What exactly is the long-term economic return from space?
Helium 3? Asteroid mining? Dyson: Asteroid mining and the Dyson Sphere [for producing space power]. It’s very far off, but it’s for real. A & S: How about near-term? Just space tourism? Dyson: Insurance. A & S: Against global catastrophe? Dyson: Yeah. Terraforming Mars makes real sense. And science. The ability to grow pharmaceuticals more effectively. A & S: Although the big pharmaceutical companies apparently don’t think so. Dyson: They don’t en masse, because again, they’ve got these short-sighted investors. Maybe it sounds kind of lame, but I think 20 years from now we’ll be very glad we started doing this 30 years ago. A & S: What do you think will be the turning point that makes space enterprise happen faster? Dyson: Probably when Musk has some competition. Just like you had the Tandy Radio Shack versus the Atari. A & S: How many times have you done weightlessness flights? Dyson: Four times in the U.S. with Zero-G, where they try very hard not to get you sick, and twice in Russia
