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I'm Josh Christensen, executive producer of Ink Podcasts and this is from the ground up. Today we have another episode from Inc. Founders House at South by Southwest. This past year, this discussion was moderated by staff reporter Chloe Aiello and features Jania Griffin, the founder of Equity Space alliance association, an organization dedicated to creating a more equitable future in commercial space exploration, and Moriba Jha, the co founder and chief scientist of Gaia Verse, an AI driven decision intelligence platform. Together they discuss the current state of the industry and the possibility of substantial generational prosperity that can result from taking bold risks. Enjoy.
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C
Hi everyone. Welcome to this next panel which I've been so excited about. It's about space, which can seem a little intangible, but from GPS navigation to telecom to weather, you touch space so often in your lives that it's closer than you think. And as we said, we have big companies innovating in this Space. We have SpaceX and the privatization of the space industry we have, which has created the potential for massive wealth generation, but also comes along with risk. And that's what we're going to talk about today with my esteemed panelists that I have here next to me. So my panelist next to me is Janaya Griffin. She's a strategy consultant, a serial entrepreneur, she's an advocate for intellectual property. She is also the commercializer and the co founder of the Equity Space Alliance. And I have Marie Baja here who is an astrodynamicist, an environmentalist, a thought leader dedicated to, you know, sustainability, social justice, and he pioneers AI space decision intelligence, advocating for stewardship of the earth and space. He's also the co founder of Guyver. So this is going to be such an exciting conversation and I want to kick it off with just a little bit of a state of the industry. Mareeba, let's start with you. What is the state of the industry given that we've seen such a transformation from something that was mostly a government run enterprise to now something where we have companies like SpaceX innovating alongside startups like Firefly and Planet Labs?
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D
Yeah, that's a great question. Thanks for having me here. Great to be with you all here. Hopefully people can hear up there. But look, we started launching satellites in 1957 and right now we're tracking over 50,000 objects ranging in size from the cell phone all the way to the space station. Of the 50,000 objects, 10,000 are working satellites. And everything else is trash. And the trash is just growing exponentially because stuff stays up there for very long periods of time.
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E
And.
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D
And of the 10,000 satellites, 7,000 belong to Elon Musk alone. So Elon controls 70% of all of humanity's working satellites. And commercial space is now dominating. It's like what happened before in the United States in terms of, like, the conquest of the West. That's what's happening in space. It's like a race to see who can occupy space the fastest, to try to get control over Internet communications and have that sort of, like, high ground.
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C
Now, Janaya, I want to ask about the importance of including historically underrepresented groups in the space industry. What is the importance from both social as well as business imperatives, and what are some actionable steps that Enterprise Space alliance, or excuse me, Equity Space alliance, takes to actually accomplish that?
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E
Yeah, thank you for that question. I think it's really important that we start to think about the type of talent that we're bringing into emerging industries. When you have diversity and talent, that is what brings different type of experiences, a different perspective that brings greater innovation. And then when you have greater innovation, you have greater competitiveness, which then leads to national security. So if these are the things that we're thinking about, you cannot continue to be innovative if it's only homogenous. Right. If you're only coming from one lens. And so it's really critical from that standpoint, when we think about diversity of thought, diversity of experiences, when we start thinking about, from a social, economic standpoint, Black and Latinos, the average median wealth is projected to be zero by 2053 and 2073. And so it's. I don't know how to say this. It is very instrumental. It's very important that we start to think about how we include these communities that are economically distressed into industries that can actually transform and change the trajectory of those projections. And so it's important for us to say, okay, hey, if I know that I was at NASA for about eight and a half years, so I understood all of the things that were happening. The new space economy was something that was new to me, and I was there for almost a decade. So I was like, what is this? Right? And so if I didn't know about it, then I'm sure that people who are not in close proximity to it or have been exposed to it, they certainly don't know about it. And so if there are ways that we can leverage emerging industries to change these trajectories, then that's something that we want to do. And so we really focus on finding people where they are going to where they are and helping them tap into their genius, but putting a space lens around it so that they can get into these emerging industries that are projected to be $1.8 trillion by 2030.
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C
I'm so glad you brought up the new space, because that's sort of what we're here to discuss today. And it's really changed the game in terms of innovation and development in space. The rise of SpaceX opening the door for faster, cheaper innovation, but also a lot of risk that comes along with that. So, Mariba, from your perspective, what are the benefits that this has created, but also potential drawbacks?
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D
Yeah, so look, I mean, we're not going to stop launching satellites. And, you know, these robots in the sky that we call satellites give us needed technologies, spaces in your pocket. Right. Every day before you leave the house, as Janaya says, you touch space like 10 times. So more and more of the technologies that give us critical services and capabilities come from satellites. The problem is every single thing that we launch into space is the equivalent of a single use plastic, meaning that each satellite, its destiny is to become trash. Once the thing stops working, it's not reusable, it's not recyclable, and so that's a problem. And the thing is, once the thing stop working, because it runs out of gasoline, because we don't have Valeros or Texacos or, you know, shell stations on orbit. Not yet. Things die on orbit and they stay orbiting for many, many, many years. And so what we do is we keep on launching more and more of these objects. And imagine a highway where 80% of all the vehicles on the highway are dead vehicles with no drivers, and they're just kind of like aimlessly going along. That's what space is looking like. And so that's the detriment. And so on the one hand, it's great to think about things like global Internet, where you can be in the middle of Tanzania and like, okay, yeah, I can livestream my next Netflix thing, right? But at the same time, when you look at the night sky now, you see more and more dots moving. Most of us live in very populated areas, and so we don't have that connection to the sky that our ancestors had, that lived in very dark places. But people that live in rural regions, especially indigenous people that have a very close culture with the sky, are seeing the sky lost to all these dots. Moving around. And astronomers, their science is now detrimentally impacted by this as well. So it is a trade off. And I think we need to continue to launch satellites, but we need to do it in a way that is sustainable and is equitable and then takes into account not just technological constraints, but also cultural ones as well.
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C
Janay, I'm curious about the new space economy. What has the rise of companies like SpaceX done for the potential for entrepreneurs in the space? Or on the flip side, has it created an insurmountable barrier to entry?
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E
So I'll say, before SpaceX, there were all these other companies. So let's just put that out there, right? Like Mariba said, like 1957, I think, with the race for Sputnik, right, That's when NASA actually decided that they wanted to, that they should reach out to commercial companies to help them, like, hey, we need to be able to get again, win the race to get there faster. They came up with these things called Space act agreements where you could actually bridge the gap and have an agreement with NASA. And so I think, obviously, right, SpaceX is getting a lot of contracts. A lot of these private companies are getting contracts as well. But because there is, I'd say, fairness involved, right, they have to be competed. There's opportunities for companies like mine to come in and then also do some of that work. Now, what I will say is that without the government, right, a lot of the innovations that we have today, we would not have, right? So I tend to look at them as the like, hey, here's the big brother or the parent that says, hey, here's a lot of money. We want you to go and try to mess up, and then when you get it right, then we'll let you kind of just leave the nest and then you can take it and go from there. So I think what we started to see is more companies, more startups coming into this space that are being able to take the reins now because they've gotten to a specific position, right, to where they're ready to almost leave the nest. I think there's challenges though, because like Mareeba says, like, you have a monopoly of certain areas, it may not be as equitable, right, which is why we're called Equity Space alliance, right? We need to really start to think about and educate our communities on what are the possibilities, what does this look like? Because it's not just rocket launches and satellites, it's media, it's art, it's. I mean, we're on this stage right now talking about space, right? This is the communications, this is how this knowledge and everything gets out. It's digital artists, it's finance. It's all these different things. NASA is a, I want to say a business, but they operate with that organizational structure. And everything that we have here, we're going to need, you know, if we go to space or when we make it to space or whatever that looks like, we're going to need plumbers, we're going to need, you know, what does that look like? What is your genius? What are you able to do? And again, putting that space lens around it allows you to start to participate, but then bring your level of genius to that. So what we've really been doing is partnering with companies. Let's just say you're in cybersecurity, you don't have that subject matter expertise to come into the space industry. We can provide that opportunity for you and then go after different resources. If there are subcontracting opportunities with some of the large, larger corporations, we're trying to get into those doors so that we can open them up wider to bring people with us.
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D
One of the things that I want to follow up from what Janaya said, which everything that, you know, you said is true, but I also want to give some people some context, right? In the sense that a lot of people that I run out, run into in my daily kind of doings, they say, oh, well, you know, commercial, is it? NASA can't do as well as this, that or the other. And it's like, where do you think the people that work at SpaceX and all these companies learn the stuff from? You know what I'm saying? It's like NASA, NASA, NASA basically retired the risk. And that's the way it's supposed to work. Government is supposed to do things that are very risky, that don't make sense for industrial sort of investment. Retire the risk to allow commercial entities to then kind of take over and do the right thing.
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C
Good.
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D
This is where we're at, you know, so NASA's not the enemy. NASA's the friend that's always been around to try to make things as useful and as safe as possible. The counter thing to this is that now you have Elon, that's part of the Trump regime. The thing is, is that with Doji and whatever it is that you call it, right, firing people Left and right, NASA's being decimated, NOAA's being decimated, the FAA is being decimated. If you have the word gain your name, you're gonna be fired. You know, that sort of weird behavior is not something that's gonna lead us to succeed as a country, and it's not gonna provide further opportunities for other companies. So there's a monopoly on the contracts now that companies can get, and we need to let our voices be heard when it comes to this sort of thing.
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C
That's the perfect segue into my next question, which is about, you know, the focus on government efficiency, the change in administration, the uncertainty that this has introduced into a variety of industries. Space being no exception, of course. Janaya, I'm curious what your outlook is for the space industry, given this rollback, this focus on efficiency, this rollback in staffing and funding and also in DEI initiatives. What is that going to do to space?
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E
You have to throw that DEI in there, huh? So I think, you know, again, it is very unfortunate that we are looking at being more efficient and getting rid of everybody in the government. And so I think, typically what happens when you don't have support, they go out and they hire contractors. Well, in that case, it's like, hey, I have a space company that can provide you the contractors that you need. But it.
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C
It.
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E
Doesn'T put us in the best position because, you know, you still need, like Mariba was saying, those government agencies to lead us in that direction. When it comes to DE and I, you know, we are very firm on what we believe and what our truths are. We're not changing our name. Equity is centered. It is there on purpose, I think, when we start really talking about and educating our folks about what needs to happen. Again, we've talked about this before, and, you know, you have the power and the authority to make these decisions. So when the. What was it, 1960? They stopped everything because, you know, things were blowing up. It was because of the public sector and a lot of the money. Most of the money that comes to the government is taxpayer dollars, and that is your dollars, which means that you have the power and the authority to make things move and make things go the way that you want them to, going to your senators and representatives and the congressmen and all of these different things. But I think we tend to believe that we don't have that power and that authority to say, we, okay, well, we just have to go this way. But you don't. Right. And I think as a collective, when we start coming together and realizing how much power that we actually have, then that change will. That we want to see will. Will come to fruition. DNI is, you know, obviously, it was a policy that was put in place and an initiative Right. To put in place for equitable interactions. For justice. For social justice. Right. For social justice reform. I don't think that it's a challenge. I think the people who feel that they're afraid of what may happen have really started to weaponize what this was actually meant for in the first place. And so with that, we're starting to see a lot of people saying, like, hey, I'm not exactly too sure what this means for me or what this looks like. So until I get further instructions. Right. Then everything is just falling under dni. So we work very closely with historically black college universities. That's not considered dei. It's a historical charter. Right. They were there even with tribal colleges and different things like that. And so I think we aren't really afraid about what's going to happen. We just want them to figure out what they're going to do so we can figure out how to maneuver and get to where we're going, because we're still going to get there whether they try to stop us or not.
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D
Awesome. Yeah. So I want to follow up from what Janaya said and say the following, right? I worked as a Department of defense civilian for 10 years. I wore the uniform for four years as well. I served in the Air Force guarding nukes in Montana. And I can tell you, with all my years of service, are there government inefficiencies? Absolutely. Tons of fraud, tons of waste, tons of abuse. Something needs to be done by that, you know, for that and that sort of thing. But the thing is, is that most of the people that I worked with, they weren't the problem. You know, it's not government employees that were the issues. It's funding stupid stuff like, you know, a gazillion tanks and things like. Nobody's talking about the Department of Defense and all these cuts, by the way, because that's nice and healthy and alive. And we need to send stuff. All across the globe, people are talking about chopping, NOAA chopping, NASA chopping, climate science chopping, you know, vaccines and things of that sort, things that actually keep us safe. The medical research, that sort of thing. That wasn't where we were misplacing funds. That's actually the stuff that was making a lot of sense. So I think, yes, government efficiency, something needs to be done for that. But cutting these sorts of things doesn't make sense. And as far as, like, DEI is concerned, I guess here's the thing that I have to say, right? When privilege meets equity, it feels like oppression. That's it. When privilege meets Equity. It feels like oppression. And that's the sort of thing you're seeing. You're seeing what stupid AI algorithms are doing, meaning they've just sent AI to say, kill everything that has the word trans gay, blah, blah, blah in it. And it's like, really? So let me give you this really quick example. The historically, like the atomic bomb was dropped by Enola Gay, right? That was the plane. They like removed that from the, they removed that from the database because the name of the plane is Enola Gay because it had gay in it. That's how stupid this stuff is. You know, it's like, it's ridiculous. So that's a problem.
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We're going to take a quick break, but when we return, Chloe will discuss one of the hot button topics in the space industry. Going to Mars.
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C
When we're talking about big ideas in space and funding large projects, it's easy to jump to Mars, which is something that we've heard a lot of billionaires talking about, Elon Musk in particular, but a lot of other entrepreneurs in space as well. I'm curious, what, if any, benefit could there be to mankind for going to Mars and inhabiting it? What are the drawbacks? Is this something that leaders should be focused on in space at the moment when there are of course, problems to be solved here on Earth?
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D
Yeah, thanks for that. So Mars is one of my favorite planets because when I worked for NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, I worked on a bunch of Mars missions, including the rover and the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. So I love Mars, but I love Mars for robots. Mars is a great place for robots. You know what I'm saying? I love that Spirit and Opportunity are happy on Mars. The satellites are happy orbiting the planet and collecting data. For us humans, not so much. You know, this is the place where we evolved. We didn't evolve wearing these suits, living in bubbles and all sorts of stuff that's like, you know, for maybe Schwarzenegger and like movies and stuff like that. Hollywood or like Matt Damon, who's going to science the shit out of doing something, but for the Rest of us, that's not something that makes a whole lot of sense. Well, if you want to send Elon there, maybe he should go to Mars first. Yeah, okay. Okay. Where's. Yeah, yeah, send Elon first. So the thing is, I think, you know, in terms of getting humanity's consciousness off of the Earth, we do need to explore. We need to take advantage of robotic systems and stuff like that. It's great that humans are. Look, we go, we put on a scuba gear, we go to the bottom of the ocean, that sort of stuff. There's lots of great things for us to learn about our oceans, but we don't have habitats under the oceans. We come back. So for me, going to the moon or going to Mars is a place that you visit. You don't just stay there forever kind of thing.
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E
I'll just add that I completely agree with you. I think that again, coming from NASA, doing tech transfer, that's how we get a lot of the innovations and the solutions that we need to advance. And as a society right now, eventually, who knows what will happen, right? Because every thousand, hundred thousand years or whatever, there's this catastrophic event that would put the Earth back to where dinosaurs were. And then, yes, we need to prepare. Who knows when that will happen, right? And so I do agree with understanding what our plan will be. I don't know if we will see it in this lifetime. I don't know if the way that they're spending money is efficient in order to get to the goal that we're trying to get. I understand the goal, understand why we, you know, what, what we're trying to do, the why behind it. But going back to efficiency, are we spending the way we need to spend in order to do that? Is there a faster, a cheaper, a better way in order to get it done? Or is it like, hey, we have all this money, let's just go ahead and throw it over here and give it to this one that can go. And who says that they can do it because they're in the room at the time, sitting at the table with the person that's making the decision that may not be the best use of our funds. And so when we start thinking about efficiency, maybe we should start there.
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C
From the innovations perspective. Of course, space is this incredible frontier. We have the brightest minds looking at it. What would you advise entrepreneurs and innovators to focus on for the next generation of space? We've talked a lot about sustainability. What are your thoughts there, Janaya?
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E
Like I said before, I think space is more than Just rocket launches and satellites. There are so many different new industries that are going to be popping up within what we're calling the new space economy, with space tourism, with obviously the traveling and different things like that. But there's also space medicine and space health in terms of doing research and different things like that. And particularly in using microgravity to really fast track a lot of these things that these solutions that we're trying to get to. So really finding very innovative ways to leverage things that we wouldn't typically have access to to get us to where we want to go a lot faster. So I think it's. Again, I like to say that space is for every geni. So finding, taking what your genius is and putting that space lens around it. Because, like, I mean, I'm not a plumber. Like, I don't know what that looks like, right. I was actually talking to a woman that had a feminine healthcare company, and I said, well, what's menstruation gonna look like in space? Because we can't just send 100 tampons in a bag because you know that this should be enough. That's not gonna work. Or put them on birth control to regulate their period and stop it from happening. Obviously, I'm a woman. These are things that I care about. So this is my level of genius. I'm going to think about what that looks like and then find very innovative ways to solve these challenges. Your genius may be different. And so really just being intentional about what that looks like and taking a step back to say, okay, how can I use my genius to get us further and make sure that there are solutions that are available for everyone and that's equitable.
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D
I love that. And from my perspective, the company that I just co founded with my wife, Danielle Guyavers, we're trying to use AI to aggregate data and information in such a way to help people that want to steward the planet make better decisions. And a lot of that means making use of satellite information. For instance, how do we use satellites to combat human trafficking? How do we use satellites to figure out where all the children of the world are going missing? Because kids are missing all the time. Where do they end up? What are their outcomes? How can we monitor and keep the checks and balances over other people in the planet? How can we help with agriculture and these sorts of things? So satellites can provide very useful data about ourselves, help us learn more about ourselves, and help keep ourselves in check for any sort of behaviors that are not sustainable.
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C
We have just one minute left, and I could Talk about this forever, but I want to hear briefly from each of you. What does the future of space look like?
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D
Yeah, so here I'll go. Right. So for me, for me, the future of space looks like a circular economy where we prioritize the prevention of pollution by designing, launching and operating reusable and recyclable satellites. Where we don't just launch things so that they can die, but we can basically repurpose them. We have things on orbit that are like recycling stations that can make use of all that junk so we can start cleaning things, much like we need to clean the ocean. And that we genuinely, as a humanity, come together to utilize space to our benefit. To realize that our original roles as humans is one of stewardship over ownership of things. One that asks us for responsibilities versus rights to these sorts of things. And using space so that we can say we're not separate from the environment, we're part of the environment. And we need to attune and achieve harmony and balance.
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E
Okay, my turn. The future of space looks like us, right? It looks like every one of us, actually, we're in space right now. Guess what? Because the Earth is a planet in space. And so I think that when we start thinking about inhabiting another planet or going to the moon or different things like that, it needs to include all voices, it needs to include all experiences and taking into account the considerations of those people who may be harmed. And that doesn't mean that it needs to stop. We just need to take consideration and be intentional about, okay, how is this going to impact these areas and these spaces and people and making sure that we have everybody's voices at the table, when we're setting policy, when we're making policies, when we're creating new ways and innovative ways to spread out money or distribute funding, when we are creating solutions, right? What does that look like? If we are not talking to folks who, you know, are indigenous, right. And they are, you know, not experiencing life the same way that we may, but again, taking that into consideration. So I think that the future of space will look a lot different from what it looks like today because we'll start to, as we're putting more solutions out and innovating more, we're going to start to learn a lot of new things that haven't ever been learned before. And so how will we start to employ those and engage them? Space exploration has been going on for ages. And a lot of the technologies, a lot of solutions we're using every single day. And people just don't know about it from your cell phone to GPS to memory foam mattresses to baby formula, peanut butter, omega 3 fatty acids, like, all of these different things that we use every day. So it looks like having more. Right, having more resourceful things and being able to go farther because we're continuing to innovate. But we need to be innovative with diverse talent. We need to be innovative with people whose voices aren't originally at the table, and we need to be very conscious about that.
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C
Please give a round of applause for my wonderful panelists. We have Jenea Griffin, co founder of Equity Space Alliance. And we have Marimba Jha, co founder of Guyverse. Thank you so much. If you have questions, please take them to the back with our panelists.
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D
Thanks, everybody. Appreciate you.
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B
That's all for this episode of from the Ground Up. Our producers are Blake Odom and Avery Miles, with help from Sam Gabauer and Hawa Ottori. Editing by Matt Toder. Mix and sound design by Nicholas Torres. If you haven't already, subscribe to all Ink podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.