Jared Isaacman: NASA's Moon Base by 2028, Optimus Robots on the Moon, The Truth About UFOs | Ep #274 — raw transcript

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2028 an aggressive timeline for landing on the moon. Steps getting there. When do humanoid robots enter that equation? Can you give us a [music] few details? >> The most expensive part of doing that is not the nuclear fuel. It's not the modifications needed for lunar surface. It's we all enjoyed the headlines of Artemis 2, but reminded us of what's possible and got us all excited. We don't want to wait several years in between the next uh the next episode, right? I'd be curious to hear your timelines for deploying humanoid robots with your NASA hat on. >> Any area that you're going to have human involvement eventually, it would be crazy not to, you know, make a a force multiplier and [music] put humanoid robots there to do some of the work. >> This is I think the the question on the minds [music] of many people I've spoken with. Are we alone? >> In my mind, I I would think >> now that's a moonshot, ladies and gentlemen. We just flew humans around the moon for the first time since 1972. We've announced plans to land American

[00:01:01] astronauts on the lunar south pole in 2028. Two competing moonlanders are being built right now. And there's plans to run NASA, a 25 billion agency, more like a startup than a bureaucracy. And the man driving it all flew to space twice as a private mission commander before even taking the job. I've known most of the NASA administrators in the last 40 years. In my humble opinion, our guest today is the greatest of them all. Uh, I want to welcome everybody to Moonshots, you know, your number one podcast in all things AI and exponential tech, your front row seat to the singularity. Today, my moonshot mates and I are going to be diving deep into humanity's future in space with our extraordinary guest Jared Isaacman, the 15th administrator of NASA. Let me take a moment to properly introduce Jared. He didn't come up through the regular route of being a member of the astronaut corps or government agency. He's a builder. He founded his first company, Shift for Payments, at the age of 16 in his parents' garage and then built it into a payments company processing hundreds of

[00:02:01] billions of dollars annually. He's a jet pilot who's flown in air shows and set around the world speed records. And then he did something epic, purchasing two private Falcon 9 Dragon missions. He commanded Inspiration 4 in 2021. the first all civilian orbital mission. And then in 2024, he commanded Polaris Dawn where he performed performed the first ever commercial spacew walk, stepping out of a Dragon capsule into the vacuum of space. During his start at NASA, he laid out five key objectives, get America back to the moon, build a permanent moon base, begin using nuclear power in space, ignite a real orbital economy, and reinvigorate the science that lets us look for life among the stars. Jared, welcome to the Moonshots and uh Moonshot mates. You know, we've known each other for 17 years and I could not be more proud to have you on the show. >> Well, Peter, thanks for having me on the show. It's absolute pleasure to reconnect. I'm going to challenge you a

[00:03:00] little bit on that. Uh I I appreciate the generous introduction. It's super early right now. >> I know it is. But uh faith I have plenty of time to screw things up. But I I'll tell you right now we are we are all everybody at NASA from leadership down to the engineers and technicians. We are having a great time right now. We're moving very quickly. There isn't a person who shows up to work every day at NASA that's not excited about changing the world in air and space and everybody is just really enthusiastic about getting after it. >> Yeah, agreed. You know, uh you said something very nice that 17 years ago in Bikonor I got you started on this mission. Is that actually true? that is um no I mean look since kindergarten right I I wanted to be an astronaut like a lot of kids that just look up at the night night sky and uh you know imagine the possibilities I just never thought it was even close to possible or achievable uh that's why I became a pilot and uh I started undertaking some mini adventures like flying around the world on those speed records and somehow along the way you uh you know you found

[00:04:00] me and invited me to bikinor and uh it was during that trip I was like well maybe maybe it is a a possibility. Uh so you absolutely uh helped steer me down this path. And just so you know, I mean it's it's only been a matter of days since I came back from my second visit to Bikenor. I have to tell you, it was very different than the first trip. I didn't have any Russian delegations coming out to meet with me when uh you and I uh were on that journey. [snorts] >> Yeah, that was the mission. I think Richard Garrett was flying into space. I had actually brought uh Eric Schmidt, Larry Paige, and Sergey to that mission, too. We watched the mission from a bunker about a half a kilometer from the launchpad and then went outside to watch it. It was like an epic. It was like the thunder of God before you. >> Yeah. >> They don't they I always describe it as we were like a solid par three away from the launch pad uh when we were there. They have moved us back a little bit uh I can say as of this current uh launch but still I mean I I walked a nil menon

[00:05:00] right up to the ladder of Soyos and then uh was involved in a uh bilateral um discussion with our counterparts in Russia 100 yards away. I mean a building right next to that fully fueled vehicle. So it's uh it's a little different. [snorts] >> Crazy. >> Wait, was that first one the one where you said if if anything goes wrong with this launch >> Yeah. >> what happens? So Sergey was there. We had two or three, you know, Soviet era Russians there, you know, with incredible outfits in the bunker. And when we walked outside, Sergey asked the question, "So what happens if something goes wrong in Russian?" And the the response which he translated was like, "Enjoy. It will be the last thing you ever experience." [laughter] >> Well, that's I mean, there was plenty of risk before we ever got there. like we all had to go on a a Soviet TU154 airliner. I mean, this is the same plane that I think took out a lot of the uh you know, Polish political leadership a few decades ago. So, everyone, you know, the entire Google leadership team, not to mention whoever else you invited on

[00:06:01] board uh had some serious concentration risk on that old Soviet plane just even getting to Bikinor. [laughter] >> It was it was like Eric was saying like, "Do not let the media know that we're here." >> [laughter] >> Boy, I tell you, it's so cool to have somebody that fearless running a government agency. That's got to be rare, but [laughter] but you've got you've got the DNA for it. That's really cool. >> Jared, let me kick it off. You know, on this podcast, we talk a lot about AI exponentials, robotics, and have to imagine that living at this moment in the singularity, it's got a chance to really accelerate NASA's timeline across moon, Mars, and everything else. And the first question is, you know, we talk a lot about the large language models, the small embedded language models that are going into robots and everything. Can you imagine a time when uh NASA basically allows full autonomy on all of its robots and probes and these robots and probes, whether they're in Titan or Mars or moving out uh to Europa, are on

[00:07:00] their own investigating what's interesting and deciding what experiments to run independent of scientists back on Earth. >> 100%. Uh, so I mean we still no matter what want to get the data back. It's just if you have a limited window of opportunity to do so, uh, do you let the onorbit um or I'm sorry, the on mission AI make the determination of what is the most interesting data in the least amount of time I have available possible and send it home before perhaps destruction. And there's already a mission designed for that, which is Da Vinci, which is going to Venus. And in that pressure environment, that mission will not live long. So, we're we're designing it from the get-go to have uh you know uh on mission uh you know AI and it will determine uh what what actions it needs to take based on the data it's able to collect as quickly as it possibly can use it to inform its mission direction and then send home what's most useful uh back to the scientific community. So that that's probably the the first and best example but just the beginning for where we should be going with this technology.

[00:08:00] the the the timelines with everything AI are compressing and compressing and compressing. So now we're you know talking a lot on the pod about speedr running Star Trek and uh you getting to that destination in some bounded time frame. But two questions for you. One, one, AI back here on the ground. How is it accelerating the rate at which you design new ships, new missions, and then also humanoids out in space doing a lot of what an astronaut like you would have done historically? Now you can take a lot more risk if you're launching a humanoid robot than than an astronaut. >> Yeah. So, uh, good question. May maybe just if if I can reframe it just a little bit to say like what are we doing with AI right now and how is that informing NASA's mission? And, uh, I'll tell you one like we are structurally very disadvantaged relative to any of the hyperscalers. We're a government agency. I mean, if you think about even NASA's budget, what you said at the beginning of $25 billion a year. I mean, the hyperscalers are investing many times NASA's budget into just uh, you know, hardware procurement right now. So, how do you how do you even be smart

[00:09:00] knowing you're at somewhat of a disadvantage at NASA to get the most out of the capability to further our mission, ensure America's competitiveness in the high ground of space? And I'll tell you, uh, President Trump and, uh, with, uh, OST, uh, OSTP director Kratzios have come up with a really good idea, the Genesis, uh, program. I don't know how familiar you are with it, but >> Okay. So you're you're you're you're all track and everybody in government is kind of kicking into this >> but the audience may not be. So if you want to hit that. Yeah. >> Yeah. Sure. So I mean it it again it's recognizing even whole of government uh you know is disadvantaged and the worst thing possible is for every government agency to throw what little dollars it can at the problem and hope for good outcomes. Instead, it's uh it's kind of collecting uh consolidating resources into the Department of Energy, which by the way, for a very long time, it's you know, has had some pretty substantial uh computing power available to it. Obviously, that even that gets quickly outdated. uh but they've always had the budget for investments in you know um in compute and [snorts] consolidating your

[00:10:01] uh you know your AI strategy uh leveraging some data that's very unique uh to government agencies just based on the work that's being done uh and having a whole of government approach to uh to leveraging the potential of AI and and NASA's job we we submitted two overarching themes to leverage the Genesis program number one is what have we missed and what are we likely to miss that's just my way of describing it. We have collected so much data over the decades from various NASA missions. What have we overlooked in it? I mean, there wasn't just that long ago headlines were made from a uh, you know, a teenager in Texas who leveraged AI and went through some archival NASA data and found new galaxies. I mean, that's not something we should generally want to overlook. uh and uh and we've since extended a uh an internship offer uh to him and I I think he may start uh next next year. But but that problem's going to and maybe you call it a problem or an opportunity is only going to get worse. When you think about the constellations of satellites

[00:11:00] that are going up even for earth observation and um and space weather, let alone new missions like Nancy Grace Roman telescope which will launch August uh 30th on a Falcon Heavy. I mean, you know, 100 times the field of view of Hubble, a thousand times the scan rate, you're going to be gathering so much data. And then there's so many new missions again that will be going up. So, how do we just leverage AI to go through this immense amount of data that we have for scientific breakthroughs we might have overlooked or could likely overlook? And that kind of goes to the heart of uh NASA's mission of unlocking the secrets of the universe. The the second category is extending our reach. Uh and that kind of goes to your advanced, you know, uh spacecraft design. And I'm I'm kind of concentrating that into propulsion. uh but um you know so so whether you know you have on orbit uh or on mission robotics whether that's actually necessary or not what what I care about is you know rec you know overcoming the tyranny of distance in space right now which you know you have you know appreciating that we barely barely even

[00:12:01] scratched the surface in our solar system let alone the next closest uh star system and uh and industry is doing a fantastic job of maturing uh chemical propulsion uh you know so from rapid reusability or you know like you see the evolving performance that they get out of even Merlin let alone Raptor which is very early in its uh you know its kind of design cycle. How do we go how do we leverage AI and go well beyond that and uh and try and unlock a little bit more of the energy potential from matter uh which is almost you know I mean immeasurable in chemical propulsion to uh you know I don't know onetenth of 1% with fision or a half a percent with fusion until we ultimately get to the desired destination of you know any matter annihilation which maybe actually gives us the real potential to start thinking beyond um what's in the reach of our solar system. So those are [snorts] two overarching themes. >> Alex, over to you, pal. >> Amazing. Well, Jared, I I would say NASA has a storied history of human space

[00:13:00] flight on the one hand and on the other hand, sending lots of nonhumanoid robots throughout the solar system. I'd be curious to hear your timelines, what you perceive as the future in the context of Artemis in the near term or other planets in the solar system for deploying humanoid robots with your NASA hat on throughout the solar system and what role in what timeline you perceive humanoid robots to the extent friend of the pod Elon has characterize the Optimus as the ultimate vonoyman probe for the solar system. What role you see humanoids in constructing Artemis and other facilities elsewhere? Well, I think any place that we believe there is a realistic probability of building a um you know, an eventual human outpost. So, the moon for sure, I mean, we've been blessed with having a you know, this proving ground, you know, three three three to four days away from Earth. We're absolutely going to build a base there and make uh the most of it. So any area that you're going to have uh you know human involvement eventually, it

[00:14:01] would be crazy not to you know make a a force multiplier and put humanoid robots there to do some of the work. I mean honestly like you when you think about having human beings on the moon base and saying well what's their job going to be? It's like I mean the the least possible. I mean really like like it's still incredibly dangerous the moment they they walk outside. It's incredibly dangerous to be there in the first place. So leveraging uh robotics there for all things from infrastructure buildout, logistics uh is uh is imperative. I mean you you you you want there to be no alternative but to put an astronaut outside the habitat for an EVA and the same would be applicable for for Mars which is the next logical destination you know the next stepping stone on this grand journey that we're we're undertaking. But there's plenty of places obviously where why would we even need to uh you know require a humanoid robot there like we you know you think about exciting missions to seek out signs of life or ancient life that could have existed in

[00:15:00] our solar system. So take Europa Clipper or I'm very you know optimistic that we might be able to commission a mission to Enceladus at some point in time or or you know uh Dragonfly for example going to to Saturn's moon of Titan. I we just need to build the best probe or discovery instrument for that mission uh to get us the data that we're excited for and it doesn't necessarily have to obviously take on any sort of humanoid form. [snorts] >> You like that, Selene? I bet. Uh Dave, back to you, pal. >> Yeah, I love that split focus of, hey, we have reams of proprietary data. Let's AI it and then trans solar. you know, no, nobody in the commercial world, you know, I totally get the big budgets, but nobody in the commercial world is going to work on fusion or antimatter annihilation to get to other solar systems. So, that's that's just incredibly cool. But at the same time, orbital data centers have stolen the spotlight recently. What what's NASA's position on orbital data centers? And, you know, it's it's going to create a huge amount of launch capacity. So, maybe assembling things for trans Solar in space is part of the part of the

[00:16:00] stepping stone there. But, what what is the position on orbital data centers? Well, first just to hit I mean even even unlocking fision uh forms of propulsion I would still argue would be a major distraction for a lot of commercial industry right now when I mean there is so much potential else there not to mention all the terrestrial applications for fision power when we are trying to win uh an AI race which I think is by the way just to point out extremely healthy for NASA like I think the worst thing for NASA as the the world's most accomplished space agency is trying to do uh you know what the rest of industry is doing like I don't think that is a good thing for recruiting the best talent or retaining it or workforce development. Right now I see NASA like I mean this is our opportunity to to have the himman Rickover nuclear navy transition and start working again on the near impossible what others are not focused on that have no obvious you know business use cases where you know NASA will not be one customer of many and truly have those kind of pioneering breakthroughs for the benefit again for

[00:17:00] all humankind enabling capabilities for surface power on the moon for Mars surface power at some point and and to be able to undertake again realistic exploration missions the outer solar system. So I even vision power by the way is a huge step in the right direction for uh you know for um for NASA outside of where industry should rightfully be trying to raise capital and put uh put their attention to it in terms of orbital data centers right so if uh you know if Elon and SpaceX are betting on this right now um there is no reason to to believe this will not come into existence [laughter] >> never ever ever bet against Elon >> 100% right and and I never bet against an extremely well cap capitalized Elon. So people ask, you know, and my position as NASA administrator, what do I think of, for example, if SpaceX is an IPO? Like, first of all, I'm thrilled with any of our partners that are uh essential to undertaking achieving our mission. Like again, number one, national space policy objective, return American astronauts to the lunar surface, build the moon base out. We

[00:18:00] can't do it without them. So the fact that they're extremely well capitalized right now is a fantastic thing. Not to mention the engineering talent that's in there. and you know that I I I think without question uh you know the greatest entrepreneur and engineer in in recent history at the helm. So I think that's all very good. No doubt it will come into existence. What I kind of care about uh beyond the potential uh of you know space-based data centers and harnessing uh our free fusion reactor that's um you know that's out there is the prospect of an expanded space economy. Because I I will tell you I'm a little bit more measured in this maybe just having started my company in 1999 when you you started to see the you know the final days before the the dot >> you know the the.com bubble there is like you know we at times uh you know get uh enamored by uh the potential of things uh as it was with the internet then how how it may be today in some respects with commercial space you know launch observation and communications those are the only things we know for sure and people say that all the time

[00:19:01] like, you know, it's your obligation for NASA to go to the moon and establish a lunar economy. I'm like, what does that mean? Like, I can't guarantee that we can get more value out of the lunar regalith and all the cost that goes into getting there and extracting what you need and then bringing it back to Earth or manufacturing there. There's no there's kind of no guarantee on all that. Like our job is to go out try and change the world in air and space. And if along the way, you know, you can have pioneering breakthroughs in uh in commercial space, fantastic. because I don't believe we will all live in that exciting future we imagined about uh imagined as kids uh if it's entirely funded by taxpayers. So to see perhaps another leg beyond launch observation and communications and say orbital data center is a thing the math closes you know the economic potential there is real and it will help fund a lot of the things we are all excited about in space like maybe lots of commercial space stations or or the infrastructure we want to see on the moon. Fantastic. We should all be really excited about it.

[00:20:00] >> Amazing. See, over to you, pal. >> Um, I have a quick anecdote where I used to be the head of innovation at Yahoo running their incubator in San Francisco and we had NASA speakers come and speak cuz I wanted these developers to understand what real innovation looked like. And we once had this uh kind of 70 plus year old fellow who' worked on the Apollo program. You have to imagine 300 uh tight jeans, white sneaker, gelled hair MacBook developers all sitting in this room. And during the Q&A asked, "What's the biggest difference in the space industry between when you were launching on the Apollo program and today?" And he said, "Huh?" And he goes, "Maybe it's computers." Because back then all information was transmitted via carbon copy paper. The pink sheet went here, the green sheet went. And you you could see these 300 developers look up and I could see their brains exploding one by one as they looked at the implications of this. Totally incredible. You've you've kind of locked it looked at this unbelievable transformation of NASA where you have launch capacity, you have capital, you

[00:21:00] have technical expertise all locked up and those are now becoming abundant. As those become abundant, how do you steer NASA? What does it enable? what does it provide for the private sector to take it to the next level? Yeah, I again kind of use this an opportunity maybe hit on another point too because I I would have loved that uh for that NASA um you know scientist or engineer from the Apollo era beyond just computer I think there's something else that's very different which is focus uh and that's going to be even more important uh you know as launch costs uh continue to come down materially and what we see from commercial industry and private capital is willing to fund is available is how well do we wield it and use it. Uh and you know who's a you know who's a great example of this uh of focus? It's Elon and SpaceX, right? Like this is a this is a person and it's not just obviously at SpaceX. He did a Tesla too. This is somebody who has no problem executing uh you know the Cortez model of burning the ships, right? I mean, you know, could

[00:22:01] have the greatest rocket with an unbelievable economic model to support it and endless demand and says, "Nope, obsolete. Time to focus on the next thing." shut down Falcon 1 and he's going to shut down Falcon 9. >> Makes great video, doesn't it? [laughter] >> And you know, and uh and you think about that during the Apollo era and I mention this from time to time to members of Congress to help them too is that if you go back to I think it's the 1965 NASA Authorization Act, it's five pages and it's [snorts] got some, you know, standard template language, but more or less it says beat the Russians to the moon. X dollars that go to Apollo, X dollars that go to Geminy, right? and outside of that like all this flexibility but but essentially to focus on one or two incredibly important things to the nation. You see again uh SpaceX is very good at doing that. Tesla's okay this generation of vehicle it's time has come. I'm now focusing on doing one or two things extremely well. that has changed considerably at NASA from from the space race where for a

[00:23:01] very long time and I do believe this is kind of you know absent global uh you know global competition have been asked to do everything for everyone and try and make as many people as happy as you possibly can and as a result you generally make no one happy >> in as many congressional districts as possible. >> Yeah. I mean, you know, even even now I think about it. I was uh you know, forgive the kind of DO example. Um but, uh, you know, we were talking about procurement of next generation aircraft and such. I was like, isn't it so fascinating that right now at a time where I mean, the F-47 has been involved, so you're you're sixth generation fighter that we will still advocate for production of fourth generation, fifth generation, and sixth generation. And as a result, probably what you want to buy from sixth generation is several times more expensive than it needs to be and you'll get a lot less of them because you're dives in so many different directions. You [snorts] would never see that happen with some of the entrepreneurs we're talking about in their companies and be like, why would I be doing that? It's 50 years old. It's literally a half century

[00:24:01] ago. I'm going to focus everything I can at doing what I'm supposed to be doing today really well. And NASA is something that is something President Trump has been able to give us with our national space policy and now actually global competition being in a second space race has enabled us to do is say we can't do everything for everyone anymore. We're going to go back and dust off the playbook from the 60s and start focusing on doing a couple things that are extremely hard very well. And to your question, having things like lower launch costs available and private capital willing to make investments alongside government so it's not four and a half% of the discretionary budget anymore. hopefully helps us get back to some of those headlines that were made in the 1960s but on a different level today. >> Well, you know, when you have uh all of the capability, you know, the the the biggest constraint for NASA um has always been the rate limiting step, right? When do you see fleets of humanoid robots out there doing things? And when do you envision the moon

[00:25:00] becoming almost a platform that a broader ecosystem can build off of? Well, um, look, I I think in terms of rate, uh, the biggest driver there is going to be just, I mean, it's going to be the breakthroughs in rapid reusability until, I mean, Starship is obviously the first example of a vehicle where we don't throw away the, you know, the um, the upper stage, uh, building multiple factories to massproduce that hardware, multiple launch pads, and of course, you know, uh, you know, Blue Origin is, uh, New Glenn's vehicle, you know, is going to have obviously already proven reusability with the first stage. I think Stoke is trying to do uh reusable first and second stage. I'm sure Rocket Lab with Neutron is going to get there. All of that is critical to bringing down the cost to accelerate mass to orbit. Uh and in which case it doesn't matter if you're using it for commercial space stations, for commercial purposes, scientific missions or transporting lots of mass efficiently to the to the surface of the moon. Now, that's key to everything in NASA. like we're going to be able to get far more of our dollars doing the near impossible

[00:26:01] uh task than simply paying for the cost to get there. Uh you know, great example I said, you know, we're thinking about repurposing something the taxpayers already paid for, which is the engineering development unit of the Perseverance and Curiosity rover. It's just sitting there at JPL. I mean, that's that's probably like, I don't know, a half a billion all in that's just sitting there. But no [clears throat] question, I'm like, well, you know, we were all talking, why don't we just put it on the moon? it'll be a great rover and it can survive in the um you know the permanently shaded regions. The most expensive part of doing that is not the nuclear fuel. It's not the modifications needed for lunar surface. It's it's getting it there and and that's getting it there in uh you know the most mature and competitive uh launch environment that we've had in the history of the space program. So the next breakthroughs that come thereafter with full rapid reusability is going to be enabling for everything we want to do not least of which is on the is on the lunar surface. Now again, once you have, you know, if you're talking about armies of humanoid robots on the lunar surface as well that are actually going to start building out the infrastructure, you'll

[00:27:00] start to go from what NASA's vision of a phase one moon base, which is a lot of broke down stuff everywhere as we we learn the science of survival, which I I I refer to almost as a junkyard in early days, to that more utopian dome of a city, uh, you know, that probably some of us envision that that's that's going to that's what's going to bridge the gap between those two worlds. This episode is brought to you by Blitzy, autonomous software development with infinite code context. Blitzy uses thousands of specialized AI agents that think for hours to [music] understand enterprisecale code bases with millions of lines of code. Engineers start every [music] development sprint with the Blitzy platform, bringing in their development requirements. [music] The Blitzy platform provides a plan, then generates and pre-ompiles code for each task. Blitzy delivers 80% or more of the development work autonomously while providing a guide for the final 20% of human development work required to complete the sprint. Enterprises are

[00:28:01] achieving a 5x engineering velocity increase when incorporating Blitzy as their preIDE development tool, pairing it with their coding co-pilot of choice to bring an AI native SDLC into their org. Ready to 5x your engineering velocity? Visit blitzy.com to schedule a demo and start building with Blitzy today. [music] >> Let's talk about the moon a second. Jared, uh 2028, an aggressive timeline for landing on the moon. Thank you for that. It's super great to have aggressive timelines once again. uh once we land on the moon, give me a step by step if you would for getting a lunar base there because getting a permanent lunar base where humanity for the first time is ever existing on off the planet of Earth beyond Earth's orbit is huge uh steps getting there. When do humanoid robots enter that equation? Can you give us a few details? >> Sure. Uh I think it's imperative that we do a lot of littles at first. um which I

[00:29:00] I I think is fully akin to the space race in the 1960s. We had Mercury before Gemini, Geminy before Apollo, you know, lots of Apollo missions before we landed on the moon. And in this world that we've been in absent competition for some time where I told you that, you know, focus is a problem and we are distributing money everywhere to make everybody happy. We kind of are forgetting all of those intram steps to getting to the the exciting outcome and we just design a dream state. Mhm. >> Uh a dream state is a service sometimes and it's usually very late and much more expensive than we want and and none of us want that. We all enjoyed the headlines of Artemis 2, you know, even though we had done very similar things, you know, uh a half a half century earlier, it, you know, it reminded us of what's possible and got us all excited. We don't want to wait several years in between the next uh the next episode, right? So, I think getting back to doing a lot of littles up front and learning what does and doesn't work to inform the next phase. Uh, it worked very well for NASA in the 1960s. We're bringing it back. So, what I described phase one,

[00:30:00] and this is before the astronauts ever get there in 28, we're going to be dropping landers and rovers on a near monthly basis. We're going to take advantage of the commercial market that exists today, the clips program that started years past. We're going to start printing these things off. Uh, we'll we'll learn from every one of them in that incredibly harsh environment on the lunar south pole because if we're going there and we're going to build a base, we better at least do it near the water ice or what are we doing there? and uh and we're going to we're going to learn how to survive in that environment and we're going to do it before we lock in the dream state. So I'm like I don't want to hear what how we're locking in lunar comms surface or orbital yet or what our power source is going to be or what the interface is going to be between the the rover and some future state nuclear reactor. Let's start landing stuff now and learning in this environment and we'll use it to roll into a subsequent design. And phase one's going to leave a lot of debris everywhere like that. like [laughter] a lot of dead rovers and uh and uh and landers, but we're going to learn from it and then we'll roll into phase two. And I think, you know, once once Starships are launching with frequency

[00:31:00] and they've, you know, worked out uh orbital prop transfer and once Blue Origins got their on orbit aggregation strategy uh down, then when you're moving mass very efficiently to surface, that's when you roll in the humanoid robots. Again, you want the least you want the fewest reasons possible to ever put an astronaut in a suit outside the base unless there was no other alternative. And humanoid robots are going to give you that >> best guess under over when we see the first humanoid robot walking on the moon. >> I in my mind I I would think that uh on the uncrrewed lander uh demonstrations which both Blue Origin and SpaceX need to do in advance of the lunar landing that's already uh contractual. I'd kind of be shocked if somebody didn't uh smuggle one on board. But uh I we're not waiting that long, right? I mean, you're you're talking the next four years, maybe 6 years, uh, as a window as these start showing up and building that infrastructure. >> Boots on the moon, except they're optimist or figure boots on the moon. Uh, circa 2028 29. That's great. Alex, over to you, pal. >> Yeah. Pulling on this lunar theme, Jared. 20 years ago, you were civilian

[00:32:01] pilot with ambition and you you in some sense you bought your way into space. There are many civilian pilots out there right now, some of whom have written to me that would absolutely love a path to the moon. Uh a path to be basically a civilian settler core, including apparently Peter, who who would love to to be civilian settlers or reserve astronauts with a way to the moon. Question for you. Does NASA do you andor NASA have any plans or have you contemplated setting up a civilian settler corps to enable those trained civilian pilots who want to move to the moon or spend time on the moon to travel and move to the moon or to Mars or do you perceive that pathway as being purely commercial and not flowing through NASA? >> Uh so there's a lot there to that. Let me just first say that uh having an aviation background is uh hardly a requirement anymore. I mean it there is certainly advantages that come in. Uh but if you think about what a a crew uh

[00:33:02] of astronauts should look like going from uh the earth to the moon or Mars having one or two people with that background uh important and helpful for sure if you want I think number one in this and this also very much qualifies um Peter is medical professionals. I it's like we the technology to enable humans to go to Mars is going to happen far uh far faster or sooner than uh having the countermeasures in place for you know the you know how demanding physiologically it is to be in space not to mention psychologically as well especially when you get to extreme distances like Mars. So I I just don't ever see a a world in our lifetime where you know you're not going to have uh you know considerable investments in medical professionals supporting outposts on the moon and certainly Mars someday. [snorts] Um now now what what does that mean? I you know again what what is NASA's charter again? And I mean I I think we're out there trying to again

[00:34:00] unlock the secrets of the universe and every step moon, Mars, thereafter is just a step on that uh that journey for crude and uncrude missions [snorts] and uh you know there will always be a need for for NASA astronauts and I'd be shocked if you didn't see at some point in time that NASA astronauts played a role in helping train and certify uh commercial or private crews going on those uh those missions. the same way that as a pilot, you know, whether it's an FA examiner or an FAA design is verifying that a pilot is safe to fly in uh in national airspace to take off and land in what is something that is inherently dangerous. Well, you know, several times that once you start leaving our atmosphere. So, there'll be a role for NASA astronauts in this. And hopefully, as costs come down, again, back to rapid reusability and you have the ability to put hundreds and thousands of people in space through uh you know, through government programs, you're going to uh you're going to have you're going to require a lot more NASA astronauts, but but no doubt there is going to be a time period where private and commercial will far out uh overtake

[00:35:02] that in terms of the number of people living and working in space, on moon, or elsewhere. Uh, and I'd love to think that the expertise inherent with NASA will help set up those private and commercial astronauts for success. >> Alex, we're going to we're going to speedrun the moon is a harsh mistress without the rocks falling on Earth. >> Rods from God, Peter. Rods from God. >> Uh, Dave, over to you, pal. >> Yeah. Uh, you know, that you mentioned a second ago that the south pole of the moon is a particularly harsh environment. I'd love to drill in on that. And and is it harsher in particular or is it just the moon in general as harsh that you're referring to? Well, I think the moon in general is rather harsh, but I mean, you're you're talking about -400 degrees in some of the permanently shaded regions. I mean, we actually, you know, have survival problems in the south pole of the moon that exceed that of uh of Mars. So, um you know, I I it's it's certainly it's certainly going to be the uh as I've said again, the optimal proving ground that we've been gifted several days away from Earth for everything else that

[00:36:00] humankind should hope to achieve in space someday. Um, >> so at least it's close enough to come home uh if uh if we run into some challenges. >> So, so then what does that mean for this race that's on right now? Your launch costs are coming down like crazy and that's because of reusability. Uh and at the same time, the idea of having mass drivers on the moon as a way to get more things into orbit is a really compelling idea. And so that idea, you know, is moving at a pretty good clip, too. So, you know, there's a view of the world where launch costs come down so much that, you know, when you watch one of these launches, the amount of energy it takes to get a ton into orbit is just mind-boggling and and not being in the gravity well is really compelling. You know, just you can just rail gun it right off the moon instead. On the other hand, you were just describing how harsh an environment that is. So, actually manufacturing the first rail guns on the moon and then getting something significant, you know, manufactured there to launch is a pretty daunting challenge. So, how how do you see the timelines of those two ways of getting things into space competing with

[00:37:01] each other? >> Well, it's a it's a it's a really interesting question. Here's one where again, you don't bet against uh Elon and and his big engineering brain on the subject. Uh I think it would be I mean, how cool would it be to have a mass driver on the moon? I'm I'm all for it. But it does, you know, it kind of does beg the question a little bit that if Starship is uh and just again broadly rapid reusability such a gamecher where you're turning around these vehicles in a matter of hours and your cost is essentially the the consumables. Um if you have to bring a lot of the materials necessary to assemble, build whatever it is you're looking to accelerate off of the moon with the mass driver to the moon, uh could you not just bring it uh from the get- go? [snorts] Uh so you'd have to be highly confident that again the costs uh to um you know refine, extract, manufacture from the the regalith on the moon um unless we're starting to get really you know going and retrieving asteroids and everything else will be lower than uh and and then

[00:38:02] essentially you know 3D printing it on the moon and using the mass driver to accelerate will be lower and more economical um than transporting the materials to the moon in the first place through what should be an extremely economical uh form of bringing mass to the to the surface of the moon. So, but that's again, you know, you people, you know, that are far smarter than me are thinking out the long-term picture on that. I just want to get us back to the moon because we've been waiting damn long enough. >> Yeah, we have Salem. >> Um, you know, there there's a huge tension in geopolitics where the glowing to space is really kind of a humanity effort and I love the way NASA's always positioned that way. How do you take into account all the geopolitical tensions with China, India, Russia all trying to get to the moon? And long-term, do you see that resolving in some way or does it just stay a tension and you just figure figure out how to navigate it? >> Is is competition better than the collaboration for your budget at least >> for all mankind?

[00:39:01] >> Yeah, of course it is. Look, there's nothing wrong with having good healthy. We're Americans. We like competition. Uh it worked very well for us in the 1960s and now now what happens uh Peter and I go to Bikenor in 2008 and the same rocket we were competing against was uh helping I mean was really the beginning of the commercial space era in in a lot of ways and then uh you know again just days ago I was able to take you know a close friend and NASA astronaut uh and welcome to the latter of Soyu. What an example of where competition fueled so much for the benefit of all in early days uh and now turns into a collaborative effort of which without you would not be able to sustain the international space station especially in cases like crew 11 where NASA had to recall our crew compliment uh and yet you were able to have continuity because there was an American who was up there Chris Williams via the the Soyuse method. So look where where competition uh starts uh can lead to really uh totally fine outcomes in the end. Uh

[00:40:02] right now uh China and the US for sure are both very committed to getting uh getting to the moon. The Chinese and their road map uh it will it will lead to success there. There there's no doubt. I mean they will absolutely do what the Soviets could not in the in the 1960s. Um we would certainly like to get there uh before them. They're building a base. uh we're going to build a base. This is this is fine. This is this is all uh good things. And um and and certainly we've shown that even having a space race uh you know can help um and and its eventual collaborative mean you know if it turns into uh collaborative means like we have on the international space station can transcend a lot of the the the geopolitical strife that can happen here on Earth. >> Chinese on the moon by 2030 that's their goal. You think they hit it? >> Yes. I I I I do I I think that they are uh they have a second mover advantage in a lot of ways. They do not have any baggage. Uh what do I mean by that? Like

[00:41:00] they're if you look at the way they're they're I I want to say their civil space program, but they've recently merged that back again into into their military efforts. Uh it's it's all on the Manhattan Project and and the and the Apollo era. I mean, they you know they they're building centers and recruiting the people they need to do one thing. you know, uh, Stenis just doing propulsion, for example, Kennedy Space Center just launching rockets. Um, you know, Marshall doing a lot of the engineering, Texas being the operations and training center. Uh, that's how they all began. You know, if you think about, you know, even it's analogous again to the to the Manhattan project of what did we need uh, you know, Los Alamos for, what did we need Oakidge for? Um and uh and what happens absent competition is all those centers that were built to serve a specific purpose where you recruited talent to do a specific job turn into doing anything other than maybe what they were doing in the first place or or at least adding on a lot of other things uh that can distract from uh from its original intended purpose.

[00:42:01] Now what are we doing at NASA? We're going around and refocusing everybody back into that original direction. The Chinese do not have any of that baggage right now. They're literally starting from scratch and highly focused in their effort. They're drawing on a playbook that worked very well for uh uh for us in the 1960s. I have no doubt they're going to achieve their goals >> and they have fiveyear plans, not annual budget cycles. >> Yeah. >> When you look at the constraints that you're facing culturally at NASA, you know, there used to be this huge uh mantra that failure is not an option, right? and you're you're clearly the your mindset is one of non-stop experimentation and learning. What are the biggest hurdles that you're facing in shifting the culture inside NASA to something like the new model of how we build organizations? >> Well, I would just say that I I don't think uh the culture of uh and I don't even say accepting more risk. It it really a lot of what you see at least in my opinion uh when you see some of the

[00:43:02] things that SpaceX have done and how they choose to operate is very similar to how NASA operated uh you know in the 1960s. I mean, we had the same 20some year olds that were, you know, burning themselves out. Uh, you know, brilliant minds doing incredible things, making tough decisions, extreme ownership, moving with urgency. Uh, and look how many you you know, people talk about NASA doesn't uh blow up rockets. uh go back into the 19 uh late 1950s, early 1960s on YouTube and you can see plenty examples of uh of our iterative design philosophy not working out initially uh and then rolling in uh what we learned into um uh you know into into subsequent versions. So in a lot of ways uh they've drawn on the of what worked well for NASA during that time period. They were they're far more efficient with their capital allocation than any government agency. There's there's no doubt about that. And we are just going back. I mean that's what we're trying to do is pivot a little bit more in the direction of

[00:44:00] where we started uh and uh and focusing again our resources on those kind of you know um you know those near near impossible type objectives. Now where I'd say there's sometimes resistance is when people people generally hate change. That's just that's just uh human behavior. and absent competition and a a policy of trying to make everyone happy for so long. Trying to get people to stop doing what they're passionate about or what they've been working on for a long time, which could be awesome and very cool work, but saying we got to get back to the moon. We got to build the moon base. We can never give up the moon again. We have to help industry, you know, to the extent possible and rapid reusability is a true gamecher enabler for all the other things we want to do. Uh, you know, science is is fantastic. I I love Hubble. I love James Webb. I love all that we're working on. We just need to do more of it. >> We we we we can't get comfortable launching flagship missions every 10 years. We want to be doing it annually. And even now, I'll tell you in meetings when somebody brings up like, "We're really excited about this. It's going to

[00:45:01] launch in 2035. We're really excited about this. It's going to launch in 2045." Who's like, "I don't want my grandchildren to be excited about this mission. I want to be excited about it. >> [laughter] >> We So those are the things where culturally implementing some change can be um you know a challenge but we're getting there. >> I love you for that. You know let's talk about nuclear one second. Uh thank you for reigniting nuclear as a propulsion system and an energy source. So, uh, on the nuclear propulsion side, you know, I will I will sort of jokingly say, how long before we can make the Kessle run in in 12 parts, uh, or or more near-term, how long before we can get to Mars in 90 days? What's your plans on nuclear propulsion? >> So, uh, first plan is just put a win up on the board, which is what SR1 freedom is. It's a lot of repurposed hardware, no doubt. Um, you know, it's funny. I I think Politico put an article out today on you know NASA administrator intends to spend $2.5 billion on his nuclear

[00:46:00] power and propulsion spaceship. It was like actually the taxpayers spent that money over the last few years already. I'm just repurposing it into something that has real, you know, practical value instead of sitting in a warehouse or in a lab for some time period. So the power, you know, uh PPE element, uh power propulsion element from the gateway, we repurposed. That's basically the main spacecraft. All of its electric thrusters that's already integrated into it. uh we have a nuclear reactor at least you know components of it that have been matured and funded by other services >> for decades uh at INL that we're going to use as the baseline for um for the reactor. So look this is this is what Nautilus was. Nautilus was a diesel boat uh and it got repurposed as a nuclear sub. A lot of people don't know it but even you know Rick over said hey it was the 70% solution but it gave birth to the nuclear navy. We're trying to do the exact same thing at NASA. So SR1 is not going to it's not going to knock your socks off out of the gate. It's not mass optimized by by any means, but it's a step in the right direction. Uh what comes thereafter will be will continue to be optimized until what I think is

[00:47:02] the the ultimate goal is to be able to bring astronauts to Mars and back with the fewest miracles required. And that may not always be the fastest way, but if it doesn't require cryogenic refueling as a step to getting the boots on Mars, that's a win. Uh so I actually think that the the first human mission to Mars uh will be uh at least if it was you know as NASA would be chemically augmented nuclear electric propulsion and uh and be able to send astronauts to Mars and bring them back not the fastest but without having to require a lot of extra miracles along the way and uh and we just got to keep going right this is this is the whole point of taking it out of the lab getting into practical application budgeting it properly because material sciences the hotter we can run the reactor the more mass we can save because we don't need football field size radiators that are up there. Uh the better we can do with power conversion, the more we challenge uh solar as the uh the optimal pathway at least, you know, inside of Jupiter. But there's no doubt if you want to go into

[00:48:00] the outer solar system and you want to at least delay the necessity of cryogenic refueling uh for missions to crude missions to Mars and back like we got to be making investments in nuclear. >> Love it, Dave. Yeah, you know, if you if you achieve that goal, it seems like the technical risk is seems like a very doable challenge. You know, it's out there but doable. Uh then you have this kind of foot race between are we trying to put boots on Mars so that we can then back up humanity on Mars someday or is it more likely that we start putting humans in orbit uh in O'Neal colonies in the asteroid belt and using that material which is you know surprisingly abundant because you got these two science fiction views of the world you know or the future of humanity one where there are many many space stations out there and they're huge they have 10,000 people on them the other is no we've colon ized Mars and that's our backup copy of humanity and there's kind of a an equal foot race between those two views of where we're going too. Do you have a you have a preference >> Elon versus Bezos in that regard?

[00:49:01] >> Yeah, very much so. Very much so. >> Yeah. Well, I mean look, step one, uh we need rapid reusability and onorbit assembly because whatever spacecraft are going to take humans to Mars, whether it's just the lucky few for um you know to to support an outpost versus necessarily a colony or actually achievable missions. the astro on orbit assembly is everything. Uh rapid reusability is our is our step in in in that direction. U look from my perspective you know we cross the oceans uh you know for a better life and uh you know you're it's extremely unlikely in a near term that you're going to you know go to Mars and have a better life or live on a space station and have uh and have a better life. Like I think a lot of initial motivation and our lifetimes will probably be very more much more akin to uh you know you know going to Antarctica for an extended scientific duration um you know or or or campaign down there. Um but it's it's just a

[00:50:00] step. I mean again we're we're trying to conquer the tyranny of distance that that is inherent in our solar system in our galaxy and beyond. And we have to start somewhere and we're we're lucky we've got a moon that's nearby to help us learn. The next step is Mars. That is going to be another learning environment. Generally favor gravity again for the you know overcoming the uh the the physiological challenges of being in space. So I you know I guess we're getting totally we we've evolved to be born and live in a in a space in a mega space station is not I guess out of the realm of possible. But I I think a lot of the problems that we know we encounter when even keeping people on the space station for 6 months um even you know a six a third of gravity is going to make a huge difference along the way but presumably we will have conquered artificial gravity and such in the in that effort too. >> I love the saying if God had wanted humanity to become a interplanetary species she would have given us a moon and uh and we have one. Uh Salem over to you for asteroid mining. you know uh asteroid mining has been this promise

[00:51:01] Peter you and I you've kind of tracking that you've invested and built companies around that do you think it's a real thing or is it perpetually 20 years away and if it is does NASA take an active role or do you just enable the private sector to go down there >> well I think we can be helpful again I I think about again our primary objective is uh you know if you if you want your NASA's sole focus to be on uh you know stimulating the economic potential of microgravity or from asteroid roids are on the lunar surface like put it under the department of commerce. You know the department of commerce has a space office and that like again I do think foundational our job is to go out and answer the questions you know are we alone unlock the secrets of the universe um you know [snorts] worldchanging pioneering technological breakthroughs in air and space. So from my perspective uh if we are uh investing in the capabilities uh that are necessary to undertake missions to the moon to build a moon base to go to Mars and along the way you can have demonstrations uh or work with industry that bring us

[00:52:00] closer to asteroid mining we should do it and we actually have uh some some methods that we're exploring to do that. So the America's competes act actually allows us to put prizes out there and I'm very open to doing it. Not trying to compete at all with the X-P prize and that, but we could work or partner. Yeah, potentially partner in that. I'll let the lawyers weigh in on that of like go and do something cool with an asteroid >> and we could put up $25 million. I don't know, hypothetically is uh uh but but I want I would like to believe that by making investments in that it's going to give us I don't know the hypergall thrusters that we need for uh to reduce the cost for landers on the moon or or Mars someday. You know, it it I think always has to be furtherance of our scientific and exploration objectives as a as a space agency. >> Welcome to the health section of Moonshots brought to you by Fountain Life. You know, AI is having an outsiz impact on every aspect of our lives. How we teach our kids, how we run our companies. It also is having a huge impact on health, helping you prevent heart disease. One of the key things I'm here with Dr. Don Musalem, our chief

[00:53:00] medical officer at Fountain. Heart disease has been personal for you as well, hasn't it? It really has, Peter. When my daughter was five, my husband died of sudden cardiac death. And so this is a topic that is one that I am missiondriven to try to eradicate. Prevention first and early detection is absolutely critical. 50% of people die of heart attacks with no warning signs. >> No shortness of breath, no pain, no nothing. >> No silent killer. >> They just don't wake up in the morning. >> They don't wake up. And so, you know, AI, this is our mission to advance science to try to help to one day democratize wellness. We know at fountain life when we do this CT angography with AI analytics we are actually finding that 88% of people coming in have detectable coronary arter disease but Peter what's more alarming to me is 23% of those individuals had soft plaque. This is the plaque that would not traditionally be seen on CT looking at calcium scores alone. And this is the plaque that we must intervene with with the multimodal testing we're doing, including

[00:54:00] diagnostic laboratory studies partnered with healthy lifestyle recommendations. >> So listen, make sure you understand what's going on inside your body genetically and metabolically and cardiovascularly. You can know and it's your obligation to know. So check it out at fountainlife.com/peter to find out more and really make sure that you're the CEO of your own health. All right, back to the episode. Jared, let's talk about getting to Mars. So Elon is very aggressively committed to going to Mars. Um, and you know, I was there with him when he was having the conversation and he basically said, "We're going to shut down Falcon 9 cuz it's not going to get us to Mars and we're going after Starship allin, you know, burning the boats as you said." So the question is when he decides to make those missions, is the funding from that fully private or do you imagine you're going to be able to step in and help fund those private missions? And what's a timeline? When do you think the earliest uh will set boots on Mars? You

[00:55:02] know, Optimus boots and then human boots. Could you I mean, what's what's your what's your under over on that? Well, I think, you know, again, I'm pretty excited about the the the TAM that, you know, that SpaceX and others are pursuing right now with orbital data centers and such because again, I don't you you know, you saw the it's here's an interesting stat. Uh actually, it was on a Fox interview and somebody started bringing up polling and I was like, "Oh man, I'm way out of my depth on this one." But they were like, "Did you know that 69% of the American public supports NASA returning to the moon?" in contrast to 30 some odd percent in 1967 you know at a at a um at a comparable time period and um sorry any anyway on that note I I think that um uh SpaceX SpaceX right now if they were to put all of their capital and focus on going to Mars it would be very different uh time frame than uh right now where their

[00:56:01] stated intention is going to the moon. So when you ask the question of like uh look we're going back boots will be on the moon in 2028. We're going to build the base and and learn from that uh that environment and SpaceX pursuing this this megatam uh that allows them to make investments and capabilities for the good of all humankind which is probably again why it's 69% approval rate versus in the 1960s when it was 4.5% of the discretionary budget. And and I'm sure that that was a big factor in why we were in the 30% range for going to the moon because hey, we got a lot of other problems here uh back here on Earth. So good companies like SpaceX that are pursuing these massive TAMs and all this economic potential in space allows them to make investments alongside NASA to do all these great things for humankind is probably why you generally have greater public support for uh for what we're pursuing. But the fact that moon is step one for them right now or at least stated intent is certainly going to change some of the timelines on Mars and absolutely would change like the quantity of people we're talking about on Mars. So we can make investments in nuclear power and propulsion. It's part of the national space policy. It is the

[00:57:01] next giant leap [snorts] and uh and potentially put a pathway with the fewest miracles required to I don't know put four people on Mars in the next 10 to 15 years. Uh that's not obviously the Elon vision of like millions of people someday in a self-sustaining city on Mars. But that's the uh NASA can do some things governmently uh through through taxpayer funding leveraging investments uh you know uh in nuclear in you know nuclear investments over many decades plus plus industry coming alongside it. SpaceX saying, "Forget the moon. We're going all in." Like, you know, Elon was saying a couple years ago is much faster for sure because now you're concentrating all that brilliant brain power and um uh and their capital and resources towards achieving that objective. So, seems like we're on step one going to the moon. It's going to happen in 2028. We're going to learn a lot there in parallel. We're going to make investments in nuclear power and propulsion. SpaceX will unlock this, you know, and along with the rest of industry that's pursuing all the economic potential in space. And hopefully that will free up a lot more resources for the next stop on this journey which is which is Mars. That's a

[00:58:01] different time frame. Again, like I I think you know you're probably in that 15-year time frame. Um >> guess first mission first mission to Mars is private. First mission to Mars is NASA. I mean when you say mission to Mars, I mean landed uh astronaut mission. >> I I would bet on on on NASA would be would probably be first. Uh and that that's just because I I I do think your first mission if you you want to bring back people to talk about it like NASA is not doing one-way missions and uh and as a result uh you know I think your dependency on chemical propulsion um you know has to be limited in that um because you're going to you know otherwise you know you're going to need a lot of Optimus robots on Mars and they're going to be walking around dusting off all the solar panels without nuclear for making propellant and then it's hard enough to do >> uh to do. You know, it's hard enough to fuel a launch pad here in 1G and under one atmosphere, let alone making the propellant on another planet, reloading a rocket and bring it back. So, >> I love that view because if you

[00:59:00] scratched and clawed with chemical propellant your way to Mars, you'd be exactly repeating the the 1960s moon mission where, yeah, we barely got there, but not in any kind of thing we can build on, not in a sustainable, reusable kind of way. But if you do it with nuclear propulsion, then you actually have a, you know, a pathway to doing it repeatedly. and not just going as a one-off. It's it's such a cool vision. >> It just initially, right? I mean, so there's no doubt do like to me Starship and everything it hopes to achieve is is just when uh you know, it's there's no if on that one. So, step one, get it going, put up a lot of depot in lower Earth orbit, make the moon uh you know, efficient transport of mass to the lunar surface, build the infrastructure, master a lot of institute resource skills you're going to need because those are all necessary if you want to pull off Mars in a return trip without nuclear. But even then, minimum, you're still going to want nuclear surface power if you can. And we're testing that on the moon as well. Um, or else again, you'll need a lot of optimism robots cleaning off football fields of of of solar panels. But, but step one to start that foundation, imagine like the the

[01:00:02] space shuttle orbiter equivalent, obviously assembled on orbit assembly of these NEP chemically augmented NEP spaceships. And yes, it might be 3 years round trip, you know, uh, with 30-day surface time, but it's a start and you get into a rotation until eventually the, you know, the V6 starships are rolling and you've got armies of Optimus robots and nuclear power on the surface of Mars. And then then you could be, you could just, you're just extending what you've already proven you can do to the moon to Mars. >> Dave, you want to continue? >> Yeah. Well, okay. So, you've seen For All Mankind, right? I'm sure >> I I got to admit I I I was there a lot during the first couple seasons and I've been really uh you know busy of late and [laughter] stuff. >> Imagine that. Well, you know, the the way it plays out in the TV world is, you know, the the US and Russia at the time are cooperating in space because everybody's just trying to, you know, build and create and survive and then something back on Earth, you know, creates tension and then they radio up and say, "Stop cooperating with the Russians." So, here we are in a moon

[01:01:01] race with China. The competition is good. As you said, it's it's going to get everybody there faster. Uh, do you have a counterpart in China that you talk to or does it all get tied up? And, you know, we we talked a lot about on the podcast about Kimmy K3 coming out in a couple weeks. That's going to create all kinds of drama. >> Does that drama then come back to you? >> Six days, Dave. Six days. >> Six days now. Oh, jeez. >> Yeah, that's a turning point. >> Give us the inside baseball. How does it actually work with can you talk to China or do you have to go to the White House and call from the bat phone or how does it work? >> I I mean you know the the foreign foreign policy is uh is established by the president and the secretary of state now. A lot of that policy has already been established with the International Space Station and our cooperation with the Russians for a while. So I have I would say you know regular sounds like a lot. It's probably more quarterly, maybe a little bit more frequent than that, communication with my counterpart in Russia, uh, Director General Bakanov. I was just with him during um, uh, the Soyuse launch because, uh, there's

[01:02:01] already established norms of operation and have for more than a quarter of a century. And that certainly again has proven to transcend a lot of the, you know, uh, you know, the political climate that happens here uh, on Earth. Now with the Chinese um you know the wolf amendment pretty much restricts NASA from establishing any sort of norms uh you know so there is some scientific data sharing outside of NASA with universities and such but that's you know um so I would say we are very much squarely in the competitor lane >> uh we obviously watch what they do and have an appreciation for their approach they very much watch what we do I would just say in terms of your for all my mankind I don't think it's a secret that you the the ultimate high ground of space at this point. I mean that is a that is a warfighting domain. >> Yeah. So uh you know in the you know in the horrifically unlikely event the day we never want to come see come where uh you know that things have devolved I don't think it's going to be a shooting

[01:03:00] war on the surface of the moon between troops of you know I think that there's a lot of things that would go down in space that have far more strategic implications back here on Earth uh to affect whatever warfighting means they're trying to achieve um before it would ever require you know boots on the moon duking it out on the surface. I I hope that I I I hope there is no scenario where that ever seems like uh a good idea. >> What about the Just a quick followup on that. What about the um just the more narrow case? You know, when the SpaceX IPO came out, it it was very very clear that it's first come first serve in low Earth orbit. And it's been a long time since on Earth we've had land grabs where, you know, hey, our Navy is finding new islands. We're just going to claim them. Well, that's a long past idea. But now in space, low Earth orbit is is first come first serve. The moon is first come, first serve. Uh so that that seems like is there any cooperation or does when the White House is deciding what the rules are, do they call NASA and you all get together and and say, "Look, this is this is the rules as we

[01:04:01] see them or [clears throat] how does that how does that part work?" >> Well, we're not I don't think anyone is uh talking about um new rules. So we have the outer space treaty and um in some respects sure that is first come first serve in that if I'm putting a you know if we need to put a lander in a certain spot and we value that spot for whatever reason um you know the first person to get it there is it but I mean look it's a big moon even when you think about the south pole it's still rather you know it's still rather large and um you know we're still even in NASA's moonbased plan vision of dozens of landers over the next few years during during phase one there's still a lot moon to go around and and look I think even uh you know even when we think about low earth orbit and the orbital regimes that are available for data centers comms uh there's a lot of opportunity there I think just you know making sure we have we are sharing information um in terms of the orbital trajectories is obviously vital and I know you know many in industry have spoken out and and pointed you know

[01:05:01] pointed out that if we fail uh to disclose uh information about where these orbital constellations are going to um you know where they're going to propagate then that creates collision risk and problems that impact everybody and and that's that's something again that I think everybody e even in times of conflict when we have airliners flying around the world we we we're communicating with each other there's transponders uh and we are um we are avoiding potential hazards in that respect at all costs that needs to uh that needs to happen better in space >> you know when you look at how you try and manage a government department you're every time you're uh a new cycle comes through, you're trying to negotiate and juggle budgeting, right? How do you make long-term commitments when the budgeting cycle goes up and down like a yo-yo with the political cycles? Is there a way of solving for that? Because I know previous projects have been really hampered by that lack of budgeting capability. >> Yeah. How do you preserve the budget

[01:06:00] over the next five years to get the base built >> and can we help you increase it? >> Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] Hi. Can we donate? >> You know, it it's an interesting thing. I I mean, people have talked about when I came in that um you know, the uh the continuity between administrations and the availability and the budget cycle is what forced us into certain situations like creating programs that are too big to fail. But in my opinion, they're they become too costly to succeed. Like I'm you know NASA gets got it gets 25 billion a year, right? Like it's a lot of money. Like when people start saying we don't have enough money to do the job, it's like really I mean I know some of the most you know extraordinary companies in the world were founded for far less and have built some pretty impressive capabilities. Um if that's not the right number, you know what is what I think is important is preserving flexibility between administration. So you talk about phase one of the moon base. If I had come out and said all right here's the vision. It's going to be glass and uh it, you know, it's going to have this amazing closed loop

[01:07:00] ecosystem in it and a ferris wheel. We're going to have big crop farms on the on the surface and it's only going to cost hundred billion dollars, but we'll be able to pay it off as a service to these three companies over time. Going to get cancelled. It's it's like it's going to be under assault constantly. But what did we do with phase one? We said, "Look, we're going to do we're going to do lowcost landers every month and we're going to start learning." And uh and and now when a you know, if a new administration comes in and says, "You know what? Uh once a month is uh it's too much, uh we can dial it back to eight and we still feel like we can we can get where we want to go." That's fine. Or you have somebody, you know, very for we're going to go 15. We want to pick up the pace in this. Great. That is that is much better. Same with our nuclear program going from SR1 to SR2. You know, we're not jumping right to the to Battlestar Galactica here. We want we we want to start with the the Nautilus and uh and maybe we'll do a nuclear mission to I don't know, Enceladus or uh Uranus. That's a that's another good one. Any of the outer solar system missions would be nice and start

[01:08:01] testing out high temperature materials and better power conversion. A lot better than saying we're going to just build the Battlestar Galactica or something and then that gets cancelled. So I think we this is just smart capital allocation guys you know is is really what it is it's focus $25 billion is a lot of money every year lot lot of money the entire Manhattan project you know over four years adjusted for inflation was $33 billion we can do a lot every year with a reload of 25 billion just focus it on the needlemoving objectives and design the programs the architecture in such a way not too big to fail that keeps you know on the chopping block do it in a logical evolutionary way to get to to where you want to go >> amen Alex over to pro about life in the universe of science. Yeah. >> I'm I'm curious, Jared, you've made public comments in the past commenting that you estimate a 90% probability of life or former life on the Mars subsurface. I I'd be very curious to hear what is your mental model of non-earbased life in the solar system,

[01:09:01] in the universe. Is it does it look more like panspermia? Does it look more like life is ubiquitous, life is rare? what what is your mental model at this point? >> So, uh first of all, I think the only I I was discounting when I said 90%. I think if you talk to some of the brightest minds here at NASA, they would give you almost 100% certainty that at one point there was microbial life on Mars. Uh and uh I think really we're in this, you know, seeing as believing. I can't no one's willing to make the declarative statement based on you know I would say um I want to say failed efforts but you know uh yeah there were kind of swinging and misses in the past that uh people have said for sure it was there and then they get they walk it back. I just don't think the scientific community is going to reach that consensus unless you bring those samples back to to Earth and you get enough people looking under a microscope or you know that that's just anam you know not quite literally in that to say okay uh it was there now if uh if it turns out

[01:10:01] to be the case and I think we're very much talking again very dead microbial life I mean for all purposes Mars is uh is that vacuum I think it would be extremely unlikely uh like you know virtually non-existent chance that that there's anything still active there but that if you can prove that there was at one point microbial life there and then Europa Clipper starts sending back some interesting data and Titan uh you know you send Dragonfly to Titan you get a mission off to Enceladus and this is all in our backyard. This is our star system, right? Uh let alone, you know, the the billions of other stars out there, the trillions of other galaxies and all of the exoplanets that would be in Goldilock zones. It changes the, you know, the the dynamic a little bit from surely it must be out there somewhere to what if it's everywhere. Now I I look the there is certainly a you know an evolutionary nature to this and the and you know a a technological um you know filter you have to break

[01:11:01] through to some extent to to actually have the to cross into the intelligent life to you know come and visit us uh you know to um you know which I I think just look there's a lot again with the tyranny of distance in in uh in space that makes that uh you know a substantial obstacle. Uh but I I I I certainly believe that as we undertake more missions like Dragonfly and Europa Clipper and get even more vans where nuclear power and propulsion maybe can take our probes there and back with greater ease that we might reach conclusions that um at least you know you know that uh you know probably to answer the question that we are we've been uh entrusted to to solve is it whether or not we're alone. You know, you're arguably uh the NASA administrator during the most extraordinary time of scientific missions as well. I mean, Dragonfly looking for the chemistry of life on Titans. Pretty extraordinary. Can you imagine a time where you're like 10xing

[01:12:00] or 100xing the science missions out there with AI and and robotics? I mean, the price of manufacturing is plummeting by increasing yourself to increase the risk and just really aggressively sending out probes. here here I I'm 100% um Peter I I think what we've um you know what we're faced with to some extent right is uh and maybe this is a budgetary cycle you know point is um I do think that once big flagship programs have been green lit uh you know there is a risk element to it too which is it can't fail so therefore you know I have to build in more and more redundancy and if it's going to cost this much then it better do even more than what I originally intended and a $1 billion by definition flagship program becomes three billion and as a result it takes a really long time to come to fruition but I think there's another element to it too that the fear that of what comes next and uh and that's like but that's also a human nature thing and uh you know a lot of us uh you know you see across their people's professional

[01:13:00] careers they kind of entrench themselves and build you know moes and you know walls around whatever they do for almost you know job security to some extent and um and never want to engineer themselves out of a job and then there's There's some extraordinary companies out there where people can't wait to engineer themselves out of a job because they believe whatever they work on next is 10 times cooler. Like we need to do the same thing here. Uh, so that that that's kind of the the human side of it aside from where technology will benefit us is that if I'm working on Dragonfly, I'm going to bang this thing out so fast because whatever I work on thereafter is going to be 10x that and then get all of our teams our our our science mission director at budget 7 billion a year. Do do you believe with what you know to be coming into existence between AI and additive manufacturing that with seven billion a year we couldn't be cranking out seven dragon flies a year? >> Hundreds. Hundreds. Hundreds. >> Yeah. Right. Uh so I'm I'm I'm totally with you. We we have to move in that directions and uh and and that's a

[01:14:01] cultural change too. Not to mention, you know, obviously the the technologically enabling, but that's a it's just a matter of time. >> Can I ask you a follow to that? Your your access to that AI, you know, being a government agency like when Mythos came out and now you know Fable 5, uh did you get preferential access and can you use your government position to get the latest greatest stuff because that's going to become an issue very soon? It's already, you know, it was an issue just a few weeks ago for the first time in history, but that's the the bell weather for the future. But, uh, do you get do you get special access to Frontier AI going forward? >> Yeah. So, I mean, I'm I really have no interest in waiting into any of the policy discussions in terms of what uh what has to be made available to government in advance and whether it's optional or not. Like I I think that director Katzios and OSTP and all those that contribute to ensuring government agencies are armed uh you know with the best technology for for really the good of the nation and humankind. They're

[01:15:01] doing that well. Like leave that over there. I'll just say where where we have some access um you know when you think about things like nuclear power and propulsion uh you know again giving birth to NASA's nuclear navy equivalency um you know you you you have a lot of data that would have come from a world that needs to be constantly uh doing analysis uh in that arena um for for a variety of programs and that could be an accelerant for some of NASA's ambitions that uh you know wouldn't as applicable I'd say in the commercial or uh in the private sector if that makes sense. >> Alex uh as we enter our final segment let me give you the leadership here. Please take the lead. >> Beautiful. Um I I have to ask administrator. This is I think the the question on the minds of many people I've spoken with who would just love to hear your perspective. A bit of context. The Department of War recently dropped their fourth release under the presidential unsealing and reporting

[01:16:00] system for UAP encounters. The White House and the Department of War and other cabinet level agencies have seen sort of, I would argue, a sea shift in terms of how they talk about UAPs and the possibility of non-human intelligence. Uh, as we speak, I I think based on the the headlines I was seeing right before we started this recording, Representative Berles is introducing right now an amendment to the NDAA to uh to to encode in statute a variety of UAP oriented reporting requirements. So, I have to ask you the biggest question I I think and you you maybe gestured at this earlier by speaking of NASA's ultimate mission as answering the big questions of are we alone? What is your position on the allegations regarding the possibility that there's been an 80-year long legacy program? What is your position on the so-called Fermy paradox? What is your position? NASA had a study group a couple years ago that was

[01:17:00] publicly announced and held a press conference on UAP studies. If if I could bundle this all up into one big question, what is your position on all of these allegations that there has been such a legacy program? So what I would say is since the uh uh first of all there's already uh l you know statutory language uh that goes back to I want to say 2022 um that created uh the arrow group within the department of war uh where it's mandatory uh you know public disclosure of any information related to UAPs. So, I don't know if we if this is a matter of law anymore. Uh because that got supercharged under President Trump and his what we interpret as a direct order, the executive order, he put out a truth that said release everything. And within a week of that, you know, I was uh you know, in the situation room with the heads of uh you know, almost every government agency and uh and we all went in there like uh is there is there what

[01:18:00] do [laughter] you know? And uh and and what I'll tell you is there is a top-down push from the president uh you know and the homeland security adviser saying if you have any data on this I don't care what classification level it is it it has to be disclosed and this is under the pursue effort and if you go through those four tranches I mean I'm telling you that there there we have released video footage photographic evidence eyewitness account some of them are you know from uh from FBI agents that took the fit footage on some of these. I mean, you're talking highly credible individuals on uh on sightings that we we can't explain. Now, I do want to be very clear here, you know, uh can't explain right now does not mean it's unexplainable. We are gathering data in I mean it's I the best example is think about your doorbell cams. We have cameras on everything. I mean, you got you got drones that are up continuously right now in combat zones,

[01:19:00] right? And and there is absolutely I mean I can't tell you it's conclusive. You you got a a drone with a with an IR camera that catches something flying in the bottom corner. It's almost off frame. Right. And is it a is it a missile because it's in a combat zone? Is it another drone? Uh or or is it something else? Right. And we put and the president said put it out. It turned to basically citizen scientists. Put it out there. We we we we we want to combat the notion that this is not a subject that people want to be transparent about and that there's stigma associated put it out there. Uh and and again like some of it pretty wild stuff when you look at it. Some of it I look at and say you know what if I had a a couple scientists and I had a few other video I'm pretty sure it's a balloon or I'm pretty sure it's a bird uh or I'm pretty sure it's a it's an Iranian uh you know oneway attack drone but based on the angle I can't say that for sure. But then there's other stuff that honestly we we don't we we we we can't explain what it is and the president is pushing it out. I will tell you I I have uh immense

[01:20:01] access and have been at a seat at the table since the get-go on this. Uh I have no information, no knowledge. I take a lie detector test on any crash spaceships or bodies or biological organisms on this, but for sure we're gathering a lot of data and there is some unexplained uh anomalous um phenomenon and we are putting it out there as part of these disclosure efforts. What is your just a quick followup then there have been a number of House and Senate hearings where a number of whistleblowers have testified under oath that there has been an 80 plus year long US government and contractor effort to to collect and reverse engineer UAPs. I again I I in speaking with folks before this interview, this was the single biggest question they wanted me to ask you. What is your position on these allegations that other government agencies perhaps portions of NASA even have been involved in such an effort even though I I take

[01:21:00] you at your word haven't seen anything firsthand but nonetheless there are a number of whistleblowers and enough whistleblowers that Congress is uh has already taken steps as you mentioned via I think was the the 2022 NDAA which incorporated the RO statutes. What is your position speaking either as an individual or as administrator of NASA on all of these allegations? >> My my position on this is that uh I I look I don't want to comment uh as to the the credibility of individuals. Look, I get um ever since I was first nominated to this position. I I get like dozens of emails every day um you know from uh you know some very bright and smart people uh giving uh their views and thoughts on things NASA should be doing or NASA things that NASA has done. And some of it uh I look at and say this is really insightful and some of it I say is uh that that falls outside the bounds of um uh of what I think is uh you know perhaps credible on that. Just because somebody worked for the

[01:22:00] government or had a clearance does not uh necessarily mean that their uh interpretation of what they saw is accurate. So meaning I saw the same videos uh that uh you know and they've been disclosed by the way uh that people were referencing saying it was 100% an alien spaceship. And we put these videos out and you can look at them uh and and determine whether or not you you think that to be the case. And I think some of it is certainly unexplained. uh based on what we know and I think some of it if you probably put enough people behind it you'd say that was a uh that was a weather balloon um you know that was uh you know that was a an Iranian oneway attack drone or something uh something of that nature >> would be it would be great if we had alien spacecraft I mean that would definitely move the timeline forward uh by a couple of decades if nothing else >> I assume Jared you'd be quite excited if all of these allegations amounted to something non-trivial >> yeah I look I I I It's what our job is here, right? I mean, you know, you you you you know,

[01:23:01] whether you're you're a space enthusiast or the head of NASA, don't you want to know if there is intelligent life out there? Isn't that again, I think part of the greatest adventure uh in in human history? If there was some uh crashed uh you know uh ET level uh kind of technology that allowed you to you know um exceed the cosmic speed limit, then we'd be doing everything we could to reverse engineer it and get it going because uh I want to know what's in other star systems out there. So, if it were true, we're terrible at reverse engineering because I don't think anyone would argue that uh what the B2 or the B-21 or the SR71 was capable of doing uh is well within uh you know the realms of physics and our technological means at those time at that time period. Not something that would have been derived from aliens and certainly not something that would have helped aliens get from another star system uh you know to the uh to Earth in that time period. But look, again, we're putting things out. It's very forward-leaning. Um, but I have not seen anything. There's no

[01:24:00] secret programs that I'm aware of related to biologics or or or crashed. >> When I've interviewed Elon on the subject, he said, "I would know, [laughter] >> but wouldn't shouldn't we have better photographs? We have great we got great cameras. Why are they all so crappy?" Selene, you want to uh close us out with a question? Oh, please. I would also just put and just say like, you know, look, if I if I came all this distance from another world, I'd be very curious about I mean, some of the best people watching ever uh is in Time Square. Uh it's it's on the Las Vegas strip. Like, why are they showing up uh where we uh where we test our weapons? Why, you know, like, >> you know, they seem to be they seem to be and I'm not trying to be dismissive. Like I said, this is what this is a subject that if you are a true space enthusiast, if you're excited about, you should want to know. You should be excited about. So, I'm not being dismissive of any of the claims. I'm just saying they they tend to seem to show up where we keep our naval ships and where we test our uh advanced uh weapon systems. >> Uh you want to ask Emod's closing question here, Sim?

[01:25:00] >> Uh which one? I can't remember. >> Uh so, Immod asked, "When we went to the moon, uh you know, the saying was to the moon because it's hard." So, what's the new organizing goal that, you know, keeps everybody reinvigorated? Um, you know, you said before Apollo had a singlearian mission, uh, and now we're sort of spread out. Is there sort of one thread that pulls them all? >> Yeah. I I mean, and I think just in the same way that, uh, going to the moon was hard, all of the pioneering technology to get there had a direct benefit back here on Earth, the same is I think equally applicable. Uh to me this is all setting up for uh the day that astronauts plant the stars and stripes on Mars. We are going to the moon and we are building a moon base uh first and foremost to master the skills to go to Mars. It's just as you said before, Peter, we've been given this gift of a moon, you know, 3 to 4 days away from us, uh, to test out all of the capabilities from the space suits to the ELAS habitation, the physiological counter measures for being in the harsh

[01:26:01] reality of space for insitue resource manufacturing, for propellant, life support systems to get to Mars. >> Amazing. I hope everybody watching agrees with me that you know Jared is one of our most extraordinary administrators. Buddy, I have known many. I have never been more excited in my life for what NASA is going to be doing. Thank you for your commitment. Thank you for stepping into this role and really bringing all your entrepreneurial energy, your vision, your engineering, your science, your passion to this. Grateful so much. Well, can I just reciprocate and say thank you for your endless extreme optimism in every one of the subjects that you take interest in and every one of the companies you create and where you choose to put your energies and resources are all for the betterment of humanity and it's infectious. So, thank you Peter. >> Thank you buddy. Thank you on behalf of the Moonshot Mates and everybody listening. Awesome. Can't wait to to watch your success next year. >> Thank you, Administrator.

[01:27:01] >> Thanks, guys. Truly a bless. Take care.