How to Do Business in Space With Kelli Kedis Ogborn

Episode Transcript
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Kelli Kedis Ogborn (00:05):
The technology engaging in those
environments is the difficultpart, right? But space, in and
of itself, it's all the otherthings. It's the
maneuverability, it's thepolicy, it's the coordination,
it's a lot of that human stuffthat sometimes makes it
difficult, not saying that theenvironment isn't, but it's not.
It's not as tricky as it oncewas, right? And so people still

(00:28):
think of it as the finalfrontier, and it absolutely is,
but when you talk about it inthat way, you forget that like
there's a $570

Unknown (00:36):
billion economy that is actually producing economic
return for countries andlocalities all over the world,
and people just forget aboutthat, and just think the
exploration aspect.

Blythe Milligan (00:47):
Welcome into another episode of everything is
logistics, a podcast for thethinkers in freight. I'm your
host, Blythe Milligan, and wewere proudly presented by SPI
logistics, and we've got a greatepisode for y'all today. We've
got Kelli Kedis Ogborn. She isthe VP of Space Commerce and
Entrepreneurship at the SpaceFoundation, and we're gonna be

(01:07):
talking about how to do businessin space and the overall, just
landscape of everything that'sgoing on, because it's a lot
going on. And so based on ourprevious you know series that
we've done on, you know, NASAand space logistics. The I'm
sure the audience is just asexcited for this conversation as
I am. So Kelly, welcome to theshow. Thank you, Blythe. I

(01:28):
really appreciate theopportunity. It's one of my
favorite things to to talk toaudiences that are extremely
implicated in the space economyand its growth, but probably
don't know. So I appreciate youhaving me on absolutely now, I
have a million questions to askand so, but before we get into,
like, some of you know, like,the more nitty gritty type of

(01:49):
questions for this audience,give us a sense of your career
background, how you got involvedin Space Foundation, all that
good stuff. Yeah, so I it's afunny story, because I would
have never pictured myselfworking in the space industry or
doing what I do now, which iskind of part and parcel why I do
what I do now. So just quick,kind of history trajectory

(02:10):
highlights. I come from a socialscientist sociological
background, so academically,both undergrad and grad, I was
actually kind of trained on theconflict of war, and, like the
psychology of war, and really alot of the movements of people,
thought that I wanted to do thatwith my career in terms of
international aid and, you know,sort of everything that comes

(02:32):
about with it. But I moved to DCin 2008 did a quick stint on the
hill, and then found myself overat DARPA, which is the Defense
Advanced Research ProjectsAgency, which is the science and
tech branch of the Department ofDefense. And while I was there,
I was fascinated by innovationand technology and really like
these cutting edge research anddevelopment projects that really

(02:54):
play into other markets. And Iquickly realized that a lot of
my skill sets from my academictraining is specifically like
aid like, what I used to look atis, how do you design aid
packages for third world crisesand really get the human side of
the adoption really also fits onthe tech side. So when we are
looking at moving these radicalinnovations and ideas that are

(03:16):
so far out of the imagination ofpeople, how do you get them to
grasp those concepts, adoptthose concepts. And how do you
actually build a strategy tounderstand how to make it
scalable, not just from abusiness aspect, but from a
human aspect? So that was sortof where my career dovetailed,
and then I left DARPA ran a techcommercialization company for

(03:36):
seven years that worked reallyheavily with scientists and
engineers to help them findalternative commercial markets
for what they developed, becauseso many of them might have
developed like a laser for atank. Well, there's no
commercial market for a laser ona tank, but there are, you know,
very special components, ormaybe, you know, sub parts that

(03:57):
are way ahead of industrystandards. So thinking through
those alternative methods. Thatsort of led me to the Space
Foundation, because at the time,in 2018

Unknown (04:07):
the Space Foundation had won a grant through the
Department of Commerce to helpnon traditional businesses find
their place in space. And so Iwas brought in to really help
design and run those workshopsaround the country, so looking
at everything from artists tomechanics to people in the food
service and how they they playin the future growth of space,

(04:27):
and it sort of just snowballedfrom there, wow. I mean, you
really sound like the perfectperson to be able to have, you
know, these types of initiativesthat the Space Foundation is is
looking to achieve. So, so giveus that, that high level
overview of what the, I guessthe current like space ecosystem
looks like. I heard it was likea 500 million or $500 billion

(04:49):
enterprise right now that'sevolving into 800 billion. Is
that accurate? Yes. So there areso many projections of what it's
going to become. I think.
The benchmark that a lot ofpeople use, it's somewhere
between one to 4 trillion by2040
but in reality, as you mentionedright now. So the Space
Foundation puts out a spaceeconomy number every year that

(05:11):
looks at the past quantificationof the year. We currently have
it tagged at 570billion. We're going to release
our new number next month, whichis very exciting. So stay on
track for that. Butconservatively, we think that
it's at least going to reach 772billion by 2027 which is only
two years away. So I think thebest way to encapsulate what we

(05:32):
mean when we talk about thespace economy, and really just
the space ecosystem, is for solong space has been,
I would say, monopolized byimagery of rockets and
satellites and astronauts,because that is, that is classic
space, and that is 100% true.
You know, our space industrygrew out of the Apollo era,

(05:53):
where we were in a moon racewith the Russians. And at that
time, it was, you know, nationalposturing first, because we
needed to be boots on the groundfirst, and then scientific
exploration and technicalprogression were kind of
secondary and tertiary. We'renow in a completely different
domain, because, as we'vecontinued to engage within

(06:13):
space, yes, we do haveexploration missions, and we do
have a lot of satellites flowingflying, but the ecosystem now
has shifted to a place wherethere is more access,
opportunity and engagement thanever before, driven by the
proliferation of satellites.
Just as a data point, forexample, there are currently

(06:33):
roughly 12,000 active satellitesin orbit. There's already 20,000
that have licenses, and by 2035we think there's going to be
50,000 plus satellites. So that,in and of itself, brings a lot
of opportunity, but alsoreusable launch, and the cadence
of launch now has completelydecreased to the point where

(06:53):
more people are able to go up,more people are able to take
advantage of the opportunitiesand the what space can bring to
bear, whether it's frommanufacturing or data or, you
know, space tourism eventuallyand so in the collective mind,
space feels more tangiblebecause it is and that, in and
of itself, has shifted a lot ofcompanies and countries to now

(07:15):
realize that they should bethinking about space, or at
least understand how they canplay into The future of space.
Now, of that, you know, nearly800 billion. How much is the the
US, I guess, in control of thator not, maybe not in control of
it. But how much is that USplayers? So that's a phenomenal
question. So just to break thatdown, so the 570

(07:38):
billion is really encapsulatedby two main markers. It's about
78% commercial revenue and 22%global government spending. So
this is a global number. What itlooks at is roughly about 50
countries, space spending,budgets, as much data as we're
able to collect, an interestingdata point. And then I'll answer

(08:01):
your question, is that aroundthe world, there's roughly about
80 space agencies, which isquite remarkable. And what we're
starting to see over the pastcouple of years as a trend is
that if a country isn't able toreally create and mobilize their
own space agency, they'recreating at least space offices,
like out of their commercedepartment or out of their trade

(08:23):
ministry, to at least understandthat space is an important
economic driver for theirnation, and also national
security and sort of everythingelse that comes with it. But
it's also a way for them to sortof put their flag in the sand,
to say that we are interested inspace. We want to become part of
this economy, and then lookingat opportunities to bring in the
industries that already existwithin their locality to be part

(08:46):
of it. The United States isstill the main, the main driver.
So out of the global governmentspending, the United States, the
European Space Agency in China,sort of make up the top three.
And then there's a the flow downof the other nations, but we are
still the predominant and thenhow does that break? A breakdown
from, I guess, from the USstandpoint, is it because it

(09:07):
feels like it's mostlycommercial, that it's, you know,
SpaceX and you know these othercompany, Rocket Lab, Blue
Origin, they partner with NASAand their launch facilities or
their launch programs, but itfeels like it's much more
commercial now. Is, is thataccurate? So So yes, and so

(09:28):
that's a really interestingquestion for a couple of
reasons. When you talk about thecommercial space industry and
ecosystem, there's,there really is no such thing as
a true commercial company,primarily because the number one
customer in all commercialmarkets right now are still
governments. So we are at thisreally interesting point within
the commercialization flywheelof space, of space,

(09:51):
traditionally being a pullindustry to a push industry, and
so it's primarily been driven bygovernment.
Directives or government needs,the commercial market can
innovate much faster. I mean,they can they can design, they
can develop, they can innovate.
But at the end of the day, thegovernment is still the primary
procurement of the product ofthe services. We need to flip

(10:12):
that model. And so currently,right now, one of the best
examples that is supposed tosort of show how this push pull
between the government and thecommercial will actually flow is
with the retirement of theInternational Space Station,
which I think most, most peopleknow this is happening, but it's
been flying since the 90s. It'sold. It's outdated. It's time to

(10:34):
retire. And in the mix of that,what NASA wanted to do is,
instead of themselves designingand developing and sort of
running a space station, theyput out bids to allow commercial
companies to compete to replacethe International Space Station.
But the model is reallyinteresting, because those
commercial companies would thenown it'd be a privately owned
Space Station. NASA would becomeone of many customers. So the

(10:58):
goal is for them to move all oftheir research and development
and manufacturing currentlybeing done on the ISS to these
private models to then allowthem to still continue the vital
research and all the things thatthey need to do, but then also
give the opportunity touniversities and commercial
companies and other privateplayers To have access to low
Earth orbit for their needs. Andso it's, it's one of the first

(11:23):
examples of how this flywheelcould accelerate and how we can
start to really bring in moreusers beyond a government. But
right now, private is they areprivately owned, but the
government is still an anchorcustomer. Is kind of the way to
look at it, yeah, because I wastalking to a gentleman that
worked at NASA, and he mentionedthat, you know, every four years

(11:47):
their budgets change, yes, and alot of these missions are
sometimes decades long and arein development before actually
launching. And so he said, he'slike, we need to be insulated
from that. And I think, youknow, with a lot of, you know,
sort of the drama around, youknow, policy changes and things
like that, and budgets beingcut, it just makes more sense to
have the commercial elementinvolved. So you're not,

(12:11):
especially from a NASAstandpoint, even though they are
an institution. But to be ableto rely on commercial partners
to fulfill those thoseexperiments and that research
that they've been wanting tobuild is that a safe, you know,
outside perspective, looking incompletely accurate, yeah, so,
so the rise of the privatecommercial company, in terms of
developing somethingindependently from just a

(12:32):
government bid, right, is reallywhat we're talking about when we
say that that has beencontinuing to Rise, and it
surely will continue to have aplace at the forefront where
we're looking now with thislandscape, and particularly, as
you said, with, you know,shifting budgets, shifting
priorities, private companiesare really expected to take the

(12:52):
lead, really driving innovation,you know, through their
increased investments. But thenthere is this strategic
collaboration between commercialand government entities from a
utilization stance. And so Ithink we're going to start to
see some really interestingconsolidation, some really
interesting, maybe innovationarcs right in the next coming
years. Because I personallythink that scarcity can breed

(13:14):
innovation. And we are at apoint right now in this 2025,
landscape, where we are startingto engage with space at such an
operational tempo that we are ata place where it is almost too
big to fail. And so we need tostart closing business models.
We need to start consolidatingsupply chains. And we really
need to start to put a lot ofthe infrastructure and

(13:38):
technologies that have reallyinteresting demos, but they need
to be able to scale to createthis next evolution and next
generation backbone for what wewant the economy to become. I
guess, how moving into, I guesssome of the, I guess, businesses
that are kind of in space now, Ifrom what I understand, you
know, imaging is the, the numberone business model for space

(14:01):
right now communications, ofcourse, are there any other
aspects that are happening inspace right now that are
profitable that can encouragemore missions and more
operations taking place? Oh,absolutely. So I think the best
way to start for that is reallyunderstanding what is making up
that 78% of commercial revenuethat I mentioned before. So the

(14:22):
easiest way to think about it iskind of in two main categories.
There's there are things thatenable space. So these are the
classic things we think of,right? It's like satellites and
rockets and ground stations,because we need the physical
infrastructure to take advantageof satellites. Human Space
Flight is part of that. So thesuborbital flights that we're

(14:42):
starting to see from Blue Originand SpaceX and Virgin Galactic
the insurance industry is also amain component of that
interesting which a lot ofpeople don't realize, but when
you break it down, it's actuallyquite practical, because space
is very expensive and assets areextremely expensive. So those
classical kind of.
Aspects of space make up 1/3 ofthat commercial revenue. Two

(15:04):
thirds of that commercialrevenue right now is made up of
things that are enabled byspace, primarily satellites. So
it's things liketelecommunications, broadband,
precision, navigation andtiming, which is actually the
largest, because it'sresponsible for things like, you
know, GPS and financialtransactions and an accurate
train station times. I mean,all, all of the things that we

(15:26):
take for granted are thisubiquitous backbone because of
space tech. So really, a bulk ofthe economy right now is this
space to Earth market. It'sutilizing space assets. It's
utilizing the technology foreither terrestrial applications
or other industries to be ableto benefit from it. The
environment we're moving into,which you alluded to, is this

(15:47):
space to space market, whichtruly, if we are going to unlock
the space economy, you kind ofhave to take Earth out of the
equation and be able to dothings in space we've never been
able to do before. And that'sreally where we're pushing. So
currently, right now, if youlook at things like ground
transport and launchinfrastructure and in space

(16:09):
maneuvering and recoverysystems, these are all aspects
that are really, reallycritical, not only as a backbone
to the space economy now, butthis sort of like logistics
chain extends beyond the Earth'ssurface and will act also as an
anchor for things in space. Andthen the eventuality that we're
moving into are things like inorbit, refueling, for example.

(16:32):
So extending the life cycle ofsatellites, and if you don't
have to actually pull them down,you can refuel them. This also
extends a small spacecraft we'relooking at things like, you
know, debris removal, which isreally critical, because if we
want to continue to utilizespace, we have to sort of clean
it up, you know, where it isnow, power delivery, cargo

(16:53):
handling, crew mobility. So allof the like, really practical
things that you think about onearth will need to extend there.
Because if we are going to have,you know, space stations that
are going to be servicing reallyprecious payloads for research
aspects, or if we are trulygoing to build this cislunar
economy, which we are reallypushing for, which is

(17:14):
infrastructure and servicesbetween the Moon and Earth, we
need to have these other thingsthat allow us to not just send
things from Earth, use them onetime or two times in space and
bring them back, but be able tokind of this, like holistic
ecosystem in and of itself thatis such a fascinating I could
pull on 15 different threadswith everything that you just

(17:36):
said from the, I guess, from thelogistics angle of it, you
mentioned how these reusablerockets are really helping
expedite a lot of thesedifferent missions. So in this,
I guess in the earth base, it doyou call like terrest
terrestrial industrialapplications? Yeah, terrestrial
applications. So in thatscenario, so the the semi truck

(17:59):
is like the rocket, and so whenthe rocket gets up into space,
are there currently, you know,warehouses and refueling
stations, you mentioned debrisremoval. So we've talked
previously about, you know,tracking that debris and, you
know, trying to not inmaintenance in space, are all of
those different, I guess, keypoints already in space. Are we

(18:21):
working on establishing thatinfrastructure? We're working on
it so they they are in space inthe aspect that there are a lot
of companies taking on thosereally hard challenges that have
done really tremendousdemonstrations. So what's really
interesting about where we arecurrently is, I kind of

(18:45):
mentioned it before, about 2025being a really interesting year,
and I've been saying this overthe past couple of months, but I
really do think we're at thisinflection point, because beyond
us growing and well, it's noteven the growth, as I mentioned,
it's the operational cadence. Sowe are at a point now where
things are now flying like weare. We are moving past the

(19:07):
strategies and the tech devtimeline, and we are now getting
things in space. We are testingthem in space. We are
accelerating them in space, butwe're at a point where we need
to close the business model,because this is the interesting
point. So infrastructure isexpensive. Every space or earth,
it's expensive, right?
And a lot of these companies,they need to be able to attract

(19:31):
the kind of capital to go fromdemo to scale to then enable
them to be these anchor pointswithin low Earth orbit to then
enable other industries to takeadvantage of it. And so one of
the things you know that a lotof people in the ecosystem are
now focusing on is, what arethose like alternative
mechanisms of capital, beyondventure because right now,

(19:52):
there's a lot of venturecapital, you know, flowing into
space, space assets. And lastyear, in 2024 there was 26
Billion dollars of venturecapital that went in, but
venture alone cannot get the jobdone, primarily because a lot of
the venture model is looking atquicker returns, right? So
looking at more like three tofive year returns, or five to

(20:14):
seven year returns. With this,with these kind of plays, are
not going to enable that, butthey need to actually succeed in
order for the economy and otherindustries to take advantage of
it. And so looking at thingslike sovereign wealth funds and,
you know, institutional banksand like family offices, like
these players that understandthe eventuality in the future

(20:35):
that we are building and theeconomic return, but do not need
to get some sort of ROI in threeto five years. So that's that's
one side of it. So the shortanswer is, yes, there are. They
are now just looking to closethe business case and to
maneuver more broadly. One ofthe things that really needs to
happen, though, on the otherside, so beyond the capital,

(20:56):
though, is that, as you canimagine, with any sort of
infrastructure and logisticsthat exists on earth, there is a
coordination effort. So youknow, you mentioned things like
cargo trucks and gas stationsand these, things like these do
not operate in silos, right?
They are designed in a way thatthey enable the success in the
other and that they're easy toto collaborate and to cooperate.

(21:16):
When we talk about space, theneed for standards and
interoperability and reallysustainability of these various
companies is really critical.
And so another aspects that'sreally being looked at beyond
the technology. But how do youlook at things like common
docking interfaces or refuelingstandards or safety protocols?

(21:39):
Right? Because the eventualitywe're moving toward in low Earth
orbit is it's not going to be aninfrastructure that is owned and
operated by one country and onecompany. It is completely
coordinated and completelycollaborative. And so all of
those other mechanisms to makeit successful are really
critical, and that's where a lotof the industry is starting to
point their attention to makesure that that is also there

(22:02):
while the technology develops atthe same time. That's so
interesting because that was, Imean, that's pretty much how
logistics got started. You know,different ports were established
all over the world, and then itreally wasn't until this this
book, actually, Mark Levinsonwrote this book called the box
with a container was invented,and it standardized shipping all
across the world, and, like,lifted, you know, numerous

(22:25):
countries out of poverty inorder to streamline logistical
operations. So it's kind ofcrazy that we haven't I guess,
maybe learned from that thatinnovation and applied it in
space. But maybe there arepeople who are doing that right
now, as as you mentioned withdocking technology, there, there
are, and the reason we haven'tdone it is we haven't needed to.

(22:45):
I mean, so really, if you lookat how
the term like commercializationof space, so commercial space
has been around since the 90s,especially with a lot of the
telecommunications and broadbandand all of that, that really is,
as I mentioned, a criticalbackbone to what the space
economy is now. But 2020 wasreally like an inflection point.

(23:06):
And so we have the inflectionpoint of 2025 but 2020 was
really this catalyst forcommercial space, because it was
the first year that SpaceX flewa crewed mission on their Dragon
capsule. And so people thenstarted to realize that space
was accessible, not just forbillionaires or nation states,

(23:26):
and that private citizens couldengage and interact in ways that
they probably had never reallythought of before. And so in the
collective imagination, peoplestarted to pay attention to
space in a different way. Ithink that people are always
fascinated by space. I mean,it's interesting, like, in my
day job, I don't meet peopleoften that are like, Oh, space
isn't cool. Like, everyonethinks space is cool. It's just

(23:48):
that everybody has an opinion ofwhat space is, and generally you
just think it's out of touch andout of reach, and that it does
not encompass every background,skill set interest industry that
is necessary for its growth. Andthat's why it's so fun to get
that aha moment for people torealize like, oh, what I do
actually is part of the spaceecosystem. And it's like, yes,

(24:09):
you just have to think about itin a different way. So after
2020 when it became moreaccessible, people started to
pay attention more. And then alot of these technologies that
were then now looking at, okay,now, what can we do? And many of
them were being built prior tothat, but at least, like the
funding and the focus and theinterest was sort of catalyzed
in a way that it could allowmore growth, and that's when

(24:31):
things really started toaccelerate. And the idea of
commercial space in the spaceeconomy, kind of became this
more common, common topic, wherebefore there were people talking
about it, but people sort ofwere like, Yeah, you're the
person in the corner that spaceis never going to make money
outside of exploration andsatellites. So it's a different
mind shift. I think you said youmentioned it on one of your

(24:53):
episodes. It's like the mythosof space and how people tend to
maybe before 2020,They thought it was so far away,
but maybe they don't realizethat. You know, SpaceX is
launching nearly every daymissions up up into space. And I
don't even my parents. I wasexplaining to them over the
weekend, because we grew up inFlorida, but it was one of those
situations where you might havethree launches a year, and then

(25:16):
it quickly evolved to threelaunches a week, and now it's
maybe three a day, or what we'reI think the cadence is moving up
to, Oh, yeah. So globally, rightnow, there's a launch about once
every 34 hours. Wow, which,which is, which is mind blowing,
right and, and in your right,like, I think that this mythical

(25:37):
way that we talk about space,and we and we still do it, I
mean, even to the point, and forgood reason, I'll say this so
space is always captured thecollective imagination. And you
know, when we first went to themoon, it was done with this
optimism and enthusiasm, becausewhat we were doing had, like,

(25:58):
never been done before. I mean,truly, right. And so it was
technologically improbable. Wetruly proved it to be possible,
and then we built this industryaround it. Where we are now is
when we still talk about spaceas this, like special, mythical
ecosystem. It really obscuresthe fact that goods and services

(26:19):
are being created and sold on adaily basis, and that it is this
marketplace. And so space, inand of itself, isn't the gamble
that it once was, although weare still dealing with very
difficult challenges. Imentioned this on probably the
podcast you listened to recentlyabout closing the business case
for space. But when you talk toa lot of space founders, they

(26:40):
will sometimes tell you thatspace isn't special, like the
technology, engaging in thoseenvironments is the difficult
part, right? But space, in andof itself, it's all the other
things. It's themaneuverability, it's the
policy, it's the coordination,it's a lot of that human stuff
that sometimes makes itdifficult not saying that the

(27:00):
environment isn't, but it's not.
It's not as tricky as it oncewas, right? And so people still
think of it as the finalfrontier, and it absolutely is,
but when you talk about it inthat way, you forget that like
there's a $570billion economy that is actually
producing economic return forcountries and localities all

(27:21):
over the world and people justforget about that and just think
the exploration aspect. So forall of these launches that are
taking place, what is the Iguess the cargo on these
launches Is it mostlysatellites. So right now, yes.
So last year, about 90% of allspacecraft launched into space
was commercial, commercial, andthe bulk of them were

(27:44):
satellites. So a lot of the lowEarth orbit constellations that
you will see through, like, youknow, SpaceX is Starlink, and
then Amazon has the Kuiperproject, and then there's one
web that's the bulk of it,because really what they're
trying to do now, satellitesgive us a lot of added benefits.
So beyond the telecommunicationaspect, and what it's doing

(28:07):
actually, for connectivity andlatency to a lot of areas that
maybe weren't connected to theinternet before, it's produced
really tremendous results inother areas that you may not
have realized. So I mentionedbefore, like the insurance
industry, for example, is a hugecomponent of the space economy.
There is a subsection of theinsurance industry called

(28:28):
parametric insurance, which isreally the insurance that
extends to like disasterresponse and floods and fires.
Well, satellites have allowedthese insurance agencies to now
insure things with suchfidelity, because they now have
clarity in terms of data andimagery, to actually be able to
know blast zones right, or floodzones and how, and what the

(28:53):
actual economic cost is going tobe. And so it's completely
transformed that side of it.
It's also transformed a lot ofother industries that you don't
think of like the agricultureindustry is actually highly
dependent on satellite data.
They use it now for moreprecision farming to be able to
know how crop yields are goingto perform with precipitation

(29:15):
and potential climate issuesover years. There's now a lot of
farms and agricultural equipmentthat are now kind of attached to
satellite connectivity, so theyhave more autonomous farming
equipment. John Deere wasactually kind of the first
agriculture space companybecause they started to
integrate satellite data. So itis pervasive in so many other

(29:37):
industries. And so when peoplethink about these spacecrafts
being launched. It's not justfor you and I to be able to talk
on this zoom call. There'sactually a lot of really
practical applications thatpeople use every day. And like
you said, it's mostly aboutcommunications for right now,
but imaging is another big partof it. We used to we had a guest

(29:57):
on recently called inversionspace. And.
Are trying to build warehousesin space that could deliver you
cargo within an hour of placingan order. So just like an
Amazon, but they are going to bedelivering it within an hour.
It's mostly, you know, disasterrelief, or, you know, maybe some
hikers are stranded on amountain. That's kind of the use
cases right now. But I'm curiousif there are, you know, outside

(30:19):
of, maybe agriculture and, youknow, in version space what
they're doing. Are there anyother, like, interesting use
cases that you've seen? Oh,yeah, so not in the logistics
space. But I think one of theareas that is really relevant
and important when you talkabout the utilization of space
as a as an economic driver isreally in, like the biotech and

(30:43):
pharmaceutical areas. So a lotof, as I mentioned before, like
research and manufacturing, isbeing done on the International
Space Station currently, andit's going to continue, but they
have done some reallyinteresting things to accelerate
drug delivery. So the conditionsof space, not having gravity,
with the presence of radiationand others, has really

(31:03):
interesting properties for likeprotein crystal growth that is
used in a lot of differentmechanisms for precision
manufacturing. For example,there was a company that was
able to manufacture a retina upin space that has through
nanotechnology and that has,like, the size and
sophistication to actually fiton your eye, which you would
never be able to do here.
They're currently growing organson chips as backup medical

(31:25):
needs, because lack of gravity,again, allows you to do these
really interesting things.
They've accelerated anosteoporosis treatment is a
perfect example. There was onethat was accelerated in space
and then brought down andactually fast tracked through
the FDA. And so thoseapplications not only have
really critical use cases andimportant use cases here on

(31:50):
Earth, but it's also a way forus to get things quicker, be
able to accelerate technologyand innovation, and it's also
another way to sort of shore upa supply chain, because instead
of sending things to othercountries to potentially
manufacture and develop, you cansend things into space and bring
it back down, potentially with abit more fidelity and
acceleration and innovativeclarity that you might want. Why

(32:13):
does the lack of gravity helpwith discovering some of these
innovations? So I think it'sbecause, especially well I can
tell on the organ, on the organaspect and the liver aspect,
it's because it can grow moresymmetrical because of those
aspects. And so I don'tnecessarily know why. On the

(32:33):
machining side, I can dig in andsend you some sure on that. I
just know that it does that. Ijust as you were talking about
these experiments, I'm like, whyare we doing them on earth?
Like, wouldn't that be easier orbut it sounds like, you know,
maybe there are just somebenefits to doing things in
space where you don't have,maybe the gravity restrictions.
Well, that's, that's exactlywhat it is. So there is, there

(32:55):
are these types of thingshappening on Earth, and there
is, you know, precisionmachining happening on Earth and
additive manufacturing, but theconditions of space allow you
just different yields, and so itis really opening up new avenues
of what people can do and whatthey can create, and how it can
bring back applications onEarth. There was another cool
thing when it when I did my NASAtour, is when they were talking

(33:17):
about growing plants in spaceand trying to figure out which
vegetables, you know, will we beable to feed the people who are
able to get up, and whether it'sastronauts or space tourism, you
mentioned with, you know,agricultural or maybe evolving
that's happening in space. Isthere other maybe aspects of
feeding people that are in spacethat maybe we don't know about,

(33:40):
maybe a startup that that'strying to tackle this. Yeah, so
there's, there's a lot ofcompanies that are looking at
that, and a lot of the researchis actually being led by NASA to
figure out what this kind ofcrop development would look
like. The interesting thingabout it is that when we are
looking toward theseeventualities of sustained human
presence, right in a in a lunarenvironment or elsewhere. We

(34:03):
don't really have the kind ofdata for that. Really, the kind
of data that we have is the dataof the astronauts who have been
on the International SpaceStation in the controlled
environment for a veryparticular and limited amount of
time. And so you know, asprobably you know, and some of
your listeners know thatastronauts have to have very
precise diets because of, youknow, nutrient replacement, and

(34:28):
also they have to exercise for acertain amount of time a day,
because the lack of gravity canhave degradation on the bones
when you look at that in anextended, extended period. And
also in an environment where wehaven't really done that, a lot
of the work is stillspeculative, but there are
things that we know. So forexample, you do know how your
body in these environmentsperforms with like drugs. Like,

(34:51):
I was actually really surprisedwhen I found out that, like, ask
even aspirin. So if I take anaspirin here on Earth, and I
take an aspirin and.
It actually racks with your bodydifferently. And so the the
composition of things, thenutrient replacement,
electrolytes. So there arecompanies that are looking at
ways that you can kind of createstrips to put on your tongue,

(35:12):
you know, like, like highendurance performance athletes
might use on rock climbing,similar things. So how do you do
fluid replacement in your bodywhen you're in these
environments, and then also,what kind of nutrients can grow
in these ecosystems? So what canactually grow on the moon? What
kind of closed loop systems doyou need to create? How does
hydroponics play into it?

(35:33):
How does Astro farming? I'm sureyou've seen some of that
vertical vertical farming aswell. So there's a lot of people
thinking through thesescenarios, and there's been a
lot of they call them analogmissions. I don't know if you've
heard of those, but they're,it's, it's essentially a concept
across the world where peoplesimulate environments that
people might engage either inthe Moon or Mars, and they might

(35:55):
do one that's like on the sideof a cave surrounded by water,
right? Or they do them indeserts. But it's meant to
gather research and kind ofbehavioral mechanisms of people,
of how they engage. So there area lot of people thinking through
these ideas,and also what you would need to
grow, what people would need toeat. The other aspect too is

(36:15):
that how then bodies adapt. Soif you think about the and we're
getting kind of way far ahead,but if you think about future,
sustained presence of humans,people that are born in these
environments, they're overgenerations, are going to need
different types of nutrients.
And so how do you then preparefor that? Not that you

(36:36):
necessarily can speculativelyupfront, but know that you will
need to probably adapt andadjust in a very different way.
Yeah. I mean, I just imagine ifaspirin affects you differently
in orbit, I wonder. You know, asa woman, like being pregnant in
space, like, what happens there,and, yeah, all of these
different things that I guessyou know none of us know until

(36:57):
they try it out. Yeah, your bodydoes all sorts of different
things. Like, there's differentweird fluid shifts upon upon
launch and upon being in theseenvironments. You know, bone
degradation is a huge aspect, asI mentioned in the beginning. So
one of the a lot of the biotechthat's actually being developed
around that is looking at waysthat you can monitor, like
muscle atrophy and and bonedegradation, or overall, just

(37:20):
kind of like physiologicalhealth, to be able to do more
predictive and preventivemedicine. And so there's a lot
of really interestingapplications around future suit
design and the integration ofartificial intelligence and and
more sensor mechanisms to beable to look at overall health.
The other side of that too,beyond just physical health, is
also mental health, which is ahuge aspect of future space that

(37:44):
a lot of people don't thinkabout yet, but a lot of those in
the community are thinkingabout. Because when you are
asking people to be inenvironments that are very
unfamiliar to them for longsustained amounts of time,
people are still people. And sobeing able to inject some sort
of creature comforts or ways forthem to feel more connected to
earth or more connected to theirfamily, or, you know, feel

(38:08):
sunlight, right? Just just basichuman needs. These people that
are going to be doing this willobviously be very elite, because
they will be trained and andchosen to do this, but humans
still, at some point need tohave some sort of connectivity
to keep some sort of sanity.
Yeah, I don't know if you'veever read the book about
endurance. It's Shackleton'smission to Antarctica, and how I

(38:31):
remember there was one part inthe book where they had been
stranded in Antarctica for, atthat point, I think, at least a
year, and some strong stormsblew in a stick and like some
seaweed. And the way that thecrew documented reacting to
taking the stick and holding itand burning it was almost it
felt like home. And so I theparallels between space and then

(38:55):
the, you know, I guess theenvironment of Antarctica, or
lack thereof. I wonder howhumans are going to be able to
adapt to not having those normalhuman interactions, sitting in
front of the sun, smelling abonfire, things like that. Yeah,
I think it's a reallyinteresting question, because
one of the things when I talkabout sort of the evolution of

(39:17):
the space economy and what'sreally critical to grow and
sustain it. So as we mentionedbefore, like we're really
looking at this low Earth orbitcislunar economy now, and a lot
of that is really predicated onreusable launch right, being
able to reduce access and costto for people to take advantage
the infrastructure, taking theearth out of the equation. But

(39:37):
when you look at these long,endurance, sustained missions,
like when we talk about Mars,when we talk about this future
end state, it takes seven monthsto get there. So you have people
on a ship for presumably sevenmonths that, and they're
obviously tasks and things theyneed to do, but you're still on
a ship for seven months, and.

(40:00):
You know, people need to havesome sort of outlet. There
always needs to be a community.
There always needs to be a humanaspect. And so when you start to
then come into more of thatcreature comfort, mental health
aspect, even the environmentsthat you know they will be
living in, they're obviouslylike multiple schools of camp.
When you look at Mars habitats,is it underground? Is it in
domes, like you saw on theMartian. I mean, there's there's

(40:20):
pluses and benefits to both, butbeing able to keep people sane
and healthy, I think, is one ofthe most critical aspects,
because we need these humans toalso help
make sure there is missionsuccess. And so that's a really
big aspect. The good thing isthat we are now hitting a point

(40:40):
where technologically, we havemade advancements in things like
artificial intelligence, notjust AI, but AR and VR
technology, right? And beingable to simulate environments
for humans that we probably willtake with us in those
engagements, but it is a reallycritical component that you sort
of take for granted, everythingthat's around us here that
centers us. Yeah. I mean, if youspend a few days with your

(41:03):
family over the holidays,sometimes you can't wait to get
out of there. It's like, I wouldimagine that the the chemistry
within these crews is justgoing, is going to be just as
important as you know, maybe thethe intelligence and the mission
itself, because otherwise, ifthey don't get along, then
there's not so many good thingsthat could happen from that. But
on, on the flip side, I want totake it back to, you know, sort

(41:24):
of the entrepreneurial role offolks who are investing in
space. I think you with SpaceFoundation, you have space path,
you have space edge, and thenyou also have the Space
Symposium. Can you kind of tellus what each of those programs
are, and then, sort of theoverall goals with each of those
absolutely so Space Foundationas an organization is a 41 year

(41:45):
old nonprofit that'sheadquartered in Colorado
Springs, but we also have aWashington DC office that's
where myself and my team andsome other departments are. And
really what we do as anorganization is we say that we
advance the global spaceecosystem. And so when you
actually break that down, we, interms of our programs and

(42:07):
services, really toucheverything from elementary to
emeritus. So a quick sort ofhighlight of where we started
and where we're going. Mostpeople know us for our annual
Space Symposium, which youmentioned, which we just had our
40th in Colorado Springs thispast April. And that really does
bring together the global spacecommunity. So everyone from

(42:29):
national security space, civilspace, commercial space, both
domestic and international, andwe, this past year, had just
over 11,500 people. So I alwayssay it's a party with like
11,000 plus of your favoritespace friends, we had a bunch of
international entities join us.
We do every year, heads ofagencies. And so it's really a
place where all of the differentspace conversations happen and

(42:49):
how they mix. Because what'sinteresting about the future of
space is that national securityendeavor, endeavors civil space,
which is like NASA and otheragencies and commercial they all
intertwine and mix in somecapacity, because, like dual use
technologies and, you know, somecompanies have multiple

(43:10):
customers, so that's been ouranchor flagship for a very long
time. On the other side of thehouse, we do a lot of K through
12 education and workforcedevelopment, because we do
believe that space begins in theclassroom. If we are pushing
toward this eventuality where weare going to have, you know,
sustained presence of people,and we're going to have all
these new jobs andinfrastructure, we need people

(43:32):
to not self select out earlybecause they don't think it's
part of their career growth. Andso we do a lot of space in the
community outreach. We do thingslike teacher liaisons, where we
train teachers around the worldon specific space curriculum.
And then one of our currentinitiatives is called swift and
it's focused on workforcedevelopment, and so it's making

(43:53):
sure that we close the criticalskills gap that a lot of
companies are finding to be ableto retain and attract and train
kind of the next generationskilled workers. A lot of my
work, what it does and theprograms, focuses on bringing
the next generation of companiesand capabilities to space. So we
focus a lot on the emergingcountries, the emerging

(44:16):
companies. We work a lot witheconomic development commissions
in different states to get themto understand how their
industries are relevant tospace. And we create programs
around it, so like one of themthat you mentioned, space path,
it's a one day virtual boot campthat's happening August 16. And
what it is is for companies orpeople that want to fully

(44:38):
understand, like really, whatthe space economy is, but start
to create a strategy around it.
And so whether it's a companythat is interested in space, or
could potentially already be inspace, but wants to understand
how to better scale, how tobetter integrate that, this is
really the program for them.
It's kind of like a like anaccelerator boot camp.

(45:00):
On steroids. Right within that,that component, what we also do
are space business incubatorsand accelerators. That's what
you mentioned, the space edgeand some others, where we put
together either 468, or 12 weekprograms really designed to help
companies understand where theyfit and create a strategy for
the future of space. What's niceabout those is all all sort of

(45:24):
accelerators and programs havean entrepreneurial flair, but we
really teach people about thebusiness of space. And so really
understanding how our market'sgoing to evolve, how our
industry is relevant. How isyour company relevant? How is it
going to scale? And so at theend of that, they really get an
understanding of what to do, howto do it, and when they can
start making money and insertinto the future. So I guess

(45:46):
what? What does maybe, like ahigh level process look like if
I'm an entrepreneur and I wantto start a space company, Is it
as simple as, like, I have anidea, and I just need to go
find, you know, make the thebusiness case to, uh, an
investor. So it it used to be,and it can be. So I'll part of

(46:07):
the, part of thechallenge and opportunity right
now. I'll say that. So, as Imentioned early on, there's,
there's never been moreinterest, activity, engagement,
opportunity ever. However, thereis a bit of heartburn in the
ecosystem right now because ofthe SPAC boom and bust that
happened in 2021 all the freemoney. Yeah, so just a quick

(46:28):
primer for the listeners, if youdon't know what I'm talking
about. As I mentioned, 2020 wasthis kind of critical year
because people realized thatspace was accessible. Virgin
Galactic went public via SPAC, aspecial purpose acquisition
company that essentially allowspeople to raise capital without
having a tech right? So a lot oflike PowerPoint companies were

(46:48):
able to go public and raisecapital like none of them panned
out. So so what, what happenedwas Rocket Lab was really kind
of the only company that saw itspanned out in valuations and so
without the companies actuallygetting any sort of return or
growth beyond that, what itreally did, in many ways, is
kind of call into question theintegrity of the space ecosystem
altogether, and the viability ofthe capabilities. So we started

(47:12):
to see private capital start toshrink and start to go more
toward classic things, towardlike hardware and software and
more infrastructure plays likeground stations that you need
for satellites and not take someof those more riskier bets. It
is now recovering, which isgood. So we are now seeing more
capital return to the market,primarily, as I mentioned

(47:35):
before, because things areflying spaces a lot more visible
now in terms of thesecapabilities, but what it means
for companies is that they needto be a lot more savvy, as
opposed to, I just have an idea,they need to actually show how
they're going to make money, orhow they will eventually fit
into the ecosystem and give somesort of economic return. So not

(47:55):
all companies need to be able toshow this three to five year
return, but at least have a planon how you're going to build
into this infrastructure, oreventuality or part of the
supply chain. So it just, itjust takes a bit more pragmatism
in terms of the business growthand not just the excitement of
what the community and ecosystembrings to bear. Yeah, that that

(48:16):
makes a lot of sense. Like, ifthe free money is done. Maybe it
shouldn't have have been therein the first place. You can make
that. I guess that argument aswell in all industries, not not
just space. But I am curious howthis, how this industry becomes
a little bit more businesssavvy, and how they're making
those cases once they once,maybe an entrepreneur or startup

(48:37):
has an idea, what does the sortof those next steps look like?
Because I've heard it's as easy,like, if you want to get on a
SpaceX launch, I mean, it is,they're booking, like, a year
and a half in advance, Ibelieve. But is, is it really as
simple as, just like, booking aflight on their website? Because
that's what I I've heard. Ithink if the So, I don't know
the full answer to that, but Ido know that SpaceX has really

(49:00):
made the process easy for peopleto be able to take advantage of
their their flights, right, andput different payloads in space,
because you know that the typesof things that are going to be
going up is everything frompotentially like a company's
idea to a research payload froman academic institution. And so
the ability to give access to alot of different people needed

(49:21):
to be streamlined in aparticular way. I will say that
sort of the next steps. So it's,it's a it's a couple of things,
I think that ultimately, giventhe the pace and the scale and
just the amount of excitementaround the industry, one, you
need to start engaging withpeople in the industry. The one

(49:41):
thing I will say, though aboutspace and why I really love this
community, is everybody loveswhat they do, and everybody
wants to talk about what theydo, because we are building this
future that is extremelyexciting, and so it's not a hard
industry to start making friendswith. So if you go to a space.
Conference, or you startengaging on webinars, online, or

(50:02):
even LinkedIn, is like one of myfavorite places, because you can
get into, like, reallyinteresting conversations, and
people will always respondbecause they love the topic. So
I think for companies, they needto start there. They need to
start engaging with the playersand getting diverse
perspectives. Because part ofthe biggest,
I think misnomer with space isif you build it, they will come

(50:23):
that is not true. And the otherpiece too is that sometimes a
lot of founders need to get outof the echo chamber of everybody
saying, this is such a reallycool idea, and you're going to
be the next Elon Musk and engagewith other aspects of the
industry that are just ascritical to its growth, that
might give them alternativeviews to think about it. So I
think the connectivity piece iscritical. I think also start to

(50:46):
understand where you want tofit. So there is now so much
value chain, and there are somany different aspects that you
can connect to, right? Do youwant to be a component, a
component supplier? Do you wantto be a third party supplier of
space data to an ecosystem or anindustry here on Earth? Do you

(51:07):
want to do payloads in space andaccelerate some sort of research
for some other industry onEarth? Do you want to be an
architect for the cislunarinfrastructure? Right? Do you
want to offer additivemanufacturing? There is like so
much that can be done thatunderstanding more clearly where
you want to fit will also theninform how you fit. Because do

(51:30):
you then become a supplier to Aprime that may have that
contract? Do you offerindependent services? Do you go
after a government contract? Sothere's lots of different ways,
but you need to actuallyunderstand, like, what
specifically you want to do, andnot just say, like cislunar,
because that is 10,000 differentthings. So from a I guess,

(51:51):
outside of getting the fundingand then obviously the
environment of space, what maybeis the most challenging aspect
of creating a startup in thisindustry.
So it's really the it's thehuman side. I would say that,
you know, you made the analogyearlier, talking about

(52:12):
car cargo trucks, right? Andlike a lot of this. So sometimes
people think that certainaspects are already dominated
and monopolized by a certaincompany. I mean, certainly
people think that about SpaceX.
But if you think about thefuture of space and all of the
different missions, like youmentioned, that company that you
talk to that wants to actuallylike transport cargo, we need
all sorts of different rocketsfor all sorts of different

(52:35):
missions. You need rockets thatare going to put people up
there. You need rockets that aregoing to put small satellites.
You need cargos that are goingto be trained. Are going to be
transportation type entities.
And so there are a lot ofdifferent opportunities and
offerings for different types ofaspects. So I am that is that is
a good, a good problem to have.
I think one of the challenges,though, for companies is the

(52:58):
understanding that certain areasare convincing people that it
might not be a completelydominated aspect, and that's
just launch. I mean, launch is ais a very different
conversation, but part of theother challenge for some of
these companies is just startingand getting people to trust you.
And so when you look into thisenvironment, as I mentioned,

(53:21):
where everything is going to beintegrated and coordinated, you
have to trust the company, andyou have to trust the system.
And so it is then come back tothose human relationships,
right? And so being able to getpeople to understand your
vision, but also you as people,and start to build those sort of
company relationships is reallycritical. And then the other
piece that is going to hamper, Ithink, a lot of the the

(53:43):
ecosystem, if we don't solve itpretty quickly, is just around
the regular the regulationaspect of it. So we are in an
environment now, you know, we'vebeen we're operating in space
like we've never operatedbefore. And there are not laws
that extend to property rightsin space. There are really no
regulatory frameworks for howcommercial companies are going

(54:04):
to be engaging when they'repotentially mining on the moon.
And so we also need to make surethat we as a as a country, the
United States, but alsoglobally, kind of look at
the existing regulatoryframeworks and potentially
update ones that are antiquated,to actually allow the ecosystem
and the innovation to evolve atthe pace and scale that it needs

(54:26):
to. Because for some of theseyoung companies, you know, it
may be really difficult for themto get a slot in orbit right.
They may not be able to get on aride share, they may not be able
to get the right licenses to beable to conduct what they need
to do, and so being able toallow the agility of the
of the ecosystem to adapt tolike the modern needs, is really

(54:50):
one of those critical aspects,and that has nothing to do with
the technology and everything todo with kind of the policy in
the system around it. Yeah,because there's no, from what I
understand, there's nogoverning.
Body in space. It's just kind ofloose agreements between
countries on earth that kind ofagree to a certain set of rules.
But they can they really beenforced? Yeah, so that that,

(55:12):
honestly, is the one of theprimary conversations that is
happening now because of howengagement is accelerating,
because traditionally, it wasnationalistic, right? It was, it
was companies that would bedoing things on behalf of NASA
or or the European Space Agencyor elsewhere. And that is still
going to exist, but, yeah, weare now going to create an

(55:33):
eventuality where there may be acommercial company that is
engaging outside of thegovernment. We've already proved
it with the moon. There havebeen commercial companies that
have landed on the moon, um twothat are united states based so
intuitive machines, and Fireflyaerospace and so that is really
accelerating the pace of theseconversations and the necessity.
What we have right now arethere's the Outer Space Treaty,

(55:56):
which was developed in 1969ratified in 1972
but to your point, that doesn'textend to property rights or
sort of that other sort ofownership. And then the
framework that we are working onnow is the Artemis accords. That
is, I don't know if you'refamiliar with that, but
essentially it, it's essentiallyan international doctrine that
countries can sign on to thatessentially establish norms of

(56:20):
engagement, or at least peoplesignal that these are the norms
of engagement. I think as of acouple weeks ago, there were 55
signatories there. There may bemore, but again, that's a non
binding treaty, so it's anindication that you want to be
allies and that you will work inthis way. But there's no
enforcement mechanism, and so alot of those aspects around

(56:42):
space, law and regulation andthe policy around those are
butting on the fringes, becausethat really is a critical
component, because economically,we can justify the return,
technologically, we can buildit. We can try to attract the
capital. But if you don't havethose other levers to enable its
success. It can really stall,yeah, because I think it was

(57:04):
some I don't know if it was likethe Russian government or maybe
a Russian company, but theyexploded one of their satellites
in space a couple of years ago,and all of that debris went into
all of these different orbitalfields, and that obviously
impacts a bunch of countries, abunch of companies, and so for
situations like that, you kindof want some checks and

(57:24):
balances, I would imagine, yeah,and that is, that is actually
one of the examples inparticular that a lot of people
use about just kind of likesecondary and tertiary effects
of things, and then how thatalso plays beyond commercial,
but potentially nationalsecurity threats or or other
aspects. And so the domain isjust very interesting at the

(57:48):
moment in terms of how we'regoing to move forward
collectively. I did want to pullon the on the string for a
little bit of the manufacturingside of things, because I would
imagine that if we canmanufacture and we could make
goods in space, then that wouldreduce the amount of cargo
transports that we would needfor maybe some critical
supplies. One a reader submitteda question for this episode, and

(58:10):
he was talking about asteroidmining, and what do they see as
a bigger potential marketlassoing asteroids and tugging
them back to Earth or zero. Gmanufacturing was the reader
submitted question. I'm not sureif you could answer that, but
would love to hear your insight.
So yes, I can answer it, maybenot as fully as they would like,

(58:33):
but I could give, I could givean example. So asteroid mining
is one of those topics thatcomes up a lot because it is one
that excites people, primarilybecause there have been
asteroids that have beenidentified that, have, you know,
more platinum than exists onearth, just on one asteroid. And
so the economic gain and thepotentiality of what that could

(58:53):
bring to bear is really excitingfor people. The challenge right
now is that there is no businesscase or market for it. What I
mean by that is that in order toactually
conduct the mission, and youknow, dock on the asteroid, mine
the Platinum, bring it backdown, the yield that you can

(59:13):
actually get is is much lessthan the cost of the mission.
And so it doesn't the Deltadoesn't make business sense yet.
That is where people are going,but it is one of those examples
that a lot of investors willsay, I'm not investing in that
because it's not a viable,practical aspect right now. What
is viable, though, for asteroidmining, and where a lot of the

(59:34):
industry is looking at, for thatspace to space market, which
you're talking about, is lookingat things like water and and
rare minerals and other criticalelements that can be used in
situ for other aspects. And soif we are going to look at lunar
infrastructure and lunararchitecture, we need to not
just be shipping water up fromEarth, right? I mean, that's

(59:56):
very expensive, it's verycumbersome, and that that can
stall things.
So looking at ways to extractwater from potential asteroids,
and looking at ways to getminerals or other aspects that
then can be manufactured throughmore precision manufacturing
authority manufacturing forinfrastructure and architecture
aspects, there is, is one thatthey're looking at. And there

(01:00:17):
are companies focused on, whatabout on the I guess the we've
talked about it a couple times,of the space tourism aspect,
Blue Origin just, just hadtheir, you know, their their
flight that went viral all oversocial media for a variety of
reasons. I am curious as to, arewe How far away is a future
where regular people can justbook a flight and go into space,

(01:00:41):
yeah. So that was the wholepoint of those flights, right?
So there's a couple of pointsfor suborbital, and I'm a big
proponent of it, because Ithink, for a couple of reasons,
you need to make people feelpart of the space story, as we
mentioned. You know, people,it's very mythical to folks, and
it's very out of touch. Butspace does affect us, and people
will be able to take advantageof it. So anytime you send

(01:01:04):
humans up into space and returnthem safely, that is a
technological feat that needs tobe celebrated. And so I really
applaud them in their efforts,and by doing more and more of
these flights, that iseventually going to drive the
cost down, because you are goingto be able to prove technology
with more fidelity, close morebusiness cases, give more

(01:01:25):
access. And so I could see aneventuality where in the next
five to 10 years, it is, it ismuch cheaper for folks to access
it. I know there are a lot ofcompanies that are focused on
that. There's also somecompanies. I don't know if
you've seen the balloons, sothere's some companies, and I'm
blanking on the name, but theyit's almost like a it's a space

(01:01:46):
tourism aspect, but it takes youright to the edge on this, like
souped up hot air balloon. Oh,wow. People want to do um, so
that is another aspect. What Iwill say about the suborbital
flights, though, and why it itis also really critical, is that
there are experimentation andother aspects that are done on
these flights. And so people,and I know they did this on the

(01:02:06):
the Blue Origin flight, butthere were sensors worn and
other other types of aspectstested that you don't
necessarily have that kind oftesting, and in the 5g that you
pull up to get there right, orin the micro gravity, and so
also what it does to acceleratejust basic science and discovery
and some of these otherinnovations that are going to be
really critical for future humanmissions. It's a really critical

(01:02:27):
component. And so I think thathaving people pay attention to
them, getting excited aboutthem, not just from the science
aspect, but feeling part ofspace and there will be, there
will be a time when, wheneveryone will be able to take
advantage of it, or hope, orhopefully, most hopefully, in my
lifetime, it is definitely agoal and a dream that I didn't

(01:02:49):
think would actually beattainable. But if you're saying
within the next five or 10years, you know, maybe that is
really attainable for a lot offolks, and it's something to
look forward to and bepassionate about, yeah, because,
I mean, I don't think most folksrealize that they've already
flown. Blue Origin has alreadyflown another human mission
since that flight. Oh, wow.
They're set to launch anotherone, I think, this week. And so
the cadence now of when they'reflying these with the

(01:03:13):
individuals on board isaccelerating as well, which is
really exciting. Wow. So I guessis that maybe, like, Blue
Origin's main focus right nowis, like it's more of the the
subordable Tourism styleflights, that's a component. So
they have a lot of differentaspects. They flew earlier this
January. They did a test flightof their new Glenn rocket, which

(01:03:34):
is a, which is a heavy, a heavyrocket. So essentially, it could
be a competitor to starship.
They also have a contract for alunar lander, and so they are
very much involved in kind ofthe moon ecosystem, and so it is
a component of one but they havea lot of really interesting

(01:03:54):
projects and products thatthey're working on. How
realistic is it for us to have abase on the moon and maybe the
next 10 years. I think it's veryrealistic. So
it does, though, take, as wementioned earlier, the
coordination of all of thethings to enable the the the

(01:04:18):
infrastructure. So when you lookat the this, individualized
components, a lot of thesetechnologies are kind of at a
critical mass, right? And theyare, they are ready to be
scaled. They just need thecapital or some sort of other
integration infusion to be ableto do that. It's the
coordination of it. And so Ithink that

(01:04:40):
if you look at the futuregrowth, you know, we are as a
nation, we're planning to goback to the moon. I don't know
if 2026 is going to stick, butat least sometime within the
next couple of years to havepeople back on the moon. They're
already, you know, likeautonomous flyers, as I
mentioned, that are going there.
And so I could see very easilyin the next 10 years. You.
If we're able to coordinateeverything in a concentrated

(01:05:02):
way, that it could be aneventuality. Now, last few
questions here, just more fromlike, I guess, like the
logistics industry standpoint.
I'm sure anybody I talk to thatworks in this industry, they
are, they are fascinated byspace as well, but they don't.
They didn't know it was thisapproachable. I didn't think it
was this approachable, untilthis we had this conversation. I
you know, it's kind of a thingin, you know, an aspirational

(01:05:25):
thing. So for folks who may belistening that are working in
logistics, what kind of jobs doyou think are going to be like
logistics related ortransferable to the space
economy? You're talking aboutindividual jobs and not
capabilities, right? Ortechnologies, maybe both,
because I maybe somecapabilities for professionals

(01:05:47):
here on Earth would apply, andmaybe they're, they're industry
transferable, because I thinkI've heard you talk about, you
know, we're, we need you knowmarketing, and we need you know
messaging, and you know, that'swhat stuck with me, but I know
that there's other roles,project management, things like
that, that all need to be donefor space as well. Oh,
completely. So thewhen people start to pull back

(01:06:11):
the onion and realize what thisfuture looks like, I really do
believe that every background,interest and skill set fits.
It's just finding how it fits. Iwould say that some of the ones
that come to mind, particularlyon the logistics side, that are
going to be really critical, butalso really transferable in the

(01:06:32):
future, is understanding, likethe OP the interoperability, and
also like operation side of lotsof different machinery, right?
So think about like how somebodymanages a port in terms of
things coming in and out andmaking sure that there aren't
collisions, right? And beingable to tag things. The same

(01:06:53):
thing is going to be necessarythere when you have this sort of
infrastructure on the lunarsurface, but also when you look
at a lot of the payloads thatare going in and out of these
space stations, right? So beingable to understand how that all
plays together. Another reallycritical thing though, which I
think that a lot of thelogistics community is already
sort of leading in, is this sortof machine human symbiosis,

(01:07:15):
particularly when it comes tothe integration of artificial
intelligence. I am not alogistics expert by any means,
but I can speculate that it isprobably being used, you know,
not just like I said, for likePort management, but also for
tracking, routes and otheraspects AI, is going to play
such a critical role in thefuture of the space economy in a

(01:07:37):
lot of different ways that Ithink that the people that know
how to utilize it, know how tointegrate with it, know how to
capitalize on its operationalability, is a really
it's going to be a commonoccurrence and a critical thing
to know, because I can give youan example. So when we talked

(01:07:58):
about the manufacturing side ofit. Artificial Intelligence is
already being used to keep upwith this the scale of satellite
demand, and so a lot ofmanufacturing facilities are now
utilizing artificialintelligence to help design, you
know, manufacture and developtheir satellites. A lot of
artificial intelligence will beused on these future missions,
not just for planning, but alsofor coordination of all the

(01:08:21):
different autonomous vehicles tokind of integrate together. And
so that sort of skill set is areally interesting one. I know
it's definitely one that's beingtaught at schools because kids
are growing up with thistechnology. But if there are
professionals that already knowhow to harbor the
genius or the the effectiveness,rather, of artificial
intelligence into their dailyjobs, I think is would be a huge

(01:08:43):
benefit. Yeah, there was that.
Going back to that gentlemanthat I spoke with at NASA, he
talked about how he and his teamwent to an air cargo conference
in order to learn how to moreefficiently pack their cargo in
the shuttle. So they're learningfrom other logistics pros. If
you're on, you know, regularconferences that a lot of this

(01:09:04):
audience goes to, but they'relearning from them in order to
apply those learnings in space,which I think is just
fascinating. Oh, yeah. And evenon that thread that just made me
think of something else. If youthink about putting things in
space, every ounce matters. Sounderstanding how to potentially
miniaturize, or, like you said,pack or capitalize on space

(01:09:25):
available for the optimal outputthat you want on the back end is
something that is going to bereally critical. So it really is
kind of just a, I would say,like kind of a creative leap to
think about how these entitiesmight come together, but if we
do or not it, but when we dohave lunar infrastructure, it's
going to be really no differentthan infrastructure here and how

(01:09:46):
it engages, right? So let's lastI know I said last couple
questions, a few questions ago.
Last, last couple questions. Forreal. Are there any sort of
trends?
That are going on within space,any businesses that we should be
paying attention tobefore they kind of hit the
mainstream?

(01:10:09):
That's agood question. I would say.
So, from like, an interestingcapabilities point, yeah, so one
of the ones that has come comearound a lot recently, which I
find really interesting, isdata centers in space. Oh, wow.

(01:10:30):
And so it's, it's, it's ananswer to a couple of things. So
it's, it's the ability to alsomaintain critical
communications, right? Also keepup with the demand of the amount
of satellites and the power thatthey demand in terms of latency
and others to be able latencyand other capabilities to bring

(01:10:52):
back down to earth. But theother reason that they're
putting them in space is that alot of the data centers, or at
least what I've read is a lot ofthe data centers on Earth are
there's they're sort of outgrowing the space that they
have, and also they're reallyvulnerable to attacks. And so if
you think about this superconnected world that we are

(01:11:13):
moving into, and particularly,everything is connected now
ground and space and everythingin between, when you move it up
into space. It's not asvulnerable to things like cyber
attacks and, you know, grid,grid shutdowns and other
aspects. And so that is an areathat is increasingly gaining
more traction, a securityaspect, from a utilization

(01:11:34):
demand, but then also from akind of closed loop
communication ability. Andthat's that's one that I think
is really interesting to watch.
The other piece too, that is,you know, really apropos to your
readers is really this portfoliothat I call isams, or I don't
call it that. It's called ISAMit's the in space service,
assembly and manufacturing, andthat is that low Earth orbit

(01:11:56):
integrated architecture of therefueling depots, the robotic
repair arms, the man the,you know, the manufacturing in
space, a lot of the recyclingendeavors, that is one of the
aspects that is extremelycritical to grow and scale, as
I've mentioned. But also a lotof those companies are really

(01:12:17):
visible, like orbit fab, isdoing gas stations in space.
Astro scale is looking atsustainability at the forefront,
but they are. They recently didthis mission where they got
really close to a piece of spacedebris and were able to survey
it with like, really impressiveresolution. And the next goal is
to capture it. And so thatportfolio is really timely,

(01:12:39):
really important, and one that'sreally going to change the game
when the whole ISAM chain reallycomes to conclusion. Yeah. I
mean, it just feels like, youknow, this is very reminiscent
of, you know, for a lot ofAmericans that could be
listening the western expansionand, you know, building the
railroad tracks in order to getto and from a little bit faster

(01:12:59):
and a little bit more efficient.
It's kind of what we're doingright now. We're building those
gas stations. We're building,you know, those maintenance
shops, and you know, it's alltaking place like right now in
space. And I don't think thatthat most people are aware of
that. So Kelly, this has been anamazing conversation. Is there
anything that you feel isimportant to mention that we

(01:13:19):
haven't already talked about?
The only thing that comes tomind is just a response to just
what you said is that is aperfect analogy to use, and I
think that the best way to useit is, if you think about that
Western expanse, and especiallythe gold rush, the people that
made a bulk of the money, itwasn't necessarily the ones like
looking for the gold, it was thepeople selling the picks and

(01:13:42):
shovels.
And so when you think about thissupply chain aspect, right? It's
all of those other aspects thatare really critical to its
growth, and that's where a lotof the opportunity lies, is just
understanding where thatinsertion is, that's that's a
perfect mic drop moment for thisconversation. Kelly, thank you
so much. Where Can folks followyou follow more of the work of

(01:14:03):
Space Foundation, all that goodstuff. Yeah, so our website is
spacefoundation.org, and you canfind all the good stuff that the
organization is up to. I'm veryactive on LinkedIn. If anyone
also wants to follow me onLinkedIn, it's just Kelly. Kita
sogborne, happy to engage,especially for those companies
that are trying to start theconversation? Please reach out.
Yeah, absolutely. We will putall of those links in the show

(01:14:25):
notes, just to make it easy forfolks. But this is another
fantastic conversation. SoKelly, we'll have to have you
back on to talk about how theseadvancements are improving.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for tuning in to anotherepisode of everything is
logistics, where we talk allthings supply chain. For the
thinkers in freight, if youliked this episode, there's

(01:14:48):
plenty more where that camefrom. Be sure to follow or
subscribe on your favoritepodcast app so you never miss a
conversation. The show is alsoavailable in video format over
on YouTube, just by searchingeverything is logistics.
Logs. And if you're working infreight logistics or supply
chain marketing, check out mycompany, digital dispatch. We
help you build smarter websitesand marketing systems that

(01:15:08):
actually drive results, not justvanity metrics. Additionally, if
you're trying to find the rightfreight tech tools or partners
without getting buried inbuzzwords, head on over to
cargorex.io where we're buildingthe largest database of
logistics services andsolutions. All the links you
need are in the show notes. I'llcatch you in the Next episode
and go Jags you.

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