To Infinity and Beyond — 5Futurists Weigh in Space and Share Some Exciting Truths
Colonizing Space, the Fermi Paradox and Future of Genetic Engineering
Isaac Arthur is a physicist and futurist who runs popular YouTube channel Featured Science and Futurism with Isaac Arthur which has over 270k subscribers and 20M+ views. Arthur covers a wide range of futurist and science fiction ideas including cyborgs, androids and artificial intelligence, the Fermi paradox and interstellar warfare, Dyson spheres and megascale engineering, quantum teleportation and faster-than-light travel — typically exploring hypothetical scenarios extending to the distant future.
In our wide-ranging conversation, we cover many things, including:
- The future of interplanetary travel
- What you didn’t know about the Fermi paradox
- How humanity will likely evolve as we explore space
- The reason we probably won’t terraform planets and where we’ll live instead
- Why material science and meta-materials may be the most important technology of this decade
- The effects of genetic engineering on society
- Two paths to free energy for all
- The reason Isaac thinks we are close to a post-scarcity world
- Why Isaac thinks cybernetics/mechanical human enhancement is more likely than gene editting
- How Isaac build the top Science channel on Youtube
- The reason manmade structures are the habitats of the future
- How AI is likely to evolve and play out in society
- Why our education system is failing and how we can fix it
Website
Commoditizing Complex Satellites, Creating a Renaissance of Space Tech Startups and Combatting Climate Change
Yotam Ariel is the Founder and CEO of Bluefield, a satellite change detection startup that was recent winner of Top 20 NewSpace Awards alongside SpaceX, Virgin Orbit and other innovative space startups. Bluefield use proprietary methane tracking micro-satellites & AI to provide actionable insights and valuable data for farmers maximizing crop yields, governments watching military behavior and much much more.
In our wide-ranging conversation, we cover many things, including:
- How Yotam thinks see satellite space technology changing everyday life
- The space tech convergence of small scale satellites
- Why methane is the new carbon dioxide
- The reason Yotam doesn’t look up to Elon Musk and Richard Branson
- Why we are still a ways off from living in space
- The 80/20 way to think about climate change
- How complexity becomes commodity and creates innovation
- Why Yotam spent 12 years in China and what he learned
- The reason today’s entrepreneurs focus on profitable purpose
- How to start a space tech startup today — and how much it costs
Website
Launching a Space Hotel 200 Miles Above Earth at $792,000 Per Night
Frank Bunger is a veteran technology executive, serial entrepreneur and Founder/CEO at Orion Span — the company that’s building a space hotel (second space station) and looking bring down the cost of visiting and living in space by orders of magnitude. The hotel, named Aurora Station will host 6 individuals at a time for nearly $1M/day, letting everyday folks experience life 200 miles above Earth.
In our wide-ranging conversation, we cover many things, including:
- The future of interstellar space travel
- Why now is the time for space tech startups
- How Frank’s company plans to put a profitable hotel in orbit
- The big problem with putting people into space
- Why we’re still a few years off from a moon or Mars colony
- The importance of sci-fi in technology and invention
- How the shift from public to private space companies is transforming industry
- The effects of ownership and asteroid mining in space
- Frank’s thoughts on the evolution and transformation of humans in space
- The reason Frank views space exploration as merely amplified globalization
- The awesome effects of space technology on the rest of the economy
- What life is like is 200 miles above earth
Website
Growing Meat in a Test Tube to Feed Humanity, Combat Climate Change and Explore Outer Space
Mike Selden is co-founder and CEO of Finless Foods, a food startup that uses cutting-edge cellular-agriculture technologies to grow marine-animal cells, creating fish and seafood products enjoyed around the world. They are working toward a sci-fi, soon-here world where everyone has access to healthy, delectable seafood, without the environmental devastation or the health hazards of traditional fishing and aquatic farming.
In our wide-ranging conversation, we cover many things, including:
- The clean meat revolution and end of animal agriculture
- How Mike’s company Finless Foods is growing fish in a laboratory
- The exciting science of foodtech
- Why people need to embrace GMOs
- How agriculture is increasingly driving climate change
- Why we aren’t far off from growing usable human organs
- How hard it is to fund traditional deep tech
- Why we are entering a foodtech revolution
- How human’s will eat and thrive in space
- Why we need to start pricing pollution into our products
Website
Why VCs Suck at SciFi Tech Investing and Why AI and Synthetic Biology are the Industries of the Future
Pascal Finette is Fastrack’s Executive Director and Singularity University’s Chair for Entrepreneurship & Open Innovation. He focuses on helping change makers tackle the most intractable problems of our times.
In our wide-ranging conversation, we cover many things, including:
- How Pascal thinks about AI and the future of intelligence
- The exciting space technology that no one is talking about
- What happens to nation-states when humanity goes interplanetary
- How and when genetic engineering will start to impact society
- Why synthetic biology may in fact be the most exciting industry of our generation
- How tariffs and NAFTA could affect investment in Canadian startups
- Why traditional venture capital sucks for true moonshot businesses
- Why Pascal is doubtful of a Skynet situation
- Is China’s totalitarian regime a better system
Website
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