StarTalk Radio - The Future of Commercial Spaceflight with Lauren Lyons

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

What technology can we look forward to in commercial spaceflight? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice discover SpaceX, other space startups, and what is going on in the commercial space industry with engineer and executive Lauren Lyons.NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here:https://startalkmedia.com/show/the-future-of-commercial-spaceflight-with-lauren-lyons/Thanks to our Patrons Constance Kane, Amanda, Kareem Roberts, Emily Kaneko Reynolds, John DeLong, Eric Peters, and Jamie Irvin for supporting us this week. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Coming up on StarTalk, we're going to explore the future of commercial space with engineer and aerospace executive Lauren Lyons, who will get us dreaming about our future, not on Earth. Coming up. Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk.

I'm your host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. I'm here with my co-host, Chuck Knight. Chuckababy. What's happening, Neil? All right. Yeah. You know what we're going to talk about today? Um, I don't. Okay. Commercial spaceflight. Oh, really? Yeah, we going to talk about today? I don't. Okay.

Commercial space flight. Oh, really? Yeah. We haven't tackled that subject in a while. So what we want to do is bring in some expertise. Absolutely. I know a little bit about it, but I'm not like in it. Right.

I can talk about it like stratospherically. Because in the last decade, there's been major advances in commercial aerospace. Yeah. Yeah. You got Elon Musk. You got Sir Richard Branson. You got the bald dude that's one day going to rule the entire world. Yes. Billions, billions of dollars.

Hey, Todd, you know, I hadn't thought about it. He could be a Bond villain. That's right. Are you kidding me? There's never been a better candidate for a real-life Bond villain than Jeff Bezos. Okay? Like, you just see him, you know. They're going to name him, like, Scorpion.

That's going to be his new name. It's me, Scorpion. So, guess who we found? We found the one and only Lauren Lyons. Wow. Lauren Lyons, welcome to StarTalk. Thank you. So, I was looking at your profile.

Oh, my God. So in college, you majored in aerospace engineering, and then you went on to study, was it business and government or something on top of that? I did, yes. Whoa, I remember that. So I got here. You worked for Firefly Aerospace.

Yes. And you were in the engineering leadership at Blue Origin. The Blue Origin is Jeff Bezos. That's Bezos. And a senior engineer and technical program manager at SpaceX. Nice. Ticking all the boxes. That's all the boxes, man.

All the boxes. And while at SpaceX, you worked on Starlink. Wow. Which people complain about Starlink. Do we blame you? We'll find out in a minute. It's all my fault. We're going to totally find out

if that's your fault. The Alpha rocket, Blue Moon, and the Falcon 9. We were just at there. We were just at there. You're at the booster memorial. We're at the booster memorial.

Oh, yeah, the Falcon 9. Don't call it a memorial. That's what it's called. Oh, my God. What a morbid name. Oh, no, monument. Monument. Oh, okay.

Thank you. Big difference. It was the first one we ever landed. Yeah. No, she said not the first one ever flown. First one ever landed. Ever landed softly. Yes.

Gotta pour a little beer out of your old... For the boosters that aren't here. Yeah, all the ones that gave their lives. All the ones that came before. That's true. So that's right there. It's out in the open LA sky. You can see it from the airplane.

When you're coming into LAX, you look out the left side of the plane, and there you see it every single time. Wow. That's pretty cool. Well, it's interesting that she said that because that means the wind patterns over LAX hardly ever change. You just look out the left side. Because if wind had changed, then you'd be looking out the right side, right? So what a statement about the regularity of air patterns. Wow.

I would not have put that together. I'm just saying. Well, if you're on the ocean, typically winds tend to come in offshore, typically. They can reverse. And if it does reverse, they just take them off the other way. But they rarely come at an angle to that.

And most airports have to have an angle, a runway on an angle to do that. What did you do for the Falcon? You worked on the Falcon 9. I worked in, so it was like the very first job I had at SpaceX. I came in being what they call a mission manager. And you're basically the systems engineer that's responsible for saying, hey, we're going to make sure that the customer's satellite, that the payload gets integrated onto the rocket safely. And so that's everything from managing all of the

sort of integrated analysis that has to happen, like thermal analysis, mechanical structures analysis, down to actually being at the launch site during the launch. Oh my gosh. So all these launched from Cape Canaveral? So no, Vandenberg Air Force Base, just a couple hours north of L.A. That's where I had my very first launch campaign, my very first mission. But most of the, at the time, most of, this was back in 2015, most of the launches were going out of the Cape. And we were launching out of Vandy maybe like once a year. Vandy, you get that?

Vandy. It's not a first name basis. Oh, yeah. Vandy. Okay. We're not at that level. I know. I'm not nearly aerospace-y enough to call it Vandy.

Okay, we're with you, though. Okay. Okay, Vandy, you're at Vandy. Vandy, yes. Uh-huh. But just to be clear, there's a, I think of Vandenberg, I think of Air Force Base. Yes. Is there a civil portion of that launch?

No. So you are on the, now it's the Space Force, but you were on the base. So you have to get like, go through all the military checks. You got the little badge for the base. I didn't know this.

So it's not just some side platform that you can launch. No, absolutely not. You're entering secure space. As opposed to the Cape, there's the Kennedy Space Center side and then there's the Cape Canaveral Air Force,

well, Space Force Station side. At least it was the last time I was doing launches. And so I don't know if that's changed, but it used to be able to go. You can go to the Kennedy side or you can go to the Air Force side. But at Vandy, it's a working base. They have, you know, Space Force.

Do you know the area code of Cape Canaveral? I do not. What is it? Three, two, one. You didn't know that? I think I should know is it? Three, two, one. Ah! You didn't know that? I think I should know that. I totally should know that. You totally should have known that.

Dialing those numbers. Oh my gosh. Three, two, one. So tell me exactly, okay, so the integration of the payload to the rocket service that you're providing.

Correct. All right. And so you have to check for safety or that it's not going to jiggle the thing out of operation? All of those things. So basically, if someone says, I want to launch a satellite, and I'm talking like not those sort of missions where SpaceX throws like, you know, 50 small satellites.

But if someone comes with like a big satellite and they've paid, you know, a billion dollars or a hundred million dollars or $50 million for this thing, they show up. I don't want you messing that up. You can't mess it up. So they hire people like me to be that kind of go-between. So some of your compensation comes from the company that wants to launch the satellite, because they need your assurance? No, not necessarily.

Sorry, let me be more clear. What happens is, I was working for SpaceX, and you can't just have this customer show up, and they're like, I want to talk to all the engineers, and I want to know, am I going to vibrate off the attachment? Right. They need to know what could harm their precious payload based on the parameters of the launch. Correct.

And so what they do is they give you a set of requirements. They say, this is the trajectory I want to fly. These are the loads that the satellite can withstand. A series of things across the entire sort of spectrum. Please affirm for me, is there no greater love of an engineer than a set of requirements? No, no, actually, let me be real. So I come from like the commercial space world

where requirements are obnoxious. I was going to say. Oh, I thought you guys were... For you, it's the no green M&Ms in the green room. No. It's a... Wait,&Ms in the green room. It's a pain in the ass. I thought the engineer loves being inventive with the constraints placed upon them from the outside. Is that not true?

So, you know, there's a way to overdo it. Not when you're the person who has to actually make the mission work. Okay. When you're just somebody who's given the challenge, right, and you just want to design something, then it's great because who cares? Like, I want to stairwell. I want to stairway to nowhere. And I don't want to see any supports underneath of it. Oh, okay.

That sounds awesome. Right? But you tell a carpenter that, and he's like, F you. What the hell is your problem? Right? So, what are things? So, it's vibration tolerance. Vibration.

Acceleration, surely. What else? Acoustics. And so you want to make sure that while the satellite's in there, and as you're ascending with that rocket, you're not going to introduce all this acoustic noise. Shake, rattle, and roll. Exactly.

Because you could do harm. So many things. Environmental controls, temperature, airflow. You want to make sure you don't get condensation, that you don't reach dew point inside of that fairing. So now these specifications change for every single flight. Not necessarily. So the way... But just a quick point, your dew point is more likely to be hit in Florida where the humidity is high. Yes, exactly. So you're constantly... Remind us what dew point is. It is the temperature at which

like water vapor will condense and become liquid. In the atmosphere. And so imagine you... It's a temperature that you drop to. Yes. Yes. Yes. So the reason it becomes an issue is like water in of itself, in some cases, if you have something that's not hermetically sealed,

that obviously becomes a problem in cases where things are sensitive to that. But even when you're not talking about electronics and things like that, where imagine you're in a situation or in this room and it's not super clean and there's like particles in the air. There are. There's like particles all in this. We don't have to imagine that. Yeah. It's true.

Because it's happening right now. It's everywhere, right? I'm telling you. Yeah. And so now if you reach dew point, that water catches those particles. So I worked on, let me give you a specific example. I worked the first launch that I signed up to work on, which is the reason I went to SpaceX, was to launch TESS,

the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Saladite. Amazing. That's one of my people. I figured you loved TESS. Yeah, yeah, yeah. TESS, we all love TESS. TESS was basically the follow-on to Kepler. Right. Transiting Exoplanet.

These are planets orbiting other stars that pass in front of the host star and dim the star. And so, yeah, it's adding to our catalog. We're rising through 6,000 exoplanets right now. Oh, they're so huge. And growing now. It's amazing. Okay, so you're in the club.

Oh, that's why I went. I was like, I want to launch this. I was like, I don't have the skills to contribute to this mission. Oh, so you're one of us. But I want to like launch this. You're one of my people. Okay. I love it.

I love it. That's cool, though. Okay. So Tess had four cameras. Now wait, do you ever, before you, do you ever like when we discover Exoplanet,

do you ever just take your phone and go, I did that? Not anymore because it happens so often. Yeah, yeah. No, it's amazing. Exoplanet every couple of days.

Right. It's cheap and boring now, right? Yeah. Yeah, you're just like, let's, yeah, just keep it up. Keep it up, Tess. Let's keep finding more and more and more.

Yeah. Okay, so exactly what did you do? So yeah, so Tess has four cameras that, they had four cameras that in the fairing, well, it's in inside of the fairing, which is the shroud over the payload. They were just looking straight up and there were no covers on them or anything.

And so imagine if you reach dew point and you got all of that particulate, then settled down. Inside the fairing. In the fairing. On those four upper facing cameras. You guys are pissed off. One of the people that I worked with, she used to say, she used to tell the engineers who were like in charge of contamination control.

She goes, if you mess this up, we won't find any aliens. No aliens. So you got to make sure that you. And it became this. That's a perfect plot for a movie for someone who doesn't want to find aliens. Yes. Make sure it does condense. Keep it nice and dirty.

Nice and dirty. Yeah. So I'd forgotten that. Can we get a lens wipe over here, guys? Oh, and they were uncleanable on top of that too because they were so delicate.

Yeah. You couldn't clean them. Oh. Yeah. Lenses are typically coated with anti-reflection. That might have different reasons, but in general,

the lens is not just glass. There's stuff on top of it as well. Wow. If you start wiping it, you start wiping off the protective coating. Damn. Yeah. That is insane.

It's not protective coating. It prevents reflections of light because at every surface you cross, there's light that reflects back and part some goes through and there's a way to cancel out those reflections so that you have a perfectly transparent glass. And so, yeah, you don't want to rub that off.

But I had not appreciated until you said it moments ago that when you hit dew point, it's not just water condensing. The water's grabbing whatever... Any particulate that's in the water. And then when that water evaporates, that stuff oftentimes gets left behind, and it's just sitting there. So let me ask you.

But did she finish? The guy here didn't finish. Oh, sorry. Okay, so what happened with TESS? What did you do for TESS? So I was, the role was called Mission Integration Engineer. And I was, you know, when NASA came to us and they're just like, here's this crazy contamination control requirement,

which is one of the strictest we've ever seen. It was my job to work with our engineers in-house to make sure that we were taking the precautions in terms of environmental control and the fairing environmental control and the clean room in order to make that, to meet those requirements. And where was TESS made?

TESS was a Goddard and MIT collaboration with, I think Goddard made, who made the bus? The bus was orbital. Yes, Goddard made, who made the bus? The bus was Orbital. Yes, Goddard Space Flight Center on the science side. Also, MIT made the cameras. And the spacecraft bus itself was made by Orbital ATK at the time, now Northrop Grumman. So Tess is flying high right now.

So congrats. It's doing great. Thank you for your service on that. It was an honor. When you're dealing with all of these highly sensitive apparatus do you is there an insurance policy attached to this because let's get let's get to that that's right so so the risk factors that's a whole other thing yeah launch failures does

someone get blamed for that or Absolutely. Or do you say, this is an occasion where we will learn a great deal? You kind of have to do that last one anyway. Like it always is the learning because if you knew it, you wouldn't have ended up in that situation. And so there's a ton of learning that happens in it. But, you know, I worked multiple launch failure investigations.

I worked them at SpaceX and I led the failure investigation for Firefly for our first rocket, which exploded in spectacular fashion on our very first launch, which is, like, not unheard of for the first launch to not be successful. Right. But they've had— When rockets fail, they don't just sort of fall over. No. Yeah, it's spectacular.

They're basically bombs. Right. It's generally spectacular. Yeah. You're reminded that when you're taking off, it's a highly controlled bomb. Right. You're in control of the bomb. If you're not in control of the bomb, it's an explosion.

Yes, exactly. So how do you get data from that if everything, if the evidence has been blowed up? So interestingly, it's rarely completely gone. Even in the case of the mission, it was, God, F920, I believe it was, the 20th Falcon 9 flight. F920. Where we lost Dragon over the water. We still, even though everything exploded and ended up in the ocean, we still were able to collect some data, some physical evidence. But this is…

Just to get the parts right. So, the Falcon is the booster. Correct. And the Dragon is the- Is the spacecraft. The spacecraft on top. Yes. Okay.

So all these names, they're just bandied about. Yeah, good point. Yeah. I just want to make sure that we got the- Yeah, let's explain them. Okay. Yeah. So-

So like in the old, because I'm old school, the Saturn V rocket, on top of that was the command module, right? So, and that had a name. Yes. Right. So this is the corresponding- Good point. Yes. Right. So, this is the corresponding. Good point. Yes. Argument here, I guess. Okay. So, I interrupted. Go on. No, no, that was a good clarification. So, there's the physical evidence side, but I will speak to

early flights, like early missions. For when you first build a vehicle, you want to collect as much data as you possibly can. So, I was, you know, speaking on the Firefly incident, by the way, they had 100% mission success for the next missions that they had. They killed it. But that first one. That's a good thing. And a good thing. I was like, crushed it. Is there any, like, positive words that don't, like, mean, like, destroy?

They crushed it. They killed it. They killed it. That meant it was a success. Knocked it out of the park. You're supposed to say it with a lingo. It's so violent. Yeah, I'm an old man on a porch. Knocked it out of the park. You're supposed to say it with a lingo. It's so violent. Yeah, I'm an old man on a porch.

You know, these young'uns, what, they did good. Okay. So, what you do is you end up, and it's not even just the early missions, definitely on the early missions, but even later on, what you do is you instrument the heck out of those vehicles. Like, you've got thermocouples, you've got accelerometers, you've got every kind of instrumentation that you can think of. Sources of data, right. Yes. And there are those who, you know, there are a lot of folks, for example, there's a lot of launch vehicles out there, by the way, and other spacecraft that don't really have a lot of like cameras on their vehicles. At SpaceX, we had them everywhere. But a lot of people didn't have them because they believe that that data is more useful. I personally am of the opinion that both are incredibly useful.

And the data, I probably prefer data over video, frankly. But if you've got video, like it's tremendously helpful even just for correlating to an event that happens during an accident or anomaly. So, yeah, even if you don't have all the physical evidence. Anomaly, that's the code word for it. Yes. Messed up. Yeah, something anomalous. Yes, an anomalous.

Yes. Anomalous condition. You know the word, it's mishap. A mishap. Yes, this is the word the FAA uses. Mishap. A mishap. Well, what a lovely euphemism.

I believe we've had a terrible mishap. I'm what a lovely euphemism. I believe we've had a terrible mishap. I'm going to need a new pair of underwear. Yes. Well, you know, if it's a really bad thing that happens, there's like levels of bad with these investigations. If it's really

bad, it's an accident. Wow. Yeah. So a mishap, I've done mishap investigations. You just dust that up. Dust it under an accident. Wow. Yeah. So a mishap, I've done mishaps. You just dust that up. Just dust it under the rug and keep going. I'm Nicholas Costella, and I'm a proud supporter of StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Before we go to our fan base set of questions,

because we're going to turn this to a little bit of a Cosmic Queries. So I want to get from you, I just want to help our audience and us understand the fundamental differences between the government putting things into space, into orbit, and private enterprise. Do you have a different tolerance for error than the government does? It's a complex question because it depends on how error or failure is defined. Okay, so $100 million. Yes.

Down a tube for whatever reason. The government can say, all right, we're going to try not to have that happen again, but an investor doesn't lose money. Gotcha. Yeah, and in some cases, $100 million is all you got. And if you're in a private enterprise and you have a failure like that, you could be done. You could be completely done. Oh, that's the end of your...

It's the end of your company. Your company is gone. That's your runway because you don't have another $100 million in the bank that you can go. Or you can't go to Congress and apologize. Okay, so there could have been 10 other launch companies that came and went for just those reasons. There were. Oh, okay. A lot of people had tried this stuff.

And, you know, Elon likes to say all the time, he got really close. Like that last Falcon 1 launch, that company would have gone, SpaceX would have gone bankrupt had that one not been successful. The one that worked. The one that worked.

That's on display. Falcon 1. Oh, Falcon 1. Falcon 1, yeah. And so he tells that story all the time. I mean, it was down to the wire. This makes sense because the people who are the leaders in the industry are all billionaires. Depends on how you define leader, but some, there are some that are billionaires and there are many, many more who are not.

And the billionaires are the ones who get all the attention. They get all the attention. They're the ones people love to talk about. But there's a lot of people executing in the corners, crushing it. In the corners, people don't know their names. People don't know what's going on. And I think that's kind of one of the things that always kind of frustrates me a little bit with the billionaire space race narrative. By the way, like, I'm not one of these people who's going to be like, this is all false. We should not criticize this.

I don't fall into that camp. Like, I think there's some like valid... You're safe here. You're in a safe space. Yeah. And I'm not going to be those people that just defends anybody just because I'm in the space.

But I do think that one of the things that kind of frustrates me about that narrative is it kind of ignores the fact, let's just take, you know take Blue Origin, for example. I believe there's like 11,000 people there at this point. Either seven or 11, I don't know. A lot of people.

A lot of people. And whatever criticism you want to hurl at Jeff, he is but this much of that company. That company is made out of 11,000 hardworking people who care very deeply about the work that they're doing. And let's be honest, just because you're the pockets of an organization doesn't mean that you are the impetus for success. Correct. Because, I'm sorry, the guy may be smart and PayPal was wonderful and all.

Are you talking about Elon here? I'm sorry, both of them, all three of them. But I defy any of them to sit down and tell me how to put something into space. Can they really do that? Seriously. At least one of them can give you a little bit of a run for your money.

I've been pleasantly surprised by how much Elon can go head-to-head on a lot of things. Yeah, he studies pretty hard and he's pretty like read up on stuff and he's very, at least he was in the past. I'm not there now, so I don't know how hands-on he is anymore, but he's quite

hands-on. And so After what he did with Twitter, I'm a little scared. Because like, to your point, like, it's these— That's social engineering. That's different from— To your point, it's these hardworking engineers who are there, you know, pulling the all-nighters.

I've always felt that. When people say, oh, Neil Armstrong was the first person on the moon, and I'd say, it was Neil Armstrong plus 10,000 scientists and engineers. Correct. Exactly. I say that all the time. Thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Plus, a little known fact, the mission patch for Apollo 11 did not contain the names of the astronauts. It didn't. No, it did not. It's just the eagle coming for a touchdown on the moon. I love that. There was a nice touch.

I love that. Like the Yankees. They don't put the names on the back of their jerseys. No, they didn't. Right, right. Well, they were the first to ever have numbers on their jerseys. Right. So that was just a batting sequence.

Exactly. But, all right, let's go to see what our fan base has to say. All right, let's do it. All right. This is Cameron Bellamy, and Cameron says, Greetings from Baltimore to Neil, Chuck, and Lauren. What are a few of the current and biggest unsolved challenges in the field of human commercial space travel?

That's a good question. I think the biggest one, single biggest one, is expensive. It's incredibly costly. But I thought that's the whole point of SpaceX trying to drop the price. So they haven't dropped it enough

is what you're saying. Not remotely so. So like it depends on, you know, if you want to talk about, you know, making it accessible to not just governments

or billionaires. We got a ways to go. Can you quantify ways? So I will say. Okay, so Elon put some people in orbit. Yes. All right. That was how much per person?

So I believe NASA pays 88 million a seat or something like that. That's $100 million. Well, that's less than a lot of other options, the other two options that they have. Okay. I believe so. And I can't remember. So if I'm a billionaire, that's okay. But most people aren't that.

So what price do we have to get that down to? And will it ever get there? Or is it going to asymptote at some level that no one is ever going to reach? And it's going to end the whole effort? I think we'll get there. And the way that cost comes down is not just through reusing boosters. I mean, like that helps for sure. But it's still not where it needs to be.

Falcon 9 can only do so much in its current. I mean, it does what it does. Well, this is why they're developing Starship. So it helps it get to orbit and then it comes back. Correct. Yes. But so this is why they have Starship, right? You got to push those boundaries.

And so what Starship enables is to drastically reduce that cost for launch. And so... It's because of how many people, the cost per person. The cost per person, the cost per launch, the cost of materials, the cost of fuel, like everything. They're dropping those costs. And it's such a large vehicle as well that it can carry much more mass to orbit. So currently, the way you think about mass for every sort of kilogram that you put in space, like that's what we talk about cost of launch. Kilogram is 2.2 pounds.

Thank you. You got that one? I used to sell drugs. So I'm very much aware. Very much aware. Okay, that's what we talk about, cost of launch. You think about it. A kilogram is 2.2 pounds. Thank you. You got that one? I used to sell drugs, so I'm very much aware. Very much aware. Okay, good, good. You sell kilograms of drugs? High roller.

High roller. Hey, we don't do the small stuff. Like, yeah. All right. So you have numbers there for what it costs? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, good.

So the Saturn V, it costs $54,000 per kilogram launch to low Earth orbit. Wow. Okay. The space shuttle was $65,000 per kilogram. And that was supposed to bring costs down. I know. That did not work out.

That did not work out. There's your government working for you. Yeah. So then you've got the Falcon 9, which is currently at, if you're going to get a dedicated Falcon 9 just to yourself, $2,600 per kilogram. That's half. $2,600. $2,600.

$2,600? That's huge. Okay, that's a factor of 20. That's insane. A factor of 20 from the Saturn V. It's amazing. Okay. All right.

So that brings in many more customers. Yes. Who would have orbital things they want to do. Yes. Okay. All right. So that brings in many more customers. Yes. Who would have orbital things they want to do. Yes. Okay. Exactly. And so like right now, if you wanted to launch… That's right, Chuck.

How many kilograms do you weigh? Let me see. What would it cost to throw your ass into orbit? Let me see. Put my fat behind me on orbit. What would it cost? Well, are humans considered payload? Yes.

Okay. Yes. So like, okay. So, when we started really thinking about human spaceflight and not just kind of circling the Earth because it's, like, great, cool. Boldly going where hundreds have gone before. Like, to actually go further, right?

Every, I mean, I don't know the exact numbers on this, but you got to keep these people alive. They need food. They need water. They need air. They don't got that in space. You have to keep the people alive. Yeah, and it's expensive.

And so, and it requires a lot of mass. So if you're going to carry- Mass beyond you. Mass beyond you. So the environmental control systems and life support systems, there's a lot of effort. So getting back to that question,

there's a lot of effort that's going into figuring out how to have closed loop systems. And so that you don't have to have all these excess consumables. That's code for drinking your own pee. Yes, precisely. And growing plants and then using the fertilizer from yourself to grow the next ones. We saw that movie.

Yes, you did a whole thing on this. Yeah, we did. So, you know, figuring out that question as well. And regardless, you're going to still need to bring consumables with you. So, it's going to require mass and you need a big rocket. But you also need that rocket to not be crazy expensive, right? And so, that's that sort of balance that kind of needs to happen to make that work. And then the other thing that I think…

So, it's just a matter of time? I think it's a matter of time. I really do. If we showed the Falcon 9 to the Wright brothers, they would have an aneurysm, right? And die on the spot. On the spot, right? Yeah. Right?

So, how far away is this? I think we are— Given what we've accomplished thus far. So, I mean, what is it? Like, later on this decade, you know, SpaceX is supposed to be launching our astronauts to the moon. So that's going to happen. They've actually sold the first Starship launch to a guy named Jared Isaacman. And Jared is supposed to launch himself and a crew of three others,

at least three others, I believe, with him. For what? Just to go? They're just going. Jared, don't come back. But he's also doing like a bunch of like research and stuff, science and things too, right? I thought it was a joy ride. So yeah, I think those folks that are able to pay for these experiences, we're just not quite at a point yet. Everyone's like, oh, the space economy is so big. It's doing great. And it's just like, is it? Because these markets don't

actually exist yet. There isn't a market that exists that allows this sort of real economy to come up. And so similar to when you think about the arts and engineering and technical things back in the 1600s and even before then, who used to pay for that stuff? It was rich people. And so this is the same. So we shouldn't have any unique discomfort with this fact. This is how it is. This is how it works. And thank God that there are people

who have this hunger to do this crazy stuff. Or capitalism. Yeah, there's that. Or mercantilism as it was with the Medici. Yeah. So give me, I want you to be quantitative. Yeah. So how many years from now?

10 years? 20 years? Where a family can save up and instead of, we going to go to Disney World or we going to go to space? I think it's 20. I think it's 20.

20 years? Maybe 15, but probably 20. That's really close. That's very encouraging. It's pretty close. And I don't mean to Mars. I mean like go and do a little circle around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's also a company, there's two companies. That's really close. That's very encouraging. It's pretty close. And I don't mean to Mars. I mean, like, go and do a little circle around.

There's also a company, there's two companies, there's Worldview and Space Perspective, and they're doing these balloon flights. And those are supposed to be coming on

in the next couple of years. But balloon launches don't have the same appeal as a rocket launch. They do not, but it's way more chill. You're not on a bomb. You just kind of like

slowly go up. Still, I remember Oz floating away on his balloon. That was just not as exciting as a rocket launch. I'm sorry. You wouldn't do it though? What? On a balloon?

Would you do it? I don't know. I mean. Up and away. Yeah, I don't know. Probably. I probably would. It's not like a rocket.

Rockets blow up. Wouldn't you like to rock? Exactly. Now, what if you could get the orbital perspective? Like you could get that sort of overview effect without being on a bomb? Yeah. It's not a bad idea. I don't know.

It takes a little longer. I did the math on the balloon. Yeah. What do you think? No. It goes to a schoolroom globe. It goes up the height of the thickness of a dime. So I'm not counting that as an overview.

Okay. Okay. No, you can't see national borders, but neither can you as an overview. Okay. Okay, no, you can't see national borders, but neither can you from an airplane, okay? So I'm not mean balloons. I did the math on that. Got it. Chuck, give me another one.

All right, here we go. This is Alex. We luxuriously answered that question. We did, but who cares? All right. This is Alexander Harvey. And he says, hello there, Dr. Tyson and Chuck. This is Alex from Denver, Colorado,

reporting in. What are the biggest limitations on constructing, now listen, as he's going out there, a floating human colony in space? And how might we overcome those limitations?

My man is like, I want a colony living in space. I wouldn might we overcome those limitations? My man is like, I want a colony living in space. I wouldn't use the word colony. Well, colony is different from colonize. That's true. It's true,

but it's still like, it's too subtle. It still carries some baggage. It's a word with baggage. So there are two kinds of colonies we can think of. One is like on a surface of some place. Yeah. It's a word with baggage. Right. So there are two kinds of colonies we can think of. One is like on a surface of some place. Right.

Like the moon. Yeah. That sounded like a free-floating colony. He wants an O'Neill cylinder. Yeah. Right. O'Neill cylinder. Yeah.

So Gerard O'Neill, he had fantastical ideas about our future living in space with farms. Right. Yeah. So you said, what's a Gerard cylinder? Or the O'Ne. Right. Yeah. So you said, what's a Girard cylinder? Or the O'Neill cylinder. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

I'm not an expert on these things, but like the sort of self-contained environments that are just in space where people are living and thriving and working and there's grass and water and there's these closed ecosystems.

If you saw the movie Elysium. Elysium, but hopefully without the classism. Just like a little. Okay. Yeah. That would be great. Yeah,

it needs to be rotating so you have a centrifugal gravity. and you can have little. Okay. Yeah. That would be great. Yeah, it needs to be rotating so you have a centrifugal gravity. Yes, and you can have gravity. Yeah. Yeah, it's so cool. Okay, so how far are we from that? We're very, very, very, very, very, very far from that. Like, okay, so to the question of

what do we need to do to get there? Yeah. So first, in the last few years, there have been a number of new companies that have spun up in order to build commercial space stations. We currently don't have any of those. And so let's start there. So the current space stations are national?

Correct. Like Chinese and the ISS? Yes. And NASA has already said, you know, we'd like to partner with commercial industry to do this. So they have done some sort of small awards to some companies to do some early design work on that. And so there are companies out there that are trying to do this, but you know what? These things cost billions of dollars a year just to operate. And the logistics money associated- Right, pay or play.

Yes. It's crazy. And then just like in one of the biggest chunks of that cost is just in the process of getting things and people to and from it. So, launch costs needs to come down. Additionally, you start thinking about it and you're like, really? Are we going to just build these massive structures with stuff from Earth? That's silly. So, then we have to start thinking, how can we actually get materials from the moon, from asteroids? How can we assemble materials?

Or just print them. Print them. Bring them all material. Well, you need the raw material. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And assemble things in space. So there's this whole

sort of field that's come about. So it's cheaper to move something from an asteroid to your space platform. Not yet. Than from Earth to the platform. The idea would be

once we figure out the whole asteroid mining thing, which is still quite a ways away, then that starts to make more sense for these megastructures. Because it costs nothing

to launch from an asteroid. It's got hardly any gravity. Right. Right. And it's got a lot of raw materials. A lot of raw materials. So just get it from an asteroid.

Forget Earth. Yes. Right. Yes. Wow. So that would unlock like in space, manufacturing,

using materials from in space. What's the company that's trying to do that? There's a few. Yeah, which one are you thinking? The one that wanted to make money mining asteroids. There's, yeah, there's a company called Astroforge. That's not what I was thinking. There's one called Carmen Plus.

Keep going. There's a couple that no longer exist. Maybe. Lovely people. Space resources? That was a company. There's planetary resources. Maybe that one.

And then there was deep space industries. Okay. These were two that founded by wonderful humans. These are dreamers. They were dreamers. They were just a little early, I think. And now that resurgence is coming back. Yeah.

All right. So, again, we're in the decades, not centuries. We are in the decades. Well, in the case of O'Neill cylinders, I don't know, man. That's one where there's a lot that needs to happen to make that real. Well, you know, what's going to help that along is that we're going to need them. That's the problem. The way we're treating the planet, you know, we're going to actually need to go someplace for a little while to allow Earth to recover.

Or we can stop messing it up. We can. I mean, listen. Would you go to one and live there and leave Earth behind? One of these O'Neill cylinders? Depends on how nice it is.

If it was a two-way ticket. Let's say it's the Ritz-Carlton of O'Neill cylinders. Oh, dang. And what is it orbiting? Oh, my God. Damn, she's getting all particular. She still has that requirement. Are we in the Saturn system? Like, where are we? Corbitting. Oh, my God. Damn, she's getting all particular. I don't know.

Are we in the Saturn system? Like, where are we? Wouldn't that be cool? That'd be beautiful. Wouldn't it be beautiful? Like, that scene in Interstellar. I cry whenever I see it. When he gets there and there's, like, the rings of Saturn.

Oh, my God. It's so beautiful. Oh, my God. So, I'm getting, like, thinking about it. Getting verklempt. Yes. Okay. Give me another one. Move on.

Let's hear we go. Time for just a couple more. This is Alex Pilon. And he says, hello, Chuck. And hello, Neil. Hello, Lauren. This is Alex Pilon. and he says, hello, Chuck, and hello, Neil, hello, Lauren. This is Alex Pilon. Chuck, it's pronounced, and then he spells Alex phonetically.

Because Chuck has issued problems pronouncing people's names. Not that bad. My problem's me. It's not that bad. And not with Alex. Yeah, with Alex. Alex. Alex.

Alex. Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Anyway, he says, hey, calling here from Bethesda, Maryland. Thanks for taking my question. Lauren, what new and exciting technology are you most excited about that we don't know about? Oh. Ooh.

Is it in propulsion? Is it in material science? Is it in propulsion? Is it in material science? I am really excited for, and it's going to, you already know about it, though. People already know about it. Maybe not everybody. Try it. Is fully reusable rockets.

I'm talking the first stage, the second stage, and that they can fly once a day. Step to stern. Up and back. Airplane-like. Like the way we take planes. Exactly. Like when you get off your plane, your plane isn't sitting there

waiting for you to come back. It goes on to another destination or it goes back to where it came from taking more people back there. Yeah, but Chuck, I can fly a plane

to a destination and it can refuel at that destination. So if you're going to have a rocket that's empty of its fuel when it gets to where it's going, you need a filling station on orbit.

So that's another thing that gets me excited, is exactly that. So the way Starship works, as an example, they can launch all that mass to orbit, but if they're going to get to the moon, they need to refuel on the way there. So refueling technology, I think, enables us to go deeper and deeper into the solar system.

So you need cargo ships carrying fuel to depots. Yes, you need fuel depots, absolutely. Which sounds weird, but somebody had to do that when cars were invented. Exactly. They're still doing it. And they're still doing it. I want to drive there. Well, there's no gas station.

Well, somebody says, I'm going to put a gas station, so you will drive there and you'll pay me. There's a company called Orbitfab. Their tagline is gas stations in space. And that's entirely what they're trying to do. There's a company called Orbitfab. Their tagline is gas stations in space. And that's entirely what they're trying to do. It's a thing. A whole industry community. Yes.

Northrop Grumman is working on this. There's a company called Astroscale that's working on this. SpaceX. There's so many companies. It's a key part of the architecture. If you really want to go further. I'm glad y'all are doing this. This is pretty exciting, actually.

While the rest of us are fighting over the meaning of words on our social media. Yes. Right. There's some people still thinking about a future. No, it's incredible.

And then like to even push that even further because I'm a big fan. Like I am obsessed with like my favorite thing in the solar system is Europa. Like obsessed.

Cannot wait for Europa Clipper. But I would love- Europa Clipper, that's not going to dig. It's just going to orbit. No, it's just an orbiter. It's going to fly by. So it's orbiting Jupiter.

Why can't you just not wait until the one that digs? Ask NASA that question and it's come money. Okay, yeah. I don't think it... I think it's on paper, but it's nothing funded

to do that. Correct, yeah. They were like kind of working on a study and it just didn't quite make it to the next level. Europa is the one that's got icy outer surface.

Ice surface that you have. And ocean underneath. Global liquid water. Same with Enceladus. I thought there's a plan to fly through some of the plumes of Enceladus. There is. And with Europa. Europa Clipper is going to fly through.

But we believe that there are plumes on Europa as well. Not the 101 crazy things that you get out of Enceladus. But Europa, we believe there are plumes on Europa as well. Not the 101 crazy things that you get out of Enceladus, but Europa, we believe there are plumes. And so my understanding is Clipper is going to go through and kind of taste the plumes and look for organics.

Do some chemical analysis of that. Very nice. Cosmic taste the rainbow. It's cosmic taste. Yes, exactly. And if we find life on Europa. Oh my God. You know,

because there's water there. In many places, wherever there's water, there's life. Wherever there's water, there's life. So that's something we can all imagine, okay? Yes. We want to know something secret that nobody knows, that you know because you're in the biz,

that when you reveal it, we say, whoa. Man, I just, I don't know if I got one of those. See, the right answer here would be, I'm not authorized to tell you. Yes. If I told you, I would have to kill you. I wouldn't do that though. So I'm just not going to tell you.

But like one, for me, I'm just so interested in the going further question. We have to be able to go further. And right now we can't. And there- We as people. People. Because we have robots

out at the edge of the solar system. Yeah. And like, what are you going to do if somebody is like, you know, 30, 40, 50 years together? It's nuts, right? So actually, I'm a part of the XPRIZE's brain trust

for the space sector that we've got where we think up XPRIZEs that are space-related. And one of the finalists this year... So XPRIZEs are you put up money for an audacious goal, and then everybody puts in their money to do it to hope to get the prize. Right. And the total amount of money everyone spends

is more than the prize money that someone wins. And so you get the benefit of this creativity. Yeah. And you're like spurring these industries. To decide this? I am. I am. For the space.

The space sector. For the space sector, right. Yeah, because XPRIZE is biology. Right. Healthcare, education, all these things. And so one of the finalists this year was this idea. It was called Sleep Like a Teenager. And this biologist brought it forward and she's

a medical doctor and she said, hey, you know, we need to learn from the animals about hibernation. And hibernation doesn't necessarily mean going into like the little pod and, you know, like being knocked out for, you know, a hundred years. Like in the movies. Like in the movies. Hibernation could be simply just lowering your metabolic rate to the point where you don't consume as many resources. That's what animal hibernation is. Sometimes bears are like actually awake in there. They're just like moving a little slower. And so like how can you lower a human's metabolic rate enough such that they, to that point about mass, require fewer consumables? What if they were only working, you know, maybe three to six hours during the day and they slept the rest of the time? Like you could actually, that could actually work.

And so maybe that answers this question of, you know, it's not something a lot of people are talking about, but it's something- It's a feature that would be folded into this exercise. So this is for long duration missions. For long duration space flight. Okay, so you know, my reply to that question is, invent a wormhole.

Then all missions take minutes. Oh, my God. Did you just guess the secret technology? This is what she was not going to talk about. If he had that secret, believe me, we would not be sitting here. He'd be trying to share it with the world. And I'd be like, no, sir, we got to make this money. I must share this with the world, Chuck.

A little revolutionized travel. A last fast question about the Falcon 9, because we were visiting the one out on the street corner. I noticed nine rocket motor nozzles at the bottom. Is that why it's called Falcon 9? That is why it's called Falcon 9. So the Falcon 1 only had one nozzle? It did have one nozzle.

Okay. Look at that. Just verifying. I'm waiting for Falcon 9. So the Falcon 1 only had one nozzle? It did have one nozzle. Okay. Look at that. Just verifying. I'm waiting for Falcon 50. I'm also like not convinced that it was called Falcon 1 because it had one. It was probably just because it was the first one. The first one. It kind of makes sense.

Just checking that. So what's in store for you? I understand you're moving to Paris. What's that about? Yeah. We want you here. Oh, I come back and forth all the time. No, here. We want you here. Oh, I come back and forth all the time. No, no, here.

We need you. Are you working with like the French space program over there? No, I'm just doing my thing. So I've been consulting with U.S. companies. And so. Just doing it from France. So they come to you to get what from you? So my expertise.

You took that pandemic remote work in 30 seconds. So you have these multiple companies on your resume now. Yes. With all this various experience. Right. And now you've turned that into an independent operation. Yes. And you're CEO of this operation.

I am. And what's it called? It's called VDOT Labs. VDOT Labs. VDOT for acceleration, secondary. Oh! It's very nerd. See? Look at you. for acceleration. Second. Oh! It's very nerd. See?

Look at you. You got it there. Some people just look at me like, Virginia Department of Transportation. And that's not what that means. Okay. So, the rate of change of your position

is called your speed. Okay. Okay? Right. And your velocity. The rate of change of your velocity is called your speed. Okay. Okay? Right. And your velocity. The rate of change of your velocity is called your acceleration.

Okay. Isaac Newton developed a system of nomenclature and notation to represent the rate of change of your position relative to time and the rate of change of your velocity relative to time and it's called dot okay dot yes gotcha okay i'm correct that's correct okay okay so v dot is basically the first derivative of your velocity which is your acceleration and and you only really go in places if you can accelerate. Right. Just to be clear.

And that's what we do. That's so geeky. We have, I know, oh, it's 100% intended to be. That's so completely geeky. Yes. And it was entirely Isaac Newton.

He invented the dot notation. Nice. For derivatives. And the company is V dot what? Labs. V dot labs. But yeah, so that's exactly what we do is we help startups go fast,

help them do really hard things very quickly. Accelerate startups. Help accelerate their technical and operational capacity. Because it's not just materials or just the traditional, what we think of as engineering. I'm impressed to learn that engineering in modern times,

modern decade, recent decades, is making stuff work. Systems of systems. Yes. Oh, I nerd out on that so much. It's the, no,

it is. It's so good. It's so good. It's my favorite thing. Hey, get a room. It's like, I was like,

ooh, the systems of the systems. Systems of systems. Yeah. I could play it on a loop. Let me tell you about those systems, y'all. We hit the spot right there. Yes, you did.

No, it's, you know, people look at some of these like incredibly, so I study high-performing organizations and I'm in the process of writing a book on this, looking at what are the trends and things that we can see between organizations that build hardware and what is the trends and things that we can see between organizations that build hardware? And what is the algorithm around that? And I think a lot of companies, they're constantly in search for it.

They're always looking for this. And it's not simply like, how good are your processes and how good your engineers are? It's the way in which you structure and build the organization to remove as many barriers from execution as you can. Are you to space companies what McKinsey is to sort of ordinary corporations, where the corporation doesn't have the internal expertise to how to run their business better? And so they go to a consulting company that says, fire these people, hire those people, and accelerate your progress. Is that what you are for space companies? In some ways. And what we like to do is get very much embedded with the organization. Because my team and the folks that work with me are people who have been boots on the ground. They're not

career consultants who've only kind of looked at it from the top. Right. But they just got out of the Harvard Business School. Right. Nothing against that. Love HBS. Love HBS. Okay. But it's people who were in those roles. But just to be clear, the rowing team for Harvard Business School at the tip of their wars

is a dollar sign. Oh, wow. Okay. Is this real? Yes, it is real. Oh, my. Yeah, that's their... You know, others just have

like colors for the flag of their school or it is a dollar sign. I mean, it's not inaccurate. Does it make the boat go faster? Does the water say, hey, I love scooping off of dollar signs.

But anyhow, yeah. I mean, I like your reference to boots on the ground. That's an important reality that brings a certain level of trust. Yes. And to be able to see a problem and to go, oh my God,

I've lived through this. I feel like so many times I work with these companies, I go, oh, there was that one time, let me tell you, we did this and here's what we did

and here's how we got through it. Because I feel like there's so much tribal knowledge in this space and it pains me. This work is so important that we're doing in order to accelerate humanity's future in space. I it pains me. This work is so important that we're doing in order to accelerate

humanity's future in space. I don't think we can afford to be treating everything like, you know, don't look at it, don't look at it, it's mine. Otherwise, you all go off the cliff together.

Exactly. Because you knew something that they didn't. They needed to know so they didn't fail. And just like repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

And frankly, if like your success hinges on, you know, someone else just making a mistake, I don't know if that's like true. And so how my goal and my passion with this industry is to be like, how can I sort of bridge those gaps? How can I remove those barriers, the things that those tribal knowledge blocks and help others just leapfrog the stupid stuff? So in order for you to be really effective, typically you're working with a smaller company. knowledge blocks and help others just leapfrog the stupid stuff.

So in order for you to be really effective, typically you're working with a smaller company. Yes. Because small companies are more nimble than big companies. They are. And they tend to be like more hungry for change. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The change factor.

Yes. Because big companies, they don't want change. And even if they do, it's like, it's hard. It's really hard. But I think also what you they do It's like it's hard It's really hard But I think also What you see is There's now existence proof It's hard It's difficult

I've been in those companies And but you know That now there's existence proof You can look at a SpaceX Tell Chuck what an existence proof is Like it's there Like we don't have to Like imagine

Imagine a world where Like no Like there is a company Called SpaceX But it's okay That No no no It's You don't have to imagine a world where... No, there is a company called SpaceX. But it's okay. No, no, no. You don't have to figure out whether it is true or can happen if there's an example of it having already happened.

In math, it's actually an existence proof. Oh. It comes from math. Okay. You asked me about Europe and France, right? Yeah, yeah. What is so interesting is Europe is about 10 to 15 years behind the U.S. in terms of like commercial space.

And so they have this opportunity now that they have, there's existence proof. They're like, wow, it's been done. What are we going to do? Now bring an American over and show them how to do it. Not so much, but just bring some of those lessons learned. And what is it? It's going to look different there because it's an inherently different ecosystem. But it is fascinating because it is ripe.

It's brand new. It's fresh. So you're going where the opportunities are. There's a lot of opportunity there. Wow. There's a lot of opportunity. Wow. That sounds really exciting.

We're going to have to report back. Good for you. I shall. You've got to come back and see how your predictions are going. Right. Decadal predictions for the O'Neill cylinder. Yes. She's probably going to have her own room on it.

Her own little house. Her own little house. I want to be the mayor of one. That would be great. Well, Warren, this has been a delight. And take us out with some words of wisdom for a next generation. Ooh, yeah. Okay.

I'll get very serious here. I believe that if you have the capability to do something good in the world, whether it's I'm smart or I'm talented, maybe both or whatever that is. I believe that we all have the obligation to use that talent in a way that benefits humanity. And there's a variety of ways in which you can define that. Don't let anybody define it for you.

But if you are gifted and blessed with capacity, please, please put it towards good. There you go. Mic drop. That's it. That's wonderful. There it is. That's it.

We need music after that or something. I don't know. Is there a button here? Nicki Minaj? That's hilarious. All right. This has been another episode of Star Talk with a little bit of Cosmic Queries sprinkled in on the future of commercial space with Lauren Lyons. All right, Chuck.

Always good to have you, man. Always a pleasure. All right. This has been StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. As always, keep looking up. Yeah.