[THEME MUSIC]
RICHARD GARRIOTT: I'm Richard Garriott.
I'm probably best known for my work in the
computer game field.
If you go back to the beginnings, the roots, high
school in the 1970s, which was right about the same time as
personal computers came into existence, I was inspired by
the books like The Lord of the Rings and games like Dungeons
and Dragons to take this new item, this personal computer,
and started creating fantasy role playing computer games.
My first character that I began to play in role playing
games was known as British because I happened to be born
in Cambridge, England, and some of my first friends, who
I was playing with, thought for some reason that I had a
British accent, which I never did.
I grew up in Houston, so I've never had a British accent.
It was the owner of a computer store that saw this game that
I was working on in the evenings, and said, you know,
Richard, that game is really much better than the few games
that existed in the day, you know, here on the store wall.
Why don't we sell it?
And so I went out and spent what I thought was a huge
amount of money, $200 on ziplock bags and Xerox cover
sheets, and began to sell them on the peg board.
One of those found its way to California, and I was
contacted by one of the first national distributors.
They distributed about 30,000 copies.
My royalties were $5 a unit.
If you do that math, that's about $150,000 for a high
school senior.
And they were the ones who looked at it.
They said, well, you know, Richard Garriott's a fine
name, it's your name.
But Lord British is much more memorable.
Why don't we just drop Richard Garriott, and we'll leave Lord
British on as the author?
I've been Lord British for more than half my life now, so
I actually feel strangely comfortable adopting the
persona of Lord British in the real world, as much as in the
virtual world.
My first published game was called Akalabeth, which was
really the prequel, effectively, to the series
that I wrote for 25 years or more called Ultima.
And published the first Ultima in about 1981, and in total,
produced nine of the solo player Ultimas,
plus a few spin offs.
I also produced Ultima Online, the first of what is now
called a massively multiplayer online game.
Instead of playing by yourself on a computer, which is
traditionally the way most computer games are played, in
this case your computer is really just a terminal, a
graphics terminal connected through the internet to a big
central server where everyone in the world who is playing
the game can see each other, can play together, either
cooperatively or against each other, in the same gigantic
virtual world.
So Tabula Rasa is the first non-Ultima game
I've done in decades.
Instead of fighting medieval monsters, players use
wormholes to travel through a variety of planets in space
and fight against the evil alien hoard that has invaded
the Earth and wiped out our homeland.
As part of the, what I call promotional event for the
launch of Tabula Rasa, we tried to create what you might
call a reality bridge, and try to prove the truth of some of
what you might call the magical, or superpower aspects
of Tabula Rasa.
So I hired a whole slew of magicians who could come in
and do things like spoon bending, or other kind of--
had mental powers to physically affect,
telekinetically, the world in which we lived, to showcase
how here in Austin, here at my home we actually were
discovering and uncovering some of these powers that
ultimately would be similar to what showed up in the game.
We then bussed everybody over to the property where I'm
building my new home where, as we were digging the
foundations of the new home, some of these
artifacts were uncovered.
And then we set up a big event there.
We had a huge pyrotechnics show that included not only
lights and sound but also explosions and gunfire.
But my brother happens to be a helicopter pilot, so we
actually had him come in and swoop in with helicopters with
lights and had police cars and the whole Men in Black kind of
confrontation between the aliens and the human defenses.
So I'm a big believer in the quote that I believe Arthur C.
Clarke coined, that any technology, sufficiently
advanced, is indistinguishable from magic.
And as you may know, right beside us, actually, is one of
these devices.
So this is a very special material
known as ferrous fluid.
And it basically is oil impregnated with iron filings,
or rust, really.
Iron oxide.
So it's not sharp in a sense of you can't injure yourself
on it, but it is sharp in the sense of it is you're coming
up to a perfect point.
In this table, I've built a collection of electromagnets,
that if you power on these electromagnets, will create
magnetic fields that will come up through this oil.
And then this ferrous fluid will try to form along those
magnetic field lines and create three-dimensional
shapes rising up out of a liquid.
I enjoy, you know, exploring the real world just as much as
I enjoy exploring the virtual world.
And creatively, I enjoy creating virtual worlds just
as much as I enjoy creating physical, practical things,
like unusual homes or other big, interactive themed events
that are physical.
Virtual exploration is really only one piece of the puzzle
of the richness of the tapestry of life.
And so I think it will remain a very popular portion, but I
don't think there's any chance, really, of people
tuning out of the real world and locking in permanently
into their virtual existence.
Welcome to my home.
I actually call this Britannia Manor, and right as you come
into the interior of my house, you'll begin to see there's
already some unusual features.
Swords and crossbows here.
We then built this steel structure, upon which is
mounted the telescope that's in my observatory.
This is actually the highest point in the
entire city of Austin.
I actually got a topographical map out, and that's how I
selected this property.
That's how I selected this property, was actually to
identify the best place to put a telescope to get a nice, 360
degree view of the horizon, which we get up here in the
observatory dome.
The homes I build are very much manifestations of the
same creative drive that you see that goes into the games
and other events that I produce.
They function as a normal house, but they're also big,
what you might call personal playscapes.
So they're filled with secret passageways throughout, and an
observatory, and dungeons, indoor, outdoor pools, and
artificial rain.
And then of course all my collections of collections.
It's a habit I picked up my mother, actually, I think, is
to be this level of pack rat, you might say.
This is my home office, where I keep a lot of my recent
artifacts from my space trip, including, these are some of
the items I took with me to space and back.
So now we'll go down to what I happen to call the medieval
portion of the house.
And I've got some nice astronomy prints, and you'll
also begin to see some of the more unusual bits
of art in the house.
These are actually preserved octopus tentacles that are
here in these containers.
And then in here, in the upper floor of what you might call
the study, a collection from my childhood, so to speak.
I'm obviously a big fan of The Lord of the Rings.
I've got not only first editions but--
those are first editions--
these are pre-first-editions.
Pre-publication editions.
Proof copies.
So here on the upper floor of the study, one of the common
questions is, how do we get downstairs?
Because of course, there is no obvious route between the two.
There's no staircases or doorways.
And the solution to that involves this surface.
And in this surface, I've inserted 18 magnetic sensors.
In fact, there's a drop panel on this side with nine, and
there's actually nine more that I don't
generally use on this side.
And in this kind of eyeballs and teeth thing that my mother
made for me, I've inserted magnets up inside of it.
And so now if you move this device in the right pattern
over those magnetic sensors, that little click has
unlatched a magnetic latch that lets us into this secret
passageway.
We can go down this spiral staircase here to the lower
floor of the study to the dungeon.
And the dungeon, of course, is the room full of dead things.
Some recently, some long dead, as well as a
few pieces of art.
This is a velociraptor skeleton
that's actually a cast.
And this is also a piece of art.
But most of the other things in here are real, including my
dead friend that I call Pedro.
This is the skull of an African elephant.
Across here on the side of the room, these are authentic
South American shrunken heads.
I have a number of vampire hunting kits.
Everything from, like, a human fetus that I have here in this
jar to a human heart.
These are Borneo headhunter human trophy skulls and the
skills of everything from African lions and prehistoric
cave bears, creatures and critters
from around the globe.
In the living room, of course, we have the normal things--
couches, chairs, stereos and TVs--
but we also have something unusual in my house, which, of
course, is the continuation of the secret passageway network.
And so if I reach in this drawer and reach up into the
ceiling, I'm actually pulling a little latch.
And then if you come over here, and you look at this
innocent looking mirror, this is really a
secret passageway entrance.
This is actually one of two Sputniks that I own.
So this is the first one that I own.
And the other one's up in the automaton room that I'll take
you to momentarily.
I'm sure that this is the largest collection of
contemporary automatons.
But physically assembled to create something really
masterful, artistically.
And so I find these to be a good, what I call, physical
analogy to what we do.
Naturalist catching butterflies, with an alien
catching him.
This one actually requires looking in this little hole.
So this one is the American execution.
We electrocute our victims.
And so here is this guy being prepared for
the electric chair.
The doctors are checking him out.
They're checking the voltages of the machine.
They lower it down, the thing on his head.
Turning, glowing red while he's being electrocuted.
And he's killed.
He's playing music only the dead can hear, so that's why
you can't hear it.
And even outside, there's fun things, like I've got a pond
with a bridge and little cabanas and things out on it.
I've got a three-horse carousel that operates out in
the front yard.
Literally, throughout my entire professional career,
I've been investing in the privatization of space,
helping to unlock the gates of private space travel.
I fancy myself a gentleman explorer, you might say.
On October 12, I launched to the
International Space Station.
And I went there on board a Russian Soyuz rocket, actually
called a Soyuz TMA 13.
You know, that's a pretty spectacular
day, you might say.
I'd already spent about nine months in Russia, training.
In the long-term future of the Earth, there's no question
that something apocalyptic will occur.
We someday will probably be struck by an asteroid that
will destroy most of life on the Earth, it's only a
question of when.
We may unleash nuclear holocaust.
Maybe.
That seems unlikely today, but we've been through cycles
where it seems more likely, so it might happen again.
You know, biological problems that are pandemics that could
come up, I think are also a practical risk.
And so if you add all that up, one of the best ways for
humanity to ensure that we survive into the future is to
make sure we have isolated settlements around the
universe, in which case an apocalypse on one won't wipe
out the whole species.
I very much agree with that, that that's one very
compelling reason that humanity really does need to
spread beyond the surface of the Earth.
The only debate in my mind is how urgently should you feel
that that's necessary.
And I personally believe there's no time like the
present, so let's get to work.
Walking up to a fully fueled rocket, which has kerosene and
liquid oxygen, so it's frozen to well below freezing.
So the whole vehicle is covered with frost, and any
air coming near it is turning into fog, and streaming down
the sides of this rocket.
You know, you squeeze yourself in, and on a Soyuz, you
literally squeeze yourself in through the hatches and get
down into your seat.
And one of my jobs is to push the button that starts up the
operation of the vehicle.
Then when the countdown reaches zero, the thing lights
up, and it's funny--
it's a relatively gentle ride into space.
The g-forces start very minimal but slowly and
steadily increase to about 4 and 1/2 g's.
And after about eight minutes at 4 and 1/2 g's, the engines
cut off, and you're in space.
Before I flew--
you know, you always hear about things that people have
said, like once you go to space and you see the Earth
from such a distance, and you see the world without the
boundaries between countries and things, how it changes
your perception of life and humanity's place on Earth.
It's pretty amazing to look out at the edge of the Earth
and see the thin veil of the atmosphere clinging to the
very round Earth you can see from space.
And so you feel, still, very intimate with the surface of
the Earth in ways that I found unexpected.
The next thing you begin to notice is how every fertile
place on the Earth that you travel over is now fully
occupied by people.
There is no place that you might describe as easy to
occupy that isn't already occupied.
While there was no one moment where I'd say a-ha, I've had
an epiphany, I now have a changed perception of humanity
and Earth, it really is something that
builds on you over time.
It really is truly there.
So upon my return, I can definitely now reflect on it
and say that absolutely, I believe that my perception of
what I call the fragility of the Earth and the human
footprint on the Earth is absolutely changed.
My father is an astronaut, so I grew up in a household where
space felt very normal.
And in fact, not only was my father an astronaut, but my
right-hand next door neighbor was a guy named Joe Engle,
another astronaut.
My left-hand next door neighbor was Hoot Gibson,
another astronaut.
Everyone in my neighborhood was involved in some way in
putting people into space.
And so I kind of grew up believing
everybody would go to space.
And when I was a young teenager, I was actually at
NASA one time, and one of the NASA flight physicians was
giving me an eye test.
And my eyesight was fairly poor when I was young.
And they said, oh, you know, I'm so sorry, Richard, but you
know, your poor eyesight's gonna prevent you from ever
being selected as a NASA astronaut.
And for me, that was like being told, hey, by the way,
you are no longer eligible for the club that everyone you
know is a member of.
Prior to that moment, I don't think I was particularly
devoted to getting my way into space until I was
told, you can't go.
I spent two days living onboard the Soyuz while we
were catching up to and matching orbits to
dock with the ISS.
I then spent 10 days onboard the space station, doing a
wide variety of experiments.
Uh, yeah, I would definitely say that this has met and, in
many ways, exceeded my expectations.
There's no question that I've already begun to think about
the next trip up.
MALE SPEAKER: How have your found your zero-g
artwork to be going?
RICHARD GARRIOTT: Well, I did create the zero-g artwork.
I came up with a glove box in which I could release my paint
without risking painting the walls of the station, and
created some art that I'll be bringing back, so you can
judge for yourself.
With this trip, I was trying to study and analyze how
private citizens might be able to contribute to the success
here in space.
And I'll have a lot more thoughts for that
when I come back down.
Thanks.
Station this is KSC PAO.
That's the final question here from Florida.
We're now going to toss you briefly back to Houston.