Ending the Concept of Space Exploration w/ Rand Simberg #6

Hello, everybody. This is David Goldsmith, and welcome to the project Moon Hut podcast series, the age of infinite. We're looking to learn from individuals from around the world to help us establish sustainable life on the moon through the accelerated development of an Earth and space based ecosystem to change how we live on Earth for all species. Today, we have an incredible guest on the line. His name is Rand Simbergis, president of InterGlobal Spacelines. How are you, Rand?

I'm good except I'm actually president of InterGlobal Media LLC, but that's fine. Oh, okay. Well, I I grabbed some Spacelines to the previous thing. Yep. But Okay. Work works for me. We, very quickly, I grabbed a few pieces offline that's, the online that says Rand is an expert in space technology and policy. You worked for 3 decades in aerospace as an aerospace engineer and project manager at companies like Aerospace Aerospace Corporation and Rockwell.

And the the bio's online so everybody will be able to see that. So you can go there and see more about Rand. Let's get right into the topic. It is, ending the concept of space exploration. And when Rand used gave that title, I thought it was an interesting dialogue that we should have. So, Rand, I'm assuming you have an outline that we can work off of? I do. Okay. So let's have it. K. The, first point is historically, space science was privately funded.

Okay. And then Apollo kind of warped our natural world perception of human spaceflight. That's the second point. Point after that is human spaceflight, and this is very important to understand, human spaceflight is not about science or exploration per se. 4th point, which is interesting in the context of the fact that, you know, we're we're we're having, like, the 50th anniversary of it.

The Outer Space Treaty was written in an era in which few imagined anyone other than governments would be sending humans into space. Okay. Wow. My 5th point is that science and exploration must be subordinated to the development of space. It's not just about science and exploration. And finally, I would say that we are returning to the time of private space exploration. Wow. Okay. I've gotta I've gotta make a confession. I've done over a 160 interviews.

These are the longest bullet points I've ever had. So I wrote as fast as I could. No. That's that's fine. I'm I'm I'm smiling. I was laughing because these are long. I normally have the time to write them and still get them out but yours are yours are very detailed. So why don't we start with the first one, space science and and drive What did you call it? Space science. I said space science was privately funded. Privately funded. There we go. Yeah. Okay. Go back to the beginning of America.

Okay. So let's, tell me tell me about it. Well, first, I would say go buy and read a book by a recent book, very recent book, last year or so by Alex McDonald called, god. I'm gonna draw a blank on the title. The Long age of space exploration or something like that. Okay. But, Alec, go you know, do Alex MacDonald, NASA Space Exploration. I'm sure you if you, you know I'll I'll look I'll look at that. It'll pop up. Okay. Okay. And and and he detail he he he's an he he worked for NASA.

He works for NASA. He's an economic historian, and he he pointed out that, you know, all through the 19th century and through pretty much the entire first half of the 20th century, almost all space and what space exploration then was, of course, was telescopes, observatories, and they were all pretty much privately funded. They were not government was not a government thing.

And and it's a it's an interesting story because, you know, he talks about all the how all the philanthropists, you know, they were eager to fund these telescopes and, you know, to try to reserve because usually they they've become they've become rich by, you know, various nefarious means, so they're trying to resurrect their their happy patients in the public mind. Like like Yerkes. Charles Yerkes.

Yeah. So they're they're so they invested in public service type or scientific exploration pieces that the community would look at and say these are nice guys. Right. Or or or there or there were subscriptions. And and again, this is very funny in the context of Current, the annoyance of, you know, Current as a scientist who oh, we have to you know, they they figure out very quickly we have to put cameras on these space probes because people wanna see pretty pictures.

But but, original a lot of the early observatories, they would have subscriptions, and and the local community would fund the observatory so they could go look through the telescope, which really frustrated the astronomers to say, we wanna look through the telescope. So okay. So, I got the book up, actually. It's called the, the long space age, the economic origins of space exploration from colonial America to the cold war. Yes. Highly recommended. Highly recommended. It's got 2 reviews.

So I'm going to say, is yours one of the reviews? I don't know, actually. No. There's, there's a I I have written I wrote a review at Reason Magazine, last summer about it. Okay. So there's only 2. It doesn't say the person on them. So but they're both verified purchases. So they've got 2 reviews. Okay. Well, that that one neither of those would be mine. No. But I did write a review at Reason Magazine, and then So last summer.

So what's your take that's with this this first bullet point, the space sciences, needs to be privately funded. So, that's an example with Alice Alex McDonald. What what is your what's your rationale behind this? Why do you believe it should be this way? Should government get out of the way? Should, how do you how are you what's your framework for this? Well, my framework, it gets into the next, points that, that I make. But, you know, something changed after World War 2.

You know, in 1947, the Hale Telescope went up at Mount Palomar, and it was like the last big privately funded telescope that was first saw starlight in 1947. And and and after the war, all of a sudden science became government. And that's one thing Do you know why?

Yeah. It because because it was realized after the Manhattan Project when we developed the atomic bomb, and, you know, we needed a lot of government funding going into science to be able to build stuff, weapons, to be able to defeat, you know, the Nazis and the Japanese and then the Soviets, that we had to have a major involvement in government and science so that we would have the tools that we needed to to build weapons.

And as a side effect of that, oh, we also, you know, got to do stuff in in space. So the this is I it's an interest as you're saying and I'm saying to myself. Did private individuals who were extremely wealthy at this time, did they say, you know, we can keep our money and let the government do this. Because they just made money off of World War 2. They were building tanks. They were building all sorts of things. They had made a lot of money off the war.

There were people who were wealthy industrials who could have done their own funding and done their own projects. Do you know if there's a psychology that's ever been written about or what these people were saying? Oh, that's a very interesting question because the answer is I do not know that. This is it's But I can but I can easily imagine that was what is exactly what's exactly going through their minds. They're saying, oh, gee. The government's building taking over building telescopes now.

The government's taking over, you know, doing space science. The government's going to building rockets and going into space. So why should I and, man, and one of the other points I should make is that, again, prior to the war, you know, Robert Goddard, he was seeking out private investment, and he got and he got some. He he got, you know, he got was funded by Guggenheim, but he also got government funding.

And he was seeking government funding because he think he thought, and used correctly, that, gee, the government should be interested in funding rockets. So that's, like, the most natural place to go to the government, you know, to get money to build rockets is for the government.

So Yeah. But it sounds like it sounds like a very, what do you a very capitalist approach is somebody decided it would be better to get, because of this whole Manhattan project and because of the initiatives that were put forward. I bet you they started talking and saying this would be foolish. Let's keep our money. And that, backroom table that we'll never know about, we'll never hear because no one's ever gonna admit to that type of discussion is Or or they're dead. They're dead.

Well, that was yeah. That was another part of it is. Sorry. Yeah. I did realize it in my head. I just didn't say it out loud. But somebody said, why do we have to do this? Why don't we let them fund it? We'll put we'll put our money into other places. So the the movement of people who were wealthy and could have invested was redirected into something else. And that probably was the tipping point of why we moved into this government funding. A back channel, a back approach. So okay.

Cool. I wouldn't quite say it that way. I wouldn't quite say it that way because I don't I don't think there were that many. It was just that the people who enter were interested in space science, all of a sudden, they don't care where the money came from.

So they were happy to see that the government was starting to fund this stuff even if it was a side effect of the cold war, you know, Sputnik and and and all that stuff that happened in Apollo and whatever, which kinda gets us into the next bullet point. But but so it's, you know, it's not like these philanthropists were sitting around saying, oh, I was going to invest in in space science except now the government's doing it.

I don't think that's I I don't think it was I don't think it was maybe I said that improperly. Maybe I was what I was thinking was that they saw they might have been interested in it, but they saw the movement of the government, and they saw the activities that were initiated with the the space race. And they said, you know, we we can go and do other things. And as a side it wasn't it wasn't a it wasn't malicious. It was just Right. Because Well, why would we do this?

They were interested in space ops. Oh, well, now the government's doing space stuff. So Yeah. Yeah. We can go fund other stuff. Correct. So there was still an interest because what I have like space stuff, but now we don't we can yeah. Now we can redirect our money to other stuff that the government's not funding. But my 4 years in this now, as you know, and I've been very short time in the space industry, what I have found is that there are so many people who love space. It's just unbelievable.

Yeah. So, and I was never one of them. So here I'm meeting people, and they're saying, oh my god. I'm a space fanatic. Oh my god. Really? So, like And and you and you need if you haven't, you need to talk to John Morris. He should be on your list for podcasts. Send him an email and tell him that he should be on here. So let's move on to your second point, the the Apollo warp.

Yeah. Apollo warped our national world perception of human space flight, and that's that that just got here because that's where we are now. So so all this you know, people had all these visions about space and, you know, you can go back. I I've just written a long essay that, it's but it's still in draft form. It hasn't been published, and we're still arguing.

I'm still we're having discussions, not arguments, discussions with the editor about how it's gonna finally come out, but but the history of of space visions for the last 100 and, you know, going back to the late 19th century. I mean, you know, John Jacob Astor, wrote, you know, science fiction in 1994 about, you know, colonies on Mars or not Mars, Jupiter and Venus or Jupiter and Saturn. I mean, he was really ambitious. He was, like, doing the outer solar system.

Okay. But the point is we had all these visions leading in in the science fiction all through the fifties and, but then all fiction all through the fifties and, but then all of a sudden so it's launched Sputnik and then all of a sudden we're in a panic and then all of a sudden all this government money pours into space. And, so all of a sudden, the government has really, really taken over space.

And and because that happened, we still think 50 years later, 60 years later, that's normal, and it is not. Okay. So do you use the term normal? What does normal mean? Normal means this is how things should be done. Done. This is how things work. What I meant is different is we in the United States, there is a a democracy based upon, capitalistic approach or republic. Right. If you were to go to another country such as China or Russia, that would not have been an abnormal.

That would be normal that the government is supposed to do it. So you what you're saying is defined by the parameters of the culture at the time, prior to the 50 years where getting involved, it was actually a different approach than we would have expected coming out of our societies. That's Apollo was a fund Apollo was a fundamentally un American thing to do. So and I can see your approach as your as your I can hear it. I can hear it and understand the concept.

It it's I don't know if you've seen it a lot. If there's a, you know, one of the one of the surprises that I've always thought about is in the 19 hun in the year 1900, there were more electric cars than there were more than combustion cars. Right. And then and they were once the combustion engine was created, the men loved the sound and the power. So they gave they gave their electric cars to their women, and the men went towards the combustion engine.

And that's today, we we could have had The the combustion engine happened because the electric starter was invented, And people weren't breaking their arms trying to start the car. Cranking. But the men ended up liking that. And it could have been we could have had an electric era. But for some reason, there was a change. So I don't know if there's not it's not a capitalistic component. But that's a whole separate that's a whole separate discussion. I mean, we can get to that.

But but, no. Basically, yeah, electric cars are superior because women could drive and steam cars too. Yeah. Yeah. The women could drive them, but but the gas engines the internal combustion engines really, really were superior in many ways. And not just because, you know, masculinity or whatever your your thesis seems to be. I don't I don't know what that is. But, no, the the you know, gas cars were better.

The the big drawback to to gasoline cars and, you know, we're way off the topic of space was, you know, you had you you had your wrist breaking your arm trying to start them, and women didn't have the arm strength to do it. But the my con my my parallel to that or the the reason I brought it up is that there was a fundamental shift, and you're saying that it was not normal.

And I think the word not normal is it be it was it became normal because it was an answer to a challenge that people had, which was the Russians and their influence. Right. It was a there was no private institution that was stepping up Right. That would have done this. So the normal was, using Americans' beliefs as structure, the normal was we do whatever it takes, including government intervention, which was the Eisenhower of the roads or any other type of philosophy.

But it was but but the point is it was about defense. It was not about space. Yet it still was then it became a normal because it seemed like everybody's was aggregating together and participating in a project. Right. But but it wasn't about but it was not about space. It was about beating the Russians at the Soviets or something.

If if we decided that we were gonna race them to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, which in fact happened, like, a couple years before that, then that would have been the rest of the race. So And So the but it did it did warp it. With the frisson that this is about missiles, you know, which are danger, which are weapons. So So it was like this whole it was like a Apollo was a confluence of events that is never ever gonna happen again.

I never had really tied it together that the miss it was a missile, and therefore it tied to defense to fight. Okay. That's an interesting parallel. And Johnson said we are not going to go to bed by the light of a communist moon. Okay. Though that's the first time I've heard that. So that that's an interesting parallel. Okay. So the Apollo came on. It was not normal, and it became the normal. It became the normal. It became the way that space exploration, terrible phrase, was done.

We the government spends, you know, 1,000,000,000 of dollars and, you know, large amounts of the national treasure to build a giant rocket to send a few people to the moon, and that's how space is done. And and we're we're continuing to fail 60 years later because they're trying to do Apollo to Mars. Okay. And I okay. So I completely under agree. I I understand. Okay. So we could maybe move on to the next bullet. I don't know. Yep. Yes. Let's move on. Because we're not human.

Human space flight human space flight is not science or exploration. No. No. And new human space flight was always about moving humans out into the solar system. Living in the solar living living off Earth. All the science fiction, everything up up up until the late fifties, it was nobody no and it was Heinlein, Asimov, Clark. Nobody would have imagined that we'd be walking on the moon in 1969. That was that was a crazy idea in the late fifties.

And the only reason it happened was because all of a sudden became important to beat the Soviets to the moon. It was not a natural American progression of how things should have happened. Okay. So what should have happened? What should have happened is that, you know, we should have been kinda continuing you know, there were there were ideas about how you get stuff into people into space cheaper. They were the low cost idea. They were reusable.

Von Braun had Von Braun didn't wanna build a Saturn 5. The only reason he built a Saturn he had ideas in the fifties. You could go back and look at the Disney films in the fifties that he, you know, worked out with Colliers and Disney and and they they had all these and this can be like fleets of these reusable vehicles that would assemble stuff in orbit and send people off to the other planets.

But we were in such a rush to do things because we had to beat the Soviets to the moon that we did it a crazy way, and somehow that's become what everybody thinks is normal which is why we have the space launch system and Orion. Yeah. NASA has to build a giant rocket and a capsule and that's the only if it's not doing that, NASA's not doing what it's supposed to do. That's that's what the the religion that I call Apolloism.

But but human spaceflight is about moving vast numbers of humans out into the solar system, and there's nothing ever that's been in NASA plans to do that. But Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk wanna do that, and they have the money to do it, which gets back to one of my, you know, some of my other bullet points. What what were some of the 19 fifties or the approaches that existed at that time in terms of moving out into space as as large groups?

Well, the the only people who were thinking seriously probably the only person who's thinking seriously about it at that time. I I I shouldn't say that, but von Braun laid out his vision very clearly. And because he'd been thinking about since the thirties before he got co opted by the Nazis to, you know, build ballistic missiles, toss at Antwerp, and and and London. You know, he wanted to build fleets of reusable launch vehicles that would send people out to Mars.

What what was different about them? What was the approach that was, sci fi at that time? He was going to make smaller vehicles? Was it going to not be a rocket? Was it going to No. It was it was definitely gonna be a rocket, but it was not going to be a giant rocket that threw everything away. So, if you look at the if you look at a Saturn 5 vehicle, the only thing that got back from the moon was that little tiny thing at the very top of that Saturn 5 vehicle.

Everything else was thrown away, And that's why it cost so much, and that's why they quit doing it. And that's why NASA SLS and Orion will not do that. It's why they will be canceled ultimately. But why did the what did he have in his approach? Was it a different was it different engine Elon Musk. Was His approach was Elon Musk's approach. Don't throw the rockets away. But what what was was it a different was it a different, mechanism for thrust? Was it a different No.

No. No. No. No. That was never necessary. Okay. All that was all all but the problem with reusable rocket is that you need to use it a lot. You need to reuse it a lot, and and and it requires a lot of testing and flying. And and again, just to get back to Elon, you know, he's been doing that. He's he's flying a lot and he's and he's doing test flights every every single flight that he delivers a payload or is also a test flight because he was testing how to get the first stage back.

Because he realized that the only way to get the cost down is to not throw the damn rockets away. But and Von Braun knew that too, but he did not have time because Kennedy told him, I need you to get a man to the moon and return with earth within a decade. I'm I'm trying to say I'm trying to maybe I'm asking the question improperly. I understand that Elon's trying to do it today. So the two He's not trying to do it today. He is doing it today. That's how what I he's using the same approach.

What would have been the trajectory you would have seen von Braun go into? Would he have started off with smaller rockets? Is that was it did he write about small rockets, testing small rockets, returnable rockets? He didn't have the computer power for for for relant for landing No. For bringing something back. He didn't he did not have he did not have the financial resources to do it the way he wanted to do. Is there material written on how he wanted to do it?

I you know, that's a that's a really good question. I don't I don't, you know I haven't read through von Braun's archives. But that's what I'm really trying to get at is what would be what would have been his approach? What Von Braun wanted to do is go look go read his Collier's articles from the fifties and go look at the Disney cartoons of what Von Braun wanted to do. Because that was completely upended by Sputnik and Apollo. And and I completely get that.

All I'm trying to figure out is what was his approach and might it have been Elon's Elon's doing it, but we don't have proof that Elon was doing exactly the way von Braun would have done it. No. It's not. No. Of course, he's not doing exactly because Elon came up a decade you know, several decades later. Yes. And he had he had different technological options. Von Braun was doing the best he could with 19 fifties technology, and, I don't know what else to say.

I don't know what Von Braun I think Von Braun would be smiling on Elon. No. He's definitely smiling on him. I mine is more you know, sometimes it's interesting to look at Leonardo da Vinci's drawings because it gave you an insight into his approach that he would have used without the means that we have today. I would have liked to I would like to have seen the drawings or the intro the pieces of the documents, the writings to say, okay.

What was his approach, and how different would it have been without the solutions we have today? So just a just a curiosity question. Yeah. And and I'm telling you, I don't know the answer to that. Okay. So I guess we're on to, the outer space treaty? Yes. Let's go on to the outer space treaty because this is like my new current project.

Trying to figure out how do we open up space in the context of a treaty that was written 50 years ago when no one, not no one, but but no one who's writing the treaty envisioned, could imagine that anybody would be sending people in the space except governments.

Okay. So we have a treaty that's not designed for, you know, using space resources for people living on other planets, for people owning the land, living the land, digging the land, borrowing against the land, passing the land onto their children. There there was no thought of that in the treaty that was signed in 1967.

And and if you notice, there's not a lot of people living in Antarctica even though there are a lot of resources there because the outer space treaty was based on the Antarctic Treaty in 1967. And the, the state department was happy to sign that treaty because they because the space race was expensive, and they didn't want to they didn't want to have to have a race to who say who's gonna claim all these bodies in the solar system, many of which we didn't know existed at the time.

So how would you change it? It's oh, changing it is hard, and I don't think that's that probably will not be the approach. The question is not changing it. The question is how do we interpret it? Okay. How would you interpret it? I would inter well, it this is a very, you have to get legalistic when we talk about this and and So you teach teach teach me teach me the layman's version.

Well, the well, the the the there are 2 treaty there are 2 space treaties, and one of them is enforced that most all, in fact, all space faring nations have signed on to, which is the outer space treaty. And it calls space the province of all mankind. And there's another treaty called the Moon Treaty which was 1979 which was is a failed treaty and it will And it it declares space the common heritage of all mankind. And I those sound very similar to you, don't they? Yes. But they're different.

They can But they're very the way you said them. Yeah. They're very, very different. One of them, the province of all mankind means that if you want to go out there and stake a claim, you can do that. Anybody anybody who wants to go out there and do stuff can do that. That's what the province of all mankind means, and and these these things were argued very heavily in 1967. In 1979, people came along and said, oh, gee. The Outer Space Treaty, it doesn't it's not fair.

It's it's it, you know, the people who the countries that don't have space programs don't get a share of what's going on out in space. So we're gonna declare it the the it's we're gonna declare it a commons. And in fact, Scott Pace, who's the head of the the new head of this national you know, not counting, you know, Mike Pence, the vice president, is the head of the Space Council, but the new Space Council, which we haven't had in 25 years, so it's it's a new thing again.

But he he gave a speech in December at the Space Law, you know, symposium, the Galloway symposium. Is that, no. We are we do not agree that space is a commons. It's not it's not like the oceans. It's not like no. It's it's a province of all mankind.

We are going to defend against that, and what that means is that, no. We are not going to set up an international regime to make sure that the resources of space are distributed fairly, and this, of course, comes into the issues of conflicting values internationally because some people think that, you know, some people are communists and some people are not communists because that's basically what it comes down to between the two treaties.

I'm I'm going to take a wild guess here that you're on the not communist side. You're you're brilliant. Oh, I'm I'm just taking a guess. The Wild ass. So if when you, the so where do we stand today in terms of how, not just Americans, but how does the world perceive moving forward at this this I I don't know how to answer how the world perceives anything, but there are differing there are differing opinions.

Yeah. And I I kinda laid them out that we have different cultures, we have different values, and the outer space treaty is a real very real treaty. It's treated as very, you know, I forget the term, but but it's it's a common law. It's it's everybody sort of accepts it except but it's it's it's principles. It's not law, it's principles.

And the United States position and the position of Luxembourg and and very and a few other various other nations is that, you know, we can go out and we can mine this mine space and we can use utilize resources of it. Like, if you're living out, if you're out in the asteroids and there's water out there, you can use the water. You don't have to say, oh, we can't use this water. We have to ship ask for water to be shipped from Earth. K. Because that would, like, completely end any possibility.

And and and, again, a useful point, at the time they wrote the outer space treaty, nobody knew there was water on the moon. That was that's that's like a new thing. Right? So it's, so my the project one of the projects I'm working on right now is like how do we retool this 50 year old treaty for the 21st century? There we have a lot there's a lot new bodies out there.

There's things there are planets and asteroids and comets and and all kinds of stuff we didn't know was out there, and and there are ocean worlds. There's more liquid water outside of Earth than there is on Earth. So we need to deal with this at the UN, and that's one of the things I'm working on. It's there the the project Moon Hut is its directive is to change how we live on Earth to supply us, or humans, to address some of the challenges we're facing.

There's based upon the movements I'm seeing globally, we've seen a decline in democracy over the past few years, and I I don't think I mean, all the ratings have come out that that's what's happening. Yet, we're we're facing social, disruption at an unbelievable rate with the artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, 3 d printing, synthetic engineering, and all of the other activities that are engaged in that.

And there is some who believe that unless we start looking at resources as humanitarian, we start looking at the resources as means to eliminate or challenge the or or help the oceans that are dying off at a tremendous clip or looking at global warming whether you believe it or where it came from or not. The the waters are warming and so is the, the airs the air.

So how, if we were to project 50 years into the future, is the is the belief in the common law because people are taking 2,000 and 17, 2,008eens beliefs and saying we're going to be like that in 50 years? Or is it because there's a capitalist component to it? How do you read that? If if, if you don't make money, it's not gonna happen. If if if you're not creating wealth, it's not gonna happen.

The people who are not doing stuff in space are not going to benefit from stuff in space, and and that's just a real that's just an economic reality. If you if you read O'Neil, if you if you listen to Jeff Bezos, you know, they have a vision that we are going to open up the resources of the solar system to benefit Earth. You know, they're they're it's a utopia vision, in fact, that we are going to move industrial society off the planet and, you know, make Earth a nature park.

That's that's really the vision there, but it's not gonna happen if we think that everybody, you know, we have to distribute the resources equitably by some, you know, set of bureaucrats. Okay. Just just pushing the envelope to ask the question on it. So there is a utopianism component to it, and we've not been able to get to it. It is a very utopian vision.

And and that that that kinda gets back to the next point, which it gets back to the first point, which is why why do we talk about space exploration? And and and this is where we are in a policy standpoint right now with the US government. And if you'll go read Scott Pace's speech, and I know Scott really, really, really well because we were colleagues at Rockwell, like, 35 years ago.

He made a policy speech at the Galloway Symposium in DC in December, and he said, you know, we we are going to open up space, and we are going to try to do it as well as we can within the constraints of the Outer Space Treaty. But the much better thing to read is go back and read John Marburger, who nobody knows his name, but he was George w Bush's science adviser.

And he gave a great, probably the most visionary speech of any government official about space that I've ever read in 2006, and he said that we are going to make the solar system, we're going to expand the economic sphere of humanity into the solar system. So I highly recommend reading that. So my my question is you obviously know Scott, so we'll have to get him on the program. Yes. And you I I'm assuming you Good luck with that, but okay.

Yes. Okay. Well, has he been at the National Space Society, at the pioneering, or any of these that I've been at? He no. But he used but he used to be on the executive committee. I mean, he used to be on the policy committee. Scott is Scott goes back 40 years to this stuff. I mean, one of the he was involved in l 5 in, you know, in the early eighties when we were fighting the moon treaty. How about John? How about John? Is he a connected person? I'm sorry. Oh, okay.

The late I should've said the late John Marburger. He's but but my point is that he, one of the points that both he he said then and Scott said, you know, a few weeks ago is that and to kick it back to the original theme of this whole discussion is that science and exploration must be subordinated to the development of space.

Not that we can't do pure science, not that we can't, you know, send robots out just to see what's out there and that's fun and whatever, but at some point we need to say we are, you know, because we've discovered there's water on the moon. We need to be focused on how can we open up space. Because once you discover there's water on the moon, now all of a sudden doing stuff in space becomes cheaper. There's propellant out there. If we find ammonia, there's propellant out there.

If we and and and we need ammonia because there's nitrogen. We can you know, most of our atmosphere is nitrogen. We need that stuff to live in space. The Project Moon Hut's original plans that I started with, Bruce Pittman were included. And I said to Bruce at the time, all of this science and this recreation and this, exploration is never gonna work. And I'm not a science person. I'm a space person. I just said, we need to create a space based economy.

We need to be able to sell things and move things from moon and space to Earth and vice versa Yes. And create a distribute. And that was the original plan 4 years ago. So that's what project moving is about. Reduce the cost of doing stuff and reduce the cost of doing stuff space so that the and and, you know, so people can actually sustainably without having to rely on taxpayers from Earth live there. And that's and that was the original intention.

That's our that's still our focus today is we're not focused on science. We're not focused on those. We're focused on Mearth, the moon, and Earth. Right. And ours is a box with a roof and a door on the moon, then it is. The next one is an industrial park where we build and and and we can go into specifics at another time. Then after that is extended stay, which is like a building. People say a hotel. And then after that is community development, which is very different in terms of definition.

But it's not about science, and it's not about exploration. It's about making something on the moon, may taking something in space, bringing it back, and having an ecosystem developed that financially moves forward. And and That's what we that's our plan. The important thing to remember is that is not that has never been it's slowly becoming, but it has never been US government policy and a. And, b, there are people in other countries who are actively opposed to that.

Okay. To you know, what what do you how were they at? Are they Well, if if you believe what do they do? If you believe the space is a commons and that we can't utilize resources unless we first set up this regime that's going to decide how they're equitably distributed, it's not gonna happen. So let's let's take some major players, and I I know the industry as well as you do, but if we were to take and let me go Russia, Japan, China Russia recently said we want to outlaw capitalism.

We want to outlaw private activity in space. The Putin government has recently decided, oh, we're gonna we're gonna push that at Kapiolos. Okay. So the Russians have said that happened to the Japanese or the Japanese.

No. No. No. No. I I I am I'm, it's interesting that we're talking right now because I am in the very process right now of trying to put together a coalition of both countries and NGOs and people who, you know, want to make this stuff happen, and it was partially spurred by the fact that Putin decided he wanted to do whatever this idiotic thing that he wants to do. Because I'm sure I'm sure Russian space companies aren't that happy about themselves.

But Well, I I just found I found an interesting fact just recently while I was in Moscow. There are only 2 Russian private companies left. Well, but that's There's that's more than 0. There used to be about there used to be about 7 or 8. Yeah. And now they're down to 2. And I don't know if you know, Alian Alyanna. She's from Galactica. She's one of the things she wants to push is the privatization of of space. So what's interesting is she's jumped on board. So how about the Chinese?

How about the Indians? How about the I am I am in the process of trying to put together an anglospheric coalition, you know, to come up with, like, a multi multilateral for, you know, formulation of how we are going to do this and how we interpret the outer space treaty, and that would, you know, Anglosphere would include India because they speak English, because of their, for better or worse, their colonial past. You know? It's gonna be you know?

I think I think the Anglosphere is probably going to, and and I'm going to try to make this happen, push forward. It's gonna be us, Canada, UK, UK, Australia, who we need to pull out of the the moon treaty, because they now they say they want a space program. K. Well, if you want a space program, pull out of the moon treaty. New Zealand, they just had a launch this weekend.

India, Singapore, you know, there's there's there's a potential here to build a coalition for opening up space for anglospheric values. You'd, and you haven't addressed the at China. What is your feeling on the China China wants to make money. Okay. So is are they going to be a part of the Anglosphere Coalition, or are they going to do their own thing? They that's an interesting question. The answer is I don't know, but, you know, we're talking to them. Okay. I'll leave it at that.

And the and Hong Kong is Hong Kong China or not? You know better than that than I do. But I think but I think they'll be interested. Don't you think they'll be interested? I But I think but I think they'll be interested. Don't you think they'll be interested? I I the China just, Hong Kong just dropped on its on the index of innovation, around the world on the innovation index, so did the United States.

Yeah. And they're really looking for ways and means to ignite the spirit of innovation through the Hong Kong economy. So I believe that space is one of those avenues that can that they would be interested in pursuing. Well, we can we can talk we should talk about that offline. But, yeah. Yeah. And I do offline.

I wanna I wanna share with you what Project Moon Hut is about because once you hear it, I think now after all these 4 years, I think now I understand why Bruce said to me, David, there's no one talking this way. And you know Bruce well enough to know where the positioning may be. Yeah. Yeah. His thoughts. And I and I'm looking at him saying, this is common sense to me. And it wasn't capitalistic. It wasn't a socialistic. It was just how would I perceive us getting to the moon getting into space.

Right. And he said this is something no one's talking about. And that's how he got me to the next giant leap, and he got me to all these other events because he wanted me to explore and hear and see what was going on in the in the ecosystem space. So Yeah. Yeah. Well Cool. This is a you you've made a you made a you made a connection in my head that I had not made, which I love. Well, I I hope hope I've done that too because, you know, Bruce and I both been in the trenches for decades.

And it it's not a bad he he just grabbed on to me like a like a pit bull, and he said, you have to go. You have to be involved. And that that first national space, the what was that? The next giant leap. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at organizations saying these are not gonna succeed. You know some of the players that have not succeeded since then.

I said this I just nothing made sense to me, and I couldn't understand why everybody was going in or many of the individuals were going in the direction they are. Yeah. And he has just been pushing this agenda that I had and I I didn't know why it was valuable. Today today, 4 years later, I'm now getting that that understanding. Can can we move on to my last bullet Yep. Before we The next one? Couple minutes. Perfect. We've got, we've got about 13 minutes, so we got some time. Oh, okay.

Well, okay. I didn't know. I I'm just looking at my I guess. Yep. So you're you're you're good. We're we're doing we're we're doing we're doing perfect time. Well, I'm just I I was thinking we start at 5, but and we're almost 6, but okay. We did we No. No. We've we I started the timer, so that's why I said you just keep on talking. I'm monitoring the time. I think we have plenty of time to talk about it.

Well, my last bullets, well so first, I oh, so let I'm not sure I finished my previous bullet. Science and exploration must be subordinated to development of space. Did we exhaust that? Hey. If you feel so, if you feel like it's covered, it's up to you. Is that what you wanna make?

Well, the well, my point it gets it gets back to my rant against x you know, my my war on space exploration as not not that I hate exploring space, but that that, it's it's the be all and end all of this is was is why we're doing this. It is not. It And I and I completely understand that. So is there another point that you would like to add to it, or do you think we kind of No. Only only that, I think that the US government is realizing is very clearly articulating that.

It started with the Marburgers speech in 06, and I think Scott said it very clearly in December at the Galloway. But the point is that let's stop talking about space exploration other than as, a means, not an end. Yeah. That's that's all I wanna that's really all I wanna say and I and I hammering the footsteps on the topic. You are talking to the reason to a large degree why Project Moon Hut exists. That's what 4 years has been about. It's been changing that dialogue.

So Okay. Let's go on to the returning, returning. So we are returning because we have people who grew up in the seventies, wanting loving space, wanting to do space. I just started I just got a copy of I don't know if you've read Ashley Vance's biography of Elon Musk. No. I just got a copy of it today because, I need it for research, on a long essay I'm writing. But but Elon, well, he was he's this kid in South Africa, and he's and he's, you know, reading the moon's harsh mistress.

He's he's he's reading all the science fiction. He's a weird kid. He's getting beaten up in high school because he's a weird kid, and, and he's he's afraid of robots and AI and all. He's afraid all this stuff's gonna kill us and he wants he's very he's frightened. He's he's apocalyptic. He wants us to be a multi planet species because he's afraid that, you know, we're not gonna survive this one.

And I you know, without saying whether I agree or disagree, I mean, that's the point is and and then then you got Jeff Bezos who's coming up, growing up, and he's reading stuff. He's he's reading probably reading the high frontier. O'Neil's the high frontier in the mid seventies because he, you know, he's a kid. He's in high school.

And then both these guys go off and they make and oh oh, and then Jeff goes off, and he becomes the head of this the chapter of space I just wrote a long again, I just told you I just wrote a long essay about all this space shows stuff in this part of it. So Jeff goes to Princeton in 1980 1980, probably, or 80 maybe 82. Probably 82. He goes to Princeton, and then he gay and and he gave his high school he was a high school valedictorian. He gives a speech about space colonies. You know?

So we have these people who have gone off and had these dreams, and they said, I'm gonna make a lot of money, so I'm gonna achieve the dream. And I and I'm thinking, you know, hitting I just literally I hit myself in the forehead right now. You just probably didn't hear it, but I did it. Yeah. I didn't I didn't hear it. Why didn't I do that? Why did I just focus on space stuff and not just go out and make up make a buttload of money? Make the money so you could play with the toys.

And then and then once I got the money, then I can do then I can open up space. Because you know I was stupid I thought oh I'll just do space stuff. Right? So anyway, so these 2 guys did space stuff. So my so my point is of my last bullet point is and again getting back to Alex MacDonald's book which we talked about earlier, which you may or may not remember, you know, we we went into this weird period in 9 in the, you know, mid century where the government took over space.

And the last telescope, privately developed telescope named after Edward Edward Hale because he was a he was an entrepreneur. He was an astronomy entrepreneur who went out and he managed to raise money for he raised money for the Wilson Telescope, you know, you know, above Los Angeles. And and so the last telescope, which was named after him, was on Mount Palomar in 1947. And then after that, it was all it was all government stuff.

But I think we're getting back, and so now we have the boldly go foundation started by John Morris, who is former NASA, you know, head of exploration or astro I don't remember what chance. But point is he went out and he started he started a foundation to go out, look for philanthropists, do the stuff, and you've got Yuri Milner, a Russian, who is funding his own starship.

Not I mean, not to send people, but he's gonna send this thing out there, you know, to detect life, you know, other star systems. And now it's like last fall in Seattle when I was there, he announced, I I wanna send a private mission to fly something through the flumes of Enceladus, ocean moon of Saturn that, you know, the Caroline Porco, who was like the, you know, science person on Saturn, said I think that's the best place to look for life in the solar system.

The point so all the stuff, they're driving costs down. They're driving down the cost of not just getting stuff into space and sending stuff out into the solar system, but also driving down the cost because, a lot of things have been driving the cost of space probes up has been the high cost of launch. So it's all it's just like we're getting into this virtuous circle of driving down the cost of doing the stuff to the point where financials can say, okay. This is great.

I could fund I could fund a mission to another planet. How cool is that? The, you brought up Yuri, and Pete Warden did our first telecast, our first podcast. And I went to meet him, and you know his reputation is smart. I it's challenge challenging. Yeah. And he Thank you. When I when I when I yes. Yes, Pete. When he when I was done, he I only do a half hour, and he looked at me and he said, I'm in. I said, what do you mean you're in? I didn't know what to say. He says, I'm in.

I'm gonna help you get interviews. I'm gonna help you meet you at Luxembourg. I'm gonna get you to the European Space State. I'm gonna get you connected to this, And he did a he says, I'm gonna do your podcast, and it it was just like that. And so I guess now again, you're hitting me in that. I'm hitting myself in the head saying, now I see the connection. Yeah. Now I now that ties together. Yeah. I I've known Pete when he was colonel. That's a long time ago.

Yeah. So the we're we're seeing it happen and you're using American examples around the world. How are you seeing the returning to for for me, if you're, you know, educating me, what are you seeing that's really amazing on the privatist side of development that you think is standoutish around the world? Well, driving down the launch cost, and, you know, both Mesos and Musk reckon, and Musk recognize that, and they've been that's what they've been doing.

I'd see that like a tortoise and hare, but but, you know, Bezos is speeding up. He's kicking kicking the back legs a little bit more. But 3 d printing, space assembly, resources, you know, institute resources, those things are gonna open up space.

And and you we cannot you cannot imagine how much is going to happen so quickly in the next decade compared to what's been happening for the last half century because we're finally breaking out of this Apolloism notion that NASA is going somehow a president's gonna come out and say, oh, we're going to this planet and this date, and we're gonna build a giant rocket, and then we're gonna see a few astronauts there, and that's how it works. No. That's not how it works. That's not how America works.

And the big challenge is gonna be America versus people who don't think like America, who people who think if it's not explicitly legal, it's illegal. Right? If it's if it's, you know, oh, and we're it's a commons, you know, we all have to agree before we can do anything. Those are the challenges. They're not technical challenges. They're sociopolitical challenges. And that's that's and that's what I'm focused on right now.

I saw Charlie Bowden give, I'm I know Charlie and I he gave a presentation at a place I was at, and he spoke about Mars. And I looked at him, I said, what do you mean Mars? And I we sat down for about 3 hours to talk about project moon. He was very interested in what we were what we're trying to achieve. And one of the things I said is I'm I'm waiting for the guy who's got a little farm. He's got a farm. He's been stealing a little bit of of fuel or some type of, propulsion.

And out, just like of all the movies, is out of this farm capsule, there's gonna be a guy who goes single passenger up to the moon, figures out how to do it, and comes back and just changes the whole paradigm. Mhmm. You know, I I've it's almost as if that would be one of those okay. Now that we've done it, how do we address this? Instead of, in theory, how would we address this going the other way? Yeah. So any last words you'd like to add?

Any last pieces you'd like to add to the puzzle for for me to understand a little bit more for the listener to understand a little bit more about what you're doing? Abandon everything you think about space based on the last 50 years. It's going to be a much, much different is this is not your grandfather's space program, and it's not a space program. Space is a place. Space is a place where we're gonna go out and do stuff.

Just like 5 100 years ago, America, the new world was a place where people are gonna go out and do stuff, except we don't we don't have brown or green people to oppress. We're just going to rocks don't have rights. We're going to go out and open up the solar system. Well, Rand, this was phenomenal. I I I learned a tremendous amount. I'm hoping the listeners are are learning along the way. I think it was just fantastic.

I I hit my head self in the head a few times, not about the Elon and the pesos fan of, but the connectivity, there was a tissue here that brought things together. So I I really loved how you wove this message. So thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.

And for those of you who are listening, you can go to if you'd like to learn more about Project Moonhunt, what we're doing, you can go to projectmoonhut.org and sign up for our, future space related database, project that we're working on, which will, can't get into all the details. We're working on a large platform. We've got participate in, at project at facebookforward/projectmoonhot. You can like our page, and then it will keep you abreast of some of the things that we're talking about.

And you can connect with us on Twitter at projectmoonhot. So for everybody, I hope you received a tremendous amount of new information, different ways of looking at the at space, books to read, and, articles or people to connect to in terms of the names that were used during these, podcasts. So I'm David Goldsmith, and thank you for listening. Hello, everybody. This is David Goldsmith, and welcome to the project Moon Hut podcast series, the age of infinite.

We're looking to learn from individuals from around the world to help us establish sustainable life on the moon through the accelerated development of an Earth and space based ecosystem to change how we live on Earth for all species. Today, we have an incredible guest on the line. His name is Rand Simbergis, president of InterGlobal Spacelines. How are you, Rand? I'm good except I'm actually president of InterGlobal Media LLC, but that's fine.

Oh, okay. Well, I I grabbed some Spacelines to the previous thing. Yep. But Okay. Work works for me. We, very quickly, I grabbed a few pieces offline that's, the online that says Rand is an expert in space technology and policy. You worked for 3 decades in aerospace as an aerospace engineer and project manager at companies like Aerospace Aerospace Corporation and Rockwell. And the the bio's online so everybody will be able to see that. So you can go there and see more about Rand.

Let's get right into the topic. It is, ending the concept of space exploration. And when Rand used gave that title, I thought it was an interesting dialogue that we should have. So, Rand, I'm assuming you have an outline that we can work off of? I do. Okay. So let's have it. K. The, first point is historically, space science was privately funded. Okay. And then Apollo kind of warped our natural world perception of human spaceflight. That's the second point.

Point after that is human spaceflight, and this is very important to understand, human spaceflight is not about science or exploration per se. 4th point, which is interesting in the context of the fact that, you know, we're we're we're having, like, the 50th anniversary of it. The Outer Space Treaty was written in an era in which few imagined anyone other than governments would be sending humans into space.

Okay. Wow. My 5th point is that science and exploration must be subordinated to the development of space. It's not just about science and exploration. And finally, I would say that we are returning to the time of private space exploration. Wow. Okay. I've gotta I've gotta make a confession. I've done over a 160 interviews. These are the longest bullet points I've ever had. So I wrote as fast as I could. No. That's that's fine. I'm I'm I'm smiling. I was laughing because these are long.

I normally have the time to write them and still get them out but yours are yours are very detailed. So why don't we start with the first one, space science and and drive What did you call it? Space science. I said space science was privately funded. Privately funded. There we go. Yeah. Okay. Go back to the beginning of America. Okay. So let's, tell me tell me about it.

Well, first, I would say go buy and read a book by a recent book, very recent book, last year or so by Alex McDonald called, god. I'm gonna draw a blank on the title. The Long age of space exploration or something like that. Okay. But, Alec, go you know, do Alex MacDonald, NASA Space Exploration. I'm sure you if you, you know I'll I'll look I'll look at that. It'll pop up. Okay. Okay. And and and he detail he he he's an he he worked for NASA. He works for NASA.

He's an economic historian, and he he pointed out that, you know, all through the 19th century and through pretty much the entire first half of the 20th century, almost all space and what space exploration then was, of course, was telescopes, observatories, and they were all pretty much privately funded. They were not government was not a government thing.

And and it's a it's an interesting story because, you know, he talks about all the how all the philanthropists, you know, they were eager to fund these telescopes and, you know, to try to reserve because usually they they've become they've become rich by, you know, various nefarious means, so they're trying to resurrect their their happy patients in the public mind. Like like Yerkes. Charles Yerkes.

Yeah. So they're they're so they invested in public service type or scientific exploration pieces that the community would look at and say these are nice guys. Right. Or or or there or there were subscriptions. And and again, this is very funny in the context of Current, the annoyance of, you know, Current as a scientist who oh, we have to you know, they they figure out very quickly we have to put cameras on these space probes because people wanna see pretty pictures.

But but, original a lot of the early observatories, they would have subscriptions, and and the local community would fund the observatory so they could go look through the telescope, which really frustrated the astronomers to say, we wanna look through the telescope. So okay. So, I got the book up, actually. It's called the, the long space age, the economic origins of space exploration from colonial America to the cold war. Yes. Highly recommended. Highly recommended. It's got 2 reviews.

So I'm going to say, is yours one of the reviews? I don't know, actually. No. There's, there's a I I have written I wrote a review at Reason Magazine, last summer about it. Okay. So there's only 2. It doesn't say the person on them. So but they're both verified purchases. So they've got 2 reviews. Okay. Well, that that one neither of those would be mine. No. But I did write a review at Reason Magazine, and then So last summer.

So what's your take that's with this this first bullet point, the space sciences, needs to be privately funded. So, that's an example with Alice Alex McDonald. What what is your what's your rationale behind this? Why do you believe it should be this way? Should government get out of the way? Should, how do you how are you what's your framework for this? Well, my framework, it gets into the next, points that, that I make. But, you know, something changed after World War 2.

You know, in 1947, the Hale Telescope went up at Mount Palomar, and it was like the last big privately funded telescope that was first saw starlight in 1947. And and and after the war, all of a sudden science became government. And that's one thing Do you know why?

Yeah. It because because it was realized after the Manhattan Project when we developed the atomic bomb, and, you know, we needed a lot of government funding going into science to be able to build stuff, weapons, to be able to defeat, you know, the Nazis and the Japanese and then the Soviets, that we had to have a major involvement in government and science so that we would have the tools that we needed to to build weapons.

And as a side effect of that, oh, we also, you know, got to do stuff in in space. So the this is I it's an interest as you're saying and I'm saying to myself. Did private individuals who were extremely wealthy at this time, did they say, you know, we can keep our money and let the government do this. Because they just made money off of World War 2. They were building tanks. They were building all sorts of things. They had made a lot of money off the war.

There were people who were wealthy industrials who could have done their own funding and done their own projects. Do you know if there's a psychology that's ever been written about or what these people were saying? Oh, that's a very interesting question because the answer is I do not know that. This is it's But I can but I can easily imagine that was what is exactly what's exactly going through their minds. They're saying, oh, gee. The government's building taking over building telescopes now.

The government's taking over, you know, doing space science. The government's going to building rockets and going into space. So why should I and, man, and one of the other points I should make is that, again, prior to the war, you know, Robert Goddard, he was seeking out private investment, and he got and he got some. He he got, you know, he got was funded by Guggenheim, but he also got government funding.

And he was seeking government funding because he think he thought, and used correctly, that, gee, the government should be interested in funding rockets. So that's, like, the most natural place to go to the government, you know, to get money to build rockets is for the government.

So Yeah. But it sounds like it sounds like a very, what do you a very capitalist approach is somebody decided it would be better to get, because of this whole Manhattan project and because of the initiatives that were put forward. I bet you they started talking and saying this would be foolish. Let's keep our money. And that, backroom table that we'll never know about, we'll never hear because no one's ever gonna admit to that type of discussion is Or or they're dead. They're dead.

Well, that was yeah. That was another part of it is. Sorry. Yeah. I did realize it in my head. I just didn't say it out loud. But somebody said, why do we have to do this? Why don't we let them fund it? We'll put we'll put our money into other places. So the the movement of people who were wealthy and could have invested was redirected into something else. And that probably was the tipping point of why we moved into this government funding. A back channel, a back approach. So okay.

Cool. I wouldn't quite say it that way. I wouldn't quite say it that way because I don't I don't think there were that many. It was just that the people who enter were interested in space science, all of a sudden, they don't care where the money came from.

So they were happy to see that the government was starting to fund this stuff even if it was a side effect of the cold war, you know, Sputnik and and and all that stuff that happened in Apollo and whatever, which kinda gets us into the next bullet point. But but so it's, you know, it's not like these philanthropists were sitting around saying, oh, I was going to invest in in space science except now the government's doing it.

I don't think that's I I don't think it was I don't think it was maybe I said that improperly. Maybe I was what I was thinking was that they saw they might have been interested in it, but they saw the movement of the government, and they saw the activities that were initiated with the the space race. And they said, you know, we we can go and do other things. And as a side it wasn't it wasn't a it wasn't malicious. It was just Right. Because Well, why would we do this?

They were interested in space ops. Oh, well, now the government's doing space stuff. So Yeah. Yeah. We can go fund other stuff. Correct. So there was still an interest because what I have like space stuff, but now we don't we can yeah. Now we can redirect our money to other stuff that the government's not funding. But my 4 years in this now, as you know, and I've been very short time in the space industry, what I have found is that there are so many people who love space. It's just unbelievable.

Yeah. So, and I was never one of them. So here I'm meeting people, and they're saying, oh my god. I'm a space fanatic. Oh my god. Really? So, like And and you and you need if you haven't, you need to talk to John Morris. He should be on your list for podcasts. Send him an email and tell him that he should be on here. So let's move on to your second point, the the Apollo warp.

Yeah. Apollo warped our national world perception of human space flight, and that's that that just got here because that's where we are now. So so all this you know, people had all these visions about space and, you know, you can go back. I I've just written a long essay that, it's but it's still in draft form. It hasn't been published, and we're still arguing.

I'm still we're having discussions, not arguments, discussions with the editor about how it's gonna finally come out, but but the history of of space visions for the last 100 and, you know, going back to the late 19th century. I mean, you know, John Jacob Astor, wrote, you know, science fiction in 1994 about, you know, colonies on Mars or not Mars, Jupiter and Venus or Jupiter and Saturn. I mean, he was really ambitious. He was, like, doing the outer solar system.

Okay. But the point is we had all these visions leading in in the science fiction all through the fifties and, but then all fiction all through the fifties and, but then all of a sudden so it's launched Sputnik and then all of a sudden we're in a panic and then all of a sudden all this government money pours into space. And, so all of a sudden, the government has really, really taken over space.

And and because that happened, we still think 50 years later, 60 years later, that's normal, and it is not. Okay. So do you use the term normal? What does normal mean? Normal means this is how things should be done. Done. This is how things work. What I meant is different is we in the United States, there is a a democracy based upon, capitalistic approach or republic. Right. If you were to go to another country such as China or Russia, that would not have been an abnormal.

That would be normal that the government is supposed to do it. So you what you're saying is defined by the parameters of the culture at the time, prior to the 50 years where getting involved, it was actually a different approach than we would have expected coming out of our societies. That's Apollo was a fund Apollo was a fundamentally un American thing to do. So and I can see your approach as your as your I can hear it. I can hear it and understand the concept.

It it's I don't know if you've seen it a lot. If there's a, you know, one of the one of the surprises that I've always thought about is in the 19 hun in the year 1900, there were more electric cars than there were more than combustion cars. Right. And then and they were once the combustion engine was created, the men loved the sound and the power. So they gave they gave their electric cars to their women, and the men went towards the combustion engine.

And that's today, we we could have had The the combustion engine happened because the electric starter was invented, And people weren't breaking their arms trying to start the car. Cranking. But the men ended up liking that. And it could have been we could have had an electric era. But for some reason, there was a change. So I don't know if there's not it's not a capitalistic component. But that's a whole separate that's a whole separate discussion. I mean, we can get to that.

But but, no. Basically, yeah, electric cars are superior because women could drive and steam cars too. Yeah. Yeah. The women could drive them, but but the gas engines the internal combustion engines really, really were superior in many ways. And not just because, you know, masculinity or whatever your your thesis seems to be. I don't I don't know what that is. But, no, the the you know, gas cars were better.

The the big drawback to to gasoline cars and, you know, we're way off the topic of space was, you know, you had you you had your wrist breaking your arm trying to start them, and women didn't have the arm strength to do it. But the my con my my parallel to that or the the reason I brought it up is that there was a fundamental shift, and you're saying that it was not normal.

And I think the word not normal is it be it was it became normal because it was an answer to a challenge that people had, which was the Russians and their influence. Right. It was a there was no private institution that was stepping up Right. That would have done this. So the normal was, using Americans' beliefs as structure, the normal was we do whatever it takes, including government intervention, which was the Eisenhower of the roads or any other type of philosophy.

But it was but but the point is it was about defense. It was not about space. Yet it still was then it became a normal because it seemed like everybody's was aggregating together and participating in a project. Right. But but it wasn't about but it was not about space. It was about beating the Russians at the Soviets or something.

If if we decided that we were gonna race them to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, which in fact happened, like, a couple years before that, then that would have been the rest of the race. So And So the but it did it did warp it. With the frisson that this is about missiles, you know, which are danger, which are weapons. So So it was like this whole it was like a Apollo was a confluence of events that is never ever gonna happen again.

I never had really tied it together that the miss it was a missile, and therefore it tied to defense to fight. Okay. That's an interesting parallel. And Johnson said we are not going to go to bed by the light of a communist moon. Okay. Though that's the first time I've heard that. So that that's an interesting parallel. Okay. So the Apollo came on. It was not normal, and it became the normal. It became the normal. It became the way that space exploration, terrible phrase, was done.

We the government spends, you know, 1,000,000,000 of dollars and, you know, large amounts of the national treasure to build a giant rocket to send a few people to the moon, and that's how space is done. And and we're we're continuing to fail 60 years later because they're trying to do Apollo to Mars. Okay. And I okay. So I completely under agree. I I understand. Okay. So we could maybe move on to the next bullet. I don't know. Yep. Yes. Let's move on. Because we're not human.

Human space flight human space flight is not science or exploration. No. No. And new human space flight was always about moving humans out into the solar system. Living in the solar living living off Earth. All the science fiction, everything up up up until the late fifties, it was nobody no and it was Heinlein, Asimov, Clark. Nobody would have imagined that we'd be walking on the moon in 1969. That was that was a crazy idea in the late fifties.

And the only reason it happened was because all of a sudden became important to beat the Soviets to the moon. It was not a natural American progression of how things should have happened. Okay. So what should have happened? What should have happened is that, you know, we should have been kinda continuing you know, there were there were ideas about how you get stuff into people into space cheaper. They were the low cost idea. They were reusable.

Von Braun had Von Braun didn't wanna build a Saturn 5. The only reason he built a Saturn he had ideas in the fifties. You could go back and look at the Disney films in the fifties that he, you know, worked out with Colliers and Disney and and they they had all these and this can be like fleets of these reusable vehicles that would assemble stuff in orbit and send people off to the other planets.

But we were in such a rush to do things because we had to beat the Soviets to the moon that we did it a crazy way, and somehow that's become what everybody thinks is normal which is why we have the space launch system and Orion. Yeah. NASA has to build a giant rocket and a capsule and that's the only if it's not doing that, NASA's not doing what it's supposed to do. That's that's what the the religion that I call Apolloism.

But but human spaceflight is about moving vast numbers of humans out into the solar system, and there's nothing ever that's been in NASA plans to do that. But Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk wanna do that, and they have the money to do it, which gets back to one of my, you know, some of my other bullet points. What what were some of the 19 fifties or the approaches that existed at that time in terms of moving out into space as as large groups?

Well, the the only people who were thinking seriously probably the only person who's thinking seriously about it at that time. I I I shouldn't say that, but von Braun laid out his vision very clearly. And because he'd been thinking about since the thirties before he got co opted by the Nazis to, you know, build ballistic missiles, toss at Antwerp, and and and London. You know, he wanted to build fleets of reusable launch vehicles that would send people out to Mars.

What what was different about them? What was the approach that was, sci fi at that time? He was going to make smaller vehicles? Was it going to not be a rocket? Was it going to No. It was it was definitely gonna be a rocket, but it was not going to be a giant rocket that threw everything away. So, if you look at the if you look at a Saturn 5 vehicle, the only thing that got back from the moon was that little tiny thing at the very top of that Saturn 5 vehicle.

Everything else was thrown away, And that's why it cost so much, and that's why they quit doing it. And that's why NASA SLS and Orion will not do that. It's why they will be canceled ultimately. But why did the what did he have in his approach? Was it a different was it different engine Elon Musk. Was His approach was Elon Musk's approach. Don't throw the rockets away. But what what was was it a different was it a different, mechanism for thrust? Was it a different No.

No. No. No. No. That was never necessary. Okay. All that was all all but the problem with reusable rocket is that you need to use it a lot. You need to reuse it a lot, and and and it requires a lot of testing and flying. And and again, just to get back to Elon, you know, he's been doing that. He's he's flying a lot and he's and he's doing test flights every every single flight that he delivers a payload or is also a test flight because he was testing how to get the first stage back.

Because he realized that the only way to get the cost down is to not throw the damn rockets away. But and Von Braun knew that too, but he did not have time because Kennedy told him, I need you to get a man to the moon and return with earth within a decade. I'm I'm trying to say I'm trying to maybe I'm asking the question improperly. I understand that Elon's trying to do it today. So the two He's not trying to do it today. He is doing it today. That's how what I he's using the same approach.

What would have been the trajectory you would have seen von Braun go into? Would he have started off with smaller rockets? Is that was it did he write about small rockets, testing small rockets, returnable rockets? He didn't have the computer power for for for relant for landing No. For bringing something back. He didn't he did not have he did not have the financial resources to do it the way he wanted to do. Is there material written on how he wanted to do it?

I you know, that's a that's a really good question. I don't I don't, you know I haven't read through von Braun's archives. But that's what I'm really trying to get at is what would be what would have been his approach? What Von Braun wanted to do is go look go read his Collier's articles from the fifties and go look at the Disney cartoons of what Von Braun wanted to do. Because that was completely upended by Sputnik and Apollo. And and I completely get that.

All I'm trying to figure out is what was his approach and might it have been Elon's Elon's doing it, but we don't have proof that Elon was doing exactly the way von Braun would have done it. No. It's not. No. Of course, he's not doing exactly because Elon came up a decade you know, several decades later. Yes. And he had he had different technological options. Von Braun was doing the best he could with 19 fifties technology, and, I don't know what else to say.

I don't know what Von Braun I think Von Braun would be smiling on Elon. No. He's definitely smiling on him. I mine is more you know, sometimes it's interesting to look at Leonardo da Vinci's drawings because it gave you an insight into his approach that he would have used without the means that we have today. I would have liked to I would like to have seen the drawings or the intro the pieces of the documents, the writings to say, okay.

What was his approach, and how different would it have been without the solutions we have today? So just a just a curiosity question. Yeah. And and I'm telling you, I don't know the answer to that. Okay. So I guess we're on to, the outer space treaty? Yes. Let's go on to the outer space treaty because this is like my new current project.

Trying to figure out how do we open up space in the context of a treaty that was written 50 years ago when no one, not no one, but but no one who's writing the treaty envisioned, could imagine that anybody would be sending people in the space except governments.

Okay. So we have a treaty that's not designed for, you know, using space resources for people living on other planets, for people owning the land, living the land, digging the land, borrowing against the land, passing the land onto their children. There there was no thought of that in the treaty that was signed in 1967.

And and if you notice, there's not a lot of people living in Antarctica even though there are a lot of resources there because the outer space treaty was based on the Antarctic Treaty in 1967. And the, the state department was happy to sign that treaty because they because the space race was expensive, and they didn't want to they didn't want to have to have a race to who say who's gonna claim all these bodies in the solar system, many of which we didn't know existed at the time.

So how would you change it? It's oh, changing it is hard, and I don't think that's that probably will not be the approach. The question is not changing it. The question is how do we interpret it? Okay. How would you interpret it? I would inter well, it this is a very, you have to get legalistic when we talk about this and and So you teach teach teach me teach me the layman's version.

Well, the well, the the the there are 2 treaty there are 2 space treaties, and one of them is enforced that most all, in fact, all space faring nations have signed on to, which is the outer space treaty. And it calls space the province of all mankind. And there's another treaty called the Moon Treaty which was 1979 which was is a failed treaty and it will And it it declares space the common heritage of all mankind. And I those sound very similar to you, don't they? Yes. But they're different.

They can But they're very the way you said them. Yeah. They're very, very different. One of them, the province of all mankind means that if you want to go out there and stake a claim, you can do that. Anybody anybody who wants to go out there and do stuff can do that. That's what the province of all mankind means, and and these these things were argued very heavily in 1967. In 1979, people came along and said, oh, gee. The Outer Space Treaty, it doesn't it's not fair.

It's it's it, you know, the people who the countries that don't have space programs don't get a share of what's going on out in space. So we're gonna declare it the the it's we're gonna declare it a commons. And in fact, Scott Pace, who's the head of the the new head of this national you know, not counting, you know, Mike Pence, the vice president, is the head of the Space Council, but the new Space Council, which we haven't had in 25 years, so it's it's a new thing again.

But he he gave a speech in December at the Space Law, you know, symposium, the Galloway symposium. Is that, no. We are we do not agree that space is a commons. It's not it's not like the oceans. It's not like no. It's it's a province of all mankind.

We are going to defend against that, and what that means is that, no. We are not going to set up an international regime to make sure that the resources of space are distributed fairly, and this, of course, comes into the issues of conflicting values internationally because some people think that, you know, some people are communists and some people are not communists because that's basically what it comes down to between the two treaties.

I'm I'm going to take a wild guess here that you're on the not communist side. You're you're brilliant. Oh, I'm I'm just taking a guess. The Wild ass. So if when you, the so where do we stand today in terms of how, not just Americans, but how does the world perceive moving forward at this this I I don't know how to answer how the world perceives anything, but there are differing there are differing opinions.

Yeah. And I I kinda laid them out that we have different cultures, we have different values, and the outer space treaty is a real very real treaty. It's treated as very, you know, I forget the term, but but it's it's a common law. It's it's everybody sort of accepts it except but it's it's it's principles. It's not law, it's principles.

And the United States position and the position of Luxembourg and and very and a few other various other nations is that, you know, we can go out and we can mine this mine space and we can use utilize resources of it. Like, if you're living out, if you're out in the asteroids and there's water out there, you can use the water. You don't have to say, oh, we can't use this water. We have to ship ask for water to be shipped from Earth. K. Because that would, like, completely end any possibility.

And and and, again, a useful point, at the time they wrote the outer space treaty, nobody knew there was water on the moon. That was that's that's like a new thing. Right? So it's, so my the project one of the projects I'm working on right now is like how do we retool this 50 year old treaty for the 21st century? There we have a lot there's a lot new bodies out there.

There's things there are planets and asteroids and comets and and all kinds of stuff we didn't know was out there, and and there are ocean worlds. There's more liquid water outside of Earth than there is on Earth. So we need to deal with this at the UN, and that's one of the things I'm working on. It's there the the project Moon Hut is its directive is to change how we live on Earth to supply us, or humans, to address some of the challenges we're facing.

There's based upon the movements I'm seeing globally, we've seen a decline in democracy over the past few years, and I I don't think I mean, all the ratings have come out that that's what's happening. Yet, we're we're facing social, disruption at an unbelievable rate with the artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, 3 d printing, synthetic engineering, and all of the other activities that are engaged in that.

And there is some who believe that unless we start looking at resources as humanitarian, we start looking at the resources as means to eliminate or challenge the or or help the oceans that are dying off at a tremendous clip or looking at global warming whether you believe it or where it came from or not. The the waters are warming and so is the, the airs the air.

So how, if we were to project 50 years into the future, is the is the belief in the common law because people are taking 2,000 and 17, 2,008eens beliefs and saying we're going to be like that in 50 years? Or is it because there's a capitalist component to it? How do you read that? If if, if you don't make money, it's not gonna happen. If if if you're not creating wealth, it's not gonna happen.

The people who are not doing stuff in space are not going to benefit from stuff in space, and and that's just a real that's just an economic reality. If you if you read O'Neil, if you if you listen to Jeff Bezos, you know, they have a vision that we are going to open up the resources of the solar system to benefit Earth. You know, they're they're it's a utopia vision, in fact, that we are going to move industrial society off the planet and, you know, make Earth a nature park.

That's that's really the vision there, but it's not gonna happen if we think that everybody, you know, we have to distribute the resources equitably by some, you know, set of bureaucrats. Okay. Just just pushing the envelope to ask the question on it. So there is a utopianism component to it, and we've not been able to get to it. It is a very utopian vision.

And and that that that kinda gets back to the next point, which it gets back to the first point, which is why why do we talk about space exploration? And and and this is where we are in a policy standpoint right now with the US government. And if you'll go read Scott Pace's speech, and I know Scott really, really, really well because we were colleagues at Rockwell, like, 35 years ago.

He made a policy speech at the Galloway Symposium in DC in December, and he said, you know, we we are going to open up space, and we are going to try to do it as well as we can within the constraints of the Outer Space Treaty. But the much better thing to read is go back and read John Marburger, who nobody knows his name, but he was George w Bush's science adviser.

And he gave a great, probably the most visionary speech of any government official about space that I've ever read in 2006, and he said that we are going to make the solar system, we're going to expand the economic sphere of humanity into the solar system. So I highly recommend reading that. So my my question is you obviously know Scott, so we'll have to get him on the program. Yes. And you I I'm assuming you Good luck with that, but okay.

Yes. Okay. Well, has he been at the National Space Society, at the pioneering, or any of these that I've been at? He no. But he used but he used to be on the executive committee. I mean, he used to be on the policy committee. Scott is Scott goes back 40 years to this stuff. I mean, one of the he was involved in l 5 in, you know, in the early eighties when we were fighting the moon treaty. How about John? How about John? Is he a connected person? I'm sorry. Oh, okay.

The late I should've said the late John Marburger. He's but but my point is that he, one of the points that both he he said then and Scott said, you know, a few weeks ago is that and to kick it back to the original theme of this whole discussion is that science and exploration must be subordinated to the development of space.

Not that we can't do pure science, not that we can't, you know, send robots out just to see what's out there and that's fun and whatever, but at some point we need to say we are, you know, because we've discovered there's water on the moon. We need to be focused on how can we open up space. Because once you discover there's water on the moon, now all of a sudden doing stuff in space becomes cheaper. There's propellant out there. If we find ammonia, there's propellant out there.

If we and and and we need ammonia because there's nitrogen. We can you know, most of our atmosphere is nitrogen. We need that stuff to live in space. The Project Moon Hut's original plans that I started with, Bruce Pittman were included. And I said to Bruce at the time, all of this science and this recreation and this, exploration is never gonna work. And I'm not a science person. I'm a space person. I just said, we need to create a space based economy.

We need to be able to sell things and move things from moon and space to Earth and vice versa Yes. And create a distribute. And that was the original plan 4 years ago. So that's what project moving is about. Reduce the cost of doing stuff and reduce the cost of doing stuff space so that the and and, you know, so people can actually sustainably without having to rely on taxpayers from Earth live there. And that's and that was the original intention.

That's our that's still our focus today is we're not focused on science. We're not focused on those. We're focused on Mearth, the moon, and Earth. Right. And ours is a box with a roof and a door on the moon, then it is. The next one is an industrial park where we build and and and we can go into specifics at another time. Then after that is extended stay, which is like a building. People say a hotel. And then after that is community development, which is very different in terms of definition.

But it's not about science, and it's not about exploration. It's about making something on the moon, may taking something in space, bringing it back, and having an ecosystem developed that financially moves forward. And and That's what we that's our plan. The important thing to remember is that is not that has never been it's slowly becoming, but it has never been US government policy and a. And, b, there are people in other countries who are actively opposed to that.

Okay. To you know, what what do you how were they at? Are they Well, if if you believe what do they do? If you believe the space is a commons and that we can't utilize resources unless we first set up this regime that's going to decide how they're equitably distributed, it's not gonna happen. So let's let's take some major players, and I I know the industry as well as you do, but if we were to take and let me go Russia, Japan, China Russia recently said we want to outlaw capitalism.

We want to outlaw private activity in space. The Putin government has recently decided, oh, we're gonna we're gonna push that at Kapiolos. Okay. So the Russians have said that happened to the Japanese or the Japanese.

No. No. No. No. I I I am I'm, it's interesting that we're talking right now because I am in the very process right now of trying to put together a coalition of both countries and NGOs and people who, you know, want to make this stuff happen, and it was partially spurred by the fact that Putin decided he wanted to do whatever this idiotic thing that he wants to do. Because I'm sure I'm sure Russian space companies aren't that happy about themselves.

But Well, I I just found I found an interesting fact just recently while I was in Moscow. There are only 2 Russian private companies left. Well, but that's There's that's more than 0. There used to be about there used to be about 7 or 8. Yeah. And now they're down to 2. And I don't know if you know, Alian Alyanna. She's from Galactica. She's one of the things she wants to push is the privatization of of space. So what's interesting is she's jumped on board. So how about the Chinese?

How about the Indians? How about the I am I am in the process of trying to put together an anglospheric coalition, you know, to come up with, like, a multi multilateral for, you know, formulation of how we are going to do this and how we interpret the outer space treaty, and that would, you know, Anglosphere would include India because they speak English, because of their, for better or worse, their colonial past. You know? It's gonna be you know?

I think I think the Anglosphere is probably going to, and and I'm going to try to make this happen, push forward. It's gonna be us, Canada, UK, UK, Australia, who we need to pull out of the the moon treaty, because they now they say they want a space program. K. Well, if you want a space program, pull out of the moon treaty. New Zealand, they just had a launch this weekend.

India, Singapore, you know, there's there's there's a potential here to build a coalition for opening up space for anglospheric values. You'd, and you haven't addressed the at China. What is your feeling on the China China wants to make money. Okay. So is are they going to be a part of the Anglosphere Coalition, or are they going to do their own thing? They that's an interesting question. The answer is I don't know, but, you know, we're talking to them. Okay. I'll leave it at that.

And the and Hong Kong is Hong Kong China or not? You know better than that than I do. But I think but I think they'll be interested. Don't you think they'll be interested? I But I think but I think they'll be interested. Don't you think they'll be interested? I I the China just, Hong Kong just dropped on its on the index of innovation, around the world on the innovation index, so did the United States.

Yeah. And they're really looking for ways and means to ignite the spirit of innovation through the Hong Kong economy. So I believe that space is one of those avenues that can that they would be interested in pursuing. Well, we can we can talk we should talk about that offline. But, yeah. Yeah. And I do offline.

I wanna I wanna share with you what Project Moon Hut is about because once you hear it, I think now after all these 4 years, I think now I understand why Bruce said to me, David, there's no one talking this way. And you know Bruce well enough to know where the positioning may be. Yeah. Yeah. His thoughts. And I and I'm looking at him saying, this is common sense to me. And it wasn't capitalistic. It wasn't a socialistic. It was just how would I perceive us getting to the moon getting into space.

Right. And he said this is something no one's talking about. And that's how he got me to the next giant leap, and he got me to all these other events because he wanted me to explore and hear and see what was going on in the in the ecosystem space. So Yeah. Yeah. Well Cool. This is a you you've made a you made a you made a connection in my head that I had not made, which I love. Well, I I hope hope I've done that too because, you know, Bruce and I both been in the trenches for decades.

And it it's not a bad he he just grabbed on to me like a like a pit bull, and he said, you have to go. You have to be involved. And that that first national space, the what was that? The next giant leap. Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at organizations saying these are not gonna succeed. You know some of the players that have not succeeded since then.

I said this I just nothing made sense to me, and I couldn't understand why everybody was going in or many of the individuals were going in the direction they are. Yeah. And he has just been pushing this agenda that I had and I I didn't know why it was valuable. Today today, 4 years later, I'm now getting that that understanding. Can can we move on to my last bullet Yep. Before we The next one? Couple minutes. Perfect. We've got, we've got about 13 minutes, so we got some time. Oh, okay.

Well, okay. I didn't know. I I'm just looking at my I guess. Yep. So you're you're you're good. We're we're doing we're we're doing we're doing perfect time. Well, I'm just I I was thinking we start at 5, but and we're almost 6, but okay. We did we No. No. We've we I started the timer, so that's why I said you just keep on talking. I'm monitoring the time. I think we have plenty of time to talk about it.

Well, my last bullets, well so first, I oh, so let I'm not sure I finished my previous bullet. Science and exploration must be subordinated to development of space. Did we exhaust that? Hey. If you feel so, if you feel like it's covered, it's up to you. Is that what you wanna make?

Well, the well, my point it gets it gets back to my rant against x you know, my my war on space exploration as not not that I hate exploring space, but that that, it's it's the be all and end all of this is was is why we're doing this. It is not. It And I and I completely understand that. So is there another point that you would like to add to it, or do you think we kind of No. Only only that, I think that the US government is realizing is very clearly articulating that.

It started with the Marburgers speech in 06, and I think Scott said it very clearly in December at the Galloway. But the point is that let's stop talking about space exploration other than as, a means, not an end. Yeah. That's that's all I wanna that's really all I wanna say and I and I hammering the footsteps on the topic. You are talking to the reason to a large degree why Project Moon Hut exists. That's what 4 years has been about. It's been changing that dialogue.

So Okay. Let's go on to the returning, returning. So we are returning because we have people who grew up in the seventies, wanting loving space, wanting to do space. I just started I just got a copy of I don't know if you've read Ashley Vance's biography of Elon Musk. No. I just got a copy of it today because, I need it for research, on a long essay I'm writing. But but Elon, well, he was he's this kid in South Africa, and he's and he's, you know, reading the moon's harsh mistress.

He's he's he's reading all the science fiction. He's a weird kid. He's getting beaten up in high school because he's a weird kid, and, and he's he's afraid of robots and AI and all. He's afraid all this stuff's gonna kill us and he wants he's very he's frightened. He's he's apocalyptic. He wants us to be a multi planet species because he's afraid that, you know, we're not gonna survive this one.

And I you know, without saying whether I agree or disagree, I mean, that's the point is and and then then you got Jeff Bezos who's coming up, growing up, and he's reading stuff. He's he's reading probably reading the high frontier. O'Neil's the high frontier in the mid seventies because he, you know, he's a kid. He's in high school.

And then both these guys go off and they make and oh oh, and then Jeff goes off, and he becomes the head of this the chapter of space I just wrote a long again, I just told you I just wrote a long essay about all this space shows stuff in this part of it. So Jeff goes to Princeton in 1980 1980, probably, or 80 maybe 82. Probably 82. He goes to Princeton, and then he gay and and he gave his high school he was a high school valedictorian. He gives a speech about space colonies. You know?

So we have these people who have gone off and had these dreams, and they said, I'm gonna make a lot of money, so I'm gonna achieve the dream. And I and I'm thinking, you know, hitting I just literally I hit myself in the forehead right now. You just probably didn't hear it, but I did it. Yeah. I didn't I didn't hear it. Why didn't I do that? Why did I just focus on space stuff and not just go out and make up make a buttload of money? Make the money so you could play with the toys.

And then and then once I got the money, then I can do then I can open up space. Because you know I was stupid I thought oh I'll just do space stuff. Right? So anyway, so these 2 guys did space stuff. So my so my point is of my last bullet point is and again getting back to Alex MacDonald's book which we talked about earlier, which you may or may not remember, you know, we we went into this weird period in 9 in the, you know, mid century where the government took over space.

And the last telescope, privately developed telescope named after Edward Edward Hale because he was a he was an entrepreneur. He was an astronomy entrepreneur who went out and he managed to raise money for he raised money for the Wilson Telescope, you know, you know, above Los Angeles. And and so the last telescope, which was named after him, was on Mount Palomar in 1947. And then after that, it was all it was all government stuff.

But I think we're getting back, and so now we have the boldly go foundation started by John Morris, who is former NASA, you know, head of exploration or astro I don't remember what chance. But point is he went out and he started he started a foundation to go out, look for philanthropists, do the stuff, and you've got Yuri Milner, a Russian, who is funding his own starship.

Not I mean, not to send people, but he's gonna send this thing out there, you know, to detect life, you know, other star systems. And now it's like last fall in Seattle when I was there, he announced, I I wanna send a private mission to fly something through the flumes of Enceladus, ocean moon of Saturn that, you know, the Caroline Porco, who was like the, you know, science person on Saturn, said I think that's the best place to look for life in the solar system.

The point so all the stuff, they're driving costs down. They're driving down the cost of not just getting stuff into space and sending stuff out into the solar system, but also driving down the cost because, a lot of things have been driving the cost of space probes up has been the high cost of launch. So it's all it's just like we're getting into this virtuous circle of driving down the cost of doing the stuff to the point where financials can say, okay. This is great.

I could fund I could fund a mission to another planet. How cool is that? The, you brought up Yuri, and Pete Warden did our first telecast, our first podcast. And I went to meet him, and you know his reputation is smart. I it's challenge challenging. Yeah. And he Thank you. When I when I when I yes. Yes, Pete. When he when I was done, he I only do a half hour, and he looked at me and he said, I'm in. I said, what do you mean you're in? I didn't know what to say. He says, I'm in.

I'm gonna help you get interviews. I'm gonna help you meet you at Luxembourg. I'm gonna get you to the European Space State. I'm gonna get you connected to this, And he did a he says, I'm gonna do your podcast, and it it was just like that. And so I guess now again, you're hitting me in that. I'm hitting myself in the head saying, now I see the connection. Yeah. Now I now that ties together. Yeah. I I've known Pete when he was colonel. That's a long time ago.

Yeah. So the we're we're seeing it happen and you're using American examples around the world. How are you seeing the returning to for for me, if you're, you know, educating me, what are you seeing that's really amazing on the privatist side of development that you think is standoutish around the world? Well, driving down the launch cost, and, you know, both Mesos and Musk reckon, and Musk recognize that, and they've been that's what they've been doing.

I'd see that like a tortoise and hare, but but, you know, Bezos is speeding up. He's kicking kicking the back legs a little bit more. But 3 d printing, space assembly, resources, you know, institute resources, those things are gonna open up space.

And and you we cannot you cannot imagine how much is going to happen so quickly in the next decade compared to what's been happening for the last half century because we're finally breaking out of this Apolloism notion that NASA is going somehow a president's gonna come out and say, oh, we're going to this planet and this date, and we're gonna build a giant rocket, and then we're gonna see a few astronauts there, and that's how it works. No. That's not how it works. That's not how America works.

And the big challenge is gonna be America versus people who don't think like America, who people who think if it's not explicitly legal, it's illegal. Right? If it's if it's, you know, oh, and we're it's a commons, you know, we all have to agree before we can do anything. Those are the challenges. They're not technical challenges. They're sociopolitical challenges. And that's that's and that's what I'm focused on right now.

I saw Charlie Bowden give, I'm I know Charlie and I he gave a presentation at a place I was at, and he spoke about Mars. And I looked at him, I said, what do you mean Mars? And I we sat down for about 3 hours to talk about project moon. He was very interested in what we were what we're trying to achieve. And one of the things I said is I'm I'm waiting for the guy who's got a little farm. He's got a farm. He's been stealing a little bit of of fuel or some type of, propulsion.

And out, just like of all the movies, is out of this farm capsule, there's gonna be a guy who goes single passenger up to the moon, figures out how to do it, and comes back and just changes the whole paradigm. Mhmm. You know, I I've it's almost as if that would be one of those okay. Now that we've done it, how do we address this? Instead of, in theory, how would we address this going the other way? Yeah. So any last words you'd like to add?

Any last pieces you'd like to add to the puzzle for for me to understand a little bit more for the listener to understand a little bit more about what you're doing? Abandon everything you think about space based on the last 50 years. It's going to be a much, much different is this is not your grandfather's space program, and it's not a space program. Space is a place. Space is a place where we're gonna go out and do stuff.

Just like 5 100 years ago, America, the new world was a place where people are gonna go out and do stuff, except we don't we don't have brown or green people to oppress. We're just going to rocks don't have rights. We're going to go out and open up the solar system. Well, Rand, this was phenomenal. I I I learned a tremendous amount. I'm hoping the listeners are are learning along the way. I think it was just fantastic.

I I hit my head self in the head a few times, not about the Elon and the pesos fan of, but the connectivity, there was a tissue here that brought things together. So I I really loved how you wove this message. So thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.

And for those of you who are listening, you can go to if you'd like to learn more about Project Moonhunt, what we're doing, you can go to projectmoonhut.org and sign up for our, future space related database, project that we're working on, which will, can't get into all the details. We're working on a large platform. We've got participate in, at project at facebookforward/projectmoonhot. You can like our page, and then it will keep you abreast of some of the things that we're talking about.

And you can connect with us on Twitter at projectmoonhot. So for everybody, I hope you received a tremendous amount of new information, different ways of looking at the at space, books to read, and, articles or people to connect to in terms of the names that were used during these, podcasts. So I'm David Goldsmith, and thank you for listening.