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NASA has selected Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin, Fireflight Aerospace and other private space firms to deliver robotic landers, rovers even drones to the Moon, part of a broader push to establish a sustained lunar presence before the end of the decade. We are talking about a base on the Moon. Here to discuss is NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. Jared, it's good to see you again and welcome back to Bloomberg Tech.
I think the question for most people is the timeline right and which milestones you've set the team, the agency has set itself from today to a future where we have the first human landing on the Moon for that base.
So great to be chatting with you again on a subject that I really enjoy, which is America's return to the Moon and building that enduring presence, building the moonbase. Now we are very advantage, which is why we can move so quickly because of programs like clips like LTV that have existed for some time at NASA. Now we're we're just turning up the wattage here. We're you know,
sending a strong demand signal to industry. Instead of infrequent bespoke landers you know every couple years, maybe one rover every ten thirteen years, which was actually you know, a previous consideration to saying, let's get in a rhythm here. So we put a strong demand signal out to industry.
We have a handful of missions that are going to launch, to robotic missions start building the Moon based later in twenty twenty six, but starting in twenty twenty seven, you should see see a near monthly cadence of robotic landers on the Moon, several rovers. In fact, we initially we provided an award for the first two you know, crude
and autonomous capable rovers for the lunar surface. So when our astronauts arrive on Artemis four and twenty twenty eight, they're going to already have some infrastructure the moon base waiting for them.
They're already going to have a rover waiting for them.
And then in that timeframe, it's not just intermittent anymore. It's not just those monthly visits, but when do you think people be working, Humans might even be living in some capacity on the Moon there.
So we are approaching the moon base in phases. So phase one is a lot of littles. We are dusting off the playbook that work very well for NASA in the nineteen sixties. We're getting back to an iterative approach. So there was the Mercury program before there was Geminy, There was Geminy before Apollo, and an awful lot of Apollo missions before we went right to the moon landing on Apollo eleven. We are doing the same thing now. So Phase one we're calling it a science of survival.
We're not going to lock in what the mobility strategy should be, for logistics for astronauts, the power strategy, the surface comms, the orbital comms. Why would we try and nail and get all of that perfect today when we haven't been to the moon in more than a half century. So Phase one will be a lot of land again that near monthly cadence to learn and inform Phase two, where perhaps now you're putting a lot more tonnage on
the lunar surface. You have a lot more direction as to the type of hardware and capabilities you want to lock in on, so you don't need to have maybe monthly landings when we get into phase two, but you have a lot more direction as to what should work for our intended objectives, which is to build out that
habital environment. And then phase two we're going to learn now having astronauts go from let's call it a period of maybe even days on the lunar surface in Phase one to potentially weeks in Phase two, to where you might get by the time we move into Phase three, a similar astronaut rotation like you see on the International Space Station, where we could have crews potentially being on the lunar surface for months on end.
You don't have that marked on your calendar, administrator, when Phase three might have a base that has humans actually living and working inside it.
Oh, we absolutely have time frames.
I mean we are looking at basically twenty seven through twenty twenty nine for Phase one. You have twenty twenty nine out into the early twenty thirties for Phase two. But again this is all going to be informed on what we learn during those first landings in phase one.
You know, we have a plan which is really good, but we are going to learn, and we're going to learn from every one of our robotic missions, every lander that we put on the Moon to inform the next there is a world we could pull in timeframes and I was just talking with our Moon based team on that just a week or two ago. You may not need twenty some odd, you know, landings under Phase one in order to get the in order to make determinations as to what the early phase two habitation and power
and mobility consideration should look like. So I would say we're extremely focused on the mission of making sure when American astronauts returned to the lunar surface there's going to be infrastructure there and to evolve into that enduring presence to master the skills for where we go next, which is which is Mars. We have a great timeline, it's very well resourced, and we certainly have the best some Brightest and NASA work on it. We'll adjust those timelines as we learn.
Jared, what gave you so much conviction on Blue Origin and Mark one in the first instance.
Well, I would just say, we have a lot of industry that's very excited to participate right now, So we put a heck of a demand signal out to industry during the ignition event. There were a lot of bidders across the landers, across the rovers. The Blue Origin Mark one is extremely useful for us in terms of the amount of mass it can put on the lunar surface. That's why we're going to use it for the actual
rovers themselves, which are not small. I think also very importantly as we are partnered with Blue Origin as one of our two providers for putting astronauts on the Moon, so we're going to learn an awful lot from these
Mark one landings that are that are coming up. The transfer stage has got is very comparable to Blue Origins approach for putting astronauts on the surface, and even though the lander itself will be different, there'll be equaliss in other capabilities necessary to sustain life and to crew errate it.
They will obviously learn a lot putting their landers on the surface of the Moon will learn a lot, and that will help inform for Artemis four and beyond, where we are going to count on Blue Origin, as we are going to count on SpaceX for getting our astronauts and even more mass on the surface of the Moon and we move into Phase two and three.
Let's talk about SpaceX, Let's talk about Starship. Let's talk about what you learned for Artemis on Friday night. How much confidence do you still have and dependence do you have on Starship succeeding.
I mean, I think said simply, SpaceX is are is probably our greatest commercial space company, hands down. We rely on SpaceX heavily to put our astronauts to and from the International Space Stations. We just modified an award to provide up to I think six additional missions to SpaceX. In that regard, they pioneered rapid reusability catching rockets on ships on land that directly supports our scientific endeavors. We are able to launch more missions of science and discovery
thanks to SpaceX. It's substantially brought down the cost of capabilities that we put in geostationary orbits, some of the heavy mass items that we use Falcon Heavy for. I have no doubt Starship is going to contribute in a very meaningful way. I've described it as almost a light switch moment for humanity when you have a fully reusable booster and upper stage that's going to be able to efficiently put lots of mass, not just on the surface
of the Moon, someday on Mars. So you have SpaceX, you have Blue Origin, you have an extremely healthy commercial industry that's going to be able to support the construction of the Moon base, is Blue.
Moon a good backup if say the big bold bets that SpaceX takes to take a bit longer than perhaps have been anticipating, we do see some timeline shift back.
Well, I think that's why, in the wisdom of Congress they were very supportive of NASA to have two hls, two commercial landing providers under contract. And look, just as competition on the geopolitical stage is driving a lot of NASA's moves right now, which is a good thing. It worked incredibly well for NASA during the first race. Well,
competition works very well among industry. You know, you go to the Air and Space Museum here in Washington, DC, when you walk through the main doors, you're going to see a grummin lemb the landers that we use to put astronauts back on the Moon during the first Space Race. I have no doubt whether it's SpaceX or Blue Origin, they'd like to see their landers there as well, So I think they understand what's at stake. We love the
competition between the two of them. And the nice thing is, over the next couple of years, we're going to see an awful lot of New Glen's launch. We're going to see an awful lot of Mark one landers. We're going to see an awful lot of starships, and then we're going to bring them all together with Artemis III in twenty twenty seven.
Jared, there's an awful lot of focus right now on the orbital economy or future orbito economy, in part because of SPACEXS S one. Right, But I believe earlier this year on a podcast, you said that the orbital economy, or the idea of it, has been grossly overstated. Right, you were pretty modest. I suppose about what the reality that looks like As your thinking on that changed, and
what led you to make those comments. What is it that you see about a future economy in space, indeed on the Moon, that maybe industry is overstating or the outside world is overstating.
Well, look, I'm just to be clear. I want nothing more than to see an orbital economy. I want to see a lunar economy come to fruition. I want lots of commercial space stations, lots of outposts on the Moon. I want my kids to grow up in a world where maybe they could go to the Moon and then we press on, we press onto Mars.
I think it's my job when I when I.
Take a look at the resources that are entrusted into the agency by Congress, by the taxpayers every single year to make sure you know that we maximize the scientific discovery value out of every bit of it. And that results in making you know, kind of a build by partner decision on almost every procurement. And in that regard,
there are some areas where we can buy services. NASA can where we are one customer of many, and that that's a great thing because then you have competitive forces that can improve a product and service capability and drive down costs. We know this to exist as it has existed for more than a half century. In launch, observation, and communication, NASA is one customer of many across all
three of those services. The dow is other commercial companies are when we start looking at other things to do, like let's just say, build a moon base.
And I said this in yesterday's prece event.
Look, I can put a demand signal out to industry and buy dozens of landers for the lunar surface to start constructing the moon base ten years from now. Can I tell you who's going to buy the fiftieth lander if it's not NASA. I don't have a clue, but I certainly hope that we will find a way to get more value out than what we have to put in to being on the lunar surface or being in microgravity outside of the established launch, observation and communication economy that already exists, right.
And the demand signals being put out by NASA, but they're also being put out by other countries and other ways in which we see competitions versus China. How do you see the Chinese focus on the moon and whether it is a real competitive force versus NASA right now?
Well, like I said, competition is a great thing. It worked incredibly well for us during the first Spase race in the nineteen sixties. It allows us to do exactly what we're doing now at NASA, which is concentrate our resources on the most pressing national objectives and then also to empower our workforce to move at a speed that they haven't done in decades. And I'd say we're off to a good start coming off of Artemis two and where we're going next with Artemis three in twenty twenty seven.
In terms of how I see this competition now, look that getting the boots on the surface of the Moon itself is probably going to be the closest element to this. I would say that the Chinese approach to it is very similar to the Apollo program, lots of missions, iterative approach. We were up until a couple months. We're going to go going from Artemis two flying around the Moon to waiting three years to landing on the Moon, which I've
said many times is not ingredients for success. You need to be in the business launching heavy lift rockets with frequency, and you can't turn them all into a work of art. That said, I think NASA is extremely advantaged thanks to our partnership with industry and building the Moon base. Like I said, we had the CLIPS program, we have the LTV program. We have the healthiest launch market in the history of America's space program from SpaceX and Blue Origin
Rocket Lab Stoke, I mean, you name it. That means we have the ability to put a lot of mass on the lunar surface exactly where we want to be, not just landers, but rovers, start experimenting with power, mobility, communications, all the things you need to build a moon base. We are very advantaged in that regard. And then in
terms of what comes next. We are going to finally America is going to finally get underway a nuclear power propulsion in space in twenty twenty eight when we launch SR one Freedom, and that is key to extending to achieving human missions to Mars someday and exploring the outer Solar System. So we have a lot of advantages, but probably the one that people are paying most attention to that is going to come down to months