The New Space Race with Jeff Thornburg

Summary

StarTalk Radio: "The New Space Race with Jeff Thornburg"

Host: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Guest: Jeff Thornburg, CEO of Portal Space Systems
Air Date: September 30, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this insightful and comedic installment of StarTalk Radio, Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-host Chuck Nice sit down with aerospace engineer Jeff Thornburg, currently CEO of Portal Space Systems and a veteran of SpaceX, NASA, the Air Force, and Aerojet. Together, they explore the evolution and future of the space industry—delving into propulsion technology, government and private sector dynamics, the realities of rapid spacecraft maneuverability, and the risks and rewards of innovation in the new space race. Thornburg brings both technical expertise and candid perspective, framed with a blend of science, humor, and strategic urgency.

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Major Discussion Themes and Insights

1. Jeff Thornburg’s Background and Portal Space Systems

• Introduction to Thornburg:
  Formerly with NASA, SpaceX (architect of the Raptor engine), Aerojet, and the U.S. Air Force, Thornburg is now leading Portal Space Systems, which aims to revolutionize spacecraft maneuverability.

  "Portal is building the most rapidly maneuverable spacecraft that's ever been built... we can accomplish a lot of missions for defense and commercial customers. We can do it with speed." — Jeff Thornburg [05:42]

• Problem Statement:
  Current spacecraft and satellites move too slowly for rapidly changing demands, especially for defense purposes. Thornburg’s vision is speedy, flexible payload delivery—transforming space transit into something as routine as trucking.

  "Our customers don't care about how cool the tech is...they just want speed. They want it now." — Thornburg [08:03]

2. Engineering Boldness and Persistence

• Motivation:
  Thornburg’s drive springs from impatience with stagnation in aerospace programs.

  "I'd go work at these places and be like, not moving fast enough. Not moving fast enough. Not moving fast enough." — Thornburg [05:00]

• The Importance of Engineering:
  Tyson repeatedly commends the overlooked role of engineers in making scientific ambition a reality.

  "There are engineers who you never come interview who enabled the James Webb Space Telescope... I just want to on record give a shout out to nameless engineers who...make the scientists look good." — Tyson [25:11]

3. Propulsion Technology—Past, Present, and Future

• Full Flow Stage Combustion:
  Thornburg’s early work on high-performing rocket engines at the Air Force Research Lab seeded later innovations, including SpaceX’s Raptor engine.

  "I got to develop a brand new type of rocket engine called a full flow stage combustion engine... the highest performing rocket engine ever made." — Thornburg [08:58]

• American vs. Russian Rocket Design:
  The U.S. pursuit of “performance and perfection” contrasts with the Russian focus on “reliability and manufacturability”—as exemplified by the enduring, workhorse Soyuz capsule.

  "Von Braun and his team...focused on performance and perfection. The Russians...focused on reliability and manufacturability." — Thornburg [18:28]

• Reusable Rockets and Market Choice:
  SpaceX’s two pricing models—reusable or expendable first stages—let the market choose. The shift to reusability prevailed due to strong financial incentives.

  "Let the buyer and the market choose that configuration because it makes the most financial sense." — Thornburg [23:30]

• New Era Needs: Speed in Orbit
  Chemical rockets excel for leaving Earth, but electric or thermal propulsion offers superior efficiency for on-orbit maneuvers—yet the industry is only starting to address these new imperatives.

  "To get out of Earth’s gravity well, you want a lot of thrust...but where technology has evolved is, once you're in orbit...liquid rocket engines aren’t the best way to get you around." — Thornburg [49:46]

4. The Value (and Necessity) of Failure

• Startups vs. Government Risk Culture:
  Startups embrace failure as the fastest path to learning, whereas legacy NASA programs are boxed in by a “failure is not an option” mentality—resulting in slower, more expensive progress.

  "To have infinitely low risk requires infinitely high cost. That’s not how a lot of commercial startups…have formed in the last decade." — Thornburg [27:22]
  "If your company or organizational culture accepts failure, then you will actually get to the end product much faster." — Thornburg [28:38]

• Public Perception and Accountability:
  NASA is scrutinized for failure, while private companies like SpaceX are perceived as innovative despite public missteps.

  "If NASA blew up 100 rockets, there'd be no more tax dollars going to NASA. Whereas Elon Musk can blow up as many rockets as he wants." — Chuck Nice [29:56]

5. Government vs. Private Sector in Space Innovation

• Role of FFRDCs:
  Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) fill critical gaps, funding “necessary technology” with no immediate business case—and must continue to do so in the face of shrinking budgets.

  "FFRDCs should definitely be seeding new technologies...because no one else is going to do it." — Thornburg [12:07]

• Dangers of Budget Cuts:
  Loss of funding forces U.S. scientists abroad and drains decades of institutional wisdom, imperiling America’s future in technology leadership.

  "We’re watching our scientists walk over to other countries because there’s no funding for them here...current events will have ramifications for America as a leader in science and technology for decades to come." — Thornburg [39:20]

6. Ethics, Integrity, and Vaporware in the Space Industry

• Why Integrity Matters:
  Some companies overstate their technical readiness to secure VC funding—with risky consequences for the industry’s reputation.

  "They lie their asses off to get to the next step...and that’s where I see it the most." — Thornburg on "vaporware" [45:39]

• IP vs. Openness:
  Companies protect innovations as proprietary IP—sometimes at odds with science’s ethos of openness, but Thornburg emphasizes using technology “for the benefit of humanity” when possible.

  “If we had something so great and so beneficial to humanity, I wouldn't want to hide that.” — Thornburg [44:28]

7. The New Space Race and U.S.-China Competition

• China’s Strategic Approach:
  China leverages massive, state-backed investments in both heavy-duty brute force solutions and alternative (often non-space) critical infrastructure, presenting a growing threat to U.S. orbital assets.

  "China did not [tie financial and critical infrastructure to GPS]...they have other ways for timing for their banking and financial assets." — Thornburg [57:38]

• Space as the New Global Battleground:
  The risk isn’t alien weapons, but loss or disruption of the satellite constellation underlying finance, comms, defense, and daily life. Planned harassment—such as parking adversary satellites alongside American ones—poses escalating threat.

  "If you have a military, it’s...defend our assets. Our assets are bare ass in space." — Tyson [55:23]

8. Jeff Thornburg’s Current Work at Portal Space Systems

• Supernova Platform:
  Their “Supernova” propulsion system leverages concentrated solar energy in a thermal cycle—reducing parts, eliminating combusted propellant, doubling fuel capacity, and offering rapid, flexible deployment for diverse payloads.

  “With Supernova, it’s about that rapid movement...we've innovated around a heat exchanger so we don’t have to combust any liquid propellants.” — Thornburg [60:27]

• Living Off the Land in Space:
  Thornburg advocates for making spacecraft more adaptable and able to exploit local resources—a goal he brands “living off the land” (LotL) rather than NASA’s jargon-heavy “in situ resource utilization.”

  "If we're taking everything with us, we failed as engineers." — Thornburg [62:19]

9. Future-Oriented Questions and Cosmic Perspective

• What’s Next?
  Thornburg sees AI and machine learning as critical to accelerating exploration, with quantum physics holding keys for eventual “warp drive” breakthroughs.

  “There’s elements of the quantum world that are gonna unlock propulsion technologies that might look similar to a warp drive.” — Thornburg [66:36]

• Holy Grail of Commercial Space Flight
  For Tyson: suborbital point-to-point transit anywhere on Earth in under 45 minutes.
  For Thornburg: a future where travel anywhere between Earth and the Moon is no more remarkable than a business trip to Poughkeepsie.

  "I want to go suborbital between any two points on Earth so that I’m 45 minutes...away from lunch in Tokyo." — Tyson [68:51]
  "Humans can go to any orbit between here and the Moon, or the Moon, [so] it isn’t a significant emotional event. That’s just a standard." — Thornburg [69:31]

• Engineers and Society
  Tyson’s closing cosmic perspective frames engineers as the essential, unsung problem-solvers who convert ambition and uncertainty into functioning reality.

  "There is no future of civilization without happy engineers...and maybe it’s up to the rest of us to give them the kinds of problems we need solved." — Tyson [70:06]

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Notable Quotes & Timestamp Highlights

• On Engineering Drive:
  "If no one’s going to do anything about it, I’m going to go do something about it." — Thornburg [06:11]
• On Failure’s Value:
  "To have infinitely low risk requires infinitely high cost...we want to actually break it because we want to see where the design fails and what we don’t know yet." — Thornburg [27:22]
• On U.S.–China Space Race:
  "Our adversaries are coming for us, and we are cutting R&D spending, we’re cutting engineering, we’re cutting science..." — Thornburg [54:49]
• On Civilizational Defenselessness:
  "Our assets that enable what we think of as modern life...are fundamentally pivoted on what we have orbiting this Earth." — Tyson [55:23]
• On Engineers’ Place in Civilization:
  "There is no civilization without...engineers that are given problems to solve." — Tyson [70:06]

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Key Timestamps for Reference

| Segment | Topic | Timestamp | |--------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------|------------| | Jeff Thornburg intro and background | Career trajectory, Portal Space Systems | 02:36–06:15| | Vision of rapid maneuverability | Portal's "trucking in space" analogy | 05:42–08:23| | Propulsion history and Raptor engine | SpaceX, Air Force, rocket engineering | 08:58–10:30| | U.S. vs. Russia (rocketry approaches) | "Performance vs. reliability" | 18:15–18:57| | Rise of private sector (SpaceX, NASA) | Reusability, market-driven shift | 20:02–23:45| | Failure in engineering | Value, necessity, legacy vs. commercial cultures | 27:11–28:55| | Budget cuts and brain drain risk | Future of U.S. science and technology | 39:20–40:39| | Intellectual property & integrity | Speed vs. vaporware, benefit to humanity | 43:27–45:48| | China’s brute force, space as battlefield | Global risk, military-industrial context | 52:39–55:54| | The Supernova platform | Solar thermal propulsion, living off the land | 60:18–62:19| | Moon and beyond as “new backyard” | Vision for routine space travel | 69:31–70:02| | Tyson’s closing cosmic perspective | Engineers as societal engines of progress | 70:06–72:50|

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Memorable Moments

• “Dumbassitude” in Engineering:
  Chuck Nice and Thornburg riff on American units vs. metric and “pockets of dumbassery.” [38:39]
• Rick and Morty Origins:
  The company name “Portal Space Systems” stems from Thornburg’s love of Rick and Morty with his daughter. [59:54]
• Star-Themed Branding:
  Products at Portal are named with a cosmic motif: “Supernova,” star references, and more. [60:22]
• Pop Culture & Comedy Thread:
  “Not like Independence Day, right?” – Chuck Nice, on losing satellites to adversaries. [56:46]

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Conclusion

This episode expertly blends technical expertise, strategic urgency, humor, and pop culture. Jeff Thornburg’s journey exemplifies the restless, visionary mind essential to space’s next frontier, revealing the interplay between government, private enterprise, engineering risk, and practical imagination. Tyson’s closing reflection is a rallying cry for valuing engineers as the core drivers of civilization’s future—and a reminder that without their boldness and skill, scientific dreams remain just that.

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For further reference, listen to key segments at:

• Vision for rapid spacecraft ([05:42])
• Value of failure ([27:22])
• U.S.-China space power rivalry ([54:49])
• Portal’s Supernova propulsion ([60:22])
• Future hopes for "everyday" lunar travel ([69:31])
• Tyson’s cosmic perspective on engineers ([70:06])

Stay curious, and—per Neil’s signature sign-off—keep looking up!

Transcript

[A]

Morning Zoe. Got donuts.

[B]

Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage?

[A]

Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you teach me. So Dana.

[B]

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[A]

Engineers on the show. Always, Always. Especially aerospace engineers. That would be very cool. I think. Personally, I think that's the best kind you would. They'll take us where we are to where we want to go.

[C]

Yes. So Elon Musk is coming. Oh, so this guy's not a jerk. Excellent.

[A]

Coming up on StarTalk, the future of aerospace on earth and in the heavens. Check it out. Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where SC and pop culture collide. Startalk begins right now. This is Startalk. Neil Degrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. I got Chuck nice with me. Chuck, baby, how you doing?

[C]

Hey, Neil. What's happening?

[A]

All right, we got a good show today. Oh, my gosh. Oh, what's on tap with future of the space industry.

[C]

Oh, and you say that's a good show?

[A]

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[C]

You think there's a good future for the space industry?

[A]

You want to get off this earth, you better think it's good.

[C]

Okay, well, you know, I do want to get off this earth. I'm just afraid of who might be driving.

[A]

Oh, there you go. There you go. Did I tell you? People say you want to go into space, you want to go in this guy's rocket and Bezos rocket. I said, yeah, but I want him to fly his mother first.

[C]

Nice.

[A]

Then I'm cool. Then maybe I'll step on the ship. So I love this field, but I have no specific engineering expertise. All right, so we combed the land.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

To find somebody who's been in and out, in and out, and in that whole field.

[C]

Oh, wow. Right on.

[A]

And we got a man right here.

[C]

Yes, he.

[A]

Right here. Sitting right here, sir. Neil, welcome to Start Talk. Jeff, did I pronounce your last name correctly? Thornburg.

[B]

That's correct.

[A]

There you go. Jeff Thornburg.

[C]

There was a very popular, like, nighttime soap opera called the Thornburgs.

[B]

Thornbirds.

[C]

Oh, yes.

[B]

Well, slightly off.

[C]

As you can tell, I was a huge fan of this show.

[B]

You would be surprised, Chuck, how many kids in school equated Thornbirds with Thornburg. So you're in great company. You're in great company.

[A]

You should be embarrassed that you corrected someone on a soap opera name. What else are you doing? Is that what you're doing during the daytime when you should be building rockets?

[B]

Yeah, well, everybody has a side hustle.

[C]

Very good.

[A]

So you are currently CEO of Portal Space Systems.

[B]

Yes, sir.

[A]

I love that. I love that.

[C]

That's very cool.

[A]

Aerospace engineer.

[C]

Nice.

[A]

We need more of those. Yeah. And you have a background with the Air Force. That might have been the Space Force if it had been now. NASA Aerojet.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Love Aerojet. SpaceX and more. So you've been around.

[B]

I've been around.

[A]

But it sounds like you can't hold down a job. Yeah, well, what's the difference between everyone wanting you and everyone firing you?

[C]

Don't shame my success with this drinking problem.

[A]

What's the difference?

[C]

Look, at best, I have achieved all while holding down the Drinking problem.

[B]

My best, my best answer to that, Neil, is I grew up like I think you and others did and aspired for this science fiction world that we all would like to see. And I would go work at these places and be like, not moving fast enough. Not moving fast enough. Not moving fast enough.

[C]

Very cool.

[B]

And so, and then you said, then.

[A]

You decided to take it in your own hands.

[B]

Yes, sir.

[C]

Nice.

[A]

That's, you know, that's audacious.

[C]

I love that.

[A]

That's bodacious.

[B]

I have a very loving wife who has been very patient with my 30 year career.

[A]

Definitely you need one of those in that situation. Yeah, I need one of those. Tell me, what is Portal space systems and why that's different from what you've seen before?

[B]

Portal is building the most rapidly maneuverable spacecraft that's ever been built. And that's important because we're doing it with a lot of payload flexibility. So what that means is we can accomplish a lot of missions for defense and commercial customers. We can do it with speed. The problem with movement on space is you can't get anywhere very fast right now, especially with satellites and defense systems. So I got frustrated and I said, this is a solvable engineering problem. Why aren't we doing more about it? Okay. If no one's going to do anything about it, I'm going to go do something about it.

[A]

And engineers just love problems.

[B]

They do, they do. And they love developing new types of spacecraft.

[A]

So when you say get somewhere faster, you want to get to nine months is not fast enough for you to get to Mars?

[B]

No, I want to do. No, absolutely not.

[C]

Look at that.

[B]

So I think my vision, my long term vision is nuclear thermal propulsion, I think is a key thing in my lifetime.

[A]

As would be that's. Anyone?

[B]

Sure.

[A]

You dreamt that last night.

[C]

Are you kidding me? That's how I came in this world. My first words after they slapped me on my ass was, when are we getting to nuclear thermal?

[B]

Thank you. Thank you, Chuck. Exactly. But I've been seeing three years now.

[A]

So you're talking about how nimble can you be in the space. In the 3D space environment?

[B]

Yeah. So our current spacecraft platform can move from mid Earth orbit to low Earth orbit in less than three hours. It can move from mid Earth orbit to GEO in less than a day. It can go from low Earth orbit to geostationary orbit or in a day. So those types of times, that's not.

[A]

Fast enough for you?

[B]

That is fast enough for me.

[A]

Good.

[B]

It's just not possible with frequency. Now, unless you're using a rocket to do it.

[A]

It's not a routine thing.

[B]

It's not a routine thing.

[C]

Right. Okay, so you're basically, you're like, I'm gonna turn commercial space into trucking.

[A]

Do you have more romantic terms than that?

[C]

No, but because like, that's like very understandable.

[A]

It'll be the Amazon of delivery system.

[C]

At one point, you know, once we had containers coming in and container shipping, like the trucking industry boomed because somebody had to figure out a way to get these containers where they had to go, you know, and quickly. And so like, you're doing that, which.

[B]

Is our customers don't care about how cool the tech is.

[C]

Right.

[B]

They just want speed.

[C]

They just want speed.

[B]

They want it now. If there's something going on in the world they need to be looking after, they want to do it now. If they've got a spacecraft in trouble, they want to see it now. They don't want to agonize over, well, if I move it, maybe I'll never get to move this spacecraft again because it doesn't have enough.

[A]

I didn't even know that was a problem until you just said it right now. And let me not even think of it as a problem. Let me think of it as an unrealized need that you are fulfilling. Very nice. So we'll get back to that. But tell me, because you had your whole life is in this and we're probably about the same age, I'm feeling your enthusiasm and your disappointments with what we've seen out there.

[B]

My long lost brother in space. Yes, I'm feeling that now.

[A]

So what are some things that you have worked on that you could tell us about?

[B]

One of the most exciting projects I got was when I was a young engineer with the Air Force Research labor and I got to develop a brand new type of rocket engine called a full flow stage combustion engine. That's a fancy name for saying the highest performing rocket engine ever made.

[A]

And just to be clear, Air Force Research Lab, that's not just another lab on the street corner. That's an ffrdc. If I remember correctly or not.

[B]

It's a government lab, okay? There are contractors like aerospace that support in an FFRDC way.

[C]

What does that mean? Please, ffrdc.

[A]

Stay with us, Chuck.

[C]

Trying to keep up here, you know, but you guys are like rocketing off.

[A]

Federally funded research and development operation where it's a way for the government to get a piece of a pie that's being baked that corporations wouldn't otherwise do because it's a little risky. It's a little kind of off the thing.

[B]

But no business case, no profit margin.

[C]

I'm doing that now with Nvidia. Okay, Right.

[B]

So I got to work on that rocket engine program. And it formed a kernel of several kernels of technology that seeded the propulsion industry for years to come. So I got to work on that program between 1999 and 2004. And then that seeded engine programs like J2X that were part of the Ares rocket program. It seeded things like what Stoke is doing with their full flow engine. It seeded what I did with Raptor later on at SpaceX, because I developed and architected the Raptor engine system for Starstrip.

[A]

So when SpaceX rose up out of the din of rocket corporations, were you cherry picked? Did they cherry pick you from your previous location?

[B]

I don't know that I ever got the full, full story, but this is a true story is that Elon called me at home in Huntsville and said, I got a project I think you might be interested in.

[A]

So that counts as being cherry picked? I would say.

[B]

I think so, yeah.

[C]

When the guy who owns the thing calls you personally, he stealing you.

[B]

So shortly after I left NASA in.

[A]

Huntsville and went to SpaceX, that's Huntsville, Alabama. Right. And of course we just learned that the headquarters for the Space Force is moving from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama. It was a little weird because the President said, and from now on we'll be named Rocket City. But it's always called Rocket City.

[C]

Yeah, it's always been Rocket City.

[A]

It's always Rocket.

[C]

Well, you know, he does that. Let me ask you both this then, before I know. Cause you brought up these FFRDs.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Is that still necessary now that there's so much commercial activity in space travel and. Or like, is it still necessary for the government to seed money into things so that we can then go forward in discovery?

[B]

I love your question because what I've been watching happening in the quote new space industry is venture capital and businesses chase things that add value or add to the stock price or add to profit. The government and the FFRDCs focus on necessary technology that there's no business case for.

[A]

So business case at the time they're funding it.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

Who knows what will happen after?

[B]

So I feel that FFRDC should definitely be seeding new technologies like the ones we're developing at Portal for this rapid movement, because no one else is going to do it. So NASA and the Air Force have done a great job over the years of developing technology that then they later put next to the Ark of the Covenant in the warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. And I've been fortunate enough on a few different occasions to go back into the warehouse and pull some of these things that the government has developed.

[A]

It's so beautiful.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

That'S excellent.

[B]

So yes, I think the need is definitely there.

[A]

My face didn't melt when reopened the.

[B]

Ark, but when I was in the, in the air Force, specifically the issue, one of the biggest issues is that nobody has that foresight to know all of the ways that technology will be applied.

[C]

Right?

[B]

And that's why nobody has that right. So that's why it's so important to keep the government involved in pushing that boundary. And I think that's where the government should be spending their money. Unfortunately, those government budgets are shrinking because I think some people think, well, private industry is just going to do it, so why do we have to fund it anymore? But what they don't understand is VCs in private industry are chasing value creation and stock price and profit. And that may not be in the same wheelhouse as the technologies we need to actually get humans to Mars, to get humans to the moon and to explore the solar system.

[C]

And that's where China enters the picture.

[A]

Then there was China.

[C]

And then there was China.

[A]

Morning, Zoe Got donuts.

[B]

Jeff Bridges, why are you still living above our garage?

[A]

Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you teach me. So Dana.

[B]

Oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at T Mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful.

[A]

Iphone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system. Wow, impressive. Let me try. T Mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network.

[B]

Nice. Jeffrey, you heard them.

[A]

T mobile is the best place to get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition. So what are we having for lunch? Dude, my work here is done.

[B]

The 24 month bill credits on experience.

[A]

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[B]

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[B]

I'm Alyakhan Hemraj and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

[A]

So tell me about Aerojet. What'd you do there?

[B]

I worked as an engineering manager and director on liquid rocket engine technology development. Did a lot of turbo pump pump development for liquid rocket engines while I was there.

[A]

What? What? I mean, we've had liquid fuel forever. I mean, since Goddard, Right. So what, what new thing was necessary?

[B]

Getting weight out of the system.

[A]

Every ounce matters.

[B]

Every ounce matters. And combining components, bringing in technologies like additive manufacturing to reduce part count.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

And figure out how to qualify systems to do that.

[A]

If you reduce parts part count, that reduces the error, the points of failure that could take place.

[B]

Reliability goes up as part count goes down.

[A]

Because I remember when the shuttle first came out, okay. And there was this headline that sounded like it was bragging. And I said, that's not a brag. The space shuttle, it's the most complex rocket ever to be launched. And it's like, you don't want that. Am I right? I mean, you're an engineer.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

It's like, don't tell me that.

[B]

Well, in fact, they couldn't reuse it the way they wanted to because of that fact. You know, shuttles were gonna launch 25.

[A]

Times every couple of weeks.

[B]

Every couple weeks. And then they're like, oh, these engines aren't as easy to refurbish as we thought. We actually have to rebuild them after every flight. Oh, we got wiring issues that we hadn't accounted for. Oh, we've got tiles.

[A]

Tiles, right. That'll fall off. So. So when the shuttle was retired, we didn't have a way to get to space.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And so I guess we used Russia. I mean, they were our friends back then. Who knows what they are today, but they had the Soyuz capsule. Does the Soyuz capsule has like 10 parts to it or something? It's kind of a blunt instrument that works every single time.

[B]

Works every single time.

[A]

Tell me about the Soyuz. Well, the Russian testified about that. So give me, catch me up on that.

[B]

I mean, the Russian development of rocket technology is interesting because you have to go all the way back to the end of World War II. We cherry picked rocket scientists. The U.S. grabbed their lot, including von.

[A]

Braun, Werner von Braun.

[B]

Russians grabbed their lot. And what happened was the Russian lot of German rocket scientists really ended up focusing on reliability and part count and manufacturability. Von Braun and his team, and what later became the bulk of NASA focused on performance and perfection. And so there was two completely different thought processes between Russian rocketry and American rocketry at that point that can trace themselves all the way back to the end of the Cold War.

[A]

And that persisted. And so to this day, the Soyuz, isn't it the most reliable?

[B]

It is. And it has a heritage dating all the way back to the 50s because they've never changed it. And there's so it's still got a.

[A]

Compass or in the Flintstones, you know, you look at their legs are running.

[B]

Underneath and I mean, and their technology. There was so much elegance in their manufacturing that we ended up buying a lot of their engines at the end of the Cold War because we didn't want the Russian rocket scientists going to Iran and North Korea and other places.

[A]

That was part of our relationship with the space station to make bring them on, give them something to do in the day. Everything that NASA launched said NASA on it, even if it was built by Boeing or Lockheed Martin or whoever else. But private enterprise is now putting things on the shelf that NASA then selects off the shelf. And that all has the name of the companies on it. Yes. So this is a shift. Could you take us through that shift?

[B]

Sure.

[A]

From the old days into what's actually happening now.

[B]

Yeah. So about the time the early 2000s is when Blue Origin and SpaceX were incorporated. And then over the next 10 years, they started to develop capabilities to launch things that were interesting to NASA. When I was at SpaceX and we were developing Falcon 9, they didn't believe that we could do those things at those price points. So they kind of patted us on the head and said, that's cute. Let us know when it works. And then it did work. And then that's when the real interest came forward, because now, for 60 million a launch, you could do a lot of cool things that you couldn't do with the Space Shuttle program. And then the race was on.

[A]

Space shuttle was a billion a launch or something. It turned out huge. Oh, yeah.

[C]

Holy.

[A]

Yeah. Part of it was because there weren't as many launches in a year to amortize the. The cost of the marching army to keep all that going. And with more launches, then the less per launch the effective cost is. But if you bring the cost down to that, that's another ball game right there.

[B]

That's a whole other ball game. And then that's what got NASA excited about the shuttle retiring, because the race was on to get Dragon on a Falcon 9 as fast as possible and get astronauts to the station and get American astronauts again to orbit. And we put all the NASA logos and everything, and they were a great partner in all that. But, you know, it was weird because people would come up to us and say, does NASA exist anymore? Because SpaceX seems to be launching everything.

[A]

So let's get the animals straight here. So the Dragon is the capsule.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

The Falcon 9 or the Falcon Heavy? The Falcon is the rocket launch system.

[B]

First and second stage stages of the system.

[A]

Good. Just get the animal if you were.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Were you up with animals there?

[C]

Yeah, yeah. Didn't we go to SpaceX and we. And I think you said it's the number of.

[A]

Well, it looked like it. Is it True the Falcon 9 has nine engines on the bottom?

[B]

That's correct.

[A]

Okay. Because we visited the headquarters and they had.

[B]

Oh, nice.

[A]

Yeah, it was one star. Talk goes to SpaceX.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

I think it's online.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And we were just chilling and looking at the rocket and. Yes. The one that. It's the first stage that comes back.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Right. And you see it with the tripod.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

A big one mounted outside.

[B]

And we had to put that engine in the center to help facilitate the landing burn.

[A]

Let me ask you that. Let me ask you. If you're going to bring the stage back, that means you are using weight for fuel to guide the thing back for soft landing. But I want that weight for my payload. So where do you, as an engineer connect? Where do those two lines cross?

[B]

So the elegance in the engineering is that Falcon 9, basically, we actually pushed that vehicle to its absolute limit before anybody ever saw it do its thing. And we did that because we didn't want any excess fuel on that vehicle when it landed back. So then what we did the company did the business people did is they said, look, we're going to sell you an expendable stage or a reusable stage. And if you do the reusable, you'll save some money.

[A]

Oh, so then the buyer makes that decision.

[B]

That's right. Then the market. The market chooses. What did the market choose? They chose the reusable version because it made the most financial sense.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

But so there's two things. There's a business model.

[A]

I'm glad to hear that. That puts a lot in context for me.

[B]

Right. As an engineer, I have to make that system as efficient as possible, meaning there should be no unused fuel when it lands. And then let the buyer and the market choose that configuration because it makes the most financial sense. And then everybody wins.

[A]

Occasionally you need the payload, which, if memory serves, they needed that extra weight for the Europa Clipper mission. I think the first stage did not return smoothly. That got dropped into the ocean. They needed that.

[B]

You got to have all the Delta V available to go to Europa.

[A]

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Europa is Jupiter's moon, right? Yeah. The Europa Clipper will loop around, make radar measurements beneath the Earth, and they'll sell that.

[B]

But I think the business case people should understand is if you buy an expendable version now, that hardware can never be used again. And there's value associated with that hardware, so you're going to pay to basically use it all in one shot. So that's another way to drive market value. That's a good business case as well.

[A]

So at the risk of asking the obvious, all these places you've worked, presumably there's a lot of wisdom you have gleaned from that that you bring to your current job. Is that a fair statement?

[B]

I've seen a lot. Yes, I think that's a fair statement. That's definitely true.

[A]

But I think you've seen the mountaintop.

[B]

I think more importantly, though, is I got to work with these graybeards at NASA and the Air Force. I got to work with some great people in industry.

[A]

Did you say gray beards?

[B]

Gray beards, yes.

[A]

Do they have beards in the Air Force? I thought they make you shave.

[B]

Yeah, well, the civil servants have beards.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

That's a pretty. Pretty lack of military if they're walking around with a beam.

[B]

So I tried to be a very good student of those older folks that had seen a lot more things than I had in my career.

[A]

So give us a minute. We don't always have engineers on the show. It's mostly scientists. And for what it's worth anytime people say to me, you guys are doing great things in space. I say, look, we know what we want to do, but we don't know how to build this stuff. There are engineers who you never come interview who enabled the James Webb Space Telescope, who enabled the Hubble telescope. And so I just want to on record give a shout out to nameless engineers who make responsible for the success of everything, of everything and make the scientists look good. But you only see the scientists get interviewed because they're talking about the results of the experiment, whereas the engineer is not in that loop.

[B]

I think that's awesome that you're doing that. And two, that's the best part of my job is I, I know engineers that got degrees, that never really became engineers because they never got to actually experience an idea that you actually have to go build. It needs to work. And then I work with people every day, some of which that don't understand that engineering is sometimes an art form because you don't know all the things you have to design around the uncertainty. Like if you came to me with a new spacecraft system, I'd say, yeah, that's theoretically possible. Now let's go see what we can actually build and how accurate. I could build it.

[A]

Like a warp drive, right? Like a warp drive.

[B]

We could totally work on that. Neil.

[A]

Yeah. What are you doing here? Get back to work on that.

[C]

So you guys are like the workman that comes in your home, the contractor and he's like, yeah, we're not gonna know anything until we open up these walls.

[B]

I do have. Yeah.

[C]

Gotta tell you, could be a lot of problems back there. I mean, this could be a $200 job or it could be a $20,000 job.

[B]

We don't know that sounds just like my engineers when I'm pricing a program out. So you're hitting it right on the head.

[A]

So I just want to highlight for our audience which is primarily a science leaning audience rather than engineering leaning. Tell me the value of failure. Let's just start there.

[B]

I'll answer that with a quick story which is a lot of legacy government and NASA programs have this failure is not an option moniker to them. What that means is to have infinitely low risk requires infinitely high cost. That's not how a lot of commercial startups and businesses have formed in the last decade or so. Because instead there's a different approach in engineering where we want to actually break it because we want to see where the design fails and what we don't know yet and what we need to fix. And I think a lot of the legacy NASA programs have suffered at times because they've had to try to get everything right on the first go. And that's a pretty tall order. That's why these aerospace programs have taken so much longer than anybody ever wanted from a schedule wise or from a cost standpoint.

[A]

And Elon in the early days was very visible with his rocket failures.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And he made a very important point at every turn. We're gonna learn something from this. Although it sounded a little too euphemistic at times where the rocket blows up and it's no, no, no, that was not a failure. That was an experiment rich in data.

[B]

And it's true to a certain extent. But not all failures are planned and most of them aren't. But the value is if your company or organizational culture accepts failure, then you will actually get to the end product much faster.

[A]

There it is, right there. That's it.

[C]

But also it's kind of a public perception problem for NASA because there's never been a movie made about SpaceX or Elon Musk. But the whole idea behind the whole Apollo missions and everything that NASA does is triumph. We did it. And then the one time something goes wrong, it's global headlines of how badly they failed and what an incredible tragedy it is. If NASA blew up 100 rockets, there'd be no more tax dollars going to NASA. Whereas Elon Musk can blow up as many rockets as he wants.

[B]

Yeah. But as Neil knows as well, look at the history of the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo program. We blew up a ton of stuff. Those young men and women were in their 20s. They looked like SpaceX looked a few years ago.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

And so NASA used to operate exactly in that mold. But somewhere along the way politics took over and it got different for them. So I think NASA should focus on the programs that aren't viable as a business that are pushing technology forward. Because I think that's what they do really well at. I don't think they do well in big rocket programs.

[A]

Well, this is my reply. I'm asked it often, as you can imagine. We said it earlier. With private enterprise coming in, why do we need NASA? Because there are things that private enterprise would never engage on the frontier where there's either risk that they would not take or return on investment that doesn't make right.

[B]

And I don't think nation states should rely on CEOs to be their only hope in achieving certain national goals. I just think that's a bad idea.

[C]

Yeah. I wonder, I wonder where that, yeah.

[B]

I could be wrong.

[C]

I agree with you.

[B]

But I mean that's just one person's opinion. Yeah.

[C]

You know when, like when, when a leader of a nation breaks up with a CEO, like it can get ugly, you know what I mean? Like who gets the cat? Like, you know.

[A]

So you want people to be more comfortable with failure because that's how you proceed. Not failure from blunder, but failure from something you had not seen coming. It's a different kind of failure. Right.

[B]

I think people think engineers just know and therefore when we fail, oh, we're stupid or we're a bad engineer. And they don't understand. The art of engineering is designing a system around unknowns and that we don't always know the first time it's going to be successful.

[A]

So I think the art, which would include the unknown. Unknowns.

[B]

Correct. I think that's the unlock for people to know failure is a good thing because you've now given engineers a gift because now they have all of the information. So that's why failure is so important to engineering. Because now you've pushed the design all the way up to the line. You don't have to guess about it anymore. So now you've gone from that initial phase of engineering, of engineering around the margins. You don't know, which normally means it's heavier or carries more fuel or less efficient in some way because you're just trying to get it to work. And when you fail it now you can totally isolate that to what it needs to be. And that's why things like the Falcon 9 first stage land the way they do, because we failed so many of those. As the gag reel has shown over the years.

[A]

Yeah. Back when you were at SpaceX. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

I'm gonna start looking at my life differently. I'm just an engineer. All the failures, who knew?

[A]

Let me take you somewhere because this comes up and I want to hear it. I've spoken of it as a scientist, but I want to hear an engineer speak of this. Let's say there's some disaster, NASA disaster, okay? Always somebody digs up an engineer's memo that said you shouldn't launch because this might fail. And then others say, why didn't you pay attention to that? And nobody looks to all the successful launches to dig up the very same letters that say you shouldn't launch because that's gonna fail and it doesn't fail. So how do you square how NASA or any company should respond to the claims that you didn't heed advice when presumably I'm thinking memos like that every single launch.

[B]

So there's a failure in leadership there that I personally believe in, that I operate differently in my organizations over the years and my company. Now you're always going to have somebody say, I'm worried about this before you launch or before you field a spacecraft on orbit. And so what I do is we have what's called active risk management, which is a NASA term. But we look at all those risks before we fly. At every organization, there needs to be a person that signs off on the final risk posture for whatever mission you're flying. And that person, it's okay for them to take risk, but they need to document why they're taking that risk and why it's acceptable. So when I build flight hardware, we do a final risk review before it flies. We look at all of the key risks. And if people feel really strongly that they're worried about something, then I say, I'm taking that risk away from you. You don't have to stress about that anymore. I'm going to say it's okay, and I'm going to justify it because of this.

[A]

Okay, so now something goes bad. Now the press comes and they see that memo and they say, why didn't you heed the advice of that memo?

[B]

And I had already addressed that in the documentation that said I thought this was an acceptable risk because of X, Y and Z. And I know I have to stand by that whether it fails or not.

[A]

Okay, so now you, now they put you in front of the bereaved relatives.

[C]

Now you're standing on a jet and the door has blown off mid flight. How do you get around it?

[A]

Well, that could never happen.

[B]

I think there's incompetence and there's acceptable risk documentation. I guess that's what I was getting.

[C]

That's a good point. That's it.

[B]

I make it a point to have acceptable risk documentation. So if the worst happens, I can at least explain myself on why I thought that was okay.

[C]

Gotcha.

[B]

And then I'm also fine saying I was wrong.

[C]

It's like a pharmaceutical disclaimer, you know, side effects may include, and they're highly unlikely, but they list even the most unlikely of side effects. But they say, you know, hey, listen, the chances of this happening are so slim that this is deemed safe, but there's a very, very slim chance that this could happen in space.

[B]

There's never a guarantee. That's the thing.

[A]

There's no such thing as safe in space.

[B]

There's no such thing.

[A]

It's just the risk that you accept.

[B]

I think companies get into trouble when management takes that authority away from engineering and says, we don't care what you guys think, we're doing this anymore.

[C]

That's when you've got a problem.

[B]

That's when you got a problem. So when you're talking about door hatches blowing off or submarines failing when they shouldn't have been designed the way they were or whatever, that's a failure in leadership. And so I think you're still going to have failures. And I'm just saying let's avoid the failure.

[A]

That's interesting. Not enough attention is given to where the leadership matters versus the engineering declarations of what the risk factors are.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because people just want to get to the end.

[A]

Okay, so how about just since we're here. The Hubble telescope, the mirror has a perfect shape. The secondary mirror has a perfect shape. But they don't play in a sandbox together. And they were not tested together. So is that leadership?

[B]

That's a failure in system engineering, in my opinion, because you didn't have an adequate test program.

[A]

How big was system engineering as a thing at the time? We're talking about the late 80s.

[B]

This is system engineering haven.

[A]

That's what it is. You're right. I don't think system engineering was taught in schools as a branch of engineering until later than it should have. Am I right there?

[B]

I mean, I've seen evidence in the shuttle program that they had very robust system engineering back in that timeframe. Okay, in the 80s, maybe NASA didn't equivalently apply it all over the different centers and programs, but there is no better price for systems engineering execution than NASA.

[A]

So that's a blunder.

[B]

Somebody that's a failure of imagination to be like, should we test these systems before they fly?

[A]

Maybe. Wow. All right, one more. Let's go back to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, I think it was, where it never got into orbit because the scientists were using metric and you engineers were still on imperial units of force.

[C]

I remember you telling me that story.

[A]

What's up with that?

[B]

That's such a classic story. And true. What's up with that is we've carried mixed units in the United States for way too long.

[A]

Be blaming the country. All right, Blame it. You're the engineering people. You know, you're talking to scientists. You know.

[B]

Well, here's.

[A]

You want the scientists to be using pounds and ounces.

[B]

I'm not gonna make.

[A]

Not.

[B]

I'm not gonna make excuses.

[A]

That's right. You better Not.

[B]

But I will tell you why it's happened, in my opinion.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

A lot of the engineering tools for spacecraft and launch vehicles were all written in imperial units. And so they've been very slow, the community at large, to change those tools to a metric standard.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And so engineers get lazy because they want to stay in the units they're comfortable with.

[C]

Well, did that scenario cause them to make the change or they still doing the same?

[A]

Are they still being dumbass?

[B]

I think they're still.

[A]

That's your word. You say it.

[C]

Are they still being dumbass?

[B]

I think, Chuck, there's still pockets of dumbassery going on.

[A]

Oh, that's a Chuckism right there.

[C]

There we go. It's fantastic.

[A]

The dumbassitude of the system doesn't. So we've seen in recent months a move to cut costs at NASA. Cut costs in many ways, including the science budget. I think got the biggest cut. And there's some attrition people leaving and not being replaced, early retirement. And so it seems like we're losing some legacy wisdom with that shift. Could you reflect on what you think might be the future consequences of this?

[B]

Absolutely. What comes to my mind, there's two things that I actually worry about now, which is we're watching our scientists walk over to other countries because there's no funding for them here.

[A]

I have two colleagues, not in astrophysics, but in other physical sciences. They said they got a phone call from France.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

They say, hello, what are you doing right now? I hear you are being fired. Perhaps we'd like to come to France.

[A]

Exhaustive.

[C]

And make a baguette rocket.

[B]

A baguette rocket. Be tasty.

[A]

That would be funny. Rocket in the shape of a baguette, dude.

[B]

So you've got the scientists vacating, and then you've got NASA engineers and folks that will not be doing the fundamental research we've been robbing R and D from the United States for. My career has spanned 30 years. At this point, I can't talk to all the things that happened before me, but I can talk to all the things that happened in 30 years in my experience. And it was bad when I started my career. It's even worse now, 30 years later. I think current events are going to have ramifications for America as a leader in science and technology for decades to come because of what's happening now.

[C]

We're plundering our own intellectual treasure is what we're doing.

[B]

Because you don't know which experiments are going to work, you have to fund a lot of different science experiments, technology areas, hoping that one out of 10 or 15 are going to be winners.

[A]

Why don't they know this?

[B]

I don't know. I guess that's why I'm here. Let's get the word out.

[A]

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[A]

Speaking as an academic, if I come up with a great idea and I publish it and then all my colleagues see it, they can judge it, see if there's a flaw, or use it as a stepstone to reach a next goal. That's the openness that is fundamental to the progress of science. You're in a competitive industry. If you make some discovery, would you be resistant to patent it? Cause then other people would see it. How does intellectual property work in your business?

[B]

There is a strong desire to hide things that are unique because it becomes intellectual property and IP of the business that can actually add to Its value.

[A]

So tell me things you're hiding now.

[B]

So I, I sure I'm.

[C]

I'm happy.

[A]

No, no, no.

[C]

Remember that warp engine you talked about?

[B]

So one of the things as a CEO of a space startup that I think about a lot is integrity. And so to your kind of what you're scratching out a little bit is if there was something so great that could benefit humanity. I learned a lot from Paul Allen when I worked for him, because one of the things I took Microsoft, Paul Allen. Microsoft, Paul Allen. And one of the things I took away from Paul was technology for the benefit of humanity. So that's one of our kind of cultural touchstones at portal space systems. So if we had something so great and so beneficial to humanity, I wouldn't want to hide that. But that's just my take on integrity.

[C]

Now, what does your wife feel about this?

[B]

Well, we should talk to her about that. It's probably going to come down to the value and the dollar. I think she'd rather have a husband with integrity than without is what I.

[C]

Think she'd probably go. That's a great answer, but we don't.

[B]

Have enough integrity in the business right now. Is a personal observation. Because the push to make money, the push to grow a business and satisfy investors sometimes compromises people's value systems in ways that aren't great.

[C]

So how could that. Because it seems to me like what you're doing is either comes down to this works or it doesn't. So I'm sure there are people who feel like, well, what do I need integrity for? Because it either works or it doesn't, you know, so what difference does it make? Where exactly does a lack of integrity hurt the business? And then subsequently, I think lying about.

[B]

The progress of your product, that's where.

[C]

I keep the money coming.

[B]

That's where I see it the most. I see vaporware businesses are trying to drive for that next fundraise.

[C]

Gotcha.

[B]

That next investor.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

And they lie their asses off to get to the next step.

[C]

Ah, okay.

[B]

And that's where I see it the most.

[A]

Vaporware. That's what that is.

[C]

I don't know what vaporware is.

[A]

Well, there software.

[C]

Oh, vaporware.

[A]

There's hardware. Oh, there's wet wear. Wet wear, which is the brain. And then there's vaporware. And vaporware, it's just vapor. There's nothing behind the.

[C]

That is my Uncle Jimmy at a cookout.

[B]

Vaporware.

[C]

Yes. I didn't have a name for it until now.

[A]

So take me back to the billionaire boys Space Race. I mean they're billionaires and they had the cash. How does that work compared with someone who has a brilliant idea and just gets VC money to come in and help him?

[B]

Yeah, well with Elon, he had that money from PayPal to start Tesla and SpaceX. So he had a hundred million dollar head start that most people don't have.

[A]

Yeah, VCs will come up with $100 million. You can get that.

[B]

I mean, you have to work at it. It doesn't happen that fast. I mean, normally you still end up going through a process where you're going to raise a pre seed round of a few million and then a seed of maybe 10 or 20 million and.

[A]

Then plus you owe the VC at the end, where if Elon is spending his own money, he just owes himself.

[B]

You're diluting your business every time you raise money. Yes, and Elon didn't have to do that because it was his own money.

[C]

It's his own money. So let me ask you because I'm just fascinated by this whole thing right now. How does a VC know anything about thermal nuclear propulsion? I mean seriously, like I need $30 million.

[A]

This is where he's got to be a salesman.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, you know, so when.

[B]

We started the company four years ago, we decided to pursue solar thermal propulsion because it was a stepping stone to get to nuclear propulsion later. But nobody knew what that was or how it could translate into getting you faster movement on orbit. So you're right, the CEO has to be a salesman first. And then you have to start proving that you can build this hardware. And then you start building hardware, you start doing testing, you start showing people.

[A]

Plus you're going to assemble a board of some kind who's looking over your shoulder.

[B]

I've started to do that now.

[A]

Yeah, but he hadn't done it.

[C]

He didn't need to. Now you made him actually say it publicly.

[B]

I have a board, but it's a small board.

[A]

But his mom is on the board. You're doing so well, son.

[B]

That's a good idea. That's a good idea, Neil. I hadn't thought about that.

[C]

That's funny.

[A]

You need some skeptical physicists on your board to know what's possible and what isn't.

[B]

That's true. I can always use good skeptics on the board. But the investors typically don't know anything about the technology to your question. And they hire people.

[A]

That's not unique to space. Right. Almost all the high tech frontier companies, VCs just maybe just like the idea.

[B]

So One of the things we did at Portal was we started working with the Space Force and the Air Force on small business innovative research contracts so that we could show people that knew things about space, that knew the technology, that investors could then get confidence on that we were on the right track of things. So there's just a lot of steps you gotta take to try to convince people something's real. And I wanted to do that with data as much as salesmanship, because I didn't want to be vaporware.

[A]

Okay, so could you give us an overview on the history of propulsion and how the ideas have landed, what's working, what has underperformed relative to predictions, what has overperformed? What we do know is that we don't really have flying cars. We have these flying drones. Okay. They want to call them flying taxis, but they're helicopter drones. Right. So in the old days, there was just simple Goddard liquid propulsion that you can throttle. I guess it's chemical energy. Yes, we're still using chemical energy. We are. So what's up with that?

[B]

Well, to get out of Earth's gravity well, you want a lot of thrust. And liquid rocket engines are still the best way to get off the ground and into orbit. Where technology has now started to evolve is once you're in orbit, now what do you do? I would argue that liquid rocket engines aren't the best way to get you around once you're on orbit. Now we're still using that to take upper stages, third stages, second stages, to take you to higher orbits and stuff. But that's not the most efficient way to go. And so they started to see this with.

[A]

So there are these regimes. Yes, there's acceleration regime, delta V regimes that don't call for the same solutions.

[B]

Correct. There's more solutions available than what we've typically used before. Okay, so the electric propulsion came on the scene a while back.

[A]

And tell me how that works.

[B]

So typically you're talking about a Hall thruster type system. So you're creating ions that you're accelerating out the back of an electric motor or engine.

[A]

Why isn't that an ion engine?

[B]

It's an ion engine.

[A]

Okay, okay, okay.

[B]

Something different, but it's not electric propulsion. Ion engines are in the same family. They're very efficient, but they don't have a lot of thrust.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So you don't. Because you're not creating the acceleration. Because you don't have a lot of thrust, you don't get anywhere very fast. So satellites said, okay, that's cool. If it takes us weeks or months to get to an orbit where we're selling electrons for broadband Internet or TV or whatever, that's fine. But then our adversaries started developing spacecraft that could move a lot faster with higher thrust. And then they started doing things on orbit that threatened some of our critical infrastructure. And now we have no way to kind of maneuver around that.

[A]

So there's strategic value to this.

[B]

Maneuverability is a key ingredient of warfare on land, sea and space now. And now space, you think so?

[A]

Chemical rockets, we are removing energy that was built into the molecules that are in the fuel tank. That energy gets released, you expel mass out one end, the rocket recoils by going the opposite direction. Newton's laws. Yep.

[B]

Accelerate those particles in the thrust chamber.

[A]

As well with very high mass, high speed coming out the back. Once you are in place, you now kick out ions which have very low mass but high efficiency. And so it'll move you if you're patient.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And so these are two different needs, clearly. Okay.

[B]

And now there's a new need which is we don't have that patience any longer.

[A]

Right, Got it.

[C]

Now, what are, I'll say, our adversaries, what are they using for maneuverability?

[B]

Well, if you look at what China's done as they've grown, the amount of mass they can throw with their long march launch vehicles, they're just making bigger and bigger spacecraft with bigger and bigger tanks and bigger and bigger thrusters.

[C]

So they're brute forcing it.

[B]

Yes, sir, that's correct.

[C]

That's what they're doing.

[B]

And. And we like to be more elegant. Remember my story about the Russian rocket?

[C]

Right.

[B]

American. We always want to think about everything.

[C]

Right.

[B]

As my wife often tells me, I'm in my head too much. That's very much an American.

[C]

But you know what? I kind of feel like precision and elegance wins out in the long term if you can get past the short term in commercially.

[B]

Yes.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Because you deem that elegance to hit a price point that's going to make you both commercially viable and viable for the defense industry as well.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And unlike America, they spend as much money as they want on anything that they want.

[B]

Well, and China's completely aligned in their military industrial complex.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I mean, there's only one chain of command, one person that makes those decisions.

[C]

Exactly. And that's what I want here, that kind of efficiency.

[A]

He channels Trump, Donald J. He can't help it. He can't help it.

[C]

I'm sorry.

[A]

So is there anything you could testify in Congress today that's reminiscent of what you testified back in 2015, that would.

[C]

Let them know our needs and to.

[A]

Let the transition of our needs.

[C]

What kind of dumbasses they are. Because they are dumbasses. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[B]

The interesting thing.

[C]

We can cut that out. Please don't cut that out.

[B]

The interesting thing about all of that is that when I testified before Congress in 2015, it was about, why are we sending all this money to Russia and buying their engines when we've got engineers we need to train in the United States and we have commercial companies that can do the job? And that was my argument. And I said, hey, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, Starship Raptor are coming. It's going to be a thing. Fortunately, I was right on all of that. What I would say today to different committees before Congress is our adversaries are coming for us, and we are cutting R and D spending, we're cutting engineering, we're cutting science. We're cutting all of the things we need to be competitive.

[A]

We're also spooking immigrants who could have expertise as they've always had. I mean, when I was in graduate school, half of my fellow graduate students were foreign nationals. Half of them. And now they're all spooked because they don't know what's going to happen.

[B]

And China's made no bones about they want to be the preeminent superpower in the world. So I don't know why we kind of have our heads in the sand about this.

[A]

No, it's a head up our ass. Say it right.

[B]

Okay, sure. Head up our ass.

[A]

That's a darker place.

[B]

If I was testifying before Congress to your question, I would be hitting those points really hard because we need to be accelerating capabilities that are going to preserve. I want to preserve low Earth orbit, mid Earth orbit, Leo, cislunar around the moon for commercial opportunities in the future. And so my thesis is, if I don't do my part to protect and defend it with the Department of Defense, there's not gonna be a spot to make money commercially in the future. And that's how it's been since we started sailing wooden ships. The pirates were there. It's gonna be no different on orbit. So what are we gonna do about it?

[A]

Yeah. And so let me describe what I think is going on in space. And you either say, I've got it right, or modify it as necessary. When people hear space force, they say, oh, there's gonna be weapons and bombs in space. And it's not really what's happening there. What's happening There is our assets that enable what we think of as modern life and civilization are fundamentally pivoted on what we have orbiting this earth with the satellites, the gps, especially our other communication satellites. And so if you have a military, it's not, oh, defend this border, take this hill. No, it's defend our assets. And our assets are bare ass in space and an adversary who wanted to take us out, blind us, they would go to our communication satellites and take us out.

[C]

Just like Independence Day.

[A]

It was Independence Day. You remembered that.

[C]

That's right.

[A]

The aliens came and took out all of our satellites.

[B]

Leave the World behind on Netflix.

[A]

Oh, that's another one.

[C]

That's a great one.

[A]

Leave the World Behind. It was a tech warfare. It's not.

[C]

Do not watch that movie with Neil, by the way.

[B]

Oh, I think that'd be fun.

[A]

No, no. Leave the World Behind. That was actually, I think the Obamas were executive producers on that project. A terrifying movie actually. Leave the World behind to your question to me, so did I have I. Would you agree with how I've characterized it?

[B]

I loved how you characterized it because that's the same message that I try to send when I'm talking to, to why should the average citizen care about this? They should care because when they go to the gas pump, it's not going to work because GPS does the timing for the gas pump. When they go to get cash from the atm, it's not going to work because GPS does the timing for the atm. We've selectively tied our financial systems to GPS and we did that. We made a choice. We said, oh, this is cool, let's do this. This is handy. China did not do that. They have other ways they do timing for their banking and financial assets.

[A]

My money's in my mattress. So.

[B]

Not just China, but other countries, right? So we made fundamental decisions with our space technology that have made us vulnerable to your point, which is why people should care so much about.

[A]

We have battleships and marines that could do 100 push ups and launch silos. And any country that's smart is not going to attack us on those grounds. You're just going to find a weakness. That's how any war unfolds.

[B]

Well, and guess what? All those assets up there right now, can they move when they're threatened? Can they defend themselves in any meaningful way? I would argue probably not.

[A]

And I also heard, and I haven't confirmed this, but I heard and you would know that some adversaries will have satellites that'll nestle up next to our satellites and just Basically harass them either with an electromagnetic field or something. And so we then have to move our satellite away from them to maintain operability. But that uses fuel that we otherwise need to station keep. And so that will reduce the lifespan of some of our satellites because of this and. No. Did it fire a weapon at us? No. Did it destroy us? No, it's just.

[C]

It just cyber bullied us.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Orbit believers. Like a very reasonable hypothesis to me.

[A]

Yeah, I heard that and I was very diplomatic. It's another way to mess. So Space force is not just. Did not answer that question.

[C]

That was protect our astronomy. Did you see what he just did there?

[A]

What did he say?

[C]

He was just like. That seems like a very reasonable hypothesis. Which is like. Oh, man. That's exactly what is happening.

[B]

I was trying to channel my inner Neil a little.

[C]

No, that was her. That was. That's why I had to point it out. That was excellent.

[A]

So, in your current capacity as CEO of. Give me the full name again.

[B]

Portal Space Systems.

[A]

Portal Space Systems.

[B]

You'll have to ask me how about the name of the company at some point.

[A]

Ask it now. How'd you get Portal Space Systems?

[B]

I used to watch Rick and Morty with my daughter.

[C]

Excellent.

[A]

There it is.

[B]

And so half of the story is the portal gun from Rick and Rick and Morty, because that's what I used to watch with my daughter.

[A]

You know, Rick and Morty is just back to the future relationship all over again. It's Doc and Marty.

[C]

Yes, that's right.

[A]

Rick and Morty. Doc and Marty. And he's got the same kind of. Hey, Morty.

[C]

Come on, Morty.

[A]

We gotta go.

[B]

Same, same.

[C]

That's very cool.

[A]

So tell me what some of the cool. What's the coolest thing you're working on in your company right now?

[B]

So Supernova has been like Supernova, the flagship.

[A]

You took one of my words.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

My people. Well, that's our word. Just so we know.

[B]

Well, I wanted to be close to your people, but we kind of have a star theme with our products at the company.

[A]

You know, I'm going to love that.

[B]

I know you'd love that because I love Cosmos. So good. With Supernova, it's about that rapid movement. And it's Supernova because we're using concentrated solar energy and we've innovated around a heat exchanger so we don't have to combust any liquid propellants with our system. So, like a nuclear.

[A]

But this is in what? Towards what end?

[B]

This is so I can carry twice as much fuel And I have a thermal engine cycle where I'm not using combustion so I can have fewer parts, more efficiency, higher thrust and twice as much fuel because I'm not carrying an oxidizer so I don't have to burn anything. And I really wanted to do nuclear thermal, but I can't buy a nuclear reactor at Lowe's and there's not enough of them to buy right now.

[A]

10 to 24 gigawatts. You can't get one of those at Lowe's. I want at Home Depot.

[B]

I joke about this all the time. Because the thermal engine is a lot like Mr. Fusion from the second back to the Future movie because we, we use ammonia as our propellant now. But we could use.

[A]

Mr. Fusion was in the first.

[B]

Okay, yeah, at the end.

[A]

At the end.

[B]

At the end. Yes.

[A]

Get you to the second movie. You're right. Get your movie. You don't. Just don't with me here.

[B]

I like this, I like this battle of the trivia. So the thermal engine's a lot like Mr. Fusion because we can use ammonia, which is our baseline fuel because it's very storable on orbit and we have a multi year life of our spacecraft. But if I want to start moving out to Mars and I want to use methane in the future, I want to use hydrogen, I want to use other things, I can use other fuels in a thermal engine system.

[A]

Oh, so this as versatility.

[B]

As versatility because. Because I'm very much a live off the land kind of guy when it comes to space. If we're taking everything with us, we failed as engineers.

[A]

Could you tell NASA that that's what they should call it instead of in situ resource utilization.

[C]

Living off the land.

[A]

From now on. NASA.

[C]

Are you watching L O T L? Okay.

[A]

Living off the land. That is way more marketable than any in situ resource utilization.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Isru, that's a big branch of NASA.

[B]

It is NASA.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

There's a cool company down in Florida. I'll give them a shout out. They're called Admin and they are an additive manufacturing company. That's what they Cool. That's what they're, that's what they work with on all the space people that they work with.

[B]

Right. Because if I'm going to Mars, I don't, I won't think of all the things I need to live. But I want a print machine that can print any tool I need once I'm there. But anyway, so with Supernova, it's about propulsion, but it's about payload flexibility. So what that Means is software, definable power, which means you have a payload, you have a camera, you have a robot arm, you have whatever you want to do, whatever mission, it's like a LEGO brick onto the front of the payload deck. Perform your mission. I'm selling. I'll get you there as fast as you need to be, and I'll give you a platform that's very versatile over multiple years.

[A]

Not to stupidly simplify it, but are you saying you have a warehouse and I have a need? And I say I want to put this object on Mars and do some things? And you say, yeah, get two rockets from aisle A and two boosters from aisle B, and then we assemble what it is that will serve my needs.

[B]

Well, from a spacecraft standpoint. Yes. Okay, so I am going to build you the spacecraft. And whatever you need on that spacecraft to perform a mission, whether that's a camera or a telescope or whatever, I can supply power and data to that.

[A]

That is engineering heaven right there.

[B]

That's wild, because that's one of the biggest problems with satellites right now, is everything's bespoke. So you want to have a telecom satellite? Oh, I'm gonna build the whole thing, including the telecom payload.

[A]

And that's way more expensive. Yeah, the one off. It's a one off.

[B]

And if your customers don't show up and want it, then your business fails. I can't predict everything the customer needs, so I didn't want to try. I just wanted to give them a spacecraft that could meet all their needs.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

Okay, so when are we having warp.

[C]

Drives and when and how do we get in on the ground floor of your company?

[B]

Let's talk afterwards. Let's talk on the side. We can make that happen.

[A]

What's on our doorstep? What remains only in the dream states of engineers?

[B]

I think two things. If I was king of American engineering for a day for space, I'd accelerate AI and machine learning and get more robots and AI out there doing the heavy lifting for us.

[A]

It's called Skynet. You know, you.

[B]

I get that. But I think you could accelerate AI and make more robots and make more robots.

[A]

You need a different starting phrase.

[B]

But let me tell you why I said that. We spend so much time and money trying to keep humans alive that it slows our pace of exploration on orbit, slows everything. So let's get AI and ML out there on spacecraft exploring the solar system and teaching us what we don't know yet.

[A]

ML machine learning.

[B]

Yes, machine learning. So that then we can engineer the systems that keep People alive and get it right the first time. And so. And we can get more exploration done faster because we're not spending all this money to keep people alive. Right now. Let's go learn what we need to learn to keep people alive.

[A]

You better not name the robots because then people will feel for them. And if you don't bring them back, that means you kill the robot.

[C]

I'm okay with that. Yeah.

[B]

I haven't made up my mind.

[A]

I'm just saying there's a whole ethical frontier there about feelings for. For things that have field.

[C]

There's actually an ethical society that has come up around the treatment of robots.

[A]

Treatment of robots.

[B]

I guess I would tell those people, it's easier for me to keep your robot alive than a human alive in space.

[A]

That's worth it.

[C]

You got my vote with that one.

[A]

There you go. There you go.

[B]

And then on the propulsion side, I think what we're learning in quantum physics, this is where I'm going to carefully delve into your universe for a hot second. I am not the expert in quantum physics, but I do read a lot because I'm super interested in what we're learning there. But I think there's elements of the quantum world that are going to unlock propulsion technologies that might look similar to a warp drive. But I think we need to unlock some more understanding of the quantum universe to do that. I think that's going to be the linchpin in giving us sci fi geeks the warp drive we want.

[A]

So a quantum FFRDC would be a cool thing.

[B]

That would be an awesome thing.

[A]

Right. It's just everything quantum and you could.

[B]

Probably get that funded because there's a lot of defense applications for quantum as well.

[A]

Okay, so give me an actual date where we're going to have a warp drive so I can put that on my calendar. We know when the warp drive gets invented. It's 2063.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

In Star Trek. Right. So those are your marching orders.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I think we can do that.

[A]

You got 40 years.

[B]

We're moving fast in quantum.

[A]

It's via the quantum.

[B]

Via the quantum.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I think that's our best path right now.

[A]

All right. Because if you, you know, even in Back to the Future Part two, they predicted that the Cubs would win the World Series.

[B]

They did.

[A]

And they did. Yes.

[C]

But even a broken clock is.

[B]

True. What did I say? A blind spot. Sal finds an acorn every once in a while.

[C]

There you go.

[B]

But I think that with warp drive, it's not about this propulsive thing that we're all mentally geared to. It's how do we leverage quantum. To manipulate the fabric of spacetime?

[C]

So quantize gravity and things of that nature.

[B]

You have to really. You're going to have to figure out how to fold space.

[A]

You need a new understanding of the fabric of the space time continuum. Manipulate that. It's not even about propulsion.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That's Thornburg's theory anyway, for whatever that's worth.

[C]

Oh.

[A]

So, Jeff, we gotta land this plane. But, Chuck, do you have any last questions for the man?

[C]

Yeah, I'm just interested. Like, what would be the ultimate achievement in commercial space travel or the Holy Grail? What is it that everybody wants?

[A]

I'm gonna tell you what I want and then we'll go to him.

[C]

Go ahead.

[A]

I want to go suborbital between any two points on Earth so that I'm 45 minutes. I'm no more than 45 minutes away from lunch in Tokyo and then fly back. Wow. So that would require rockets, not planes, because orbit is 90 minutes.

[C]

Right.

[A]

So if you're suborbital, you just go the other way. Whatever. You can go anywhere in the world. And I think about that every time I go to Washington. I go to Washington, like for lunch, meeting, and then come back and I'm home for dinner. And if you told that to our founding fathers. Get the horse ready.

[C]

That would be an impossibility.

[A]

So pick that up.

[B]

What awaits us for me, my Holy Grail, is that humans can go to any orbit between here and the moon or the moon. It isn't a significant emotional event. That's just a standard.

[A]

Going to the moon. I'll see you on Tuesday.

[C]

Exactly. That's wild.

[A]

That's what you want.

[B]

That's what I want.

[A]

So. So in my lifetime, Cis. Lunar space becomes our backyard. Not even worthy of comment.

[B]

Correct.

[C]

Look at that. That's very cool. It's like, say I'm. I'm going to Poughkeepsie. I'm going to the moon. It's all the same.

[B]

It's all the same.

[C]

All the same.

[A]

That's a. That's a. That's a worthy goal. I like that. So let me perhaps offer a cosmic perspective on this. I'm a scientist. I think sciency things about the world. And at no time am I asking, how would one accomplish this? How would one build it? How would one pay for it? How much ingenuity does it require? Do I have to invent something that has never before existed just to solve the problem? I have Posed. I don't really have to think about that. And we have this community of engineers that walk among us who live for that. They live for it. You know what else they live for? Constraints on what it is they need to do. That was the most impressive feature of how engineers function. The last thing an engineer wants to hear is, here, go build this. There's no timeframe, there's no money limit, and there's no constraints. They're gonna be staring at their navel, not knowing what to do. But if I say I got three months, I got $2 million, these are the specs, and this is the requirements. Go. Their ingenuity derives from figuring stuff out within those constraints. That's how we make discoveries. Not scientific discoveries. Discoveries about how stuff works around us that so many of us, myself included, take for granted. So there is no future of civilization without happy engineers. Engineers that are given problems to solve. And maybe it's up to the rest of us to give them the kinds of problems we need solved. Energy, housing, climate. Scientists can't solve those problems. We can characterize them, but we need engineers to step in the ring. And this is an appeal, I suppose, to a few. Not everyone can be an engineer. We don't want that. Engineers don't even want that. But engineers as a demographic of society, that'll lead us into the future. There is no civilization without them. And for me, that is a cosmic perspective. Chuck, thanks. Thanks for being here.

[C]

Always a pleasure.

[A]

And Jeff Thornburg, thanks for being on StarTalk. My pleasure coming all this way for us.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

This is. This has been another installment of StarTalk. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, bidding you to keep looking up.

[D]

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