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Maria Varmazas (10:09)

Our guest today is AJ Gemmer, co founder and CTO at Lunar Outpost. I asked AJ to tell us more about how Lunar Outpost was founded.

AJ Gemmer (10:20)

I'm the co founder and chief technology officer of Lunar Outpost. I have always been both a space buff and a car guy, so lunar rovers were sort of a natural thing to me. I'm very excited to be in this position where I get to work on cutting edge technology, but still be able to go back to some of my roots building and restoring cars with my dad. And yeah, we've had a really great time. Well, okay, a bit about my background. I went to the University of Colorado at Boulder, CU Boulder for aerospace, and while I was there began working at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. And that gave me a great appreciation for space science, space science instruments and their needs and kind of what the future looked like for space. And during that time I got really interested in the moon and space resources. And so, together with my co founders, we came up with the concept for Lunar Outpost, which was to develop technologies and robotic systems that enable a sustainable presence on the moon and also provide benefits to people here on Earth.

Maria Varmazas (11:32)

That is an awesome origin story. Thank you, A.J. i appreciate that. And how cool that you get to merge your two loves in what you do every day. That is the best. That's the dream right there. And congratulations to you and your whole team, really, on the contract that you all were awarded from NASA earlier this year. Can you tell me a bit about that?

AJ Gemmer (11:51)

Absolutely. The lunar terrain vehicle program is really the latest in NASA's Artemis campaign, in this case, to provide mobility for astronauts when they're on the moon. So just like in the Apollo days, when we had the lunar roving vehicle, the lrv, which allowed the Apollo astronauts to greatly increase the science they were able to do and the exploration and ground that they covered on the moon. The Lunar terrain vehicle is the next iteration of that, carrying two astronauts and a wealth of payloads, both scientific and commercial, to a huge number of sites of interests all over the Moon. Using the ltv, you know, we're just going to learn things at an unprecedented pace about the lunar environment, particularly the lunar south pole, which is, you know, very interesting from a scientific and a commercial perspective.

Maria Varmazas (12:42)

That's so cool. And can you tell me a bit about the challenges of the lunar terrain? I think many of us have an idea of it in our heads, but we're not in the world as much as you are. So, I mean, what, what is, I mean, what are you all facing and what kind of challenges are you trying to overcome?

AJ Gemmer (13:00)

The Moon is a challenging and harsh environment for anything to operate in, much less a mobile system like a rover. So there will be elements like the lunar dust, which is very sharp and abrasive. It's harmful to seals, and, you know, the specialized coatings that we use in aerospace. So dust mitigation is an area that we really specialize in, and protecting our rovers and robotic systems and our payloads as well. The Moon also has very large changes in its thermal environment. It gets very hot during the lunar day and very cold during the lunar night. And some of those areas on the Moon that are particularly interesting are called permanently shadowed regions. There are areas where the sun never hits and therefore are extremely cold down to approaching absolute zero. And those areas tend to hold volatiles like water. So they're very interesting scientifically. If we want to extract resources on the Moon, we need to develop hardware that can get down into those PSRs and access that. And dealing with those thermal challenges is another thing that Lunar outpost really specializes in. Furthermore, surviving the lunar night is a challenge as well, because not only is it cold, it's very long, up to two Earth weeks at the lunar equator. And those long duration cold temperatures require a lot of power to survive, which again, is a big challenge to robots on the Moon.

Maria Varmazas (14:31)

That is a fascinating set of challenges. I imagine work is both challenging and very fun trying to figure out solutions to all these really intricate issues. But I mean, that sounds like the dream, honestly, so that sounds really cool. Can you tell me a little bit about. Also, I'm skipping around a little bit here, but the Lunar Dawn Science Council, this sounds like sort of a meeting of the minds to explore some possible solutions to these fascinating challenges. But why don't you tell me a bit about it?

AJ Gemmer (15:00)

Yeah. The Lunar Dawn Science Council is a concept we came up with really to make sure that we were addressing NASA's needs for science and science instrumentation, science targets, when we designed our lunar terrain vehicle. So we chose to invite the. Let's see. We chose to invite Arizona State University to chair our Science Council, along with a number of other esteemed institutions, and provide input on the question of if you could go anywhere on the Moon and do anything, where would you want to go? Where can you do the most science and the best science? And, and how do we get your instruments to those points? And that is resulting in a lunar train vehicle? That is really optimized and designed to meet NASA science goals, but also the goals of universities and educational institutions and commercial customers who want to put their payloads aboard our lunar terrain vehicle.

Maria Varmazas (15:58)

That's fascinating. Okay, so when you think long term about the work that you all are doing, what does success look like to you? What are your long term goals there?

AJ Gemmer (16:09)

Oh, I think success looks like a thriving lunar economy with hundreds or thousands of people living and working full time on the moon. That's really what I'd love to see in my lifetime. And in order to make that happen, we need readily available launch and landing services, which are well underway, as well as reliable mobility solutions on the lunar surface. So that's the piece that Lunar Outpost chose to address and really advance and push forward as fast and as safely and as cost effectively as we can to bring that thriving lunar ecosystem to life.

Maria Varmazas (16:41)

Awesome. Well, thank you, A.J. thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I like to make sure that my guests get the last word. So if there's anything that you wanted to leave our audience with, anything you want to tell them, anything we didn't cover that you wanted to mention, by all means.

AJ Gemmer (16:54)

Well, I think we are witnesses a second space race right now. So for younger generations, including, you know, kids in school, this is the time to be a part of, you know, the next leap in humanity. Exploring the moon, our solar system, and, you know, really bringing the future to life.

Maria Varmazas (17:27)

We'll be right back. Welcome back. A lot of times space stories make us go ah or ah. But it's not as often they make me go aw. And we mentioned it a few months ago, But EXO launch of Germany is helping give organizations from developing countries the opportunity to deploy their own 1U to 3U sized cubesats, complete with full technical support via the company's ExoPod system. And ExoLaunch is doing this through the UN Office for Outer Space affairs, or UNOSA's Access to Space for all program, which is helping nations to develop space capabilities from building satellites to establishing space agencies. And together, exolaunch and UNOSA hope to open new doors for countries eager to launch their own space programs, building expertise and fostering international cooperation all along the way. The EXO launch program officially kicked off at the beginning of the year, with applications opening over the summer. And we're mentioning the story again today because the first round window of opportunity to apply to this program officially closes at the end of this month, December 31st. And we want to make sure that people know about it. The Access to Space for all project has had a number of awardees in the past, but no one has been officially picked yet for this exopod iteration of the project. So if you're interested, you can hop to for more information on this story via the link in our Show Notes. That's it for T minus for December 11, 2024, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes@spare.n2k.com we'd love to know what you think of this podcast. You can email us@spacen2k.com or submit the survey in the Show Notes. Your feedback ensures we deliver the information that keeps you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. N2K's strategic workforce intelligence optimizes the value of your biggest investment your people. We make you smarter about your team while making your team smarter. This episode was produced by Alice Carruth. Our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iban. Our executive editor is Brandon Karpf, Simone Petrella is our president, Peter Kielby is our publisher and I am your host, Maria Varmazas. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.

AJ Gemmer (20:05)

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