Dylan Taylor Archives - Economic Insider

How Space Exploration Created the AgTech Revolution

Economic Insider Staff on August 22, 2023

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From healthcare to telecom, innovations created in space have filtered down and transformed various sectors across the globe. One industry that many people often don’t realize that space technology is helping to transform is agriculture.

Dylan Taylor, the CEO and co-founder of Voyager Space and a leading thought leader in the space sector, has offered his firsthand knowledge of how important space technology is to AgTech’s evolution.

“The value that space innovation has already created here on Earth is immeasurable,” says Taylor.

How exactly, then, has space helped advance agriculture technology here on Earth? Quite simply, space technology allows us to look down at the entire surface of our planet to see what is happening on the surface and in the skies above. We can do this with great precision in ways that human eyes cannot see. We can do this 24/7/365 and transmit this data to any farm on Earth.

Through innovative space technologies we have developed new ways grow food in enclosed environments with limited resources in space, on the surfaces of the worlds human explorers will visit, and in a myriad number of places on Earth where agriculture is problematical.

Vertical Farming

Vertical farming is a multi-story building with layers of crops growing in each section. It was first created by Dr. Dickson Despommier, a Columbia University environmental health sciences professor and his large team of graduate students. Around this time, NASA also began to utilize LED lights which became a game changer for growing vertical farming to help deliver specific, preferred wavelengths for each different crop and deliver optimum growing conditions.

The benefits from vertical farming are numerous. For one, vertical farms have higher yields than ordinary farms and can produce an equivalent around 4-6 soil-based acres. Vertical farms offer a year-round growing season, protected from poor weather, droughts or pests.

According to Dylan Taylor, “Vertical farms are also much more sustainable – both for the crops themselves and the Earth. They operate without the need for pesticides or herbicides, and since they don’t need farm equipment, use (and produce) minimal fossil fuels.”

Vertical farming is now one of the fastest-growing innovations in agriculture and experts are looking to grow more crops within them in the future, including wheat, corn and soy, preserving farmland and resources, mentions Taylor.

AgTech Tools

The Apollo Moon landings helped foster new protocols for food safety and storage.

Almost everyone in the agriculture field has since adopted the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) system. Created for astronaut food during the Apollo missions, it focuses on hazard analysis, identifies critical points and determines how hazards are preventable, controlled or eliminated. This helps monitor those points with frequent measurements. Now, this same model helps food companies to deliver safe, quality food assurance to everyday citizens.

Dylan Taylor says, “We are now seeing tremendous potential for research and technological advancement for AgTech in space. These applications will both enable future prolonged extraterrestrial habitation, as well as improve agricultural practices here on Earth.”

Seed Film and Novel Seeds

NASA is currently bioengineering seeds aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to learn how to develop plants that can better thrive in the space environment. Seed film is an impressive innovation involving a water-soluble polymer placed into the seed. It allows for many seeds to be stored and controlled at once, with nutrients added to help stimulate growth. Seed films can then help protect crops from stressors present in the microgravity of space.

One example of how advanced technology, agricultural science, private investment, and educational research are coming together in space is StarLab Oasis. Starlab Oasis is an agricultural research firm acquired by Voyager Space company that is using the space environment’s unique microgravity environment microgravity, deep space radiation, and launch vibrations tool to develop crop seeds with novel, beneficial traits. China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation reports that in-space crop breeding with seeds exposed to cosmic radiation in space, has produced “over 200 plant and fruit varieties, including rice, wheat, cotton, and tomatoes; that’s $29.9 billion over 1.3 million tonnes of food”.

If implemented, seed film technology and novel seeds developed via the space environment, can become viable options for farmers on Earth looking to ensure that crops stay resilient and guard against environmental stress. More efficient and productive crop plants will help mitigate waste, energy and also help provide a cleaner environment that could potentially provide more food.

Artificial Photosynthesis And Plants That Grow In The Dark

The process whereby plants convert sunlight into energy that can be used for metabolism, photosynthesis, has now been tamed by space scientists. A recent study in the journal Nature Communications describes how the biological process has been installed on a special computer chip to create an artificial photosynthesis device. This could be used as part of a life support system on the Moon or Mars – or – it could be used in remote locations on Earth.

A research paper in the journal Nature Food also describes novel agricultural innovations with dual space-based and Earth-based applications. Researchers at the University of California Riverside have come up with a way to grow plants without sunlight – using chemical nutrients instead. Again, this has great potential for use on the Moon and Mars as well as in harsh locations on Earth in polar regions where sunlight is often limited for long periods.

The Promise of AgTech And Space Technology

Taylor explains, “The list of AgTech innovations from space that can benefit Earth is extensive and will continue to grow as resources and research opportunities increase. Space will certainly play a pivotal role in helping us create affordable and sustainably nutritious food for all humanity.”

With an increasing number of space stations pursuing space life science and agricultural research in space, the pace of this resource will only hasten with even greater potential benefits to the farmers of Earth – and the consumers of their crops.

Oh yes – we’re going back to the Moon – to stay and then on to Mars. These same agricultural advances will also serve to support our explorers as they set foot on new worlds.

How Voyager Space is Changing Space Exploration

Economic Insider Staff on June 6, 2023

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Voyager Space, a trailblazing company in the NewSpace sector, stands at the precipice of the new era of commercial space exploration. The current goals of space travel revolve around ideas of sustainability and resilience. Contractors are developing reusable rockets, miniature submersible robots, and 3D printers that can repurpose the resources found in space. Space travel is looking at the Moon, Mars, and even beyond. According to Voyager Space CEO and Chairman Dylan Taylor, “It takes a planet to explore the universe.” With a focus on globalization, sustainability, and equity in space, Voyager is revolutionizing the path forward.

As the current space infrastructure ages, Voyager provides tools to support the growing industry. Starlab will serve as a continuously manned commercial space station available to global space programs but driven by American industrialization. Central to scientific ventures in space, Starlab will engender industrial activity and ensure ease of access globally to LEO. Voyager also has outposts at multiple levels of the atmosphere. These uncrewed satellites serve as refueling stations and promise further personalization as they advance. The future of outposts includes robotics, human activity, and satellite servicing. As space travel advances, Voyager Space looks to launch aspirations smoothly beyond Earth.

The Bishop airlock is the first permanent commercial addition to the International Space Station. It serves as a symbol of what commercial space tools can accomplish. Government space is only capable of so much on its own. It can move 5x the capacity of government airlocks. The future of airlocks promises ease in maintenance, equipment transfer, and trash deployment.

Voyager’s launch services allow a variety of customers to reach space for a variety of reasons. They are dedicated to using cutting-edge space technology to help solve society’s most pressing environmental and social vulnerabilities while ensuring our future in space reflects humanity’s values of diversity, equity, and inclusivity. Voyager can help launch satellites, research stations, microgravity testing, and mobile fueling systems, among others. Voyager wants to ensure that your venture into space is fully tested, encouraging the commercialization of space.

Space is already vital to our life on Earth, a point often expressed by Dylan Taylor. Satellites are vital to communication between many bodies on Earth, governments, corporations, and individuals. Individuals use their phones. Satellites view things at a scale from above that nothing else matches, providing data on military movements and geography. Secure, high-speed wireless communication is one of the necessities of further space exploration as well. Most of Voyager’s investments have a two-fold approach. The advancements made in space double back and improve human lives on Earth. Dylan Taylor also looks forward to consumer items produced in space with fewer impurities caused by gravity that are then sent back to Earth to be sold. “There are items that have far superior quality when manufactured in space, but need to be returned to Earth to be purchased and used by customers,” says Taylor. Space will become a frontier for higher-quality goods.

The future of space is hope. Scientists have managed to grow plants in lunar soil. While the plants were weak and differed from the healthy plants of their typical soil, the information from the study will pay it forward. What will space travel and a lack of gravity do to the human brain? How much better are space-made goods than ones made on Earth? As Voyager’s missions prevail, these questions and more are on the path to being answered. The more efficiently these questions are interrogated with Voyager’s help, the deeper humanity can reach into space and create a more profound sense of self and knowledge of the universe, science and questions about life we may have never thought possible to answer.

Dylan Taylor on the Rise of Commercial Space Travel

Economic Insider Staff on January 23, 2023

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Nearly 1,000 people and organizations have won Nobel Prizes since 1901. And according to Forbes, the world counted 2,668 billionaires in 2022. Yet in late 2021, Dylan Taylor became just the 606th person to go to space.

This means that humans are more likely to become billionaires or win Nobel Prizes than they are to visit space. For now.

“That is going to change,” Taylor said. “I think if you pick any room of 100 people in any city over the next 5-6 years, someone in that room will know an astronaut.”

The Harvard Business Review announced in 2021 that “the commercial space age is here,” an era for which Tayor has been an advocate and guide. Taylor, chairman and CEO of Voyager Space, predicts that the growing commercial space market will produce more astronauts by 2025 than during any other decade. The space entrepreneur and Blue Origin citizen astronaut expects more than 100 new astronauts to follow him across the Kármán Line over the next three years and into a new cosmic economy.

Taylor, who flew aboard Blue Origin’s third human spaceflight in December 2021, always believed in the transformational power of space. Though he spent just 11 minutes — about three of them weightless — aboard NS-19, Taylor returned to Earth even more convinced.

“It’s not only transformational but penetrative,” Taylor told author, Frank White. “Even if you have some kind of detox and say, ‘space is bad,’ for some reason, I don’t think you could remove it from your core. It’s such a part of your psyche that I don’t think you could reverse the process.”

Beyond his acknowledged romanticism, Dylan Taylor regards space as an economic frontier with thrilling potential. Companies such as Blue Origin, Space X, and Virgin Galactic have unlocked commercial space travel by achieving the once-daunting through incremental steps: private investment, reusable rockets, and a roar of start-up research. They even joined an 18- and 82-year-old on a suborbital flight.

Commercial space flight is drawing more entrepreneurial adventurers to this frontier economy. Space Adventures, for instance, has facilitated private-citizen visits to the International Space Station — for an estimated $50 million.

Space Perspective is booking travelers aboard a high-altitude balloon hoisting a “Space Lounge” with drinks, a restroom, and wifi. Orbite offers ground training for those preparing to visit (or perhaps live and work) in space.

These adventures are pricey (Virgin Galactic began selling tickets for $450,000) but will expand their customer base as companies lower costs through rocket reusability and new fuels. Until then, Taylor said, people should recalculate the suggestion that space appeals only to the rich.

“Why care about a bunch of rich early entrants going to space? It’s a valid question,” Taylor said. “Because it stimulates interest. Space funding is based on public sentiment and national security assessments. Public sentiment matters. To the extent we can promote space and space’s power to transform us all, it helps us all.”

Voyager Space is among several companies building private-enterprise space stations devoted to science, commerce, and tourism. The company intends to have Starlab operational before the ISS is decommissioned. Axiom Space is constructing a station with plans to launch its first section into low.

Anticipating the continued growth of space travel and commerce, NASA announced its commercial LEO development plan in 2019. As the U.S. agency returns to the Moon via the Artemis program, it has developed a series of short- and long-term initiatives that eventually will transfer LEO operations to the private sector.

“A robust and competitive low-Earth economy is vital to continued progress in space,” NASA reported.

This means more opportunities for everyone to benefit from commercial space travel. Imagine flying around the Moon. The dearMoon mission aboard SpaceX’s Starship has plans to take civilians in 2023. And imagine boarding a rocket, instead of a plane, for the 32-minute trip from Los Angeles to Paris. SpaceX says it will happen.

Ultimately, Taylor said, commercial space travel will leverage growing demand, lower costs, and private investment to scale into what Morgan Stanley projects as a $1 trillion industry. That will inspire a new generation of space enthusiasts and STEM experts, leading humankind into a stellar future.

Imagine a time when space becomes our industrial and manufacturing sector and Earth transforms into a global park.

“The idea is, how do we engender in our young people a sense of hope that they can be part of this space revolution that we’re going through?” says Dylan Taylor. “And that anybody can go to space. I believe in the life-changing powers of space.”

Dylan Taylor Creates Significant Strides to Make Space Accessible to Everyone

Economic Insider Staff on October 25, 2022

Various established authorities are motivated to succeed in hundreds of thousands of ways. Some are fueled by the idea of being able to generate a massive amount of wealth or gain tremendous fame, while others are driven by the thought of being able to translate one’s dream into reality. In the case of Dylan Taylor, his desire to bring about positive change to society has inspired him to climb the pinnacles of greatness. Today, he leads the space exploration industry to catalyze transformation and impact the lives of many by making space accessible to everyone.

Exploring space may seem far-fetched to many, but today’s industries tell us otherwise. As the International Space Station is slated to decommission sometime in the year 2031, there is a need to build more space stations. Before this decade ends, several new stations will likely find a spot amid the stars. Additionally, several entities are determined to expand the reach of space travel and exploration. Nonprofit organizations such as The Girls in Aerospace Foundation, AstroAccess, and the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship are currently trying to diversify space exploration and make future habitats more accessible. With these markers, it was clear to Dylan Taylor that space would become part of people’s day-to-day lives in the near future. Thus, the visionary, along with his team, planned to lead the change and make his first move.

Although making a significant change in the world may seem complicated, let alone introducing space exploration to normalcy, creating significant strides comes as a reflex for Dylan Taylor. As a global business leader, philanthropist, and active pioneer of the industry with extensive experience under his arsenal, this emerging powerhouse has dedicated his career to revolutionizing and carving unfamiliar yet rewarding paths. As a matter of fact, he has been cited by Harvard University, SpaceNews, BBC, Pitchbook, CNBC, CNN, and others, for his influential role in shaping the industry. Dylan has also earned his commercial astronaut wings with the FAA. Currently serving as the chairman and CEO of Voyager Space – a multi-national space exploration firm that acquires and integrates leading space exploration enterprises globally – Dylan is bound to spark more extraordinary changes in the years to come.

Dylan Taylor emphasized his deep-seated love for the trade when asked about his motivation for entering and dominating the space exploration industry. His passion for the craft can be seen through his nonprofit organization, Space for Humanity, which seeks to democratize space exploration. He also became the first private citizen to create an item used in space. Proving to be passionate about his vision of the future, Dylan also regularly speaks and writes about the future of the space economy.

Through the years, Dylan Taylor has garnered numerous accolades that recognize his massive contributions to the trade. He was recently recognized by the Commercial Spaceflight Federation with their top honor for business and finance, following the footsteps of the previous honoree, the late Paul Allen.

As Dylan Taylor continues to translate his passion-driven vision into action, he aims not only to make space accessible but also to inspire the next generation of changemakers to look into the industry. Through his initiatives, he hopes that space exploration will expand and become a widely popular industry in the years to come.