ETF Edge - Space Race Takes Off & Ark Invest Bets Big
Episode Date: February 24, 2021CNBC's Bob Pisani spoke with ProcureAM CEO Andrew Chanin, Tom Lydon, CEO of ETF Trends and Matthew Bartolini, head of SPDR Americas Research. They discussed the race to space after the successful land...ing of NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover and a much anticipated new launch from Cathie Wood of Ark Invest. In the 'markets 102' portion of the podcast, Bob contiues the conversation about space, the new frontier for ETF investing, with Andrew Chanin from ProcureAM. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Welcome to ETF Edge, the podcast.
If you're looking to learn the latest insights on all things, exchange traded funds, you are in the right place.
Every week we're bringing you compelling interviews and some market analysis, and we're going to break down what it all means for investors.
And I'm your host, Bob Vasani.
Today we're doing a deep dive on the race to space after that successful landing.
NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover, and with more and more space funds coming to market,
including a much anticipated new launch from Kathy Wood of Arc Invest.
Here's my conversation with Matt Bartolini, head of Spider America's Research at State Street,
Andrew Channon, CEO of Procure AM, and Tom Leiden, CEO of ETF Trends.
You know, guys, I want to start by just referencing that amazing Mars landing because they did it with a video for crying out loud.
They put out a couple days later, a beautiful little piece of tape.
They've provided just tremendous footage of the landing.
Also, the dusk being blown around as Perseverance was landing.
And when you consider how much could have gone wrong with this whole thing, it's really quite amazing.
It's truly one of the great technological feats of all time.
I mean, just look at the simulation that they're doing.
It's quite amazing.
Matt, the Mars Perseverance landing itself, it's gotten everybody excited at this point.
I wonder what you could weigh in here.
There's a lot of publicly traded companies that help build that particular lander,
and it's rare we get to say, hey, that company built that,
but maybe you could help point it out to us.
And your final frontier ETF has got a lot of those companies that built some of this.
That's right, Bob.
You know, the space exploration industry stretches beyond just sort of rocket manufacturers.
You know, obviously reusable rockets generated a lot of interest into the marketplace
and create a lot of efficiencies.
but there's also the components and suppliers of different parts of space exploration
that extends to something that is in the public space.
So a company like MaxR Technology, it's part of our EF, they are a builder of robotic arms
for NASA essentially the Apollo era.
And NASA's Perseverance Rover brings the sixth MaxR robotic arm to Mars.
There's also other firms like Teledyne Technologies.
They are in company providing aerospace and defense electronics.
And, you know, you're talking about the video.
You know, like some of their electronics help the image sensors on the Mars rover perseverance.
There's other companies like HICO Corp and Mercury Systems.
You know, these sort of traditional people view them as traditional aerospace and defense companies,
but they have a large impact on the space business.
And part of our approach is not capture just pure plays.
But also the ecosystem supplying us because there's so much left out there in terms of the space exploration business to uncover.
Yeah. And Matt, the MaxR tech, they actually built the robotic arms that are being used for this, for the perseverance. Is that right? Do I understand that right?
That's correct. I mean, you know, much like how you have firms that make the engine and part of the car as well as the brakes, you know, MaxSAR technologies is crucial to the ability for what we're seeing here on NASA do in terms of, you know, identifying, you know, potential life forms on the surface.
of Mars.
I mean, it's just a great innovation.
It's something that we see to capture with our suite of Kencho ETFs, and obviously
we would lock it with space.
Yeah, it's very exciting.
Andrew, as it is.
I can't help but think watching this for so many years, it's really tough to invest in space.
There's not a lot of things that are out there.
I remember 1970.
I was very invested emotionally in the space program.
I was 14 years old. I wanted to be a physicist. And for Christmas, I got my first share of stock.
I got one share in a company called Kowicki Burlko. They made beryllium, which is useful in the satellites,
but it's used also as a space shield to protect against heat. And my father gave me one share in a company called Kowiki Burlco.
And they made the berylliums, the space shields. And the company got bought out the next year.
But it was the first time I ever had a stock certificate, one share of Kewiki Brolco.
And I was so excited about it.
That was 52 years or 51 years ago, but it's still tough to invest, you know, in space.
Can you break down the various sub sectors for us what's out there?
I mean, obviously there's satellites that you're involved in,
but there's rocketry companies and robotics companies that Andrew was talking about as well.
Yeah, UFO is created to essentially make it easier to invest in space by having companies from around the world.
They're specializing in all of different areas of the space ecosystem.
So what is space? Space is comprised of companies that are satellite manufacturers and operators,
launch equipment companies, companies creating hardware and software for space. A huge part of it, though, is communications.
And when you actually look at the numbers for how big the space industry is, roughly one third of that is coming from broadband internet communications, typically using satellites.
So that's a major, major part of the space economy. So you can't leave out satellites, in our opinion.
And you're trying to invest in the space industry.
But really, you've got companies that are maybe doing a little bit in space,
and they're not really a space company,
but then you have companies that are doing, you know,
majority of their revenues from space.
And because UFO has a global focus,
it allows for the opportunity to include many different companies from around the world.
And many of them are, you know, pure-played companies that you'll find in UFO.
Yeah. Tom, way in here.
I know you watch this space as well.
obviously, if you look at Andrew's largest holdings, there are a lot of them are satellites. That
makes a lot of sense. I mean, in terms of pure plays, they're the best ones that are out there.
Do you anticipate, though, given the enthusiasm, the excitement generated by the Mars landing,
the fact that we've got private companies involved as well, three big billionaires involved,
as well as Kathy Woods getting involved? Do you think there's going to be a lot more out there to
invest in the next couple of years? We're not going to be trolling around looking for
just satellite companies, are we?
No, well, you're right, Bob, and a lot of people are sharing your enthusiasm.
However, I think what Andrew and Matt are pointing out is the ETFs that are touching on this area
aren't always the same.
Their construction isn't the same.
Their strategies aren't the same, and this is one thing we want to make sure we highlight.
When you look at UFO, it's really earnings-focused, and that's the premise for the components
of that ETF, 44% is in the communication services sector. And then you go over to Rocket ROKT.
It's more of a index utilizing artificial intelligence, maybe more growth oriented than earnings
oriented, not saying one's right or one's wrong, but we're going to see expanded areas,
obviously, in the ETF space with Kathy coming on too, but it's going to be important to lift up the
could because this area is not going away. It's going to be with us for not years, but decades,
but there are going to be a lot of different ways to play it.
Yeah, I guess what I'm excited about is we've already got some. So obviously, we have the aerospace
companies. Then we have manufacturing types, which we discussed earlier, like MaxArtec.
We have Virgin Galactic. Hopefully we're going to get SpaceX soon.
Any thoughts on that one, Andrew or Matt?
SpaceX?
Yeah, I mean, Tom, we're still...
I mean, still unknown, right?
I mean, it's been a private company,
continue to get serious funding in the private markets.
You know, obviously it's a very similar run to Tesla,
and that eventually was in public as well.
I think when we talk to investors about focusing on space exploration,
is to not just look at, you know,
the high-flying names of SpaceX or Blue Origin there
in the private markets, but showcase what companies in the public markets are helped supplying them.
So Airjet RocketDi, their products and services are going to be part of the Blue Origin New Shepard.
One of the rockets they're going to be coming online in the near term.
I think that helps underscore the sort of opportunity that you're seeing in space
because there's sort of three catalysts that are sort of mutually reinforcing the opportunity right now.
More efficiency.
You have more government support, the Department of Defense, that increase the budget related to space investment.
for the past three years.
And then on the last one, you basically have more commercial use case.
You know, more applications actually hear down on Earth in terms of satellite technology.
So, you know, while there's a lot of attention paid to SpaceX and Blue Origin, there's real
components in the public market.
And that's what we're really trying to seek out with Rocket that people should be aware of.
There's also companies that are benefiting from successes by companies like SpaceX.
So they're able to get the cost of launch down, and that's going to allow more companies to
send things into outer space cheaper.
So they're really opening up the entire environment for space companies and future would-be space companies to lower those barriers of entry.
Yeah.
And Andrew or anybody, just weigh in on that relationship, that public-private partner relationship.
So we've got Elon Musk, we've got Virgin Galactic and Richard Branson.
We've got Jeff Bezos.
We've got three billionaires that are involved here.
Can you characterize how they are.
interacting with NASA? I mean, Musk is at one time a collaborator and also a competitor of
NASA. I'm wondering if somebody can comment on how that is playing out. Are we the investing
public? Are we space buffs that we are benefiting from that collaboration slash rivalry?
Somebody want to tackle that? I like to think so, because what you see is these companies are actually
competing with each other on these NASA contracts. So to the extent that they're actually
lowering the cost for NASA to embark on these various missions and goals that they have,
they're actually freeing up more of NASA's budget to be able to invest in other areas of space.
So this competition, I think, is very healthy. Not necessarily every company is going to be a winner,
but hopefully this competition could drive down prices and also let the best technologies win.
So I think it's a really exciting environment that NASA is actually going out and not just contracting
these private companies, but public companies as well. I mean, if you look at the database of
contracts that NASA has in other similar bodies. There's over 300 publicly traded U.S.
companies that actually have these various contracts. So it's not just necessarily a pure
place-based company that might get a contract, but it's really opening up opportunities for
everyone. You know, I was just going to add to that the United Launch Alliance. That's, you know,
basically Lockheed Martin is part of that. And their purchase or pending purchase of Airjet
Rocket-Dine is one of the reasons or one of the reasons is a result of space.
So trying to compete with SpaceX by acquiring Airjet rocket dive, which helps reduce the cost of missile launch due to reusable rockets.
So I think you can see the sort of derivative effects of a private company impacting the public markets just from that one example of Lockheed and AirJet.
Just to add, Bob, a little bit.
It's important to talk about what's going on outside of the atmosphere here, but also when you look within our atmosphere, you know, areas like,
in Rocket actually have deep sea applications.
There's a lot of companies involved in drones, air taxis, electronic or electric aviation vehicles.
All that stuff's coming and not all that's going to be a part of this as well.
So when you think about the space sector, there's a lot to cover for sure.
Yeah, I think you brought up a very good point there, Matt, about aeroget rocketine being bought by Lockheed,
Because remember something, NASA has been building big rockets for a long time.
Elon Musk is now building a big rocket that is directly competing.
There must be hundreds of NASA engineers there who've been working on a big rocket for decades,
who are looking at this saying, huh, are they going to replace me, essentially?
So that's why I bring this up.
I'm delighted that Elon Musk is bringing enthusiasm and efficiencies and real.
technological advances to the space race. I think it needs it, but at the same time, there is a certain
competition, as exemplified in Aerojet Rocketine, being bought by Lockheed there.
You know, Andrew, I see your assets under management here up 200% since Kathy Wood announced that
she was going to start that space ETF in January. I want to play a piece of the interview I did
with Kathy last week where she spoke about space and her upcoming ETF. Let's just take a quick listen
to that and see if it's available.
The costs associated with launching, with rockets themselves, with antenna, they're all coming down dramatically, thanks to, you know, both the private and the public sector.
But I think the private sector has really helped NASA out here.
You've got Elon Musk, you've got Jeff Bezos, you've got Richard Branson in another way.
And on the technology side, we see SpaceX and Blue Orleans.
origin, pushing the envelope. So costs are coming down and the technologies are finally ready.
And obviously, Kathy is not saying when the, when the ETF might actually be out there. But guys,
there's some speculation out there in the press that since she made it in January, it's possible
we could have an ETF announcement by the end of March. I don't know. Anybody want to weigh in on
that? And knowing Kathy would, any thoughts on what she might include?
in that ETF there?
Yeah, Bob.
So I can jump in there.
The good thing about Kathy is she really doesn't hide what she likes, and you can already
dig into some of their ETFs now.
ARKQ, the autonomous technology and robotics ETF has a couple companies.
Once is Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, K-T-O-S, where it has, it specializes in direct
energy weapons and unmanned systems.
and satellites. And there's another one also in San Diego area called Trimble, which has a water
management software where they use satellites to help farming as far as agriculture regarding
water management control. So she's got high conviction on those two. You could probably guess
they might end up in that ETF. And I think there are a lot of people that are dissecting her current
ETFs to see what she might own in ARCX.
Yeah, I like that a lot.
So Kratos is K-T-O-S, right, the symbol on that?
Correct, yes.
Yeah, and Trimble is what?
TRMB.
T isn't Tom, R-M-B.
I didn't know that symbol.
Thank you.
Those are two good guests.
Anybody else want to weigh in on any of this?
So obviously they're going to come.
Trimble is actually one of our holdings as well.
So, you know, certainly would be happy to see that getting added to other portfolios.
But, you know, one thing that hasn't been mentioned too much is her firm actually subadvised
as a fund out in Japan focused on the space industry as well.
I believe through an SMA or mutual fund with the company NICO AM.
So, you know, someone could probably look to that to get some ideas as well as how she considers
looking at the space industry.
Yeah.
What I'm excited about, I mean, obviously, as I told you, I got my first stock at 14 years old, which was a space stock essentially.
So this is a personal interest to me.
What I'm excited about is space is now part of the thematic indexing.
You know, I've never particularly loved that there are 11 sectors in the S&P 500.
I mean, nobody buys consumer discretionary sectors, no nerd.
I mean, modern nerds like us do, but modern people who like to invest think,
I want to invest in cybersecurity.
I want to invest in solar.
I want to invest in clean energy.
I want to invest in space.
So it's thematic ETF investing.
That's the way people naturally think in their heads.
Nobody divides up the world of the consumer discretionary
and consumer staples necessarily.
So I'm enthusiastic about it because of that.
I'd just like to see more companies involved in it.
And once people understand how important space becomes,
you get more educated,
you get better at it.
The problem is the same problem we had with the Bitcoin thing a few years ago.
It's hard to get a pure play that's out there.
So the more space that's out there and the more Elon Musk gets involved
and the more Virgin Galactic gets involved and the more Jeff Bezos gets involved,
the more I like it.
You know, Matt, when I look at ROKT,
what I find intriguing about it is that it's really a combination of two sub-indexes.
One is about space travel, and the other is about underwater, essentially.
It's sort of like New Frontiers, as the name applies.
But one thing very interesting about what you guys do, and this is probably Ken Show, is you really, it's not an earning space.
It's really, you scan companies using this sort of an AI system for search terms to be included in the index.
And that kind of is determined.
Could you just educate us a little bit about how you determine what goes in there?
I find that scanning methodology you use very interesting.
Yeah, so Rocket employs a robust, systematic artificial intelligence approach to capture innovation within space industry, both peer plays and suppliers, and that doesn't really require an analyst to cover the industry, which I think is helpful in capturing the broad-based nature of something like space, which is, you know, in a very nascent area.
So we don't really consider revenue generation.
You know, given that as a backward-looking metric of what has been done, screening for how firms are describing their material operations, however, may provide a forward-looking.
looking view into the future, which I think is an important aspect for a next-generation trend
like space. So we will utilize a natural language processing process to scan regulatory filings
of firms, their 10Ks, 20Ks, and 40F to understand what they're saying in their material operations
as it relates to space. And we'll search for things around space mission assurance, space
imaging, space communication, space tourism. We will have satellites in there. And I think the big part
is with 5G, next-gen connectivity companies and satellites.
We want to make sure that these are the companies that are involved in space
and are not really the home entertainment or satellite companies that are just using that service.
We want to make sure that they are more than users of the technology that they're innovating.
So that's the way we capture this market.
We look at their prescriptive statements to understand how these firms are investing
and innovating within space to attract both pure play and suppliers to the ecosystem.
And Andrew, describe the weightings in UFO and how that operates, just so everybody's clear about the differences.
Yes.
So we have a former director of the Space Foundation and a whole team that looks at the universe of space companies.
I think not looking at revenues is actually something that's not going to give you really pureplay exposure to the actual industry that you want to invest in.
And kind of by Matt's logic, you know, that equates to me as, you know, investing in something called a,
a health food
ETF where the top holdings are McDonald's, Wendy's, and Dominoes.
You know, if you want to invest in space,
you might want the actual companies
that are deriving a large percentage of their revenues from space.
So for us, that was really important.
We could have signed up and licensed, you know,
a number of indexes out there,
but it wasn't until we met the folks at S Network,
learned their approach,
and their focus on actually analyzing the companies
and understanding and defining the space industry
before we felt comfortable moving forward.
So we're very excited to have a license
on the first index to be recognized by the Space Foundation as the world's first certified space data product.
So for us, your revenues was actually something very important because I've seen too many kind of gimmick products out there before
where someone tries to capture or capitalize off of a fad, a trend, or a buzzword.
But when you actually dig down into the holdings, you're not maybe getting that exposure that you want.
So it doesn't necessarily mean that companies are bad.
But for someone trying to necessarily invest in the space industry, for us, it was very important to provide an actual fund that's
investing in these companies that are deriving a large percentage of their revenues from space.
Our fund has a gimmick approach that we're using prescriptive documents, their regulatory
filings, to conform to some form of policies per the SEC. And, you know, there's severe penalties
for a company misstating their material operations. And I think it is constructive to utilize
some sort of textual-based approach to understand how companies are investing their resources
from a capital expenditures perspective. I think I can cover a lot, a larger swath than what
revenue can do, particularly given that revenue contribution can be more low for some of these
more fledgling companies.
It's great early stage to see the gloves coming off, and this is a competitive environment.
But I think back to that 14-year-old Boppa signing when he got his first stock, think about the
next generation coming up. What a great gift to be able to give them shares in UFO or Rocket
or Kathy Woods ETS, because it's really exciting, and it helps people learn how to invest.
Finally, in closing, Bob, little birdie told me today's your birthday.
So, happy birthday from all of us in the ETIP business.
Thank you.
Happy birthday, Bob.
Thank you for bringing that up.
Yes, I think back to that 14-year-old Bob Pisani, it scares the hell out of me, you know,
more than 50 years ago.
But he was a lot of, he was a great kid.
I liked him very much.
And he's still there.
He hasn't really gone away.
Science fiction is still my favorite genre of all movies.
I'm a huge science fiction fan.
I can, one day we'll do a segment on the history of science fiction movies, but that's not for this show.
Guys, thank you.
And Tom, thanks for the best wishes.
Thanks to Tom and Matt and Andrew, of course.
Now it's time to round out the conversation with some analysis and perspective to help you better understand ETFs.
This is the market's 102 portion of the podcast.
Today we'll be continuing the conversation about space, the new frontier for ETF investing, at least, with Andrew Chanon from Procure AM.
Andrew, thanks for joining us.
And, of course, you run the UFO ETF, which is focused on space.
And I'm very excited about the whole business here.
I'll tell you what I like about what you do, just continuing our discussion from before.
You sort of got two tranches in this space ETF.
The first is broad companies, non-diversified companies that get 50% of their revenues, at least from space activities.
And then you have another trance composed of diversified companies that are playing a big role in space technology and equipment.
And you weight them, right?
The non-diversified trans is given 80% of the weight.
The diversified is given 20% of the weight.
Is that correct?
Yeah.
So at least 80% of the underlying index is focused on these companies driving the majority of their revenue from space-related activities and services.
So that's kind of important because we talked about this.
on ETF Edge, it's actually not easy to find a lot of companies to invest in.
There's a little bit of a problem.
So getting pure plays, I guess is my issue.
This is the thing I always get from investors.
Bob, I don't want to hear it's like 3% of the revenues.
It's hard to get pure play stuff in here.
To the extent that you can, you're focused on that, right?
Exactly.
That was so important to us.
I mean, you know, there's tons of indexes out there in the world.
But if you say that you're going to be a space ETF,
in my mind, you should have an index that's representative of a lot of the things
in space. So, you know, to have, you know, you look at the different areas. So, you know, communications,
industrials, information technology, consumer discretionary, materials. They're all represented
in UFO because a lot of these, you know, broader sectors have, you know, something to do with
the space industry. But when you drill down to these companies, in UFO, you're finding
companies that are driving majority of the revenues from space. Or if they're a more diversified,
think of your typical larger aerospace and defense names, they're having at least 500 million
revenues annually from space or 20% overall or more of their revenues from space, but less than 50.
Yeah. I'm going to ask a sort of a broad question. I mentioned before in the show that I'm a big
science fiction fan. And I'm wondering how you feel about manned versus unmanned exploration.
I know this is a little bit of an open-ended question, but I've become more pessimistic on manned
exploration as the years go by. Obviously, as a kid growing up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania,
reading Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clark and Robert Heinlein, I grew up with, you know,
space westerns, you know, people in space going out and, you know, living on other planets and
other star systems. But the reality, Andrew, is space is pretty hostile to human life forms,
it seems to me. And over the years, I've become more convinced that silicon-based life forms
artificial intelligences might be better suited for space travel than humans.
Do you have any thoughts on that and want to weigh in on that?
Absolutely.
I think it's always fun to see how far humans themselves can go.
But you look at things that have happened on Earth like the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
And, yeah, people got sent in and faced tremendously difficult health situations.
But then they started sending in robotics as well.
And they were actually able to go in and analyze and not put human life at risk.
So now let's think about going to outer space where things are probably,
even more toxic and dangerous than just, you know, a nuclear facility. And in order for us to be
able to get further, you know, we need to go to new places that humans are not necessarily going to be
able to easily survive. So, you know, we've been sending out spacecraft, you know, well beyond,
you know, our line of sight for, for, you know, decades to see how far they'll go and what kind of
information they'll be able to send back. And, you know, that was kind of the early forms of it.
But now, you know, we look at Mars and you've got your perseverance and ingenuity working, you know,
hand in hand to survey what Mars will look like. But it's not just to get an understanding of what
Mars is just out of curiosity, it's to actually figure out what kind of environment humans will be
embarking on once they go there. So not just robotics and drones and autonomous vehicles, but even
3D printing. If we can get these technologies into outer space, onto planets and so on, we can actually
build livable habitats for humans before humans ever even get there. So when we finally do have
proper technologies to send people there, you have all the infrastructure ready for you.
And I think that is a much more sustainable.
It might take longer to say, we've got a person on Mars, but at least, you know, hopefully
you'll be able to send someone to Mars and have them actually survive.
Yeah.
If you think about where we were when I was a kid, I mean, I remember when 2001 of Space Odyssey
came out in 1969.
Now, that was a movie first.
Arthur Clark wrote the novel sort of concurrent with working to build the movie.
but 2001, they were already out in the middle of the solar system.
And it's now 2021, and we're just talking about landing on Mars.
So, I mean, you know, you could understand everybody, in my generation, cynicism,
I call it the where's my jetpack crowd?
You know, we were promised jet packs and, you know, and flying saucers.
And, you know, we can't even get autonomous cars on Earth at this point.
So it's understandable.
Everybody's a little disappointed, but I still think it's going to be very,
tough. So, sci-fi channel has a great show, The Expanse, which is very realistic near-term
sci-fi. It's 300 years in the future. But the people who are living on Mars out there are
they're adopting the living on Mars and they're physiologically, they've actually changed. And ultimately,
that may be what happens. You know, you don't, you go out partly in terraform Mars, but you also
terraform humans, you change what humans are. And because of that, those people, even though they know
they're from the Earth ultimately, I have a different mindset that people from the Earth,
and in fact, they're often at loggerheads. They consider themselves, I don't know, not quite
a separate species, but, and even the third group, the belters, the people who live in the asteroid
belt, there's another third subset. And even though they're descendants of Earth people, too,
they view themselves differently than Earth people. This seems very realistic way to look at what
will ultimately happen to humans. I can agree more. And, and,
you look at that show and it's okay the the resources on earth are scarce and we send people to mars
this new martian you know form of humans which you very much look talk act like humans um you kind of
form their own alliance and then the belt just so eventually you run out of resources on earth you
might run out of resources where are you going to go and find that next range of resources so you go
out to the belt and you find you know you mine asteroids and you bring those things back to the
other planet so i completely agree that it's a phenomenal show
and it's one that actually really tackles a lot of not just the sci-fi and the technology,
but a lot of the kind of geopolitical situations that maybe we would face as we venture out beyond Earth.
That show strikes me as very plausible.
A lot of science fiction isn't, which is what I like about it,
but that show strikes me as very, very plausible.
Mining asteroids, this is one thing that a couple of people that are friends of mine
have been very involved in for a long time,
and we've actually made some progress on,
that front. Can you address that at all? I mean, are we going to be able to pull gold out of,
you know, various asteroids floating around?
I certainly hope so. And, you know, other very rare materials as well. I don't know when,
but you know, the Japanese have already collected samples on asteroids. You look at what we're doing
with perseverance on Mars and part of the project is actually going and collecting samples
of, you know, what they find on Mars leaving cachets so that a future expedition can go and collect those
cachets of materials that they're able to collect and actually get a better understanding of those
environments that we're going to. So I don't know how soon it will be, but I mean, we're talking
about, you know, needing rockets and reusable rockets. You're talking about, you know, mining equipment
with robotics and autonomous vehicles. And these are all things that, you know, we're still at the
early stages of perfecting these technologies, but we're making these technologies with the goal of doing
exactly that, going to asteroids and collecting natural resources and, you know, hopefully making them
available wherever we need it, whether that be on Earth, the Moon, the Mars, or even, you know,
the International Space Station or other, you know, orbiting space stations that we may create in the future.
Yep, I agree with you completely.
Oh, Andrew, I want to thank you for sticking around, and this is a subject very close to my heart.
Emotionally, obviously, we talked about the 14-year-old Bob Pisani in 1970, getting his first
actual investment, and it was a space stock.
So it's all very near and dear and all very exciting now.
for those of us who've been watching this for 50 years,
making some real progress.
And it's thanks to a private public partnership
to a certain extent, maybe some competition.
Andrew Chanon, thanks very much for joining us.
And of course, everybody, remember,
you can see all of our videos,
etfedge.cc.com.
Thank you, everybody, for joining us.
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