Hello, everyone. This is David Goldsmith, and welcome to the Age of Infinite. Throughout history, we've seen humanity undergo transformational shifts that are so impactful, they've defined themselves the entire time as ages. Just recently, you've lived through the information age and what an incredible journey it's been. Now think about this. You could be very well and we could be very well in the midst of another monumental shift, the transition to the age of infinite.
We're talking about an age that transcends the concept of scarcity and abundance. It introduces a lifestyle rich with infinite possibilities enabled by a new paradigm that links the moon and the earth, and we call that term Mearth. This synergy will create a new ecosystem and economic model propelling us into the era of infinite possibilities. It does sound like a plot for an extraordinary sci fi story, but this is a story that you'll see unfold in your lifetime.
This podcast is brought to you by the Project Moon Hut Foundation, where we look to establish a box of the roof and door on the moon, a Moon Hut, we happen to have been named by NASA, through the accelerated development of an Earth and space based ecosystem, then to turn the innovations and the paradigm shifting thinking from the endeavor back on Earth to improve how we live on Earth for all species. We're an Earth focused organization leveraging the ecosystem of beyond Earth.
For more information, you could visit our website at projectmunot.org, where you can check out our 40 year plan, our work, and so much more. There's such amazing tools being built by our team. I think you should check them out. Just go to the 40 year plan or look at the Project Moon classification system. Amazing graphics, amazing tools. And anybody who've seen it has said, oh my god. This is there. This is incredible. So we are a nonprofit.
So while you're there, consider making a donation to support the cause by clicking on the button in the top right hand corner. Now let's dive into the podcast. The title for this podcast is Beyond Borders, Establishing Global Collaboration to Achieve the Moon Hut. And today, we have a very special guest, good friend, Joe Regan. How are you, Joe? I'm wonderful. Thanks so much for having me on. It's a pleasure. So as always, we do a very brief bio. So here's Joe's experience.
It started off as an officer in the US Army. We held a number of tactical and strategic roles, including doing 2 tours. He's also been the director of military and veterans outreach center. He's been the cohost of a news radio program. He was recently the president of Newspace Global, and now he's running for office in Colorado Springs. So that's his a little short bio, but let me share one thing that often confuses individuals. I don't know a single thing that Joe is going to talk about.
Our podcast go 2, 3, 4. Our last one with Brent went 5 hours. I don't have any knowledge of what's going on. So what happens is we have a conversation about what we want to discuss in a high level. We come up with the title, and then the individual goes out on their own and comes up the content that they would like to, for us to hear. We then meet again, and this is the first time that Joe and I have been are meeting since our call.
And he's going to give us the outline, and we're going to work through that. I have a piece of paper. I have many pieces of paper in front of me. I don't know where we're going. I'm on the journey with you. That said, do you have an outline or bullets for us, Joe? I do. You know, I would be I I would I'm not gonna lie to you, David. I I also have no idea where I'm going most of the time as well.
But I did think, how can we talk about this environment in such a way that, you know, such a a lofty title. Right? We're we're beyond borders. How do we how do we think of the Mearth ecosystem as being something that that goes beyond that? And, you know, any good speechwriter tells you, you know, more than 3 points, but no more than 5. So I I I came up with the middle. I got 4 points that I was not on one look at.
Actually, the number one largest that we've received is in history, it's not on these these series, was 21. Now the interesting thing was as we went through the first eleven, we started touching on and covering the others, and it ended up ending in a perfect time, but he did have 21. So what is what are the 4 you're going to give?
Well, as we talk about this, the thing that we wanted to to describe for folks was that in this ecosystem that we're talking about be going beyond earth, that there's really not a a policy framework for our customers. Is what? Policy? I well, I think the whole thing is gonna be about policy, but I was, you know, starting with starting from the beginning. Right? You talk about how What's the number? Give me 1, 2, 3, 4 so I can write them down. So the Lunar Treaty is the first one.
Lun Lunar Tree. Okay. Number 2. The Artemis Accords. Artemis Accords. Number 3. The Antarctic Treaty. Antarctic Treaty and number 4. Well, we can't talk about space without talking about the United States Space Force. So we can finish off talking about the role that our military might be playing in in the future environment beyond earth. Okay. We could talk not talk about Space Force, but you wanna talk about Space Force. So, remember, you and I are having the conversation here. Let's take this.
Let's start with your number one lunar tree. So the thing that you mentioned in the opening, David, was that the we we're coming out of the information age. And for me, one thing that's interesting about this age of the infinite is it started before the information age. When we look at our human exploration of space, it started back you you could make an argument and say, well, it was in the forties and we started developing rocketry going into the fifties when we started exploration.
And then, of course, you know, looking at the the Apollo program and how that led us to actually put human beings on the lunar surface. And it's interesting to me that everything that's happening in outer space today goes back to a series of treaties that were signed in the late sixties.
So when we think of this from a policy framework, and this is something that I've encountered time and time again that so many developments have occurred that our policy framework, that our international law doesn't cover a lot of the things that are happening in outer space. And as we one of the things that I appreciate about Project Moon Hut is we've taken such a linear approach to this, like project management. You can't just show up one day and expect things to work.
There's gotta be deliberate growth and expansion throughout this. And we don't have that on the policy side. So how do we start working with international partners to make sure that we have that sort of a framework to ensure safety and space. Okay. So you you just took a jump. You just called it safety and spaces. It is safety in space the 1 or you talked about all the different types of interconnectedness. Why did you label it safety in spaces? The I think the jumping off?
Well, I think when we talk about where we're at today and, you know, we're gonna as we talk about some of these things, when we think of of, again, frameworks for how we interact with each other in a at an international scale. For example, the international law of the sea, which wasn't part of my bullet points, but I guess this this would be sub bullet 1. The international So Go ahead. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. And and say it again.
International So the inter you know, international law of the sea provides a mechanism for us to ensure that commerce occurs on the high seas in a manner that is it's safe. It defines normal operating conditions so that any mariner that goes out to sea has an understanding of of what they're going to be what they're going to be doing, how they're going to interact with others, how in the event of an emergency, how they'll call for help and how that help will arrive.
And we don't have that in space. And as we see additional commercial entities trying to get us into outer space, we'll need to start building that framework. Whether it be manned or unmanned missions, how are these things on and beyond orbit going to interact with each other so that we don't have catastrophic accidents? How do we make sure that we're maintaining control over over property?
Whether it be government property, whether it be private property, how are these things going to be governed so that we can interact with each other to prevent conflict and to ensure that those that are out there exploring space have the framework necessary to operate safely. So it's interesting you've categorized safety as cat catastrophic accidents, property law, exploring space, and prevent conflict. And I'm assuming you're dumping in their terrorist activity.
You know, I at at this point, you know, this is the challenge of any policy community is we often think of of the now and what that might what what that might look like. And then we design policy around what is now and not what is the future. But I think you're a 100% right that in the future, we could look at how non state actors that want to similar to to piracy on the high seas, similar to terrorism.
How can these entities be engaged in space and threaten that that sense of security and safety that we're trying to develop so that those that are out there doing science on our behalf can can can do that? It's the the it's funny. And it's not a funny luck but it's a funny that the individuals who I'm speaking with who tend to be military, historically in the military, no matter where it is in the world. Mhmm. They always bring up conflict.
Mhmm. It's almost like it's bred into the individual because one individual who's on our team looked at our plans, and the first thing he said was, well, where are the barracks? And his reaction was, where are the barracks? Another individual where came up with this terrorist thing, that direction. He brought up being safe when we're building Mearth and the moon hut in the four phases. And I wrote just yesterday to one of our teammates.
I spent 10 hours writing something for one of our teammates. And in there, I wrote, there will be terrorist activity. It's just a matter of when. Mhmm. Mhmm. It doesn't it's not that it has to be tomorrow or the next, but some way or shape and form because we've seen all the movies. We know humankind. Someone will do something that will be classified as a terroristic activity. So that's why when you said safety, I went, You went directly there Yeah. Which was interesting.
Well, and I think that that's the the purpose of international law was always designed to do just that. And so when I think of this in terms of policy framework, in terms of international framework, that emphasis on on safety and avoiding conflict is is where our current structures are are centered on. Everything that the United Nations does focused on international law is meant to prevent conflict or at least create a mechanism to keep those things from from escalating too quickly.
I don't wanna be too political, but I have you been paying attention to the United Nations recently? Well, that's I know I'm not exactly sure if they're sitting in that that seat. So the the reason that I'm bringing it up is because in my head sorry. I don't have a military background. I I was very close. I had a roommate in university, and he wanted me to join the military because I've done certain things he thought would be very valuable.
And my mind goes to the building, the creation, the development you have in the title collaboration. And your initial starting point is policy and safety. Mhmm. Yeah. And that's not where I would have started at all. Well and I I think that's one thing that's often missing because when we start down these pathways of looking at what's possible, it can be easy for us sometimes.
And this is and this is where, again, I think project Moon Hut has set itself apart because instead of just going with the, oh, this is this is what is possible and let's just aim for that. Project Moon Hut looks at it and says, here's how we grow into what we want to to make happen. And that's where, from a policy perspective, is, I think, an important component to this.
Because as you are scaling, inevitably, some sort of it doesn't have to be armed or violent conflict, but eventually some sort of conflict arises. So even, you know so, like, for so going back to my my my bullet point here about the outer space treaty, the Outer Space Treaty explicitly says that the moon or lunar surface or any celestial body for that matter cannot be used as any sort of a military base.
Okay. Now NASA draws almost a good amount of its its pilots from the United States military, and many of them are still on active duty. So what constitutes a military base? If there is a US military If all the members who are sitting on the on the on the moon are military individuals, then what yeah. What's the definition?
And I think that's where when we look at the arrangements that we've built around the International Space Station, We've built that framework into this collaborative model to say, there may be military officers on this spacecraft. However, the purpose of the spacecraft is to be scientific in nature. This is not a military operation. What's the thing you could take the like, it sounds like you take the boy out of the man, the man out of the boy, whatever.
There's something where you can't take that personnel. Right. Which kinda led to what I said is military people like you immediately went to military or this angle of deflection or focus. So you can't take what is it? You can't you could take the boy out of the man, but you can't take the man out of the boy. It's something like that. Maybe it's the other yeah. Something like that. At least we both understand it. So you you're I wanna ask start with the the the treaty itself.
Has the, who hasn't signed the space treaty? The International Space Treaty, the first one. So mostly, it's it's just the the, mostly countries in Africa. So there's a couple of countries in South Africa or in South America that have not signed to it. But for the most part, any company or any any country with an active space program is part of part of this program. And yet, it's archaic because it's based on a 19 sixties premise of not believing even and I I read it a long time ago.
It's not based upon commercial ventures. It doesn't so is it even a viable document? I think it's it's a start. I think it's become a starting point. It gives us a a a concept of how we interact. But like you said, in 1967, how many satellites did we have on orbit at the time? And now so much of the global economy is, you know, functioning based on satellite based infrastructure. We have you know, there was no commercial space in 1967.
And now, some of the largest providers of of launch and and communications are a 100% commercial entities. And that's where And they're and by the way, they're flying directly over countries Mhmm. That in theory, if we use the logic that this the airspace over a country is theirs for protection. I know we have a limit, but in essence, you can put a spy satellite right over the top of another country. Right. So how you're starting you you you start off with the the tree, the lunar tree.
How I'm I'm jumping here because I'm trying to follow the the line. Why did you start with lunar tree? Treaty. The lunar treaty. Treaty. Oh. Sorry about that. Treaty. You caught that treaty. I think, lunar tree. We're not Lunar tree. I'm like, what is a lunar tree? So I that's the first thing when you threw it out. I went, this is going in a place I never thought of, the lunar treaties. Okay. So yeah. That that clear. So it was so it That helps a lot. It was part yes.
This is this is part of that outer space treaty of of 1967 that when the United States committed to going to the moon, that we then had to build this framework and saying, okay. Well, if someone does land on the moon, what is that gonna look like? What what what can they do there? And the at the time, you really only had 2 nations on earth that were even capable of of getting there. And and ultimately, it is only the United States to ever put humans on the moon so far.
But we look at where we are today, and the the world that existed in 1967 is no longer is no longer relevant. Because now you have So Yeah. So so then what has progressed since then that's viable? Well, I mean, look at, India with its, you know, its successful lunar landing on the South Pole. You look at, China and Russia having not having, especially China, having ambition to put astronauts on the your Chinese astronauts on the moon.
So as that goes and as we start developing that sort of infrastructure, I think because at this point and, again, to the credit of Project Moon Hunt, there's a plan as as what this is going to look like.
And I think that that's where you know, as we look in transitioning over to to Artemis, that's where we'll see the lessons learned on the International Space Station and having that transition over to, you know, an isolated lunar habitation on the on the moon surface that will foster international collaboration in the interest of of science. But what's to prevent another nation from going in there and and doing something different?
And that's right now, there's nothing that could, you know, how what would that mechanism look like to either prevent it or it provide that ability to to start discussing it at at an international level? It's interest I'm, we we don't call it lunar. We call it moon because we don't talk around saying we're on terraforma. We don't use the words on earth that we would say that we use on the moon. So I I tend to use the word on moon.
Just so you if you recall, ours is 8 people, 90 people, 578, 1,644 over a 40 year time frame. And you've seen the scale models. You've seen the work that we've been putting into it. So when you're the way you're phrasing it, and I'd like maybe you can rephrase it for me again.
You're saying because we have, as most people have said, the most in-depth and most detailed plans going out in 40 years, how does your statement Moonhot Project Moonhot is doing it differently, sync with the words that you're saying? You understand what I'm asking? I think so. And Okay. I would say that the way that that that syncs with what I'm saying is we what what are we cape what are we capable of today?
You know, our starting point for any further exploration in space is building off the success of the International Space Station program. You know, that's shown us Yeah. That we have the ability to, for a long period of time, have sustained scientific exploration occurring in outer space. Now I think the question becomes, is it easier or more difficult to do that on the surface of the moon?
Because the, you know, the International Space Station has a number of of challenges, technical challenges just from sheer logistics. But Yeah. How does that then translate to actually doing these same things on the surface of the moon? Things like and and these are very practical things in many cases. We're we're like it's it's not fun to talk about what are we doing with garbage. But when we're on the International Space Station, we could simply jettison it, and it burns up in the atmosphere.
Well, we're not gonna be able to do that on the surface of the moon. So how do we what are we doing with garbage? What are we doing with human waste? All these types of things become those logistical challenges that you can't just jump in and create a colony of of a 1000 people or habitation of a 1000 people. You've gotta be able to start building from the ground up and and incrementally expanding so that all those logistical hurdles have been taken care of.
So the so in the way, I guess, I'm reframing it is that because you've seen a logical progression, 150 page paper, I don't know if you've seen that, and multiple others, you're seeing that we're addressing the different phases of development necessary for 8 people than 90 people and what the evolution needs there are in structures. Right. That makes you feel comfortable, but it does so then how does it tie when you say Project Moon is getting there?
Is how does it tie to I I'm not so optimistic on this world today of a new treaty. Mhmm. How does it does it does Projekt Kemonata supposed to paradigm shift and help to create new dialogue? Yes. How do you see that dialogue playing out in, for example, this treaty space, which I have read so much garbage from individuals who've written about what they think the treaty should be and how they should be written, and they're from everywhere around the world.
I mean, you don't even get along with your wife, your husband. I mean, I I don't even like you, and you're telling me you understand how the world would get along better in this environment or that this would, the collaboration part would happen. How do you see it? And I think that's the advantage of within the scientific community, despite international conflict, we see a desire to to collaborate.
The International Space Station, to go back to that again, despite the fact that as you and I are talking, the United States is discussing providing munitions to Ukraine so they can fight the Russians. And yet as at the same time, orbiting overhead, we have American and Russian scientists actively working together on the International Space Station.
And even throughout the Cold War, we've seen those opportunities for scientific collaboration to to drive dialogue between nations even when they are not friendly nations, if that makes sense. Still the question is, if we're doing it up there, we're doing a horrible job down here. Yep. To, the fact that the Russians shipped in their Soyuz Rockets individuals to the International Space Station when the shuttle program broke down, they there was a lot of collaboration.
It's not translating back to Earth. The overview effect doesn't work. It just doesn't work. I I know that everybody loves to quote it and that it will change the world. No. It hasn't. We haven't gotten a better, we haven't been better people since night since we saw that day of seeing the Earth from afar.
So how do you believe that Project Moon Hut, if we wanna use it as its reference, how would is Project Moon Hut the collaboration joiner that individuals, because of the way we are working today, is going to reframe everything? I don't know if it would necessarily reframe, and maybe this is a bit pessimistic, but I don't know if it would reframe everything. But it would Alright. So as soon as the word came out of my mouth, I wanted to pull it back, but it was too late.
But it would give us I think it gives us a a a it gives us a project that we can work on work on together. And that's you know? And I don't I don't wanna jump ahead, but I talk about the Antarctic Treaty. I talk about the international law of the sea because these are similar frameworks there that we don't necessarily need to agree on everything, but we can focus on the scientific development, on the safety component.
And I think that the Antarctic Treaty is a great example of if you go down into Antarctica, you have these similar outposts that bring scientists together from across the world to to conduct research. And that's helped develop our understanding of of our of our own world. Working in the Antarctic has helped us understand a lot of things about the ozone layer. And working on the moon surface will inevitably expand our knowledge of of the universe, the solar system.
So that's where building out that framework so that we know what that's gonna look like. In a in a very practical sense, you wanna put you know, we start looking at how Project Moon Hunt is going to scale. Where are those people coming from? Who gets a seat? Who's who's paying to get there? Who's who's flying to get there? These are these are those very technical, very, very specific things that you need to start figuring out now so that as we as we grow and expand, it works.
So it's interesting because and you will recall that we we call it a box of the roof and a door on the moon. We don't call it an outpost or a base. We don't call it any of those things. It's a home. It's a home on the moon, a box of the roof and a door. That's where it started back in 2014 in the Scratch restaurant. And if you look at how we've been growing, we don't even we don't talk about these type of things only because it's embedded in the project from the start.
My friends, my ecosystem is global. If you wanna call globalist, work in over 50 countries. We have individuals from New Zealand, from Singapore, from Hong Kong, from Japan, from South Korea, from Nigeria, people from South Africa, people from, Dubai, Israel, Estonia, Germany, Italy, France. God, we have Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Slovenia, Canada, US, Mexico. I mean, there's just we are that from the start. So I I yeah.
I can understand where you're getting at, and yet you're kind of rewinding it because that's not the way we talk. Right. We are global worldwide. That that's just it. So so let me think in a let me talk then in a more in a in a, again, a very practical sense of Yeah. When we talk about getting to Antarctica.
And I'm I I use I'll use Antarctica as as an example because it has that sort of remote feeling to it where it requires a tremendous amount of logistics to to put a scientist at at in in the enter in the in the Antarctic. So can you can you help me a little bit? Because while I know about Antarctica and I do you have a historical timeline process understanding of Antarctica that I can learn a little bit from you on about this? Well, yeah.
I mean, if you go back to looking at early exploration of of Antarctica, I mean, we're we're going back, to it first being identified. Oh, I can't remember the dates on that, but I'm looking it up at Antarctica base, I guess, is the way we'd look it up. Research stations. Yeah. Nothing wrong with looking something up. First base, Arctic 19th century, 1898. Karsten, oh, I I would butcher this name. It's Norwegian. Borczyk Grevik Vinnik.
Mhmm. And so we're going when when you're thinking about the, facility today, are we going post World War 2? Is that it? So that that's part of this is we started the exploration phase well before we had a treaty. The the Antarctic Treaty wasn't signed until, 1959. And it was only then that and this would have been not just post World War 2, but this is post, you know, post Korea. So you have Yeah. You've you're in the throes of the Cold War.
There is a tremendous amount of concern internationally about territorial expansion and also wanting to make sure that we're balancing that scientific research component. And so that's where you have these folks that come together and say, listen. We need to build principles around how we're going to operate on this 7th continent. And they build you know, it's it's not a tremendously in-depth framework, but simply says, listen. This is gonna be peaceful purposes only.
You're not gonna go there to be a base for for military operations. This is not going to be something where we're going to use it to further the the the goals of a particular country when it comes to strategy. That this is gonna be focused on scientific investigation. This is something that we're going to focus on our under how we can use this untouched landscape to further our understanding of our own world. And that any information that comes out of this, we want to be open to all.
We don't want countries that are going down here and doing research just for themselves. If you're operating here, that that research needs to be shared among the international community. And so Is it all research is shared? Yes. Yes. That's one of the principles of of operating down there. Is that this is this is all information that's freely exchanged.
And in an academic sense, you know, even domestic for most part, domestic research is is shared and collaborated across the scientific community. And in the United States, there's, of course, certain intellectual property. There's certain things that are regulated under programs like ITAR and, different arms trafficking regulations. You know, that stuff is is maintained internally in the United States.
But for the most part, scientific knowledge is shared broadly across the international community, and we we we watch these things. We can you know, scientists across the globe are constantly looking at the research of others and building off of that. And that's where Antarctica has been a success, in that we've been able to preserve this continent as a space for us to to further that knowledge of our of our world. I'm maybe you know this, and I'm not as there's quite a few bases.
I'm looking on Wikipedia. Permanent active stations. United States, Poland, New Zealand, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Russia, India, all the way down, Germany, South Korea, Argentina. There's quite a few. South Africa, New Zealand, Japan, Norway, Ukraine. There's quite a few bases, but what is sub Antarctica station? What does that mean? A subantartica station. If it's not Antarctica, what's a subantartica? I I actually have no idea.
There's a also subantartic region, is a region of the southern hemisphere located immediately north of the Antarctic region. So it's another space what they've defined as. Okay. And there's it says 56 countries have now signed up to it, but that's not the 190 some odd. Right. And I and I think that's where, so go going back to and I know we're gonna we're flipping back and forth here, but when you That's okay. I'm I'm I'm following, and that's what you're here to help.
So I'm getting We're walking through this together. You and that and Yeah. And that's okay. When you look at go back and go back to the outer space treaty, and there's a number of of of countries that haven't signed onto that as well. Presumably, because when you look at these countries, a lot of them are are Sub Saharan Africa who are not out there conducting, you know, science in the international realm. They don't have the the capacity. Their governments can't fund it.
And so it's not necessarily because they don't wanna subscribe, but because they just don't have the capacity to get out there to do it. You know, I think if as I think what you would find is there's no I don't think there are any countries that have a presence in Antarctica who are not subscribed to to the Antarctic Treaty.
And I think you would look at something similar to to outer space where we have as as more nations develop space programs, we'll need them to subscribe to this international framework of how how they're going to operate in outer space. How are they going to conduct themselves in outer space? And and, again, a a very practical example of this was at Ascend back in November.
There was conversation, and and now Space Force has has said US Space Force has come out and said, you know, we are going all in on on orbit servicing. So we wanna see the ability to service a satellite while it's on orbit. Yep. Well, under the current construct, you know, to inter to to interfere with a satellite of another country is is a violation of that international norm, and it's a violation of international law. So how do we then do that?
How how do we how do we make sure that what we're doing is going to be not considered an act of war by another by another country. Because what happens if we go up there, we try and service our our satellite, something goes wrong, that satellite is now falls outside of our control, and it it hits the satellite of another country. Is that an action that someone has taken that that was a a deliberate action? Was it a was it an accident?
What is the way that we're going to Wasn't there a satellite that was just blown up with a laser? I I'm hoping I'm not a conspiracy theorist, passing things on. I don't know if I well, I don't, I guess I don't know. But we we have seen what I what I know for certain is we've seen both the US and China and Russia all develop programs to destroy satellites, you know, on on orbit.
And I think that we've, you know, the established norm that we've said is, you know, if you if you shoot down a US satellite that that is that is in fact an act of war, and most countries view that the same way. From this point, the only way to do that is shooting from Earth to hit something while on orbit. I'm looking it up. It says, Russia just blew up a satellite. Here's what that spells. There's another one that, Russian satellite, Cosmos 2499 blew up a satellite.
Don't know if it was blown up from Earth, but the point still is is you can blow up a satellite in orbit, create enough debris to damage other satellites. And that's where when I talk about this, you know, when I go to safety, it's that concept of safe you know, freedom of navigation, and that's where the international law of the sea has helped us make those determinations.
Now operating at sea is is a little bit easier is a lot easier than operating in space because it's still a relatively linear existence. In outer space, of course, we have, you know, farming you know, we we've got, you know, 3 dimensions that we're having to to deal with, and that makes it far more complex. And and how do you navigate safely around things like debris?
How many orbital maneuvers do you have to make to make sure that you're avoiding some of the existing, you know, space debris that's out there? And, you know, you can do a quick Google, and there's plenty of stories that are out there talking about the fact that listen. Our our our orbital environment is becoming increasingly crowded. And as we increase Well, that's yeah. That's the that's the with Maribajah, we came up with the name space environmentalism because of that challenge.
Is I'm sorry. I'm jumping because my my eyes are actually closed as I'm trying to figure this out. Under the sea with submarines, there's the this the, freedom of navigation for the sea and the treaty. Does that's for commerce. Do militaries honor the same with submarines and tactical tools underneath the ocean, and do they follow the same guidelines? I would say generally. Obviously, in times of war Yeah. Generally accept. Generally accept.
Yeah. And this is, yeah, this is the problem with international law. Is international law we shouldn't be using the word law at all because there's very little repercussion that happens. Right? These are international norms that enable safe passage. The purpose of having navies has always been to promote commerce so that we can have shipping. So that as commercial vessels are out there operating, that they're able to do so free of of threats that would exist from things like piracy or terrorism.
And that's when when naval vessels go out to sea, that's that's part of that mission is to operate within those same norms from a safety perspective that it's not always possible. And and it looks to use, the the the Straits of Taiwan as an example. Yeah. Right? The US will periodically run, a battleship or something through the the Straits of Taiwan, which the Chinese will be like, well, this is territorial waters. The US will say, no. It's not.
So in in theory, if you're the US, you're operating within the international norms of operating in international waters. But if you're the Chinese, that same action is not in compliance with It's an act it's an act of aggression taking over territory. So but did the in the treaty for the seas, did the Chinese sign it? Did the American the Americans, I'm assume, signed it?
Yes. Yes. And that's And there's no repercussions for any of the activities that either party is playing, games that they're playing. And the what is it? The Japanese just launched their first aircraft carrier. And they're now they wanna be a force with that tool. And so how you've brought up the I I I know there would be the saying is we have to have these because if we don't have anything, we don't have anything. That would be kind of the argument.
Well, and so And yet So so look at your your example of space environmentalism. So where where are we going with that? If we have a desire now to clean up the orbital environment so that we don't have to deal with space junk, so that the satellites that are out there functioning aren't having to maneuver as much to go around these uncontrolled objects. And we've seen, a whole bunch of of really novel concepts of how we're gonna do this.
These giant nets, magnets, maneuvering spacecraft that go out will pick up this space jump. Really? Magnets? It's 1. Yeah. I think I mean Like, how powerful of a magnet you're gonna have to be able to catch something going at the speed it is going around on earth. Like That is not that is why I'm not a an engineer. It's it's like a it's like a Thor hammer. Yeah. But but here's but here's the thing.
Now what happens if I'm out there and in the interest of keeping the space environment clear so that everyone can operate? Now what if I get a piece of Russian space junk? It's a and Mhmm. And maybe the Russians have said it's well, this is a defunct satellite. It we we have no control. It's just it's floating there. And now this US flag group comes up and picks it up as part of this effort to clean up the the, the space environment. You violated somebody else's junk. Violated.
There's no there's no salvage. Right? If a if a ship sinks in the ocean, you can go out and you can salvage that vessel, and it becomes your property. We we established that that's that's the norm. And without that in space, when we start thinking of these novel concepts of, okay, we need to keep the orbital environment clear so that as we're going up there, things are are are not having to inter interface or interact with with debris. This makes sense for everybody.
It makes it easier for all of us to be operating in the space environment. But without that law, like I said, maybe the Russians have said it's defunct. And now that we're sucking it up, they might have an issue with that. What's the what's the process there to to work through that potential conflict in a manner that that is consistent with what every nation would would expect in space.
You know, we we get statements all the time from people, because we have individuals from all countries around the world. So many, it's hard to count. Some of them I have to look up on the map and say, where is that? And being having worked in over 50 countries around the world, I I've seen a lot but bestowled many that I haven't, is I get people who say, well, are you gonna work with this country?
And I say, well, are you asking us if we'll work with the government, or are you asking us to work with all the people of the country? I mean, I have friends who are from that country. I might even have heritage from that country. Then someone else will say, well, will you work with this country? Well and I'll use 2 big names, just 3 big names. Someone might say, are you going to work with the Chinese? Just for sake of argument, I've lived in Hong Kong for a decade.
I've flanged all over, and I say, you're asking multiple questions here. Will I work with individuals who are Chinese, or are you asking, will we work with certain actors who we believe are not in the best interest of Project Moon Hat? We're also a 40 year plan. Most of them will be dead by the time we get to that point. Or someone might throw out, will because of the conflict that's happening in Ukraine, will you work with the Russians? And same thing.
Are you asking for work with Russian people? I have plenty of friends who are amazing individuals who are Russian. And as a matter of fact, my grandfather was Belarusian Russian and my grandmother was Hungarian on my mother's side. So I've got Russian in me. Would that mean and I've also got German. My father's side was all German. Will I work with those people? Sure. We're looking for talented people who can help us bring Project Moon Hut to life.
So I guess that where I'm going with this is I trying to come up with a question for you. Let's say, you've got the space treaty. It's actually defunct. I've read it. I felt like it would never work today. How would you redesign that? I I I think it would be a mix. I think Small question. Right? Well, it's it's an important question. And Yeah. I know.
But that's gonna it's gonna similar to project Moon Hunt, this is gonna require a lot of very smart people in a lot of collaboration among the diplomatic community to come up with a framework that's gonna work for everybody. When I talk about how do we model that, where the what's the starting point? We can look at the principles that we've built on with the outer space treaty. We don't wanna see an over militarization of outer space.
This is an environment where we can further the goals and objectives of all of humanity. So how do we keep that in mind so that the outer that our outer space realm is focused entirely on that? The Antarctic treaties, I bring that up a lot as a model because that is that similar type of, hey. This is not a space for territorial expansion.
You know, the the the the moon belongs to all of us, and we should not be going up there to claim property for any individual or or nation, which, by the way, I think isn't an interesting concept because there are places out there where you can technically buy real estate on the moon. Yeah. Someone someone ends up selling real estate on the moon. It's on the money, and no one's it's not gonna be honored. Right.
But now that you know, what if I was one of those people that and I guess I wouldn't necessarily feel bad for someone that got their money taken away for for buying property on the moon. But, you know, do those people have legal rights to make a claim against something? Why or why not? And so that's where going back to Antarctic Treaty from a development standpoint, as we start to explore the moon, as we start to expand to Mars, and who knows where else we can go?
Is this going to be something that there's territorial expansion, or is this going to be purely for for science and research? And that we have to be able to define that now because that's gonna be critical to those plans. And when we talk about So I I just looked it up. There's a Robert Coles, former chairman of the New York Hayden Planetarium, started the inter interplanetary development corporation and sold lots on the moon for $1 per a moon for $1 per acre. And what?
And then the next thing under it says, nope. Legally nonenforceable, not binding. Yep. But why? Why is that, you know, why is that not But because they say it's the outer space treaty adopted by the United Nations General Council in 1966. So if you build on the moon, if anybody builds on the moon, do you, in essence, have the ability to go up and say, nope. You can't be there. And I think that that's that's where these policy conversations need to be need to be turning towards.
So I never thought about this before, so this is good. This is where my head says we don't need an outer space treaty. An outer space treaty is too big. And I think you've heard this saying is what are we talking about? Mar, Mars, Venus? We consider Jupiter. Is does this cover all of outer space, meaning the billions of star suns? Maybe and I don't wanna a Mearth treaty. It's the geography within Mearth, the moon and earth, and the geography that we have, the 297,000 miles.
I I don't even know where you'd start. And that's where I Because I we the the construct that you're talking about are constructs for science. And that's a challenge because science research and exploration tends to be all of the, what do you call them, the agencies. Yep. Science research and exploration. We are not. We're about improving life on Earth and develop economic system with those innovations turning back on Earth. So we have a commerce part of our entire project.
And sometimes better to start from new than it is to start from somebody that's made all the mistakes in the beginning because you're gonna carry them forward with the words you use, the language, the, examples that are defined. And that's probably fair. And but I think that's where I revert back to the the international law of the sea. Because, again, that's very commercially focused. We've we've viewed our oceans and international waters as being an area for commercial activity.
And what you're talking about in in the Mearth environment is quite similar. If we are establishing Project Moon Hunt on the surface of the moon, people are going to have to transit outer space to get there. What does that look like? What happens if the vehicle that they're using to get to and from the moon experiences some sort of it doesn't have to be catastrophic. Right? Look at Apollo 13. What happens if it's yeah. They're surviving, but they need they need assistance. Right?
Something is not working a 100%, and now we need to go out and figure out how we we prevent something small from becoming a full blown catastrophe. And how do we make sure that if we're engaging in commercial activities on the moon, that the legal framework is there to to make sure that we're able to to do that in a in a manner that's going to, truly benefit everyone. That's where the Antarctic Treaty says, hey.
If if you're up there and you're doing commercial research on the moon, that inform is that gonna be protected by intellectual property, or is that scientific research that's going to be shared? How are we going to to make the distinction between the 2? It will will both be occurring. And these are these are things that we we need to start considering as we're as we're building this out. So it's interesting. I'm I'm looking up Lagrange points so I don't say them improperly.
Someone who's gonna know these a lot better than I do. I think what you just defined was 2 different sets of treaty components. One of them is the movement in space, which you're talking about the movement in oceans. You really don't own a spot in an ocean. I mean, you could put down a buoy, but now you've changed it's a very different environment than taking a plot of land. So if you're moving through free space between as we on the project, we're not classification systems 1 through 8.
If we're in that space of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, there's really no, 7. You're kind of in location or in orbit or free space. But something like l one Lagrange point 1 or Lagrange point 2 or 4 or 5 or 3 have very specific geographies and very specific mechanisms by which to stay in that I don't know if you call it orbit. Might probably is a wrong word. Somebody's gonna tell me I'm wrong. You you can occupy a space.
So you're talking about one of a kind of a logistics or a free space, not the word that I like to use, a free Mearth. And then you've got on the moon Right. Which is a completely different set of variables. Well and that's and I think that's right? That's exactly and that's exactly it. That's where I I I think I agree with you that we do need to we we need to be very careful with the language that we use in these things.
But as a starting point for policy and international collaboration, having that that concept and and I'll use this to break into my my last point. Right? So we talk about the the United States Space Force. Did we go over everything already? I mean, we've kinda got back and forth a little bit. Your last point within the lunar lunar treaties. Yeah. And well, I was gonna well, so we're talking we start talking about law of the sea.
We start talking kind of you kind of allude to that that whole doctrinal principle of right? If I'm on the open ocean and drop a buoy, what does that mean? What does that look like? How are those and and more importantly, so then when we think of freedom of navigation, there are buoys that are out there that are maintained by governments to help facilitate commerce in these in these channels, in these areas.
And so the one one of the one of the arguments that I have with with the US when it comes to US Space Force, you know, we've we've we've, for a long time, viewed outer space as being an extension of aerospace because, well, it's up in the sky. Right? It's up. But, doctrinally, there's a huge difference between aerospace and and and flying and and the doctrine that exists in the United States Air Force and the doctrine that we would need to practice in outer space.
Because similar to the open ocean, outer space is not something that you can just hold on to. You can't just yeah. Sure. The the LaGrange but but even that, like, a LaGrange point is not actually a a location. It's a proximity. It's a proximity to Earth.
And that would be like saying, well, there's a you know, the currents create an environment in the the ocean that's, you know, what the the garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean is a result of those similar types of natural movements of the ocean have consolidated everything there. That's kind of from a in a conceptual stance.
I'm sure people will tear me apart for saying this, but those are you know, those points in space are effectively the same thing where gravity as has this effect to hold something in that proximity. Mhmm. That's why I use those. So it's a gravitational impact of being in that location. But that is fundamentally it's so even though this you know, so the space force being kind of evolving out of the air force has taken this doctrinal approach that they they have from an aerospace perspective.
And, really, we should be looking more at how the navy functions, how the coast guard functions. And that is kind of how the space force could be leveraged in that similar mentality of you can't hold the ground in space. So how do we make sure things are operating safely and that every country has an understanding as to what those expectations would be so that they're able to operate freely in in space, which is as we've defined already in in inherently in international environment.
Okay. Tell me more about the Artemis Accords. Yes. So as we've you know, when NASA came out and started to look at going back to to the moon, They've recognized that, again, I think building on the success of the International Space Station, NASA came together and said, listen. If we're gonna do this, we we we can't go it alone. We need to be bringing other partners with us so that we can have a safe and peaceful existence on the moon.
And that's going to to have those components, all all tied together. And so there's not much behind it. It's simply these countries have come together and say, listen. We're we're gonna go back to the moon, and we're gonna do it similar to what we're doing in Antarctica where we want to be able to expand on what we've done in the past, but for the good of everybody. This is about scientific exploration. This is not about territorial growth. This is not about militarization of space.
And NASA has started to bring together those partnerships, but this is an agreement between nations and not creating any sort of international norm. I can see the list. Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Republic of, Korea, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Ukraine, UAE, UK, United States. But the major players are missing. Some of the major players are are not on that list. So we're are we not not a policy person?
Mhmm. So, and you're gonna be creating policy. That's where I'm gonna come back to how will you build this. It's if you don't have all the players on the playground agreeing to play a certain way, then it doesn't matter that you don't. What you've done is you created a a block of individuals who will defend one position where there'll be other blocks that'll defend another. So let's take I don't see on this list, and I don't know.
This is October, 2022, so I should probably go to a more current one. If you look at the BRIC group, that on the finance side looking together to bring together capital markets to compete against, for example, the US dollar, you've got all these players who are now saying this is the way we play in our playground. So you you play in your playground, but we have a new playground set of rules here. Does the r is the Artemis Accords just words that were used?
I mean, accords to make it sound like it's a treaty agreement. And more or less it is is we're gonna play together here, and anybody else wants to join us, you can. But they don't have to abide by anything that we say. That's exactly it. Is that these this is what Artemis is is it's it's an agreement among now this this club, and it's growing, but it is not setting an Internet. It by no means is it international norm.
And this is where recognizing the fact that, okay, we have and this is where similar to the ISS. Right? There's partners to the ISS and the but that did include notably Russia. So you had the big players that were part of that. So there was there was an easier time with agreement. Artemis tries to build on that, but because China and Russia are absent from the accords, they could come back and say we're gonna do things entirely different.
And they're and now that is that is completely, you know, absent from it. And none of and not an absent from the autonomous accords is even how to address that. If an if another Right. Yeah. I I I yeah. So, I mean, I'm looking these are here's 10 peaceful purposes. What does that mean? Transparency. What does that mean? Interoperability, emergency assistance.
Okay. Regulation of space objects, release of scientific data, protecting heritage, space resources, defolocation deconfliction of activities, orbital debris, and spacecraft disposal. Doesn't say a lot. Yep. It's that you will work together on this with this group of, players. It doesn't say anything, I guess, by being in a country, you've more or less signed up to their those agreements. That's And I guess I guess the answer to that question is, I don't think we know.
Like, we know we know that if a, if a, an aircraft, a commercial aircraft that is flying under the flag of a certain country is doing something that it's not supposed to, we know what that means. There's there are rules on how we handle those sorts of situations. There are normal, accepted functions of how aviation, how how commercial sea craft, how the how all these things are operating and interfacing with each other, and we don't have that space.
And we don't we've Artemis falls well short of that because, 1, like you said, it doesn't define any of these key principles. It doesn't define what any of this means. It doesn't create it doesn't have a mechanism to define them, and it lacks engagement with some of the key partners. Right?
We really can't have an agreement in outer space without Russia and China because they could you know, they they are going to be operating in there, and and, inevitably, that's where everyone is worried about conflict. That's, you know, that's great. You know, the US and, you know, and all these countries have this have this agreement, but these we're not operating in a vacuum. Ironically, we're not we're not operating in a policy vacuum in this case.
So it it's it's more or less proving the point that, there's been about I just looked it up. There's, I think it's 40 there's 38 countries that are now in it. But it doesn't mean that if the 2 bullies the 3 bullies let's see. I shouldn't use that word. The 3 big players, 4 big players, 5 big players, whatever they are, when we have dialogue, it's not that they actually exist in that way. What if those players don't agree to something that's inside of something that's very arbitrary?
So I think it's it's it's probably more use like when you when we were younger, you were in recess, and you're picking teams. It really didn't select all the things that you have to abide by, but the US budget for space, NASA's budget, and and that does not include the budgets of major corporations who are involved in it. But NASA's budget's in the over 20,000,000,000.
So they're going to probably dictate more of the terms of how certain activities will be played out, which I think is different than Antarctica. And let's keep in mind that NASA doesn't wanna do that. NASA has said countless times that they do not wanna be the organization responsible for space policy. DOD shouldn't be the one dictating space policy. You have the Department of Commerce that has taken on some aspects of this through their, their, Office of Space Policy.
The Department of Transportation could potentially have a place in this, but the FAA, for the most part, has said, no. We don't we don't wanna touch this. We we can't even regulate our own airspace, never mind outer space. So, you know, NASA was established as a scientific entity. They've got the budget. They've got the smart people, but they don't view policy as being, you know, part of their role. And that's what Artemis is is kind of Yeah.
But you you do you but that's a that's a double edged sword. You give a military complex, a military organization, or a a company, you give them money to do certain work, you immediately there's an alignment that happens sociologically and psychologically. You know? You give and I won't name the name because that wouldn't be a good way to say it.
But if NASA gives somebody a contract to do something and their sole purpose is military armament development, then you've put yourself in a position of policy. Yep. And I think that that's that's the great challenge that we face is NASA is probably the only one positioned to define that policy, but but they don't they don't view them. They don't They're they're not outright they're not outright creating it, but their actions dictate it.
And that and and at the same time, they're actively coming out and saying, we don't wanna be the ones doing the policy, but yet they are.
And and that's where I think when you look at the what Artemis has become is Artemis has looked at as being policy, but even a superficial read while we're going through this while we're talking about it actively right now has can can show a lot of those weaknesses that exist within it because things like terminology, things like who's responsible are not included as part of that that discussion. Not not clear.
You know, when when we most I would probably argue I could say this pretty clear, with much, not force, but confidence. That most small organizations, when they begin the Beyond Earth Ecosystem, don't start off with an ITAR, EA, or CFIUS program. Right. They're they could have a simple one or they can get a a boilerplate. We've been lucky that, Kirkland and Ellis, the seventh largest law firm in the world, stepped up to the plate. They've been with us now for over 2 years, two and a half years.
And we've been challenging everything that we can so that because there will be United States operations as there will be in others around the world, we're trying to make sure that we answer those questions early on so we we're not rushed at the end. And they've been brilliant with us. We've also have 17 international, property attorney firms around the world helping us for trademarks, patents, copyrights within certain countries.
And they've been doing an amazing job around the world to make sure that we're protected. But all of this adds to a complexity of, an ambiguity to moving any project forward. So I'm I guess I'm I'm wrestling. I didn't expect this conversation to have me my mind spinning in this way. No. That's a good thing. That's that's a that's why we have them. So my so the question I I'm saying my, but it's we, but my head is what's going through right now is how? You and I are here.
You're you're gonna become a policymaker. Let's assume that you had to come in with Project Moon Hut. We've we've got a treaty that's old that's from started in the 19 sixties. We've got, another treaty that basically is a who's kumbaya ing with us this this year. As long as you don't do something wrong, you won't be kicked out. We have you brought it up, so I'm gonna piggyback on it. We have the United Nations that to you read people's comments all over the world. Get rid of them.
They're a waste. There there's nothing that comes out of them that's useful. It's a they're a puppeteer of certain groups. Whatever your belief is, you do read that, so that means there's a lack of confidence in there. The Antarctic Treaty is prime it it's oh, as the ice is melting, at 3,000 some odd meters up high, and it's these are small groups of individuals that are setting up facilities for science and research. That's great. Project Moon Hunter Mearth is not this. How do we do this?
How do we do project Moon Hunter? That's our title. Establishing global collaboration because we haven't talked about collaboration. We talked about treaties. Mhmm. How do we continue to help project Moon move forward so that the right people and right is a very hard word. The the individuals that we need are part of the project to move us forward. How do we do that? I I even threw down my pencil. My pen.
Well, the you know, and I I think on on the policy side, things so things that we need to be advocating for would be making sure that we're enabling greater commercial interest in outer space. And what do I mean by that? You know, you talk about being about Project Moon Hunt being an international collaboration to get the but but how do we physically start getting and this is the this is the question that comes to mind. How do we physically get this material to the moon?
And once it's there, how do we sustain it? Who's who's doing it? And the easy answer is, well, now that we have commercial launch, it's commercial launch that's doing it. And so that raises the question of, well, are you using SpaceX? And if SpaceX is the one that's going to be bringing materials to and from the moon to sustain project Moon Hut, and that can be an entirely a commercial relationship.
But it doesn't change the fact that SpaceX is a US company, and that carries with it certain laws, expectations. There's And it's funded. A lot of the there's there's money that's moved into launch and capabilities because they're the only ones who can do certain things today. And that's where the the uniqueness of this. Right? If if Project Moon Hut is a commercial entity and we're seeking to create a commercial environment, well, what are the limitations on that?
Because as as as we grow and expand with this habitat on on the moon, is this you know, NASA's concept of of functioning on on the moon is, well, we'll establish the infrastructure, or we might need to contract out for the infrastructure, which is exactly what's happening at, like, McMurdo Station. There is a US government contract for US company to build and sustain the McMurdo Station so that scientists can go down there and and and function.
So does from a and from a business model perspective, is that what Project Moon Hunt becomes? Are are we a No. That's not at all what we've become. We are Project Moon Hunt. We're worldwide. We have set ourselves up structurally, financially, whatever the tools that we've used so that we can be considered an international concern. So ours is there are launch capabilities today on planet Earth. It is it's limited. It's to limit is to limit it.
And with, with the SLS at $4,200,000,000 being pushed out over every 2 years, Talking about 50,000 people on our O'Neil cylinder floating in space is not gonna happen with 3 people at a time going to the moon. So we one of the things we're hoping with our discussions is today there really is no need, no demand some people use. We can show a demand. We can show an economic demand, and we can show a social demand.
So we're hoping that a unified endeavor brings commercial capital to organizations that wouldn't have gotten it otherwise because there will be something there for them to be able to engage with. Does that make sense? It does. And I would look at that and and as we think of what what policy framework goes around that, and I think you have to be able to make sure that you're protecting those those commercial assets. And if if we're not going to be and so this is that the challenge. Right?
Does the outer space treaty limit the ability to conduct commerce in space if if we're only supposed to be using outer space for scientific research. Now scientific research can result in electrical property, so there's there's there's that's the economic piece to it, I think.
But And but that's a tough one because all these organizations, Voyager, Artemis, all of these companies are getting in some way, shape, or form, at least in the US, not as much activity in the European Space Agency side, using those as 2 big blocks. The European Space Agency just did something, I believe, with Airbus. They released that they were doing SpaceX with Airbus, I think it is. But we also have the Chinese who would probably look to have some commercial activity that goes on within it.
We've had on the South African Space Agency, And they have in Luxembourg. And there are a lot of them out there that would hope that something would happen. So they're actually putting money into hydrogen 3 collection devices or technology that would be commercial. So in essence, they're violating the treaty. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Right? Am am I wrong with by saying that? That's exactly what we're we're talking about is that when we read. So so there is no treaty?
Well, I you know, but this is If they're violating the treaty, if they're taking money and investing it in a company that could end up creating a commercial venture on the moon, they therefore are violating the treaty, which is supposed to be that you can't have commercial venture on the moon. Yeah. And I think that I mean, I'm okay. I haven't read it in a long time. So so you have the first one. Yeah. Enabling commercial interest.
I think that's broad because you jumped safety and everything in there. What else would be in this policy if we were to create a policy? I mean, you you can't avoid the conversation around avoiding militarization of space. That that's something that needs to be built into there. And I think you have to to stipulate what that looks like. You know? And it's fine.
I don't I I this this analogy keeps coming in my head because when you think of Antarctica, there is a US military mission to support the Antarctic scientific mission. And I don't know if you, I don't know how people people know this. This was kind of funny to me. But, depending on what your status is defines what color coat you wear in Antarctica. So if you are a scientist, you wear a red coat. That means you are a researcher. They end up dead serious. This is a 100% true.
No. No. I I laugh because red coats. Yep. You know, and go back to the the British. If you are a logistics person, like a contractor or someone that's there to keep the facilities running, you wear a green coat or sorry. Blue coat. And then if you're military, you wear a green coat. And so that you can go around and see all these different functions that are existing to support that.
And I think that that's if we look at how space operates today and that's not to say that it should continue to operate this way. But the way space works today, that you have this mixing of interests that range from those doing scientific research, those that are there to keep quite literally keep the lights on, and and the military community that's providing a lot of that experience and logistics to make sure that those things are functioning.
And I think that the ISS has somewhat of a framework to help us figure out what that looks like so that just because you have an air force colonel that is on that is part of that is sitting there and and occupying project Moon Hut, that they are there for scientific research, and they're not there as part of a military mission necessarily, if that makes sense. Yeah. They they're not they they won't. That's not our that's not who we are.
That doesn't mean their history wouldn't have something to do with extreme conditions or being a I'm gonna use the term just for the sake of argument, a pilot. Maybe they have to go there. You know, a pilot has to land in the country in which they land. They're still a pilot. They just have to sleep overnight and and use those the facilities. So if so you're saying the the it's funny. The first one you went to had safety in it.
So we're going back to this, your your background, enabling commercial interest, then you go to the militarization. What would what else would you put in that policy? Well, I think you I think there's a question on if we're dealing with intellectual property, where does that intellectual property reside? Where do where does who who's got jurisdiction over that intellectual and who makes that decision? Okay. Interesting. Because we have tons of intellectual property people with us.
What's your thought? I mean because we we've had this conversation. We we're we're having a disagreement with a French firm, and we have a our team was on a call with a French team, and they've done nothing beyond Earth. And at one point during the call, which is exactly what Project Moon Hut is supposed to do, is to have individuals ask new questions. And the one of their 2 attorneys on the other end of line said, I wonder who owns the intellectual property if something was created on the moon.
And so it's not only if it's created on the moon. It is what jurisdiction or what country or what does it come back to? Because it was created on the moon, how does it come back to the person's passport and their country of origin? Does it how do you file that? There is nothing in the European space age in the European, trademark patent and trademark office. There's nothing in the US Patent and Trademark Office that says moon. You know, this is where it was developed.
So they're not they're not even set up for that. So how would you take intellectual property? And I think it would come down to, you know, probably the the the jurisdiction of the individual that's doing that research. And if it is and that might be funding too. So if a if it's a US entity that is funding a particular type of research, well, then that that research would then be part of US intellectual property, whether it's whether it's NASA, whether it's an academic institution.
You know, that No. The the most we're gonna be we're gonna be commercial. We're gonna be normal people. We're not this is not a government, and we we are avoiding or turn on avoiding leveraging. They will be a part of what we do, but they're not the all encompassing. And we have we have nonprofit profit government, military, and education all over the world. We expect that there'll be a plethora of different opportunities across them.
So if intellectual property is created by BASF on the moon, where does it reside? I mean, I would say it would reside with BASF and whether and whatever their corporate headquarters would be located. So you're now taking it away from, let's say, Artemis, which doesn't have much, or the the space treaty.
You're now saying that intellectual property that is developed in a in a commercial manner on the moon is now capable of being brought back to Earth and patented so that BAS can take advantage of that opportunity. I think you yeah. I mean, yes. I guess. I think you have to No. No. No. It's a yeah. So yes. I guess. That's a that's a what is it? Like, a 63%, an agreement? I would call it that.
And and I see where you're going with it too because we you know, that is the opposite of the Antarctic framework of all that's you know, if a if a corporate entity is doing this research, then that inevitable and and patents it. That is not gonna necessarily going to be publicly shared.
Now but when you look at especially in the US, the way that patent law functions, I mean, there should be the ability to to look now this goes beyond just space based, but looking at reforming patent law to increase innovation. And how do we how do we look at those laws to make sure that even in cases of corporate intellectual property, how are we continuing to build and invest and innovate off of off of corporate funded research. You know, that's And and we just take out the word research.
We just say in innovation because you when you define it as research, that's one type of individual on the moon. Yep. Yep. You the patents that I have filed, we have one person who's one of the foremost experts in graphene in the world. He has 42 patents on our team. And you know how extensive the team is. And we've been talking about graphene and graphene usage and new materials and lighter and stronger materials.
And when he was doing research, that ownership was passed on to the institution he was working with. His name's on the patent, but the ownership passed on, and he gets a royalty in the cases that he negotiated. But if you and I came up, we're working on the moon, the 2 of us, and we come up with an idea, and it wasn't research, it was just an idea, you know, we could put a create a handle like we do on the on earth. Somewhat 2 people get together and say, hey. That would be a great idea.
And and my son is an intellectual property attorney. Then they can file it because it was a new idea. So you're in in the way you're framing things, they tend to always go back to research or they go back to, you know, the organization or the military. And I'm saying, let's look at Earth. On Earth, you can come up with an idea today. You can come up with right now today, you can go and grab your handle on your door and say this is wrong. I got a new idea.
Call up an intellectual property attorney. Have them design it with an engineer and a group, and then you can file it, own it. You can work in a company. You can come up with an idea. They might even say, go do it yourself. We don't care about it, which happens all the time. Or they could say, no. We wanna pay for it, file it, secure it, and build it internally. Or you could be part of a research group.
I mean, there's so many different variations of developing ideation when it comes to intellectual property. Why can't that just be the moon? Because there's at this point, there is. The the moon is considered a noncommercial entity. But it's not because we've already just proven that organizations with one organization with $25,000,000,000 is investing in organizations that are planning to do commercial work on the moon.
So, therefore, there could be a case, probably a good one in front of any judge and jury if we were to go to that type of system where someone would say to NASA, you can't have it both ways. Yeah. And that's I yeah. Yeah. I I agree. I I think that's And I'm not an attorney. I'm just making this up as we're going along.
But but you can understand if in fact you're engaging in activity that is I could prove that you invested in something that you plan on having it used on the moon to harvest Helium 3. You put NASA has funded, granted, put, 500 a $1,000,000 into a company that plans on harvesting of Helium 3, and that company goes to the moon and he and pulls up Helium 3, wouldn't we say that the US government was a part of the development of commerce?
And and and the US government has a long history of being involved in commerce for doing exactly those types of things. Therefore, we don't have a lunar treaty. And I think that that's where project Moon Hut needs to be sure that moving forward and and and how do we define the I guess and now it becomes how do we define the limits of what commercial activity on the moon will look like, or do we wanna limit it?
Because now we're in talking about the commercial activities happening outside the jurisdiction of any particular country. And how is that going to be governed in terms of fairness, I guess? Let me give you two points in it. They're on top of my head because yesterday, I spent 10 hours writing something for just one person on our team. It's not for everybody. It was just one person on our team to get some clarity for that individual to understand certain, pieces.
So I'll give you one and then I'll step back. There are a lot of individuals who wanna develop com finance on the moon. Blockchain, crypto side. We're gonna be the 1st people to have a a a token that would be usable on the moon. And my argument is this. You go to the moon with 8 people, you're not gonna have any currency. If you have 90 people on the moon, you will not have currency. An individual such as Joe is going to be working for a company, let's call it LVMH.
Joe's job is to go to the moon and develop something or build something, create something. LVMH is gonna pay $3,000,000 for an all inclusive stay. You are not going to be walking up and getting a yodel or a sandwich or a a meal by swiping a card. You're not gonna hand someone coins. It's gonna be like a a ship, a a Yep. Travel ship. What do you call them? A tourist ship. And you're going to it's gonna be all inclusive. You will not be trading any money on the moon for a very long time.
What you're going to unearth, that will all be paid for. And, sure, we might track food and materials with, chips or or cameras or something so we know what types of food we've been using so we can replace it. But that's logistics and supply chain management. It is not capital. And so we have a lot of these misconstrued or misshared constructs.
And the challenge that I had written in the paper, and I also spoke to somebody and this is why I put it in for the guy, was do we want to mirror Earth on the moon? Because if we mirror Earth on the moon, then we will immediately take the concept of have and have nots to the moon. Because it'll be people who have money and people who don't have money That we will create that disparity of, we we will bring those habits and those customs to the moon.
And if the world is the age of infinite, and there's plenty of disagreement or challenges with Star Trek and all of these types of you know, how do you actually work on Star Trek Enterprise if the person above you doesn't die? Even you're gonna stay in that role for the rest of your life.
But this age of infinite is where we don't need to be struggling for health care or we don't need to be struggling for certain types of activities till we wanna mirror with the treaty that you're talking about intellectual property or talking about militarization? Do we wanna mirror Earth so much so that we create the same challenges we created on Earth, on the moon, if it's not just about science research and exploration, which you've been talking about.
But we actually went to a home on the moon. Yeah. Does that make sense what I'm saying? It does. And I think it it raises a deep question for me about how do we balance this right? What and I guess we have to reset our understanding of what space exploration is going to look like. Because, like you talk about, we're scaling here where in the early phase of Project Moon Hunt, there's no need for currency because it's just built into the fact that it's so small we don't need it.
But as we continue to expand it and that expansion rationally, we can draw that line and say, well, this goes well beyond the moon and extends to Mars, Venus, others. You know, what's what's the limitation of that? And if that's if that's a commercial exercise, then how do we create a new what well, I mean, that's, like, an entirely new system of of of of an economy, of how do we create an economy that is entirely different from anything we've experienced in all of humankind. Because yep.
Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. The age of infinite. The age of infinite. Infinite possibilities and infinite resources. A Mearth economic system and a Mearth economy. It is taking the challenges that we've had on Earth and redefining them on the moon and not just saying we're gonna go live there and live differently. This is not a commune experiment. That's not what art were about.
It's about the fact that the innovations we develop in going going to the moon, not just the innovations, and there will be very limited in the beginning on the moon. I mean, if phase 1 will only have 8 people, they're not the innovations will all have happened on earth to get to the moon. There'll be nothing that'll happen on the moon. Maybe one guy will put come up with, like, a new handle, like I've said, but that's about it. Phase 2, we're going to have, the structures that we have.
There could be some innovations that come back, But we're they're not gonna be like the 100 of 1,000 or millions of innovations that are filed every year on Earth. It's not gonna be any comparison. It'll be a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent. So how do we make sure that the age of infinite happens if we're in a treaty more or less exporting the challenges we have to another rock.
And now so then the the policy issue there then becomes that any I mean, any policy that you you implement there creates a barrier to achieving what you want to achieve because the stakeholders that Remember, you're on the team, so it's really You're right. That's, you know, that's you know, that's but that is the thing that we are we're we're facing. Right? So we need to how I mean, truly redefine how the stakeholder also, you know, and and these are existing stakeholders. Right?
You're create you're you're unable to create revolutionary change because the players are so entrenched in keeping the system the way that it is. Here's that timeline that we've you and I have spoken about. Four dimensions in mathematics is location, length, width, height, and time. 0 is considered, location. So it's called 4 d, but it's actually 5 dimensions. We're leveraging time. So what people want today, existing today, which is still a me me, egocentric, accumulation type society.
You know, we it's our LinkedIn profile. It's our company. It's our history. We speak at a conference. We do this. We do this. An accumulation of wealth. 200 and 2,780 billionaires in the world today or something like that. 10.5 ultra high net worth 1,000,000 millionaires in the world today. That's over 30,000,000 in assets. So, it's accumulation. But as I'm gonna use a simple thing.
Florida loses its insurance base to 2nd tier and third tier insurance whole, carriers, and there are disasters due to increase in heat, global warming, our 10th consecutive month in series that we've had increased heat, or it could be sea level water rise, which causes, higher, and more damaging tidal surges, rain stays over an area longer, and more destruction. You're going to see individuals come back and say, well, who's gonna help me now? Doesn't matter how wealthy you are.
Who's gonna help me now? And we're leveraging the fact that over time, at least the 6 mega challenges, will cause people to rethink what's important to them. And, therefore, potentially so I'm asking a question. There is a question behind it. How do we leverage time within policy so that policy doesn't go back to 1969 or 75 or 61 or whatever? How do we leverage time in policy making? We have to I think it requires vision. Where are we where are we trying to go to with these policies?
What is what is the end state? And so the challenge is is in the 19 sixties when we wrote policy, we envisioned the moon as being a noncommercial area. And we've already and as we've we've talked about, we've already violated that principle. So how does this as we think over the course of time, how does this evolve, and what is the vision that we're trying to to achieve?
Now Project Moon Hunt provides that vision of saying, we can grow and expand, and we can benefit all of humanity through these through these advancements. And that policy framework that would have to be built around that would need to start building in those those norms, I guess, of how we're how we're establishing that cooperation at an international level. I'm I'm asking myself, jeez, is there any example?
And I don't know enough about policy, so you could you could put me in the point 001% of knowledge. I I absolutely know nothing about it, and I don't study these types of architectures. How I people will build up I'm assuming people build policy treaties to hopefully last a duration of time. However, we're seeing rapid change over the past 5 to 6 years, just everywhere. And the 6 mega challenge, climate change, mass extinction, ecosystems collapses, displacement, unrest, and explosive impact.
We're seeing massive changes across every one of those. I wonder how you would embed in there an evolutionary to fit the needs of that time, an evolutionary or a an adaptable policy that moves with time in real time. Well, that's where Did I just, like, break did I just break policy? Well, I think that the the challenge is that when we look at, you know, what what does what does policy represent?
What what is the policy how does the policy community view itself, and what is it what is the aim of what it tries to do? And it's about it it's less about creating, I guess, in especially in international collaboration. Policy is less about at the international level, it's less about creating rules and and more norms. And the the the difference is that norms can be shifted. Policy can be revised, but it requires buy in from from all players.
And, you know, and so the the two things that we think about the course of time, 1, our technology is going to to change. So our ability to Mhmm. To get places, to communicate, all these are fundamentally gonna change. Right? It's a you know, again, think of another policy shortcoming. You know, the way we regulate the telecommunications industry goes back, you know, before there really was an Internet.
So we again, we are communicating differently using rules that exist from, you know, 2 generations of technology ago. But the principles fundamentally haven't shifted. And so any policy that we we design on this front when we talk about space exploration, when we talk about Project Moon Hunt, there's a a a need to be specific in certain areas with term with terminology without also limiting what we're able to do from innovation.
And I think that's that sweet spot is there is there an answer to your question? I think the reality is no. But the having the flex of making sure that we have the flexibility is the closest that we can get. Making sure that we're not being overly prescriptive with policy so that we we limit our ability to innovate, if that makes sense. Yeah. It's the answer question that I've got. That one I heard loud and clear. It is you know, poll I look.
Policy is law a law regulation procedural administrative action incentive for voluntary practice of governments and other institutions that enable and then there's yada yada to that. It's an interconnected set of conditions. We've got technology still going on, the doubling of speed and capabilities every, 2 years. We it was 2 years or, I think it's 2 years. We've got, massive change within our environmental systems. We've got more conflict on planet Earth than we've had in a very long time.
We've got aging populations, in certain areas and others not. So there's so many variables that I'd really it'd be interesting to come up with a set of how would we make it or an organic policy. Meaning organic organic It's got the capability of change policy without having to go back to the drawing board every single time a new innovation or parameter is set because I love the Beyond Earth ecosystem because they will often say things as they're a matter of fact.
And it's very easy to say, so you've done this. Right? And the the what do you mean? Well, you've just said that this is how policy should be done. So you've obviously done this before in Beyond Earth. Right? No. Right. No one has. Or this is the way to go to the moon. Okay? So you've done this before. What do you mean? No one's done it. Then then why are you saying it as a matter of fact?
And and that's a challenge that we don't know how to be able to do this, but I do believe in order for Project Moon Hut to hit our title, establishing global collaboration achieve the moon, which I never thought you were going to go in this direction, by the way. Not in a 1000000, 1000000 years that I think that this would go in this direction. We have to figure out a new mechanism that is adaptable to to changes based upon anticipated results or activities. So a box to the roof and a door.
8 people. 90. 578, 1,644. Adaption to the 6 mega challenges on Earth. Sea level water rise or animal extinction levels or heat or something. That would at least give people a few things. Hope. We have a program in Project Moon Knight, you don't know, I don't think, called Hope Plus. Hope. Then there's innovate inspiration for innovation to move forward.
And then there's a third one I can't think of at the top of my head, but has more to do with the not governance, but individuals need for, I'm gonna pull it up because I can't think of it off top of my head. It's right in front of me here. Where is it? Innovation Earth. Let me make sure I don't move it. We're working on a scale model project. You know, we have scale models, but working on something pretty big, which is kinda cool. Looking to see if it's in here.
I had it in here, but there were three things that people are looking for on this planet to a large degree as individuals as humans. And one of them is that they they want hope. And we don't tend to have that today on a global scale the way we could. Second 1 is to inspiration. Technology adaption and movement and 3rd one, I can't find it easily without taking a second away. So it's gotta be baked in like project moon. How does it bake in? Who would you this is a tough one.
Who would you call upon if you can make the ultimate team of individuals who are not gonna write 400 page papers because there are a lot of people out there just write papers? Who would really want to be able to solve this or address this, not solve it, you can't solve it. Who would you call upon if you had to make a you had a wish list? That is a tough question. And because the the stakeholders that we're talking about here go well beyond technical experts.
I think often in a situation like this, we would say, well, we probably wanna bring in someone that understands launch. We want someone to understand intellectual property. Right? But we're we're we're engaging with the stakeholders who would be in the actual execution part of of Project Moon Hunt. But, conceptually, the true stakeholders, the majority of stakeholders are here on Earth that'll benefit from the research that's being done.
And so how do you Or the work that's being done, not just the research. The work. The because we we are working. Yes. And the you know, you've gotta build I can't I guess the the answer is it's not necessarily a particular individual, but how do you build a diverse group that can represent all those interests?
If if we're talking about how do you represent the interest and needs of 8,000,000,000 people here on earth, and those are, you know, those needs, those wants, what that hope looks like, you know, is gonna be different from from group to group. And so your much. You know, your stakeholder engagement has to include individuals who are economically disadvantaged. It's gonna include people that might, you know I one one one great question with that came up was, from a policy perspective.
The native Americans believed that the moon is sacred and objected to Yep. Having human remains put on the moon. And it was a fundamentally right. This is a non scientific question. This is a religious question of Yep. I believe that being put on the moon as a final resting place might be a cool thing, but that directly contradicts the religious beliefs of an entirety of the group. So which takes precedent?
And we there is I read about that just it was the past 2 weeks or 3 weeks or something in there. That was what I'm on there. This goes well beyond thinking from a policy perspective, because now we're talking at a fundamentally different level of, you know, as far as policy goes, you know, for us in the United States, it's the first amendment that drives that, and there's always competition over what that means. Right?
My my interpretation of of freedom of religion is clearly different from others. And that's not to say that one is right or wrong, but we then rely back on the courts and say, well, it's the court that will decide what this what this looks like on a case by case basis. And We don't have an international court. And and we don't have and and even more so now we've gone beyond just the policy, but now we now we're talking about how do we now enforce these things?
How do we create a mechanism for stakeholder engagement and stakeholder conflict resolution. And, you know, we look at the international criminal court that most countries not not every country has subscribed to. So, you know, the United Nations is the only, equivalent that exists today for international dispute resolution. And as we've talked about, it doesn't really have any any teeth to push back on its enforcement.
You know, so as we expand beyond Earth and look at the moon, look at Mars, look at everything in between, there needs to be a place for that dispute resolution as well. Why are you just Well, that's the problem. Right? So it's and I think that's the thing. So go back to what we're operating off of, and it's really easy. It was really easy in 1967 to sit there and say, you know what? We're not gonna mess with this. So the moon will not be commercialized. It's gonna be a scientific area only.
And that sounded great, but in practice, it didn't it wasn't the it wasn't reality. Yeah. Yet a huge component of project Moon Hut is not being on the moon. You know, I've told you. I'm not a moon person. I don't care about the moon in the same way that people think.
We are about establishing a box of the roof and a door on the moon, a home, through the accelerated development of Earth and space based ecosystem, bringing the innovations and the paradigm shifting thinking from the endeavor back on Earth to improve how we live on Earth for all species. So we are about earth, and it is using and leveraging an actual project. People always say, why do we have to do this? We could do this in the desert. Right. It's not the same.
We have to achieve a box of the roof and a door on the moon. And part of our underlying current is to have these discussions other people to say it it's gonna be real. Like, how would we really articulate this? And the the Indians were an interesting piece. Just this morning, I was sitting down with my wife, and we're I've we've been having this conversation as, I think, you know, people sometimes take 2, 3, 4, 5 conversations to get involved.
And this one individual whose network is amazing, incredible person. We've had the 2nd call. We talked nothing about Project Muna. And about at the end, he said, I'm sorry. We have we didn't really talk about you about Project Muna. And I said, no. You didn't wanna talk about Project Muna. You wanna get to know me because you won't do anything with me if you don't know me. And then we had another call. We didn't talk about Project Moon. We had another call. We didn't talk about Project Moon.
And last one, we talked a little bit. And I was sitting downstairs, and I said to Lori, wife, and I said you know, we started talking about him traveling and he and his wife traveling and what does that mean. He wants to travel around as his, daughters leave the house. They're gonna move every 2 years someplace. And he said, and I I also like to live in Portugal. And I said, you know, you could buy a second passport, 560,000 US dollars. And he said, oh, I don't have to.
Both my parents are Portuguese, so immediately that doesn't count. And I didn't realize it till this morning. Latin culture in general is more interested in getting to know you first before they will move forward as compared to, and I'm gonna just use an example, a, a German societal person. They wanna get down to business. That's not to say it's everybody. It's not ubiquitous. But I sat there and I went, how did I miss that? How did because I didn't know he was Portuguese. That's why.
And then I realized he's doing it to get to know me, which is very different. Or language. Language in one culture means one thing in another culture. It's completely different, the same words. And how do you create through the activities we're working on? How do you create a different dialogue? And that's why the moon becomes the the focal point because it's not about earth anymore. It's not earth.
We already know the laws on earth, But we don't have laws out there or ways in which we would interact with one another in one's ex gravity and in a distance far away or what we call is the 8th continent. Interesting. And I think that's where so I'll bring this conversation full circle then. And for Yeah. For humans to build up into that more that deeper level of collaboration. Right? You talk about the, you know, the cultural differences of how we get to know each other.
How do we interact with each other? Key to all of that is safety. In order to make to have those conversations, we have to feel safe. Right? It would it be safety or a common a common desired outcome? I think safety is a subset of a common desired outcome. And I think but but to start having those conversations, you know, it's, yeah, it's building that that common outcome and feeling that sense of, yes, we can accomplish this without unnecessary risk as well.
Yeah. I I I like that we were able to I like taking it a step further because we had a conversation with a few team members the other day, and I, at one point, just said to them because it was important in this, ideation that we were working on. Why did you join Project Moon Hat? No one talked about safety. People joined Project Moon Hat. And let me ask you. Why did why why did you want to be a part of Project Moon? I am. It's part of this policy thing, so I'm not just BS ing here. Why?
What what got you to say, yeah. I wanna be involved in this. Involved in this because I see the potential that exists. So when we talk you talk about the mega problems. When we talk about how what what will be done on the moon will help all of us here on earth. I I I share that vision. Mhmm. I I I agree with you on it. And that's where making it a reality is and it and I guess making it a reality is is an interesting challenge for me. Right?
I so I enjoy that challenge of this is a really difficult problem. And oftentimes, when we go and this is a problem in the space communities. Oftentimes, we go out in the space community, and we talk about the same things. We talk about the same solutions, and we and we don't have the difficult conversations. And I like having the difficult conversations that that challenge us to challenge the way we think about problems.
And that's what Project Moon Hunt is to me, is it's a different way of looking at these problems. And it it asks the hard questions just like we're having this conversation today. You know, Ernest Shackleton, we're using Antarctica, had an ad that he put in the paper. And I don't know how true it is, but you've probably seen this, the one that says he he didn't put in safety.
He said men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success. His entire the entire team came that was the ad. As far as I know, that is the official ad. I have not been able to find otherwise. And they ended up being in the ice. They overnight, the ice froze around the boat. Over time, it crushed the boat.
They had to hike through terrible conditions, and then a few had to get a get to another location to find safety and bring them back. And I everybody survived. That's I I might be saying this improperly, but it's close enough. And he went for another expedition, and they all signed up again, except for one person I think couldn't make it because of died or whatever. But they all signed up, and it wasn't because safety.
So we asked their teammates, and it's interesting because you're talking about policy. The these 3 that were on the call, one person said something very different. The interconnectedness, David, that is a word that we use often, interconnectedness. It's completely different perspective. He's a beyond Earth person. So completely different perspective of anything that'd be seen in the space ecosystem. Another person said he thought it was fate that meeting Project Moon Hut was fate.
He knew he was going to have this journey 50 years ago. He had a need for something that was exciting. He he likes to attempt things that some people think are impossible. He he liked that we had a lot figured out, like the 4 phases and the we're going after intellectual property and the immersive technologies we're using, the the legal components. He felt confident with there. Another person said he wanted a better future. He loved that it was worldwide. He loved the clarity of purpose.
He loved the storytelling behind it, which is interesting because it wasn't safety. It was a future. And pea and if you can combine all of that, a lot of that is hope for something that builds into something new, different, and and a different set of tomorrows where they would feel good about their contribution and their work. And you just did the same thing. So I guess in policy, can we we have to. I don't know how to do this.
We'd have to embed, which we're doing already in our Itarie or CFIUS programs and all the others that we're doing. We have to embed the sense of that hope for a different future, the addressing the 6 mega challenges. Your children, you in your life, we have to embed in there a sense of tomorrow, a redefining of tomorrow, the age of infinite within the constructs. Again, I did not expect this to go here at all. And It's it's the fun of it.
The the do do you now realize why not having the camera on is so valuable? No. I think it I my head is just like turning this like a a a dog's head on a swivel. It's just like I'm looking all over the place trying to find answers. Any any, like, from this experience today? How was this experience? I I I'm with you. I think I came into this thinking we were going to go in one direction, and we found ourselves in a much different, but I I feel like a better place. And and I think it's Oh, okay.
You know, I think that's that's the excitement of Project Moon Hunt is we we know where we want to go, and we have to challenge ourselves on how do we get there and what's what's that gonna look like. And so you talk about hope, and we talk about hope and and policy. Maybe those, generally those things don't always go together. But but that I think it is a possibility when we're out there and we're talking about the problems that people are facing in their daily lives. Right?
So often, we we look we look to outer space. We look, like, the lunar eclipse, that was last week. Right? We all look up, hopefully, through our safety glasses, and we see this celestial occurrence happen and it all didn't matter how old you were. It's cool. It's just fascinating. But now to take that to the next level and say, listen. Our understanding of the beyond Earth environment can help us solve the problems that are actually facing us in the current in our current lives.
And and set our children, like you said, set our children and grandchildren up for success. And that's where creating policy with an eye towards long term solutions is is gonna be so important, and and especially making sure that it's flexible enough to and adaptable enough to adjust for the the, you know, the shift in how quickly things move today. I I I have to bite on it. You brought up the solar eclipse for me. Those things don't get me to scream and jump.
I'm in Syracuse outside of Syracuse. I was just on the side pathway. It was okay. It was okay. I talked to some other people. It was okay. Did you go did you go outside and look at it though? With glasses. Yeah. With glasses on. Yes. But we had yeah. It was, it was a little more overcast in our area than in others. But I actually saw the the mark on it.
But if you for me, there are so many more things that are so exciting in the world that to me again, I I I even said I don't look up, which is probably an interesting phrase, but I don't. I spend the time looking out to the world that we've got, and it's not like I'm fascinated with that experience.
So it's interesting that you brought it up because it's one of those things that we have to make sure that we're diverse enough to cover like, 82 percent of the world's population lives under 20 US dollars a day. Mhmm. 82. 62 or 63 lives under less than 10 US dollars a day. 10 US dollars a day. And the people who are making a lot of decisions for the world are those that are not even close to that. And we have to make sure we're cognizant about that. Where yeah.
Because You know, and and embracing the excitement and that awe. Right? That's part of that hope equation is, you know Mhmm. You and I have a very practical outlook of we can solve the problems that are here, but we can engage so many more people when you look at the attention that the Eclipse got. And I think that's what I was talking about is, you know, capture Yeah. Yeah. A lot of attention. Capture that excitement. Capture that awe and say, listen.
What's happening up there can actually help us down here. And that's the case that that we can make of saying, you know. That I completely agree with. A box of the roof and a door on the moon could transform how we live on this planet. Yes. Thank you. I did not, again, did not expect this to go this way. Some people come with this long, long laundry list of things they wanna hit. I immediately had some questions which took us in a completely different direction and, took a lot of notes.
You're I appreciate you taking the time to be with us. As always, I appreciate, our time together and being able to to share and explore these ideas. So that said, wanna thank you for taking the time out of your day to listen in. I do hope that you learned something today will make a difference in your life and the lives of others. Obviously, our podcasts go in all different directions, and we have some amazing guests that are in lineup also, so we're continuing to bring them.
The project Moon Out Foundation is where we look to establish a box with the roof and a door on the moon to the accelerate development of Earth and space based ecosystem, then to turn the innovations and the paradigm shifting thinking from the endeavor back on Earth to improve how we live on Earth for all species. And today, you obviously had an opportunity to see how that thinking can be transformative. There are 2 wedding videos on the web that we ask that individuals who come on board watch.
Joe has watched them. There's, there if you go about midway down, there's 2. There's actually a third one if you wanna learn a little bit more. We have about a 117 videos that we share across all the ecosystems we're building from the immersive technologies platforms, tech transfer, biotech, graphene, the box with the roof and the door on the moon, the 4 phases. So we have a lot that we could share with you, and we'd love you to connect with us.
So, Joe, what's the single best way to connect with you? LinkedIn is usually the best. If you follow me on LinkedIn, Joseph Regan, you can find me there, and and that's where I I post most of my my activities. But, of course So but you're are there other people with your spelling? That's a good question. Because I'm pulling up, is there any let me see. I'm gonna do a Joseph Regan. It's you have, there are. So, it's Joseph, r e a g a n. So you've got that, but there's quite a few of them.
So it starts off with principal advisors, strategic, strategist, defensive so if you're looking for him, he's out of Colorado Springs. Maybe that helps a little bit for you, Joe. And yeah. Because there's a lot of Joe's out there. And, for that, we would love to connect with you. One way you can reach out to me, David, is [email protected]. You can connect with us at Twitter at at project moon hut or at goldsmith for me directly. There's LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram.
We've got individuals all over the world bringing an amazing set of talent and in such a way that every day we're surprised at the types of talent that are coming to help us create, tying it together with that hope, to create a new future, to redefine tomorrow and the age of infinite. That said, I'm David Goldsmith, and thank you for listening. Hello, everyone. This is David Goldsmith, and welcome to the Age of Infinite.
Throughout history, we've seen humanity undergo transformational shifts that are so impactful, they've defined themselves the entire time as ages. Just recently, you've lived through the information age and what an incredible journey it's been. Now think about this. You could be very well and we could be very well in the midst of another monumental shift, the transition to the age of infinite. We're talking about an age that transcends the concept of scarcity and abundance.
It introduces a lifestyle rich with infinite possibilities enabled by a new paradigm that links the moon and the earth, and we call that term Mearth. This synergy will create a new ecosystem and economic model propelling us into the era of infinite possibilities. It does sound like a plot for an extraordinary sci fi story, but this is a story that you'll see unfold in your lifetime.
This podcast is brought to you by the Project Moon Hut Foundation, where we look to establish a box of the roof and door on the moon, a Moon Hut, we happen to have been named by NASA, through the accelerated development of an Earth and space based ecosystem, then to turn the innovations and the paradigm shifting thinking from the endeavor back on Earth to improve how we live on Earth for all species. We're an Earth focused organization leveraging the ecosystem of beyond Earth.
For more information, you could visit our website at projectmunot.org, where you can check out our 40 year plan, our work, and so much more. There's such amazing tools being built by our team. I think you should check them out. Just go to the 40 year plan or look at the Project Moon classification system. Amazing graphics, amazing tools. And anybody who've seen it has said, oh my god. This is there. This is incredible. So we are a nonprofit.
So while you're there, consider making a donation to support the cause by clicking on the button in the top right hand corner. Now let's dive into the podcast. The title for this podcast is Beyond Borders, Establishing Global Collaboration to Achieve the Moon Hut. And today, we have a very special guest, good friend, Joe Regan. How are you, Joe? I'm wonderful. Thanks so much for having me on. It's a pleasure. So as always, we do a very brief bio. So here's Joe's experience.
It started off as an officer in the US Army. We held a number of tactical and strategic roles, including doing 2 tours. He's also been the director of military and veterans outreach center. He's been the cohost of a news radio program. He was recently the president of Newspace Global, and now he's running for office in Colorado Springs. So that's his a little short bio, but let me share one thing that often confuses individuals. I don't know a single thing that Joe is going to talk about.
Our podcast go 2, 3, 4. Our last one with Brent went 5 hours. I don't have any knowledge of what's going on. So what happens is we have a conversation about what we want to discuss in a high level. We come up with the title, and then the individual goes out on their own and comes up the content that they would like to, for us to hear. We then meet again, and this is the first time that Joe and I have been are meeting since our call.
And he's going to give us the outline, and we're going to work through that. I have a piece of paper. I have many pieces of paper in front of me. I don't know where we're going. I'm on the journey with you. That said, do you have an outline or bullets for us, Joe? I do. You know, I would be I I would I'm not gonna lie to you, David. I I also have no idea where I'm going most of the time as well.
But I did think, how can we talk about this environment in such a way that, you know, such a a lofty title. Right? We're we're beyond borders. How do we how do we think of the Mearth ecosystem as being something that that goes beyond that? And, you know, any good speechwriter tells you, you know, more than 3 points, but no more than 5. So I I I came up with the middle. I got 4 points that I was not on one look at.
Actually, the number one largest that we've received is in history, it's not on these these series, was 21. Now the interesting thing was as we went through the first eleven, we started touching on and covering the others, and it ended up ending in a perfect time, but he did have 21. So what is what are the 4 you're going to give?
Well, as we talk about this, the thing that we wanted to to describe for folks was that in this ecosystem that we're talking about be going beyond earth, that there's really not a a policy framework for our customers. Is what? Policy? I well, I think the whole thing is gonna be about policy, but I was, you know, starting with starting from the beginning. Right? You talk about how What's the number? Give me 1, 2, 3, 4 so I can write them down. So the Lunar Treaty is the first one.
Lun Lunar Tree. Okay. Number 2. The Artemis Accords. Artemis Accords. Number 3. The Antarctic Treaty. Antarctic Treaty and number 4. Well, we can't talk about space without talking about the United States Space Force. So we can finish off talking about the role that our military might be playing in in the future environment beyond earth. Okay. We could talk not talk about Space Force, but you wanna talk about Space Force. So, remember, you and I are having the conversation here. Let's take this.
Let's start with your number one lunar tree. So the thing that you mentioned in the opening, David, was that the we we're coming out of the information age. And for me, one thing that's interesting about this age of the infinite is it started before the information age. When we look at our human exploration of space, it started back you you could make an argument and say, well, it was in the forties and we started developing rocketry going into the fifties when we started exploration.
And then, of course, you know, looking at the the Apollo program and how that led us to actually put human beings on the lunar surface. And it's interesting to me that everything that's happening in outer space today goes back to a series of treaties that were signed in the late sixties.
So when we think of this from a policy framework, and this is something that I've encountered time and time again that so many developments have occurred that our policy framework, that our international law doesn't cover a lot of the things that are happening in outer space. And as we one of the things that I appreciate about Project Moon Hut is we've taken such a linear approach to this, like project management. You can't just show up one day and expect things to work.
There's gotta be deliberate growth and expansion throughout this. And we don't have that on the policy side. So how do we start working with international partners to make sure that we have that sort of a framework to ensure safety and space. Okay. So you you just took a jump. You just called it safety and spaces. It is safety in space the 1 or you talked about all the different types of interconnectedness. Why did you label it safety in spaces? The I think the jumping off?
Well, I think when we talk about where we're at today and, you know, we're gonna as we talk about some of these things, when we think of of, again, frameworks for how we interact with each other in a at an international scale. For example, the international law of the sea, which wasn't part of my bullet points, but I guess this this would be sub bullet 1. The international So Go ahead. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. And and say it again.
International So the inter you know, international law of the sea provides a mechanism for us to ensure that commerce occurs on the high seas in a manner that is it's safe. It defines normal operating conditions so that any mariner that goes out to sea has an understanding of of what they're going to be what they're going to be doing, how they're going to interact with others, how in the event of an emergency, how they'll call for help and how that help will arrive.
And we don't have that in space. And as we see additional commercial entities trying to get us into outer space, we'll need to start building that framework. Whether it be manned or unmanned missions, how are these things on and beyond orbit going to interact with each other so that we don't have catastrophic accidents? How do we make sure that we're maintaining control over over property?
Whether it be government property, whether it be private property, how are these things going to be governed so that we can interact with each other to prevent conflict and to ensure that those that are out there exploring space have the framework necessary to operate safely. So it's interesting you've categorized safety as cat catastrophic accidents, property law, exploring space, and prevent conflict. And I'm assuming you're dumping in their terrorist activity.
You know, I at at this point, you know, this is the challenge of any policy community is we often think of of the now and what that might what what that might look like. And then we design policy around what is now and not what is the future. But I think you're a 100% right that in the future, we could look at how non state actors that want to similar to to piracy on the high seas, similar to terrorism.
How can these entities be engaged in space and threaten that that sense of security and safety that we're trying to develop so that those that are out there doing science on our behalf can can can do that? It's the the it's funny. And it's not a funny luck but it's a funny that the individuals who I'm speaking with who tend to be military, historically in the military, no matter where it is in the world. Mhmm. They always bring up conflict.
Mhmm. It's almost like it's bred into the individual because one individual who's on our team looked at our plans, and the first thing he said was, well, where are the barracks? And his reaction was, where are the barracks? Another individual where came up with this terrorist thing, that direction. He brought up being safe when we're building Mearth and the moon hut in the four phases. And I wrote just yesterday to one of our teammates.
I spent 10 hours writing something for one of our teammates. And in there, I wrote, there will be terrorist activity. It's just a matter of when. Mhmm. Mhmm. It doesn't it's not that it has to be tomorrow or the next, but some way or shape and form because we've seen all the movies. We know humankind. Someone will do something that will be classified as a terroristic activity. So that's why when you said safety, I went, You went directly there Yeah. Which was interesting.
Well, and I think that that's the the purpose of international law was always designed to do just that. And so when I think of this in terms of policy framework, in terms of international framework, that emphasis on on safety and avoiding conflict is is where our current structures are are centered on. Everything that the United Nations does focused on international law is meant to prevent conflict or at least create a mechanism to keep those things from from escalating too quickly.
I don't wanna be too political, but I have you been paying attention to the United Nations recently? Well, that's I know I'm not exactly sure if they're sitting in that that seat. So the the reason that I'm bringing it up is because in my head sorry. I don't have a military background. I I was very close. I had a roommate in university, and he wanted me to join the military because I've done certain things he thought would be very valuable.
And my mind goes to the building, the creation, the development you have in the title collaboration. And your initial starting point is policy and safety. Mhmm. Yeah. And that's not where I would have started at all. Well and I I think that's one thing that's often missing because when we start down these pathways of looking at what's possible, it can be easy for us sometimes.
And this is and this is where, again, I think project Moon Hut has set itself apart because instead of just going with the, oh, this is this is what is possible and let's just aim for that. Project Moon Hut looks at it and says, here's how we grow into what we want to to make happen. And that's where, from a policy perspective, is, I think, an important component to this.
Because as you are scaling, inevitably, some sort of it doesn't have to be armed or violent conflict, but eventually some sort of conflict arises. So even, you know so, like, for so going back to my my my bullet point here about the outer space treaty, the Outer Space Treaty explicitly says that the moon or lunar surface or any celestial body for that matter cannot be used as any sort of a military base.
Okay. Now NASA draws almost a good amount of its its pilots from the United States military, and many of them are still on active duty. So what constitutes a military base? If there is a US military If all the members who are sitting on the on the on the moon are military individuals, then what yeah. What's the definition?
And I think that's where when we look at the arrangements that we've built around the International Space Station, We've built that framework into this collaborative model to say, there may be military officers on this spacecraft. However, the purpose of the spacecraft is to be scientific in nature. This is not a military operation. What's the thing you could take the like, it sounds like you take the boy out of the man, the man out of the boy, whatever.
There's something where you can't take that personnel. Right. Which kinda led to what I said is military people like you immediately went to military or this angle of deflection or focus. So you can't take what is it? You can't you could take the boy out of the man, but you can't take the man out of the boy. It's something like that. Maybe it's the other yeah. Something like that. At least we both understand it. So you you're I wanna ask start with the the the treaty itself.
Has the, who hasn't signed the space treaty? The International Space Treaty, the first one. So mostly, it's it's just the the, mostly countries in Africa. So there's a couple of countries in South Africa or in South America that have not signed to it. But for the most part, any company or any any country with an active space program is part of part of this program. And yet, it's archaic because it's based on a 19 sixties premise of not believing even and I I read it a long time ago.
It's not based upon commercial ventures. It doesn't so is it even a viable document? I think it's it's a start. I think it's become a starting point. It gives us a a a concept of how we interact. But like you said, in 1967, how many satellites did we have on orbit at the time? And now so much of the global economy is, you know, functioning based on satellite based infrastructure. We have you know, there was no commercial space in 1967.
And now, some of the largest providers of of launch and and communications are a 100% commercial entities. And that's where And they're and by the way, they're flying directly over countries Mhmm. That in theory, if we use the logic that this the airspace over a country is theirs for protection. I know we have a limit, but in essence, you can put a spy satellite right over the top of another country. Right. So how you're starting you you you start off with the the tree, the lunar tree.
How I'm I'm jumping here because I'm trying to follow the the line. Why did you start with lunar tree? Treaty. The lunar treaty. Treaty. Oh. Sorry about that. Treaty. You caught that treaty. I think, lunar tree. We're not Lunar tree. I'm like, what is a lunar tree? So I that's the first thing when you threw it out. I went, this is going in a place I never thought of, the lunar treaties. Okay. So yeah. That that clear. So it was so it That helps a lot. It was part yes.
This is this is part of that outer space treaty of of 1967 that when the United States committed to going to the moon, that we then had to build this framework and saying, okay. Well, if someone does land on the moon, what is that gonna look like? What what what can they do there? And the at the time, you really only had 2 nations on earth that were even capable of of getting there. And and ultimately, it is only the United States to ever put humans on the moon so far.
But we look at where we are today, and the the world that existed in 1967 is no longer is no longer relevant. Because now you have So Yeah. So so then what has progressed since then that's viable? Well, I mean, look at, India with its, you know, its successful lunar landing on the South Pole. You look at, China and Russia having not having, especially China, having ambition to put astronauts on the your Chinese astronauts on the moon.
So as that goes and as we start developing that sort of infrastructure, I think because at this point and, again, to the credit of Project Moon Hunt, there's a plan as as what this is going to look like.
And I think that that's where you know, as we look in transitioning over to to Artemis, that's where we'll see the lessons learned on the International Space Station and having that transition over to, you know, an isolated lunar habitation on the on the moon surface that will foster international collaboration in the interest of of science. But what's to prevent another nation from going in there and and doing something different?
And that's right now, there's nothing that could, you know, how what would that mechanism look like to either prevent it or it provide that ability to to start discussing it at at an international level? It's interest I'm, we we don't call it lunar. We call it moon because we don't talk around saying we're on terraforma. We don't use the words on earth that we would say that we use on the moon. So I I tend to use the word on moon.
Just so you if you recall, ours is 8 people, 90 people, 578, 1,644 over a 40 year time frame. And you've seen the scale models. You've seen the work that we've been putting into it. So when you're the way you're phrasing it, and I'd like maybe you can rephrase it for me again.
You're saying because we have, as most people have said, the most in-depth and most detailed plans going out in 40 years, how does your statement Moonhot Project Moonhot is doing it differently, sync with the words that you're saying? You understand what I'm asking? I think so. And Okay. I would say that the way that that that syncs with what I'm saying is we what what are we cape what are we capable of today?
You know, our starting point for any further exploration in space is building off the success of the International Space Station program. You know, that's shown us Yeah. That we have the ability to, for a long period of time, have sustained scientific exploration occurring in outer space. Now I think the question becomes, is it easier or more difficult to do that on the surface of the moon?
Because the, you know, the International Space Station has a number of of challenges, technical challenges just from sheer logistics. But Yeah. How does that then translate to actually doing these same things on the surface of the moon? Things like and and these are very practical things in many cases. We're we're like it's it's not fun to talk about what are we doing with garbage. But when we're on the International Space Station, we could simply jettison it, and it burns up in the atmosphere.
Well, we're not gonna be able to do that on the surface of the moon. So how do we what are we doing with garbage? What are we doing with human waste? All these types of things become those logistical challenges that you can't just jump in and create a colony of of a 1000 people or habitation of a 1000 people. You've gotta be able to start building from the ground up and and incrementally expanding so that all those logistical hurdles have been taken care of.
So the so in the way, I guess, I'm reframing it is that because you've seen a logical progression, 150 page paper, I don't know if you've seen that, and multiple others, you're seeing that we're addressing the different phases of development necessary for 8 people than 90 people and what the evolution needs there are in structures. Right. That makes you feel comfortable, but it does so then how does it tie when you say Project Moon is getting there?
Is how does it tie to I I'm not so optimistic on this world today of a new treaty. Mhmm. How does it does it does Projekt Kemonata supposed to paradigm shift and help to create new dialogue? Yes. How do you see that dialogue playing out in, for example, this treaty space, which I have read so much garbage from individuals who've written about what they think the treaty should be and how they should be written, and they're from everywhere around the world.
I mean, you don't even get along with your wife, your husband. I mean, I I don't even like you, and you're telling me you understand how the world would get along better in this environment or that this would, the collaboration part would happen. How do you see it? And I think that's the advantage of within the scientific community, despite international conflict, we see a desire to to collaborate.
The International Space Station, to go back to that again, despite the fact that as you and I are talking, the United States is discussing providing munitions to Ukraine so they can fight the Russians. And yet as at the same time, orbiting overhead, we have American and Russian scientists actively working together on the International Space Station.
And even throughout the Cold War, we've seen those opportunities for scientific collaboration to to drive dialogue between nations even when they are not friendly nations, if that makes sense. Still the question is, if we're doing it up there, we're doing a horrible job down here. Yep. To, the fact that the Russians shipped in their Soyuz Rockets individuals to the International Space Station when the shuttle program broke down, they there was a lot of collaboration.
It's not translating back to Earth. The overview effect doesn't work. It just doesn't work. I I know that everybody loves to quote it and that it will change the world. No. It hasn't. We haven't gotten a better, we haven't been better people since night since we saw that day of seeing the Earth from afar.
So how do you believe that Project Moon Hut, if we wanna use it as its reference, how would is Project Moon Hut the collaboration joiner that individuals, because of the way we are working today, is going to reframe everything? I don't know if it would necessarily reframe, and maybe this is a bit pessimistic, but I don't know if it would reframe everything. But it would Alright. So as soon as the word came out of my mouth, I wanted to pull it back, but it was too late.
But it would give us I think it gives us a a a it gives us a project that we can work on work on together. And that's you know? And I don't I don't wanna jump ahead, but I talk about the Antarctic Treaty. I talk about the international law of the sea because these are similar frameworks there that we don't necessarily need to agree on everything, but we can focus on the scientific development, on the safety component.
And I think that the Antarctic Treaty is a great example of if you go down into Antarctica, you have these similar outposts that bring scientists together from across the world to to conduct research. And that's helped develop our understanding of of our of our own world. Working in the Antarctic has helped us understand a lot of things about the ozone layer. And working on the moon surface will inevitably expand our knowledge of of the universe, the solar system.
So that's where building out that framework so that we know what that's gonna look like. In a in a very practical sense, you wanna put you know, we start looking at how Project Moon Hunt is going to scale. Where are those people coming from? Who gets a seat? Who's who's paying to get there? Who's who's flying to get there? These are these are those very technical, very, very specific things that you need to start figuring out now so that as we as we grow and expand, it works.
So it's interesting because and you will recall that we we call it a box of the roof and a door on the moon. We don't call it an outpost or a base. We don't call it any of those things. It's a home. It's a home on the moon, a box of the roof and a door. That's where it started back in 2014 in the Scratch restaurant. And if you look at how we've been growing, we don't even we don't talk about these type of things only because it's embedded in the project from the start.
My friends, my ecosystem is global. If you wanna call globalist, work in over 50 countries. We have individuals from New Zealand, from Singapore, from Hong Kong, from Japan, from South Korea, from Nigeria, people from South Africa, people from, Dubai, Israel, Estonia, Germany, Italy, France. God, we have Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Slovenia, Canada, US, Mexico. I mean, there's just we are that from the start. So I I yeah.
I can understand where you're getting at, and yet you're kind of rewinding it because that's not the way we talk. Right. We are global worldwide. That that's just it. So so let me think in a let me talk then in a more in a in a, again, a very practical sense of Yeah. When we talk about getting to Antarctica.
And I'm I I use I'll use Antarctica as as an example because it has that sort of remote feeling to it where it requires a tremendous amount of logistics to to put a scientist at at in in the enter in the in the Antarctic. So can you can you help me a little bit? Because while I know about Antarctica and I do you have a historical timeline process understanding of Antarctica that I can learn a little bit from you on about this? Well, yeah.
I mean, if you go back to looking at early exploration of of Antarctica, I mean, we're we're going back, to it first being identified. Oh, I can't remember the dates on that, but I'm looking it up at Antarctica base, I guess, is the way we'd look it up. Research stations. Yeah. Nothing wrong with looking something up. First base, Arctic 19th century, 1898. Karsten, oh, I I would butcher this name. It's Norwegian. Borczyk Grevik Vinnik.
Mhmm. And so we're going when when you're thinking about the, facility today, are we going post World War 2? Is that it? So that that's part of this is we started the exploration phase well before we had a treaty. The the Antarctic Treaty wasn't signed until, 1959. And it was only then that and this would have been not just post World War 2, but this is post, you know, post Korea. So you have Yeah. You've you're in the throes of the Cold War.
There is a tremendous amount of concern internationally about territorial expansion and also wanting to make sure that we're balancing that scientific research component. And so that's where you have these folks that come together and say, listen. We need to build principles around how we're going to operate on this 7th continent. And they build you know, it's it's not a tremendously in-depth framework, but simply says, listen. This is gonna be peaceful purposes only.
You're not gonna go there to be a base for for military operations. This is not going to be something where we're going to use it to further the the the goals of a particular country when it comes to strategy. That this is gonna be focused on scientific investigation. This is something that we're going to focus on our under how we can use this untouched landscape to further our understanding of our own world. And that any information that comes out of this, we want to be open to all.
We don't want countries that are going down here and doing research just for themselves. If you're operating here, that that research needs to be shared among the international community. And so Is it all research is shared? Yes. Yes. That's one of the principles of of operating down there. Is that this is this is all information that's freely exchanged.
And in an academic sense, you know, even domestic for most part, domestic research is is shared and collaborated across the scientific community. And in the United States, there's, of course, certain intellectual property. There's certain things that are regulated under programs like ITAR and, different arms trafficking regulations. You know, that stuff is is maintained internally in the United States.
But for the most part, scientific knowledge is shared broadly across the international community, and we we we watch these things. We can you know, scientists across the globe are constantly looking at the research of others and building off of that. And that's where Antarctica has been a success, in that we've been able to preserve this continent as a space for us to to further that knowledge of our of our world. I'm maybe you know this, and I'm not as there's quite a few bases.
I'm looking on Wikipedia. Permanent active stations. United States, Poland, New Zealand, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Russia, India, all the way down, Germany, South Korea, Argentina. There's quite a few. South Africa, New Zealand, Japan, Norway, Ukraine. There's quite a few bases, but what is sub Antarctica station? What does that mean? A subantartica station. If it's not Antarctica, what's a subantartica? I I actually have no idea.
There's a also subantartic region, is a region of the southern hemisphere located immediately north of the Antarctic region. So it's another space what they've defined as. Okay. And there's it says 56 countries have now signed up to it, but that's not the 190 some odd. Right. And I and I think that's where, so go going back to and I know we're gonna we're flipping back and forth here, but when you That's okay. I'm I'm I'm following, and that's what you're here to help.
So I'm getting We're walking through this together. You and that and Yeah. And that's okay. When you look at go back and go back to the outer space treaty, and there's a number of of of countries that haven't signed onto that as well. Presumably, because when you look at these countries, a lot of them are are Sub Saharan Africa who are not out there conducting, you know, science in the international realm. They don't have the the capacity. Their governments can't fund it.
And so it's not necessarily because they don't wanna subscribe, but because they just don't have the capacity to get out there to do it. You know, I think if as I think what you would find is there's no I don't think there are any countries that have a presence in Antarctica who are not subscribed to to the Antarctic Treaty.
And I think you would look at something similar to to outer space where we have as as more nations develop space programs, we'll need them to subscribe to this international framework of how how they're going to operate in outer space. How are they going to conduct themselves in outer space? And and, again, a a very practical example of this was at Ascend back in November.
There was conversation, and and now Space Force has has said US Space Force has come out and said, you know, we are going all in on on orbit servicing. So we wanna see the ability to service a satellite while it's on orbit. Yep. Well, under the current construct, you know, to inter to to interfere with a satellite of another country is is a violation of that international norm, and it's a violation of international law. So how do we then do that?
How how do we how do we make sure that what we're doing is going to be not considered an act of war by another by another country. Because what happens if we go up there, we try and service our our satellite, something goes wrong, that satellite is now falls outside of our control, and it it hits the satellite of another country. Is that an action that someone has taken that that was a a deliberate action? Was it a was it an accident?
What is the way that we're going to Wasn't there a satellite that was just blown up with a laser? I I'm hoping I'm not a conspiracy theorist, passing things on. I don't know if I well, I don't, I guess I don't know. But we we have seen what I what I know for certain is we've seen both the US and China and Russia all develop programs to destroy satellites, you know, on on orbit.
And I think that we've, you know, the established norm that we've said is, you know, if you if you shoot down a US satellite that that is that is in fact an act of war, and most countries view that the same way. From this point, the only way to do that is shooting from Earth to hit something while on orbit. I'm looking it up. It says, Russia just blew up a satellite. Here's what that spells. There's another one that, Russian satellite, Cosmos 2499 blew up a satellite.
Don't know if it was blown up from Earth, but the point still is is you can blow up a satellite in orbit, create enough debris to damage other satellites. And that's where when I talk about this, you know, when I go to safety, it's that concept of safe you know, freedom of navigation, and that's where the international law of the sea has helped us make those determinations.
Now operating at sea is is a little bit easier is a lot easier than operating in space because it's still a relatively linear existence. In outer space, of course, we have, you know, farming you know, we we've got, you know, 3 dimensions that we're having to to deal with, and that makes it far more complex. And and how do you navigate safely around things like debris?
How many orbital maneuvers do you have to make to make sure that you're avoiding some of the existing, you know, space debris that's out there? And, you know, you can do a quick Google, and there's plenty of stories that are out there talking about the fact that listen. Our our our orbital environment is becoming increasingly crowded. And as we increase Well, that's yeah. That's the that's the with Maribajah, we came up with the name space environmentalism because of that challenge.
Is I'm sorry. I'm jumping because my my eyes are actually closed as I'm trying to figure this out. Under the sea with submarines, there's the this the, freedom of navigation for the sea and the treaty. Does that's for commerce. Do militaries honor the same with submarines and tactical tools underneath the ocean, and do they follow the same guidelines? I would say generally. Obviously, in times of war Yeah. Generally accept. Generally accept.
Yeah. And this is, yeah, this is the problem with international law. Is international law we shouldn't be using the word law at all because there's very little repercussion that happens. Right? These are international norms that enable safe passage. The purpose of having navies has always been to promote commerce so that we can have shipping. So that as commercial vessels are out there operating, that they're able to do so free of of threats that would exist from things like piracy or terrorism.
And that's when when naval vessels go out to sea, that's that's part of that mission is to operate within those same norms from a safety perspective that it's not always possible. And and it looks to use, the the the Straits of Taiwan as an example. Yeah. Right? The US will periodically run, a battleship or something through the the Straits of Taiwan, which the Chinese will be like, well, this is territorial waters. The US will say, no. It's not.
So in in theory, if you're the US, you're operating within the international norms of operating in international waters. But if you're the Chinese, that same action is not in compliance with It's an act it's an act of aggression taking over territory. So but did the in the treaty for the seas, did the Chinese sign it? Did the American the Americans, I'm assume, signed it?
Yes. Yes. And that's And there's no repercussions for any of the activities that either party is playing, games that they're playing. And the what is it? The Japanese just launched their first aircraft carrier. And they're now they wanna be a force with that tool. And so how you've brought up the I I I know there would be the saying is we have to have these because if we don't have anything, we don't have anything. That would be kind of the argument.
Well, and so And yet So so look at your your example of space environmentalism. So where where are we going with that? If we have a desire now to clean up the orbital environment so that we don't have to deal with space junk, so that the satellites that are out there functioning aren't having to maneuver as much to go around these uncontrolled objects. And we've seen, a whole bunch of of really novel concepts of how we're gonna do this.
These giant nets, magnets, maneuvering spacecraft that go out will pick up this space jump. Really? Magnets? It's 1. Yeah. I think I mean Like, how powerful of a magnet you're gonna have to be able to catch something going at the speed it is going around on earth. Like That is not that is why I'm not a an engineer. It's it's like a it's like a Thor hammer. Yeah. But but here's but here's the thing.
Now what happens if I'm out there and in the interest of keeping the space environment clear so that everyone can operate? Now what if I get a piece of Russian space junk? It's a and Mhmm. And maybe the Russians have said it's well, this is a defunct satellite. It we we have no control. It's just it's floating there. And now this US flag group comes up and picks it up as part of this effort to clean up the the, the space environment. You violated somebody else's junk. Violated.
There's no there's no salvage. Right? If a if a ship sinks in the ocean, you can go out and you can salvage that vessel, and it becomes your property. We we established that that's that's the norm. And without that in space, when we start thinking of these novel concepts of, okay, we need to keep the orbital environment clear so that as we're going up there, things are are are not having to inter interface or interact with with debris. This makes sense for everybody.
It makes it easier for all of us to be operating in the space environment. But without that law, like I said, maybe the Russians have said it's defunct. And now that we're sucking it up, they might have an issue with that. What's the what's the process there to to work through that potential conflict in a manner that that is consistent with what every nation would would expect in space.
You know, we we get statements all the time from people, because we have individuals from all countries around the world. So many, it's hard to count. Some of them I have to look up on the map and say, where is that? And being having worked in over 50 countries around the world, I I've seen a lot but bestowled many that I haven't, is I get people who say, well, are you gonna work with this country?
And I say, well, are you asking us if we'll work with the government, or are you asking us to work with all the people of the country? I mean, I have friends who are from that country. I might even have heritage from that country. Then someone else will say, well, will you work with this country? Well and I'll use 2 big names, just 3 big names. Someone might say, are you going to work with the Chinese? Just for sake of argument, I've lived in Hong Kong for a decade.
I've flanged all over, and I say, you're asking multiple questions here. Will I work with individuals who are Chinese, or are you asking, will we work with certain actors who we believe are not in the best interest of Project Moon Hat? We're also a 40 year plan. Most of them will be dead by the time we get to that point. Or someone might throw out, will because of the conflict that's happening in Ukraine, will you work with the Russians? And same thing.
Are you asking for work with Russian people? I have plenty of friends who are amazing individuals who are Russian. And as a matter of fact, my grandfather was Belarusian Russian and my grandmother was Hungarian on my mother's side. So I've got Russian in me. Would that mean and I've also got German. My father's side was all German. Will I work with those people? Sure. We're looking for talented people who can help us bring Project Moon Hut to life.
So I guess that where I'm going with this is I trying to come up with a question for you. Let's say, you've got the space treaty. It's actually defunct. I've read it. I felt like it would never work today. How would you redesign that? I I I think it would be a mix. I think Small question. Right? Well, it's it's an important question. And Yeah. I know.
But that's gonna it's gonna similar to project Moon Hunt, this is gonna require a lot of very smart people in a lot of collaboration among the diplomatic community to come up with a framework that's gonna work for everybody. When I talk about how do we model that, where the what's the starting point? We can look at the principles that we've built on with the outer space treaty. We don't wanna see an over militarization of outer space.
This is an environment where we can further the goals and objectives of all of humanity. So how do we keep that in mind so that the outer that our outer space realm is focused entirely on that? The Antarctic treaties, I bring that up a lot as a model because that is that similar type of, hey. This is not a space for territorial expansion.
You know, the the the the moon belongs to all of us, and we should not be going up there to claim property for any individual or or nation, which, by the way, I think isn't an interesting concept because there are places out there where you can technically buy real estate on the moon. Yeah. Someone someone ends up selling real estate on the moon. It's on the money, and no one's it's not gonna be honored. Right.
But now that you know, what if I was one of those people that and I guess I wouldn't necessarily feel bad for someone that got their money taken away for for buying property on the moon. But, you know, do those people have legal rights to make a claim against something? Why or why not? And so that's where going back to Antarctic Treaty from a development standpoint, as we start to explore the moon, as we start to expand to Mars, and who knows where else we can go?
Is this going to be something that there's territorial expansion, or is this going to be purely for for science and research? And that we have to be able to define that now because that's gonna be critical to those plans. And when we talk about So I I just looked it up. There's a Robert Coles, former chairman of the New York Hayden Planetarium, started the inter interplanetary development corporation and sold lots on the moon for $1 per a moon for $1 per acre. And what?
And then the next thing under it says, nope. Legally nonenforceable, not binding. Yep. But why? Why is that, you know, why is that not But because they say it's the outer space treaty adopted by the United Nations General Council in 1966. So if you build on the moon, if anybody builds on the moon, do you, in essence, have the ability to go up and say, nope. You can't be there. And I think that that's that's where these policy conversations need to be need to be turning towards.
So I never thought about this before, so this is good. This is where my head says we don't need an outer space treaty. An outer space treaty is too big. And I think you've heard this saying is what are we talking about? Mar, Mars, Venus? We consider Jupiter. Is does this cover all of outer space, meaning the billions of star suns? Maybe and I don't wanna a Mearth treaty. It's the geography within Mearth, the moon and earth, and the geography that we have, the 297,000 miles.
I I don't even know where you'd start. And that's where I Because I we the the construct that you're talking about are constructs for science. And that's a challenge because science research and exploration tends to be all of the, what do you call them, the agencies. Yep. Science research and exploration. We are not. We're about improving life on Earth and develop economic system with those innovations turning back on Earth. So we have a commerce part of our entire project.
And sometimes better to start from new than it is to start from somebody that's made all the mistakes in the beginning because you're gonna carry them forward with the words you use, the language, the, examples that are defined. And that's probably fair. And but I think that's where I revert back to the the international law of the sea. Because, again, that's very commercially focused. We've we've viewed our oceans and international waters as being an area for commercial activity.
And what you're talking about in in the Mearth environment is quite similar. If we are establishing Project Moon Hunt on the surface of the moon, people are going to have to transit outer space to get there. What does that look like? What happens if the vehicle that they're using to get to and from the moon experiences some sort of it doesn't have to be catastrophic. Right? Look at Apollo 13. What happens if it's yeah. They're surviving, but they need they need assistance. Right?
Something is not working a 100%, and now we need to go out and figure out how we we prevent something small from becoming a full blown catastrophe. And how do we make sure that if we're engaging in commercial activities on the moon, that the legal framework is there to to make sure that we're able to to do that in a in a manner that's going to, truly benefit everyone. That's where the Antarctic Treaty says, hey.
If if you're up there and you're doing commercial research on the moon, that inform is that gonna be protected by intellectual property, or is that scientific research that's going to be shared? How are we going to to make the distinction between the 2? It will will both be occurring. And these are these are things that we we need to start considering as we're as we're building this out. So it's interesting. I'm I'm looking up Lagrange points so I don't say them improperly.
Someone who's gonna know these a lot better than I do. I think what you just defined was 2 different sets of treaty components. One of them is the movement in space, which you're talking about the movement in oceans. You really don't own a spot in an ocean. I mean, you could put down a buoy, but now you've changed it's a very different environment than taking a plot of land. So if you're moving through free space between as we on the project, we're not classification systems 1 through 8.
If we're in that space of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, there's really no, 7. You're kind of in location or in orbit or free space. But something like l one Lagrange point 1 or Lagrange point 2 or 4 or 5 or 3 have very specific geographies and very specific mechanisms by which to stay in that I don't know if you call it orbit. Might probably is a wrong word. Somebody's gonna tell me I'm wrong. You you can occupy a space.
So you're talking about one of a kind of a logistics or a free space, not the word that I like to use, a free Mearth. And then you've got on the moon Right. Which is a completely different set of variables. Well and that's and I think that's right? That's exactly and that's exactly it. That's where I I I think I agree with you that we do need to we we need to be very careful with the language that we use in these things.
But as a starting point for policy and international collaboration, having that that concept and and I'll use this to break into my my last point. Right? So we talk about the the United States Space Force. Did we go over everything already? I mean, we've kinda got back and forth a little bit. Your last point within the lunar lunar treaties. Yeah. And well, I was gonna well, so we're talking we start talking about law of the sea.
We start talking kind of you kind of allude to that that whole doctrinal principle of right? If I'm on the open ocean and drop a buoy, what does that mean? What does that look like? How are those and and more importantly, so then when we think of freedom of navigation, there are buoys that are out there that are maintained by governments to help facilitate commerce in these in these channels, in these areas.
And so the one one of the one of the arguments that I have with with the US when it comes to US Space Force, you know, we've we've we've, for a long time, viewed outer space as being an extension of aerospace because, well, it's up in the sky. Right? It's up. But, doctrinally, there's a huge difference between aerospace and and and flying and and the doctrine that exists in the United States Air Force and the doctrine that we would need to practice in outer space.
Because similar to the open ocean, outer space is not something that you can just hold on to. You can't just yeah. Sure. The the LaGrange but but even that, like, a LaGrange point is not actually a a location. It's a proximity. It's a proximity to Earth.
And that would be like saying, well, there's a you know, the currents create an environment in the the ocean that's, you know, what the the garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean is a result of those similar types of natural movements of the ocean have consolidated everything there. That's kind of from a in a conceptual stance.
I'm sure people will tear me apart for saying this, but those are you know, those points in space are effectively the same thing where gravity as has this effect to hold something in that proximity. Mhmm. That's why I use those. So it's a gravitational impact of being in that location. But that is fundamentally it's so even though this you know, so the space force being kind of evolving out of the air force has taken this doctrinal approach that they they have from an aerospace perspective.
And, really, we should be looking more at how the navy functions, how the coast guard functions. And that is kind of how the space force could be leveraged in that similar mentality of you can't hold the ground in space. So how do we make sure things are operating safely and that every country has an understanding as to what those expectations would be so that they're able to operate freely in in space, which is as we've defined already in in inherently in international environment.
Okay. Tell me more about the Artemis Accords. Yes. So as we've you know, when NASA came out and started to look at going back to to the moon, They've recognized that, again, I think building on the success of the International Space Station, NASA came together and said, listen. If we're gonna do this, we we we can't go it alone. We need to be bringing other partners with us so that we can have a safe and peaceful existence on the moon.
And that's going to to have those components, all all tied together. And so there's not much behind it. It's simply these countries have come together and say, listen. We're we're gonna go back to the moon, and we're gonna do it similar to what we're doing in Antarctica where we want to be able to expand on what we've done in the past, but for the good of everybody. This is about scientific exploration. This is not about territorial growth. This is not about militarization of space.
And NASA has started to bring together those partnerships, but this is an agreement between nations and not creating any sort of international norm. I can see the list. Australia, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Republic of, Korea, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Ukraine, UAE, UK, United States. But the major players are missing. Some of the major players are are not on that list. So we're are we not not a policy person?
Mhmm. So, and you're gonna be creating policy. That's where I'm gonna come back to how will you build this. It's if you don't have all the players on the playground agreeing to play a certain way, then it doesn't matter that you don't. What you've done is you created a a block of individuals who will defend one position where there'll be other blocks that'll defend another. So let's take I don't see on this list, and I don't know.
This is October, 2022, so I should probably go to a more current one. If you look at the BRIC group, that on the finance side looking together to bring together capital markets to compete against, for example, the US dollar, you've got all these players who are now saying this is the way we play in our playground. So you you play in your playground, but we have a new playground set of rules here. Does the r is the Artemis Accords just words that were used?
I mean, accords to make it sound like it's a treaty agreement. And more or less it is is we're gonna play together here, and anybody else wants to join us, you can. But they don't have to abide by anything that we say. That's exactly it. Is that these this is what Artemis is is it's it's an agreement among now this this club, and it's growing, but it is not setting an Internet. It by no means is it international norm.
And this is where recognizing the fact that, okay, we have and this is where similar to the ISS. Right? There's partners to the ISS and the but that did include notably Russia. So you had the big players that were part of that. So there was there was an easier time with agreement. Artemis tries to build on that, but because China and Russia are absent from the accords, they could come back and say we're gonna do things entirely different.
And they're and now that is that is completely, you know, absent from it. And none of and not an absent from the autonomous accords is even how to address that. If an if another Right. Yeah. I I I yeah. So, I mean, I'm looking these are here's 10 peaceful purposes. What does that mean? Transparency. What does that mean? Interoperability, emergency assistance.
Okay. Regulation of space objects, release of scientific data, protecting heritage, space resources, defolocation deconfliction of activities, orbital debris, and spacecraft disposal. Doesn't say a lot. Yep. It's that you will work together on this with this group of, players. It doesn't say anything, I guess, by being in a country, you've more or less signed up to their those agreements. That's And I guess I guess the answer to that question is, I don't think we know.
Like, we know we know that if a, if a, an aircraft, a commercial aircraft that is flying under the flag of a certain country is doing something that it's not supposed to, we know what that means. There's there are rules on how we handle those sorts of situations. There are normal, accepted functions of how aviation, how how commercial sea craft, how the how all these things are operating and interfacing with each other, and we don't have that space.
And we don't we've Artemis falls well short of that because, 1, like you said, it doesn't define any of these key principles. It doesn't define what any of this means. It doesn't create it doesn't have a mechanism to define them, and it lacks engagement with some of the key partners. Right?
We really can't have an agreement in outer space without Russia and China because they could you know, they they are going to be operating in there, and and, inevitably, that's where everyone is worried about conflict. That's, you know, that's great. You know, the US and, you know, and all these countries have this have this agreement, but these we're not operating in a vacuum. Ironically, we're not we're not operating in a policy vacuum in this case.
So it it's it's more or less proving the point that, there's been about I just looked it up. There's, I think it's 40 there's 38 countries that are now in it. But it doesn't mean that if the 2 bullies the 3 bullies let's see. I shouldn't use that word. The 3 big players, 4 big players, 5 big players, whatever they are, when we have dialogue, it's not that they actually exist in that way. What if those players don't agree to something that's inside of something that's very arbitrary?
So I think it's it's it's probably more use like when you when we were younger, you were in recess, and you're picking teams. It really didn't select all the things that you have to abide by, but the US budget for space, NASA's budget, and and that does not include the budgets of major corporations who are involved in it. But NASA's budget's in the over 20,000,000,000.
So they're going to probably dictate more of the terms of how certain activities will be played out, which I think is different than Antarctica. And let's keep in mind that NASA doesn't wanna do that. NASA has said countless times that they do not wanna be the organization responsible for space policy. DOD shouldn't be the one dictating space policy. You have the Department of Commerce that has taken on some aspects of this through their, their, Office of Space Policy.
The Department of Transportation could potentially have a place in this, but the FAA, for the most part, has said, no. We don't we don't wanna touch this. We we can't even regulate our own airspace, never mind outer space. So, you know, NASA was established as a scientific entity. They've got the budget. They've got the smart people, but they don't view policy as being, you know, part of their role. And that's what Artemis is is kind of Yeah.
But you you do you but that's a that's a double edged sword. You give a military complex, a military organization, or a a company, you give them money to do certain work, you immediately there's an alignment that happens sociologically and psychologically. You know? You give and I won't name the name because that wouldn't be a good way to say it.
But if NASA gives somebody a contract to do something and their sole purpose is military armament development, then you've put yourself in a position of policy. Yep. And I think that that's that's the great challenge that we face is NASA is probably the only one positioned to define that policy, but but they don't they don't view them. They don't They're they're not outright they're not outright creating it, but their actions dictate it.
And that and and at the same time, they're actively coming out and saying, we don't wanna be the ones doing the policy, but yet they are.
And and that's where I think when you look at the what Artemis has become is Artemis has looked at as being policy, but even a superficial read while we're going through this while we're talking about it actively right now has can can show a lot of those weaknesses that exist within it because things like terminology, things like who's responsible are not included as part of that that discussion. Not not clear.
You know, when when we most I would probably argue I could say this pretty clear, with much, not force, but confidence. That most small organizations, when they begin the Beyond Earth Ecosystem, don't start off with an ITAR, EA, or CFIUS program. Right. They're they could have a simple one or they can get a a boilerplate. We've been lucky that, Kirkland and Ellis, the seventh largest law firm in the world, stepped up to the plate. They've been with us now for over 2 years, two and a half years.
And we've been challenging everything that we can so that because there will be United States operations as there will be in others around the world, we're trying to make sure that we answer those questions early on so we we're not rushed at the end. And they've been brilliant with us. We've also have 17 international, property attorney firms around the world helping us for trademarks, patents, copyrights within certain countries.
And they've been doing an amazing job around the world to make sure that we're protected. But all of this adds to a complexity of, an ambiguity to moving any project forward. So I'm I guess I'm I'm wrestling. I didn't expect this conversation to have me my mind spinning in this way. No. That's a good thing. That's that's a that's why we have them. So my so the question I I'm saying my, but it's we, but my head is what's going through right now is how? You and I are here.
You're you're gonna become a policymaker. Let's assume that you had to come in with Project Moon Hut. We've we've got a treaty that's old that's from started in the 19 sixties. We've got, another treaty that basically is a who's kumbaya ing with us this this year. As long as you don't do something wrong, you won't be kicked out. We have you brought it up, so I'm gonna piggyback on it. We have the United Nations that to you read people's comments all over the world. Get rid of them.
They're a waste. There there's nothing that comes out of them that's useful. It's a they're a puppeteer of certain groups. Whatever your belief is, you do read that, so that means there's a lack of confidence in there. The Antarctic Treaty is prime it it's oh, as the ice is melting, at 3,000 some odd meters up high, and it's these are small groups of individuals that are setting up facilities for science and research. That's great. Project Moon Hunter Mearth is not this. How do we do this?
How do we do project Moon Hunter? That's our title. Establishing global collaboration because we haven't talked about collaboration. We talked about treaties. Mhmm. How do we continue to help project Moon move forward so that the right people and right is a very hard word. The the individuals that we need are part of the project to move us forward. How do we do that? I I even threw down my pencil. My pen.
Well, the you know, and I I think on on the policy side, things so things that we need to be advocating for would be making sure that we're enabling greater commercial interest in outer space. And what do I mean by that? You know, you talk about being about Project Moon Hunt being an international collaboration to get the but but how do we physically start getting and this is the this is the question that comes to mind. How do we physically get this material to the moon?
And once it's there, how do we sustain it? Who's who's doing it? And the easy answer is, well, now that we have commercial launch, it's commercial launch that's doing it. And so that raises the question of, well, are you using SpaceX? And if SpaceX is the one that's going to be bringing materials to and from the moon to sustain project Moon Hut, and that can be an entirely a commercial relationship.
But it doesn't change the fact that SpaceX is a US company, and that carries with it certain laws, expectations. There's And it's funded. A lot of the there's there's money that's moved into launch and capabilities because they're the only ones who can do certain things today. And that's where the the uniqueness of this. Right? If if Project Moon Hut is a commercial entity and we're seeking to create a commercial environment, well, what are the limitations on that?
Because as as as we grow and expand with this habitat on on the moon, is this you know, NASA's concept of of functioning on on the moon is, well, we'll establish the infrastructure, or we might need to contract out for the infrastructure, which is exactly what's happening at, like, McMurdo Station. There is a US government contract for US company to build and sustain the McMurdo Station so that scientists can go down there and and and function.
So does from a and from a business model perspective, is that what Project Moon Hunt becomes? Are are we a No. That's not at all what we've become. We are Project Moon Hunt. We're worldwide. We have set ourselves up structurally, financially, whatever the tools that we've used so that we can be considered an international concern. So ours is there are launch capabilities today on planet Earth. It is it's limited. It's to limit is to limit it.
And with, with the SLS at $4,200,000,000 being pushed out over every 2 years, Talking about 50,000 people on our O'Neil cylinder floating in space is not gonna happen with 3 people at a time going to the moon. So we one of the things we're hoping with our discussions is today there really is no need, no demand some people use. We can show a demand. We can show an economic demand, and we can show a social demand.
So we're hoping that a unified endeavor brings commercial capital to organizations that wouldn't have gotten it otherwise because there will be something there for them to be able to engage with. Does that make sense? It does. And I would look at that and and as we think of what what policy framework goes around that, and I think you have to be able to make sure that you're protecting those those commercial assets. And if if we're not going to be and so this is that the challenge. Right?
Does the outer space treaty limit the ability to conduct commerce in space if if we're only supposed to be using outer space for scientific research. Now scientific research can result in electrical property, so there's there's there's that's the economic piece to it, I think.
But And but that's a tough one because all these organizations, Voyager, Artemis, all of these companies are getting in some way, shape, or form, at least in the US, not as much activity in the European Space Agency side, using those as 2 big blocks. The European Space Agency just did something, I believe, with Airbus. They released that they were doing SpaceX with Airbus, I think it is. But we also have the Chinese who would probably look to have some commercial activity that goes on within it.
We've had on the South African Space Agency, And they have in Luxembourg. And there are a lot of them out there that would hope that something would happen. So they're actually putting money into hydrogen 3 collection devices or technology that would be commercial. So in essence, they're violating the treaty. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Right? Am am I wrong with by saying that? That's exactly what we're we're talking about is that when we read. So so there is no treaty?
Well, I you know, but this is If they're violating the treaty, if they're taking money and investing it in a company that could end up creating a commercial venture on the moon, they therefore are violating the treaty, which is supposed to be that you can't have commercial venture on the moon. Yeah. And I think that I mean, I'm okay. I haven't read it in a long time. So so you have the first one. Yeah. Enabling commercial interest.
I think that's broad because you jumped safety and everything in there. What else would be in this policy if we were to create a policy? I mean, you you can't avoid the conversation around avoiding militarization of space. That that's something that needs to be built into there. And I think you have to to stipulate what that looks like. You know? And it's fine.
I don't I I this this analogy keeps coming in my head because when you think of Antarctica, there is a US military mission to support the Antarctic scientific mission. And I don't know if you, I don't know how people people know this. This was kind of funny to me. But, depending on what your status is defines what color coat you wear in Antarctica. So if you are a scientist, you wear a red coat. That means you are a researcher. They end up dead serious. This is a 100% true.
No. No. I I laugh because red coats. Yep. You know, and go back to the the British. If you are a logistics person, like a contractor or someone that's there to keep the facilities running, you wear a green coat or sorry. Blue coat. And then if you're military, you wear a green coat. And so that you can go around and see all these different functions that are existing to support that.
And I think that that's if we look at how space operates today and that's not to say that it should continue to operate this way. But the way space works today, that you have this mixing of interests that range from those doing scientific research, those that are there to keep quite literally keep the lights on, and and the military community that's providing a lot of that experience and logistics to make sure that those things are functioning.
And I think that the ISS has somewhat of a framework to help us figure out what that looks like so that just because you have an air force colonel that is on that is part of that is sitting there and and occupying project Moon Hut, that they are there for scientific research, and they're not there as part of a military mission necessarily, if that makes sense. Yeah. They they're not they they won't. That's not our that's not who we are.
That doesn't mean their history wouldn't have something to do with extreme conditions or being a I'm gonna use the term just for the sake of argument, a pilot. Maybe they have to go there. You know, a pilot has to land in the country in which they land. They're still a pilot. They just have to sleep overnight and and use those the facilities. So if so you're saying the the it's funny. The first one you went to had safety in it.
So we're going back to this, your your background, enabling commercial interest, then you go to the militarization. What would what else would you put in that policy? Well, I think you I think there's a question on if we're dealing with intellectual property, where does that intellectual property reside? Where do where does who who's got jurisdiction over that intellectual and who makes that decision? Okay. Interesting. Because we have tons of intellectual property people with us.
What's your thought? I mean because we we've had this conversation. We we're we're having a disagreement with a French firm, and we have a our team was on a call with a French team, and they've done nothing beyond Earth. And at one point during the call, which is exactly what Project Moon Hut is supposed to do, is to have individuals ask new questions. And the one of their 2 attorneys on the other end of line said, I wonder who owns the intellectual property if something was created on the moon.
And so it's not only if it's created on the moon. It is what jurisdiction or what country or what does it come back to? Because it was created on the moon, how does it come back to the person's passport and their country of origin? Does it how do you file that? There is nothing in the European space age in the European, trademark patent and trademark office. There's nothing in the US Patent and Trademark Office that says moon. You know, this is where it was developed.
So they're not they're not even set up for that. So how would you take intellectual property? And I think it would come down to, you know, probably the the the jurisdiction of the individual that's doing that research. And if it is and that might be funding too. So if a if it's a US entity that is funding a particular type of research, well, then that that research would then be part of US intellectual property, whether it's whether it's NASA, whether it's an academic institution.
You know, that No. The the most we're gonna be we're gonna be commercial. We're gonna be normal people. We're not this is not a government, and we we are avoiding or turn on avoiding leveraging. They will be a part of what we do, but they're not the all encompassing. And we have we have nonprofit profit government, military, and education all over the world. We expect that there'll be a plethora of different opportunities across them.
So if intellectual property is created by BASF on the moon, where does it reside? I mean, I would say it would reside with BASF and whether and whatever their corporate headquarters would be located. So you're now taking it away from, let's say, Artemis, which doesn't have much, or the the space treaty.
You're now saying that intellectual property that is developed in a in a commercial manner on the moon is now capable of being brought back to Earth and patented so that BAS can take advantage of that opportunity. I think you yeah. I mean, yes. I guess. I think you have to No. No. No. It's a yeah. So yes. I guess. That's a that's a what is it? Like, a 63%, an agreement? I would call it that.
And and I see where you're going with it too because we you know, that is the opposite of the Antarctic framework of all that's you know, if a if a corporate entity is doing this research, then that inevitable and and patents it. That is not gonna necessarily going to be publicly shared.
Now but when you look at especially in the US, the way that patent law functions, I mean, there should be the ability to to look now this goes beyond just space based, but looking at reforming patent law to increase innovation. And how do we how do we look at those laws to make sure that even in cases of corporate intellectual property, how are we continuing to build and invest and innovate off of off of corporate funded research. You know, that's And and we just take out the word research.
We just say in innovation because you when you define it as research, that's one type of individual on the moon. Yep. Yep. You the patents that I have filed, we have one person who's one of the foremost experts in graphene in the world. He has 42 patents on our team. And you know how extensive the team is. And we've been talking about graphene and graphene usage and new materials and lighter and stronger materials.
And when he was doing research, that ownership was passed on to the institution he was working with. His name's on the patent, but the ownership passed on, and he gets a royalty in the cases that he negotiated. But if you and I came up, we're working on the moon, the 2 of us, and we come up with an idea, and it wasn't research, it was just an idea, you know, we could put a create a handle like we do on the on earth. Somewhat 2 people get together and say, hey. That would be a great idea.
And and my son is an intellectual property attorney. Then they can file it because it was a new idea. So you're in in the way you're framing things, they tend to always go back to research or they go back to, you know, the organization or the military. And I'm saying, let's look at Earth. On Earth, you can come up with an idea today. You can come up with right now today, you can go and grab your handle on your door and say this is wrong. I got a new idea.
Call up an intellectual property attorney. Have them design it with an engineer and a group, and then you can file it, own it. You can work in a company. You can come up with an idea. They might even say, go do it yourself. We don't care about it, which happens all the time. Or they could say, no. We wanna pay for it, file it, secure it, and build it internally. Or you could be part of a research group.
I mean, there's so many different variations of developing ideation when it comes to intellectual property. Why can't that just be the moon? Because there's at this point, there is. The the moon is considered a noncommercial entity. But it's not because we've already just proven that organizations with one organization with $25,000,000,000 is investing in organizations that are planning to do commercial work on the moon.
So, therefore, there could be a case, probably a good one in front of any judge and jury if we were to go to that type of system where someone would say to NASA, you can't have it both ways. Yeah. And that's I yeah. Yeah. I I agree. I I think that's And I'm not an attorney. I'm just making this up as we're going along.
But but you can understand if in fact you're engaging in activity that is I could prove that you invested in something that you plan on having it used on the moon to harvest Helium 3. You put NASA has funded, granted, put, 500 a $1,000,000 into a company that plans on harvesting of Helium 3, and that company goes to the moon and he and pulls up Helium 3, wouldn't we say that the US government was a part of the development of commerce?
And and and the US government has a long history of being involved in commerce for doing exactly those types of things. Therefore, we don't have a lunar treaty. And I think that that's where project Moon Hut needs to be sure that moving forward and and and how do we define the I guess and now it becomes how do we define the limits of what commercial activity on the moon will look like, or do we wanna limit it?
Because now we're in talking about the commercial activities happening outside the jurisdiction of any particular country. And how is that going to be governed in terms of fairness, I guess? Let me give you two points in it. They're on top of my head because yesterday, I spent 10 hours writing something for just one person on our team. It's not for everybody. It was just one person on our team to get some clarity for that individual to understand certain, pieces.
So I'll give you one and then I'll step back. There are a lot of individuals who wanna develop com finance on the moon. Blockchain, crypto side. We're gonna be the 1st people to have a a a token that would be usable on the moon. And my argument is this. You go to the moon with 8 people, you're not gonna have any currency. If you have 90 people on the moon, you will not have currency. An individual such as Joe is going to be working for a company, let's call it LVMH.
Joe's job is to go to the moon and develop something or build something, create something. LVMH is gonna pay $3,000,000 for an all inclusive stay. You are not going to be walking up and getting a yodel or a sandwich or a a meal by swiping a card. You're not gonna hand someone coins. It's gonna be like a a ship, a a Yep. Travel ship. What do you call them? A tourist ship. And you're going to it's gonna be all inclusive. You will not be trading any money on the moon for a very long time.
What you're going to unearth, that will all be paid for. And, sure, we might track food and materials with, chips or or cameras or something so we know what types of food we've been using so we can replace it. But that's logistics and supply chain management. It is not capital. And so we have a lot of these misconstrued or misshared constructs.
And the challenge that I had written in the paper, and I also spoke to somebody and this is why I put it in for the guy, was do we want to mirror Earth on the moon? Because if we mirror Earth on the moon, then we will immediately take the concept of have and have nots to the moon. Because it'll be people who have money and people who don't have money That we will create that disparity of, we we will bring those habits and those customs to the moon.
And if the world is the age of infinite, and there's plenty of disagreement or challenges with Star Trek and all of these types of you know, how do you actually work on Star Trek Enterprise if the person above you doesn't die? Even you're gonna stay in that role for the rest of your life.
But this age of infinite is where we don't need to be struggling for health care or we don't need to be struggling for certain types of activities till we wanna mirror with the treaty that you're talking about intellectual property or talking about militarization? Do we wanna mirror Earth so much so that we create the same challenges we created on Earth, on the moon, if it's not just about science research and exploration, which you've been talking about.
But we actually went to a home on the moon. Yeah. Does that make sense what I'm saying? It does. And I think it it raises a deep question for me about how do we balance this right? What and I guess we have to reset our understanding of what space exploration is going to look like. Because, like you talk about, we're scaling here where in the early phase of Project Moon Hunt, there's no need for currency because it's just built into the fact that it's so small we don't need it.
But as we continue to expand it and that expansion rationally, we can draw that line and say, well, this goes well beyond the moon and extends to Mars, Venus, others. You know, what's what's the limitation of that? And if that's if that's a commercial exercise, then how do we create a new what well, I mean, that's, like, an entirely new system of of of of an economy, of how do we create an economy that is entirely different from anything we've experienced in all of humankind. Because yep.
Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. The age of infinite. The age of infinite. Infinite possibilities and infinite resources. A Mearth economic system and a Mearth economy. It is taking the challenges that we've had on Earth and redefining them on the moon and not just saying we're gonna go live there and live differently. This is not a commune experiment. That's not what art were about.
It's about the fact that the innovations we develop in going going to the moon, not just the innovations, and there will be very limited in the beginning on the moon. I mean, if phase 1 will only have 8 people, they're not the innovations will all have happened on earth to get to the moon. There'll be nothing that'll happen on the moon. Maybe one guy will put come up with, like, a new handle, like I've said, but that's about it. Phase 2, we're going to have, the structures that we have.
There could be some innovations that come back, But we're they're not gonna be like the 100 of 1,000 or millions of innovations that are filed every year on Earth. It's not gonna be any comparison. It'll be a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent. So how do we make sure that the age of infinite happens if we're in a treaty more or less exporting the challenges we have to another rock.
And now so then the the policy issue there then becomes that any I mean, any policy that you you implement there creates a barrier to achieving what you want to achieve because the stakeholders that Remember, you're on the team, so it's really You're right. That's, you know, that's you know, that's but that is the thing that we are we're we're facing. Right? So we need to how I mean, truly redefine how the stakeholder also, you know, and and these are existing stakeholders. Right?
You're create you're you're unable to create revolutionary change because the players are so entrenched in keeping the system the way that it is. Here's that timeline that we've you and I have spoken about. Four dimensions in mathematics is location, length, width, height, and time. 0 is considered, location. So it's called 4 d, but it's actually 5 dimensions. We're leveraging time. So what people want today, existing today, which is still a me me, egocentric, accumulation type society.
You know, we it's our LinkedIn profile. It's our company. It's our history. We speak at a conference. We do this. We do this. An accumulation of wealth. 200 and 2,780 billionaires in the world today or something like that. 10.5 ultra high net worth 1,000,000 millionaires in the world today. That's over 30,000,000 in assets. So, it's accumulation. But as I'm gonna use a simple thing.
Florida loses its insurance base to 2nd tier and third tier insurance whole, carriers, and there are disasters due to increase in heat, global warming, our 10th consecutive month in series that we've had increased heat, or it could be sea level water rise, which causes, higher, and more damaging tidal surges, rain stays over an area longer, and more destruction. You're going to see individuals come back and say, well, who's gonna help me now? Doesn't matter how wealthy you are.
Who's gonna help me now? And we're leveraging the fact that over time, at least the 6 mega challenges, will cause people to rethink what's important to them. And, therefore, potentially so I'm asking a question. There is a question behind it. How do we leverage time within policy so that policy doesn't go back to 1969 or 75 or 61 or whatever? How do we leverage time in policy making? We have to I think it requires vision. Where are we where are we trying to go to with these policies?
What is what is the end state? And so the challenge is is in the 19 sixties when we wrote policy, we envisioned the moon as being a noncommercial area. And we've already and as we've we've talked about, we've already violated that principle. So how does this as we think over the course of time, how does this evolve, and what is the vision that we're trying to to achieve?
Now Project Moon Hunt provides that vision of saying, we can grow and expand, and we can benefit all of humanity through these through these advancements. And that policy framework that would have to be built around that would need to start building in those those norms, I guess, of how we're how we're establishing that cooperation at an international level. I'm I'm asking myself, jeez, is there any example?
And I don't know enough about policy, so you could you could put me in the point 001% of knowledge. I I absolutely know nothing about it, and I don't study these types of architectures. How I people will build up I'm assuming people build policy treaties to hopefully last a duration of time. However, we're seeing rapid change over the past 5 to 6 years, just everywhere. And the 6 mega challenge, climate change, mass extinction, ecosystems collapses, displacement, unrest, and explosive impact.
We're seeing massive changes across every one of those. I wonder how you would embed in there an evolutionary to fit the needs of that time, an evolutionary or a an adaptable policy that moves with time in real time. Well, that's where Did I just, like, break did I just break policy? Well, I think that the the challenge is that when we look at, you know, what what does what does policy represent?
What what is the policy how does the policy community view itself, and what is it what is the aim of what it tries to do? And it's about it it's less about creating, I guess, in especially in international collaboration. Policy is less about at the international level, it's less about creating rules and and more norms. And the the the difference is that norms can be shifted. Policy can be revised, but it requires buy in from from all players.
And, you know, and so the the two things that we think about the course of time, 1, our technology is going to to change. So our ability to Mhmm. To get places, to communicate, all these are fundamentally gonna change. Right? It's a you know, again, think of another policy shortcoming. You know, the way we regulate the telecommunications industry goes back, you know, before there really was an Internet.
So we again, we are communicating differently using rules that exist from, you know, 2 generations of technology ago. But the principles fundamentally haven't shifted. And so any policy that we we design on this front when we talk about space exploration, when we talk about Project Moon Hunt, there's a a a need to be specific in certain areas with term with terminology without also limiting what we're able to do from innovation.
And I think that's that sweet spot is there is there an answer to your question? I think the reality is no. But the having the flex of making sure that we have the flexibility is the closest that we can get. Making sure that we're not being overly prescriptive with policy so that we we limit our ability to innovate, if that makes sense. Yeah. It's the answer question that I've got. That one I heard loud and clear. It is you know, poll I look.
Policy is law a law regulation procedural administrative action incentive for voluntary practice of governments and other institutions that enable and then there's yada yada to that. It's an interconnected set of conditions. We've got technology still going on, the doubling of speed and capabilities every, 2 years. We it was 2 years or, I think it's 2 years. We've got, massive change within our environmental systems. We've got more conflict on planet Earth than we've had in a very long time.
We've got aging populations, in certain areas and others not. So there's so many variables that I'd really it'd be interesting to come up with a set of how would we make it or an organic policy. Meaning organic organic It's got the capability of change policy without having to go back to the drawing board every single time a new innovation or parameter is set because I love the Beyond Earth ecosystem because they will often say things as they're a matter of fact.
And it's very easy to say, so you've done this. Right? And the the what do you mean? Well, you've just said that this is how policy should be done. So you've obviously done this before in Beyond Earth. Right? No. Right. No one has. Or this is the way to go to the moon. Okay? So you've done this before. What do you mean? No one's done it. Then then why are you saying it as a matter of fact?
And and that's a challenge that we don't know how to be able to do this, but I do believe in order for Project Moon Hut to hit our title, establishing global collaboration achieve the moon, which I never thought you were going to go in this direction, by the way. Not in a 1000000, 1000000 years that I think that this would go in this direction. We have to figure out a new mechanism that is adaptable to to changes based upon anticipated results or activities. So a box to the roof and a door.
8 people. 90. 578, 1,644. Adaption to the 6 mega challenges on Earth. Sea level water rise or animal extinction levels or heat or something. That would at least give people a few things. Hope. We have a program in Project Moon Knight, you don't know, I don't think, called Hope Plus. Hope. Then there's innovate inspiration for innovation to move forward.
And then there's a third one I can't think of at the top of my head, but has more to do with the not governance, but individuals need for, I'm gonna pull it up because I can't think of it off top of my head. It's right in front of me here. Where is it? Innovation Earth. Let me make sure I don't move it. We're working on a scale model project. You know, we have scale models, but working on something pretty big, which is kinda cool. Looking to see if it's in here.
I had it in here, but there were three things that people are looking for on this planet to a large degree as individuals as humans. And one of them is that they they want hope. And we don't tend to have that today on a global scale the way we could. Second 1 is to inspiration. Technology adaption and movement and 3rd one, I can't find it easily without taking a second away. So it's gotta be baked in like project moon. How does it bake in? Who would you this is a tough one.
Who would you call upon if you can make the ultimate team of individuals who are not gonna write 400 page papers because there are a lot of people out there just write papers? Who would really want to be able to solve this or address this, not solve it, you can't solve it. Who would you call upon if you had to make a you had a wish list? That is a tough question. And because the the stakeholders that we're talking about here go well beyond technical experts.
I think often in a situation like this, we would say, well, we probably wanna bring in someone that understands launch. We want someone to understand intellectual property. Right? But we're we're we're engaging with the stakeholders who would be in the actual execution part of of Project Moon Hunt. But, conceptually, the true stakeholders, the majority of stakeholders are here on Earth that'll benefit from the research that's being done.
And so how do you Or the work that's being done, not just the research. The work. The because we we are working. Yes. And the you know, you've gotta build I can't I guess the the answer is it's not necessarily a particular individual, but how do you build a diverse group that can represent all those interests?
If if we're talking about how do you represent the interest and needs of 8,000,000,000 people here on earth, and those are, you know, those needs, those wants, what that hope looks like, you know, is gonna be different from from group to group. And so your much. You know, your stakeholder engagement has to include individuals who are economically disadvantaged. It's gonna include people that might, you know I one one one great question with that came up was, from a policy perspective.
The native Americans believed that the moon is sacred and objected to Yep. Having human remains put on the moon. And it was a fundamentally right. This is a non scientific question. This is a religious question of Yep. I believe that being put on the moon as a final resting place might be a cool thing, but that directly contradicts the religious beliefs of an entirety of the group. So which takes precedent?
And we there is I read about that just it was the past 2 weeks or 3 weeks or something in there. That was what I'm on there. This goes well beyond thinking from a policy perspective, because now we're talking at a fundamentally different level of, you know, as far as policy goes, you know, for us in the United States, it's the first amendment that drives that, and there's always competition over what that means. Right?
My my interpretation of of freedom of religion is clearly different from others. And that's not to say that one is right or wrong, but we then rely back on the courts and say, well, it's the court that will decide what this what this looks like on a case by case basis. And We don't have an international court. And and we don't have and and even more so now we've gone beyond just the policy, but now we now we're talking about how do we now enforce these things?
How do we create a mechanism for stakeholder engagement and stakeholder conflict resolution. And, you know, we look at the international criminal court that most countries not not every country has subscribed to. So, you know, the United Nations is the only, equivalent that exists today for international dispute resolution. And as we've talked about, it doesn't really have any any teeth to push back on its enforcement.
You know, so as we expand beyond Earth and look at the moon, look at Mars, look at everything in between, there needs to be a place for that dispute resolution as well. Why are you just Well, that's the problem. Right? So it's and I think that's the thing. So go back to what we're operating off of, and it's really easy. It was really easy in 1967 to sit there and say, you know what? We're not gonna mess with this. So the moon will not be commercialized. It's gonna be a scientific area only.
And that sounded great, but in practice, it didn't it wasn't the it wasn't reality. Yeah. Yet a huge component of project Moon Hut is not being on the moon. You know, I've told you. I'm not a moon person. I don't care about the moon in the same way that people think.
We are about establishing a box of the roof and a door on the moon, a home, through the accelerated development of Earth and space based ecosystem, bringing the innovations and the paradigm shifting thinking from the endeavor back on Earth to improve how we live on Earth for all species. So we are about earth, and it is using and leveraging an actual project. People always say, why do we have to do this? We could do this in the desert. Right. It's not the same.
We have to achieve a box of the roof and a door on the moon. And part of our underlying current is to have these discussions other people to say it it's gonna be real. Like, how would we really articulate this? And the the Indians were an interesting piece. Just this morning, I was sitting down with my wife, and we're I've we've been having this conversation as, I think, you know, people sometimes take 2, 3, 4, 5 conversations to get involved.
And this one individual whose network is amazing, incredible person. We've had the 2nd call. We talked nothing about Project Muna. And about at the end, he said, I'm sorry. We have we didn't really talk about you about Project Muna. And I said, no. You didn't wanna talk about Project Muna. You wanna get to know me because you won't do anything with me if you don't know me. And then we had another call. We didn't talk about Project Moon. We had another call. We didn't talk about Project Moon.
And last one, we talked a little bit. And I was sitting downstairs, and I said to Lori, wife, and I said you know, we started talking about him traveling and he and his wife traveling and what does that mean. He wants to travel around as his, daughters leave the house. They're gonna move every 2 years someplace. And he said, and I I also like to live in Portugal. And I said, you know, you could buy a second passport, 560,000 US dollars. And he said, oh, I don't have to.
Both my parents are Portuguese, so immediately that doesn't count. And I didn't realize it till this morning. Latin culture in general is more interested in getting to know you first before they will move forward as compared to, and I'm gonna just use an example, a, a German societal person. They wanna get down to business. That's not to say it's everybody. It's not ubiquitous. But I sat there and I went, how did I miss that? How did because I didn't know he was Portuguese. That's why.
And then I realized he's doing it to get to know me, which is very different. Or language. Language in one culture means one thing in another culture. It's completely different, the same words. And how do you create through the activities we're working on? How do you create a different dialogue? And that's why the moon becomes the the focal point because it's not about earth anymore. It's not earth.
We already know the laws on earth, But we don't have laws out there or ways in which we would interact with one another in one's ex gravity and in a distance far away or what we call is the 8th continent. Interesting. And I think that's where so I'll bring this conversation full circle then. And for Yeah. For humans to build up into that more that deeper level of collaboration. Right? You talk about the, you know, the cultural differences of how we get to know each other.
How do we interact with each other? Key to all of that is safety. In order to make to have those conversations, we have to feel safe. Right? It would it be safety or a common a common desired outcome? I think safety is a subset of a common desired outcome. And I think but but to start having those conversations, you know, it's, yeah, it's building that that common outcome and feeling that sense of, yes, we can accomplish this without unnecessary risk as well.
Yeah. I I I like that we were able to I like taking it a step further because we had a conversation with a few team members the other day, and I, at one point, just said to them because it was important in this, ideation that we were working on. Why did you join Project Moon Hat? No one talked about safety. People joined Project Moon Hat. And let me ask you. Why did why why did you want to be a part of Project Moon? I am. It's part of this policy thing, so I'm not just BS ing here. Why?
What what got you to say, yeah. I wanna be involved in this. Involved in this because I see the potential that exists. So when we talk you talk about the mega problems. When we talk about how what what will be done on the moon will help all of us here on earth. I I I share that vision. Mhmm. I I I agree with you on it. And that's where making it a reality is and it and I guess making it a reality is is an interesting challenge for me. Right?
I so I enjoy that challenge of this is a really difficult problem. And oftentimes, when we go and this is a problem in the space communities. Oftentimes, we go out in the space community, and we talk about the same things. We talk about the same solutions, and we and we don't have the difficult conversations. And I like having the difficult conversations that that challenge us to challenge the way we think about problems.
And that's what Project Moon Hunt is to me, is it's a different way of looking at these problems. And it it asks the hard questions just like we're having this conversation today. You know, Ernest Shackleton, we're using Antarctica, had an ad that he put in the paper. And I don't know how true it is, but you've probably seen this, the one that says he he didn't put in safety.
He said men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success. His entire the entire team came that was the ad. As far as I know, that is the official ad. I have not been able to find otherwise. And they ended up being in the ice. They overnight, the ice froze around the boat. Over time, it crushed the boat.
They had to hike through terrible conditions, and then a few had to get a get to another location to find safety and bring them back. And I everybody survived. That's I I might be saying this improperly, but it's close enough. And he went for another expedition, and they all signed up again, except for one person I think couldn't make it because of died or whatever. But they all signed up, and it wasn't because safety.
So we asked their teammates, and it's interesting because you're talking about policy. The these 3 that were on the call, one person said something very different. The interconnectedness, David, that is a word that we use often, interconnectedness. It's completely different perspective. He's a beyond Earth person. So completely different perspective of anything that'd be seen in the space ecosystem. Another person said he thought it was fate that meeting Project Moon Hut was fate.
He knew he was going to have this journey 50 years ago. He had a need for something that was exciting. He he likes to attempt things that some people think are impossible. He he liked that we had a lot figured out, like the 4 phases and the we're going after intellectual property and the immersive technologies we're using, the the legal components. He felt confident with there. Another person said he wanted a better future. He loved that it was worldwide. He loved the clarity of purpose.
He loved the storytelling behind it, which is interesting because it wasn't safety. It was a future. And pea and if you can combine all of that, a lot of that is hope for something that builds into something new, different, and and a different set of tomorrows where they would feel good about their contribution and their work. And you just did the same thing. So I guess in policy, can we we have to. I don't know how to do this.
We'd have to embed, which we're doing already in our Itarie or CFIUS programs and all the others that we're doing. We have to embed the sense of that hope for a different future, the addressing the 6 mega challenges. Your children, you in your life, we have to embed in there a sense of tomorrow, a redefining of tomorrow, the age of infinite within the constructs. Again, I did not expect this to go here at all. And It's it's the fun of it.
The the do do you now realize why not having the camera on is so valuable? No. I think it I my head is just like turning this like a a a dog's head on a swivel. It's just like I'm looking all over the place trying to find answers. Any any, like, from this experience today? How was this experience? I I I'm with you. I think I came into this thinking we were going to go in one direction, and we found ourselves in a much different, but I I feel like a better place. And and I think it's Oh, okay.
You know, I think that's that's the excitement of Project Moon Hunt is we we know where we want to go, and we have to challenge ourselves on how do we get there and what's what's that gonna look like. And so you talk about hope, and we talk about hope and and policy. Maybe those, generally those things don't always go together. But but that I think it is a possibility when we're out there and we're talking about the problems that people are facing in their daily lives. Right?
So often, we we look we look to outer space. We look, like, the lunar eclipse, that was last week. Right? We all look up, hopefully, through our safety glasses, and we see this celestial occurrence happen and it all didn't matter how old you were. It's cool. It's just fascinating. But now to take that to the next level and say, listen. Our understanding of the beyond Earth environment can help us solve the problems that are actually facing us in the current in our current lives.
And and set our children, like you said, set our children and grandchildren up for success. And that's where creating policy with an eye towards long term solutions is is gonna be so important, and and especially making sure that it's flexible enough to and adaptable enough to adjust for the the, you know, the shift in how quickly things move today. I I I have to bite on it. You brought up the solar eclipse for me. Those things don't get me to scream and jump.
I'm in Syracuse outside of Syracuse. I was just on the side pathway. It was okay. It was okay. I talked to some other people. It was okay. Did you go did you go outside and look at it though? With glasses. Yeah. With glasses on. Yes. But we had yeah. It was, it was a little more overcast in our area than in others. But I actually saw the the mark on it.
But if you for me, there are so many more things that are so exciting in the world that to me again, I I I even said I don't look up, which is probably an interesting phrase, but I don't. I spend the time looking out to the world that we've got, and it's not like I'm fascinated with that experience.
So it's interesting that you brought it up because it's one of those things that we have to make sure that we're diverse enough to cover like, 82 percent of the world's population lives under 20 US dollars a day. Mhmm. 82. 62 or 63 lives under less than 10 US dollars a day. 10 US dollars a day. And the people who are making a lot of decisions for the world are those that are not even close to that. And we have to make sure we're cognizant about that. Where yeah.
Because You know, and and embracing the excitement and that awe. Right? That's part of that hope equation is, you know Mhmm. You and I have a very practical outlook of we can solve the problems that are here, but we can engage so many more people when you look at the attention that the Eclipse got. And I think that's what I was talking about is, you know, capture Yeah. Yeah. A lot of attention. Capture that excitement. Capture that awe and say, listen.
What's happening up there can actually help us down here. And that's the case that that we can make of saying, you know. That I completely agree with. A box of the roof and a door on the moon could transform how we live on this planet. Yes. Thank you. I did not, again, did not expect this to go this way. Some people come with this long, long laundry list of things they wanna hit. I immediately had some questions which took us in a completely different direction and, took a lot of notes.
You're I appreciate you taking the time to be with us. As always, I appreciate, our time together and being able to to share and explore these ideas. So that said, wanna thank you for taking the time out of your day to listen in. I do hope that you learned something today will make a difference in your life and the lives of others. Obviously, our podcasts go in all different directions, and we have some amazing guests that are in lineup also, so we're continuing to bring them.
The project Moon Out Foundation is where we look to establish a box with the roof and a door on the moon to the accelerate development of Earth and space based ecosystem, then to turn the innovations and the paradigm shifting thinking from the endeavor back on Earth to improve how we live on Earth for all species. And today, you obviously had an opportunity to see how that thinking can be transformative. There are 2 wedding videos on the web that we ask that individuals who come on board watch.
Joe has watched them. There's, there if you go about midway down, there's 2. There's actually a third one if you wanna learn a little bit more. We have about a 117 videos that we share across all the ecosystems we're building from the immersive technologies platforms, tech transfer, biotech, graphene, the box with the roof and the door on the moon, the 4 phases. So we have a lot that we could share with you, and we'd love you to connect with us.
So, Joe, what's the single best way to connect with you? LinkedIn is usually the best. If you follow me on LinkedIn, Joseph Regan, you can find me there, and and that's where I I post most of my my activities. But, of course So but you're are there other people with your spelling? That's a good question. Because I'm pulling up, is there any let me see. I'm gonna do a Joseph Regan. It's you have, there are. So, it's Joseph, r e a g a n. So you've got that, but there's quite a few of them.
So it starts off with principal advisors, strategic, strategist, defensive so if you're looking for him, he's out of Colorado Springs. Maybe that helps a little bit for you, Joe. And yeah. Because there's a lot of Joe's out there. And, for that, we would love to connect with you. One way you can reach out to me, David, is [email protected]. You can connect with us at Twitter at at project moon hut or at goldsmith for me directly. There's LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram.
We've got individuals all over the world bringing an amazing set of talent and in such a way that every day we're surprised at the types of talent that are coming to help us create, tying it together with that hope, to create a new future, to redefine tomorrow and the age of infinite. That said, I'm David Goldsmith, and thank you for listening.