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The importance of Spacex's civilian launch

"Spacex is by far the most diversified of all of these space companies,” Procure AM CEO Andrew Chanin tells Yahoo Finance about Elon Musk's space company.

Video transcript

SEANA SMITH: SpaceX is set to make history tonight. The company, which is led by Elon Musk, is set to launch four civilians this time into space. It's going to be live-streamed on Netflix. We want to talk a little bit more about what this means for the industry and what this means for investment opportunity. And for that, we want to bring in Andrew Chanin. He's the CEO of ProcureAM. Andrew, we've talked about this in the past, but when you see a huge milestone like the one that we're expected to see tonight when it comes to SpaceX, I guess how significant would you say this is for the industry?

ANDREW CHANIN: I think this could be a phenomenal step forward for the industry. We've seen many firsts of its kind launches and space tourism types of events and missions just over this summer. However, this is one that could be even more impressive if everything is able to go off successfully and smoothly because this is further showcasing how Elon Musk and SpaceX is able to demonstrate their technology, specifically in reusable rockets, and being able to send civilians to space for a multi-day trip also borders on space tourism-- another emerging part of the space economy. But to the extent that they're able to continuously reduce costs for launch, it's something that could open up the industry for many more players and clients in the future.

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ADAM SHAPIRO: It is just beyond cool, it's just very exciting when you think they're going to go higher than the International Space Station. And they're actually going to orbit, because that's the-- I don't want to get into whether the billionaires who already went up really went up or not, but this is the real thing.

So when this happens successfully, and we'll all get to watch it on Netflix, how do you monetize it if you can't bring those of us in the middle class in to enjoy it? Because when you're spending millions and millions of dollars to go up there to maybe lose your lunch, how do the rest of us get that experience?

ANDREW CHANIN: Well, if you look at this specific mission, you know, three of these individuals aren't paying out of pocket to be enjoying this mission. And certainly, there's opportunity in the future for other types of charitable endeavors that could also have people sign up and enter a chance to win a select few seats on one of these missions. So in that way, it could be potentially accessible for people that aren't maybe billionaires.

However, you know, by being able to do this, they're going to be driving their competitors to work harder to drive their prices down. And by showcasing this technology as successful, this could open up new research missions and other types of opportunities for think even universities, more government agencies, even militaries and companies. And to the extent that they're able to do this and conduct more research on board these various missions-- Sometimes when we do things for space and we think we're doing it for one reason, we come back and we have all these amazing after effects that actually benefit people here on Earth. So there could be many potential ways that this could benefit everyone here on Earth-- and maybe not necessarily on this mission, but potentially in future ones.

SEANA SMITH: Andrew, speaking of competition, I guess, how would you square SpaceX with some of the other names-- I mean, there's only a few-- but some of the other bigger players out there in the industry?

ANDREW CHANIN: So of the three companies that are now attempting to showcase their capabilities for space tourism-- SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and Blue Origin-- SpaceX is by far the most diversified of all these space companies. There are many different revenue streams, they have many existing government contracts and beyond, and they're doing many different things currently and already have plans to do them in the future.

So to the extent that space tourism isn't a major revenue stream for this company, it may not be the end of the world. Whereas a company like Virgin Galactic is heavily dependent on its success in space tourism. That said, this type of mission where we're sending civilians to space for multiple days-- although we don't know the price tag of this-- would likely be significantly more expensive than one of these other options offered by Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin.

So if money is absolutely no option, maybe someone would decide, hey, you know what? I want to spend a couple of days in space, because, you know, why am I spending all this money if I don't get to fully immerse myself and get to experience this? Whereas, you know, people where they might be a little bit more price sensitive-- obviously, you still have to be fairly wealthy in order to afford several hundred thousand or several million dollr trip to space, it still might be catering to a completely different part of the market.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Hey, real quick, one last question for you-- we pay attention to the big names, but we've had on this program Rocket Labs repeatedly. And shouldn't we also-- they're a big time player in this.

ANDREW CHANIN: Sure. So we have a lot of companies that are in earlier stages. Rocket Lab, certainly, a launch company-- SpaceX is a major competitor for many players out there. You know, I think there's potentially room for several different players to be successful in the area of space tourism. Certainly, the biggest part that I think and consumers are looking for is which will provide the safest experience while also providing the enjoyment factor.

We talk about space tourism-- you know, it's a vacation. So you really want to enjoy it. So to the extent that there's someone that's able to provide a cost effective solution and do it in a way that people can really actually enjoy the experience, get to move about the cabin and experience zero gravity and weightlessness, those are things that people will have to consider when signing up.

But it's tough to say who the winner is right now. But certainly, it's great that everyone gets to view on the world scale what each of these companies are offering.

SEANA SMITH: Andrew Chanin, CEO of ProcureAM, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today.