Episode 79: Tejpaul Bhatia And The First Commercial Space Station
We're going to space guys!
I grew up in the NASA area in Houston and my neighbor was Mike Mullane, an astronaut who flew the Space Shuttle missions 3 times. So the idea of talking to someone who is helping revive space exploration was beyond exciting for me. Tejpaul Bhatia leads revenue generation and monetization strategy for the commercial development of space as Chief Revenue Officer at Axiom Space.
Axiom Space is a private space company developing its own module for the International Space Station and building the first commercial space station. Axiom Space revealed its team of four first-time astronauts who have each paid $55m to spend eight days on the International Space Station launching on March 30th.
Axiom Space AX-1 crew will travel to the ISS in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and will spend eight days carrying out experiments. This is the first time an all civilian crew has visited the ISS at the same time.
We talk about the history of the ISS and what the station has given humankind, what a commercial space station really means, what he says to those people that think spending money on space programs a waste of money, how the private/public partnerships has recharged the program, why have an all civilian crew, and how space exploration is the one place in our world where there are no borders and where there is always hope.