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00:00People may not know the history behind the relationship between the X Prize and Virgin Galactic but it was the X Prize that identified the very model of the space plane. If you were all that Virgin Galactic then bought or licensed and you know ultimately is what what Richard Branson was riding in this dates back to the mid 90s. I mean what was it like for you to see that space plane succeed. It brought back such great memories and it was fulfilling to to watch this come full circle basically my dream came true in 2006 going to space but my first step toward going to space was funding the Ansari X Prize which was the 10 million dollar competition. Twenty six teams from seven countries competed. One was scaled combusted with a design from Burt Rutan funded by Paul Allen. And that's the winning design the Spaceship One which Virgin Galactic license and created a larger version of it with Spaceship 2 and what we saw take flight just on Sunday. And it was wonderful to see that this exciting step what we took in democratizing space and making it accessible ended up opening up a whole new chapter in commercialization of space. And now we can show that it's possible for more people to experience. Maybe it's a glimpse of it with experience what I experience in on the space station and going to space and being able to have what is called the overview effect which is a life changing experience. Now what's so innovative about the design of this spacecraft is that it changes shape in flight in space for a safe reentry. And it's very different than the traditional up and down rocket. Traditional rocket technology that Blue Origin is using. How would you compare the two. Well as you said the Virgin design is very different. It's a two stage weight. The rocket basically playing a role when you are to the thickest part of the atmosphere. So the first part feels like just the plane ride and then the rocket hits and then you go up very rapidly to go to about close to 60 kilometers. And and the landing also is very different because as you mentioned it's like the shuttle where you have a glider sort of coming in like it or a plane and landing on the runway with the New Shepard. You have a parachute landing and the rocket is just taking off from the ground to the thickest part of the atmosphere. It's more similar to what I did on my Soyuz mission where the rocket launch and a parachute landing the parachute landing could be a little bit more uncomfortable. Of course landing just like in an airplane. It's a lot more comfortable writing for the passengers. Also another big difference is that the Virgin flight has two pilots on board. So it's piloted versus the Virgin flight versus the new Shepherd flight the Blue Origin flight which is all automated. So everyone onboard are passengers. And in on the Virgin Galactic side you have four passengers and two pilots. It definitely is theoretically a little more terrifying to imagine coming up with a pilot at all. I mean so what do you as somebody who has gone up into space been a private space explorer yourself you have you have experience that who offers a better experience who will offer better experiences at Virgin Galactic or Blue Origin to just you know regular humans who you who've never done this before but at least at this point can afford to pay up. So it's hard for me to judge since I have not flown either. We had close. Only thing I have is my own experience and what I can come up with based on that experience. So dried. Now I don't know. Mentally having pilots onboard helps and the landing on Virgin seems more comfortable. But I have to experience Blue Origin's flight to save for sure. But I think from a price point also right now there's no price point for the ticket said on Blue Origin and the auction riding I don't know. Twenty eight million dollars which was extraordinary amounts of money for a limited seven minutes flight. However on Virgin the ticket prices were about two hundred thousand dollars. So more people it's still both very high prices but two hundred thousand dollars price for a ticket. It's much more affordable and at least to a larger portion of the population. Ultimately I think the prices have to and will come down as more flights take place. And this initial you know supply demand issue gets resolved just like you know very early days of aviation. But I think that that's ultimately the case.

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XPrize CEO on Kickstarting the Space Tourism Race

XPrize Foundation CEO Anousheh Ansari discusses being the first female spaceflight participant, Virgin Galactic's spaceplane and the 2004 Ansari XPrize competition that kickstarted the commercial space race. She speaks with Emily Chang on "Bloomberg Technology." (Source: Bloomberg)

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