079 – Space Travel with Jason DiVenere

Space Travel with Jason DiVenere

“Astronauts who have been in orbit come back and say that after seeing that sight, their lives are forever changed.”  –Jason DiVenere

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[In This Episode][Guest Bio][Additional Notes][Text Transcript]

In This Episode

• What is the best way to get a flight into space if you are not currently an astronaut?

• How serious is space tourism?

• How can we feed that inner drive to explore?

Today’s episode is about exploration which reminds me of a quote by T.S. Elliot.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

That’s a great commentary on getting perspective, but Elliot is not suggesting we can get perspective without exploration. Instead, he is saying to get your rear end up off the couch and go see some new scenery!

You better strap yourself in with a 5-point harness for today’s episode! We are blasting off with Jason DiVenere. Jason loves to explore. For fun, he might hop on a plane to Sydney, Australia, for lunch or an afternoon at the Sydney Opera House. During college, he spent time driving around the Mojave desert in southern California for the DARPA Grand Challenge team at his university.

Somewhere along the way, Jason became enamored with space travel. So in addition to exploring the desert in southern California or flying all over the world, his ultimate goal is to travel in space.

This goal drove him to some interesting lengths, but you’ll have to listen to the rest of the podcast to satisfy your curiosity.

But before we jump in, Jason wanted me to point out that in our interview he is sharing his opinions. We mention Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic, but he is not speaking in anyway for those companies. He is only sharing his experiences and perspectives.

Jason’s story is compelling. He ended up working for the front-runner in space tourism simply because he wanted to go to space and he wouldn’t take “no” for an answer! He’s got curiosity AND grit–both characteristics that we want to see in every teenager.

If your teenager likes to build things but you’re worried that they need more challenge, sign them up for an Inventor Camp near you. Inventor Camp is full of excitement and learning. We use powerful technology, and we don’t dumb down the difficulty. Students get immersed in real scenarios, and versatile, real tools such as 3D printers, computer programming, and electronics.

Parents AND students both tell us, “We can’t believe how much learning happened in just 4 days!”

We want to help you and your kids create the future!

Guest Bio

Jason is currently a Design Engineer for Scaled Composites, where he helped to oversee the design and build out of Scaled’s brand new mission control center, and manage it for multiple flight-test programs. He is responsible for keeping Flight Telemetry operational during flight and ground tests, in addition to ensuring all other aspects of the control room are functioning correctly.

From 2012-2015, Jason served as the liaison between Scaled and Virgin Galactic, focusing on the creation and transfer of SpaceShipTwo, WhiteKnightTwo and RocketMotorTwo technical information (engineering definition, design philosophy, tribal knowledge and physical assets) to Virgin Galactic, enabling the future production of more vehicles.

Jason has been a pilot for 6 years, an EMT for 14, and even spent a few years flying Medevac missions. Jason has worked in consulting, photography, TV advertising, a tech thinktank, but one of the most interesting things he has done has been to force himself to fly 100,000 miles a year for fun (not work related) to keep a high status on United airlines.

Additional Notes

Connect with Jason:

❏ Twitter: @jdivenere

❏ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasondivenere

❏ Instagram: JDIVENERE

Additional Links:

Space tourism:
http://www.space.com/topics/space-tourism/

http://nbcnews.to/1OLLfaQ

Colonizing Mars:
http://www.mars-one.com/
http://www.space.com/31388-elon-musk-colonize-mars-now.html

At Scaled Composites – This is a video that highlights what we do at Scaled. Jason makes a small appearance flying RC airplanes in the background.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuTuTGi2l-8&list=FL_YxGVzMxSp2
MPoWMlI3HDw

Favorite Quote

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something: your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path.” – Steve Jobs

Something Jason Made Recently

Professionally, the last thing I built was a mission control room for Scaled flight test, complete with full bi-directional telemetry.

Personally, I modified one of those self balancing scooters into the hoverboard from Back To The Future Part II for my Marty McFly Halloween costume. See video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FaPBweUDieg

Text Transcript Coming Soon!

“In space tourism, the idea is to get people above the Karman Line which is 100km, or 62 miles. That is internationally recognized as the boundary to space. The US recognizes 50 miles as the boundary to space. So anybody who has been above 50 miles gets their astronaut wings. What we want to do is put people up into suborbital space so they can float around the cabin, see the curvature of the earth, see the blackness of space, and hopefully that’s a life-changing experience for them and shows them we’re all one planet.” –Jason DiVenere

“Astronauts who have been in orbit come back and say that after seeing that sight, their lives are forever changed.”  –Jason DiVenere