All language subtitles for B T W S04E03 1080p WEB h264-BAE_track3_[eng]

(mid tempo music)

- Historically
public space agencies

have defined space exploration.

As of now in 2022, 77
countries have space agencies.

- For the first sort of 50
years of NASA's existence,

NASA was the customer

and the private sector
was the supplier.

- Now, billionaires are
fundamentally changing

the public's
relationship with space.

- I've seen the rise of
a lot of small companies

and startups like ours, that
establishes a whole ecosystem.

- And a booming space economy
in Colorado and beyond

is really starting to take off.

- Moving manufacturing
off of our planet,

creating opportunity and
future for everybody,

that's what I wanna see.

- [Cray] I'm Cray Novick.

- And I'm Myrna James.

- It's time to go
"Behind The Wings."

(mid tempo music)

So in this episode, we're
gonna explore the question,

how is the growing space economy

changing what's
possible in space?

To start, we talked
with Phil McAllister,

NASA's director of the
commercial space flight division

for space operations.

- When we first started
talking about shifting

some of the responsibility
for low earth orbit

onto the private sector,

I think there was
definitely a sentiment

within some parts of NASA that
we were giving up something,

something that was special
and core to our mission.

And over time, I think that
sentiment has really reduced,

as people have realized that
if we were always limited

to NASA's budget for
what we could do,

we would always be
somewhat constrained.

For the first sort of 50
years of NASA's existence,

we kind of interacted with
the private sector one way,

Which is NASA was the customer

and the private sector
was the supplier.

So we would write very
detailed requirements,

we would make all the
decisions about the spacecraft

or the transportation vehicle,

and then we would hand
those to the private sector

and say, "Go build this."

And we would be
sort of in charge,

we would make all the decisions

and we would own the
resulting hardware.

But today what we found is
the commercial space industry,

which is an industry
looking to sell,

not just to the
federal government,

but to other organizations
and to other just consumers,

when you have a thriving
commercial space industry,

it doesn't necessarily
make sense for NASA

to build everything
from scratch.

We can leverage the capabilities
in the private sector.

That's kind of what we
mean by commercial space.

And I think just within
the last 10 years,

these kind of partnerships
have become possible.

- Previously, the space industry

has been very large
company driven.

You've got your large prime
and government contractors,

and that was how it
was for 50 years.

As technology has increased

and as the price and cost

of getting to space
have decreased,

that has enabled
many more businesses

that now can close
their financial model.

You've seen the rise of
a lot of small companies

and startups like ours,

who see needs in the market and
needs that the industry has,

and we're able to
meet them in ways

that larger companies, it
might be more difficult to,

and so that establishes a
whole ecosystem of everything

from single person startups,

all the way up to
thousand person companies.

- Dylan Taylor,

thank you so much for
being here with us.

You, I think have
more passion for space

than anyone I've
ever met. (laughing)

So you're currently the founder

and chairman of
Voyager Space Holdings.

Tell us a little bit
about the company.

- Voyager Space is
really purpose built

to help scale what
we call new space,

which is the innovative
entrepreneurial sector

of the space industry.

- There's obviously a lot
of collaboration in space,

but what role does
competition play?

- Well, I think the
market forces help. Right?

I mean, I think SpaceX was
born out of competition

with the Russian Soyuz rocket,
with Boeing, with Lockheed,

and because of that,

they were able to attract
third party capital

and invest and innovate.

So I think it's
really important.

I think the market forces work.

When space was purely a
nation state opportunity,

you didn't see the
level of innovation,

we certainly didn't
see rocket reusability.

And now we even have things
like launch as a service,

where customers just simply pay

to be inserted into
a particular orbit.

We are in a renaissance
for the industry.

The level of innovation
is just shocking,

and I expect more to come.

- This is a graph of the
investment totals into space.

Just look at that graph.

I mean, it's straight
up practically.

In the past 20 years,

the global space economy

it's grown from just over 1
billion to over 16 billion.

That's huge.

- Yeah, in investment in
space, private space companies.

- And then to get a sense
of where this is going,

this is looking at the future.

Here we are 2022 and the
chart just goes straight up.

- So the global space economy

is expected to grow 4.5%
in the next 25 years.

And that's exponential growth

and it's not gonna
slow down anytime soon.

- When you look at it like this,

it makes it seem
like we're really

just at the beginning
of things today.

So we made our way
to Lunar Outpost,

to learn how they're
using technology

originally developed by NASA

to test for lunar dust,

to actually improve air
quality here on earth.

Now that might sound
a bit confusing,

but we're gonna talk to
their CEO, Justin Cyrus

to learn exactly how.

- My name's Justin Cyrus,

I'm the CEO here
at Lunar Outpost.

It's been a very good
past couple years,

for startups in the community,

because now instead of
just straight competition

against the likes of
some of the big names

like Lockheed Martin,
Northrop Grumman, or Boeing,

they're looking at
ways that they can work

with small startups
like Lunar Outpost

and Outpost Environmental,

to innovate quicker,

and to not only bring value
to the aerospace community

and what we're doing
out in cis-lunar space

but to find ways to
bring that technology

that costs a lot
of money to create,

back here to earth.

So NASA spinoffs
are technologies

that originally were
funded out of NASA,

are a part of a NASA program.

And what these spinoffs are,

is commercial companies
working with NASA

to find ways to take this tech,

this tech that folks have spent
a lot of time and money on

and finding ways it can
benefit life here on earth.

- So speaking specifically
about the Canary sensor,

now we actually have one of
them right there behind you.

What was the original
application of the technology?

- So the original application

of the Canary sensor technology

was actually to
detect lunar dust.

So it's called lunar regolith
and it's extremely fine dust.

And it's harmful
because of the chemical

and geometric composition,

to not only humans, but robotic
systems and space stations.

- What was that technology
transfer when you realized,

okay, maybe this
tech could be useful

to improve life on earth.

- Some of the key,
core technology

is detecting a particle,

and figuring out what's
in that particle,

or detecting just what's
in a concentration of air.

So what we do with the Canarys
actually here on earth,

actually figure out
what's in the air

real time out in the field.

One of the use cases
that was highlighted,

by City and County of Denver,

was putting it next to schools.

So figuring out how we can
improve the air quality

for kids in elementary school,

middle school and high school,

and the effects of the study
are still being seen today.

We were able to
collect real time data,

and air quality was worse
than you would want it to be,

especially for elementary age
kids at some of these schools.

So that's just a small sample

of what City and County
in Denver was able to do

with the air quality
data we collected.

The first day,

we actually put a Canary
on an oil and gas site.

We found a methane leak
within seven minutes

and that leak was fixed
within the first two hours.

Whereas the historical
way of doing it

would've been months later

until they found that leak.

And at that point,

thousands of liters of methane

would have already been
dumped into the atmosphere.

- If you don't measure,
you'll never know.

And with the Canary sensor,

it's just that
extra layer of data.

- I think that's very well said.

If you don't measure,
you'll never know,

and if you don't know
you can't fix it.

And certainly that is what
we're trying to accomplish

by providing data, not
only to the companies,

the oil and gas, the
chemical processing,

but also to the regulators

so they can make sure
the air we breath

is safe, healthy, clean,

'cause we have a lot
of really cool tech

that we're working on in space

that can be brought
here to earth

and applied in those markets.

And what that strategy

has allowed Lunar Outpost
to do and accomplish

is to reach some of our
more ambitious goals

of putting a rover on the moon,

of making oxygen on Mars,

while still driving
profit, revenue

and having that strong
near term positive impact

that can be seen from
the Canary sensors.

- There are thousands
of spinoffs from NASA,

many of them that
we use every day.

- Things like sunglasses,

rechargeable batteries,
even sneakers.

- Hundreds of NASA spinoffs

have come directly from the
International Space Station.

We spoke with former
astronaut Scott Kelly,

who spent nearly
a year on the ISS.

- I think there are things
we get from the space program

that are valuable to
our life on earth.

If we didn't have
a space program,

we wouldn't have these cool
cell phones in our pockets

that we look at all the time.

- So there are a lot of those
kind of technical things

we get from it.

The space program has
created great benefits

in terms of technology,
spinoffs for use on earth.

I mean, one of the most obvious
is actually solar power,

which some people think
will be our salvation

from global warming.

Solar power was developed as
a really usable technology

for use on spacecraft,

because if there's
nothing further off grid

than a spacecraft,

and my little company
has also spun stuff off,

we were interested in
making fuel on Mars

that required capturing
CO2 out of the atmosphere

and a number of
other technologies.

And it developed our
gas capture technologies

for a number of purposes,

one of which has
been to capture gas,

being flared by oil wells,

so that they could be
trucked off to market

instead of being flared.

And another was capturing
CO2 out of fermentation vats,

so that breweries could use

the CO2 from their
own fermentors

instead of having to buy
CO2 from industrial sources,

while venting their own
CO2 to the atmosphere.

(mid tempo music)

- Here we are at the
Denver Beer Company.

We're gonna learn about
tech transfer from NASA

and they're creating technology,

where they're learning
about resources that we have

and how to use
them here on earth.

So you're wondering space,
beer, how do they come together?

We're about to find out.

- When the beer's fermenting,

there isn't really a great
way for small craft breweries

to capture that CO2,

until Earthly Labs
invented this CC machine.

And so they've licensed
this NASA technology,

which allows us
to capture the CO2

during the fermentation process,

bottle it up,

and then we can reuse that
CO2 later in the process

or sell it or do
whatever we want with it.

- All right, so let's
go check it out.

- Okay, let's go check it out.

- Great.
- We've installed some piping

that pipes the CO2
into the CC machine,

where it's filtered, cleaned,
cooled down and compressed,

and then put into a big
6, 750 pound container.

It tells us how much
CO2 it's captured,

the pressures, the temperatures

and everything that we
need to know to run it.

- Our third partnering
business came in,

and actually an indoor
agricultural business

who needs CO2 for the
production of plants.

So by partnering Denver
Beer Co. who generates CO2,

with another business
who utilizes CO2,

we were able to get
through the pilot program

that was wildly successful.

Really what we hope to
see is a snowball effect,

that people look to
this as an example

that other breweries can say,

"I should be capturing
my CO2 as well."

- Space has limited resources,

but I guess our planet does too.

- Sort of like you
can't really ship things

to the ISS all the time
or to the moon or to Mars.

So they need many, many ways

to utilize resources
that are already there.

So that's what the in situ
resource utilization really is.

- So thinking
about this increase

in public private partnership,

we've talked a lot
about the startup side,

but what does it enable
NASA to focus on.

- The public
private partnerships

not only allows the
aerospace community

to reach these business plans

that wouldn't
otherwise be possible,

but it also allows NASA
to reach far greater goals

than they could otherwise.

A great example is
the Artemis program.

Getting humans to the
moon on the budget

that NASA currently
has, is not possible,

it's not feasible without the
public private partnerships

that have been put in place.

But in addition to that,

NASA is the cutting edge of
space agencies around the world.

They're looking at not
only getting to the moon,

but further getting onto Mars

and exploring other planetary
bodies in our solar system

and with the James
Webb telescope,

many solar systems
beyond our galaxy,

that would not
otherwise be possible

if they weren't working with
the commercial industry.

(gentle music)

- By being able to shift
some of this responsibility

and have the private sector
pick up some of these costs,

we can go further, faster.

And I think there's always
gonna be a role for NASA,

that's our job,

is to push the
bounds of exploration

where you don't necessarily
see an economic potential.

It's really just been
over in the last 15 years

that we've seen these very,
very successful partnerships.

And now, particularly
with the crew program,

we have seen all kinds
of benefits from that.

Just within the last 12 months,

we've seen an all private
mission just to orbit,

the Inspiration4 mission,

which was a really remarkable
first time in history.

And now today we have
four private astronauts

on the International
Space Station,

living and working
in space on the ISS,

another thing that is
a historical first.

And I really do think we
are at an inflection point

with human space life,

and it's really
about to take off.

- Skip.

I'm Cray. Pleasure to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- Let's talk about space.

- Yep, sounds good.

- Let's do it.

We're almost in this new
era, this new space economy,

there's more private
companies than ever,

they're collaborating with
national space agencies.

How has that impacted space law?

- A couple of the things
that are happening now,

I represent a private astronaut

who's going up. It's a
SpaceX flight up and back.

And NASA hosts the
private astronauts,

and a company down in
Houston called Axiom Space

put it together.

It was really a first
of a kind contract.

You can imagine a
lot of legal issues

associated with sending
a private person

up into space for 10 days.

This isn't a sub-orbital
flight of six or eight minutes,

this is 10 days up in space.

- [Mission Control]
Thanks to our SpaceX team

for getting you there.

My thanks to NASA for hosting us

and to the entire crew.

We've been talking about
this history making mission

for a long time.

(gentle music)

- So you've got private
astronauts going up now,

to the International
Space Station,

and you've got NASA planning,

for commercial space stations
before the end of this decade.

- The ISS is getting old

and we would like to
retire it by 2030.

That is NASA's policy right now.

So the good thing is that
gives us a little bit of time.

We are currently working
with four partners

to design, develop and
hopefully deploy prior to 2030,

their own commercial
space stations.

And the long term vision,
I believe at NASA,

is that I will be able
to just buy a ticket

just like anybody else,

and go up to a
destination in space,

do my work and come back down.

- Right now, we are
on contract with NASA

for a commercial destination
free flyer contract

to start developing these
commercial space stations.

We're actually teamed
with Blue Origin,

and we're developing
this space station

and we're calling
it Orbital Reef.

Think of it as a
business park in space.

Businesses come in, you
provide the ecosystem,

the power, the modules,
the research facilities,

or the manufacturing facilities,

tourists facilities,
media, filmmaking,

all of that kind of stuff.

You provide the logistics
and the transportation.

Basically go to a
company and say,

"What business do you
wanna do in space?"

We'll take care
of the space part.

- So when we think about

another space station
in the future,

there's gonna be different
ways to get there, I'm sure,

and one of them is Dream
Chaser, product of Sierra Space,

and that's really your project,

that's your current project
that you're working on.

- In matter of fact,

24/7 production on the
first vehicle right now,

we plan to fly first
quarter of 2023.

- Oh my gosh.
- So-

Well, we have one here,

so, let's go look at it.

- Looking at all
the airplanes I flew

and then ones I
didn't get to fly.

I flew that one,
I flown that one.

I've flown that,
I've flown that,

I've flown this guy.

I've flown one of those too.

So the Dream Chaser
is what's called

a lifting body spacecraft.

It's what we're working on,

it's what we're
building right now

that we intend to
fly in early 2023.

What it is, is a
lifting body spacecraft.

And what that means is,

most airplanes, the
wings provide the lift,

I think most people know that,

but in this particular vehicle,

it's the body of the
spacecraft itself

that provides the lift

and only a little bit
comes from those wings.

So it looks like a
mini space shuttle.

So it's designed to launch
on a rocket, fly up in orbit,

rendezvous dock, free flight,

whatever you wanna do on orbit,

orbiting satellite
research platform.

Then we enter,
and when we enter,

we see very, very high heating
temperatures as we slow down,

up to 3000 degrees,

that's why it's a blunt body.

And then in the
end it comes down

and it lands like an airplane.

And so what I want is I want us,

and quite frankly,
the whole world

to realize that
commercial vision

where space travel is routine,

multiple people going,

thousands of people, tens
of thousands of people

working in space.

I wanna walk into a
classroom as an astronaut

and say big deal,

(Myrna laughing)

half of our parents
have gone to space.

Wouldn't that be awesome?

- I think it's gonna happen.

- It will happen.

And we're doing
everything we can

to make it happen
as soon as possible.

- This was all kind
of theoretical,

even only four years ago.

And now it's all,
suddenly it's real.

You've been to space already.

- Going to space was life
changing, it really was.

And as much as I told myself,

I shouldn't have
expectations going into it,

I really did,

and those expectations were high

and they were just
completely smashed.

I mean, it was so
much more profound

and transformational
then even I had hoped.

So you're in the capsule
about 35 to 40 minutes,

from the time they put you in
to the time they take you out.

So you're on the pad

and you would think
you would be terrified,

and you would think
you would be scared,

at least I thought I would be.

I really wasn't.

So then you get to countdown.

T minus 10, which is like
the classic space, 10, 9, 8-

- [Man] Seven, six, five, four,

main engine start, two, one.

(gentle music)
(rocket whirring)

- [Lady] Well, huge
congratulations to all six crew.

They have crossed
that Karman line,

and they became
official astronauts.

- You get to space and
they do main engine cutoff,

and then you're kind of
floating in your chair,

but you're held back
from your harness,

and then they do what they
call capsule separation.

But then you're
able to unbuckle.

- [Lady] Cue the astronauts
to unbuckle their harnesses

and start floating
around the capsule.

They are in zero G,
they've practiced for this,

and now it's really happening.

- I had the privilege
of going to the window

and I turned myself upside down

and I did that intentionally

to sort of disrupt my
orientation of up and down.

I looked out the window.

I gasped, you're seeing
the Earth from space,

totally transformational,
extraordinary.

And then from there, you
get back in your seat,

that's quite important,

because what's gonna happen

is as you go falling
back down to Earth,

you hit the atmosphere

and then you come on down,

and then the first
thing that happens

is your drogue parachutes open,

those basically guide and
settle everything down,

then you have the main
parachutes deploy.

Then once you land,

they give the crew a
private moment to huddle

and hug each other and just

bask in the experience
that we just had together.

And then they open
the capsule door

and you're greeted
by hundreds of press

and your family and loved ones.

It is shocking how much we
were able to get done in 2021,

the technologies have matured.

I think I was number 606
human to go to space.

I'd like to have 606 humans
per year go to space.

And I don't think we're
too far away from that.

I think that'll
happen in this decade.

- With that in mind,

you started Space for
Humanity a few years ago.

Tell us about that.

- Yeah, so space for
humanity was founded

with really two primary notions.

One is that we need to
democratize access to space.

It can't be a
billionaire boys club,

it can't be exclusively
North American or white,

or anything, it's
gotta be human.

It's gotta be human endeavor.

And then the second
core principle

was the notion that space is
a tool for transformation.

It's a lot of things,
technical challenge,

investment opportunity,

but it's primarily a
tool for transformation.

It's run by a terrific
leader named Rachel Lyons.

- Rachel.
- Hi.

- It's so good to see you.
- Good to see you too.

Let's go.

- All right, I'm excited.

Part of the original mission

was to make space
accessible to anyone.

- We have entered just
over the past few years,

this new era in
space exploration.

And this new era in
space exploration

is very much being led by
the commercial companies.

Up until 2021,

we had eight people go to
space commercially ever.

And in 2021, we had
more than 20 people go.

What the numbers
are saying right now

is that in the next decade,
10,000 people or more

will have been to space.

And this can't just be for
the ultra wealthy right now.

The potential of
this is much too big.

And just in this past year,

I mean, it opened up
to so many people.

- Organizations like
Space for Humanity

are making it possible for
anyone to apply, to go to space.

So it's really
ideally eventually

not just for the wealthy.

- Just in the past
couple of years,

we've had so many
firsts when it comes to

who's going to space
and how they get there.

You know, people like Eric
Ingram with different abilities,

whether physical or
mental, whatever it is,

these are people that before,

never would've gone to space.

And now with
mission AstroAccess,

they're learning things

they never would've
thought of before.

- I applied to be an astronaut
twice, knowing full well,

I would not be accepted.

Imagine how many people aren't
applying to be astronauts

because they don't think

they can meet the
minimum requirements.

As a species, we are
at the very beginning

of human space flight.

And when you're at the
beginning of something,

it's the easiest time
to design for things.

And so AstroAccess was founded

to make sure that
anyone can go to space

when that opportunity
presents itself.

And so we flew our
first parabolic flight

in October of 2021,

where we took a plane and
we did some parabolas,

where we were able to
experience microgravity

and lunar gravity
and Martian gravity,

and able to test some awesome
technologies and ideas

we had for making space
more accessible to everyone.

I think what you're seeing with
commercial launch companies

and commercial space
stations and all that,

is more opportunities for that
larger set of the human race

to be able to finally go.

- I truly believe it.

I know it's cliche,

but you gotta see it to be it.

I mean, I know I didn't
have that to see,

and so by me being the first,

maybe that'll make some
other little kid say,

"Hey, I don't have
to be an astronaut,

I could be a suit tech."

There's space for
everyone, it really is,

and I truly believe that.

I mean, I'm a prime
example of it.

- Startups are
changing accessibility

and sustainability in space,

and even what it means
to be an astronaut.

- And next episode on
"Behind The Wings,"

NASA and other players
in the space industry

set their eyes on
the moon and beyond.

Talking about Mars.

(mid tempo music)