Thank you for joining us for Escape from Earth.

The billionaire SpaceX race with Christian Davenport and Tim Fernholz, moderated by Loren Grush Before we begin, thank you to our founding sponsor, the Kerry and Linda Killinger Foundation Hello and welcome and Linda Killinger Foundation Hello and welcome to the Cross-cut Festival.

I'm Loren Grush.

I am the senior science reporter for The Verge.

I'm coming at you from sunny L.A. so you might hear some chirping birds in the background, but they're just excited to be here too.

So I'd love to describe a little bit about the SpaceX beats.

I sometimes like to call it ten beats in one as it ranges from the latest black hole discovery and Star Explosion to NASA policy and the commercial space race Also, a little bit about me.

I've been writing for The Verge for seven years now, primarily focused on SpaceX during my tenure , I hosted my own online show called Space Craft Focused on what it takes to send people in the space.

Also working on a book called The Six , which I just finished the first draft now.

Yay.

And this summer, you can catch me on.

The Verge is very first Netflix show.

The Future Of talking about, you guessed it, space travel.

Our discussion today is called Escape from Earth.

The Billionaire Space Race , and I'm joined with by two of my good friends and two reporters I very much respect on the space beat, so I'll introduce them for you.

First up is Christian Davenport.

He covers NASA and the space industry for The Washington Post's financial desk.

He was a consulting producer of SpaceX The Private Frontier, a two hour documentary that aired on the discovery and science channels and a producer and co-host of Space Launch Live, the network's Emmy award winning live broadcast of SpaceX's first crewed mission.

He's also the author of two books his latest The Space Barons Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and The Quest to Colonize the Cosmos and then joining us will be Tim Fernholz.

He's a senior reporter at Quartz , the global news site where he covers the intersection of economics, politics and technology.

And, of course, SpaceX.

And he is the author of the 2018 book Rocket Billionaires about the new space race.

Christian Antenne Welcome Thanks for having us So this is just going to be a fun discussion.

We are constantly I feel like whenever we are reporting, we'll constantly run into each other at various news events, which I feel like many high school reunions for the SpaceX reporters who cover this stuff.

So this will just be like us chatting at one of those events.

But well, I'll start off with giving some background and probably one of the major through lines of our coverage in recent years leading up to maybe a few years ago.

Ah, all right.

I would say our biggest project that we are covering at NASA was the Commercial Crew Program, which was the agency initiative to get private companies like SpaceX and Boeing.

to create spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

But now that those flights have become more and more routine, knock on wood, of course, and hopefully everything stays safe.

We're now transitioning to NASA's much bigger project, which is the Artemis program.

And that is NASA's new initiative to send people back to the Moon specifically the first woman and the first person of color to the lunar surface And so that is something that we will probably be focused on for the next decade or so.

And so let's start off with kind of a pretty simple question why do we think NASA is finally going to return astronauts to the Moon?

You know, this is one of many times that we have tried and what are the biggest milestones that you guys want to are keeping an eye on as the program moves forward?

So maybe, Tim, if you want to start us off Sure.

Great to be here with everybody talking about SpaceX Will we actually send people back to the Moon?

I've gotten religion on this recently.

I was very skeptical.

If we think about this moon program, it's really been going on since the Bush administration in different varieties and progress has been slow But this summer, we expect to see the Space Launch System , a huge rocket built by Boeing and an the Orion spacecraft built by Lockheed Martin, hopefully by the end of the summer go on an uncrewed mission into space.

If they do that, it'll be a major step towards actually sending astronauts But the real question is when, when the Trump administration announced the goal of returning people to the Moon, they said 2024, which is not going to happen now, NASA says.

Maybe 2025 2026.

I don't know if that will happen either.

But what should we look for on the way?

One is the SLS and Orion.

Obviously, the two big space vehicles that are going to take people going to the Moon.

Another thing we need to look for is what's going to bring those astronauts down to the surface of the Moon.

Right now, it looks like that's going to be landers built by private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin.

and we're also waiting on spacesuits.

We don't quite have spacesuits for the astronauts to wear on the Moon, and I think those are three big technology developments we need to get across the line before it's very serious Yeah, I agree.

I mean, there's the technological challenges , but what has prevented, I think, NASA from getting to the Moon isn't necessarily the technology, it's the politics right Because as Tim mentioned, this has been something that, you know, as a country we had been fitfully trying to do on and off for many administrations.

You have George W. Bush say, we're going to the Moon, and then Obama comes in and says, Well, we've we've already been to the Moon.

We want to go to an asteroid or to Mars And then Trump comes in and says, we're going into the moon, but what gives me hope, and I guess I have a little bit of religion as well is that when the Biden administration came in and they laid waste to virtually all of the programmatic scaffolding that the Trump administration had put up, except for Artemus and notably the Space Force.

And I think that continuity , which we haven't had in a long time, gives us hope You know, the fact that we would send a woman and a person of color , I think helps build a political constituency and helps to the American public go along with it as well.

So those those technological challenges that Tim laid out are key and those are significant hurdles.

But it seems like at least initially , the politics is starting to come along, which we haven't seen Yeah, I agree.

And that was good at what was going to be what I added.

I think also what was really smart about Artemus, which was created under the Trump administration, is that it did have a good branding, you know, sending the first woman to the Moon.

That's a great idea.

And the whole artemus program name is wrapped up in that goal.

So I think that was very smart way to make sure that the program survives.

I'll say one of the milestones that I'm looking forward to along with or not looking forward to.

But what I want to see, along with the technology that Tim mentioned , is also more of a purpose for what we will actually be doing on the Moon.

I believe I saw something recently.

I think it was Bob Cabana mentioned that, you know, they don't want to get stuck on the Moon , but then it's kind of also, well, why are we going?

You know, I think having them explain a little bit more about the goals of going back to the Moon rather than just actually going would be something that I'm really looking forward to have NASA address , which I hear they might be doing soon.

So that would be great.

Now, as I mentioned, Artemus is just one of plenty of hype high profile programs at NASA that ASAT to return humans to the Moon or send them to Mars.

But they've never panned out.

And in the meantime, there's been a lot of hand waving about China and its advancements in space, especially as they ramp up a possible lunar mission with humans.

And there's a lot of concerns about, Oh, what if China overtakes us in SpaceX capability?

What are your thoughts on these concerns about China and its progress in space?

And is that enough of a driver of urgency for NASA to light a fire under its butt I think it really does help with the problems that Chris was talking about just a second ago.

Politically speaking, when George W. Bush launched his moon mission in the early 2000s.

There was not really an international rival that was going to beat the U.S. to the Moon if the U.S. had followed through on that program.

Today, we see China doing a lot of interesting stuff in space.

Notably, they landed a robotic rover on the dark side of the Moon.

Very impressive display of capability.

And so China says that it is going to put people on.

China has just launched and is building a new space station in low-Earth orbit.

They are spending a lot of money on this technology.

and in general, I don't think it's something the world needs to worry about in the sense that a lot of this is scientific.

It's going to be good for China and arguably the world, but it is going to drive the U.S. and particularly people in the U.S. military to say we need to invest in certainly matching and often exceeding China's capabilities.

But this is another reason to think that a U.S. moon mission will go forward simply because whatever the realities of China's activities in space, it is going to be a major propaganda issue.

And just as the rivalry with the Soviet Union played a big part in the Apollo program, I think the rivalry with China will drive our as well Yeah, those are great points.

And you know, in addition, to all of the things that Tim laid out, obviously China has huge ambitions in space and even landed a rover on Mars, which really shows their capability.

Know, but from where I sit in Washington , it's interesting that I don't yet see the level of the angst and anxiety that we had during that Cold War space race to the Soviet Union.

It's almost as if it's like an afterthought.

And I think that's true on the civil side and getting to the Moon and also on the national security side.

I was at an event here in Washington There was a top Pentagon official sort of talking about the , you know, all the militarization and SpaceX.

And he was saying, Look, guys, in 1957, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, people were freaking out.

There was paranoia in the streets and you know, that was just a little ball and all it did was beep.

And if people were aware today of what's happening in space , even the sort of unclassified stuff there should be that level of paranoia And it's almost like, we don't see that on the national security side and we don't see it necessarily on the civil side.

And you can see a moment where China gets to the Moon, potentially first , and it's almost like this science fiction in reverse, where all of a sudden everyone's like, Hey, what happened?

How did they where did they come from?

And it's like, No, because they should have tuned in to the cross-cut festival because we were talking about this years ahead of time.

I mean, it's something that's clearly happening, but I don't know if it's resonating with people in Washington and you know where I live and all the lawmakers here yet.

I think perhaps because China still isn't quite there yet, we still have They still have quite a ways to go.

I think once they get closer to actually achieving that milestone, then it's going to be all of a sudden.

I think we're going to see a big explosion of, well, where have we been, you know, people when it's when it's years in advance, it's harder for them to kind of materialize that support But back to what you said, you know, it really the perfect storm that was the Cold War.

I just don't think we can recreate that quite again.

And this I have another question.

I just thought of.

Does it always have to be?

Is it always going to have to be a rivalry that really drives that urgency?

Or is there going to be another way that we can actually recreate that kind of sense of momentum that we had in Apollo?

Or is that just ASAT just never going to happen again?

No one wants to take that one on might depend on your view of human nature.

What is going to motivate people more?

I mean, you could imagine cooperation becoming part of this.

I think the expansive moon missions makes the idea of an international partnership very attractive to us.

is already working with the European Union on this.

And if you look to the International Space Station, you know, we've had a very successful collaborative relationship with Russia.

It's obviously under a lot of strain right now.

but it does suggest a paradigm where countries with divergent interests on Earth can cooperate in space.

And maybe that is a better future for American and Chinese lunar exploration.

Right now, NASA is forbidden by law to engage with civilian space actors in China.

So getting rid of that law might be a first step towards getting away from the rivalry paradigm if that is even the dominant one.

So I think there's sort of the geopolitical tensions that will drive us to the Moon, particularly if China gets going.

I also wonder what I'm curious about is if there's an economic one we're seeing this strong attempt by NASA to foster this economy in low-Earth orbit and seeing commercial space stations and manufacture sharing and all these sort of commercial activities that the private sector could take on.

Is there or could there be an economy in the region around the Moon?

If so, then I think that could drive people to get to the Moon.

You know, going back to Tim's point about, you know, studying human nature, well, we all know that corporations seeking economic benefits and profits of money will totally drive us there.

We're not there yet, and there have been a lot of companies that have tried to do this.

But I think we're beginning to see the architecture and a renewed interest in that, and that certainly could be a driver I think it's also kind of a catch 22 situation too.

because we don't quite know what the business case is for going to the Moon yet, and we won't know until we actually go there.

And so we can't get that driving factor until we actually get there.

So it might just be a slow couple of years as we actually try and make it happen But then maybe once we find what we can make money there, then more and more people will follow.

All right.

So we can't talk about Artemus without talking about our favorite rocket.

The space Launch System.

For those who are not aware of the Solar System, massive new rocket that NASA has been building for the last decade.

They just rolled it out.

Oh gosh, was it last month or a couple of months ago?

And then it is now back safe They they tried to do a wet dress rehearsal with it, which is to go through all of the motions of launch.

Those tests do not go according to plan, so they rolled it back and now they will be sorry.

There's a dog barking, so please ignore so they'll be rolling it back to the launch pad.

Hopefully soon we're going to.

You guys will be learning about this later this afternoon.

So let's talk about SARS.

It's it's been a program that we've covered for many years now, and it's always been marked by delays and cost overruns.

What is it like for you guys?

And I can answer as well now that we're finally on the cusp of actually seeing this long, perennially delayed rocket finally launch Well, it's kind of interesting for me.

I write a lot about the private side of SpaceX and for a lot of my sources and the people I talked to, the SLS has been sort of a symbol of everything that is wrong with how NASA manages contracts and builds vehicles to go into space.

But it is also a very important thing for NASA in the country that thousands of people have worked on.

We spent hundreds of billions of dollars on it, and it sort of surrounding mile.

So it's kind of bittersweet.

If it succeeds, it is going to be a big victory for NASA.

But my hope is that we will look back at the path to create that rocket and take a lot of helpful lessons for how the space agency should do stuff in the future.

And you have to wonder if NASA was starting over today Why would they build NASA less rocket?

You know, I thought it was really interesting not to, you know, here we are at the Seattle Crosscut Festival, where leading edge of thinking and you almost seems criminal to bring up a federal procurement point But it is crucial that when these Christians don't stop that they're going from, they change the model from a cost plus, which is where NASA keeps throwing money at these contractors.

sort of almost no matter how much they need to what's known as a fixed price contract.

But they say you build that it's going to cost this much.

And if it costs more than your bid, then to bed, you have to eat that Those overruns and S.E.A.L.S is obviously a cost plus program It's been years and delay.

I just don't think they will go down that route.

And the other thing, of course, is in all of this time, that NASA has taken developing that rocket now and in relatively short order, it could have real competition that it didn't have at the time.

It was born from SpaceX Texas Starship rocket.

And if Elon can get that rocket flying , presumably it'd be a lot less expensive , be fully reusable that you almost have to wonder.

So what does that tell us for?

So I think it's just born of a different time.

As Tim was saying, yes, someone I spoke to when for our report, when the rocket rolled out as they they claimed that this was probably the last rocket of its kind in terms of how it was built So it's probably the last, you know, it's the end of an era for NASA as a rocket builder And now we're watching NASA transform into an agency that spurs development of the commercial sector and is less in charge and does oversight of the rocket building themselves.

So it's an interesting time to be a SpaceX reporter.

As we, you know, witness NASA make kind of a bumpy transition into this era.

All right, let's shift gears and talk about Russia.

It's hard not to talk about Russia in space, right now, especially everything that's going on there.

Our biggest partner on the international Space Station and the country's decision to invade Ukraine had quite an impact on SpaceX relations and dominated our coverage over the last few months.

So what do we think the future of the ISIS really looks like?

There's constant concern and worry about the ICE or ISIS partnership and Russia pulling out of it, especially given the comments from our good friend Dmitry Rogozoin, who likes the bluster.

He's the head of Roscosmos, Russia's state SpaceX Corporation.

He says quite a few things, but it's our job to navigate them.

So what do we think that future really holds for NASA and Roscosmos?

I'll take this one.

I think, you know, I think it's we're stuck.

We need them and they need us.

It's just a matter of how long we stay married together.

I mean, the International Space Station was built for science and research, but also for diplomacy and these ties, and it was built at a time you know, sort of coming out of out of the Cold War and trying to thaw relations between these nations, particularly the United States and Russia today.

Would we partner with them in SpaceX on a space station?

Probably not.

But we have , and the problem is they provide the the propulsion to maneuver the space station.

We provide a lot of the energy and power, and there's no it's not like a piece of Lego.

Yes, there is a Russian module or side and there's an American side where you can't just break them apart.

And from what I understand, you know, if we wanted to take over the propulsion, that would be very difficult.

Despite what Elon says, that that's not something that's going to be easily done, particularly now because of all the debris it needs to be maneuvered.

A lot more frequently.

So it's a very, very tricky situation.

But you can see below Dmitry Rogozin comments the adults sort of working together and talking together professionally , at least for now.

But you have to wonder, is this a viable thing?

You know, in the years to come It's all very interesting, too, coming as we approach the end, the scheduled end of the sentence, you know, right now, I believe NASA was authorized to operate it into 2028, and it'll probably be deorbited around 2030.

And then no one will have a platform in low-Earth orbit except for China and whatever private companies may launch one in cooperation with NASA.

So it's a time of transition in low-Earth orbit.

And what's interesting for Russia, I think, is their entire space program is predicated on the ISS.

Their rockets are designed to go there.

Much of their spending is designed to train and service it.

And so if Russia were to leave, it's not clear what they would be doing in space other than maybe being a junior partner to China.

So on the Russian side, too, they have tough political choices , as well as the practicalities of operating the habitat I think another thing that kind of struck me and I should have thought about this earlier, but you know, a lot of NASA's biggest programs, such as commercial crew, rely so fundamentally on the International Space Station.

And we had so much anticipation for those first flights.

But if we were to retire the space station in the next couple of years, which I don't think is going to happen, but it could, then all of that work that we put into this commercial crew program, they can still go on.

But the main platform that we would have would go away.

And so definitely behooves us to work together.

So it'll be interesting to see if the leader is above.

Dimitri are really keen on actually pulling out of this partnership.

How do we think the Russian invasion will impact our relationship with the country and in the future, as well as our relationship with other countries on premiere space programs?

Do you think this shows?

I guess the cracks in international partnerships or is there still is?

It's still important that we maintain, you know, have these kind of symbiotic relationship ups with other countries and other programs Well, it's interesting.

I think we're seeing with sort of international space politics , the same thing we're seeing with regular geopolitics, which is sort of new coalitions or maybe old coalitions reforming.

One thing that has come out of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a big mission to Mars that the European Union was going to do with Russia has been delayed and probably going to be canceled.

And now they're going to be looking likely for new partners, and maybe that's going to be an opportunity for the US or Japan or who knows But international cooperation is a big part of the push to the Moon as well.

The U.S. government has this thing called the Artemisia Quartz , where they're trying to get nations around the world to sign on to our sort of framework of what we should be allowed to do in space and who can build things there.

You will not be shocked to know that Russia and China do not think this is a great idea.

And so we're seeing these divisions sort of play out in space and on the ground, which maybe is not a promising outlook But at the end of the day, doing stuff in space is so expensive that countries are going to have to band together to do ambitious projects.

Yeah, and it comes at such an inopportune time in that, you know, we are in this renaissance with with SpaceX and so much is happening and you're seeing all of this capability in the commercial sector and companies like Space X that are leading the way in doing these extraordinary things.

And it gives you at least a glimmer of hope that maybe we will be able to go back to the Moon.

You know, maybe we will have commercial habitats in low-Earth orbit.

Maybe it's even possible to get to Mars at some point.

I mean, certainly not on any timeline that I think Elon is putting out, but maybe that could all happen if if all of these countries and companies can come together.

I mean, I do really think that's key.

And you know, for all of their faults, Russia's builds a pretty good rocket and they have got good engineers.

They know what they're doing And SpaceX, as Tim mentioned, China landed a rover on the far side of the Moon.

And you know that rover on Mars , they're getting really good, too.

And yet we're prohibited from working with them.

If that is also true of Russia going forward, I think it just makes us ambitious programs all the more difficult to achieve I think, and also working together is one of the primary primary reasons we go to space, right?

It is incredible that despite all of the tensions that are happening here on Earth, we still have been able to maintain the International Space Station operations there have not really seen any kind of bump or problem, and I think that just speaks to how critical space travel is and bringing people together.

And so it is such an important geopolitical tool.

So hopefully this does not , you know, prevent NASA from coming together with other countries in the future.

Hopefully, it's something that we can we can eventually put behind us.

OK, so we've talked a lot about human spaceflight.

Obviously, that gets a lot of the attention when we we're talking about SpaceX, but perhaps the biggest trend that's going to impact the space environment over the next decade is the proliferation of Mega-constellation nations in low Earth orbit.

So you might have heard about Starlink SpaceX X's initiative to create a giant constellation of up to tens of thousands of satellites to provide broadband internet internet coverage to all parts of the globe.

And I'd love to know what you guys find most interesting about this trend.

I love covering it just because I think as we put more and more satellites into low-Earth orbit, we're learning more and more about what that means.

So what consequences do you think this will have on the space environment?

And do you think that space internet?

Will it be this moneymaker that space X and everyone else anticipates it to be I think it's a case, you know, when you're talking about not hundreds of thousands of satellites going into low-Earth orbit where the technology is outpacing the regulation and here the regulation.

It's not just a U.S. problem.

This is a global problem.

where there are literally no rules to the road and there's no traffic cop to enforce that.

So if, for example, the United States government sees that there's going to be a collision in collisions and SpaceX are really, really bad.

I mean, they're traveling so fast they create all this debris, which is then now really traveling fast.

And if you ever saw the movie gravity, you know what I'm talking about, because even something like, you know, a nut or a bolt can do a lot of damage There is nobody.

Even if the U.S. government says , Hey, there might be a collision.

They can't say, Oh, satellite operator, a , you have to move your satellite.

They can't even enforce it.

Oh, the satellite has to have propulsion so that it can move or have a transponder I mean, so I think there's an I know there's a lot of work in this regard.

but it's not moving as fast.

And meanwhile, all these satellites are going up there, and I think this is a real concern and I, I, you know, knock on wood that there's not another major collision up there before.

There's some sort of rules of the road Yeah, I think that's absolutely the the problem that these constellations are creating and that needs to be solved.

But I think it's worth saying, you know, the reason that people are putting all these satellites up is they do think there's a major opportunity here And I think what's sort of funny and interesting about this is these ideas of Mega-constellation came about in the 90s during the first internet boom , and all of these companies, including Bill Gates, every Silicon Valley personage of the time invested money in launching these constellations Most of them went bankrupt, totally failed.

And then 20 years later, we're going to try and do it again.

So it's a real interesting test case of how have things changed?

Has the technology gotten better?

Has it gotten cheaper to do things in space?

Do we even need satellites to provide internet from space?

So as a business story, it's sort of on par in my mind with like the development of like the transcontinental railroad.

We're creating a huge piece of global infrastructure that could be a major economic impact.

But it's also going to have a lot of unintended consequences.

And that is what Christian is warning, warning about.

And even aside from the consequences to the SpaceX environment, there's also the questions that astronomers are asking Are these satellites going to interfere with terrestrial observations?

You know, how important is the night sky to most people?

You know, if you see space like satellites flying overhead, is that a bad thing for humanity?

Or do we need the natural sky?

So in this case, the reporting on SpaceX goes in so many different directions What's the government's responsibility?

Is there a commercial opportunity?

What is society's obligations to keeping the environment clean and pristine?

So it's very complicated and interesting, and I do agree with Christian that I think it's going to become messy before it gets any clarity And I think what's so fascinating about it is that we are having these discussions now as SpaceX X continues to week after week launch batch after batch of Starlink satellites, and there are so many other mega-constellation coming down the pike.

We have Amazon and then I think the European Union is exploring something.

China is exploring something similar.

So it's kind of like we're kind of struggling to keep up as this is happening in front of us before our eyes.

I think another thing that you talked about collisions in SpaceX and a concern there, and there's a lot of fears over this thing called the Kessler syndrome, which would be , you know, once you have one collision that sparks , you know, that creates debris that then runs into other satellites and then you have this cascading effect.

And one researcher, I spoke to more of a job.

He doesn't think that's necessarily concern, but instead the carrying capacity of low Earth orbit Can we actually handle all of these satellites in these orbits?

And what does that mean for using these orbits in the future?

We don't know just how many satellites they can handle , and that could mean that we can't launch any satellites in the future.

for fear of actually having these collisions.

So, yes, it'll be a very interesting to watch this play out over the next few years because it's it's happening and there's no stopping them at this point.

All right, I'm going to skip on to a question that we ASAT SpaceX reporters get all the time.

Obviously, you're here because of the billionaire's last year, SpaceX Roadster received a ton of attention, primarily because of the billionaires setting themselves to SpaceX.

We had Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson careening off the planet.

And since then, we've seen more and more people pay exorbitant amounts to go to space.

Last year, Jerry, I Jared Isaacman, a billionaire, paid for an entire Crew Dragon mission to orbit called Inspiration4, and in just recently we had Axiom Mission Ax-1, where the inhabitants of the Crew Dragon paid a reported fifty five million dollars a seat to go to the International Space Station.

So what is your response on why should we be spending money on this?

Is it all just joy rides for the one percent, or is this a worthwhile endeavor to commercialize space for human space travel?

Well, I think you sort of put your finger on it with the question is, should we be spending money on this?

Probably like the US taxpayer, or no, but the US taxpayer isn't spending that much money on it.

This is private individual spending on it, and that sort of gets you into a debate of like, well, should we be taxing billionaires and maybe that's a great idea, but it doesn't really have to do with the SpaceX stuff.

For me, the best answer to this question is what people in NASA think and the folks at NASA who are running things right now have a philosophy and they think if we can get private companies to invest more in space, to build more space hardware, to have new capabilities, they will do it more cheaply than we can.

We can outsource stuff that we used to do 50 years ago to them and focus on more expansive stuff out in the world going to the Moon and Mars.

Now that requires of rich people to put their capital on and do this stuff, and it just so happens that the low hanging fruit of business models for stuff in space is rich people paying to go there.

So it makes sense for NASA.

They think they're getting a lot out of this, and you can look at stuff like the Dragon There's an example of that.

What are the optics really that great Not always, particularly when some of our billionaires are pretty tough on this.

Yeah, it's the the problem has been, I think in large part, the optics.

So when Jeff Bezos goes to space and he thinks the Amazon employees and all the people bought Amazon who gave him the money that didn't look good and that resonated very, very poorly with people.

So let me see if I can help them sort of, you know, with their PR effort, I think what they mean to say is, you know, today only 600 people are so have been to SpaceX and you guys have talked to astronauts.

You talk to an astronaut and they explain their experience of what that is like and seeing the Earth from a distance and the thin line of the atmosphere and land masses without borders.

And it's transformative.

And we talked about those partnerships on the International Space Station.

I think part of why they're there bonding is that they're seeing they come from this one earth.

So imagine if these companies are successful , like let's take the optimistic view that they'll be able to do this reliably and safely.

And six hundred goes to six out 6000.

And more and more people are able to go and have this experience and talk about that transformative effect.

I actually do think , you know, that could have a societal effect.

Potentially, I mean, just remember the pale blue dot that picture of Earth hanging in the galaxy are hanging in the darkness of space that helped touch off Earth Day.

So I don't know.

I think I think they're going to be better about explaining why this is important, which they're not doing a very good job of I will also offer some PR advice along with you, Christian.

I think a lot of the tension also resides in the fact that Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk like to wrap up their endeavors and this idea that what they're doing is saving humanity.

And they both have different ways that they're saving humanity.

Jeff Bezos, his way is by he he envisions that we're going to send all of our industry off of Earth and Earth will be zoned for residential.

And that's going to be how we save the planet.

Elon Musk famously wants to send start to settlement on Mars to expand the light of consciousness And if something happens to Earth, we'll have a Plan B I think they need to give up that sentiment.

You know what?

They probably really believe it, but I think the tension comes in the fact that, you know, they keep saying that they're trying to save humanity.

But a lot of people are like , Well, if you really want to save humanity, there are some ways you can spin it here.

on Earth that would really benefit us here.

And now we don't have a major asteroid coming to destroy Earth any time soon, but we do have a climate that is rapidly changing.

So yes, fingers crossed we don't have one at the moment.

So I think perhaps if they were to change that focus, that might produce a little less criticism.

But that is just my opinion.

All right.

On that note, we're going to trance transferred to audience engagement questions, and I have a few here in front of me.

So first off, in regards to the International Space Station, what if any effect will Russia's invasion of Ukraine sparking all of the global sanctions against Putin caused the continuing ISIS operations?

I think we discussed that a little bit, but maybe if we want to expand ten, that's something you want to take.

Yeah, I think it's just really hard to say, you know, NASA and Roscosmos, you know, the people who are running the station day to day say it's business as usual, the stations going, you know, we had U.S. astronauts landed Kazakhstan and come home.

So in the near term, it seems like fine.

Well, it really depends on how the war drags out.

and what comes of it.

You know, if there's some negotiated peace and it's status quo, I think the ISS continues But if things, you know, become more conflict ridden , if the conflict expands, if sanctions really continue , then Russia may choose to do something else.

But I don't think the US will do anything to either try and kick Russia out or force their hand.

I think the U.S. would like to say, let's keep cooperating on this until we decide how to end this totally.

And the astronauts, I think, feel the same way and that Kerry is actually a fair amount of weight.

I just point to that moment where there was a change in command on the International Space Station, where one crews arriving, the other crews going home.

This is at the end of Mark VandeHei as mission.

The NASA astronaut who broke the record for the single longest space flight duration almost a year.

And as they're going through this change, of command ceremony, you see the Americans and the Russians, Hartford felt hugs, well-wishes, talking about how they're, you know, admire each other as professionals , how they have this bond as friends.

I mean, it was a really sort of touching moment.

I mean, in a way that, you know, I think surprised a lot of people of how genuine that was and that that that was real.

So I have to think that it will give you some level of hope.

Yeah, I think we touched on this earlier, but unfortunately, it probably does not bode well for our future relationship with Russia.

And right now, we don't really have any major projects that we're working on them with other than the International Space Station, which depending on how you feel about it, that's either good or unfortunate, but I think it just means that Russia's going to continue to isolate themselves unless they change their tune or come up with a better geopolitical strategy.

All right, next question and I'll just a reminder if you want to ask the question, I think you can type it into the chat.

Can you control the approaches to SpaceX of Bezos and Musk?

I love this question.

and is one better than the other?

And who do we have better to talk about this than the men who wrote about the billionaires themselves?

so I'll leave it to you to take it away.

Well, I think it's well, I think for starters, you know, there's a clear winner in the race and that's SpaceX x.

They are going to orbit their flying people, the orbit, their launch.

Exactly.

You know, they're doing all these things of blue Origin camp.

So that's an easily answered question as to the differences I think I don't know.

I'd be curious to hear everybody's answer to this.

Obviously, Space X is engineering culture is very unique.

It's Silicon Valley inflected It's driven by the madness of Elon Musk.

They have come up with a model of testing and, you know, rocket vehicle development that is very unique.

I think people in the past would have said Blue Origin's a lot more traditional, a lot more like NASA.

But at this point now there's a lot of cross-pollination between the companies with engineers from one going to the other and vice versa.

I think it's also interesting to see what kind of management systems Jeff Bezos will make now that he is reportedly spending more time with blue So I'm sort of curious.

My question right now is sort of how Blue Origin's engineering culture changing because I think we know what Space X is , but I don't feel like I had my finger on what Blue Origin sort of methods are right now.

It seems like they're finally making some progress on that, that BFR.

But I may reframe this to somewhat slightly because we did talk about the differences.

And as Tim said, SpaceX X is , you know, they're so far ahead.

It's it's almost hard to even compare them.

But what they have in common is really interesting.

too.

I mean, they do both want to lower the access to space at the cost of accessing space.

They want this competition You know, there's a lot of focus on Blue Origin , but now we're almost at sort of the second phase where these companies have produced, you know, sort of the next generation that and some people in the industry called SpaceX X University or Blue Origin University, where there's like a Tim Ellis for example, who was at Blue Origin, then goes off and found relative SpaceX or, you know, Rocket Lab now going off.

And you have to wonder if the competition for Space X isn't just blue, but these other companies coming along as well.

And you have a real ecosystem, you know?

But again, all with very similar goals of what they want to achieve They have different methods and different cultures to get there, but it's just fascinating to me that it's not just these two anymore, that there's there's more that are coming that I think are really viable.

I think just to talk about a little bit of the downsides of space X, there's success, though, you know, as we're very aware , yes, space X is very far ahead of all the competition in, but that also relies on a burnout culture that is pretty well documented.

And we also saw , I think it was last year end of last year when we had a a lioness say, come out about Blue Origin's culture as well and how they wanted to be more like Space X's culture and so yes, they these companies are producing great results, but we also have to think about how those that are affecting the workers and maybe some are happy to be burning out the way that they do.

But we have to think about, is this creating are these are these companies creating the same mistakes that we have in the past for the sake of innovation?

You know, just something to keep in mind as we see the shiny rockets take off into the sky.

I thought it was pretty interesting on that note that Major SpaceX conference this spring , like a who's who of American space companies, came out and said , We're setting new diversity goals.

We're going to release new data on, you know, kind of people.

We employ gender, race, the whole thing to respond to all these realities in society and the two companies missing from that statement were SpaceX Ax-1 Blue Origin.

So it's it's interesting to see which companies are taking this challenge seriously and which aren't.

And it may have something to do with the fact that both of those companies are private and a lot of the other aerospace companies have publicly owned and have to respond to their shareholders.

Yeah, and just to add to that, that is kind of another downside of the whole commercialization of SpaceX, too, is we don't have as much insight into these companies as we want.

You know, I don't know about you guys , but SpaceX X's PR department does not respond to me anymore, and that's their prerogative.

But you know, that is it's not like with NASA , where they are a taxpayer funded agency, and they have a prerogative to tell us what they're up to.

We can also debate whether or not they're good at that , but they are much more transparent than these companies have been in the most recent years.

All right.

Next question.

Are there laws in space What are they?

Can anyone do what they want if they have the means you get a particular missile right Yeah, Well, actually, I'll take this question because I love this question So one of the things that I love is a document known as the Outer Space Treaty.

It was created in the nineteen sixties , I believe, and it's been the backbone of international space law ever since then.

And what it does is it outlines a list of guidelines for what you can and can't do when you explore space.

One of them, as Christian mentioned, you cannot put weapons of mass destruction in space or in Earth orbit.

Thankfully, But it also addresses other things you cannot claim territory on other worlds, for instance.

So you can't go to the Moon and claim the Moon as your own.

And also, it dictates other things such as planetary protection.

And that is the concept of making sure you don't contaminate other worlds unnecessarily.

And that you don't bring back alien microbes that would create an alien plague that would take over Earth.

Yes, we have.

We did think about this stuff.

So that is kind of the fundamental backbone And then, of course, we do have laws and regulations that that oversee how we launch satellites For instance, we realized that we were we probably should take care of our debris that we put in the space.

And so with the U.S., we have a time limit for how long your satellite can be up there.

Or at least you need to figure out how to dispose of your satellite so that it just doesn't stay in orbit indefinitely and cause problems.

So we do have quite a few laws and regulations.

Whether or not we need more is a subject of ongoing debate.

You guys want to add anything feel free.

Well, I think the other challenge that Christine alluded to is that, you know, we have a pretty broad basic principles of international law, but then each country enforces that sort of as they see fit And there's no overarching venue that can adjudicate between the U.S. and any other country on who's enforcing satellite rules effectively.

So it is a free for all.

And that is why so many SpaceX stakeholders are worried about what the rules of the road will be going forward.

We saw recently this month the US government announced that it will no longer blow up satellites when testing anti-satellite missiles to prevent spreading debris.

You would think that would be kind of a no brainer, but it is a big deal.

And the hope in the SpaceX world is that more countries will climb on to stuff like that.

norms of responsible behavior.

But as anyone who knows about international law will tell you, it's very hard to say anything definitive or how long it will take.

Yeah, it's normal behavior not to blow up.

A satellite in the White House came out with that degree , saying We're no longer going to do it.

But if tomorrow China or Russia or some other country blow up a satellite, yes, there be strong words of condemnation.

But what would there be any action as a result of that?

Probably not Yep.

And that's what I think makes the SpaceX speech so fun to cover is we will be following all of this as the years go by and as more problems arise.

And it's more existential dilemmas arise with more and more innovation and more business cases that pop up in space So it's definitely a very dynamic time to be covering space.

I'm so happy to call you guys, my peers and I look forward to seeing what we write in the future, and I look forward to seeing you at the next launch that we all attend together.

But on that note, it's time to say goodbye or my notes Thank you so much for joining me, Tim and Christian.

This is a great discussion and there's plenty of more that we could have discussed , but for sake of time, we got to say goodbye.

Thanks so much and before we go just to note that there are a ton of other sessions happening at the festival.

Be sure to check out what's the big idea at five with Ezra Klein and you can find them all at Crosscut Dot com slash festival.

Thanks so much for joining