Speaker 1: I'm Matt Ford, host of The Good Trouble Show. Fellow Americans,
members of Congress, the brilliant entrepreneurs and researchers, and yes,
President Trump and Elon, this is your wake up call.
For a quarter century, the International Space Station or ISS
has been our zero gravity workshop, hosting more than three
thousand experiments that Earth's gravity simply can't handle. Up there,
we're growing lab made retinas to restore site, printing human
tissue for future organ transplants, and forging semiconductor crystals so
flawless they could turbocharge the next wave of AI microgravity
chops literally years off drug development, and yields fiber optics
that might beam data across oceans without gulping power. Every
one of those breakthroughs carries a price tag and a flag,
and right now that flag is ours. But China's space
station is online and courting partners who will swap secrets
for lab time. If we choke ISS funding or ground
launches over politics, we don't just lose bragging rights. We
hand Beijing literally a trillion dollar bonanza in biotech, chips
and energy, plus the national security adge that comes with it.
I want all of you watching to picture the day
we're forced to import Chinese grown organs, Chinese biopharma, and
Chinese quantum chips because because we flinched first. So here's
the mission. Pick up the phone, call your representatives and
tell them. Pulling back from the ISS is the biggest
unforced error the United States of America could make. This
is the moment to expand ISS access, not shrink it,
and to ramp up launch cadence and build new orbital
platforms so our scientists, our startups, and our warfighters always
have a lab bench in the sky. So President Trump,
elon Musk, use your launch keys to lift us higher,
not leave us grounded for literally decades to come. The
high ground of the twenty first century is two hundred
and fifty miles up, and the nation that holds it
will shape the future. Let's make sure that nation is
and remains the United States of America. Our next two
guests are certified movers and shakers at the crossroads of
science and big business. Doctor Donna Roberts, as a neuro
radiologist turned deputy Chief scientist of the ISS National Lab,
leading NASA funded research on how long haul spaceflight rewires
the human brain She's joined by doctor Anna Brady Estevez,
a top ranked deep tech investor and former NSF program
director whose early bets in space, energy and AI startups
have already spawned multi billion dollar breakthroughs. Tonight, they're here
to explain why keeping the International Space Station funded and
flying might be the smartest investment. Please, welcome to the show,
doctor Anna Brady Estevez and doctor Donna Roberts. Doctor Roberts,
Doctor Yesavez, Welcome to the Good Trouble Show. How are
you all doing. We're good. Thanks for having us, excellent, excellent,
Well so in the introduction I touched on both of
your professional backgrounds, but I understand that the two of
you have had the opportunity to work together for quite
some time and on several several occasions of the tongue tied.
This morning, Doctor Brady Estavez tell us a bit about that. Well.
Speaker 2: First of all, Matt, I just want to say so
grateful to be on your show. You know, we appreciate
that you're just doing so much to advance multiple areas
of advanced technology. So just what you and others are
doing to bring people together to really explore the art
of the possible. Very grateful, for what you're doing. So
really appreciate being here today. And I just want to
say that it has been such a pleasure to work
with Donna. And Donna and I think we can kind
of feel welcome to talk over each other, so to
interspers back and forth, but we actually got to know
each other of their while working on a US a
series of US government interagencies under the White House Office
of Science and Technology Policy. So I, you know, I
remember the first meeting that we were in together, and
then we decided to, uh, you know, kind of follow
up with an informal meeting in terms of what's possible
with the more shots on goals. So we can go
into that in depth, don A. But do you want
to just share a little bit on those those early meetings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, sure, And I and I, you know, want
to echo what Anna said. Really appreciate the opportunity to
be here on the podcast today and really excited about
this important topic that we're going to be talking about.
But yeah, yeah, so Anna and I met. I guess
it was about a couple of years or so ago.
And as Anna mentioned, it was part of an inter
agency group through the White House OSTP and and the
ideas that the International Space Station is this wonderful laboratory
in space that can be used to do research and
technology development that can bring benefit back to Earth, and
that these benefits are not just for NASA, but for
the whole of government and other government agencies and for
really the whole of humanity. And so we were on
this agency interagency group trying to find ways to work
together to really maximize the benefits of the International Space Station.
Speaker 2: And something that I would add to there to kind
of give some context, because there were a few things
that were surprising, you know, and what are some of
the things that really mark an acceleration of the space age.
So one is NASA and ISS have done so many
tremendous nights. So in that meeting there was really a
highlighting of here's this exceptional put what's going to accomplished
so far? And there's been so much that's happened, you know,
in these most recent two years since then. But that
was really the point where there was this highlighting of
areas that are relevant to Earth, so biotechnology, advanced material, semiconductors, energy,
and there was an understand before that meeting it was
a bit more that most of at least the acknowledged
space activity really resided in NASA and ISS and you know,
and they've done tremendous work, you know in that regard.
But then as there's this expansion of space technology and
space opportunity terrestrially, what we were hearing from NASA was,
you know, first they're doing so many extraordinary missions, so
you know, what are they going to do to bring
us to Mars in the very near term? Going back
to the moon. You know, the presence in LEO and
what we were hearing was from some of our now colleagues.
Space is a place and we need more of you
from across the interagency to really show up because if
it transforms the pharmaceutical model, well, how does that fit
into NASA's scope of responsibilities, you know, where where they're
focused on the Moon and Mars, and are they responsible
for US dominance of pharmaceuticals? Not really, you know, that's
that's a big ask. You know, agencies like DHHS, nih FDA,
MSF to a certain extent energy dominance, you know, to
the extent there are materials, to what extent does DOE
and NSF and others d O D get involved. So
there was really that call for more agencies to become
much more active in space, and I guess that's kind
of where we took things from there, But it was
really an inflection point meeting where we also said how
much more can be done? So I think the more
shots on goal approach, which we could go into as
an excit sample of that, but really that catalyzing how
do we do things together to achieve more?
Speaker 1: In LEO understood? So, doctor Roberts, I want to kind
of take us a few steps back because I think
in general there tends to be a sort of a
lack of awareness by a decent amount of the public
as far as what is going on up in space
with our space program. So, as the deputy Chief Scientist
of the ISS, and do I have your title right?
Speaker 2: ISS?
Speaker 1: National Laboratory, National Laboratories? What is the ISS and what
is its purpose? When was it built? Just kind of
let's pretend I've never even heard of the ISS before?
What is it? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Certainly, and I think you know and your point there
is the government a lot of people not being aware
of what we're achieving in space, and so I think
it's real important to educate here. The International Space Station
is the can arguably be considered one of humanity's greatest
technological achievements. It's a collaboration between fifteen different countries, a partnership.
It's a series of modules and habitats that were assembled
in space in low Worth orbit. That lower orbit is
approximately two hundred and fifty miles above the Earth is
where the space station is orbiting, and it was the
first assembly began in December of nineteen ninety eight, and
it took about ten years ten years to completely build
the space station. It became first continuously human occupied in
the year two thousand, So for twenty five years now
humans have been continuously living in Low Worth orbit. I
mean think about that. That's a whole generation of of
people who have only known a time when there are
human human beings living continuously in low Earth orbit. So
so it's it's a remarkable achievement. Humans live and work
on the space station. They conduct research and technology development,
and I am excited about going into some of the
examples of what's been achieved on the on the space
station as we move forward. But they also conduct research.
The public commonly thinks of doing research, and space is
moving towards the Moon and Mars and NASA's exploration mission.
But there are also many examples of research that's done
in space that brings benefits back to humans here on Earth,
which I'm excited to talk about. And then also just
the International Space Station is a great inspiration for the
next generation to go into STEM STEM career years and
and just really to inspire imagination and what we as
humans can do and further exploration.
Speaker 1: And doctor Roberts and my again, my apologies for kind
of these simplistic questions, but but for instance, how many
people are typically on the space station at any given time?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: How long are they up there? It's like an individual
they go up there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly. So for example, right now, there are seven
seven people on the space station, and and that's the
crews are composed of NASA astronauts, European astronauts, and Russian cosmonauts.
And and in next month there's going to be a
visiting crew of four individuals, private individuals who are going
to fly up on a private astronaut mission, the axiom
or mission, And so they'll be visiting the space station
for approximately two weeks. So at that point in time,
there will be eleven people in the space station, And
just to kind of put this into perspective, the space
station is about the size of a football field if
you look at it from uh So there are solar
arrays that are attached to the space station on either side,
which which are pretty large. So it's about the size
of a football field. But the inside love Wolum is
about the size of a five or six bedroom house.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Okay, so think about eleven people in a five bedroom house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and and what is the length of time again
that they're generally all together?
Speaker 2: The level the type of capacity we want to have
for all not just the United States, but all of
our nations entrepreneurs and scientists. This is something that Donna
and I and the Interagency have really worked to convey
as we look up to put orders of magnitude assets,
what we have versus what we have today as opposed
to create a gap.
Speaker 1: Now, Anna, you've worked Do you mind if I call
you Anna?
Speaker 2: Yes? Please?
Speaker 1: Okay? So you've worked with the inter Agency, NASA and
ISS among others. Before we dive into microgravity research, which
I have to tell you I have no idea what
microgravity is. Obviously I'm guessing it's smaller than regular gravity
microgravity research. Could you speak to us more about the
importance of funding of science and innovation and the key
role some of the teams you've been a part of
have played and what is the return on investment on innovation?
Speaker 2: Thank you? I mean, I think this is a great
and very important time to be having this discussion because
many Americans, many people around the world are looking at
things like, how do we provide for more people, how
do we provide for an aging population, you know, how
do we ensure high quality of life for our children,
how do we bring medical benefits you know, advanced energy,
so many of these solutions. What does the future of
AI look like? And the United States historically has very
much led an innovation. The United States government has been
a major part of that. And going forward, there's opportunity
for the United States to continue to lead. And in
terms of doing that, we have the ability to really
catalyze this through both the US government but also through
the private sector. So the team that I've come out
of at NSF has been one that has taken over
the last forty eight years. NSF initiated the government's sbir
STTR program, and that program from just three point six
billion dollars of funding has gone on to catalyze. And
I'm going to give a very large range here. And
the reason why is some of these market caps with
regards to fluctuations on tariffs, you know, economic cycles, you know,
they can be they can change on these large companies
by you know, tens of billions of dollars three seventy
billion on the low end, half a trillion, you know,
in terms of recent numbers that I've pulled in recent
months while still rolled, so that's publicly visible. The NSF awards,
what they're worth in pitchbook, you know, and some of
a couple of those companies, you know, somewhere, we're in
the tens of billions. Qualcomm you know is you know,
one hundred plus, you know, between the hundred billion and
two hundred billion I need given time. So these are
the highest performing investments. When you talk about making investments
in science and innovation, the level of job creation is exceptional.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Over the past I've been part of a team of
about twenty people that over the past ten years I
think has has catalyzed seventy billion in marketcap. And I've
been involved, you know, in seventeen and a half billion
of that. So it's just there are these teams of
people that support entrepreneurs. In many cases, these entrepreneurs are
told in the early days, this is never going to work,
this is never going to happen, and then they go
on to build extraordinarily useful technologies that improve lives, whether
it's in health, whether it's in energy AI. And we see,
you know, coming from that standpoint of supporting these very
high value, high growth, societally impactful companies, that micro gravity
increasingly is expected to be core to that. So the
importance of having access to that game changing advantage. Right,
So if you think about, you know, how how do
you advance technology without having access to computation, How do
you advance it without having robotics in manufacturing and autonomy?
You know, throughout the years, how do you work with electricity? Well,
now that we're seeing microgravity brings advantage for pharmaceuticals, for biomaterials,
for semiconductors, and for energy technologies, many of us firmly
believe that this is going to be something that a
large percentage of our biotechnologists, our material scientists are going
to need access to, not just to lead, but to
be able to compete, So we need to put up
much more than the volume of a five to six
bedroom house.
Speaker 1: Understood, doctor Roberts, what as your radiologist, does I understand? Correct? Correct?
So from a medical perspective, what are the advantages of
studying medicine or medical related experiments in space in low
Earth orbit? What microgravity? How does that figure into it?
What is it that you can't do here on Earth
that you can do in lear and low Earth orbit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, let me just step back and kind of
define what microgravity is, because I think a lot of
people probably don't understand that. So even so you think
about astronauts on the space station and you picture them
floating in space, and so you think maybe they're not
experiencing gravity, but that's not true. So even at the
distance from the Earth that the astronauts are at, there's
still experience almost a full gravity, almost as much gravity
as they would experience as if they were on Earth.
But the differences is that the space station is an
orbit around the Earth, so it's actually this state of
constant freefall. So so there's still gravity there, but it's
counterbalanced by being in the state of freefall. And so
that's why we use the term micro gravity. It's not
really uh, you know, meant to be a numeric term.
It's really just meant to represent that.
Speaker 2: It's it's this.
Speaker 3: Experience of our sensation of a very low gravity. And
what that does, to get back to the question that
you were asking me, is if you're in this constant freefall,
then you're not experiencing multiple forces that you experience here
on Earth. So you're not so you or multiple phenomena
that you experience here on ours. So a lot of
processes here on Earth are gravity dependent. So you think
about taking some fluid and putting some solid substance in that,
like say salt or whatever, and you shake it up, well,
the heart, the heavier substances are going to go to
the bottom and the lighter substances are going to float
on the top. And so you think about that's that's
the process of sedimentation and moucey and and those processes
are not experienced in a microgravity environment, for example, And
then that changes how substances react in microgravity, so you
can have more uniform mixing of substances, and so then
that can be used scientifically other other processes. If you're
if you're looking at human bodies and cells and cells
from human tissues and you're trying to create three D tissues,
you get more. If you take cells and put them
in a plate a plate here on Earth, they're just
going to fall down to the bottom. But if you
have them in a microgravity environment, they're going to form
more three D complex structures. And so that's very useful
for someone that's trying to do medical research and space
and other things that the cells won't be hitting up
against each other like they are in the gravity environment
of Earth. And another thing is that if you're trying
to uncover unique biological processes, the one of the things
that you can do is take it into a microgravity environment.
Because here on Earth, if you think about all the
conditions on Earth that life evolved in. You think about temperature,
you think about atmosphere, humidity, all that has changed over
the course of evolution, but the one thing that hasn't
changed is gravity. So gravity has been a constant throughout
all of life on Earth. And so by taking something
the living system, into a microgravity environment, you for the
first time manipulate this very unique variable. And so it
unlocks these key pathways to biological processes that you wouldn't
see here on Earth. So this is just a name
a few, and we can get into specific examples. Protein
crystal growth is another area that we can talk about
as well, that the microgravity environment plays a key role
in in promoting this research and technology development.
Speaker 1: And in addition to you know what what doctor Roberts
was speaking about in terms of microgravity, why why do
we need space based assets?
Speaker 2: In general, big background is in investments and also in
competitive advantage. So I would say, you know, we always
get the question, you know, why go to space because
sometimes people think, you know, and I want to convey
respect for exploration. I think that's that's valuable into itself,
but they want to see where does the rubber hit
the road? Why does this matter for us on Earth?
And so it really comes back to those terrestrial advantages. So,
you know, an example from one of my co founding
partners at American Deep Tech, doctor Kat Jamison. Doctor Jamison
right now is developing what might end up as the
first or one of the first drugs to be developed
in space, rebecinev, and that development process was accelerated through microgravity.
So where on Earth. And I know Kat's eager to
extend that advantage to other researchers and other companies. So
the and there's some other good people working on this
as well. But that advantage of microgravity, you know, in
this micro company example is, you know, when we get
down to microeconomics, is the aging of a tumor, you know,
in nine days in microgravity is comparable to one to
ten years, depending on the type of cancer in space.
So when you think of about the speed with which
you can iterate on drug development and effectiveness, there's just
no comparison. I mean, you're not gonna want to wait,
you know, terrestrially to get that data, you need access
to those assets. And you know, and so while there
have been some major discoveries you know on the ISS
over the last over the last two years, both on
the biotech side, you know, on the advanced material side,
and when you see that, you go from saying, okay,
well you've got cat you with aspara, You've got others
like Nicole Wagner with LAMB Division in terms of developing
you know, layer by layer retinas. So you know, so
a biological replacement tissue that you wouldn't be able to develop,
you know, in terms of those layers terrestrially, so something
you know that the hope is that that cures certain
forms of blindlessness. Uh. You need access not just for
these leaders like Nicole you know and cat on the
biotech side, and there are others like Sachi Bioworks as well,
But you get to the point where you say, we
want to signific I don't know whether it's all or
a significant percentage of our biologists to have access to that.
Olivia Whole's house with Roodium Scientific, another entrepreneurive fundedge she
has put up the first in space biobank. DARPA was
also very active in funding them early on that ability
to really iterate at a much higher throughput to get
to those biological winds, uh, to to really attack neurodegenerative disease,
cardiac disease, you know, tissue replacement. As we said cancer
CATS is a cancer kill switch. That's what rebecseneb is
intending to be is a cancer life saving you know,
or life enhancing pharmaceutical. So we just really want to
accelerate it, and it's going to take more than the
volume you know of a small home or a large home,
and so you want to we want to be putting
up large scale biotechnology factories, large scale fabs for semiconductors
and advanced materials, catalysts for hydrogen, you know, and for
other you know, for energy storage, all sorts of things
that the race is really on to build out something
that's competitively advantage and complementary to what's possible on Earth.
Speaker 1: So this is a question to both of you. So
you know, we're talking commercial R and D under microgravity
conditions and the biotech side to me like that completely
makes sense, but can either of you go into more
detail in terms of like how this would assist in
the development of say like advanced materials, semiconductor energy, those
are the sorts of areas and sort of having a
hard time wrapping my head around how microgravity helps move
the ball forward with development of those those technologies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly, So just this past year we've had some
pretty amazing developments in those areas. So I had mentioned
earlier the problem of sedimentation, and if you're trying to
develop a crystal, that's a problem.
Speaker 1: You want the.
Speaker 3: Material to be more uniform, and on Earth it tends
to separate out but in space you can get much
more uniform material and so how does that how how
does that apply? So, for example, if you're trying to
draw fiber optic cables. Now, fiber optic cables are are
really unique in that they require proximately are utilized approximately
one percent of energy utilization globally. That's to transmit signals
and we're only getting, you know, as more and more
becoming more and more interconnected, it's required more and more
fibroptic cables, and so anything that you can do to
reduce that energy usage in fiber optic cables is a
big deal. And the way you do that is you
have more uniform fibers because every impurity in that fiber
is going to cause energy loss. And so the idea
is if you have more uniform fibers you can and
you draw them in space, you can get much higher
quality fibers. And so that was just demonstrated this past year.
So that's one area. Another area in advanced materials is semiconductors.
So it's a big area right now. It's important for
national security being able to manufacture high quality semiconductors. And
actually we're at the point now where where technology has
pushed and pushed the limit. It's called Moore's law, where
we get improvements every few years on the computing ability.
But we're at the point where we've pushed that so
far that even a defect at the atomic level has
impacts on performance of semiconductors. So we need much pure
semiconductor crystals. And the way to do that, again because
of these processes that we've been discussing, is in space.
So we shown there's over many studies that have been
conducted in crystal growth in space over the past few years,
is that space produces much purer crystals. Approximately eighty to
ninety percent of the crystals produced in space are of
higher quality than those produced here on Earth. So that's
another area that roberts.
Speaker 2: And just to add to that, I mean, so you know, Donna,
there was there was an article, you know, I think
about the great work done you know on the ISS.
It was called kicking Glass right, and it was that
was flawless photonic. So I was happy to have had
the opportunity to fund Flawless and I know ISS did
tremendous work with them. But just as you were speaking,
you know, the ability to draw kilometers worth of z
bland fiber you know on the ISS you know, and
just the ability to and there are other companies like
app Sidle you know, who are going after similar things.
So and just the promise, as you said, from an
energy standpoint and also from an information security standpoint, you know,
of the potential for that lower loss rate and some
would say, would it be possible to get repeaterless trans
oceanic transmission of data or less repeaters? Right, So that's
very exciting and contrasting the telometer plus you know, cable
possible versus you know, very very short lengths I mean
well under one hundred feet, much shorter than that, you know,
that are kind of drawn from these these towers terrestrially.
So that's one. And then the wide band gap semiconductors,
you know, the different form factors and just something that
you know, obviously when we talk about diamonds, we're talking
about performance. We're not talking about blame, but just you know,
the ability to turn CO two to diamonds and just
that the the roadmap for that is multi inch, you know,
in terms of you know, what's achievable and the level
of purity on that crystallization, a level of high performance,
you know, really across a wide range of materials. On
the semiconductor side, it's just far far better crystallization and
crystals that aren't achievable on Earth. So that's something that's
been very important on the pharmaceutical side, the ability to
get some of these crystals that you know, you get
the seed crystal in space, you bring it down and
then you can amplify that growth from that seed crystal terrestrially.
But the ROI on this, you know, because interesting we're coming.
So much was accomplished from an exploration standpoint in space,
but now understanding what the ROI is. So when you
think about the cost of launch and on demand return,
I mean, there's still some work to do, you know,
and SpaceX and others have done so much to bring
that down. But when you're talking about the value of
a pharmaceutical API, you know, and how many people a
kilogram can serve, you know, and that life saving and
just the value that pharmaceutical or when you talk about
the value of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars
if you go from a kilogram of preform to an
advanced material, you know, like fiber optics, it's It's one
of these things that you say, you get the right
financial models in place, and the answer is put up
more of these assets as fast as possible, because those
who get production, you know, are going to lead in
the market.
Speaker 1: Doctor Roberts, give us another example of a success story
on the ISS in terms of medical research.
Speaker 3: Okay, so just kind of following up on what Anna
was talking about there with protein crystal growth in the
pharmaceutical area. So, if you can grow these sea crystals
in space, you get new forms in the microgravity environment
that you can't develop here on Earth because of gravity.
But if you can grow them in space, get these
new forms and just take them back to Earth. You
wouldn't have to produce the drug product in space, but
you could just grow enough to act as a sea
crystal and then take that back to Earth. So I'll
give you an example. There's a drug called Keytruda. It's
a popular, very very well prescribed medication to treat cancer.
And if you so, we worked with we worked with
them to grow these crystals in space, and then they
took those back down to Earth. Here Mrke did and
then developed a new formulization, a new formula formulation for
their key truda. So because these crystals were more uniform,
we talked to again about how you can achieve more
uniformity in space. Because these crystals were more uniform, that
allowed this new formulation which can just be injected under
the skin instead of having to be injected through the veins.
And because of the uniformity, you get more efficient release
of the drug and patients. And so what that meant
practically is that patients who have cancer who would typically
have to go and sit in their doctor's office for
thirty minutes to have this drug infused into their veins
instead can just get a shot or even maybe take
the shot at home one day with this new formulation.
And so Key true to after creating this new formula,
took it through clinical trials, just finished Phase three clinical
trials and is expecting FDA approval for for for taking
the strugg to the market in September of this year. Wow,
that's going to open up sale and I'm expected to
be in the six billion dollar range for this new drug.
Speaker 1: So this this development in terms of taking key trudah
from being you know, intravenous to uh intramuscular, that would
not have happened had it not been for the research
done and on the ISS.
Speaker 3: So the research that was done on the isls helped
them unlock this new form of the crystal that they
could then use to create this new formulation.
Speaker 1: Anna, you were going to add something.
Speaker 2: To say that, it's just remarkable that we're at such
an inflection point where this great work, you know, with
Pillbox and with Mark and you know, kind of moving
from this, there's so much value in reformulation of existing drugs.
That was k true at the first with regards to
that Donna, in terms of reformulation, the first.
Speaker 3: To take it to mart to get through clinical promer.
Speaker 2: So you've got the first in terms of reformulations. And
right now you have a couple you know, you have
at least a few companies a Sperra on the cancer side,
Sachi bio works as well on the on the degenerative
side that are going for the first new drugs. You know,
I believe it is Sachi Also, that's the new formulation
that's new. It's not a reformulation, it's a new, completely
new drug.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So we're starting to see that first wave of entrepreneurs
and scientists who were bringing forth developed in space medicines
that are expected to convey that, if they work out,
will convey interesting advantages.
Speaker 1: So clearly the ISS is delivering in terms of things
to help humanity space exploration. I mean so many areas.
But I understand that the ISS is actually set to
be diorbited in twenty thirty. Doctor Roberts tell us a
bit about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's correct. We you know, the space station has
been in orbit for over twenty five years now, and
the parts weren't meant to last forever. So NASA's committed
to the space station through twenty thirty, and after that time,
the expectation is that there will be commercial space stations
developed by several different companies throughout the US have plans
for developing space stations and having them in orbit by
twenty thirty. But to make this possible, we have to
make the economic case for low worth orbit. There has
to be a reason for them to be there. So
all the things that Anna was talking about in these
examples that we're giving, we have to use the International
Space Station, and it's the last few years to really
do that initial R and D so that whenever the
commercial space stations are placed in orbit, that they have
they can have economic viability. So that's why this is
so critical. That's why these last few years of the
International Space Station is so critical for what we're trying
to do here.
Speaker 1: Now, doctor Roberts. With all of the budget slashing that
you hear about, you know, going on in Washington across
literally all nodes of government, is there pressure to cease
operations at the ISS earlier than the twenty thirty d commissioning.
Speaker 3: Well, that's technically, you know, not even going to be
feasible because it takes some time for the orbit to
DK and a de orbit vehicle has to be developed.
You know, we don't want to recoastly let the International
Space Station DK and just crash onto the Earth somehouse.
All those details need to be worked out. But in
the meantime, it's important that we continue doing what we're
doing with International Space Station, continue this research and development
into these different areas so that the commercial space stations
have time to develop the facilities they need and get
them into orbit and carry on this work. It's critical
that we do not lose our position and low Worth
orbit or six or seed low Worth orbit to the.
Speaker 1: Chinese because there is no there is no alternative available
to us other at the present time, other than the ISS. Correct.
Speaker 3: So there are there are, Like I mentioned that there
are companies that are developing these next generation commercial space
stations which will have crew. But at the same time,
you know, not everything that you want to do in
spaces to have a crew. We're learning more and more
how to make technology automated. So there are there's this
new market actually new companies that are coming up that
are providing access to lower orbit for uncrewed uncrewed capabilities
VARDA for example, who who is able to you can
take your payload to them and if it doesn't require
any interaction, you can fly it with them. And so
that's another option. So as we're moving into this next generation,
it's like, what is your product, how is it best
to be manufactured in space? And then let's choose the best.
Speaker 1: Options understood Anna, So are there, let's say, to counter
pressure to exit the ISS early in terms of from
the United States perspective, are there alternative funding models that
could allow our involvement to continue without say, like the
government support, Like, what are potential funding models to keep
us in the game as long as we can continue
to use the ISS.
Speaker 2: Well, I think I would frame it, you know, in
terms of what is the level of access that we
need to micro gravity and why right, so kind of
re anchoring, and it was very surprising, you know. So
we see these tremendous advantages coming out, potential cancer, life
saving drugs, if that all works out, you know, going
through FDA, fighting neurodegenerative illness, you know, things that are
really going to enable us to serve people in the
US and around the world, things that are important currently
and are going to be even more important, you know,
in serving you know, dignity and quality of life for
what's an aging population, both in the United States and
around the world. These are multi trillion dollar markets. So
the United States spends i think it's four trillion dollars
on healthcare annually. So one thing is expanding those markets.
Another thing is cost control, you know, and potentially lessening
you know, some of the financial burden you know that
the United States has in terms of providing you know,
that quality of care, that quality of life. So you know,
what we've said is the ISS is the size of
a home. So if you think about all these amazing
entrepreneurs and scientists around the country, if you think about
all these labs, be they corporate labs you know at universities,
and you just picture tremendous amount of terrestrial research and
access and then you say, here's a lab that for
some things is better, you know, And it's less about
it's being framed as a competition between is s and others.
We're really it's just we're so underweight in terms of
capacity to lead it, you know, in what has health
impacts and what are multi trillion dollar markets so we
need to put multi billions of dollars of investments in place.
So what are some of the things that are missing?
So a misconception, you know, certainly there are some entities.
We have some colleagues at NASA that are very commercially sophisticated,
but they they haven't always their mission has. They're not
coming from a history of let's serve and support business first.
And to be frank, sometimes NASA is getting they're gonna
suit by contractors, right. So it's totally different standpoint than
say the SBA or the NSF. So we've listened to
people say, well, you know, if this very early business
starts to have commercial success, well we should stop supporting it.
And the answer is no, no, no, even large corporations
haven't historically, you know, in recent years put up that
high risk deep technology funding. That's something that federal government
has done. A small subset of venture capital firms have
done that. You know, it's great to see them. Hopefully
we'll see more. That's something that we're trying to do.
But so there hasn't been that capital put in place.
So you know, we go, we went back to our
assecollagues and we said no, no, no, Doe you know
they make these large you know, multi hundred million billion
dollar plus support, you know, or DoD does you know
billions of dollars support to aerospace companies that are highly mature,
that have revenues, never mind something that's early on. So
if we think about just that disconnect in terms of
bringing that broad commercial understanding of until something takes off,
there does need to be that risk capital that's put
in place, whether from the government or the private sector.
And when you're talking about large scale assets, let's get
serious about putting infrastructure finance in place. So one of
the drawbacks from what we've heard, you know, and the
UK is doing things up a project finance in place
you know, I mean, you know, you could see what
are the large corporations able to do in terms of
debt that they're able to unlock. But many of these startups,
you know, whether you know, and this goes for terrestrial
innovation as well. If they're putting together even terrestrially, like
a first of a kind three hundred million dollar pilot,
they're expected to come forward with three hundred million dollars. Right.
If you're putting up a stadium, you know some of
these stadiums in the United States, you know which we
love sports. That's great. You know you're talking over a
billion dollars. You're issuing municipal bonds, right, you're going out
for debt. If you buy a house for two hundred
k five hundred k a million dollars, there are people
who buy it in cash. Most first time home buyers,
they're putting down five percent or twenty percent. So if
you build a power plant, you're doing twenty percent debt.
I'm sorry, twenty percent equity eighty percent debt. So if
we don't, we need to have have the financial infrastructure
in place to do LEO an off planet infrastructure finance
where investors put up twenty percent and then and then
you do the balance in terms of debt, and whether
you do that on a project finance standpoint with a
risk adjusted rate, or whether you do that as part
of a portfolio. The difference between being able to make
that investment or not is going to be who wins,
you know, in these multi trillion dollar markets. The Chinese
have indicated, I mean that they're ready to put that
in place because they view this as basic, you know,
they I was sitting next to somebody, you know at
the Johnna you were there at the National Academy of
Sciences when there was a space leader from the CCP,
who is who had been invited as a speaker. I
happened to sit down next to the person that was
then empty seat in the room, and you know, started
to ask that Chinese space leader what's going on with
your budget? They wouldn't tell me the buy they did say,
you know, I'm saying, hey, what's going on in the
dark sized moon? You know here? Like what do you
want to tell us? You know, we're we're pretty open
about our site. So didn't get a whole lot there.
Tried to do some strategy math. You know, maybe there
was information and misinformation. But what he did do was
he looked, you know, kind of you know, in disdain
and said, you know, I'm not going to tell you
what our budget is, but I will say that when
we look at putting up a space station for us,
that's like putting down a few kilometers of metro, you know,
kind of looking at us like, please people seriously. You know,
we've got a trillion dollars of pavement outside you know,
of our homes, like we've got so we put infrastructure
out there all the time.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: I think what the ISS is and this is something
that we briefed the White House on was that the
ISS is a great you know, early of a kind,
you know, alongside the shuttle right where we say tremendous
thing is accomplished. It's like you've got this amazing inniac computer,
you know, and then do you do you shut down
the inniact computer and say, well, something else is gonna
come later, or you say, do we build up the
nation's computational infrastructure. We need to build out the national
infrastructure for access to micro gravity because that's where we win.
And if we don't win there, China and others are
going to win there China and Russia. I mean, don
I think you might be able to speak to at
least at a high level. You know that some other
countries have done more than we have in crystallization in space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we as as far as crystallization semiconductor crystals,
I mean, this work is so far behind and and
it's and it's not being done at the present, and
so it's an area that we really need to build
up on, particularly for national security, and we need to
bring bring that leadership UH to the US.
Speaker 2: It's great to leap prog that infrashore sure because to
be frank, a lot of that production capacity is in
Asia today. So as we look to replace the global
infrastructure and semiconductors, it's a great time to leap frog
it and to make those investments aggressively.
Speaker 1: So I want to want to jump back Anna. You
mentioned the Space Shuttle. So when I think of the
Space Shuttle, I think of its decommissioning and this this
kind of like technological gap that seemed to exist between
when the when the program was terminated versus when say
the commercial assets became available, namely SpaceX and and Blue Origin.
If the administration today were to decide, you know what,
we're we're cutting off funding to the ISS. We're you know,
you know, you know, pull out of this. It's going
away in five years anyway, How realistic would it be
to expect the private companies that are in existence today
to fill the gap left by the government exiting the
ISS and that's no longer having a presence on there.
It can really beat both.
Speaker 2: Of you, believer, you know, in what the private sector
is capable of. So I don't want to say that
the private sector can't do it, but I think that
they need to just show up and do it, you
know what I mean. So it's kind of like if
somebody says, if somebody came up to you, you know, so,
do respect to the ISS. A tremendous asset, a globally
leading asset. So let's have the respect for that. Let's
realize there's been a lot of work that's gone into that,
and let's replace it with equal and more assets and
higher performing assets. If somebody came to you today and said, listen,
your car is a little bit run down. You know,
the maintenance, you know, isn't you know, it's not really
working out. How about we just get rid of your
car tomorrow. You know your your family needs three cars,
you've got one. You know you need ten cars, right,
you got one car for like your entire you know,
your entire community has one car. Right, let's get rid
of your one car. Because there's a better car that's
coming out, you know, and just it's coming out. You know,
why not just have multiple vehicles? There's no you know,
retire it when you when you don't need the capacity.
We are so underweight in terms of capacity. So I
think we look for I would like to see the
like I said, the financial infrastructure in place. You know
that the that space X you know, continues to expand aggressively.
You know Stoke, you know the extent they get into
orbit later this year. You know, there's so many other
companies like the vast Acci, like, let's see more of
these assets come online. We're looking at the demand curve
for this should be so high. It's laughable when you
think about the acres of you know, terrestrial plants, right,
you know, the hundreds of thousands of square foot plants
terrestrially for production in various industries. And then you say
you've got something to say of a home. You know,
and you want to take that down. I mean, when
you have ten times that capacity, you know, and you've
got everything at steady state and performing, you know, then
you take it down until then, you know, is there
really an issue you know, in keeping You know, it's
an expensive asset running, you know, so we hope that
there's going to be more cost efficient ones, but you
can't what's at stake in terms of losing in these
much higher value markets of biotechnology, of advanced materials and energy.
You know, it's just it's so high risk that you
would never you just can't afford to lose your access.
And I don't personally believe that there's an impediment to
you know, somebody like SpaceX becoming an in space lab.
I don't think they need to take you know, I
don't need to. I don't think others need to come
offline for that to be tremendously successful, some of these
other in space assets, because what we need to be
doing is just showing these biotechnologists and these advanced material
scientists you can get so much more done in space,
and then you're going to see orders of magnitude of
demand that we're not going to be able to serve
and Don and I have worked on more shots on
goal approach, which we said, okay, ISS, limited time horizon,
super small capacity. You know, it's laughable that you're talking
about the size of a few containers, right, How do
you get the highest performing research and development out of that?
How do you scale it? And so you know in
in the near term, what you do as you say,
all right, let's miniatureize, Let's try to get the highest
performing projects. You know, increase cadence. So you could see
you could see launch companies increasing the cadence to the ISS.
You could see private entities paying for that capacity. You
could see other agencies other than NASA paying for that capacity.
I mean the idea, yeah that we are not We
could get more work done on the ISS if we
had just more frequent launch and return. So today, I
mean we've been doing you know, I think SpaceX has
been doing. When I said we, I mean the United States.
I think SpaceX has been doing three to four major
launches to the ISS a year, and that's going down.
I mean the level of throughput research. Many of these
experiments only require a couple weeks, so you know, get
that cadence up. You know, and you can increase the
performance on that asset, but it wasn't The asset wasn't
built to be the highest performing commercial model. Now that
we know it's worth something commercially, we should be driving
the highest throughput out of that asset to then determine
what other assets to put in place, which the right
answer is going to be a significant expansion. It's not
going to be replaced on one house sized asset with
one other house. It's going to be how do you
open this up to a significant percentage of the nation's
entrepreneurs and researchers and.
Speaker 1: Doctor Roberts, I understand that really it's been within the
past five years that the ISS has really paid off
in terms of research. Is that correct?
Speaker 3: So, I mean you think you think about it took
about ten years or so to build, so that was
its first decade. The second decade, it took took us
some time to learn how to use it. So you know,
you're used to walking around your laboratory and putting a
Petri dish on the desk and walking away. You can't
do that in space. You have to learn completely new
ways of carrying out experiments in space. And it took
us a while to learn how to do that. So
it's really these last few years that we've really seen
these amazing, amazing technological achievements, you know, and kind of
getting back as well to the question that you ask about,
you know, the issue of a potential gap. We don't
want to see that. It's not it's and it's not
just you know, getting another space station put up there,
but it's it's this whole ecosystem that's built around this.
So there are these other companies that build the hardware,
that help support the investigators that that do these experiments,
and so we we can't let that expertise go away.
Speaker 2: We need we need to continue to.
Speaker 3: Grow, as Anta keeps, you know, really strongly expressing, we
need to grow this instead of, uh, instead of just
putting it on the shelf and letting it go away,
because these companies won't survive without any business. So so
that's really the model that we need to be working towards.
Speaker 1: And Anna, in your view, if we were to pull
funding from the ISS program, what kind of implications would
that have for the national security of the United States?
Speaker 2: Back to you know, the value of microgravity, right, So
we're we're looking at it very much from the standpoint
of what's at stake here, you know, So there's plenty
there's plenty of other things, good things coming out of
that asset, and there's obviously beyond the physical asset, there's
the information and the knowledge. You know, these these high
caliber teams, these programs, these entrepreneurs, these researchers who have
been funded. So so I think it's coming right back
to you know, some of the largest and most impactful
terrestrial markets. So, whether it's biotechnology, whether it's advanced materials
for advanced computation, you know, so AI right, so if
you have higher performing chips, you know, what's the percentage
chance that some of those higher performing chips are going
to be based off of materials that were developed in microgravity?
I mean, you know, people have different opinions on that,
but certainly there's degrees of control, you know, and you know,
pure possible in micro gravity that, by the way, provide
an entry point for what we can do, you know,
with the lower gravity conditions on the Moon. Right, So
what we do in LEO also is very close by,
but it's instructive for things that we might want to
build out on the Moon. You know, or on Mars,
you know, you get there a lot quicker, you know,
versus the could it be up to six months to
get to Mars, you know, it's several days to get
up to the moon type standpoint. So I think that
the these are markets that the United States competes in,
so biotechnology, advanced materials, energy, advanced computation. So we cannot
afford to seed any potential aspect for advantage. And you know,
the market is quite strongly signaling to us that others
are very eager and excited to build out upon you
know this iss you know, with our international partners, but
you know, the United States taking quite an important leading
role in this, you know, innovation and assets. So I
would just say, you know, it's it's it's it could be.
It looks like it's the future of biotechnology advantage, it
looks like it could very well be the future of
computation and perhaps AI. So this cuts to our most
critical innovation and critical emerging technology priorities in the United States.
And you just never see any potential area of societal
benefit and national strategic advantage.
Speaker 1: Doctor Roberts.
Speaker 3: And I was gonna say, and just you know, the
you know national security, but also just the the loss
of the benefit to humanity. I had mentioned earlier that
you know, one of the things about micro gravity is
that whenever you take human tissues into space, they can
form more three D complex structures. So one of the
issues today is at one hundred and fifty thousand people
each year on organ transplant, So there's a shortage, a
shortage of organs. But what if you could take a
person's own cells, take them into space and grow them
into tissues like heart tissues, and then take those organs
back and transplant them. Well, there's a lot more worth
that needs to be done in these areas, but just
in the past year, our the past couple of years,
a company, red Wire, has three D printed a human moniscus,
that's the cartilage the tissue in a human knee. And
every year there's eight hundred thousand people who have knee
replacement surgeries done. But what if you didn't need to
do that. What if you could just take your own cells,
send them into space, grow your cartilage tissue, and then
bring that back and transplant it. In this past year,
cells were grown heart cells were grown in space, so
human heart tissue was grown in space, and the idea
is that one day we could create an a heart
for transplant, but even even earlier than that, we can
take heart cells and use them as patches for patients
for example, who experienced my cardial infarcs are had a
heart attack. So so just the societal benefit that would
be lost if we weren't doing this incredible research.
Speaker 2: And doctor Roberts, so just to add to that, you know,
just kind of coming back to what Donna's saying so beautifully.
I mean, there are multiple researchers who are developing, you know,
like you said, in the case of CAT, like a
cancer cancer fighting drug, like a cancer kill switch, you know,
and there are others that will pursue similar paths to
that and uh combat batting neurodegeneration. So if we think
about the importance like in the value of you know,
quality of life, you know, and health and you know,
and length of life and combating that neurow degeneration, the
potential that's been brought forth for anti aging, you know.
But then to also bring it back to the because
I know so many people are also so passionate about
the environment, you know, you think about these advanced materials,
some of the potential for higher performing energy storage, you know,
or on the catalyst side. I mean, I know, one
of the areas of research that you know might still
be early on but that I've funded was the potential
for new catalyst development in space because you get these
very different materials. So I mean, there are companies that
are looking to produce higher performing hydrogen catalysts. So whether
or not we get to something that's much more effective
in space or not, that potential to more efficiently convert water,
you know, to clean burning hydrogen, you know, and that
abundant source of energy. These are some of the things
that you know, really are being developed in microgravity, and
certainly much of that history has been on the ISS,
and ISS is opening the way for so many of
these companies. So you know, I'd say less about the
ISS versus everybody else, and more of this the ISS
having led the way and leading into this aggressive, aggressive
expansion where we can do so much more with microgravity.
Speaker 1: And doctor Roberts, just to make sure I'm understanding your
position correctly, So if if we were to you know,
prematurely exit the ISS, that could set us back in
terms of research and our sort of a place in
terms of low Earth orbit. This is something we need,
we need to see through all the way to the end.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that we need to maximize the lifetime
that's left in the space station to continue to do
this research, to continue to develop these unique opportunities, need
unique applications. You know, we're not at the level of
manufacturing in space yet. We've still got to work out
that technology and that's the important So these last few
years of the International Space Station is how we can
set up this this coming low Earth orbit economy. How
how can we best position these commercial companies to be
successful in this in this new future.
Speaker 2: And Donna, I think something that you know, I don't
know how much you'd like to speak to it, but
but Matt, something that took us a long time to
really get to in the interagency was there's expected to
be a shortfall, right so here, you know, over the
past couple of years, there have been these extraordinary new
why it matters, you know, go from exotic and interesting
you kind of see people throwing balls and m and
ms in the air towards life saving drugs, right, higher
performing hips. This is pretty new that you know, this
is you know, even people who work in this space.
This is newer to see this potential. But right at
the time where we're at this inflection point and where
you know, Johnna, you've kind of indicated that maybe China
you know, copied quite a bit of what was on
the ISS. Right when others are saying this looks great,
let's go full speed ahead, it looks like there's actually
less capacity. There's less flights that are anticipated. You know,
it's kind of what's dealer of it? And when does
this come offline? And when does this other thing come online?
And so right at the point where we should be
looking to expand you know, by orders of magnitude, instead
it looks like there's less capacity that's going to be
in place and that it's spoken for. So you know
what I've had to come to the National Science and
others and say is we're not right now, We're not
We're not resourcing access to the one of the most
critical competitive advantage is that is out there in market.
So this is will thing that the government you know,
certainly has done, I believe should be doing their multiple
entities du D or multi agencies who can come together
to do this. But if not, there's an ROI here,
so the private sector should do it. That's something that
we're looking to work with business as and investors on.
But the ROI you know, has been indicated by the
prior work and also by the competitors like the Chinese
are putting assets in market. We need to build that
out to be to continue to be players in these markets.
Speaker 1: How can the public at home watching this fight for
continued work on the ISS for instance? Are there specific
organizations or initiatives in place to make sure that we
stay in the game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think number one is becoming educated. So just
listening to your podcasts and hearing these stories and being
able to communicate them to other people. I think the
most important thing we need to do right now is
to educate the public on what we're what we're doing
been trying to accomplish here.
Speaker 2: And we welcome people to reach out to us. So
our firm is American Deep Tech and our website is
www dot deep tech one dot com one as in
the number deep tech one dot com. And you know,
people can express their interests. There are some national level initiatives,
you know with regards to I saying them so in space,
advanced manufacturing and others, But it's really the type of
thing that you know, on the private side, it's it's
finding investors who know how to who know how to
effectively support uh these companies and get resources to high performers.
That's an area that we've certainly been active. And on
the government side, the budgets come from Congress. I mean,
there's a prejudice president's budget request and then Congress authorizes
the budget.
Speaker 1: As a final question to you both, you know, we've
both of you have touched on on China. If if
we were to you know, kill funding to the ISS
from the United States perspective, do we run the risk
of China becoming the new dominant force in terms of
low Earth orbit research.
Speaker 3: I mean, I can just say that, you know, as
as Anna's mentioned, you know, we need to be building up.
So that's what China is doing right now. They're adding
they're actually adding modules to their space station over the
next few years. They just announced this yesterday. So they're
building up. They see the advantage of research and low
Earth orbit and you know it is the thing is
is that you know, we have this long, rich history.
So back in the nineteen fifties we started doing you know,
biomedical research on astronauts, and we learn that if you
take astronauts into space, then they experience, you know, these
symptoms and signs that are very that kind of mimic aging,
so muscle loss, bone loss, cardiovascularityconditioning, it changes to their
brain that happened in space. And and now we're realizing
that that that's kind of the by that that's an
issue for NASA for expiration, but for us and buying manufacturing,
and that's an asset that we can use so we
can accelerate drug developments. As Anna has mentioned, we can
because of these this accelerated aging that occurs in space,
we can do we can study, for example, a drug
to that's intended to treat Alzheimer's disease that would typically
take a ten year development period for patients here on
Earth to do clinical trials can be done in a
matter of weeks. So we're so so based on our
rich history, we're now realizing how important this this asset is.
And so as Anna said, this is the time that
we need to be building capability.
Speaker 2: How can you win? How can you win if you're
taking years to do something that somebody else can do
within weeks, you lose. So for people who like to win,
you need to put your access to microgravity in place.
Same thing on the material side. So you know, some
of these advantages have really only become parent to those
who've been dragging it very closely over the last year
or two. But there needs to be you know, for
people that want to compete and win in these markets,
they need to get smart, you know, on what's at
stake here and how it amplifies and or transforms their
current business model. So for the pharmaceutical business model, I mean,
this can be a tremendous accelerator. And for those that
don't get accelerated, how how do they compete on those
very different timelines. So, you know, this is something that
I know, we're very eager and we're appreciative to you
for helping get this information out there so that more
American innovators, companies, hospitals, universities can come to the table
and make what we we think there's an ROI there,
you know, so we're talking about what can be highly
valuable materials that are producible pharmaceuticals, you know, knowledge advances
and uh, you know, yes, if we don't do it,
I mean, other countries like China have made it clear
that they will and the difference you know, and also
from just a consumer standpoint, Uh, there's no reason to
assume that we're going to have access to those benefits
if you know, we're first, you know, in line access
to those benefits if developed by China. Uh, there's not
necessarily going to be the investor access to those equities
if they're listed out of China.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So there's both the companies, there's the inventors, there's the universities,
but there's also just as a patient, you know, when
are you able to access it? You know, and you
know what what levels of freedom and transparency are associated
with that development? You know, we what we can in
the United States to to share things internationally, you know,
and to and to drive that abundance you know, you
know beyond our own shores. So you know, there's really
quite a bit at stake here. And uh, we think
that by making the potential parent that you know, the
United States is going to put on the boots and
get it done. So we look forward to winning in
this space.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Doctor Robert talk and folks follow what is going
on with the with the ISS and your work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 3: We have a website that's really helpful, has a lot
of the examples that I've talked about today, as is
s National Lab dot org and so that's packed with
a lot of great information. You could also go to
NASA's website as well, NASA dot gov to to look
for some of these this information.
Speaker 2: And I would also just like to done. I think
it would be it might make sense for us to also,
uh share. You know that there's been tremendous leadership, you know,
across the interagency, but certainly out of NASA, you know,
and the NASA in Space Manufacturing, you know, the INSPA
team you know has really done so much, Kevin and
Curtis and Lynn Harper, so they've really been visionaries in
this space. And then just seeing that you know, doees
become more active d O d you know, Commerce, Department
of Transportation, just so many djhs and NIH E PA.
So the fact that you know, there's really an opportunities
for so many more of these colleagues, you know, across
the government and the private sector to come forward. I
know I'm missing people, Donna. Who else should we describe
as doing important work? You know in this space.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're kind of going through the agencies you
you know, mentioned.
Speaker 2: As well.
Speaker 3: So I think what it's just really highlighting is how
space isn't just you know, for an and exploration. It's
really it's cross cutting all areas of government as well.
Speaker 2: East is a place. As our colleague Kevin from NASA says,
space is a place. So if you can imagine, I mean,
for so long we've looked to NASA and we say,
NASA does all of space? Can you imagine if there
was an Earth Agency, Earth is a lot smaller than
all of space. We should say, oh, well, that's that's
on the Earth Agency. You know, there's so many capabilities
both in the private sector, you know, across you know,
the fortune one the US government that we really need
to bring to bear.
Speaker 1: Absolutely well, well, thank you both for joining us. And
I just want to point out to our viewers that
doctor Roberts is not coming to us from the vacuum
of space. That is your your little bend. Yeah, that
is the ISS behind you, right, it is definitely okay, great, Well,
I'm really early glad you both came on, and hopefully
our our viewers at home will have taken away. You know,
there's really been some great things that have come out
of the I S S and it would be a
a tragedy to uh to uh step back from that
at this At this point, we should we should keep
on on going. So, ladies, thank you so much for
joining us, and look forward to us seeing what's what's
next on the I S S.