Jeff Bezos wants to construct everlasting outposts on the Moon and colonize space. Richard Branson wants spaceflight to be as common as air travel. Elon Musk desires to inhabit Mars in order that humanity becomes multi-planetary.
IBX’s Kam Ghaffarian wants to achieve even further: the stars.
“There is a common denominator: a combination of altruism, of doing something purposeful and good, and combining that with capitalism to make a positive impact,” he told CNBC’s Morgan Brennan at the Colorado Springs Space Symposium. “IBX’s vision is to protect our home, our planet, and then find new homes, stars and everything that comes with it. So if we say that humanity’s ultimate destiny is interstellar travel, in terms of space, of the stars, then we have to take many intermediate steps to do so.”
This may appear far-fetched if it weren’t for his track record. Ghaffarian played a key role in pioneering the recent space economy, co-founding and investing in a workforce of business space ventures.
Publicly traded Intuitive Machinesof which Ghaffarian is co-founder and executive chairman, recently made history when its Odysseus spacecraft successfully landed on the Moon, becoming the first business lander to accomplish that.
Ghaffarian can be co-founder and CEO of Axiom Space, which now often sends private astronauts on business missions to the International Space Station – the first company to be permitted to attach modules and supply full services for missions to the ISS – as it really works to construct its own space station.
At Quantum Space, where he can be executive chairman, the focus is on space commerce and communications via a satellite superhighway stretching from Earth orbit to the Moon and beyond; The company he founded, X-Energy, has developed working nuclear reactors that it says are “designed to be intrinsically safe” in addition to nuclear propulsion capabilities.
His home office, IBX (which stands for “Imagine, Believe, Execute”), is at the center of this space exploration constellation.
“We have to do all the steps in between. I’m with Elon [Musk] and Jeff [Bezos]both my dear friends to be able to do LEO first [low earth orbit]we’ll be able to go to the moon and Mars because we have to do that before we can go into interstellar space,” Ghaffarian explained on CNBC’s Manifest Space podcast.
Follow and listen to CNBC Manifest Space Podcast.hosted by Morgan Brennan wherever you get your podcasts.
Unlike other famous billionaires who create commercial space companies, Ghaffarian made his fortune in the space industry and, instead of focusing on access to space, he is taking advantage of falling costs to build infrastructure and business operations in space.
The Iranian-born entrepreneur, who immigrated to the United States about four and a half decades ago, co-founded a government services company called Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies, which became a NASA prime contractor before KBR acquired it in 2018.
“If you build a fantastic company and develop incredible technologies, but no one wants to buy it or there’s no business case, you’re not going to make any difference,” Ghaffarian said. “How do you create a business model where you are intentional, you make a difference, but also… you can deliver massive returns to investors?”
Ghaffarian believes the space economy can be price trillions of dollars – and prior to many realize. He believes that technological advances in artificial intelligence and quantum computing are crucial to unlocking the full potential of space.
He said microgravity-based pharmaceutical research and industrial production, sustainable propulsion and energy sources, and the construction of lunar infrastructure can be amongst the capabilities and services that can be in greater demand in the coming years.
“It’s normal that people don’t fully appreciate it. … When did people appreciate the artificial intelligence revolution – 10 years ago? Not really, right? And suddenly we have a herd mentality that everyone joins in,” said Ghaffarian, who also recalled the beginnings Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Tesla and SpaceX, and even air travel, as templates for the space world. “I think we are at the beginning of this exploration of space and the space ecosystem, the space economy, and it is still not there, but I am convinced that it is gaining momentum and will grow rapidly, and I really believe that it will happen” we again underestimate the size of the market “
As investors gain traction, the billionaire’s space ventures will proceed to shoot for the stars.
Credit : www.cnbc.com
