What happens when it's not NASA bringing civilians to space?

In 1985, high school teacher Christa McAuliffe was selected to become the first private citizen to travel to space. After the Challenger explosion that killed her and 6 other astronauts, NASA scrapped its Teacher in Space Project; it was still too risky to send private citizens to space. 40 years later, things are looking very different. Today, celebrities and billionaires are buying trips on commercial rockets. Private companies are designing new, private space stations. How is safety being regulated for these private space companies? And what happens if – or when – something goes wrong? Featuring Kim Bleier, Ben Miller, Doug Ligor, Peggy Whitson, and Dana Tulodziecki. Produced by Daniel Ackerman. For full credits and transcript, visit outsideinradio.org. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Nick Capodice?

  Hello everyone, Nick here. As you can probably imagine, right now at Civics 101, we are scrambling to make episodes that meet this moment. There is a lot going on in the country right now, and we are paying very close attention. And we will be presenting you with new episodes that take a decidedly civics 101 approach and address as much as we possibly can. But today, we're bringing you something a little different. Maybe you could use that. So this week marks the 40th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, which killed high school social studies teacher Krista McAuliffe and six other astronauts. Now McAuliffe taught at Concord High School, which is pretty much a mile from NHPR where

• 0:45Nick Capodice?

  we make Civics 101. The Challenger disaster was a huge story, not just because of the deaths of McAuliffe and the other astronauts, but also because it raised questions about NASA's safety protocols and existential questions about the very purpose of the federal government sending people to space. In 2003, those questions were raised again when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, again, killing everybody onboard. But now, going into space is an adventure, an adventure a lot of people, a lot of rich people are paying big money for.

• 1:29Nick Capodice?

  And private companies like Blue Origin and Acxiom Space are happy to give them that chance for a steep price. Our colleagues and dear friends at NHPR's Outside In podcast have been tracking the rise of civilian space travel and have been wondering, considering what happened with Challenger and Columbia, how safe is private space travel for the celebrities and billionaires who are lining up to do it? And what happens if or when something goes wrong? Let's take a listen. Hope you enjoy it. Kim Bleier has lived

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Pretty much her entire life in Concord, the state capital of New Hampshire.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Concord is a little bit of a sleepy city. It is a city, but it has a small-town feel.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  But in July of 1985, when Kim was just about to enter 6th grade, sleepy Concord was thrust into the national spotlight.

• 2:22Speaker 03

  Well, we're here today to announce the first private citizen passenger in the history of spaceflight.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Here's then Vice President George H. W. Bush.

• 2:33Speaker 03

  The President said last August that this passenger would be one of America's finest, a teacher.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Back then, NASA's Space Shuttle program had been carrying astronauts to low-Earth orbit for four years. But now, it was going to carry a schoolteacher. More than 11,000 educators from across the country applied to the program.

• 2:57Speaker 03

  The teacher who will be going into space, Krista McAuliffe. Or is that you?

• 3:06Speaker 03

  Krista teaches in Concord High School in Concord, New Hampshire. She teaches social studies.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  For me, it was her charisma that drew me in, but also just the excitement. You know, here's this ordinary person from my city who is embarking on this extraordinary adventure.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  In the months leading up to her mission, Krista McAuliffe became a national celebrity.

• 3:30Speaker 04

  How long will this mission be? Do you have any idea?

• 3:32Speaker 02

  It's going to be six days.

• 3:33Speaker 04

  Six days?

• 3:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. And every 90 minutes, I'm going to be orbiting Europe at 17,000 miles. So every day I'd run home from school, my parents would save the newspaper. And whatever story it was from that day, we would cut it out and save it and put it into a photo album. And as a little, a young girl in town, it's not like space travel was something that was on my, you know, wish list in life, but it did give me the sense that whatever was on my wish list was achievable.

• 4:01Speaker 05

  We have main engine start. Four, three, two, one, and liftoff.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  On January 28th, 1986, the rocket carrying the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded.

• 4:18Speaker 06

  Flight controllers, you're looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Krista McAuliffe and the six other astronauts on board were killed.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  Kim was one of millions of children who watched this happen on live television while at school. It was a shock. Kim stopped adding to her memory book.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  After the tragedy, it sort of ended. You know, we continued to collect the articles for a period of time, but, you know, look, every article had the, you know, the smoke and the explosion and that became a thing that we didn't want to look at anymore.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  In New Hampshire, Krista McAuliffe's legacy lives on. She is still an inspiration for students. But after the explosion, NASA scrapped its teacher in space project. They decided it was still too risky to try and send private citizens to space. Forty years later, things are very different.

• 5:22Speaker 07

  Four space tourists are on the first flight of its kind, carrying humans over the Earth's polar regions. The Fram 2 mission is privately funded by crypto billionaires.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  I'm Nate Hegy and this is Outside In. Today, celebrities and billionaires are buying trips to space. Private companies are designing new private space stations of their own. The question is, are we ready for that? And what happens if or when something goes wrong? One, ignition, and lift off.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Producer Daniel Ackerman has the story after a break.

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• 6:32Speaker 01

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• 7:00Speaker 03

  This is Outside In. I'm Daniel Ackerman. Chances are, you have never looked at the Earth the way this guy has.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  Look at the Earth. Just look outside. Look at the Earth.

• 7:11Speaker 05

  Look what's there.

• 7:14Speaker 03

  These clips are from a promotional video for Blue Origin, the space company founded by Jeff Bezos. The people are floating in zero gravity, looking down at the curvature of the Earth from space.

• 7:25Speaker 05

  Oh, my word. I'm just spinning. That was enlightenment. This is the best experience of my life.

• 7:31Speaker 03

  The production is a little cheesy, but I got to admit, I found myself tearing up watching these reactions. The raw emotion, the overwhelming sense of awe. It was contagious.

• 7:43Speaker 04

  I just went to space as a first woman from Mexico.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  But the fact is, very few people have had this experience. Only about 750 humans have been to space. 10 times that number have summited Mount Everest. And of that 750, the vast majority have been highly trained professional astronauts with government agencies like NASA.

• 8:06Speaker 04

  This is Houston. Say again, please. Houston, we have a problem.

• 8:13Speaker 03

  A lot of us grew up watching movies about space travel that portrayed astronauts as these elite athletes and technical geniuses, something close to superheroes. Like soldiers, these were public servants putting their lives on the line for the sake of science and exploration.

• 8:32Speaker 03

  But the voices in that promotional video, one of them was 90-year-old William Shatner.

• 8:38Speaker 05

  What you have given me is the most profound experience I can imagine.

• 8:46Speaker 03

  These folks are among the few dozen private passengers that Blue Origin has sent beyond the Karman Line. Invisible boundary that separates our planet from everything else. And they're not exactly highly trained.

• 8:58Speaker 05

  That said, there's a reason that industry is so keen on it. They see a lot of demand.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  This is Ben Miller. He's an economist who researches space policy for the Rand Corporation. Do you aspire to ever go to space yourself?

• 9:15Speaker 05

  I'll leave that to others, I think. I enjoy researching the regulatory issues, but I'm good with two feet on the ground.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  Ben isn't alone, but the other side is growing. A few years back, Pew surveyed Americans and asked if they'd be interested in traveling to space.

• 9:33Speaker 05

  Forty-two percent of people said they were definitely or probably interested. On the one hand, that's less than half of people, but I look at that and go, forty-two percent, that's a very sufficient slice of the pie to build a company off of. Forty-two percent of multimillionaires will give these companies more than enough customers to work with for a while.

• 9:55Speaker 03

  According to its website, reserving a seat on a Blue Origin rocket requires a $150,000 deposit. The full price of the mission isn't public, but presumably, if you have to ask, you can't afford it. Blue Origin, by the way, didn't make anyone available for interview.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  But what kind of assurances do those passengers have that they're safe? What happens if something goes wrong? To answer that, you have to go back to 2004. It was a near flawless mission on a beautiful morning. Thousands here showing up, watching in awe, their eyes glued to the sky to witness this milestone in history. On June 21 of that year, the first ever privately-built, privately-piloted spacecraft traveled

• 10:44Speaker 03

  This was but a stepping stone to take space travel out of the exclusive hands of government. Their goal, a tour bus to the stars. And the US government, they weren't unhappy about this. Just the opposite. They wanted to encourage this burgeoning private space industry. So a few months later, a bipartisan group of lawmakers passed the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004. So from 2004 to now, it's been a growth period. This is Doug Ligor. He's a space lawyer, which is a specialty he didn't really anticipate back in his law school days. No, and I don't think a lot of people do. It's kind of a burgeoning field.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  Doug says the 2004 space launch bill was meant to clear the way for private space companies. One thing the bill did was set up the FAA to regulate spacecraft launch and reentry. If your vehicle is reentering the atmosphere, the FAA needs to make sure that the crew has certain safety protocols in place to protect the crew so they can operate the vehicle, so they can maintain public safety and doesn't crash into a city or something like that. But there was one thing the bill specifically forbade the FAA from doing, at least at first. And that is requiring certain safety measures for spacecraft passengers. There's a carve-out for what they call spaceflight participants.

• 12:10Speaker 03

  So commercial for hire individuals that go on those vehicles, FAA doesn't have the authority to impose any standards, safety standards. So for example, if you want to go to space and you say, well, you know, I'd like to be strapped into my seat. That's up to the company to decide. Or you say, hey, you know, I'd really like to be in a pressurized suit in case we lose oxygen in the cabin. FAA has nothing to say about that. Let me get this straight. The very same FAA that regulates seatbelts, smoking, and the weight of airplane seats has nothing to say about passenger safety in space?

• 12:53Speaker 03

  Doug says the idea here is that human space travel is still such a new industry, we don't exactly know what the future will look like. And if we impose binding regulations now, it could stifle innovation. One worker in the industry- Told me that regulating passenger safety would be like strangling a baby in a crib. Again, the companies went to Congress and they said, we need this freedom because we're going to innovate all these different designs. And if you hamstring us with a rule, then it's going to funnel our technology in one direction. We don't want that.

• 13:34Speaker 03

  This ban on safety regulation, sometimes called the learning period, was originally supposed to expire in 2012. But Congress has extended that deadline again and again. Now, the private space industry has been learning for a full 20 years. The law is set to come under review once more in 2028.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  Meanwhile, the number of private citizens getting shot into space is growing. In 2021, the year Blue Origin started taking paying customers into space, nearly 20 private citizens made the journey. The number of NASA astronauts that flew that year, about 10.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  I'm not saying I share this opinion, but one could argue that the high rollers who sign up for a private joyride in space, well, they know what they're getting into. And you could imagine a fair amount of online schadenfreude if it were a handful of billionaires killed in the first private space disaster. Not unlike what happened when the Titan submersible imploded in 2023. He thought his submersible was one of the safest forms of transportation in the world. And he also thought it was unsinkable. And that's the same thing they said about the Titanic.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  But it's not just rich tourists headed to orbit on private spacecrafts.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  Launching is a thrill. I don't get tired of that part. It's a lot of fun. There's some G-forces involved, acceleration. So it's a pretty

• 15:12Speaker 04

  Dramatic.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  This is astronaut Peggy Whitson. She holds the American record for most days spent in space. That's 695. Peggy has spent the better part of two years of her life orbiting hundreds of miles above Earth's surface. Most of that was as a NASA astronaut on the International Space Station.

• 15:32Speaker 04

  I remember I'd been on orbit for almost three weeks on my first flight and I was in my crew sleep station, which is about the size of this little booth here. And, you know, in the morning I floated out of my sleeping bag and floated down the laboratory and I'm like, I live in space. This is so amazing.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  When Peggy retired from NASA in 2018, she figured she'd spend the rest of her life stuck here on this big rock with the rest of us. But then, a company called Acxiom Space offered her a job as a private sector astronaut.

• 16:06Speaker 04

  I left in 2018 expecting never to fly again and I've had two missions since then. That's faster flight rate than I got when I was at NASA. So.

• 16:18Speaker 03

  Peggy's two commercial missions for Acxiom were flights to her old stomping ground at the ISS aboard a SpaceX capsule.

• 16:26Speaker 04

  We've done full missions, done all the training, the preparation, the mission ops, the interfaces with NASA. And it's actually an important stepping stone for us as we look forward to building Acxiom Station.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  Acxiom Station. The ISS is already well beyond its intended lifespan and it'll be replaced by the privately built Acxiom Station. Peggy says it'll be constructed over time, piece by piece, starting in 2028.

• 16:57Speaker 04

  Initially, the first module would be docked to the International Space Station. And then when our second module comes up, we'll detach from the space station. The two will join together and we will be capable of a four-person crew with a continuous human presence on orbit.

• 17:14Speaker 03

  To Peggy, the upgraded space station, that faster flight rate, it's all evidence that the private space industry is innovating. Peggy says Acxiom Station will host science and medical research that just can't be done here on Earth. Some of that research already got started on one of Peggy's previous Acxiom missions to the ISS. She transported cancer cells to space for drug testing. Cancer tends to grow a lot faster in space. And we don't necessarily understand why, but it becomes a great testbed for us because in a week or two weeks, we can tell, is this drug working? But Acxiom Station isn't just going to be used for research because whereas NASA is bound by its mission for space exploration

• 17:57Speaker 03

  and science, private companies have other interests, too. We're going to be developing an economy in space. We want to do in-space manufacturing, orbital data centers, be part of mesh networks on orbit. All of these things, I think, are going to contribute to building that presence in space. So Acxiom is not a space tourism company. No. It's not just Acxiom. Other firms, too, are vying to create their own private industrial space stations. And Peggy says realizing this vision of a thriving space economy that improves the fate of humankind here on Earth, it's going to take more than just highly trained career astronauts like her.

• 18:41Speaker 03

  Space is changing. It is going to involve a lot of people who, I might just be a welder, I might just be somebody who's going up to build something in space or mine something in space. On the one hand, this new future opens a world of possibilities. Regular people, who would never qualify as NASA astronauts, may have a chance to go to space. For example, Acxiom is working to determine whether it's safe for people with diabetes to travel to space. And Blue Origin recently launched someone who uses a wheelchair.

• 19:19Nick Capodice?

  Into space for the first time. But it also raises a different set of ethical questions. Rich tourists may choose to accept the dangers of space and pay the consequences if something goes wrong. But what if you're an employee sent to space by your boss? We know it's dangerous, but we really don't know how dangerous. And we don't know how dangerous it is for people who are not elite, trained astronauts.

• 19:59Nick Capodice?

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• 20:45Nick Capodice?

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• 21:06Nick Capodice?

  Holiday season is coming. And I don't think I have to tell you, this might be a tough one because things are expensive in the fall of 2026. Everyone I know is looking for ways to make a little extra money, prowling around the side hustle subreddits. But I will say, if you're looking to sell something to launch a store fast before the holiday rush, Shopify is the one-stop-shop platform for making a professional-looking store without touching a line of code. You can sell anything, and you can sell it anywhere that people shop online. You can have it done in minutes, and you can launch before Black Friday, that time of year when more people are already shopping and ready to

• 21:49Nick Capodice?

  buy. So if you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/civics to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/civics. Just go to Shopify.com/civics today to hear your first.

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• 23:58Speaker 02

  That is Mr. Spock, a life-size cardboard stand-up that's been with me for almost 35 years now.

• 24:06Speaker 03

  This is Donna Tolidzeki. Dr. Spock loomed over her desk at Purdue University, where she works as a space ethicist. Would you ever travel to space if you were offered a seat?

• 24:17Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely. I don't know how long I would make it because space, you're going to feel quite hot in space, and I like cold weather. But absolutely, yes. I would be extremely excited.

• 24:31Speaker 03

  I wanted to talk to Donna to better understand what the FAA's learning period means for everyday people who might wind up in space, either as tourists or as workers in a futuristic orbital economy. And she started by reminding me just how few people have actually been there.

• 24:48Speaker 02

  We know it's dangerous, but we really don't know how dangerous. And we don't know how dangerous it is for people who are not elite, trained astronauts.

• 24:57Speaker 03

  Donna says being in space does some very strange things to the human body.

• 25:02Speaker 02

  We do know that microgravity results in rapid muscle loss. We've got bone thinning, cardiovascular deconditioning.

• 25:09Speaker 03

  That's why NASA astronauts on the ISS do at least two hours of exercise every day.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  There are lots of fluid shifts that basically affect vision, balance.

• 25:20Speaker 03

  That last one, fluid shifts? You can actually see this in images of astronauts. Their faces puff up as the lack of gravity causes blood to move from lower in the body up to the head. And this can cause swelling in the brain and eyes. In space, even the heart changes shape, going from something like an oval to something more circular.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  People who stay in space for a longer period of time are very prone To certain kinds of medical conditions, UTIs, which turn out to be very difficult to treat. So they can actually be quite dangerous in space. But there's also radiation that increases cancer risk. It can damage the nervous system. And this stuff may not be a huge deal for brief, minutes-long space tourism flights. But Donna said it would certainly come into play with workers on longer, private missions in the future. Workers who might manage a research lab or do construction and maintenance on a private space station. It's one thing if people voluntarily decide to do certain things that are quite risky. And it's a different thing for an employer

• 26:25Speaker 02

  to demand that their employees actually do this. I mean, one thing is also that you can't just go home if you don't feel well. But there are questions here about cumulative radiation exposure, various other kinds of health issues that, again, NASA is regulating very stringently. And right now, this is not regulated for the potential commercial employees.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Under the FAA's learning period on safety regulations, firms could send pretty much anyone to space as long as they sign a waiver acknowledging that, yes, I know, space travel is risky. And if something bad happens, my family won't sue. That's even more lax than rules about climbing Mount Everest, by the way. For that, you need approval from Nepal's government, certifying that you're healthy enough to make a summit attempt.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  Peggy Whitson, the NASA retiree turned private space sector astronaut, says even without that regulation, private companies have very good reason to make sure they're keeping everyone onboard safe. Just because the FAA doesn't require certain safety measures doesn't mean they're not happening. You're not going to have customers if you're blowing up vehicles. So you have to care. Everyone has to care about the safety of the crew in order to be successful. And so it's important. How you go about it might be new and different. And that's the thing that I think commercial industry gives us now, is we can look at new options. We don't have to be stuck in the same path that's been used over and over again for many, many years.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  It's hard to dispute

• 28:08Speaker 05

  Since private companies got interested in space, technology has advanced at a rapid clip. Despite winning the so-called space race, NASA isn't exactly known for moving at breakneck speeds. To Peggy, extending the learning period makes sense. The industry is still in its relative infancy. I think we're all still new enough now that we still need some of that flexibility. And if we want to drive that innovation, we need to not have too many restrictions at this phase. So I think that flexibility is important right now. Suffice it to say, though, not everyone agrees. I mean, you can bleep this out,

• 28:53Speaker 05

  but that's complete bullshit. This is Doug Ligor again, a space lawyer. He says some private firms rely on what he calls a mythology. That regulation is going to kill the industry and kill innovation. And really what it's about, it's about them wanting to continue to avoid liability. Doug says that if something were to go wrong, if a passenger were to die aboard one of these spacecraft, the company would likely face no civil or criminal liability because it can't be in violation of safety regulations if there aren't any safety regulations. If something happens to you on an airplane, something happens to you on a train, a bus, an Uber, even driving your own car, and the automaker is at fault,

• 29:36Speaker 05

  you have ways of getting justice that you simply do not have in space. And so I think we're setting ourselves up for a catastrophe. I think people will die. And it's a shame. We don't have to wait for people to die. We know how to do this now.

• 29:58Speaker 06

  Flight controller is here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction.

• 30:09Speaker 06

  Doug says if that happens, a private version of the Challenger disaster, it's likely that the government would suddenly change its tune, rush in with performative regulations that might not make a lot of sense.

• 30:21Speaker 05

  What typically happens in a catastrophic incident is You get regulation quickly. In many cases, those regulations are suboptimal because Congress is acting very quickly. There's another argument for proactive regulation. Ben Miller, the space economist we heard from earlier, he says the idea that regulation is bad for industry, that's not actually supported by the evidence. In fact, usually it's the opposite. Usually, regulation either has no harm to the industry at all, or sometimes it's even helpful to the industry because it establishes a baseline set of ground rules that everybody operates under. Then if I'm a multimillionaire that wants to go to space, well, I'm going to come do that in the US with a US company because I'm confident that I'm not going to die on

• 31:06Speaker 05

  the US ship because I know the US system, it's regulated, it's structured, it's safe.

• 31:25Speaker 05

  Safety, of course, is relative. The industry is still so new with so few launches, it's impossible to calculate the risk of private spaceflight. Economists like Ben told me that, and so did insurance brokers, whose job it literally is to calculate these risks.

• 31:41Speaker 04

  There's just not enough data. But if you take NASA's space shuttle as an indicator, well, that program launched people into space 135 times. Of those, two were catastrophic failures. The most recent, in 2003, was the space shuttle Columbia explosion, which killed all seven astronauts aboard.

• 32:02Speaker 04

  And before that, in 1986, was the space shuttle Challenger, the one carrying Concord High School teacher Krista McAuliffe. I still can't believe that I'm going to actually be going into that shuttle. It just, it just really doesn't seem possible. Maybe when I'm on the launchpad, it will. What are you most excited about? Seeing the Earth from that perspective of that small planet, you know, it's such a big place here, but being able to look at it from a new perspective, and I hope I can bring that wonder and that excitement.

• 32:35Speaker 04

  A lot of us grew up thinking of space travel as something close to an impossible dream, but that's becoming less true. We're moving toward a future where space could be a research lab, an industrial worksite, a tourist destination. New technologies often emerge faster than we have the ability or political will to regulate. But it's still early days for private human space travel, and we still have the chance to decide if this time should be different. Maybe just a little bit of fright, too? Not yet. Maybe when I'm strapped in and those rockets are going off underneath me, there will be. But spaceflight today really seems safe.

• 33:18Speaker 04

  We had a good example of that when...

• 33:40Nick Capodice?

  Tremendous thanks to our colleagues and friends at Outside In for bringing us that story. This episode was reported and produced by Daniel Ackerman. It was edited by executive producer Taylor Quimby with help from Marina Henke and Felix Poon. It was mixed by Taylor Quimby and Felix Poon. I'm Nikita Padice, and my colleagues at Civics 1 are my co-host Hannah McCarthy and our executive producer Rebecca Lavoy. We'll be back with new episodes of Civics 101 next week. In the meantime, stay safe, whatever the heck that means to you right now.

• 34:13Speaker 03

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