00:00:02
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio.
00:00:15
Speaker 2: Well, lots of news in the world of space. There was, of course Artemis two last week. We've got our colleague Luren Grush reporting this week that NASA may not of those new lunar space suits ready by the time the agency hopes to lend humans back on the Moon in twenty twenty eight. That's according to a new audit to work on that, but there's some good news.
00:00:31
Speaker 3: It takes time. NASA also this week unveiling its next generation space observatory that happened on Tuesday. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope now fully assembled ahead of its planned launch as early as this fault. There's a lot going on in this space. And what's funny is it was quiet for a while. You know, you go back decades and there was just this space race. But it got quiet for a while, and then the private guys got into it, and it's just fun to see so much activity once again.
00:00:57
Speaker 2: We're doing a deep dive on the world of space. We've got Ross Hamilton with US Chief Operating Officer of the Space Network. It has the mission to quote advance the commercial growth of the global space sector and integrate space technology across all industries. He's also the author of the new book Everything Is Flying From Ancient Skies to Deep Space, How Space Technology Shapes Life on Earth. Also on Earth with us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker's.
00:01:19
Speaker 3: Studio, it doesn't seem to want to go into space.
00:01:21
Speaker 2: That's okay, that's a note. Well, yeah, we got Ed Ludlow with us. He joins us here for just a little bit more before he goes back to San Francisco because he covers all things space here at Bloomberg. Welcome to both of you. Appreciate you joining us. Russ I just want to start a big picture ED reports all the time on the private space industry, SpaceX, the IPO, when that is going to happen, what that will mean in the moves of these companies. Where do you think we are in this moment right now?
00:01:47
Speaker 4: I think we're in a very pivotual moment. You know, if you've alluded to the commercial space guys are starting to really kind of you lift off now. And I think with what Artemis represents and what SpaceX is doing. I think you're going to see a big, big change. I do think that the space XIPO represents a fundamental shift. Whatever investors think of the valuation of that, I think you're going to see a lot of spin out from SpaceX. Similarly, you know, now that Artemis two has completed the it's mission it's really about putting humans back onto Mars and of course the Moon. And I think what the administrator, Jared Asigmann is saying is that NASA is back in the exploration business, which means the low Earth orbit where all the commercial obrans are is now open even more so for commercial companies. And you're seeing that, you know, SpaceX and rocket Lab and Amazon are all starting to put stuff into the commercial space, you know, low Earth orbit. And I think there's lots of opportunity now given the fact that NASA is essentially acting as a customer in the low Earth orbit space.
00:03:00
Speaker 3: It is kind of interesting and the dynamics how it's changed. I mean, you've been at the launches, you've been reporting on the space for a while. What are you seeing in terms of We obviously talk a lot about the big companies and the big players that are out there, but there's a lot of other companies.
00:03:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's interesting that, you know Ross's kind of summary of Jaredizingman at the helm of NASA, right, NASA has become a bit more like the project manager rather than the customer itself.
00:03:25
Speaker 3: And like.
00:03:27
Speaker 5: The way that Jaredizingmen reframe it is that NASA does the science experiments, the stuff in the lab that is almost on the verge of science fiction that has no commercial logic or even viability, and that leaves space pardon the pun for the private sector to come in and do the things that are achievable the mission goals in the near term. So that has been very, very interesting. And you know, Artemis to end to end was a great success, right, even if it was slightly behind schedule and many billions of dollars over budget, And so now you know, the burden of proof is on all of those stakeholders to execute on the next phases of it.
00:04:06
Speaker 4: I think that's an interesting part of it Artemis is it's not just NASA, right, There's tens and tens of countries and hundreds of companies involved in that, so it really is a bit collaboration and ISAAMA recently said that, you know, this is no longer about years before we go back to the moon. This is about months.
00:04:23
Speaker 1: Now.
00:04:24
Speaker 4: We've got to be thinking in months and versus years, which means they have to collaborate with industry, which creates opportunity for everyone who's in that entire supply chain.
00:04:34
Speaker 3: I want to ask you, though, my dad was involved in the space race back in the fifties and sixties, working for a little company called Bendix that became Allied Signal, that became Honeywell. But it was all about doing you know, guidance systems.
00:04:46
Speaker 5: But it was.
00:04:47
Speaker 3: But it is amazing and it's just fascinating to see, Like I always think about these rockets coming back and landing. He would be blown away. He's not around anymore. But we grew up with this. But there was that collaboration that you did have government first of all, it was a government initiative, and then you brought in all these you know, contractors, right, So what is different about that you see the collaboration that you talk about that might have been different from years past. Was it just because the government was leading it versus maybe now the private sectors.
00:05:16
Speaker 4: Leading it more so? I think there's a few factors. I mean, you know, let's not discount the involvement of SpaceX NASA, particularly around this idea about reusable vehicles. That's driven down the cost, which makes it more accessible, which means more people can put stuff up in space. Yeah, you know, that's definitely been a big factor. But it has come in phases. You know, you talk about the sixties and early seventies, and then we didn't because the Cold War was kind of you know, over, and then there was the eighties, you know, with the Shuttle, and then we had some fortunately some disasters. But I really think it did take you know, the vision of people like Elon to kind of kind of fire this back up again. But it's always been there. And I think one thing that's that's driving things now, which does drive the national space sector is national security.
00:06:04
Speaker 3: Interesting.
00:06:05
Speaker 4: If you think about how modern military warfare is conducted and how global logistics are conducted, much of that is through space technology. And the interesting thing is, look at all that military development has created these spinouts for the retail and consumer sector.
00:06:22
Speaker 2: Not to mention future opportunities with Golden Dome for example, right, and companies getting involved with that. I want to ask both of you this question. I want to start with with you ed Sem but you you know, Ross put the money where it goes, you know, investing in some of these companies, the opportunities in the near term versus the long term. Yeah, you know, a few years ago more in Stanley out with this big space economy report, trillion dollars by twenty forty is what we could see and talk about mining and all these things of like you know, landing craft on asteroids and getting raw materials and those sorts of things. That's a very different scenario than you know, getting wireless internet to people on airplanes quickly, you know, And there's a lot of space between those those different types of goals, but that's all included in this idea of a space of copy.
00:07:05
Speaker 5: Well like here and now, the vast majority of SpaceX's revenues in the calendar year twenty six will be starlink, you know, and it will be nearer to twenty billion dollars when last year it was you know, ten to fifteen billion dollars. And we're well past the point with SpaceX as an example where starlink is more than fifty percent versus launch. I will not speak on Ross's behalf, but the point of his book, while it pays due respect to history, is that you know, the space economy now is not just rockets and astronauts. The value of data is very key. Even in that Morgan Stanley report about the trillion by twenty thirty five or twenty forty launch, part of it is so small. The bigger picture, right is like, you know, the geopolitical we're racing China to the moon. That's a great impetus at a nation state level to get going. But Blue origins Raisin Detri if SpaceX's whole original thing was to make human kind multiplanetary species, you know, Jeff Bezos and Blues thing is like there's a lot of valuable stuff on the Moon and in asteroids, we should go after it, and you know the world needs those kinds of reasons.
00:08:06
Speaker 4: I mean, I definitely think the icetroid thing is is a long term and we can discuss whether it's practical or not. But I do think there are things you are much closer to home. So for example, mining the moon. You're right, it is a race to the south pole of the Moon. We know China are looking to do that and Why are they doing that Because there's frozen water, there's ice there. Well, how do you get the ice, Well, you need power, you need nuclear So there's a whole supply chain of things required to do that in the shorter term, and then closer to Earth, when you think about what's happening. I was listening to the TV earlier and we were talking about AI data centers. That's going to be one of the things that's happening in space as well.
00:08:47
Speaker 3: You think it's a given, it's just a matter of time.
00:08:49
Speaker 4: I think as a matter of time, I can't tell you when. There's definitely some technological hurdles and there's probably some regulatory hurdles on that. But I think for sure there's a lot of advantage to putting of AI processing up in space because space is driving a lot of our lives. So rather than beaming it back down, and when there's lots of power available up in space, why not do it up in space.
00:09:15
Speaker 2: So then the opportunities ross for investors. You talk to these companies all the time, you know it's.
00:09:20
Speaker 4: Yeah developed, right, So it's a mixed bag. So I mean, like you've obviously got the big the big guys at SpaceX and the IPO, and everyone wants to be a piece of that. I actually think the interesting things on the other end of the market. I think there's a lot of really fascinating deep tech companies that are coming out. Our companies Space Network. We focus on the commercialization of space tech companies, which means helping find capital, customers, partners, suppliers, and talent. And I think the challenge for the space industry thus far has been a space for space ake and I think now that we see that the opportunity is for pharmaceuticals and agriculture and non space industries to use space technology. That's the opportunity. But what we need to do is get the non physicist, the non engineers involved really think about commercialization, you know, the business people, the marketing people, the construction people. And that's kind of part of the book was how do we expose and educate to a broader market that this is something that is happening, and how do we get the young talent and people motivated and get involved in this. So again that's not like a short term play, right, but five to ten years this stuff is literally taking off.
00:10:36
Speaker 5: What he means is like the corp dev team, corporate development. He say corporate development. Ima, Now it's a corporate development comment into.
00:10:44
Speaker 2: A line item.
00:10:45
Speaker 3: But I do think about education because you know, my dad was an engineer. Everybody talked to Tom Keene, I think his dad was an engineer. There was an era where there were so many people studying science engineer like trying to understand this and the applications and the potential.
00:10:58
Speaker 2: But there was also a national alignment insutry.
00:11:00
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and so you do wonder.
00:11:02
Speaker 4: I mean, I went full circle. So I studied there and artical engineering at university. I was going to work for Rojoizero Engines, and I get hired by JP Morgan. So I ended up in the finance and tech creator. But guess what, I'm back. But the point was new enough working with these companies, the space tech companies, that they are not articulating their value proposition properly.
00:11:22
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is Jared Eisaman's pitch though as well. Right, Like part of his portfolio as a NASA administrator is he has flown around the country since he was confirmed, trying to encourage kid as a kid people to go from college and work. Vanessa, right, you know that and again. They want to be the lab, the research arm. But that's it's trying to get people to fall back in love with the idea again and have a career in it.
00:11:44
Speaker 3: It's pretty cool stuff. This was fun. Thank you, Thank you so much. Ross Hamilton, chief Operating Officer of Space Network. His new book, Everything is Flying, from Agent Skies to Deep Space, How Space Technology shapes Life on Earth and of course the wonderful e the co Tech of B Tech Tech.
00:12:01
Speaker 5: I'll take you. I'm a techy, be tech.
00:12:03
Speaker 2: He is a techie. This is Boomberg.
00:12:05
Speaker 1: H m hm
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio.
00:00:15
Speaker 2: Well, lots of news in the world of space. There was, of course Artemis two last week. We've got our colleague Luren Grush reporting this week that NASA may not of those new lunar space suits ready by the time the agency hopes to lend humans back on the Moon in twenty twenty eight. That's according to a new audit to work on that, but there's some good news.
00:00:31
Speaker 3: It takes time. NASA also this week unveiling its next generation space observatory that happened on Tuesday. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope now fully assembled ahead of its planned launch as early as this fault. There's a lot going on in this space. And what's funny is it was quiet for a while. You know, you go back decades and there was just this space race. But it got quiet for a while, and then the private guys got into it, and it's just fun to see so much activity once again.
00:00:57
Speaker 2: We're doing a deep dive on the world of space. We've got Ross Hamilton with US Chief Operating Officer of the Space Network. It has the mission to quote advance the commercial growth of the global space sector and integrate space technology across all industries. He's also the author of the new book Everything Is Flying From Ancient Skies to Deep Space, How Space Technology Shapes Life on Earth. Also on Earth with us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker's.
00:01:19
Speaker 3: Studio, it doesn't seem to want to go into space.
00:01:21
Speaker 2: That's okay, that's a note. Well, yeah, we got Ed Ludlow with us. He joins us here for just a little bit more before he goes back to San Francisco because he covers all things space here at Bloomberg. Welcome to both of you. Appreciate you joining us. Russ I just want to start a big picture ED reports all the time on the private space industry, SpaceX, the IPO, when that is going to happen, what that will mean in the moves of these companies. Where do you think we are in this moment right now?
00:01:47
Speaker 4: I think we're in a very pivotual moment. You know, if you've alluded to the commercial space guys are starting to really kind of you lift off now. And I think with what Artemis represents and what SpaceX is doing. I think you're going to see a big, big change. I do think that the space XIPO represents a fundamental shift. Whatever investors think of the valuation of that, I think you're going to see a lot of spin out from SpaceX. Similarly, you know, now that Artemis two has completed the it's mission it's really about putting humans back onto Mars and of course the Moon. And I think what the administrator, Jared Asigmann is saying is that NASA is back in the exploration business, which means the low Earth orbit where all the commercial obrans are is now open even more so for commercial companies. And you're seeing that, you know, SpaceX and rocket Lab and Amazon are all starting to put stuff into the commercial space, you know, low Earth orbit. And I think there's lots of opportunity now given the fact that NASA is essentially acting as a customer in the low Earth orbit space.
00:03:00
Speaker 3: It is kind of interesting and the dynamics how it's changed. I mean, you've been at the launches, you've been reporting on the space for a while. What are you seeing in terms of We obviously talk a lot about the big companies and the big players that are out there, but there's a lot of other companies.
00:03:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's interesting that, you know Ross's kind of summary of Jaredizingman at the helm of NASA, right, NASA has become a bit more like the project manager rather than the customer itself.
00:03:25
Speaker 3: And like.
00:03:27
Speaker 5: The way that Jaredizingmen reframe it is that NASA does the science experiments, the stuff in the lab that is almost on the verge of science fiction that has no commercial logic or even viability, and that leaves space pardon the pun for the private sector to come in and do the things that are achievable the mission goals in the near term. So that has been very, very interesting. And you know, Artemis to end to end was a great success, right, even if it was slightly behind schedule and many billions of dollars over budget, And so now you know, the burden of proof is on all of those stakeholders to execute on the next phases of it.
00:04:06
Speaker 4: I think that's an interesting part of it Artemis is it's not just NASA, right, There's tens and tens of countries and hundreds of companies involved in that, so it really is a bit collaboration and ISAAMA recently said that, you know, this is no longer about years before we go back to the moon. This is about months.
00:04:23
Speaker 1: Now.
00:04:24
Speaker 4: We've got to be thinking in months and versus years, which means they have to collaborate with industry, which creates opportunity for everyone who's in that entire supply chain.
00:04:34
Speaker 3: I want to ask you, though, my dad was involved in the space race back in the fifties and sixties, working for a little company called Bendix that became Allied Signal, that became Honeywell. But it was all about doing you know, guidance systems.
00:04:46
Speaker 5: But it was.
00:04:47
Speaker 3: But it is amazing and it's just fascinating to see, Like I always think about these rockets coming back and landing. He would be blown away. He's not around anymore. But we grew up with this. But there was that collaboration that you did have government first of all, it was a government initiative, and then you brought in all these you know, contractors, right, So what is different about that you see the collaboration that you talk about that might have been different from years past. Was it just because the government was leading it versus maybe now the private sectors.
00:05:16
Speaker 4: Leading it more so? I think there's a few factors. I mean, you know, let's not discount the involvement of SpaceX NASA, particularly around this idea about reusable vehicles. That's driven down the cost, which makes it more accessible, which means more people can put stuff up in space. Yeah, you know, that's definitely been a big factor. But it has come in phases. You know, you talk about the sixties and early seventies, and then we didn't because the Cold War was kind of you know, over, and then there was the eighties, you know, with the Shuttle, and then we had some fortunately some disasters. But I really think it did take you know, the vision of people like Elon to kind of kind of fire this back up again. But it's always been there. And I think one thing that's that's driving things now, which does drive the national space sector is national security.
00:06:04
Speaker 3: Interesting.
00:06:05
Speaker 4: If you think about how modern military warfare is conducted and how global logistics are conducted, much of that is through space technology. And the interesting thing is, look at all that military development has created these spinouts for the retail and consumer sector.
00:06:22
Speaker 2: Not to mention future opportunities with Golden Dome for example, right, and companies getting involved with that. I want to ask both of you this question. I want to start with with you ed Sem but you you know, Ross put the money where it goes, you know, investing in some of these companies, the opportunities in the near term versus the long term. Yeah, you know, a few years ago more in Stanley out with this big space economy report, trillion dollars by twenty forty is what we could see and talk about mining and all these things of like you know, landing craft on asteroids and getting raw materials and those sorts of things. That's a very different scenario than you know, getting wireless internet to people on airplanes quickly, you know, And there's a lot of space between those those different types of goals, but that's all included in this idea of a space of copy.
00:07:05
Speaker 5: Well like here and now, the vast majority of SpaceX's revenues in the calendar year twenty six will be starlink, you know, and it will be nearer to twenty billion dollars when last year it was you know, ten to fifteen billion dollars. And we're well past the point with SpaceX as an example where starlink is more than fifty percent versus launch. I will not speak on Ross's behalf, but the point of his book, while it pays due respect to history, is that you know, the space economy now is not just rockets and astronauts. The value of data is very key. Even in that Morgan Stanley report about the trillion by twenty thirty five or twenty forty launch, part of it is so small. The bigger picture, right is like, you know, the geopolitical we're racing China to the moon. That's a great impetus at a nation state level to get going. But Blue origins Raisin Detri if SpaceX's whole original thing was to make human kind multiplanetary species, you know, Jeff Bezos and Blues thing is like there's a lot of valuable stuff on the Moon and in asteroids, we should go after it, and you know the world needs those kinds of reasons.
00:08:06
Speaker 4: I mean, I definitely think the icetroid thing is is a long term and we can discuss whether it's practical or not. But I do think there are things you are much closer to home. So for example, mining the moon. You're right, it is a race to the south pole of the Moon. We know China are looking to do that and Why are they doing that Because there's frozen water, there's ice there. Well, how do you get the ice, Well, you need power, you need nuclear So there's a whole supply chain of things required to do that in the shorter term, and then closer to Earth, when you think about what's happening. I was listening to the TV earlier and we were talking about AI data centers. That's going to be one of the things that's happening in space as well.
00:08:47
Speaker 3: You think it's a given, it's just a matter of time.
00:08:49
Speaker 4: I think as a matter of time, I can't tell you when. There's definitely some technological hurdles and there's probably some regulatory hurdles on that. But I think for sure there's a lot of advantage to putting of AI processing up in space because space is driving a lot of our lives. So rather than beaming it back down, and when there's lots of power available up in space, why not do it up in space.
00:09:15
Speaker 2: So then the opportunities ross for investors. You talk to these companies all the time, you know it's.
00:09:20
Speaker 4: Yeah developed, right, So it's a mixed bag. So I mean, like you've obviously got the big the big guys at SpaceX and the IPO, and everyone wants to be a piece of that. I actually think the interesting things on the other end of the market. I think there's a lot of really fascinating deep tech companies that are coming out. Our companies Space Network. We focus on the commercialization of space tech companies, which means helping find capital, customers, partners, suppliers, and talent. And I think the challenge for the space industry thus far has been a space for space ake and I think now that we see that the opportunity is for pharmaceuticals and agriculture and non space industries to use space technology. That's the opportunity. But what we need to do is get the non physicist, the non engineers involved really think about commercialization, you know, the business people, the marketing people, the construction people. And that's kind of part of the book was how do we expose and educate to a broader market that this is something that is happening, and how do we get the young talent and people motivated and get involved in this. So again that's not like a short term play, right, but five to ten years this stuff is literally taking off.
00:10:36
Speaker 5: What he means is like the corp dev team, corporate development. He say corporate development. Ima, Now it's a corporate development comment into.
00:10:44
Speaker 2: A line item.
00:10:45
Speaker 3: But I do think about education because you know, my dad was an engineer. Everybody talked to Tom Keene, I think his dad was an engineer. There was an era where there were so many people studying science engineer like trying to understand this and the applications and the potential.
00:10:58
Speaker 2: But there was also a national alignment insutry.
00:11:00
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and so you do wonder.
00:11:02
Speaker 4: I mean, I went full circle. So I studied there and artical engineering at university. I was going to work for Rojoizero Engines, and I get hired by JP Morgan. So I ended up in the finance and tech creator. But guess what, I'm back. But the point was new enough working with these companies, the space tech companies, that they are not articulating their value proposition properly.
00:11:22
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is Jared Eisaman's pitch though as well. Right, Like part of his portfolio as a NASA administrator is he has flown around the country since he was confirmed, trying to encourage kid as a kid people to go from college and work. Vanessa, right, you know that and again. They want to be the lab, the research arm. But that's it's trying to get people to fall back in love with the idea again and have a career in it.
00:11:44
Speaker 3: It's pretty cool stuff. This was fun. Thank you, Thank you so much. Ross Hamilton, chief Operating Officer of Space Network. His new book, Everything is Flying, from Agent Skies to Deep Space, How Space Technology shapes Life on Earth and of course the wonderful e the co Tech of B Tech Tech.
00:12:01
Speaker 5: I'll take you. I'm a techy, be tech.
00:12:03
Speaker 2: He is a techie. This is Boomberg.
00:12:05
Speaker 1: H m hm
