Technology, Connected - New US Space Policy Demands 1000 Rocket Launches a Year

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

We read the National Space Transportation Policy in full. Signed 20 August 2026, it shreds the 2013 directive and rewrites how the US gets into space, moves around up there, and comes back down.The War Department is all over it. Launch ranges, reentry infrastructure, a clause about accommodating launches within 48 hours of need. You don't build a 48-hour capability to do science. Somebody expects to lose a satellite and need a replacement up fast.Here's what we think stops it. Not rockets. Not pads. Demand. Most of what goes up is Starlink, everyone else crams onto rideshares, and a target of 1,000 assumes five times more reason to be up there than anyone currently has. The document is a sales pitch with the government as a customer.We also get into the Mars carve-out and what it says about who America needs, the ISS retiring the same year and China’s plans to land on the moon.--Thinking on Paper is a technology podcast about AI, Space, quantum computing, science, and the systems shaping your life. 🏠 ⁠Buy us a beer on Substack⁠🫵 C⁠hoose your own technology adventure ⁠📺  ⁠Watch our beautiful faces on YouTube ⁠🎧 R⁠emember Steve Jobs on APPLE⁠📺 ⁠Get clips and exclusive videos on Instagram ⁠--Chapters(00:00) Introduction to the US Space Transportation Policy(03:20) US Launches in 2025 and 2026(04:45) Private Industry and Market Demand(06:24) International Competition and Collaboration(07:55) Infrastructure Needs for Increased Launches(10:00) Government Coordination and Regulatory Frameworks(12:02) Market Opportunities and Ride-Sharing in Space(15:13) Future Missions to Mars and Lunar Surface(18:43) International Efforts and the Race to Mars(20:48) Implications of the 2030 Space Goals(23:22) Summary and Next Steps

Disruptors and Curious Minds. Welcome to the Thinking on Paper Starship, the USS Enterprise of Technology Podcasts. And today we're reading the National Space Transportation Policy, another presidential memorandum from He Who Shall Not Be Named, dated August the 20th, 2006. And essentially, this is America, the United States, are ripping up what came before and rewriting the rulebook for getting into space, moving around in space, and perhaps more importantly, coming back down to Earth. Once they've been up there, we're going to the moon, we're going to Mars, we've got robotics, we've got the Department of War again. All over the place in this one. All over the place, yeah, wow.

Yeah, so yeah, we are reading the National Space Transportation Policy. And Jeremy, as an American, I think I would hand this over to you. to introduce the memorandum. Well, just for clarity, friends and neighbors, if you happen to have presidential policy, Directive 26 of November 21st, 2013 National Space Transportation Policy on your coffee table for reference,

as Mark said, feel free to pick it up and shred it to bits, throw the bits over your head if you like. There's a new roadmap. And interesting, this is a, um, a collaboration of sorts, which a lot of these are. And this memorandum obviously isn't law, but it's kind of like, it's kind of saying,

hey, we're going to put some task items out there. We're going to tell you who's responsible for those task items. And we're going to give a timetable for completion of those said task items. Some of the biggest things that we look into this, it's really the goals for moving in and out of space. And Mark, you said, you said this. a second ago is, you know, getting into space, but also coming back down, which requires a ton of infrastructure. So point back to our review of the moon plan, right?

What was that called? The NASA Moon. User guide. NASA's user guide to the moon. Well, that's why we're reading this, isn't it? Because this actually, we're reading this because it ties into a lot of the episodes of thinking on paper. It ties into the NASA user guide. It ties into our Space DeGro series with Matthew Vinesel and Brendan Russo. It ties into our space-based solar power series.

Just if you're listening to this on Spotify or on audio only, that's cool. That'll be fine. If you can get on YouTube, we do actually have the National Space Transportation Policy up on screen to be able to see it. Otherwise, yeah. Sorry, back to you, Jeremy. The United States must establish and maintain space transportation capabilities that ensure access to the full range of orbital regimes relevant to United States' interests from suborbital and very low Earth orbit altitudes to lunar surface, Lagrange points,

and deep space. By 2030, our space transportation ranges must grow to support more than 1,000 launches and re-entries per year. So let's start with that. Mark, do you have any idea of many launches happened in 2025 in the US and how many are kind of projected to happen before the end of the year? Well, you know, I love a little bit of data, Jeremy. SpaceX 165 launches in 2025 or 85% of all US launches. Okay, most of those launching Starlink, but I've got an interesting bit of data for you. So 165 in 2025. Where are we in 2026 as we sit on the 24th of August? Do you know?

Do you think? Give us a guess. No, I actually did some research myself. And again, my numbers, my numbers, Mark, are, you know, are ish because there's so many different sources. There's no one record to kind of run to on this one. But as of my research, last year, the U.S. was about 200. and this year, believe it or not, the U.S. is kind of projected to stay right in that range. China.

I'd pay a point for you, though, so from what I found that, so SpaceX is two months ahead of last year on getting to 100 launches. Okay. So they have 100 launches of 2026, two months ahead of last year. Well, there was also a number two that China actually outpaced the U.S. and launches in Q1. which I thought, whoa, what she got going on there? Well, what I've got going on here is a tweet from Aaron Burnett, who we haven't had on thinking on paper that we would like to have on it, this founder's CEO of Mac 33.

All right, all right, all right, all right. All right, all right. Wrong film, but yeah, right guy. Hey, right guy, wrong film. That's all right. Yeah. I won't quote days are confused right now. So he tweeted a day after this, so he's ahead of us.

Elon, after reading the National Space Transportation Policy 2030 goals, you got to pump those numbers up. Those are rookie numbers in this racket. And then Elon Musk either responded or he's sharing Elon Musk's post, but we're aiming to reach 30 Starship launches a day in 2030, which is about 10,000 a year. So the people on Twitter who have got an invested interest in this are, well, two people. Just a vested but an invested interest, funny.

Saying that these are rookie numbers and you got to pump up those numbers a thousand a year. They should be 10,000 a year. We should do some stuff on Aaron Burnett's Twitter feed, by the way, because he's very active and it's very funny and it's very relevant. That would be fun to just have a pick someone and do a Twitter feed rundown. Yeah. Could be another fun pocket. But yeah, what I read through a couple of various sources was,

China actually outpaced the U.S. in Q1, but the U.S. quickly regained ground in that, but are still stated to, are still kind of closely tracking, matching last year's launches of about 200. It's a race. Jeremy, as you say, is that on their equivalent, do you have the rocket for that? Is that the equivalent of their Falcon 9? Have they successfully brought anything back yet, landed anything that they sent up? Do you know at all? I do not have that information in front of me.

Yeah, and there were some notes that China actually had called the ball, you know, pointed towards the outfield calling their, calling their shot of getting 140 launches this year. And I think it looks like they're tracking 90 to 100-ish. But everyone was a little bit up in arms when, oh, they're outpacing us in Q1, but that went away quickly. But the details of said launches and possible re-entries, I do not have further information. Okay, well, a thousand launches a year. Seems very reasonable if we're going to probably hit over 200 this year, ramp it up a little bit.

Get some other companies involved, Jeremy. This is like you've been saying for years, this is the American government as the coordinator. It's a sales pitch. Well, that's 5.5X where we're at today by 2030. And we're going into 2027 coming up here. So that's going to happen quickly. So here, let me give you some other numbers. So in this document, they've got about 180 days to put a plan together.

So better get crap. 180 days. Well, if you look at it. If Phileas fog went around the world and a lot less than that. Yeah, he was faster than Jules Verne, right? Anyway, the infrastructure to do all of this stuff, like where my brain started to go is like, all right, what do we need to get? get to a thousand launches per year.

And what are some of the, what are those, some of those things look like? I mean, you have the, everything from like propellant and fuel supply to launch sites, to, uh,

the rockets itself, to the workforce to kind of handle some of that stuff. Like, what is your, did you start getting into infrastructure planning mode or where, where does your head go with this? I got held up at the Department of War, to be honest with you,

Jeremy. I got held up at the Department of War. up, as I tend to do, held up at the Department of War. And I wonder, or I thought, I was thinking about why, well, not, I mean, why the Department of War is featured

so heavily. So on Section 2, space launch and reentry infrastructure, it's the Secretary of War and NASA shall operate federal launch and reentry ranges and facilities in a transparent lulls manner that accommodates government and non-government uses.

The heads of relevant, relevant executive departments and agencies shall in consultation with Stoke local, tribal territory, and industry partners regularly consider and evaluate opportunities to improve launch and reentry infrastructure and access to infrastructure. There was one on here which was about, which I, so yeah, you mentioned 180 days, the Secretary of War in coordination with NASA, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Transportation, in the heads of other agencies shall develop. What does promulgate, does that spread out? Does that mean?

Coordinate, I think. Let's look that up. We should, we should. That's a gnarly word, too. But to officially announce a new law or public rule. Prommulgate. How about just say announce? So, develop an announce federal rain scheduling.

But where was the one? It was about there was a 48-hour window. Oh. to try to, yeah, to try to figure out how to expedite launches within a 48-hour window, right? So you, yeah, including the ability to accommodate accelerated timelines, i.e. within 48 hours of need and expeditionary locations to support high priority civil and national security space launch needs. Well, that means there's been an, there's been a, it's been a, well, well, you can you can extrapolate what that means. what I think it means. Yeah, someone's up to air, shooting down someone's satellite,

someone has to respond, deploy mission kind of thing, maybe, I don't know. Someone's going to know where those drones are going. These are not the drones you're looking for, Mark. They've made it a national and economic priority, haven't they? They've brought in all of the big players, and we have to keep America out of the forefront of space. exploration, space manufacturing, the space industry. You know, we have to stay ahead of China.

I want to read you a couple of quotes from a previous show that we had with Matthew Weinserl, quote, it's less about the amount of government in some sort of, it's less about the amount of government intervention in absolute numbers and more about playing to the strengths of the government and the market. So basically when you mash, mash those two giant complex things together, what does one do well, what does the other do well,

and how could you orchestrate something that gets out of the way of one another? Yeah, good luck. Exactly. I mean, I don't mean to be cynical. That's actually a pretty good challenge. And if you can think about something that way when you're structuring and building something as complex as space

transportation, I think that's where you kind of have to start. Indeed. If you think about it, you know, launch vehicles and launch sites and all of that, to get to 5X where we are today in, you know, less than five years, how many new launch sites do we need? How many new launch vehicles do we need or how much more production out of the existing launch vehicles do we need? What does that do to how much fuel for these launch systems that we need? What do our capabilities for coordination look like between those entities? Those are little questions for you to ponder, Mark.

Efficiency gains. So how do you turn 150 launches a year into 1,000 launches a year? So what's blocking that number? I've got a theory for you on that. So obviously, SpaceX aren't mentioned by name in the document. Okay. No companies are named. It's market neutral or whatever it.

But it assumes the demand is there. But is the reason there's only 160 launches? And how many of those are? Starlink launches? Are there only that many launches at the moment because there's no demand? There's not enough demand to send up a thousand. Could they be sending up a thousand this year? Could SpaceX and Firefly and if they had to? Could they send up a thousand a year? Like if cost was no object and people paying for the bucket, like just the ability if you just got out of way. What's the demand? Is there enough demand? Because everyone's experimenting with these little

satellites and these little data centers, it's all experimentation. You can fit all, you can fit, it seems to me, quite a lot on one ride share and everyone's cramming onto one or two ride shares. The rest is Starlink satellites going up. Is the challenge, is the, the block to a thousand launches a year actually just a reason to have them up there that many? Yeah, that's a great question. I'd like to think no. I'd like to hope no, that there's a bigger. Instead of just we got to hit this number. The rideshare thing you mentioned was interesting. There's a note to, you know, part of their idea in this is, quote, provide and coordinate

ride sharing and hosted payload opportunities to maximize launch and reentry resources for United States government or partner missions, including science and tech demos, opponent risk reduction and operational prototypes. So, Mark, who is building the Uber? for space? Who's building the Uber ride share for space? Has that been automated yet? Can we automate it?

Is there enough connection between data points to make that happen? Isn't on SpaceX and aren't they doing that? Is that, you know, I need to get into space. No, like, you and I are sitting down. We've got like some sensors we want to throw up there. I want to, you know, go on the, old app and just be like

boop boop yep Leo these coordinates boom ride share oh I get to share it with someone in Mongolia and Portland Maine up to Leo

as a person no no it's payload what are you sending up I don't know sensors something to grab well you can only do that

it's not what this all this Falcon 9 ride chairs about isn't it essentially a rebranded space Uber. What does the, what does the interface look like on it though? Like.

Yeah. Oh, you stopped and you're like in this. Interesting little smile. But I was thinking like what is the interface like? How. How does that, what does that process look like?

Yeah. We'd have to ask some of our, we'd have to ask the Star Cloud crowd. Yeah. The actual interface looks like. the government as the customer is but we're back where we were at the start of space to grow we're back with searching for the stag with the big ideas aren't we and we they're lacking again so now the government comes in so okay well we we need to get stuff up there so we'll come in as the customer you lot this is what we need we need a thousand launches we're okay the interior minister that's a land agency not a space agency but we need more land we're going to find the land to land have you seen you that Starship landing, that's going to create a bit of a mess. You need a bit of land for that.

Yeah, people, people are pissed off at, people are pissed off at day centers in the backyard. What about like a reentry, reentry spots in your backyard? That's going to be quite a bit different, isn't it? Are we a lagging? Did you just, I can't hear you. Hmm. Oh, there you are. Back.

Yeah. Should we just read the Mars bit? That's always good. Yeah, read the Morris bit. Yeah. There are two quotes from. Mars. Section 6, United States Government Space Transportation. Quote, the heads of relevant agencies shall ensure the United States government payloads are launched by or transported in space on vehicles

manufactured in the United States. Except to explore commercial robotic access to the surface of Mars? Explore commercial architectures for sending humans to the surface of Mars and returning them to Earth. and ensure the availability of commercial crew and cargo services to the extent necessary to support United States government needs. Does that tell you that someone else is ahead on the Mars thing? I think it tells me that that's a coordinated effort and not even the United States can get to Mars on their own. Or maybe it tells me something about the SpaceX infrastructure

and the supply. line of SpaceX and what they're building and what they need to get to Mars and back. So I assume, and you know what they say about assumption, but they're using international components, international parts that aren't built, aren't made, aren't designed,

aren't ideated by Americans. Hmm. Or what you said. Yeah. Well, here's another thing to think about. You know what else is interesting about the 2030 date? Oh. Oh, what, Jeremy? That is, at the end of 2030, guess what goes out of commission?

Not what I was thinking. It's at the space station. Mm-hmm. Something. Isn't that, isn't 2030 also the year that the Chinese said they would be landing Tiger Nauts on the moon? Is that the year after the 60th anniversary of their? That's a great question.

Yes. By 2030. interesting. Read what you've just pulled up there. Let me see if I can get a source here. Yeah, here's space.com. I don't know, the legitimacy of that resource. It's a bloody expensive.com.

They should be somewhat legitimate. China shakes up its space programs to land astronauts on the moon by 2030. We will spare no effort, is the quote. So, okay. So, you know, you got some things anchored out there kind of going, you know, maybe we, maybe we try to throw more shit up in space before then. And, you know, maybe by doing that, we throw the right shit up in space and we start to move the needle on some of these things.

Just as an aside, I read The Martian when I was on holiday. I've never read the book. I watched the movie. I love the movie. It's freaking awesome. The story is awesome. So the Martian, the Matt Damon Martian, he's actually saved by China and America working together to get him off Mars.

Is that in the film too? I think so. Or did they erase the Chinese from the film? Because in the book, the America and China work together. Might have downplayed that in the movie. For funding reasons, maybe. Who knows? Speaking of Mars books, I actually just started the Mars trilogy.

I'm reading the Red Book right now. Oh, okay, yeah. It's good. It's good. Yeah. Yeah. Kim Stanley Robinson. and Kim Stanley Robinson, Marsh trilogy, Red, Blue.

1992, 1992, 1993, 1996. So how far in are you? I mean, I'm about three quarters away through red. And how are you feeling about it? Technologically, is he hit all the points that we speak about on thinking on paper? It's super interesting. It's like how they land out. It's the travel.

Well, actually, it's this experiment. they send you get 100 people together there's huge qualification process for various reasons can these guys and women pull off this mission to Mars they send him to Antarctica for a year to pretend and they run through all the trials and tribulations

and it ends up mostly working out a couple of issues there's narratives around the different characters and leaders and you know how the leadership evolves and then they get on the Ares which is the ship that transports them to Mars. There's a whole section about the trip. And now there's a section about landing

and they're building shit on Mars and there's their terraforming factions. There are leave it natural factions. Like it's hyper interesting. Like I would really, I would really recommend it. Well, so anyway, yes. So the National Space Transportation Policy presidential memorandum

they had August the 20th, 2026, a thousand launches per year by 2030. Reentry, landing is being addressed. The War Department is involved. Their calls for a commercial architecture. Crude Mars missions bringing the astronauts back. They speak about debris removal in orbit, servicing all of which we've spoken about in length

on thinking on paper. Check out the Space to Grow series where you can learn more. And yeah, it's a rewrite of how the U.S. and its allies gets into, stays and moves around in and gets back down from space. So we should follow up on this. What's 180 days from today? Six months. February, January.

February 20th, 27. Mark the day down, Mark. We're going to have another episode right after that. And we're going to look at the plans that they pulled together and see if there's anything interesting. That's what you get. That's what you get on thinking on paper. You get commitment to pulling the thread, following it all the way down and connecting the dots. That's what we're here for.

Stay with us. Stay on the journey. Thinking on paper. At xyz. There you have it. Be curious. Stay disruptive. Keep thinking on paper.

xyz. Share comment. like at Bezos, at Musk, at all of your friends that explore and think and write and talk about space? What he said.