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Welcome to you deep into the pages
Today we are diving uh really deep into something feels like science fiction
But it's happening right now the uh the whole new era of space exploration
Yeah
It's completely different from you know the apollo days or even the shuttle era
It's faster
It's risky yeah and honestly it's way more complicated
Definitely complicated
We're talking about a space domain
That's been totally reshaped
You've got nasa kind of reinventing itself on the flow by huge amounts of private money pouring in from billionairres and overlaying ying
All of that this rising tension
This geopolitical competition that feels well increasingly serious
Exactly heart source material for this dive mostly drawn from rocket dreams
Really paines this picture of space becoming what less about pure exploration and more about business a massive commercial enterprise
It really is i mean think about nunumbers
There's this projection of a trilildolllar space economy by the mid id thirty
Thirty ties one trinting fllars that kind of money changes
The motivation it changes
The players are changes
Absolutely everything it's not just planting flags
Anymore is it
It's about building the infrastructure
The the curercial rails of some people put it for whatever comes next up there right communication networks
Transportation systems
Resource extraction eventually it's like the wildwest
But you know in orbit beyond so our mission today for you listening is to try and untangle this wwant a map out
Who the key players are especially these dominant billione figures understand the huge cultural shifts happening inside nasa and really grasp the geopolitical stakes
Why space is suddenly being called ua a wwarfighghdomomaand
It's a lot to cover
But it's crucial
And maybe the best places started with the clash of the titons
Right the core arrival ry
That's kind of setting the pace for much of the commercial side of things
You mean musfers s bazos space ex versus blue origin
Exactly it's almost like a fable l know know hair in the tortois
But with roccts and billions of dollars
Okay
So let's unpack at musquin spacex
They're the hair in this story
Definitely the hair the source is absolutely paint space x
With this culture of just radical speed pushing limits
Accepting risks
That would make traditional air space um break out in a whold sweat
There's that famous must quote
Maybe it's to in internal philosophy about converting the impossible
And it just being laate
Yeah
Exactly it's about iterating incredibly ly building
Testing failing
Sometimes spectacularly they even call failures are uties wrapid unschedudisassembly
Which is quite the efumism
It is
But it captures that mindset failures data
It's part of the process to get to the all faster
And that speed isn't just talk it translates into real
Sometimes shocking capability like the fflkand heavy test launch in twenty eighteen
That feels like a defining moment
Oh
Absolutely launching his own tesla roaddster with the starman dummy inside towards mars orbit
I mean on one level
It was pure marketing ingius perce spectacle
You could ignore he couldn't
But underneath the spectacle was this raw display of power
A reusable heavy lift rocket capability that frankly no government space program on earth could match that that moment it odd vacious and impimpact was immediwasn't n't the sources mentioned china's reaction right china's state run global times usually pretty quick to downplay us achievements
They basically had to come out
And say that spacex this private company had
And i think the quote was was oally ccrushall of their current roccts in the world
Wow
When your main geopolitical rival admits you've leave fragged everyone
That is something it really does it show that the old model
The slow government led development cycle was being fundamentally challenged
Maybe even overtaken by this disruptive private player okay
So if musk is the hair pushing boundaries with incredible speed in risk
Um where is jeff basases and blue origin fit and he's the tortus yes or at least
That's the image in the philosophy
Blue origin's model is gddum fareiider stepped by step ferociously implies a more methodical long term approach
And his vision is different to right
It's less about mars contization immediately in more about earth
Um yeah
His stated long term goal is quite profound
Actually he talks about preserving earth by moving heavy industry and resource extraction off world
He envisions these huge orbital colonies places
He describes famously as like muii on its best day year year
While that's a compelling vision
A very different why for going to space
It is
And he's been incredibly consistent about it for decades
He even said quite opoply that he stararted mamazon primarily just to fede genace hahabhe needed the immense wealth from amazon to fund this long term space vision
So a grand multi generational plan okay
But does methodical and long term work in this new hypercompetitive and virment
That musk is kind of creating
How did blue origin fair when things got really serious like with the nasa contract uh
Well that's where the tordeous narrative starts to uh stumble a bit
The reality especially in the high stakes competition for nasas's artimist program was much tougher for blue origin hartist
That's the program to get humans back to the moon named after oppolls ls inansiter exactly and the absolute key piece of hedware needed for that was the human landing system
The hs the lander
Itself this became the big battleground and blue origin was in the running very much
So they put together
What they called the national team partnering with established giants like loccked martin north rop grammen draper a real powerhouse lineup on paper and initially in the first round of funding back in april
Twenty
Twenty
They actually received the largest share of the development money from nasa
So it look like they were a strong position
The establishment choice perhaps it seem that way
But then came the the inevent
The final election for the actual contract to build and fly the first slander
This was the anounce an april
Tony
Tony one spacex one out right
They got the sole contract just spacex
Not multiple provider just spacex
And this is where that clash between the old way in the new way between costand culture hit nasa
Right between the ice
How so was spaceis proposal technical superior not necessarily according to nasa 's own ratings
This is the crucial part blue origins
National team proposal and another one led by dynamics actually received higher technical and management rings from space ex's technical score was raided very good
While for instance the dynics proposal was excellent
Okay
So technically better proposals were on the table
Why did space sex win them money principle cost bluace ex's bid was very expoint nine billion dollars
Blue origins bid was nearly six billion dollars
Spacetics was even higher spacecs was dramatically cheaper
Wow
So asa was faced with technically strong but very expensive options from the traditional player versus teteactically very good but vastly cheaper option from the disruptive player precisely and congress hadn't given nasa the budget they'd hope for for the lander program
So nasa felt forced essentially to pick the one provider
They could afford even if it meant putting all their eggs and one arguably slightly rikier basket dethssy s some internal turmoil at nasa
Oh
Absolutely
The sources say internal nasa officials were deeply concerned awarding as one raded one especially the lower rated one was seen as potentially unreasonable from an external standpoint
They knew it would look like there were prioritizing cost over safety or reundancy
But budget realities forced their hand and the fall out for blue origin they must have been stand
Reports say employees were astonished was a massive blow and leader internal memo surface cited in the source material describing the company culture is becoming toxic diysfuncand riddled with sexism and limping towards constantly shifting finishing lines
So the torus approting finixical pace debackfired in this high stake's race
It seems so in this instance
The slowiness perhaps
The complexity of managing that team
It resulted in a price tag nasequdent swallow
And it exposed maybe a deper cultural issue ea blue origin compared to space sexes lean fast moving machine
The cost of being slow wasn't just time
It was billions of dollars and a central role in the return to the moon
This difference in culture
It wasn't just about bidden management was it
It went right down to the design philosophy
Even how astronauts interact with the spacecraft absolutely look at the development of the commercial cruecrales space axi's dragon in knowing starliner there was a real culture clash
There particularly with dragon
What was the issue
Well you had veteran nasa astronauts mostly from military test pilot backgrounds
They were used to cockpits
Filled with switches
Buttons
Joysticks
Direct manual control
That was their comfort zone
Their culture okay
That makes sense decades of aviation in space flight tradition right
And then spacex comes along designing the dragon capsule
And what do they put in touch screens
Big sleak tablet lake in her face
Oh
I ah magknow them
Exactly the sources are pretty blblint
The astronauts apparently hated it before they ever ked
Ked the building
They saw is taking away their control
Maybe even as unsafe they demanded physical backackabs manual overrise for everything
They called the touch screen approach
A terrible idea and unsatisfactory and military speak
So how did space erespond do they give in no
They basically held their ground
Their argument was look
This vehicle is designed for autonomouous flight
It dogs
Itself it flies itself most of the time u
The astrrot are really only intervening in an emergency
They compared it to riding a disney roller coaster
You trust the automation that's a pretty bold stance to take with experienced astronauts
It was classics spacex disruption
And it wasn't just the interface nasa apparently offered spacex a free complex government design docking system for dragon okay free adware from naseis sounds like a good deal
You d think free steacx looked at it decided it was too complex too heavy too many potential failure points
And they built their own and much simpler system seriously they turned down free step to build their own yep
And the astronauts initially skeptical actually ended up
Affectionally nicknaming ing the acex system
The mmcdocker
Because it was so straight forward and reliable like ordering fast food uh the mcdocker that's brilliant
It really illustrates that relentless drive for simplicity for rethananging everything
Even things nasa took for granted
And that relenentless drive for simplicity for automation for doing things differently
That's a big part of why they could bid sixty percent less for the moonlander
It wasn't just cutting corners
It was a fundamentally different engineering and operational philosophy okay
So this erercial rurution tion wasn't hahaving the nasa
It was forcing nasa itself to change
Let's piit to that out of the agency cope with all this pressure in this shift in its own role
Well cope is maybe a gentle word
It was a painful often difficult transformation for masa
They were for years struggling with their own big government run programs
He mean like the space laununch stestethe sls rocket exactly ss the intended successor to the saturn v was meant to be nasasses flagship rocket for deep space exploration
But it was pleguged by a ormous cost overon's endless delays
It became a political football critics were pretty harsh
Sometimes calling at the senate launch system
Because its contracts were spread across so many states to ensure political support others called it the shelbby launch system after a key political proponent so nash's own internal projects were slow and expensive
While these commercial companies were suddenly moving much
Faster at least in lower torbit precisely and as a leadership particularly starting around twenty fourteen under the obama administration realize they couldn't keep doing everything themselves
They meet a huge strategic pivot instead of owning and operating vevehicles to astronauts to the space station
They would buy a rias as a service from commercial companies
That's the commercial crew program warding contracts to space acxand boilling that's the one
It was a radical shift
Nasa went from being the developer owner and operator to basically being a customer and anker tenant
It freed nasa up to focus on deep space and artimists
But also meant relying on these new sometimes unpredictable partners and managing those partners must have been tricky
Especially during the trouble administration with jim brightensteinnas nas administrator extremely tricky brighdenstein in himself a former politician was a huge champion of artimious and the commercial approach
He even rebranded the lunar program as artimists in may twenty nineteen
Explicitly invoking the twin sister of apollo to build excitement and frankly congressional support smart political move
Very
But he was constantly walking this tightrope
He had pressure from the white house
Which wanted visible successes quickly
And he had to manage the inherent volatility of the commercial partners
Especially
Well
Especially
You on
But yes
The mosque factor there was that incident the joe rogan podcast incident in twenty eighteen or musk took pup from americijuana join that caused in a mediate firrestore
Why was it such a big dear nasa
Because nasa has an incredibly strict zero tolerance policy regarding drug use for anyone involved in its programs
Because specially human space flight muk wasn't just some random m ceo o was the
The ad ad the company
Nasaswas was about to interest with launching its aastronauts
The optics were terrible
And the potential safety implications from nasas perspective were serserous
So what happened brighand stein had had act as so ordered a full safety and workplace culture review not just for spacex
But for boeing too to be fair and apparently
He had a very direct personal conversation with musque
Really
Where did he say the sources say brandstein essentially told him
You can't be doing that this is not helppful
Whowhole world was watching you
He had layed on the law basically
How it must react
Apparently must asasured him
It was just a spur of the moment thing kind of downplayit
But the incident really highlighted this new vulnerabfor for asasa
There are critical path for human space white now depended on the judgment and public behavior of figures like musk
It was a new kind of risk management
Despite that drama the commercial crew program did eventually succeed
Didn't it the mission demo two in may
Twenty
Twenty Yes
That was the absolute pivotal moment launching astronauts
Bob bencan and doug hurley from us soil on aus rocket to the international space station for the first time
Since the space shadow retired in twenty eleven
A huge huge miles down and a huge launf a mense relief
But even that launch wasn't straightforward the pressure was incredible
Mumust reref later said his biggest fear wasn't launch ch itbut the launch a boorts system
The system designed to pull the capsule away of the rocket failed
Because why was he worried about that specifically
Because they'd had a major failure with that exact system during a ground test just a year earlier enable twenty nineteen teen a league
Vave caused a huge explosion that destroyed the capsule
It was a massive tback
Right i remember that they had to fixed private work
Exactly they trace the problem to a titanium component redesign a parts
And then had to rush through ten consecutive successful parachute test for the reorts system to satisfy nasses very stringent safety requirements
Before they'd let banin in herring fly
So the tension on launch day must have been off the charts
Absolutely
And then you had the political dimension president trump was there at cannedy space center eager to associate his administration with this historic return to flight
But space flight doesn't know
Always cooperate with political timeline
It certainly doesn't
The first launch attempt was scrubed due to bbad weather
The second attempt was also nearly scrubbtwice due to a weather and some sensor issues right down to the final minutes and trouble es watching
Watching and apparently getting quite frustrated the sources note
He was openly annoyed that he couldn't just order the launch to happen or even talk to the astronauts
Directly before they flew it was a perfect illustration of the new reality politics could provide funding and pressure
But when it came down to the final gonaggo decision
Nasa and the launch controllers were in charge safety protocols trumped political wishes
The white house was effectively a bystander at the crucial moment
Which is how it should be really absolutely
It showed the system despite the pressures
Worked it just to kind round out the commercial picture before we moved to geopolitics
We also had that brief very public suborbital shodown in july
Twenty
Twenty one one
Yes
The billionairspace hopfirst richard brands on on virgin gactic flu first aiming for about fifty miles up the edge recognized by the us air force right and then just nine days later
Bazos flew on his blue origin new shepherd rocket making sure across the international recognized carmonline at sixty two miles
The technical boundary of space complete with celebrary passengers
Musical performances
Bases
Even even a cowboy hash it felt very performative
It absolutely was performative pure marketing
And maybe some ego gratificated
But you know
Even those short hops demonstrated something the ability of these private companies to design build and fly human rated systems relatively quickly
Even if just to the edge of the atmosphere
It reinforce that sense that the commercial sector was
Where the action the speed was happening okay
So you got this dynamic commercial sector led by these rival billionairres forcing masa to adapt
But all of this is happening against a backdrop of much more serger ger
Much more serous
Yeah
The return of great power competition in space
Yeah
That's the other massive piece of this puzzle forget the called war space race between just the us in the soviet union
This is different as vice presipenpens explicititly called it
It's a new space race
But it's more complex in the primary competitor now isn't russia china overwhelmingly
Yes
While russia remains a factor
China's space program has been executing a mathodical incredibly ambitious and highly successful long term strategy
They aren't relying on volatile billionairres
They have the full backing and resources of the state
And they hit some major milestones
Recently they
They really got people's attention huge milestones think about it in twenty nineteen
Nineteen they became the only nation ever to successfully land a probe on the far side of the moon
With change for that was a massive technical achievement
Then mars
Then in may twenty
Twenty one they landed there's wrong rover on mars
Only the second nation after the us to successfully operate a rover on the martian surface
And in that same period
They started constructing their own space station tn gong
So they're rapidly building capability across board lunar martian earth orbit exactly
And they're signalling their long term intentions
Very clearly
They even formed a partnership with russia in june
Twenty twenty
One to jointly build an international lunar research station at the moon
Self cal essentially setting up a rival block to the us led ortimtic accords
There was also that detail about the flag they planted on the moon eh
Yes
During the changed five sample return mission in december
Twenty twenty
They made a point of deploying a chinese flag on the lunar surface
But the key detail as highlated in the sources is that they specifically engineered that flag the fabric
The construction to withstand the extreme radiation and temperature swings on the moon for demoadfor alaes precisely the us flags planted during apolls were basically off the shelf nylon flags they've almost certainly disintegrated or bleached completely white by now due to the harsh lunar environment china's flag gesture was subtle but powerful
We are here to stay our presences durable
And their ambitions don't stop there
They're looking at reusable rocket ts too
They are openly trying to replicate space exxes starship concept leaked presentations show designs remarkably similar distarship
And they've stated their intent to use such a vehicle for building their own lunar base
They are directly challenging the us not just on milestones
But on the foundational heavy lift capability needed for a permanent off world present
This level of competition
This capability it fundamentally changes
How we need to think about space doesn't
It leads directly to that idea of space as a war fighting domain
It absolutely does for decades
There was this ideal enshering in the outer space treaty of space as a peaceful sancary for exploration
But the reality now driven by both commercial interest
And this geopolitical rivalry is that spacis critical infrastructure and critical infrastructure becomes contested territory
Why is it suddenly seen as so critical so vulnerable
What's actually at risk up
There well
People often think about spy satellites or military communication satellites and those are important
But the single biggest vulnerability
The one that keeps national security planners up at night is something we all use every single day gps
The global position system for navigation
Yes
For navigation
But that's almost the least critical part
Now the truly indidispensable function of gps is providing extremely precise timing signals
Timing has that work
What needs that timing almost everything in our modern economy
The sources really emphasize this point that precise time signals from gps satellites is used to synchonize the electrical power grid ensuring powerflows correctly without searges or blackouts
It's used by cell phone towers to coordinate signals and prevent inreference
It's essential for banking networks and stock markets to time stamp to transactions
Accurately down to the nano second
Wow
I had no idea is that fundamental
Utterly fundamental
If you disrupt or deny that gps timing signal
You don't just stop people from finding their way home
You could potentially trigger cascadating failures in the power grid crash
Financial markets
Disrupt communications basically so economic caa and disrupting
It is easy disturbingly easy at a basic level cheap gps dreams are readily available online they're illegal to use in most places
But they exist there was that incident mentioned the sources back back twenty thirteen
Where a single truck driver using a cheap jammer to hide his location from his boss ininadttently interfeared with the landing systems at new ork airport nearby just one guy y with a device caused that much traouble
Yes now imagine a nation state deciding to deliberary tely jam or spoof gps signals over a wide area
It's a potent asymetric weapon
Okay
That's jaming
But what about actually destroying satellites
That takes us to anti satellite weapons asaates right
And that threat has been growing for years
China shocked the world back in two thousand seven
When it deliberately destroyed one of its own defunct weather satellites with a missile
I remember that it created a huge manter debrbrright a terrifying amount over three thousand pieces of trackable debris and probably hundreds of thousands of smaller untracable fragments
That single test dramatically increased the collision risk for all satelllites in low earth orbit including the iss
It was incredibly irresponble ble the other countries irrecapability
Us
Russia in india have also demonstrated assacapabilities
But the threat perperception escalated dramatically in early
Twenty
Twenty four rists conconfirmed by us intelligence that russia was developing something far more dangerous a space space nuclear weapon specispecifically design not just to target sasallite
But potentially to disable vast constellations of satellites in orbit with an electrc magnetic polls
Emp or radiation
A nuclear weapon in space
It's dying to kill satellites
Exactly it's the kind of weapon that could cause a day zero catastropy instantly wiping out critical communication navigation a surveillance capabilities
Think about the potential impact on global stability
If gps and military com suddenly went dark worldwide have we ever seen anything like the effect of a nuwan space we have unfortunately back in one and and sixty two
During the cold war
The us conducted a high altitude nuclear test called starfish prime
They detonated a nuclear weapon about two hundred and fifty miles up over the pacific
And what happened the resulting radiation and emp effects were far greater than expected it immediately damaged or destroyed about a third of all satellites that were in low earth orbit at the time
It also caused electrical damage on the ground in hawaii hundreds of miles away
Starfish prime was a stark warning about the devastating in didiririmineeffects of nuclear weapons used in space
So russia developing something similar now
Yeah
That's incredibly alarming it really dries on that war fighting domain concept
It makes it terrifally real
The stakes have moved beyond commercial competition for contracts to potentially existstential threats to our way of life all playing out hundreds of miles above our heads okay
Let's try to synthesize all all this we've got the billiononires
Pushing the envelope
But speed and ambition sometimes stumbling like blue origin did with the hls contract
Sometimes succeeding dramatically like spacex
We have nasa forced to transform itself from the primary operator into more of a customer
A high risk investor
Almost reliying on this volatile but innovative commercial sector to achieve its goals like returning to the moon under artimious and underpinning all of it
This intense geopolitical race mainly with china driving urgency in turning space into this potentially dangerconconteted domain hihilighted by threats like a asads and gp vulnerabability
The landandscape
The cortatake away
I think is that this sheer speed and frankly the lower cost of the commercial sector
Even with its risks and volatility
You know musks superhard core culture as he calls it pspeed is now seen esessential the us to maintain leadership or even just keep pace with methodal state funded rivals like china
So the government needs the billionaires despite the headaches
They sometimes cause it seems that way the tradition government programs like sss
While powerful are just too slow into expensive to respond
Effectively to the pace set by both commercial innovation and geopolitical competition
Nasa has essentially outsourced a lot of its speed and risk caking ability to the private sector
Which creates this huge dilema
Doesn't it relying on the old slow expensive government model means falling behind but reybe on the fast cheaper
But sometimes a radtic commercial players ties national security and national prestige to their successes
Their failures and even their leaders
Personalities
That's the central tension of this new space eperperfetly captured
But maybe the final thoughght for their listeners to chew on as this we've clearly moved beyond seeing spaces
This prostine peaceful sanuary
It's now undeniably a domain of intense competition
Commercial geopolitical potentially
Even military as everyone rushes back to the moon
Eyeing resources like water
Ice
Id places like shackled and crator are we just setting ourselves up to repeat
History are we destined to export our terrestrial conflicts over territory and resources to space
It's a so braing question is it the law of commercial profit
A national advantage and inevitably going to lead to conflicor
Or can find find way to manage this competition or peacfufulperperhaps through updated treaties or norms of behavior
The outer space treaty feels pretty outdated now indeed something to definitely ponder is you watch the next roket launch ch knowing the next compleforforces at play behind the parents smoke
Thanks for listening
