. And the way we do this really is through three constituent parts of the foundation. So the first of that is public outreach. Like we've touched on before, public outreach is so important. So conferences, speaking at conferences, guest speaker, conference gigs and things like that, our monthly newsletter which we release with human space like updates, our blog, for example, that's all important in terms of driving that public outreach side of things.
Ro:The second is private community. So our private community is our global community, who we kind of amalgamated from whoever's interested in Venus who we come across, and that pretty much constitutes our Venus Speaker Series, which is a monthly speaker event where we get guest speakers who are within the Venus field or within human space exploration related topics and we get them to come on and give a bit of an informal discussion about their topic area and we have a bit more of a informal debate amongst our community every month. So that's a way of engaging the community. We also have a Venus Summit events, which we do twice every year, one in the US and one in Europe.
Ro:But again, that's more of a chance for us to get our community together in person to then discuss logistical, technological needs to what it would look like to go to Venus over the next 30 years, for example. How would we do that? What are the steps that need to be in place? And that's just so we can get people who have the resources, who have the motivation to do that, to then fit themselves into that plan and then make that stuff happen. So we're just setting the groundwork for that to happen and making people aware that it is possible to do. And then the third and the final one I guess it's three slash four is science and education. So that's more of our partnerships with universities and schools, inserting Venus into the curriculums you know across generations and just making sure that people are aware of Venus as a potential target.
Ro:Dermot, you have anything to add to that?
Guillermo:Just jumping off of the last thing that Rose said there, one of the let's call them aspirational goals that we kind of set for the organization is to have a thousand people living and working in the Venetian atmosphere by the year 2050.
Guillermo:Now that's just kind of a point in time where, as he was talking about the roadmap, we'll kind of talk about the entire gamut for like decades.
Guillermo:But if you think about that, if you think about a thousand people living and working in the Venusian atmosphere by the year 2050, which, by the way, is just a riff off of Elon's founding mission for SpaceX, which is to have a million people living and working on the Martian surface by the year 2050.
Guillermo:If you think about both of those goals, whether it's our goal or Elon's goal, a lot of the people that are going to be doing that either haven't been born yet or are in grade school right now, and yet a lot of the people that it's going to take to make that possible for them are currently either in university or they're just getting out and they're they're more like at the beginning of their careers. And so, from from our standpoint, we have to kind development for either early stage or mid-career professionals, and we realized very early on there's no way one organization could do all of that, and so instead, as Ro pointed out, we do this through partnerships with other organizations that are focused in different areas within that spectrum, and then we just focus on the Venus part.
Ro:So let's talk about why. Why would people even go? What are the benefits of exploring and creating this human settlement? What does this do for humanity, writ large beyond the multi-planet species need? That we all agree, but I think just the creating a level of full tolerance with the human race. Why, ro, you want to take that first and then maybe Ro yeah.
Ro:I think it's different to that.
Ro:So I mean, I think humanity is naturally a curious species, so I think we naturally have a quest for answers, right, and it comes down to you know why go into space at all, why go to Mars, why go to the moon, why go beyond there?
Ro:And I think, really, with these kind of pursuits, because they're so out there, it's, it's something because you know to understand where we come from, to understand you know how to better our lives here on earth.
Ro:You know, I think space offers a lot, of, a lot of answers and I think going to to venus, for example, establishing a presence in the buddhist atmosphere in in flow routine as possible, that would in turn have technological advancements that we can apply to earth. We can use venus, for example, to test technologies, for example, maybe drones to go down to the surface under the high pressure environments, things that would not otherwise be done on earth if we didn't explore outwards, and these, in these foreign environments, I think, and unfamiliar situations, really help us to develop in those areas. So I think going to venus and beyond, establishing a multi-planet species, for example, all of the other aspects of technology, of of knowledge, of science, all of that will progress and that will benefit humanity in, in inadvertently, basically, I think, um, and I think that's pretty much the main reason for why. Probably, why not is a better question, as we say on our website.
Ro:Okay, so, guillermo, why? And maybe why not, but why?
Guillermo:You know it's funny. A few years ago a friend of mine, will Pomerantz, gave a TED Talk on why go into space generally right, the way you frame the question. And, um, and I loved his answer because he said look, the problem with trying to answer that question of why is that every single person that you ask would have a different why. So it's kind of pointless to ask it so like. For example, in this context, let's say it's a national government that wants to go to Venus. Every different government will have a different why for why they want to go. And yet all of the national governments are going to have collectively different whys than a private company that wants to go and every individual is going to have a different answer than every company.
Guillermo:So it's tough to answer the question of why, especially for the question you don't want us to answer, which is the multi-planet species, the broader one, the more philosophical one, more long-term one, for Venus in particular. So the part that I think Rowe didn't emphasize as much as he usually does when he was answering earlier is, of all the different environmental issues on environmental risks that we face when we go into space, the one that we can't control is gravity, and he did mention that Venus has similar gravity to Earth. But the reason that's important is because if we are going to become a multi-planet species, it means we're going to have to reproduce wherever it is that we're going, and as of today, we don't know if humans or Homo sapiens can reproduce in less than one G of gravity. So anyone who's kind of taking us to Mars we could all be going to Mars and die out within a generation because we just can't reproduce there. So that's the main advantage from a human spaceflight standpoint Well, from a long-term human spaceflight standpoint, why Venus would be of interest to folks.
Ro:What kind of technological innovations are still needed? Like suits, systems, like what is needed to successfully create the settlement, like what do we still have ahead of us to figure out?
Guillermo:So, first of all, first of all, uh, bro mentioned this roadmap that we're helping to put together, our communities helping to put together, um, that one we're going to launch in October. Uh, it'll be a website kind of like a wiki kind of thing, where everyone can contribute to it. Um, that is going to be the basis for answering a lot of the question that you're just asked. So there's just like with anything else, especially with an exploration effort, there are things that we know we need, and then there's going to be a bunch of stuff that we don't know today that we were going to need, that is going to come up as we start going down this path. So we're kind of creating this roadmap as a depository of all this kind of information that we can share with each other globally as we go forward. That being said, the general categories of things that we know today that we're going to need number one well, obviously we need to know more about Venus. We need to send more science missions to Venus, because we know much more about Mars and Moon than we know about Venus. So we need more scientific data, especially about the atmosphere. Number two, which is going to be the same for Mars, is, we need to figure out how to do interplanetary travel, human spaceflight. To date, no human has ever flown beyond the relative safety of the Earth-Moon system. So once you go beyond that, you're exposed to all sorts of solar radiation and all sorts of other things and we have no idea really how to best do an interplanetary flight. We're going to need to know that for Mars. We're going to need to know that for Venus. We're going to need to know that for Mars. We're going to need to know that for Venus. We're going to need to know that for wherever else we're going.
Guillermo:Then, specific to Venus, there are four general categories of things we're going to need to figure out. One is how to do atmospheric operations. Everything that everyone's been doing for Leo, moon, mars and beyond involves landing on hard surface, uh, whereas we're gonna have to, um, drop into the atmosphere, dock with something that's floating in the atmosphere and then at some point take off from that floating platform and get back to orbit. Those are capabilities that we we've played with, uh, humanity's kind of tested a bit, but we haven't. We're nowhere near perfecting that and certainly not doing that in Venus.
Guillermo:And then the other three categories are more chemistry kind of stuff. One is converting the CO2 atmosphere into breathable air. The other is extracting drinking water out of the sulfuric acid clouds and, related to that, number three is developing habitats out of materials that are resistant to sulfuric acid. The prime two that we use here on Earth is glass and Teflon. That's the brand name. I don't remember the chemical name for that. But those are basically the big six categories of things that we're going to need to figure out so easy.
Ro:Things yeah, simple.
Guillermo:Well, hold on, it's not necessarily simple.
Ro:You're right, oh no, no, that was sarcasm, if anyone didn't understand that?
Guillermo:No, I agree with you. But here's the thing None of that requires huge innovation, right? Like even going to the moon and landing on the moon the number one. Remember that Waypaver started focusing on lunar settlement, right? So when Waypaper was looking at this early on, the single biggest challenge that we had, and continue to have, if you're watching the Starship test, is we don't have a landing system. We have no way of landing humans on the moon. We had it back in Apollo and then we lost it. So, humanity, today, no one has a system for landing people on the moon, and that is the single biggest roadblock for getting humans onto the surface of the moon.
Guillermo:So that's a huge innovation that needs to happen, whereas everything I just described for Venus are things that we currently know how to do. We have it. We have rebreathers. Scuba divers have been using rebreathers. We know how to convert CO2 into breathable air. We know how to extract drinking water, sulfuric acid. We know all these things. We just have to figure out how to do them on Venus and how to scale them up to support a floating community there.
Ro:What are your thoughts?
Ro:I think Guillermo has covered that in a lot of detail. To be honest, he's covered all the key things there and, like I said before, I think it's more of a case of all of those technologies that we do to kind of reach to Venus and to establish a presence there. They will have benefits and repercussions down on Earth as well, and those are going to be important.
Ro:So what is the Actually?
Guillermo:Go ahead. Guillaume, can I jump in on that? Because it just reminded me of going all the way back to when you asked earlier about benefits of space for earth. And and Steve, I think you mentioned, as you were engaging with Roe, about you know, from Apollo we had, I don't know, tang, velcro or whatever it is. You know that. We say that we got from it, but here's the thing Before we did Apollo, we did not know that we were going to have those things right.
Guillermo:So before you do you embark on this kind of journey, you have no idea what you're going to discover. You have no idea what you're going to develop. You have no idea what you're going to innovate. It's going to be the same thing for going to Venus. We have no idea what we're going to develop that's going to benefit humanity here on Earth. The one thing that I will say that's unique about Venus versus, let's say, mars or the Moon as far as benefits to Earth is that's the place that has an atmosphere just like Earth. That's the place that has runaway greenhouse effect just like Earth. So I'm guessing I'm just kind of prognosticating and estimating that in order to safely put humans in the Venusian atmosphere, we're going to come up with a lot of technologies and medical breakthroughs to deal with that atmosphere that are going to help us here on Earth. I have no idea what they are, but I'm guessing that we're going to derive more benefit from Venus on that front than we will from, let's say, the moon or Mars.
Ro:I've often wondered if, in the next 20 years, the work we do to help people deal with solar radiation and long-term space travel actually does things to. I don't want to say bear, cure cancer or how about the treatments to deal with, because it would like, just like radiation sickness it would create like how do you prevent that? Well, you could affect the cell right at a cellular level.
Guillermo:I've often thought about that um, yeah, yeah, that's great, that's a great point.
Ro:Yeah, yeah wrote a joke, anything, you want to add no?
Ro:no, I think that's covered in detail.
Ro:To honest, nothing from my side to add on top of that yeah, as we kind of get toward the, you know, toward our podcast close, I wanted to. You know we talked about the kind of the long journey in this and the but right now, what is the most exciting technological advancement in the industry? Like right, kind of right over things, you're seeing trans like what do you think what is really exciting to you? That's kind of maybe be a bit of a game changer and that could be anything I'll go with.
Ro:Yeah, ro first.
Ro:I'll go with. Yeah, ro first.
Ro:I'll go with you first. Sorry to interrupt you there. Yeah, I think it's a pretty straightforward question and an answer. I think the answer is reusable rockets, sorry. And specifically Starship, right.
Ro:So Starship, we're seeing them now with their launches, starship's had their fourth flight test and honestly, I think, once that Starship is up and running, that's going to be our means of going to Venus, to the moon, to Mars and beyond. So I think companies at the moment are really underestimating how much of an impact, how much of a paradigm shift Starship will have on the space sector, and I think, once it's up and running, it will be a complete inflection point and having that reusable technology in itself is going to be really, really beneficial in terms of sustainability and sustainable space exploration, but also in terms of making space a lot more accessible, a lot more cost effective, cheaper to access space and send higher payloads up into space as well payloads up into space as well. So that's going to be for me, starship and reusable tech is going to be the most near-term benefit we'll see in terms of really causing an inflection point in space. Guillermo, how about you?
Guillermo:So I'll just add one more thing on the Starship, because that's a plus one for me. That's what I always say is probably the most um, fundamental shift in the next five, ten years is going to be starship, um. But I always like to add a little detail to this, which is so huge that even people in the space industry I'll see now you got me saying space industry uh yes, that's right, blame blame, blame your host, that's okay, I understand exactly no, but I think even people that work in in space um, have forget is the, the, just the scale of what starship is, right?
Guillermo:so starship is being tested now and people are kind of watching these. These tests, um, and a lot of this is under contract with nasa for the artemis 3 mission, right as part of the human landing system. So they're trying to land on the moon, and then people from outside space are always like, well, we did that 50 years ago, we knew how to do that, right, it's like because we sent the apollo missions there, yeah, but apollo, this is a sense of scale. Apollo is like a minivan, right, starship is like a 20-story building. I think people forget that and that's why it's such a huge shift. That's why so many people answer that question the same way. It's like Starship. You're going from a minivan that can carry two, maybe three people, to you know, crew Dragon today carries four, maybe it's designed for seven, right, but usually takes four to something that can carry a hundred people, like it's. It's a massive difference. Okay, so now I'm going to answer your question, adding on to what Rose said. Up until about a year ago, I would answer that question the same way Starship. But over the last year I've added another bit to this, which is a company called MaxSpace which is developing inflatable habitats, initially for LEO, but they have plans to expand beyond that and the focus of their company as you can infer from the name of the company is to maximize the volume, the internal volume, of their structure, and for that kind of objective, inflatables are the best way to go. So, to give you an idea, they still have to fly, like their prototype, I think within the next year or so, but after that they've got their first functional module which fits inside of a Falcon 9. So they don't even require a bigger this isn't even a Starship thing a Falcon 9. And within one launch of a Falcon 9, they can have the same internal volume of the current ISS. To give you perspective, the ISS took multiple launches over 10 plus years to assemble. They can do it in one Falcon 9 launch at least to get the same internal volume.
Guillermo:Um, so they do have plans for a bigger uh uh uh model that would fit inside of a starship and if they can ever get to doing that in one starship launch, they'll have the same internal volume as a football stadium. And the reason those two go together is, if you think about it uh, I just said starship launch, it takes a 100 people, right, the most number of humans. The maximum number of humans that humanity has ever launched in any one launch was always seven, because that's how many the space shuttle was capable of taking up, and Starship can take 100. And Starship can take 100. So we modeled the ISS as a destination in space that at most it can hold nine people, 12 during an emergency, and some of the private space stations that are coming up are I think the biggest plan I saw was for 24 people, but that's based on Crew Dragon taking seven people up max.
Guillermo:But what happens when Starship comes online can take 100 people. It needs somewhere to take those 100 people. Not only that, spacex is working to have the ops tempo on that be a launch per week. Actually, they want to do it multiple times a day, but let's say, in the next five years they get to launch one per week, which means they're sending up 100 people per week. They have to have somewhere to go and the ISS and some of these private space stations are not going to have the capacity for it. So something like MaxSpace would be an ideal solution. So anyway, those are the two things Starship and MaxSpace.
Ro:I will plus one, the Starship. I was just doing, as I'm listening to you, I was just doing some uh quick, uh check on something, um yeah, so it's basically the equivalent I always look at the equivalent of going from a cessna or a cirrus aircraft, which are single piston aircrafts, to a 737. Yeah, exactly, it's huge, slow, clunky. I mean now we have basically Boeing is not doing well as they have stranded, but I think of the iterations of this and you're right, that is exciting to me because then it also lowers the cost of payload, the cost of people, and I know there's a factory like a gigafactory. He's building a Starship factory. I mean there's going to be fleets of these.
Ro:So, as we kind of look to kind of close this podcast, which I think has been a great conversation as far as inaugural podcast for Offworld, which I think has been a great conversation as far as inaugural podcast for Offworld, I would love for you both let's talk about looking ahead. This is where the bold prediction about this, the exploration of space, what do you think people should be prepared for? So I will Ro row, I'll start with you and then I'll come back to garamo and then I will move to my next question. These are kind of a little bit of rapid fire, so just kind of what comes to your mind for sure.
Ro:I mean, I think, for for humanity to be prepared for. I think the big thing is going to be human space exploration. I think definitely in the next few decades we'll be seeing a lot more progress on that front, in particular, with the Artemis missions. We're seeing that, you know, missions to the moon, the first woman on the moon, the first person of color on the moon great initiative, and I think that's literally just the beginning. So I'd say human space exploration is something that you should look out for and be excited for.
Ro:What's your bold prediction, Yermo?
Guillermo:Well, I'll just take Rose maybe one step further. I think human space exploration will be more like Mars and Venus beyond Earth. I think what people need to be prepared for is just permanent presence off-world, where, whether it's orbiting space stations or the moon, will be more permanent structures. You'll actually meet people who spend years in these places, rather than just going for a week or two.
Ro:My, if I will add, my bold prediction is we're going to have a propulsion breakthrough that's going to change the speed in which we just enter. You know, inter-solar system definitely, but you know, possibly interstellar.
Guillermo:So that's, that's what I believe, with the and so and so and so, when we develop that warp drive, we'll contacted by by the Vulcans.
Ro:I am not even going there. I'm thinking Epstein drive. I'm thinking, you know, you know I don't know about FTL, but you know, hey, let's just, let's just speed it up and slow us down, solar sailing you know.
Guillermo:I will tell you what what I do agree with. On on that, I think one thing people need to get ready for is just the common use of nuclear propulsion in space. I agree.
Ro:For some reason there's a stigma around that here on Earth. But in space iton, and listening to him talk about the orion project in the 60s, he, he felt strongly we would be like on mars in the 70s. But the for those of you don't know, look it up, it's a wild uh project. But uh it was. And he always fought with verner von braun because he had a different way of. He wanted to create a kind of space. He wanted to create a kind of space ring, kind of a tour, and then have people launch, which we're kind of doing now.
Ro:But the Orion project was about dropping literally nuclear bombs through a above the earth as it took off and kill everyone. And I also wonder if it was the oil and gas companies, just you know, maybe lobbying Congress to kill it. Just a thought, not that kind of podcast. Maybe not. Yet the other side of it if we had to, the interplanetary, inter multi-planetary species I think of Ray Bradbury's Mars books. Like if we had to restart civilization, if you're taking some books, music, two things what would you bring to start that civilization on? I'll go with you, ro. Yeah, you know, I'll go with you, ro. Yeah, you go first, ro.
Ro:Yeah, I think it's Okay. So two books. I'd say Carl Sagan. Cosmos is a great one. That's always going to be a relevant book. I think it emphasizes the importance of science in our lives and I think that would be a good read to just have on deck if you're repopulating civilization. Um, I'd also probably have a book that's more philosophical. So just a book on the great philosophers is a book by stephen law, I think. On that, and uh, yeah, just just having different minds, different perspectives on reality would be a healthy thing to have when you're in that situation. I think that'd be quite cool. So I'd take that book as well.
Ro:In terms of music, I am a Michael Jackson fan, so I'd take you Rock my World from the Invincible album from Michael Jackson. That's a timeless classic. And I'd also take from the hip-hop world I Know what you Want Busta Rhymes, mariah Carey, that is another timeless song. Um, and to go with that, in terms of equipment, probably a good speaker system is going to be essential, I'd say. So those are my takeaways excellent, I, I appreciate.
Ro:I like your uh various, your specificity and uh, in this, uh, guillermo, what are you? You've probably been asked. You've probably been asked this question before, so you might have something on deck, so go ahead.
Guillermo:No, usually I answer this by like I don't know, because whoever's going to go they'll decide, not me. But if I had to pick I'd probably pick two. Now I'm going to cheat because one's a trilogy is the Red Mars, green Mars, blue Mars trilogy, mostly because it just shows the development of the relationship between an off-world community and Earth over 400 years over time. Likewise, maybe not a little bit more recent Seven Eves by Neil Stevenson. For those of you who've read Neil Stevenson, he tends to write really long books, so this is like a 700-page book. It's basically three chapters, so it's like a trilogy in one. But again, it's what happens to humanity when it's faced with an existential threat. How do they react to it and how does that carry forward? How does humanity carry forward 500 years in the future? So so I really liked, like that.
Ro:That's great. So kind of to wrap, like, how would you want this work to be remembered? How would you like to you know it? It's about legacy, the impact you hope this the way paver and humans to venus will have on the world. So, guillermo, you want to start and I'll, we're up with bro uh, so wait, but I've got two of them.
Guillermo:Then I've got way paver and and humans to venus no, let's cover way paver, and I'll let Ro do.
Guillermo:Humans to Venus. Okay, sounds good, I think the big thing. So I guess there's two with Waypaver. One is just the operational aspect of it as a nonprofit organization that has a kind of self-sustaining model using the Space Venture Studio. That's not specific to Waypaver or to space, it's just an organizational innovation. But for Waypaver itself, I think the way we've kind of structured this by helping to make humanity a multi-planet species while also improving life here on Earth, I hope that if we push that narrative strongly enough, we will get to stop answering that question of why are we going to space? Because it is by far the most popular question that anybody working in space gets from outside the space world and hopefully we can kind of put that to rest because there's plenty of opportunities on this planet to do both. We can go into space and we can preserve our planet.
Ro:Well, what about you?
Ro:Yeah, it's a good question.
Ro:I think, from the Human Civilization Foundation perspective, it's probably not as much focused on being remembered for the work that we're doing.
Ro:I think it's more of a case of being or setting a foundation, setting their foundations for a much greater purpose, and that's going to be expanding out into the cosmos, right? So the human civilians foundation is literally just in place to one expand the public knowledge of Venus as its potential to be a destination for humanity, but also to lay down the steps necessary in place to get humans to Venus, and those people in the relevant parties who want to be a part of that can do that. So I think being a cog in that machine and that greater mechanism is what we're trying to do and just trying to get things in motion. Seeing, you know, humanity expand down to the cosmos, to mars, to moon, to the moon and beyond, to venus, um, really is going to be the success of the human species foundation in terms of down the line. I think it's going to be a case of just setting things in motion and getting those foundations there. So, yeah, yeah, that would be my answer.
Ro:So how do people Go ahead? Yaro, yeah, please.
Guillermo:Just a quick thing to tack on to what Rose said. One of the things that we've talked about internally is it's entirely possible that we may be victims of our own success. Right, If we are successful in our mission to get Venus out there in the general dialogue and people are excited about establishing a permanent presence in the Venusian atmosphere and it happens, then there's no reason to have the Humans to Venus Foundation In the future. We may find some ancillary mission, but if humanity does actually set up an off-world community in the Venusian atmosphere, there may be no reason for us to have, uh, the humans to venus foundation.
Ro:I think you just replace. That's great. I think you should just replace the two with the at the the ampersand, or the at the at symbol. So humans at venus instead of humans to venus. There you go, there, you go, there you go. So, uh, how how do people find the, uh, the foundation, and check things out?
Ro:Yeah, to show I mean. So. We have a website, humanstayvenusorg. You can visit more information there. There's a lot more information on our community. If you want to get involved, you can sign up to be a part of our private community, to our e-newsletter as well, for regular updates. And yeah, if you want to have access to our Venus Speaker Series recordings, then go to our page as well on our website, and you can sign up to the private community and gain access to our online members portal. So, hopefully, see a lot of you there.
Ro:That's great, and Guillermo for Wayfaver. How would people find that?
Guillermo:Hey, just a quick thing on the Humans to Venus Foundation. I found that I have to remind people that it's the number two, not the word two. Excellent point, although I think we do own both domains. But and Waypaver, it's easy waypaverfoundationorg.
Ro:That's great. Well, I want to go. Thank you both for coming on the podcast today and thanks for everybody for listening on our journey from Earth, moon, mars, venus and beyond, and we'll see you all next time. Thanks a lot.
Steve:Thanks for listening to Going Off World. You can find us on all the major podcast platforms and at wwwgoingoffworldcom, as well as on YouTube under Going Off World. See you next time.
