New Shepard

My guest today is someone who quite literally redefines what's possible.

Aisha Bowe is a former NASA rocket scientist, a two-time founder, and a citizen astronaut who recently flew to space aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard.

What makes Aisha's story so compelling isn't just the milestones, it's the trajectory, pun intended.

From discovering her love for math in a community college pre-algebra class to building companies, raising VC in a system where fewer than 2% of women reach that threshold, and ultimately funding her own journey to space, she has consistently challenged the idea of who belongs where.

You know the banana taped to a wall? Yep, Sun Yuchen bought it and then he ate the banana.

In 2025, he also paid $28 million for a seat aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard and eventually went to space.

So yeah, this is the type of person we're dealing with here in this side of the story.

He is not someone who is unfamiliar with using a spectacle to generate attention and moves around in these crypto finance circles.

Virgin Galactic's twin-fuselage mothership, called White Knight Two, carried Unity to about fifty thousand feet, released it, and Unity lit its hybrid rocket motor and went vertical.

Branson himself flew on Unity in July of twenty twenty-one, narrowly beating Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin's New Shepard to the punch by nine days.

Whether Unity's apogee on that flight technically crossed the Kármán line was briefly a subject of pointed debate.

The Kármán line sits at one hundred kilometers above mean sea level.

Doesn't make sense

... that were just up next on the New Shepard fl- like the guy that got sick and didn't fly on the last New Shepard flight, and then they canceled it.

[laughs]

Roll up on him, be like, "Here's the jump the line fee."