September 30, 2025 • 26 mins
In this episode of Hello Future, host Kevin Cirilli speaks with Rich Cooper of the Space Foundation about the rapidly expanding space economy and its impact on American jobs. They discuss how private industry is driving breakthroughs—ranging from commercial space stations to the potential of lunar mining—while delivering real-world benefits here on Earth. From national security to medical advancements, space technology is reshaping industries and strengthening U.S. leadership. With the sector projected to top $1 trillion by 2032, Cooper makes the case for why investing in space is not just about exploration—it’s about building America’s economic future.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Is your next job or maybe your kid's next job
going to be an outer space? That's the big question.
Hello Future, it's me keV. This is a dispatch from
the Digital Frontier. The planet is Earth. The year is
twenty twenty five. Did you see this interview from Sam Altman,
the OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman. I was reading about it
(00:27):
on Fortune Fortune dot com. He gave this interview that
really captured my attention because he's giving advice to gen Z.
I don't know if gen Z thinks they need the advice,
but gen Z the advice about where their future jobs
are going to be. And he made the comment to
video journalist Cleo Abram and he said, quote in twenty
(00:50):
thirty five that graduating college student, if they still go
to college at all, could very well be leaving on
a mission to explore the Solar System on a spaceship
in some completely new, exciting, super well paid, super interesting
job end quote. This is what they're talking about, folks.
(01:10):
I mean, this is in the next decade. And my
guest today is someone who has been on the futures
frontlines for his entire career. His name is Richard Cooper.
Rich is what he says, I can call him. He's
the vice president of Strategic Communications for the Space Foundation
and he's based at the Space Foundation's Washington, DC office.
(01:31):
He oversees all strategic communication for the Space Foundation. He
was most recently the Senior Policy Policy Advisor for Homeland
Security and Justice at the SAS Institute. Rich first of all,
tell us first and foremost what the Space Foundation is
and what it does well.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Kevin, First off, it's great to be with you. Thank
you for the opportunity to chat with you and your
team and your audience. The Space Foundation has been around
for over forty years. We are headquartered out of Colorado Springs,
and when it started, there were a number of former
military people as well as industry people that look at
(02:13):
what was happening in the opening of the Shuttle era
and again also at the height of the Cold War
and saw an opportunity that we needed to be doing
more to bring members of the than growing space community
together to help better inform policy decisions, help the public
better understand how space impacts their daily lives, but then
(02:37):
also provide support to teachers and the public at large
to better understand what roles and opportunities and benefits that
they get from space. So for more than forty years
we have been bringing members of the global space community
together for the annual Space Symposium that we do in
the spring of every year in Colorado Springs. Space and
(02:59):
Posium is now come the premier gathering of a global
space community. And by doing that, when you can bring
persons from more than sixty countries together that are all
doing space, we all share the same space, but we
all may be looking and interacting and doing things a
bit differently from one another. That's an opportunity for conversation,
(03:20):
collaboration and opportunity. And Space Foundation superpower really is convening
people together. And space is the table that we set
around and look where there are look where there are
opportunities for us to collaborate and advance the benefits that
space can bring to life here on Earth.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So I met Rich earlier this year through a mutual
friend at the National Press Club when I was interviewing
General Gagnon of the United States Space Force, and Rich
invited me personally to go out to Colorado Springs to
go to the Space Symposium. And I mean for me,
for a kid like me. Again, I'm not an astrophysicist.
I just am a believer in exploring the Solar System.
(04:02):
You know, when Santa Claus brought me a telescope when
I was a kid growing up in Delco, I thought,
this is it. Folks. I should have been an astronaut,
but they put me on the campaign trial instead. But
Richmond I was there to your point, I mean, this
is the largest space gathering of space nerds, of which
I consider myself one in the world. I mean, this
(04:23):
is like the woodstock of space every single year. That's
how I would describe it. You got astronauts, you got astrophysicists,
you got the Blue Origins, the SpaceX is all of
these companies, and just quickly, who are some of the members,
just to give our audience a little bit of a
that you feel comfortable sharing because you've got small, medium
sized companies, but you also had the big space players
(04:43):
as well well.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Again, you've already mentioned some of them, obviously the Blue Origins,
the Spacexes, but that also includes Northrope Boeing as well
as rocket Lab and Firefly Aerospace. Again, the part that's
so exciting about symposium is, yes, you can always depend
on seeing some of the same types of organizations that
(05:05):
have been done incredible legacy work that our future is
built upon. But then you're always going to be seeing
a new company or new enterprise, or for that matter,
even a new country that's entering the space domain and
doing things a bit differently than its predecessors. And while
the first there are folks who will think, oh, you know,
(05:26):
that's never going to work, well, you know what, Sometimes
it does work, and those end up being big evolutions
that we can take in the space community and build upon.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
All right, So now let's talk about the fun stuff.
Sam Altman is essentially saying middle class jobs in a
decade from now could be located in outer space. From
the conversations that you're having with the companies that are
the major players in here, is it possible that in
our lifetime there will be human beings in outer space
(05:55):
working for companies in middle class jobs, and or is
it possible that there will be middle class jobs where
they're not just building the machinery that's already happening, the
Hubble Space telescope, the telescope that are giving us all
of these awesome images, they're welded by middle class jobs.
These are space jobs, are middle class jobs. But could
(06:15):
it be possible that middle class jobs for outer space
could be where you're actually in some facility maneuvering robots
on Mars for example. I guess where do you see it?
Sam Alvins says, it could be an outer space? What
do you think?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yes, it can be an outer space. In fact, we
are on the cusp of entering a new era here
for space stations.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
The beginning of the new year.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
There are at least three different companies that are looking
to put up commercial low or orbit devices or commercial
space stations that they will have available for experiments to
go up to, or for that matter, processing or potential manufacturing.
Vast is a company out of Texas that they're looking
(07:02):
to be the first ones to get theirs out, but
Axiom Space has a one that they're looking to do,
as is Voyager Technologies.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Again, this is entering into the whole new era.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yes, we've had the International Space Station for thirty years
and that's been an incredible engineering and diplomatic achievement. But
now that we have been able to prove a number
of technologies, you've got companies that are putting forward new solutions,
and there are persons that may be going up to
change experiments out, they may be going to operate those
particular experiments for a period of time. Again, that's sort
(07:37):
of a first step of what we're looking at here.
But then as we look to develop the opportunities we
have on the moon, again, there are commercial companies that
are already looking at ways that they may be able
to do some type of construction on the moon, mining
on the Moon. There is tremendous interest in seeing what
(07:57):
we might be able to do with helium three and
capturing helium three from the Moon and then literally having
a energy supply that has infinite possibility.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Why should people care about here, Let's just take that
break it down for me, helium three on the moon.
Why should people care about that?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It is something that is found incredibly rare here on Earth.
I am no nuclear power expert or physicist by any means,
but helium three offers the potential of us being able
to have a new, very reliable energy source. And I think,
as we've all seen over history, if you are able
(08:38):
to craft and develop a new energy source, you can
create a whole new set of possibilities. Helium three is
something that the Moon has a tremendous amount of We
don't have much of it here on Earth, but the
Moon has a very vibrant supply that we could be
able to develop.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
And again, whether.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
It's powering the United States, where it's powering the North
American continent or South American continent. Again, think of the
possibilities that if you can have a new energy source
that isn't tapping or damaging any of Earth's resources, that
has exponential possibilities.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Here helium three, you know, just to dust off my
old chemistry high school classes. Helium three is good for
ultra low temperature cooling and scientific research folks. Data centers, hello,
artificial intelligence data centers. They're very hot. They're very, very hot,
so you got to cool them down.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Absolutely, And that's why again you talked about some of
the other middle class types of jobs. Again, if we
are able, and again there are already companies that are
starting to demonstrate capabilities, we are able to put some
of those data centers into space where the things can
be cooled a whole lot easier in not being able
having to tap rivers or lakes or whatever.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
That may be.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Again, huge possibilities you were talking about some of those
other jobs.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Again, what I would.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Encourage people to take a look at when they think
about space. Space has become an economy under itself.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Really, I mean, you're the numbers guy on this. I
was with Rich just a couple of weeks ago, and
he was unveiling the big economic report that they put
out every year, just on how the size and the
scope of the space economy. I mean, and people are
always talking about the economy. For those of you who
(10:33):
are familiar, I used to do a lot of economic reporting.
I still do some every now and then. But this
is a market that I mean, folks, this is like
we're not even on the first page of the prologue
of the space economy and the boom in the space
economy and all of the jobs that it's supported, and
when you think of where it's going to be going
(10:55):
in the next three decades, even it truly is I'm
going to be annoying out of this world. So give
us some numbers for just the size of the space economy, Rich,
and how jobs supporting well.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Again, to your point, and the report that this Space
Fundation released in July, we have valued the space economy
at six hundred and thirteen billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Wow, And that is a nearly eight percent jump from
what it was the previous year.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And over the past fifteen years, the space economy has
grown on average seven percent per year. There are very
few economies or markets anywhere that have a consistent seven
percent growth per year.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
The space economy is showing just that. And if we
continue on.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
This particular path and at this growth rate, we will
surpass a trillion dollars by twenty thirty two.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
That's the goal that everybody has in mind. But when
you think about creating a trillion dollar economy, no economy
can be an island unto itself. It's got to be
connected to others if it's going to remain vibrant and
strong and grow. The space economy touches health and care,
it touches energy, it touches communications, it cuts I mean, broadcast, media, defense,
(12:23):
national security, all of those particular.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Things that if you were to start drawing lines, if
you were to put a.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Dot in the very very middle of a page and
start drawing lines out to it, that's the space economy.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I mean, if a thing that always makes me, it's
like nails on a chalkboard for me, when people always
tell me why should I care about space? I get
that so much, you know, they think they look at
me like I have three heads when I tell them
that I'm covering space and I'm fascinated by you know,
the biosignatures potentially that NASA found on Mars that they
just are saying in the last couple of days that
(12:57):
they have said, and you know, the telescopes and asteroid mining,
and they go, why are you you know, that's so weird.
Why we have enough problems on Earth? And I say
to them, all you gotta do is take out your
cell phone. Okay. The average human being interacts with space
more than two dozen times per day. Okay, when you're
(13:20):
waiting for your card for your car share app, or
when you're looking at your GPS, or when you're trying
to log into the Wi Fi. Folks, it's not astrology,
it's astrophysics. Okay, It satellites, it's all of this. So
we should really care about it. And I think the
stat and correct me Rich Cooper if I'm wrong. He's
the VP of Communications for the Space Foundation, that the
(13:43):
best organization that represents all of the space companies of
all sizes, which is also why I love them big small,
medium sized companies. This industry is going to be a
trillion dollar industry in the next five years. Okay, but
compare it to the size of gaming and the music
and industry for us just to give us, you know,
some vantage points because it is just booming.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Because when you bring up those particular industries, those industries
have connectivity to space. If you want to have if
you want to have a video game competition between people
in different continents, you're not doing it through you know,
the conventional telephone wires. If you're looking to do this
in real time, you're looking to do it with space.
And to those people and those persons who are saying
(14:26):
the why is space? Why should I care about space?
A day without space would be economically as well as
from a security standpoint, catastrophic when you think about financial
transactions and being able to go to an ATM or
transfer funds to go on vacation or VENMO somebody money
(14:46):
or whatever that. But again, you have space connectivity there.
You go into a doctor's office and there are any
number of instruments that are used, whether we've had them
loose on us or loved ones that have heritage that
come from space. Again, when you start looking at all
the connectivity you mentioned, like two thousand points again, how
(15:07):
many times are people looking at the weather on their phone,
be it a newsapp or a weather dot com, whatever
that might be. You're getting that because of space. You're
getting that in real time, national security emergencies, being able
to be being able to move people into particular areas
or move them out.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
You have all of that by space.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
And it's interesting people talk about the problems here on Earth. Yeah,
there are a lot of problems here on Earth, and
one of those big challenges here on Earth is climate change.
You wouldn't know what you know about climate change today.
The visuals all provide that story, that provides the data.
And again, you take those things away, you lose. You
(15:51):
lose insight, you lose oversight, you lose any type of
deeper analysis that you want to have to make informed decisions.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Space makes bought.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
And we got a couple of minutes stuff rich. But
I'm so glad you brought up climate change because I
get that a lot. I mean, I want a myth bust.
Let's spend the last part of our of our interview
really myth busting. Because you know when when you tell people,
when you talk to me about space, that's another question
I get all the time, Oh, we need to focus
on the climate change, climate change. And I look at
them and I'm thinking to myself, folks, you want to
(16:24):
address climate change, you got to study other planets. You
gotta look at the stars. You want to protect climate change,
you got to start mining asteroids. You got to look
at the moons like Titan and Europa. You got to
look at all of these different moons, because that's going
to be we can protect our planet. We can keep
our planet safe by by looking elsewhere instead of just
(16:47):
doing all of the all of the mining here. So
so talk to me specifically about why space exploration is
a way to combat climate change.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Space exploration open the aperture for so much of what
we do in a technology in technology development, it does
so much as it relates to, you know, education, engagement,
all of those particular types of things.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Because again, I'm going.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
To go back to a picture that was taken by
Gym Level and other members of the Apollo AD crew,
and it was the earth rise photo.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Oh that's a great photo.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
A lot of one of those things that I forget
which one of the crew said. You know, we went
all the way to go explore the Moon, and what
we ended up discovering was Earth. And when you looked
at the whole of the Earth in that particular way,
that brought I think, more perspective to people about what
we as a species on this planet share, which we
(17:51):
are entrusted to be stewards with that we have to
make sure we take care of it so that future
generations can do that. Space provides that platform and perspective
that and again being the ultimate.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
High ground that you're not going to get any place else.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
And when you think about I look at these things
from oftentimes an emergency management perspective, how we can move
people out of harm and we can do that logistically
through again space and GPS and moving assets and materials
in particular ways to where they can be safer to
again moving them out of the way so that it
(18:26):
doesn't incur greater damage and harm. Again, you would not
have any of these capacities without space access and space exploration.
Every time we go up, we take a further step
out and learning more about what role we play on
(18:46):
this planet, but what role we play in our universe,
as we all at this point know again we are
that only sentient creature in our universe to be able
to understand that that could still be out there. We
may discover that, but one thing is for certain, you're
not going to be able to do that if you're
(19:07):
not engaging space. And that is something that again there
has been. There is no better time to be a
part of the space community and the space age than
right now.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
So Rich, that's what I want. That's my message. So
for folks who are listening, if they've got kids, or
they got gen Z's or the gen zs are finding us,
they are increasingly finding MTF and Meet the Future and
Hello Future. But for folks who are looking, because when
Sam Altman to go back to the beginning for a second,
Sam Altman literally just said publicly, by twenty thirty five,
(19:37):
your job could be in outer space. By twenty thirty five,
in a decade, less than a decade, your job, your
middle class job, could be in outer space. Rich Cooper,
the vice president of communications for Space Eposium, is telling
us the same thing, folks. They're telling us, they are
literally showing us the future. Why aren't we listening to them?
So if for young people or for people like me,
(19:59):
I'm ask you that's what you know. My final question
is going to be is going to make about me.
But for folks who want to go to space or
who want to work in space, what should they do?
What should they what program should they be studying?
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Rich Well, I'll tell you one thing that they The
first thing they do is take a look at right
where they're at, because where they're at may already have
the space connectivity and they don't realize it. What do
I mean by that, say you work for a healthcare company, Well, again,
when you take a look at any of the equipment
that is coming in and the future equipment that's coming in,
that's probably got a space heritage to it. So there
(20:31):
may your company may already have a space relationship and
you don't even know it. Additionally, once you if you
look at that opportunity, maybe you can be that creative
person that takes that technology one or two steps further
down the line that may end up having you work
with someone like a ge which has long has heritage
(20:53):
within space. Let alone any other medical device manufacturer. You
will find people that have space heritage there and they've
taken that space knowledge and they're applying it in different ways.
You may work for a company that works with the environment,
and I can guarantee you the sensors that you are
using have a heritage and that maybe you end up
(21:14):
having the idea that could take that sensor one or
two levels up, and maybe that ignites an entrepreneurial fire
within you and you could become one of those next
great space companies. I think the important thing that people
the first step people can do is look around you
and look at what the connectivity.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Is that you have right now.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Amen. The next piece in doing something like that is
what can you do to take that connectivity and that
capacity and take it to its next level. Every technology
that we've ever had and created in this earth on
this planet has always had someone who's looked at it differently,
and they've always made taken it in those two or
(21:55):
three steps further from what it was before. That is change,
that is capacity building, that is doing all of those
particular things. But they were people who were willing to
think differently, take a risk, do those types of things
and be a gen z or it be whomever else.
If you have a fire for doing those types of
(22:17):
things you will find more than your share of opportunity
within the global space.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
You know, a couple of years ago, I've been saying
since I was a kid, I want to go to space.
I also want to come back. I would like a
round trip ticket, but I would take a one way
ticket if it was to colonize Mars. I'm being like
totally honest right now. That said, I started voicing this
that I want to go to space, and I am
(22:44):
greeted by people who are either like Rich, who tell me, absolutely,
you can go to space, let's make it happen. Or
I'm greeted by people who look at me as if
I'm weird, a knucklehead, a problem child, and I say,
I don't really want to deal with them. I don't
want to work with them. So Rich, the thing that's
really motivated me in the last few years has been
(23:06):
medical research, and on upcoming episodes, that's going to be
one of the themes that we explore because the research.
I don't think the public understands a lot about space,
but specifically the medical technology that can be harnessed and
the medical research that can be leveraged in various parts
of cess lunar space and whatnot. But I predict that
(23:29):
if I get to go to space, it'll probably be
for a week or two. I would love to tell
the story of space and while I'm up there. But
more importantly, I think that there is I would love
to be able to play a small part in medical
research as well. And so from that perspective, is it
realistic for a guy like me from Delco to be
able I'm thirty five years old. Is it realistic for
(23:52):
a guy like me to have that dream in twenty
twenty five?
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
In fact, I would tell you that the majority of
the research that has been done in space has been
on the human physiology, the human biology, all of those
particular things, because we want to understand how our human
body reacts to what is the ultimate of hostile environments. Again,
(24:18):
the companies and the researchers, whether they be pharmaceuticals or
whether they be cancer researchers or whomever they might end
up being. There is no medical discipline that is not
being touched by the space community in some shape or form.
(24:39):
And when you look at the nearly thirty years of
research that it's gone on in the International Space Station,
plus the thirty somewhat years of the Space Shuttle work.
And again it's not just the United States that has
done this, The Russians have also done this. The Chinese
are doing this on board their space station. If you
don't understand what this is going to the human body,
(25:01):
well you're not going to have the success that you
want to have with your exploration programs. But people want
to make sure that there is a dividend that is
coming out from the expenditure of going to space. This
is where there are people who a technology may have
been created for one thing, but someone's looking at that
technology in a different way and say, you know, we
might be able to use that and detect tumor growth,
(25:24):
or we might be able to use that and do
some type of screening for atmospheric type of screening so
that you can make sure a clean room really is clean,
and you want to have a clean room type of atmosphere. Certainly,
if you're in a surgical setting, there are always going
to people who look at a technology a little bit
differently and take it a different way that has saved
(25:46):
countless numbers of lives. I can say in my own family,
how I have seen medical technology use to.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Care for my father, let alone when I had.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Some surgery a couple of years ago on a broke
leg and some other types of challenge. The instrumentation that
they were using to give me back the full use
of my leg at my ankle had all that space
technology heritage because there are people who took a look
at one particular thing and saw it in a you know,
two or three steps or orders of magnitude in another direction,
(26:20):
and as a result, you're saving lives. And when you
can save lives, that is an ultimate impact here on Earth.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Rich Cooper, I could talk to you forever, as you know,
I didn't even ask you about aliens. But I'm a believer,
so I'll just leave it there. Rich Cooper, thank you
so much for showing up to meet the future and
coming on. Hello Future. Appreciate you and all that you're doing.
Thank you for all you're doing for protecting the galaxy.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
My friend Kevin, thank you, thank your audience, and yes,
space is the future.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
It is here and now join us.
Is your next job or maybe your kid's next job
going to be an outer space? That's the big question.
Hello Future, it's me keV. This is a dispatch from
the Digital Frontier. The planet is Earth. The year is
twenty twenty five. Did you see this interview from Sam Altman,
the OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman. I was reading about it
(00:27):
on Fortune Fortune dot com. He gave this interview that
really captured my attention because he's giving advice to gen Z.
I don't know if gen Z thinks they need the advice,
but gen Z the advice about where their future jobs
are going to be. And he made the comment to
video journalist Cleo Abram and he said, quote in twenty
(00:50):
thirty five that graduating college student, if they still go
to college at all, could very well be leaving on
a mission to explore the Solar System on a spaceship
in some completely new, exciting, super well paid, super interesting
job end quote. This is what they're talking about, folks.
(01:10):
I mean, this is in the next decade. And my
guest today is someone who has been on the futures
frontlines for his entire career. His name is Richard Cooper.
Rich is what he says, I can call him. He's
the vice president of Strategic Communications for the Space Foundation
and he's based at the Space Foundation's Washington, DC office.
(01:31):
He oversees all strategic communication for the Space Foundation. He
was most recently the Senior Policy Policy Advisor for Homeland
Security and Justice at the SAS Institute. Rich first of all,
tell us first and foremost what the Space Foundation is
and what it does well.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Kevin, First off, it's great to be with you. Thank
you for the opportunity to chat with you and your
team and your audience. The Space Foundation has been around
for over forty years. We are headquartered out of Colorado Springs,
and when it started, there were a number of former
military people as well as industry people that look at
(02:13):
what was happening in the opening of the Shuttle era
and again also at the height of the Cold War
and saw an opportunity that we needed to be doing
more to bring members of the than growing space community
together to help better inform policy decisions, help the public
better understand how space impacts their daily lives, but then
(02:37):
also provide support to teachers and the public at large
to better understand what roles and opportunities and benefits that
they get from space. So for more than forty years
we have been bringing members of the global space community
together for the annual Space Symposium that we do in
the spring of every year in Colorado Springs. Space and
(02:59):
Posium is now come the premier gathering of a global
space community. And by doing that, when you can bring
persons from more than sixty countries together that are all
doing space, we all share the same space, but we
all may be looking and interacting and doing things a
bit differently from one another. That's an opportunity for conversation,
(03:20):
collaboration and opportunity. And Space Foundation superpower really is convening
people together. And space is the table that we set
around and look where there are look where there are
opportunities for us to collaborate and advance the benefits that
space can bring to life here on Earth.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So I met Rich earlier this year through a mutual
friend at the National Press Club when I was interviewing
General Gagnon of the United States Space Force, and Rich
invited me personally to go out to Colorado Springs to
go to the Space Symposium. And I mean for me,
for a kid like me. Again, I'm not an astrophysicist.
I just am a believer in exploring the Solar System.
(04:02):
You know, when Santa Claus brought me a telescope when
I was a kid growing up in Delco, I thought,
this is it. Folks. I should have been an astronaut,
but they put me on the campaign trial instead. But
Richmond I was there to your point, I mean, this
is the largest space gathering of space nerds, of which
I consider myself one in the world. I mean, this
(04:23):
is like the woodstock of space every single year. That's
how I would describe it. You got astronauts, you got astrophysicists,
you got the Blue Origins, the SpaceX is all of
these companies, and just quickly, who are some of the members,
just to give our audience a little bit of a
that you feel comfortable sharing because you've got small, medium
sized companies, but you also had the big space players
(04:43):
as well well.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Again, you've already mentioned some of them, obviously the Blue Origins,
the Spacexes, but that also includes Northrope Boeing as well
as rocket Lab and Firefly Aerospace. Again, the part that's
so exciting about symposium is, yes, you can always depend
on seeing some of the same types of organizations that
(05:05):
have been done incredible legacy work that our future is
built upon. But then you're always going to be seeing
a new company or new enterprise, or for that matter,
even a new country that's entering the space domain and
doing things a bit differently than its predecessors. And while
the first there are folks who will think, oh, you know,
(05:26):
that's never going to work, well, you know what, Sometimes
it does work, and those end up being big evolutions
that we can take in the space community and build upon.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
All right, So now let's talk about the fun stuff.
Sam Altman is essentially saying middle class jobs in a
decade from now could be located in outer space. From
the conversations that you're having with the companies that are
the major players in here, is it possible that in
our lifetime there will be human beings in outer space
(05:55):
working for companies in middle class jobs, and or is
it possible that there will be middle class jobs where
they're not just building the machinery that's already happening, the
Hubble Space telescope, the telescope that are giving us all
of these awesome images, they're welded by middle class jobs.
These are space jobs, are middle class jobs. But could
(06:15):
it be possible that middle class jobs for outer space
could be where you're actually in some facility maneuvering robots
on Mars for example. I guess where do you see it?
Sam Alvins says, it could be an outer space? What
do you think?
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yes, it can be an outer space. In fact, we
are on the cusp of entering a new era here
for space stations.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
The beginning of the new year.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
There are at least three different companies that are looking
to put up commercial low or orbit devices or commercial
space stations that they will have available for experiments to
go up to, or for that matter, processing or potential manufacturing.
Vast is a company out of Texas that they're looking
(07:02):
to be the first ones to get theirs out, but
Axiom Space has a one that they're looking to do,
as is Voyager Technologies.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Again, this is entering into the whole new era.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yes, we've had the International Space Station for thirty years
and that's been an incredible engineering and diplomatic achievement. But
now that we have been able to prove a number
of technologies, you've got companies that are putting forward new solutions,
and there are persons that may be going up to
change experiments out, they may be going to operate those
particular experiments for a period of time. Again, that's sort
(07:37):
of a first step of what we're looking at here.
But then as we look to develop the opportunities we
have on the moon, again, there are commercial companies that
are already looking at ways that they may be able
to do some type of construction on the moon, mining
on the Moon. There is tremendous interest in seeing what
(07:57):
we might be able to do with helium three and
capturing helium three from the Moon and then literally having
a energy supply that has infinite possibility.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Why should people care about here, Let's just take that
break it down for me, helium three on the moon.
Why should people care about that?
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It is something that is found incredibly rare here on Earth.
I am no nuclear power expert or physicist by any means,
but helium three offers the potential of us being able
to have a new, very reliable energy source. And I think,
as we've all seen over history, if you are able
(08:38):
to craft and develop a new energy source, you can
create a whole new set of possibilities. Helium three is
something that the Moon has a tremendous amount of We
don't have much of it here on Earth, but the
Moon has a very vibrant supply that we could be
able to develop.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
And again, whether.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
It's powering the United States, where it's powering the North
American continent or South American continent. Again, think of the
possibilities that if you can have a new energy source
that isn't tapping or damaging any of Earth's resources, that
has exponential possibilities.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Here helium three, you know, just to dust off my
old chemistry high school classes. Helium three is good for
ultra low temperature cooling and scientific research folks. Data centers, hello,
artificial intelligence data centers. They're very hot. They're very, very hot,
so you got to cool them down.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Absolutely, And that's why again you talked about some of
the other middle class types of jobs. Again, if we
are able, and again there are already companies that are
starting to demonstrate capabilities, we are able to put some
of those data centers into space where the things can
be cooled a whole lot easier in not being able
having to tap rivers or lakes or whatever.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
That may be.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Again, huge possibilities you were talking about some of those
other jobs.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
Again, what I would.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Encourage people to take a look at when they think
about space. Space has become an economy under itself.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Really, I mean, you're the numbers guy on this. I
was with Rich just a couple of weeks ago, and
he was unveiling the big economic report that they put
out every year, just on how the size and the
scope of the space economy. I mean, and people are
always talking about the economy. For those of you who
(10:33):
are familiar, I used to do a lot of economic reporting.
I still do some every now and then. But this
is a market that I mean, folks, this is like
we're not even on the first page of the prologue
of the space economy and the boom in the space
economy and all of the jobs that it's supported, and
when you think of where it's going to be going
(10:55):
in the next three decades, even it truly is I'm
going to be annoying out of this world. So give
us some numbers for just the size of the space economy, Rich,
and how jobs supporting well.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Again, to your point, and the report that this Space
Fundation released in July, we have valued the space economy
at six hundred and thirteen billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Wow, And that is a nearly eight percent jump from
what it was the previous year.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
And over the past fifteen years, the space economy has
grown on average seven percent per year. There are very
few economies or markets anywhere that have a consistent seven
percent growth per year.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
The space economy is showing just that. And if we
continue on.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
This particular path and at this growth rate, we will
surpass a trillion dollars by twenty thirty two.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
That's the goal that everybody has in mind. But when
you think about creating a trillion dollar economy, no economy
can be an island unto itself. It's got to be
connected to others if it's going to remain vibrant and
strong and grow. The space economy touches health and care,
it touches energy, it touches communications, it cuts I mean, broadcast, media, defense,
(12:23):
national security, all of those particular.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Things that if you were to start drawing lines, if
you were to put a.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Dot in the very very middle of a page and
start drawing lines out to it, that's the space economy.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I mean, if a thing that always makes me, it's
like nails on a chalkboard for me, when people always
tell me why should I care about space? I get
that so much, you know, they think they look at
me like I have three heads when I tell them
that I'm covering space and I'm fascinated by you know,
the biosignatures potentially that NASA found on Mars that they
just are saying in the last couple of days that
(12:57):
they have said, and you know, the telescopes and asteroid mining,
and they go, why are you you know, that's so weird.
Why we have enough problems on Earth? And I say
to them, all you gotta do is take out your
cell phone. Okay. The average human being interacts with space
more than two dozen times per day. Okay, when you're
(13:20):
waiting for your card for your car share app, or
when you're looking at your GPS, or when you're trying
to log into the Wi Fi. Folks, it's not astrology,
it's astrophysics. Okay, It satellites, it's all of this. So
we should really care about it. And I think the
stat and correct me Rich Cooper if I'm wrong. He's
the VP of Communications for the Space Foundation, that the
(13:43):
best organization that represents all of the space companies of
all sizes, which is also why I love them big small,
medium sized companies. This industry is going to be a
trillion dollar industry in the next five years. Okay, but
compare it to the size of gaming and the music
and industry for us just to give us, you know,
some vantage points because it is just booming.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Because when you bring up those particular industries, those industries
have connectivity to space. If you want to have if
you want to have a video game competition between people
in different continents, you're not doing it through you know,
the conventional telephone wires. If you're looking to do this
in real time, you're looking to do it with space.
And to those people and those persons who are saying
(14:26):
the why is space? Why should I care about space?
A day without space would be economically as well as
from a security standpoint, catastrophic when you think about financial
transactions and being able to go to an ATM or
transfer funds to go on vacation or VENMO somebody money
(14:46):
or whatever that. But again, you have space connectivity there.
You go into a doctor's office and there are any
number of instruments that are used, whether we've had them
loose on us or loved ones that have heritage that
come from space. Again, when you start looking at all
the connectivity you mentioned, like two thousand points again, how
(15:07):
many times are people looking at the weather on their phone,
be it a newsapp or a weather dot com, whatever
that might be. You're getting that because of space. You're
getting that in real time, national security emergencies, being able
to be being able to move people into particular areas
or move them out.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
You have all of that by space.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
And it's interesting people talk about the problems here on Earth. Yeah,
there are a lot of problems here on Earth, and
one of those big challenges here on Earth is climate change.
You wouldn't know what you know about climate change today.
The visuals all provide that story, that provides the data.
And again, you take those things away, you lose. You
(15:51):
lose insight, you lose oversight, you lose any type of
deeper analysis that you want to have to make informed decisions.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Space makes bought.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
And we got a couple of minutes stuff rich. But
I'm so glad you brought up climate change because I
get that a lot. I mean, I want a myth bust.
Let's spend the last part of our of our interview
really myth busting. Because you know when when you tell people,
when you talk to me about space, that's another question
I get all the time, Oh, we need to focus
on the climate change, climate change. And I look at
them and I'm thinking to myself, folks, you want to
(16:24):
address climate change, you got to study other planets. You
gotta look at the stars. You want to protect climate change,
you got to start mining asteroids. You got to look
at the moons like Titan and Europa. You got to
look at all of these different moons, because that's going
to be we can protect our planet. We can keep
our planet safe by by looking elsewhere instead of just
(16:47):
doing all of the all of the mining here. So
so talk to me specifically about why space exploration is
a way to combat climate change.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Space exploration open the aperture for so much of what
we do in a technology in technology development, it does
so much as it relates to, you know, education, engagement,
all of those particular types of things.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Because again, I'm going.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
To go back to a picture that was taken by
Gym Level and other members of the Apollo AD crew,
and it was the earth rise photo.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Oh that's a great photo.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
A lot of one of those things that I forget
which one of the crew said. You know, we went
all the way to go explore the Moon, and what
we ended up discovering was Earth. And when you looked
at the whole of the Earth in that particular way,
that brought I think, more perspective to people about what
we as a species on this planet share, which we
(17:51):
are entrusted to be stewards with that we have to
make sure we take care of it so that future
generations can do that. Space provides that platform and perspective
that and again being the ultimate.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
High ground that you're not going to get any place else.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
And when you think about I look at these things
from oftentimes an emergency management perspective, how we can move
people out of harm and we can do that logistically
through again space and GPS and moving assets and materials
in particular ways to where they can be safer to
again moving them out of the way so that it
(18:26):
doesn't incur greater damage and harm. Again, you would not
have any of these capacities without space access and space exploration.
Every time we go up, we take a further step
out and learning more about what role we play on
(18:46):
this planet, but what role we play in our universe,
as we all at this point know again we are
that only sentient creature in our universe to be able
to understand that that could still be out there. We
may discover that, but one thing is for certain, you're
not going to be able to do that if you're
(19:07):
not engaging space. And that is something that again there
has been. There is no better time to be a
part of the space community and the space age than
right now.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
So Rich, that's what I want. That's my message. So
for folks who are listening, if they've got kids, or
they got gen Z's or the gen zs are finding us,
they are increasingly finding MTF and Meet the Future and
Hello Future. But for folks who are looking, because when
Sam Altman to go back to the beginning for a second,
Sam Altman literally just said publicly, by twenty thirty five,
(19:37):
your job could be in outer space. By twenty thirty five,
in a decade, less than a decade, your job, your
middle class job, could be in outer space. Rich Cooper,
the vice president of communications for Space Eposium, is telling
us the same thing, folks. They're telling us, they are
literally showing us the future. Why aren't we listening to them?
So if for young people or for people like me,
(19:59):
I'm ask you that's what you know. My final question
is going to be is going to make about me.
But for folks who want to go to space or
who want to work in space, what should they do?
What should they what program should they be studying?
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Rich Well, I'll tell you one thing that they The
first thing they do is take a look at right
where they're at, because where they're at may already have
the space connectivity and they don't realize it. What do
I mean by that, say you work for a healthcare company, Well, again,
when you take a look at any of the equipment
that is coming in and the future equipment that's coming in,
that's probably got a space heritage to it. So there
(20:31):
may your company may already have a space relationship and
you don't even know it. Additionally, once you if you
look at that opportunity, maybe you can be that creative
person that takes that technology one or two steps further
down the line that may end up having you work
with someone like a ge which has long has heritage
(20:53):
within space. Let alone any other medical device manufacturer. You
will find people that have space heritage there and they've
taken that space knowledge and they're applying it in different ways.
You may work for a company that works with the environment,
and I can guarantee you the sensors that you are
using have a heritage and that maybe you end up
(21:14):
having the idea that could take that sensor one or
two levels up, and maybe that ignites an entrepreneurial fire
within you and you could become one of those next
great space companies. I think the important thing that people
the first step people can do is look around you
and look at what the connectivity.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
Is that you have right now.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Amen. The next piece in doing something like that is
what can you do to take that connectivity and that
capacity and take it to its next level. Every technology
that we've ever had and created in this earth on
this planet has always had someone who's looked at it differently,
and they've always made taken it in those two or
(21:55):
three steps further from what it was before. That is change,
that is capacity building, that is doing all of those
particular things. But they were people who were willing to
think differently, take a risk, do those types of things
and be a gen z or it be whomever else.
If you have a fire for doing those types of
(22:17):
things you will find more than your share of opportunity
within the global space.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
You know, a couple of years ago, I've been saying
since I was a kid, I want to go to space.
I also want to come back. I would like a
round trip ticket, but I would take a one way
ticket if it was to colonize Mars. I'm being like
totally honest right now. That said, I started voicing this
that I want to go to space, and I am
(22:44):
greeted by people who are either like Rich, who tell me, absolutely,
you can go to space, let's make it happen. Or
I'm greeted by people who look at me as if
I'm weird, a knucklehead, a problem child, and I say,
I don't really want to deal with them. I don't
want to work with them. So Rich, the thing that's
really motivated me in the last few years has been
(23:06):
medical research, and on upcoming episodes, that's going to be
one of the themes that we explore because the research.
I don't think the public understands a lot about space,
but specifically the medical technology that can be harnessed and
the medical research that can be leveraged in various parts
of cess lunar space and whatnot. But I predict that
(23:29):
if I get to go to space, it'll probably be
for a week or two. I would love to tell
the story of space and while I'm up there. But
more importantly, I think that there is I would love
to be able to play a small part in medical
research as well. And so from that perspective, is it
realistic for a guy like me from Delco to be
able I'm thirty five years old. Is it realistic for
(23:52):
a guy like me to have that dream in twenty
twenty five?
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
In fact, I would tell you that the majority of
the research that has been done in space has been
on the human physiology, the human biology, all of those
particular things, because we want to understand how our human
body reacts to what is the ultimate of hostile environments. Again,
(24:18):
the companies and the researchers, whether they be pharmaceuticals or
whether they be cancer researchers or whomever they might end
up being. There is no medical discipline that is not
being touched by the space community in some shape or form.
(24:39):
And when you look at the nearly thirty years of
research that it's gone on in the International Space Station,
plus the thirty somewhat years of the Space Shuttle work.
And again it's not just the United States that has
done this, The Russians have also done this. The Chinese
are doing this on board their space station. If you
don't understand what this is going to the human body,
(25:01):
well you're not going to have the success that you
want to have with your exploration programs. But people want
to make sure that there is a dividend that is
coming out from the expenditure of going to space. This
is where there are people who a technology may have
been created for one thing, but someone's looking at that
technology in a different way and say, you know, we
might be able to use that and detect tumor growth,
(25:24):
or we might be able to use that and do
some type of screening for atmospheric type of screening so
that you can make sure a clean room really is clean,
and you want to have a clean room type of atmosphere. Certainly,
if you're in a surgical setting, there are always going
to people who look at a technology a little bit
differently and take it a different way that has saved
(25:46):
countless numbers of lives. I can say in my own family,
how I have seen medical technology use to.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Care for my father, let alone when I had.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Some surgery a couple of years ago on a broke
leg and some other types of challenge. The instrumentation that
they were using to give me back the full use
of my leg at my ankle had all that space
technology heritage because there are people who took a look
at one particular thing and saw it in a you know,
two or three steps or orders of magnitude in another direction,
(26:20):
and as a result, you're saving lives. And when you
can save lives, that is an ultimate impact here on Earth.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
Rich Cooper, I could talk to you forever, as you know,
I didn't even ask you about aliens. But I'm a believer,
so I'll just leave it there. Rich Cooper, thank you
so much for showing up to meet the future and
coming on. Hello Future. Appreciate you and all that you're doing.
Thank you for all you're doing for protecting the galaxy.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
My friend Kevin, thank you, thank your audience, and yes,
space is the future.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
It is here and now join us.
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