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David Brancaccio (4:53)

There is an isotope called helium 3 that could cool new quantum computers. It's rare on Earth, plentiful on the moon at a market price of $20 million a kilo, it might make economic sense to harvest the stuff from up there. This week on the Marketplace morning, multiple views on an emerging moon economy, how it might work, and whether it's even a good idea. Today, one of the companies that's working on both recycling space refuse into useful stuff and making units that could help power the lunar economy. It's called Cislunar, and its co founder and CEO Gary Kalnin joins us. Good morning.

Gary Kalnin (5:30)

Yeah, thanks for having me. This is great.

David Brancaccio (5:32)

You know, you hear about building railroads on the moon, maybe to pick up stuff that gets mined on the moon. Your Company is doing some thinking about, well, once, once you mined it, what useful things might it be turned into?

Gary Kalnin (5:46)

That's right. So when we look at the economy, thinking about, you know, how could we be on the edge of human expansion into space, There was a gap for, you know, taking those resources and turning them into something manufacturers could use. Somebody needs to be the steel mills in the, you know, in the lunar economy and in the space economy in general.

David Brancaccio (6:03)

You're also in the recycling business. Tell me about that.

Gary Kalnin (6:06)

We realized early on that, you know, there's a lot of spacecraft out there, a lot of space debris. So why don't we go after this space debris as a first feedstock to learn how to do this. And then later on, as we were studying the lunar economy with DARPA and some other companies, we learned that, hey, if we use recycled landers and other metals that we bring that are already refined, we actually really enhance the efficiency of the process of even taking virgin materials and turning them something we can use for manufacturing.

David Brancaccio (6:36)

Yeah, because in orbit there's a lot of junk floating around. Some of it looks just like a spent satellite, Some of it are little annoying bit that can be dangerous.

Gary Kalnin (6:44)

You see that as a possible resource eventually, yeah. We've done a study early on about how do we turn space debris into metal propellant fuel for an electric propulsion system. And so you combine that with our power capability and our furnace capability to manufacture the fuel, and you could turn space debris into Delta V, as they call it in the industry, which is how you get around in space.

David Brancaccio (7:10)

I mean, it's got to be a challenge for a company, right, because some of this stuff won't actually work for a while. And then when's it going to make a profit for somebody? You have to stay alive in the medium term. Now, that could be grants, but along the way, you've developed technology that might have a more immediate practical effect that people might want to buy now.

Gary Kalnin (7:31)

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, the grants are essential, the SBIR program, critical for our company to get to where we are. But one of those programs, we learned that the power system we had built for processing metal was something we could use for the entire space industry. When you actually transmit information or you do sensing, or you run electric thruster or really anything else on a satellite, you need electricity. And every time we make power, we have to process it, transform it so that it can do whatever job it's going to do. We make the box that does that, that processing from the source. You know, we get that energy coming in and we turn it into the energy coming out that you need to do whatever the job is you want to do.

David Brancaccio (8:12)

There isn't a lunar economy yet, isn't that fair to say? I mean, it's not like there's an active economy on the Moon yet.

Gary Kalnin (8:19)

Not yet, but it is right around the corner. I mean, there, there's a lot of investment going into it. There's a real urgency around government, you know, making sure that we have a position on the Moon for geopolitical reasons. And what's coming next is taking it from every mission brings all the things with it to an idea where we have a diverse lunar economy, where you get there and then you tap into the services that are available, just like you do on Earth. You know, you buy your utilities and you, you have your trash service and you buy your resources or whatever the things are that different specialist companies provide. And that'll be where it gets when we get to a real lunar economy.

David Brancaccio (8:55)

Gary Kalnin is CEO and co founder of a company based in Colorado called Cislunar. Thank you so much.

Gary Kalnin (9:01)

Thank you for having me.

David Brancaccio (9:03)

I also spoke to a Moon economist, and we'll hear later this week from an expert on ethics and technology about the wisdom of all this. Our interviews are accumulating@marketplace.org and don't miss my pitch about what my hobby, designing and launching big rockets, has taught me about the stock market. That video is on Facebook and Instagram. Marketplace APM is our nickname there in Los Angeles. I'm David Brancaccio with the Marketplace morning report from apm, American Public Media. A moment now to say thank you, Marketplace listeners. Your giving Tuesday support made a real impact in a moment when public media funding has been cut nationwide. Your support keeps Marketplace's independent reporting on the economy accessible for everyone. And if you didn't get a chance to donate, it's always a great time to become a Marketplace investor. Give now@marketplace.org or click the link in the show notes.