Ground Control to Major Investors: Inside the End Game of Paid Space Travel

As the tagline for “Alien” so helpfully reminds us, “In space, no one can hear you scream.”

That’s probably for the best as commercial space flights and projects proliferate, carrying crews not of military-trained fighter pilots and aloof NASA scientists, but of regular people instead.

Thing is, those regular people may scream when blasted into space. In “Star Trek” terms, it goes like this: “Scotty, we need those audio blockers back online! The civilians are screaming!”

Because this is PYMNTS, we were delighted when Jared Isaacman, founder of payment services provider Shift4 Payments, commanded the SpaceX Inspiration 4 mission in September. And because we’re TV generation nerds, William Shatner’s presence onboard Blue Origin’s October launch of its New Shepard spacecraft gave us a feeling of childlike weightless wonder.

Now we’re going boldly where no news item has gone before, looking at the crew of New Shepard’s third launch of humans into space, delayed by high winds to Saturday (Dec. 11).

In terms of star quality, we’ve got former New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan, whose many gigs have included co-anchor of ABC's “Good Morning America," host of "$100,000 Pyramid" and analyst on "Fox NFL Sunday."

Now he can add “astronaut” to his resume. Overachiever.

We’ve also got Laura Shepard Churchley, eldest daughter of NASA astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American in space, and after whom the New Shepard spaceship was respectfully named.

All can agree that Strahan and Shepard Churchley are there mostly for the PR value. But what about the other passengers — or crew, or whatever they technically are?

There’s Dylan Taylor, CEO of space exploration firm Voyager Space, billed as “the Marketplace for Space” because, “in the NewSpace economy, success is often a function of time, as many Founders simply run out of time and, as a result, the support to get across the finish line.”

In the space race of today, running out of time is better than running out of oxygen or fuel. Remember, in space, no one can hear you scream “we’re out of oxygen … and fuel!”

Voyager Space offers everything a commercial spaceflight company needs to get off the ground (seriously) — from IT and legal services to capital sourcing. How long before Amazon just acquires it so you can buy a space capsule with one click, and lots of payments choice?

Also crewing the New Shepard is Evan Dick, an engineer and volunteer pilot with Starfighters Aerospace, which keeps a fleet of F-104s at NASA's Kennedy Space Center for various uses.

He’s another interesting person in a payments sort of way, having previously served in executive posts at investment firms D.E. Shaw and Highbridge Capital Management. Rumor is he’s on a scouting mission for a secret pool of oligarchs who want to buy space.

Like, all of it.

Or that could be something we just fabricated. “In space, no one can hear you joke.”

Then there’s the father-son team of Lane and Cameron Bess.

Lane Bess is a man after our digital payments heart. According to news site The Focus, “he has spent more than 30 years as an operational executive. Between 2008 and 2011, he was chief executive of Palo Alto Networks. Before that, he served as executive vice president of Worldwide Sales and was general manager of Trend Micro, aka Nikkei.”

We count three investor types in a crew of six total. Yes, investor types tend to have the $28 million or so that one tycoon paid Jeff Bezos to be Blue Origin’s first investor-naut. Bezos turned the offer down and gave that seat away, but these three people definitely ponied up.

What does it all mean? Why are people with connections to the payment and investment sectors so overrepresented on this latest Blue Origin flight manifest? We have a theory.

Stay tuned for Jeff Bezos announcing: “The Amazon Flywheel Space Station, Hotel & Spa.”

We hear investors are already going into orbit over the idea. Literally.