 I was trying to think of a marshmallow joke and I still haven't figured one out So maybe before the end of this talk, we'll find something to talk about marshmallows So we're excited to have a very cozy fireside chat and it's a real fire. I'm really excited so first before we kick off the discussion we're gonna have why don't we do a couple minutes introductions and I'll just turn to you Natalia Bailey and CEO and founder of axion systems were a Boston based company spun out of MIT and we're Working to revolutionize the way people spacecraft robots are maneuvered around space by Using a new ion engine technology that we developed Wow rocket science. Yes. It's fantastic Jim Yeah, Jim kid trail. I'm the CEO of Vector Vector is a space access company and We're building micro rockets to service the micro satellite industry and also developing new generation of software defined satellites My background I've been in this business about 30 years Start off with a French space agency in Toulouse on a Soviet French mission to Mars and had another six years I spent in Russia after that Working with it with the Russians on the various space aspects In 2001 the strange guy named Elon Musk called me out of the blue and he said he wanted to make humanity a Multi-planetary species, so he needed Russian rockets and that's why he called me that ended up resulting in SpaceX and we We convinced Elon that you could build your own rocket which in 2001 was something you you could get committed to an insane asylum for and Many of us still think Elon's insane, but he's proven us wrong. He's actually made space safe for investing So I've been been been working in in space and around space and other other industries and back into it with Vector Awesome. Thanks. Thanks Jim Jose. Hi everybody. My name is Jose I'm the founder and CEO of zero to infinity and We're our vision is to enable others to make their dreams happening in space So we want to facilitate access to space and we've started by launching balloons Balloons can get pretty pretty high up where the conditions are in some ways similar to space You get to see the earth blue you get to see the sky black. It's really beautiful and we are working to Facilitate access for small satellite launch, you know human exploration and also possibly even space tourism one day My background is in our space engineering. I Got also a degree from MIT like Natalia and worked on the on the Ariane 5 rocket some years ago that's great and as we briefly met each other for the first time a couple minutes ago just so Set the stage so I started as an engineer electrical engineer doing a gate array design and a lot of hardware software And over the past five years. We started an angel investment network We've invested in a couple of space companies and realized that the space business is no longer limited to billions of dollars required We've also started a company called the edge of space and what we do is we send cool stuff to space We've actually supplied seeds through one of our investments to a hundred thousand kids here in Finland And it's just really fun. It's a fun adventure to bring space down, especially down to the classroom So giving with the topic of what we're going to talk about and again in a very cozy manner Really, how how is this possible? Right? How is access to space now? So achievable for entrepreneurs and however you guys want to do it, you know, just jump in we'll try to have a really From a big perspective, I think what's happened is at least when I was young space was clearly the domain of nation states You know, I sat on my grandfather's lap and watched Neil Armstrong the walk on the moon I remember that and that was something that that private citizens could never imagine we all dreamed of it Of course of doing ourselves But it the simple capital requirements were in the tens and hundreds of billions of dollars It was out of the reach of even those billionaires But over time is that tribal knowledge went forward You began to get some billionaires who challenged that idea Elon Musk is is is one of the notable ones Jeff Bezos another one And and so what those guys have done is is transforming and what I think is the second phase of Space entrepreneurship, which is actually showing that with the sizable amount of money you can actually do this You know Elon told me there was about 750 million dollars between NASA and Private investment money that got him the Falcon 9 and the Dragon and they did Privately what NASA spent 50 billion dollars for the constellation never did so now what what's happening was cell phone technology And the continued miniaturization low cost of of what we use every day We're starting to have an even lower cost to getting to space that can be accessed by people who are VC funded And so so the result of that is that we can take bigger risks and be more innovative With with this smaller amount of money, and I think that's what you see today is Is a whole ecosystem that's about to explode or even angel-funded right so even a little lower money So what are your thoughts do you think? tell you like What the barriers are reduced right obviously? Yeah, I mean the bar is coming down So space is more accessible in terms of the cost of operating building and launching a satellite so you don't have to be a nation-state or a You know an entire space agency You can be a hobbyist in your garage or a high school student to actually go through building and launching and operating a satellite but I Don't quite remember this but in the 90s a few You know this is it's it's more accessible because satellites are becoming smaller and we can pack more into these smaller platforms but this isn't the first time we've tried to launch small satellites and so you know In the 90s some people tried this as well and raised a ton of money and and failed And so I like to think about you know why now and kind of in terms of why not then and Today there's more demand for it. So people actually care about the internet and and want access to it in other You know fields and and Industries we're developing new algorithms and we have more computing power and we can actually make sense of all of the data We might beam down and so there's the demand aspect Moors law, which you know is not dead never dead still going Means that these platforms are more and more capable every day And then you have the you know billionaires that are funding a lot of this and creating competition So the kind of bigger more sluggish defense contractors are You know Fault you know, we're introducing competition and so that's moving more of the business into the private sector and So so accessibility actually makes it rapid prototyping possible and all that so the the big old Big bigger companies really weren't as dynamic, right? So the entrepreneurship energy is there, which is beautiful You have to be right right and what are your thoughts? Yeah, I think I think just like it's happened for other Fields of human activity in which initially there were some requirements from governments mostly defense related or scientific and then Those those requirements were met by very complicated systems for which you even had to invent new materials invent new software and everything Now the materials exist the software exists the expertise exists We don't have to reinvent the wheel and there's been so much progress and drones in cars in in software That can be brought back into space And that that space actually can solve very useful problems on earth It's a location from where you can see lots of things you can Connect lots of things you can also gain a human perspective on the planet. So that these new requirements of the world, you know connectivity imagery intelligence safety disaster Protection and such those new requirements demand different solutions and these different solutions are gonna be brought not by governments and Committees of ministers bad by entrepreneurs and Private capital so it's it's a different world and the tools are there. We just need to put it together So even NASA for example I was working with them looking at what commercialization of space means and they understand that you have to look at it You no longer can send a research project up on station through cases without figuring out some type of a return or terrestrial Benefit right which probably leads to the next question So what are what are some of the benefits that maybe the audience doesn't know about of working in space? However, you guys want to let all you want to jump in sure I have some favorite examples So One favorite example of mine was hearing about a mobile breast cancer clinic that would do exams and then store the results on thumb drives USB drives and then every 90 days would drop those off at a doctor's office for the results to be analyzed and 90 days is a long time for you know some later stage cases and they signed a contract with a satellite provider to upload the data and in real time and So there are a lot of examples of really kind of world positive change like that Well, I've been a suggest there's really two big aspects to this One is just who we are as a species We're we're a wandering species and we always want to know what's around the next corner The my helper here at slush She came from eastern Russia and to her background her ethnic background was Turkish And so I asked the question how in the world of the Turkish people get into the northern parts of Russia But it's it's it's in our DNA to wander to explore to do these things and spaces somewhat the ultimate expression of that Our ability to look at ourselves from afar, but yet to go out I mean that's why Star Trek and Star Wars are so immensely popular So that explains what I think will be one of the the two major Factors in in the future of commercial space, which is humans going out the second part is Space actually represents an economic frontier as well much like northern South America war Three and four hundred years ago space is the next economic frontier. You've got resources. You have it's a place When you can observe the earth you can do things there. You simply can't do from the surface of the earth I think we've only begun to scratch the surface of the economic potential of that that particular place And you're talking beyond space mining or you're including that to the resources. Yeah resources You talk about settlements, but more importantly what we can do from the lower earth orbit Think of think of putting a satellite in lower earth orbit is putting a cell phone tower Anywhere in the world without a license I mean that's a pretty powerful thing to be able to do and then you can hang cameras on you can hang Antenna's on it you can do all these things suddenly that you don't have to get permission from from threshold sites Yeah, I was trying to explain to someone the other day of why do business in space and everyone thinks It's a vertical market, but it really is a location to do business, right? You either put something in space looking up down however, however, you want to do it So what are your thoughts on? Yeah, really space is a place and we we want is to expand as This fear of economic activity upwards towards that place and you know one day Everywhere around the world you'll be connected Hopefully one day everywhere around the solar system you'll be connected one day There will be a high resolution image of the world on all wavelengths And that those solutions can only be done from from space, you know, it's not a question of Of off if but when when is it gonna happen, right? And that's gonna don't be done by small satellites powered by smart small electric propulsion engines and and this this networks of satellites need to get up there and And that that's going to to to create a lot of economic opportunity. I also believe that I'm very excited not only about satellites, but about the human aspect I'm seeing the earth from above is something called the you overview effect. I mean there's an effect effect on Cognitive situation I mean the way you see the world changes when you go above and you see that you come from a planet and This is something that would be very beneficial I think for the world that it is starting with the most influential people around the world that will be probably the ones That will be first to fly but later down the road to to more and more people having that perspective of seeing Oh, we all come from a blue planet. It's beautiful, but it's fragile I think it's really really important and only only a few hundred people have felt it and we need to increase that dramatically for for us And there's no borders from space, right? You can't see any borders. Maybe some land stuff or water land Geographical challenges, but there's no borders. Exactly. Um, what about microgravity? What what do you think? What are the benefits of microgravity? Have you guys gone through that? It's addictive I'll have you done the yeah, I spent about half an hour of my life. Oh, wow floating in little chunks. Wow It's fun, but there's also very interesting research. Did you get sick? Sorry? Did you get sick? I was fine? Okay? I actually took some drugs. Okay, then it's easier But yeah, it's a it's a very comfortable feeling. I mean just leaving your arms like that So just for that it has some value but also there's a lot of science that can be done and you know I'm really looking forward to industrializing material science in zero gravity that hasn't really been done yet and There's a potential for a lot of discovery and very useful components We were looking at a bioprint or a company that was going to print hard valves in space And because of the microgravity it could be more perfect or more usable So Figuring out, I guess the intersection of science and industry like what how do you envision? Commercialization, what's the what's the mix or how to from your perspective? How? How is it going to be leveraged? I mean is it possible to be profitable first of all running a space company? or Is that that's your motive? I'm assuming right to be profitable What what are what are the chances for being profitable in space now? I know we talked about how much it used to cost to get up there Yeah, well, I mean, I think that's why you have venture backed startups now in the industry at all because You know like we've been saying it's basically just a different place to put your sensors Rather than on the surface of the earth. They're in space and so you can make many Very convincing and proven business cases out of that argument And I think we're heading in the direction of the government pulling back and being relegated more to the rnd realm and funding the science there and At least in leo that being the kind of commercial private domain but for for my company specifically Leo and and commercialization and and becoming profitable is kind of the first step on a kind of grander vision I think if you work in the industry you Maybe read a lot of sci-fi growing up But if you know, I think of humans in 400 years if we're still around It's probably because we're living on other planets as well and we've built stations, you know, maybe in between Earth and the moon and and we've kind of expanded beyond earth and I'm you know working on a technology that can help enable that So I'm going to suggest that we've been doing profit in space for 30 years In commercial space, it's just Those of us who are in what's called new space and I don't like that term Think that it's all of a sudden new that we've been doing commercial space. Well, guess what guys All the tv signals you watch if you use direct tv, for example, that's all commercial space It's highly profitable serious my favorite radio station in the u.s. That's that's all very very profitable The difference between what a nation-state does and what what a commercial company does in space It always based on a different economic model. I've been I've been criticized for saying this But the u.s. Uses a soviet economic model both in nasa and within the dod to produce stuff for space They set the five-year plan they set the demand they set the price and you get exactly what you set out to have Which is something that's extremely expensive Single purpose and not optimized and the people are not incentivized to change that within the system So commercial space gives us an opportunity to actually put real money at risk and there's real Shall we say threats on the end of that stick if you don't produce something for the money that's being invested so we had vector for example are Going to solve the the transportation problem for the microsatellites by using automotive technology of manufacturing limited automotive technology When you start manufacturing these rockets by the hundreds you get a very very interesting reduction in cost Nobody's been Doing that in the in the rocket industry since the very beginning because they can't ever get more than about 10 a year Up so so they're just very simple things that we know work need to be applied to to the space industry to greatly enhance the the profitability of it just To add to that. I think it was 1974 that hbo broadcast the first TV show from a satellite. So new space. This term is a little misleading. Yeah. Yeah, and it's Obviously not not well accepted into it because if you look at new they have a little right, so yeah, right So, um, I guess getting back to the point we talked about there's no borders from space But are there borders Doing space business between countries for example. Do you find any challenges between the u.s and europe? Yeah, the space is a it's still one of these topics that that is that has a Sort of a chinese wall between between some countries and the rest of the world Most notably, um, the the u.s has a specific regime That protects its it's it's know-how and but also limits a lot the the interaction with with With the rest of the world in terms of Of hiring talent or you know investments customers, etc So this of course lots of countries consider space is still very strategic and have some export control rules Uh, but the u.s is quite quite as strong in that in that sense And and this is in in my opinion an opportunity for for europe as part of the western world We have the capability to hire people from really anywhere And and that that wouldn't if I a lot of people tell me how you went to MIT You have family in the u.s. Why why didn't you why did you start your company barcelona and not I don't know in silicon valley? Well, uh, in see in barcelona. I can attract talent from anywhere in silicon valley It would be a nightmare to attract talent from from from anywhere for space And so so this is this is quite important in my opinion also to sell to some nations We have some nations states that are customers that tell us look we're doing business with you because you are based in in europe So so that I think that's interesting. I don't know if if everybody in the audience knows that so I spent probably the better part of my career on the military aspects of space and working with the dod on this And it's important for people understand from the u.s. Government point of view They consider a satellite of sufficient sophistication And a rocket to be the equivalent of a nuclear weapon or a bomb in terms of its export control restrictions Now I agree. We shouldn't export nuclear weapons or bombs But they still do by the way the government the u.s. Government still exports that as foreign military sales the the The conventional weapons But we in the industry are now stuck with being called arms exporters I am standing here before you an arms merchant because I sell rockets and satellites So there's a certain stupidity associated with this that the u.s. Has now brought this wall around themselves Yet and you can go out and get most of the textbooks that will tell you how to do exactly what we're doing So and there's been some important reforms in this and it's gone a little bit better, but uh by and large, you know In the united states we face Really two big challenges one is information is considered the equivalent of an export So if I tell you how to build a rocket that's the same as me giving you the rocket And so I can be thrown in jail for that And then the second thing is that that uh our immigration system doesn't allow us to keep all our great immigrants Like we've had that's how we built the country So, you know, we're in bad shape in that respect But still we're you know, we got a lot of inherent capability within the country But it really makes it for tough doing business outside. There's hope No, I think there's hope. I mean I I for one am very vocal about it, right? And I really don't care who and the government's listening to me right now. You're all wet and you're stupid Okay What do you think? Just a little bit to add I guess Being a startup in in the u.s. And being subject Initially to itar, but we were we're no longer subject to that So the requirements have eased up for us a little bit Because we produce much less thrust than than vector does Um, but you know going through that we can't um hire any non u.s. Persons We can't you know use gmail. We can't have We can't really use cloud storage. That's not um Where we don't know where the server is located and who has access to it and it's um, you know Quite a burden for a startup to go through all of that And you know, it makes it made sense. I think when having satellites and that intelligence was An asset and would kind of make or break, you know the outcome of a cold war for example But today You know, it's a bit different and the legacy laws are still around and it's kind of hurting the the ecosystem We have time for one more topic. I think just making one up If you were to figure out how to attract People in the audience that are developers or engineers or marketers It's very competitive here, right walking the floor. There's cool stuff out there How do you position? How could you position your opportunities in your companies and what you do to be just as cool? Is there some Thing that you can you can tell the audience you have carte blanche to and let's say you could hire from wherever you want You know, well, I I actually feel sorry for future me and whatever I might do later because compared to what I do now I mean, um, there's It's going to be a tough comparison and you know, the pitch is basically We work on every day what our, you know, younger selves aspired to do So that's cool. That's great. That's great So so vector I said we were space access company the first part of that problem Is physically getting the assets into space which is already enough of a problem The second part of the problem is exactly what you say is engaging the larger community as a whole and that's why I'm here At places like slush because this you guys are the center of innovation I walk around the floors here and I'm wowed by how much how much innovative thinking how much creativity is here So the second part of our business plan is to create what we call software to find satellites Which will allow the ordinary person who doesn't have to become a satellite geek like natalia and I And to put an app on a on a satellite layer So it's just like creating an app that runs on your phone in the cloud or on the amazon cloud So we think that that will then tap the the potential of users who can think of ways to use space I'm not smart enough to know how you can use it But i'm smart enough to put an infrastructure together that smart people can then go in for say 10k and create a Space company without having to go through all the pain and suffering of the hardware Three weeks ago. I went to estonia and I went to the Galileo masters program and that is exactly that they're they're they're giving you free data from the european satellites And figuring out let's make an app store Let's figure out something cool to do and it was it was really it was just as cool as walking through here Because you're talking to people that are doing while one was snowfall detection But you know all the cool detections you can do and really That they also have to figure out the business model. How do you monetize that too? So the same challenges are there, but the excitement's there too. What do you think? How do you make? space more sexier to to We're doing it. We're getting talent from airline industry Banking like my cfo x gullman sex is around So we're bringing people from gullman sex to come to space and this is I think it's both time to do things It's a hard problem So it requires innovation and innovative thinking on everything on the engineering on the financing on the marketing on everything So people that are attracted to a challenge They they tend to to want to work in these kinds of things And and there's so much room for improvement in the way we we send stuff up that Is attractive and the other thing is is going back and thinking well when I meet my You know my grandchildren one day What do we I want to tell them that I did a new You know app for groceries or you want to tell them that you know I helped place something that provided connectivity to the unconnected or you know explore the new world It's your choice. I mean you only leave once fun. Well, we're out of time But thank you guys and it was really warm here But and I still couldn't think of a marshmallow joke, but it was a really pleasure Working with the talking to you guys and and hopefully sharing with the audience more inspiration on space So let's have a great slush. Thank you. Thank you