00:00:07
Speaker 1: The International Space Stations days are numbered, and it doesn't mean the end of International Space Station. What it means is independent space stations in the commercial sector are going to be up there in outer space. Hello Future, It's me keV. This is a dispatch from the Digital Frontier. The planet is Earth. The year is twenty twenty six. My name is Kevin SERIALI. You can follow all of the latest news about the future over at MTF dot tv and check out the latest Hello Future episodes. However, you get your podcasts as well as on the iHeartMedia app. My guest today returning to the program honestly probably one of my favorite guests that I've gotten to interviews since doing this with Hello Future. His name is Max Hout and he is the CEO of Vast. Vast is one of these companies that is building space stations to replace the International Space Station. They've already gotten like something like five hundred million dollars in funding, and Max is one of those people who's building the future, quite literally, building the space economy. So Max, we have a lot to talk about today. I want to talk about NASA though, because I've been following this and I know a lot of our audience has been following this and you and your company have been talking about this, about the signals that NASA is giving or not giving in terms of creating the future market for replacement of the International Space Station. So let's just start there, give us a state of play of where things are.
00:01:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the you know, thank you for having me again. Great to see you. Quest Kevin.
00:01:52
Speaker 3: So i'll market of the companies that are building and planning to operate a space station. Commercial space station for the first time was really kicked off by the opportunity that President Trump announced Pritzon Trump in twenty eighteen or so that there was a plan to basically retire the International Space Station and instead of building a new one, NASA should be one of many customer future commercial space stations. That sets up a chain reaction of a bunch of companies, including ourselves, that really organized themselves around this opportunity to basically have a NASA as an anchor customer as one of many customers, and to provide a safe and lower cost platform in space in lower for bit so that NASA astronaut but also all of our allies could have a continuous human presence in space there and so that that's been the status quo for you know, since that time, there's been a different competition and stages that NASA is organized and invested at various level to really prepare for this transition and to take a step back, the deadline is the end of twenty thirty when the International Space Station.
00:03:02
Speaker 2: Is due to be retired.
00:03:04
Speaker 3: Right it is leaks, it's a partnership with Russia, which is not ideal, it's aging, but most importantly it's unsustainable to the taxpayer and from a cost point of view. So that's the deadline that has been set and organized to deorbit the ISS, and so we have to make sure that commercial provider including VAST have to you know, at least one of us, ideally two of us have to have a proven safe, loge enough space station that can take on the baton of the continuous presence of American astronauts in lower Phobit from that from that point on.
00:03:36
Speaker 1: So I think this is fascinating. And folks, if you're just joining us, make sure you go back into the archives and listen to my earlier interviews with Max because you can get all about his background and how he came to this be the CEO of vast And you know you said one or two companies, candidly, Max, I would like to see two dozen. I think we need more and more space. The more folks in America based companies that we have up and outer space, the better. Jared Isaacman, though he's the head of NASA, he's been really vocal about NASA's cost overruns and trying to I guess refocus resources. No one wants to be wastefully spending. But is a commercial space station a financially viable option for this moment? Because I mean you would know better than me. But if America's presence in space isn't ready when the ISS retires in twenty thirty, I mean that is a horrible, horrible signal to send to the global economy.
00:04:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we can't let that up. And we just cannot, right.
00:04:42
Speaker 3: And you know, if you look at the different paths that are available in solutions, you know we believe the commercial path is by fa the fastest. You know, the a few companies including VAZ that already to answer the call and to be ready by the end of twenty thirty. What we need is we need NASA to be decisive to make a decision and award the next phase of this procurement called commercial your destination, and to support us into creating this space station so that it can be ready on time.
00:05:12
Speaker 2: That's really the next step.
00:05:14
Speaker 3: Thinking about you know, the recent NASA event colled Ignition that was organized by Jared isaac Man. It was an incredible event where, you know, within three months on the job, Jared isaac Man, the NASA administrator, unveiled, you know, an incredible plan for the Moon and many other initiative. One of the topics were the replacement of the ISS and the transition to the commercial space station. And during that event, they proposed an alternative plan, not a commercial plan, but a plan where NASA would design and build a new core module that they would attach to the ISS, and commercial companies could could maybe attached to that. But it's a really big change to the approach and the plan because this module would be no will be owned by saying that proposal. Now, the good news, right is that it is just a proposal. Jared isaac Man made it very clear that it's a proposal. They want to get feedback. They issued the same week an URFI and we responded to that URFI expressing real concern of this approach that it is not clearly not the lowest cost, not the fastest way to ensure that we have you know, at least two space station ready by the end of twenty thirty.
00:06:27
Speaker 1: Seems like a very significant change though as well, especially from an administration that wants to encourage private sector business. Essentially to say that the private industry, what I interpreted from that decision was a signal that the government isn't willing to get out of the international Space station replacement business. That's a very different and candidly, it doesn't seem like a capital market friendly approach.
00:06:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's a if they proceed, right, this is only your proposal, but if they proceed, that's a complete change from the promise that it's building market that they've raised, you know, billions of dollars between US and our and our competitors for this, this plan and this opportunity to to to be able to provide to the US government but also governments around the world, the commercial alternative.
00:07:22
Speaker 2: To to to the ISS.
00:07:24
Speaker 3: The alternative plan will take maybe seven to ten years, this this idea, and we don't have enough time. Will definitely exceed the budgets that that have been proposed for the commercial your destination. And one of the main advantage of the commercial approach is that it's simpler for companies. You can build a simpler system. But also we, you know, NASA and the taxpayer get the benefit of private investment because we end up owning the space station and we can monetize it and we have a built in customer base, and so that that's a very investible value proposition and business plan. The alternative, which is a NASA on and build a module, you know, cannot really unlock all this private all this institutional and private capital there. So the proposed alternative approach is not a solution. And we you know, we all confident that through the feedback things will will get back to a plan that we think is solid and makes sense.
00:08:23
Speaker 1: See, my job is to help translate the what I mean. I'm listening to you and folks are listening to this. But it's probably good they can't see me shaking my head because I can't believe that the Chinese Communist Party has a space station in outer space. Right now, folks, the Chinese Communist Party has a space station, right now in outer space doing god knows what with who knows who. Okay, there's no separation in communist China between the communist state and their private sector. It's the communist sector over in China. I say this because when the International Space Station, when that thing comes back down and gets out of space in the year twenty thirty. What max Out, the CEO of VAS, just told us is that if the government keeps it, just the government from putting up space station replacements and shuts the door to the private sector, China could have five to seven.
00:09:20
Speaker 2: Years on their own in outer.
00:09:23
Speaker 1: Space, Shijingping's dream in the final frontier and private sector and innovation is America's best export, It's the West's best export.
00:09:33
Speaker 2: Why would we not do that?
00:09:34
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a couple more questions on this, max Out CEO of VAS with me. We just saw this incredible Artemis two crew head to space and return safely. I know that you guys are always thinking about safety. You've got your Haven station. Haven one is already an integration Haven two is targeting continuous crew capability by twenty thirty. I want you to give it to me blunt if JAREDI Sigman is listening to this conversation or his staff gives him the transcript of our conversation. I want you to say, what do you need and buy when? For NASA to do.
00:10:10
Speaker 3: I think they're already doing a big part of it, which is to be collaborative and listening.
00:10:15
Speaker 2: They are huge.
00:10:16
Speaker 3: Proponent of the private sector and obviously of partnering with companies, so that is already happening now. In terms of a specific we need to make a decision. We need to pick a path. We obviously have strong opinion about what the path should look like, but we need to do that, and then we need to issue the procurement and then partner and then get moving.
00:10:35
Speaker 2: Obviously we need to earn that partnership. We have to compete. We can't just receive it.
00:10:40
Speaker 3: We definitely need the chance to compete, the chance to send our proposal, and then NASA to be in a position to make a selection this year. And I think that's key right with twenty thirty arriving really soon. If this spills over into twenty twenty seven, you know at that point we have no chance. So our clear message is that we need a solution this year, and we need to move quickly, and we are ready to do it collaboratively and you know, deploy one point five billion of investment, not just five hundred million, but prior to that, we had raised close to a billion dollar more than a thousand amazing engineer and technicians that are working on human space flight technology for America and our first space station module, Heaven one, which as you mentioned, is in integration and we'll launch early next year. So we have, you know, over the last three years, built and invested in all of this to be ready to answer the call to build America's next space station, and we hope we will have the opportunity. And you know, right now obviously there's a little bit of instability in the proposed alternative direction, but we hope that it comes back to stability that investor can rely on, that our team can rely on, and we can get on build building that space station.
00:11:54
Speaker 1: Last question for you, NASA is just one customer. So who else is Vast building Haven modules for? And is that and I would assume that's another sustainable business model. If NASA's budget gets continued to get further cut.
00:12:09
Speaker 2: I mean, the.
00:12:09
Speaker 3: Key is we need to have a business model that gathers to profitability relatively quickly, right and especially if the government is relying on us, we need to make sure we have a business plan that closed. Two side to that there are securing customers and then there is also your cost base. So one of the elements we cannot forget is that part of the innovation of commercial is that we are able to do things at are lower cost using slightly different approach, using vertical integration, and that in itself translate in cost saving for the taxpayer and in foro NASA just moving from a system that's designed and onned by NASA to a system that's designed for NASA but by the private sector and on by a private company. In terms of customer on number one customer or sovereign nations around the world, you know, NASA being one of the largest, maybe the largest of our customer, but definitely not the only one.
00:13:03
Speaker 2: The other anchor builders.
00:13:05
Speaker 3: Of the International Space Station, which are the European Space Agency representing Europe, the Japanese Space Agency JACKS are representing Japan are expected to be customers of whoever NASA select, and have stated that they will be so that they can continue to have a permanent presence in lower forbit and bring all of the science and research from their.
00:13:26
Speaker 2: Region, and then that market is expanding.
00:13:28
Speaker 3: We've seen more and more government and countries launching in space their first astronaut. You know, in the Middle East, you've seen missions with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. In Europe, there's been many countries that were not directly with the European Space Agency or the ISS getting into human spaceflight. And so that market of sovereign government astronaut and sovereign space mission human space flight mission is growing. But we definitely need NASA to be the you know, the to be jumping in there as a customer as the mised then planned for that tool workout.
00:14:03
Speaker 1: Awesome, Max Holt, thanks so much for giving us a lay of the land and folks in the space industry. This topic is literally it's as if the FED chairman's giving a press conference. I mean that is, everyone is trying to figure out what NASA is going to signal and how they're going to signal investment and purchasing with regards to the replacement of the International Space Station. Thanks for listening to this episode. Remember check out all the latest episodes on your iHeartMedia app,
Speaker 1: The International Space Stations days are numbered, and it doesn't mean the end of International Space Station. What it means is independent space stations in the commercial sector are going to be up there in outer space. Hello Future, It's me keV. This is a dispatch from the Digital Frontier. The planet is Earth. The year is twenty twenty six. My name is Kevin SERIALI. You can follow all of the latest news about the future over at MTF dot tv and check out the latest Hello Future episodes. However, you get your podcasts as well as on the iHeartMedia app. My guest today returning to the program honestly probably one of my favorite guests that I've gotten to interviews since doing this with Hello Future. His name is Max Hout and he is the CEO of Vast. Vast is one of these companies that is building space stations to replace the International Space Station. They've already gotten like something like five hundred million dollars in funding, and Max is one of those people who's building the future, quite literally, building the space economy. So Max, we have a lot to talk about today. I want to talk about NASA though, because I've been following this and I know a lot of our audience has been following this and you and your company have been talking about this, about the signals that NASA is giving or not giving in terms of creating the future market for replacement of the International Space Station. So let's just start there, give us a state of play of where things are.
00:01:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the you know, thank you for having me again. Great to see you. Quest Kevin.
00:01:52
Speaker 3: So i'll market of the companies that are building and planning to operate a space station. Commercial space station for the first time was really kicked off by the opportunity that President Trump announced Pritzon Trump in twenty eighteen or so that there was a plan to basically retire the International Space Station and instead of building a new one, NASA should be one of many customer future commercial space stations. That sets up a chain reaction of a bunch of companies, including ourselves, that really organized themselves around this opportunity to basically have a NASA as an anchor customer as one of many customers, and to provide a safe and lower cost platform in space in lower for bit so that NASA astronaut but also all of our allies could have a continuous human presence in space there and so that that's been the status quo for you know, since that time, there's been a different competition and stages that NASA is organized and invested at various level to really prepare for this transition and to take a step back, the deadline is the end of twenty thirty when the International Space Station.
00:03:02
Speaker 2: Is due to be retired.
00:03:04
Speaker 3: Right it is leaks, it's a partnership with Russia, which is not ideal, it's aging, but most importantly it's unsustainable to the taxpayer and from a cost point of view. So that's the deadline that has been set and organized to deorbit the ISS, and so we have to make sure that commercial provider including VAST have to you know, at least one of us, ideally two of us have to have a proven safe, loge enough space station that can take on the baton of the continuous presence of American astronauts in lower Phobit from that from that point on.
00:03:36
Speaker 1: So I think this is fascinating. And folks, if you're just joining us, make sure you go back into the archives and listen to my earlier interviews with Max because you can get all about his background and how he came to this be the CEO of vast And you know you said one or two companies, candidly, Max, I would like to see two dozen. I think we need more and more space. The more folks in America based companies that we have up and outer space, the better. Jared Isaacman, though he's the head of NASA, he's been really vocal about NASA's cost overruns and trying to I guess refocus resources. No one wants to be wastefully spending. But is a commercial space station a financially viable option for this moment? Because I mean you would know better than me. But if America's presence in space isn't ready when the ISS retires in twenty thirty, I mean that is a horrible, horrible signal to send to the global economy.
00:04:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we can't let that up. And we just cannot, right.
00:04:42
Speaker 3: And you know, if you look at the different paths that are available in solutions, you know we believe the commercial path is by fa the fastest. You know, the a few companies including VAZ that already to answer the call and to be ready by the end of twenty thirty. What we need is we need NASA to be decisive to make a decision and award the next phase of this procurement called commercial your destination, and to support us into creating this space station so that it can be ready on time.
00:05:12
Speaker 2: That's really the next step.
00:05:14
Speaker 3: Thinking about you know, the recent NASA event colled Ignition that was organized by Jared isaac Man. It was an incredible event where, you know, within three months on the job, Jared isaac Man, the NASA administrator, unveiled, you know, an incredible plan for the Moon and many other initiative. One of the topics were the replacement of the ISS and the transition to the commercial space station. And during that event, they proposed an alternative plan, not a commercial plan, but a plan where NASA would design and build a new core module that they would attach to the ISS, and commercial companies could could maybe attached to that. But it's a really big change to the approach and the plan because this module would be no will be owned by saying that proposal. Now, the good news, right is that it is just a proposal. Jared isaac Man made it very clear that it's a proposal. They want to get feedback. They issued the same week an URFI and we responded to that URFI expressing real concern of this approach that it is not clearly not the lowest cost, not the fastest way to ensure that we have you know, at least two space station ready by the end of twenty thirty.
00:06:27
Speaker 1: Seems like a very significant change though as well, especially from an administration that wants to encourage private sector business. Essentially to say that the private industry, what I interpreted from that decision was a signal that the government isn't willing to get out of the international Space station replacement business. That's a very different and candidly, it doesn't seem like a capital market friendly approach.
00:06:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's a if they proceed, right, this is only your proposal, but if they proceed, that's a complete change from the promise that it's building market that they've raised, you know, billions of dollars between US and our and our competitors for this, this plan and this opportunity to to to be able to provide to the US government but also governments around the world, the commercial alternative.
00:07:22
Speaker 2: To to to the ISS.
00:07:24
Speaker 3: The alternative plan will take maybe seven to ten years, this this idea, and we don't have enough time. Will definitely exceed the budgets that that have been proposed for the commercial your destination. And one of the main advantage of the commercial approach is that it's simpler for companies. You can build a simpler system. But also we, you know, NASA and the taxpayer get the benefit of private investment because we end up owning the space station and we can monetize it and we have a built in customer base, and so that that's a very investible value proposition and business plan. The alternative, which is a NASA on and build a module, you know, cannot really unlock all this private all this institutional and private capital there. So the proposed alternative approach is not a solution. And we you know, we all confident that through the feedback things will will get back to a plan that we think is solid and makes sense.
00:08:23
Speaker 1: See, my job is to help translate the what I mean. I'm listening to you and folks are listening to this. But it's probably good they can't see me shaking my head because I can't believe that the Chinese Communist Party has a space station in outer space. Right now, folks, the Chinese Communist Party has a space station, right now in outer space doing god knows what with who knows who. Okay, there's no separation in communist China between the communist state and their private sector. It's the communist sector over in China. I say this because when the International Space Station, when that thing comes back down and gets out of space in the year twenty thirty. What max Out, the CEO of VAS, just told us is that if the government keeps it, just the government from putting up space station replacements and shuts the door to the private sector, China could have five to seven.
00:09:20
Speaker 2: Years on their own in outer.
00:09:23
Speaker 1: Space, Shijingping's dream in the final frontier and private sector and innovation is America's best export, It's the West's best export.
00:09:33
Speaker 2: Why would we not do that?
00:09:34
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a couple more questions on this, max Out CEO of VAS with me. We just saw this incredible Artemis two crew head to space and return safely. I know that you guys are always thinking about safety. You've got your Haven station. Haven one is already an integration Haven two is targeting continuous crew capability by twenty thirty. I want you to give it to me blunt if JAREDI Sigman is listening to this conversation or his staff gives him the transcript of our conversation. I want you to say, what do you need and buy when? For NASA to do.
00:10:10
Speaker 3: I think they're already doing a big part of it, which is to be collaborative and listening.
00:10:15
Speaker 2: They are huge.
00:10:16
Speaker 3: Proponent of the private sector and obviously of partnering with companies, so that is already happening now. In terms of a specific we need to make a decision. We need to pick a path. We obviously have strong opinion about what the path should look like, but we need to do that, and then we need to issue the procurement and then partner and then get moving.
00:10:35
Speaker 2: Obviously we need to earn that partnership. We have to compete. We can't just receive it.
00:10:40
Speaker 3: We definitely need the chance to compete, the chance to send our proposal, and then NASA to be in a position to make a selection this year. And I think that's key right with twenty thirty arriving really soon. If this spills over into twenty twenty seven, you know at that point we have no chance. So our clear message is that we need a solution this year, and we need to move quickly, and we are ready to do it collaboratively and you know, deploy one point five billion of investment, not just five hundred million, but prior to that, we had raised close to a billion dollar more than a thousand amazing engineer and technicians that are working on human space flight technology for America and our first space station module, Heaven one, which as you mentioned, is in integration and we'll launch early next year. So we have, you know, over the last three years, built and invested in all of this to be ready to answer the call to build America's next space station, and we hope we will have the opportunity. And you know, right now obviously there's a little bit of instability in the proposed alternative direction, but we hope that it comes back to stability that investor can rely on, that our team can rely on, and we can get on build building that space station.
00:11:54
Speaker 1: Last question for you, NASA is just one customer. So who else is Vast building Haven modules for? And is that and I would assume that's another sustainable business model. If NASA's budget gets continued to get further cut.
00:12:09
Speaker 2: I mean, the.
00:12:09
Speaker 3: Key is we need to have a business model that gathers to profitability relatively quickly, right and especially if the government is relying on us, we need to make sure we have a business plan that closed. Two side to that there are securing customers and then there is also your cost base. So one of the elements we cannot forget is that part of the innovation of commercial is that we are able to do things at are lower cost using slightly different approach, using vertical integration, and that in itself translate in cost saving for the taxpayer and in foro NASA just moving from a system that's designed and onned by NASA to a system that's designed for NASA but by the private sector and on by a private company. In terms of customer on number one customer or sovereign nations around the world, you know, NASA being one of the largest, maybe the largest of our customer, but definitely not the only one.
00:13:03
Speaker 2: The other anchor builders.
00:13:05
Speaker 3: Of the International Space Station, which are the European Space Agency representing Europe, the Japanese Space Agency JACKS are representing Japan are expected to be customers of whoever NASA select, and have stated that they will be so that they can continue to have a permanent presence in lower forbit and bring all of the science and research from their.
00:13:26
Speaker 2: Region, and then that market is expanding.
00:13:28
Speaker 3: We've seen more and more government and countries launching in space their first astronaut. You know, in the Middle East, you've seen missions with the UAE and Saudi Arabia. In Europe, there's been many countries that were not directly with the European Space Agency or the ISS getting into human spaceflight. And so that market of sovereign government astronaut and sovereign space mission human space flight mission is growing. But we definitely need NASA to be the you know, the to be jumping in there as a customer as the mised then planned for that tool workout.
00:14:03
Speaker 1: Awesome, Max Holt, thanks so much for giving us a lay of the land and folks in the space industry. This topic is literally it's as if the FED chairman's giving a press conference. I mean that is, everyone is trying to figure out what NASA is going to signal and how they're going to signal investment and purchasing with regards to the replacement of the International Space Station. Thanks for listening to this episode. Remember check out all the latest episodes on your iHeartMedia app,
