How to Launch a Space Startup with Dr. Bob Richards

Hi there, everyone. My name is Adeo Ressi. I'm very excited to be talking about one of my favorite subjects, space. Not real estate, but actually space exploration, outer space, and space-related businesses. I'm going to be joined momentarily by an amazing gentleman Dr. Bob Richards, and I'll let him introduce himself, but I'll throw some accolades his way beforehand. But before we get to Bob and conversations about space, let me talk a little bit about myself for a couple seconds, let people stream in. We're already at almost 300 viewers, which is great. We have over 1,000 registered. I'm the CEO of a company called the Founder Institute. We help founders at the launch phase, the very beginning of their business, set up and create technology businesses. And we realized a number of years ago, you know, we're creating social media apps and food delivery businesses and all these other things that make the terrestrial world better. But wouldn't it be awesome if we started to do things that look to the future? And so one of the first initiatives we did was trying to get more women involved in starting technology businesses. So we created a Female Founder Fellowship. And then now we're very excited to announce what we're calling the Star Fellow. So it's— the goal is to inspire entrepreneurs like you in the room today and watching to create space-related businesses. And we're going to be talking about why that's important. And I have a bit of a background in space. There's a lot of stories about me in space. Space that you can look up online. I was on the board of the X Prize for a long time. There's an infamous car ride between me and Elon Musk where we both decided to start working on space. So we're gonna start talking about space today. Let me not delay any further and bring Bob on the line. But one quick thing, if you have questions for me or for Bob about space, there's a chat area on the side of your screen. You can click it, type it in there. We will be reading the chat and popping your questions into the dialogue with Bob. So, without further ado, we got an amazing gentleman joining us today, Dr. Bob Richards. He's truly probably the pioneer of entrepreneurial space. He, you know, everything from the ISU, International Space University, to his current company, which I'll let him talk about in a moment. I don't want to spoil the fun. Bob, I can go on for about 20 minutes about your background, but let's hear your background from you.

Adiós, you're making me blush, Shion. Thank you very much. It's, uh, you know, space is probably something that is my earliest memory as a boy. There's, you know, I was one of these fortunate people that never doubted what I wanted to do. With my life. My earliest memories are walking around the rocket garden at the Kennedy Space Center during family vacations down to Florida. So there was never a question of what I wanted to do with my life, but it's only been recently in the last 10 years or so, Adel. And I guess I was trying to think of when we first met, and I think it was more than 10 years ago. I think, I think it was—

Yeah, it's like 2000, I think.

Yeah, it was like the— it was the International Space Development Conference in in Washington, D.C., if I remember. We were both Spanish.

Didn't I meet you through Blastoff though beforehand, possibly?

We might have a day. Wow, that goes back to like '90, right?

2001, 2001, actually.

Crazy, crazy. Yeah, 2001. So, so, so my, my journey has been through creating institutions, companies, and organizations all dedicated to helping humanity become a multi-world species. From the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space with Peter Diamandis and Todd Hawley in the early '80s, to the Space Generation Foundation, which arrived around 1985 and gave rise to the International Space University, which we founded in 1987, and onward through a number of commercial space enterprises to where we are today at this amazing epoch of at the dawn of a new era of commercial space exploration.

I mean, I can't agree with you more. And for those of you who don't know, Bob has been the major champion of private space that I know of. There's some people that may have a higher profile in some ways than Bob, but Bob has been the rock of Gibraltar, if you will, in terms of just steadily moving the ball forward with the privatization and entrepreneurial efforts in space. There are a ton of people from all over the world. I'm looking at someone writing in Arabic, so I can't tell you where you're from, but I've seen Paris, Seattle, Singapore, just China. It's crazy. We have a great Great group of people here. So let's jump right in the first question and we're taking your questions. So pop them in the chat and I'm trying to read them as well. We're gonna cover 3 things, the viability of a space-based business today, interesting segments of space businesses, and then tips from your experiences in space. Let's start with the viability. You know, what's changed? What's made it possible today for an entrepreneur to consider a space business that was maybe impossible 20 years ago?

So, Dale, I think, you know, what's really changed is the advent of exponential technologies. We've all been dreaming about doing space ventures for a long time. A lot of us were starting such ventures back in the '90s with, you know, some levels of success. But it's only in the last 10 years, maybe 15, that technology has been exponentially dematerializing hardware into software, The powers of computation have, you know, driven what used to be the size of the room into something this size that can power a spacecraft. So with that comes the collapsing of the cost of the barrier to entry. And that's really been one of the major challenges with any commercial space startup is there's a huge capital cost in the barrier to entry. And now Small groups backed by venture capital are not just attempting but doing what was only done by superpower governments in the past. So space is now— it's now democratizing access to everybody. Everybody can start a space company and get to a revenue opportunity very quickly. A lot of those companies are based, as you know, Adel, in low Earth orbit, where you're closer to the credit cards on Earth. You know, the farther you get away from the credit cards, the more challenging that business case is. In our case—

Unless, of course, we put a credit card system on Mars and then we'll be close.

Right. We'll have the Bank of the Moon and then the Bank of Mars and we'll be better, right? And, you know, as my current venture, Moon Express, is reaching for the moon, to me, that's that next logical step where we can move the economic sphere of Earth outward. From where it is primarily today in geosynchronous orbit, about 25,000 miles out from the Earth, is this sphere of economics where billions of dollars of commerce happens routinely, a very mature market. And we need to move that up. Right.

So I want you to stay— let's not jump farther than that because I think this is a great point. And I don't— like sometimes you say things and it gets lost on the audience because you come from such a space background. We want to inspire people to think about space. So Essentially what you're saying is today, if you get to low Earth orbit or orbit, there are many, many billions of dollars of commercial transactions occurring already. These are like bent pipe opportunities for satellites. These are mapping and other things. And you're also saying that those type of opportunities which were previously way too expensive for a startup to pursue have become viable in this kind of low Earth orbit to orbit zone because of exponential growth in technologies. Did I miss anything that you want to add?

No, that's right. And that together with the most precious resource we have on the planet, is a convinced mind. And so thank you, Elon, and thank you, Adeo, for the early convincing that you did. Today, when you walk into a potential investor or VC, you don't have the giggle factor anymore about, I want to start a commercial enterprise. There's a serious attention. And that's because of the great trails that have been blazed so far. And so it encourages a younger generation of entrepreneurs to come together and do 1,000 more things. You know, this is just the beginning. We need 1,000 more businesses in space. Right.

So let me ask you on that comment. And I agree with that 100%. And then the reason I agree with it is that we have essentially a— if we're going to go to Mars and go to the moon and do all these things, we need many, many businesses working on space today. Otherwise, it just will not be possible. Can— and I mean, maybe this is a bit of a rhetorical question, but just on the viability of space businesses, you know, can you build a big business? So, you know, if I'm an entrepreneur and I'm going to make a fintech company, I'm sure it can be a big company. But if I'm an entrepreneur and I want to build a space company, can it be a big company today?

Well, like all big companies, they start with a dramatic idea that could disrupt the status quo. And I've always started space companies in a relatively small way with achievable goals. And that's one of the challenges you have as an entrepreneur in space, not to talk about goals that are 10 or 15 years out that will cost hundreds of millions or billions of capitalization. But near-term achievable goals. And all of those things are possible. And it starts with the access to space at day— you know, this is really the game changer. And great entrepreneurs like Elon and Jeff and Richard and others are collapsing the cost of transportation rockets from the surface of the Earth to low Earth orbit. So it's a lot less expensive now. Space is a lot more accessible. And what I would love people to start thinking about is what then? You know, what are the new enterprises? What are the new entrepreneurial companies that we need to build a cislunar, meaning all of the space between the Earth and the Moon, a cislunar economy that will help then propel us out into the solar system to Mars and everywhere else.

We're going to go into segments in a moment. Let me go into a couple of questions that are coming from the audience here. A little bit of echo. The team could— yeah, thank you guys. So, wow. I mean, we're getting a lot of questions, by the way, and people are from all— from Africa, I'm seeing, from really everywhere. Germany, Ecuador.

Yeah, it's amazing.

JC was asking, and these are in no particular order. We're going to try and get to all your questions in logical sequence of the agenda. If I wanted to get started career to build a space startup, what might be the best academic next steps to take? You know, if any, you know, maybe you could just start right now, but you know a lot because you founded ISU.

So, uh, I, right, and there's a reason for that. So International Space University, maybe we could just spend a minute on that and answer, uh, help answer the question of what should we study. Space is a very interesting industry because it doesn't involve a single discipline. You can't go to space without involving all disciplines. And growing up as a student in the '80s, trying to figure out where I wanted to go to university, and the same story is true of Peter Diamandis and Todd Hawley, we were all students looking for where do we want to study? What do we study? Because we want to be involved in space. The challenges are typically that typical traditional university systems are very topic-centric. So you can go study astronomy or engineering or policy, but space requires all of these. And this is the reason we started the International Space University, which this year is celebrating its 30th— oh my gosh— year of operation. We're in Cork, Ireland today with our space studies program. But we have an interdisciplinary curriculum, and I can tell you, Adel, that the engineering and the technology is, of course, a challenge, but among the biggest challenges that I faced recently trying to reach beyond Earth orbit to the Moon has been policy and regulatory. So we need it all, and if you're studying anything for space, study what you love, right? That's my my best advice is make sure you study what you love, but find partnerships and networks of people who complement you, who share the same passion for space, but have complementary skills because you're going to need it all in no matter what company that you start for space.

Well, and I think that's really interesting what you just brought up. So you're not saying like, hey, go study astrophysics or astronomy or this or that. You're actually saying you could study something as non-obvious as political science or law and work on the regulatory side. And as you're saying, that's probably one of the more important areas of innovation that are needed right now.

Yes.

And Robert, in a related way, was asking, you know, what innovations in education that you feel are required to keep up with the demand for experts in space and space exploration? I think you were saying study what you love, but ISU kind of takes this multidisciplinary approach. Right. But are there any other innovations just to address Robert's questions? We got a lot of questions.

Well, I think the diversity of our audience, Adao, is testament to the fact that space is not just interdisciplinary, but intercultural and international. So it's really important that— that everybody have a sense that build a sensitivity and an awareness of how other people in other parts of the world live, think, and aspire. And even though there's a common foundation of a love of space, the approaches to business, the approaches to interactions are very important. And that's part of what I think an important experience is to go to, to travel a lot. To network people all over the world.

You're in Cork, right, right now?

Yes, the 2017 Space Studies Program of the International Space University is kicking off this month in Cork, Ireland. Yes, last year we were in Israel, and we have a central campus in Strasbourg, France, and we have a program during the July-August timeframe that goes to a different place in the world every year.

I was just in Cork over the weekend, and we announced—

Really?

Yeah, it's a beautiful place. The Berkeley of Ireland. But we just announced a partnership with the European Space Agency, which we'll be putting up on the site momentarily, where they're going to be helping Star Fellows with money and other resources as appropriate. And they have an incubation hub in Cork. So that's amazing. Awesome. And speaking of international and this internationalization, sorry to cut you off. We do have a lot of questions. So I want to try and get to them all. "Can space startups be based in international waters?" A question from Chris. And, you know, I'll just quickly address that. You know, it's funny because Elon did SpaceX in Kwajalein, which is, you know, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. And, you know, there's a bunch of people that have been looking at launching off of barges and other types of ships. You know, what are your views on that? Does it matter? I mean, I understand if you're a US citizen, you're bound by ITAR anyway. So it doesn't matter if you put it in the middle of the ocean.

Yeah, it's, there's really no, there's really no loophole on planet Earth. You are born, you can change citizenships, but you are whatever our planet is organized, our civilization is organized through sovereign groups, which really make up the way that we behave as human beings and we organize ourselves legally. So you can't— there's no place to go on the Earth that you're not subject to some sovereign or national laws. You just can't get away from it. And, and launching out of, let's say, international waters doesn't help, uh, in the end, because you— the, the space— where was the spacecraft built? It would have been built in some country which has its own laws subject to. And then once you get into space, and this is the realm of the policy and the regulatory challenges that we're working on, particularly in the U.S. right now, but and other countries that are making innovations like Luxembourg and the UAE is how does this all work once you're outside of Earth orbit and you're in space or on another world? Who has jurisdiction over that and how does that work? And a lot of this has to do with the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. And if anybody is on watching here and doesn't know what that is, please take a look because it's a real thing. And it governs the behavior of humans in space and has been doing so for decades.

Maybe we can find a link and paste some stuff into the chat. So, wow, there's so many questions and so much enthusiasm. Let's get to a few more. So I'll try and hurry it along. Well, let's move on, my team said. So we're going to go into interesting space segments because a lot of people are talking about that. Now we keep coming back to policy, right? So obviously that's an area that wouldn't have been wasn't the first thing that I thought of, but I bet there could be various lobbying groups and other things. But since you keep coming back to policy questions, have tied back to policy, you know, what are some ideas around startups and policy that could make a difference? Obviously, some sort of lobbying group would be one. You have other ideas?

Well, I guess it's the influence of what to do that's important in the policy right now. And it's not just the United States, every country has to come to terms with, with how they're going to, uh, be— if they're a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty, which over 100 countries are, let's assume that for the first place— how a country supports entrepreneurship and new companies and new entrepreneurs but also remains compliant with the Outer Space Treaty. Uh, that's, uh, that's quite a challenge right now. Uh, you know, where I've always had the view of where explorers go, lawyers follow. I always like it in that order.

We gotta quote that: "Where explorers go, lawyers follow." Right.

However, I got caught with that in late 2015 with Moon Express and our venture to be the first private sector company to reach the Moon. When the United States, however positive and deliberate everybody was in wanting to see that happen had no ability to say yes. So the answer was effectively no. So, so, uh, so it's really important to, uh, uh, just if you're going to start something with policy, then it's largely a communications and, uh, and, uh, an advocacy effort. Uh, but I think policy will, uh, mostly be impacted by actually doing things, right? So in the common law that permeates most of the planet, it's important to set the precedence, right? And that's one of the things that are, I think, on the shoulders of we entrepreneurs that are doing things on distant shores or in areas where, you know, to go where no lawyer has gone before type of thing. Setting precedence, right? That's the case law for the future.

To go where no lawyer has gone before, to set the policy. It's exactly right. If you do something I mean, let's be honest, most of the space startups from Virgin Galactic to SpaceX and onward are creating, and yourself with the Moon Express, are creating the policies as they're achieving their missions. That's a beautiful statement.

Right, and getting back to the point that it's an international endeavor, Adil, everybody on this web, webinar, right, from all over the planet is involved in this question.

Yeah, I know, and it's amazing. People are kind of like, I still reading from Slovakia, etc. So, uh, E was asking, can you name the top 5, uh, specific technical opportunities for startups, right? Because you can— we talked a little bit, there's so many opportunities, right? Because we talked about the low Earth orbit to orbit, and but like there also needs to be technology innovation.

Right?

And so you probably deal with this yourself, right? You're trying to land something on the moon and you got to source stuff. Like, what are some of the big technology innovations that you see are needed?

So propulsion is a big deal. You know, the finding a way— we're still dealing with—

Now, are you talking about Earth or all sets of propulsion? Because you got propulsion to get off Earth and then propulsion when you're in space.

Good point. Good point. All propulsion. So, you know, we're dealing with basic technologies of exploding chemicals coming out the back of a tube, right, to get off the planet. And then once you're in an Earth orbit and you are able to escape Earth, let's say transit Earth gravity into deep space, you're kind of halfway to anywhere. So then the propulsion is how do you get, because of the vast distances, how do you get someplace quickly? So propulsion technology is very important. Energy, batteries, a lot of the things that are being innovated on Earth, we just need to embrace those and send them into space. And Adeo, as you know, part of the challenge has been that the government— technology, space technology in the hands of the governments alone has an adversity to innovation where—

Yeah, I mean, Tony Spear told me a hilarious story. That his system to land something on Mars was just plain stupid, but it worked. And, you know, like heat shield, parachute, balloons. He's like, this is the stupidest thing you could have possibly concocted. But since it worked, everyone kept using it. Right. And so, you know, that's what you have with a lot of traditional space is like, oh, it works. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But that means that they're using, you know, quite old technology across the board in a lot of things. So, okay, batteries, propulsion, you know, any sort of energy creation. You know, Herb was asking, of all the problems that space startup can solve, which has the greatest economic value for a venture-backed one? So do you favor saying like Earth observation, telecommunications, or something completely different?

Those are the, those are the best go-to places right now. You know, again, staying close to the credit cards, right, uh, is the most obvious stepping stone. Uh, and, and a lot of companies, that's if you look at where most of the VC capital is going right now and the, and the private equity capital, it's going into Earth observation, uh, basically, uh, monetizing pixels. right, that, uh, that look down on Earth. And there's just so much, uh, concern about the Earth. It's, it's a great market. Uh, we're trying to solve, you know, a billion-dollar problem. Uh, that's also a billion-dollar opportunity. Uh, and, and that's, uh, so that's a great place to start. And, and the— as we're talking about the cost of access to space, you could do with a CubeSat today what that used to take a government satellite that would take up a living room, right? So these things are very doable these days.

So Earth observation, telecommunications. So close to the credit cards, you know, a lot of times I hear like fintech ideas in space. So monitoring parking lots, things like that to say, okay, how's Walmart doing? Well, let's look at their parking lots, right? What are some other, you know, like slightly non-obvious ones?

I've got one that hasn't been effectively tackled, or, and it's a huge market. And that's, uh, the more stuff that goes up into space, the more stuff that's up there. We call it, and when it's past its useful lifetime, we'll call it debris, right? So space debris. And there's an accumulating number of objects in space, tens of thousands, that are not just, you know, garbage. And it's just, it just feels bad to have that all up there, but it's increasingly becoming a hazard. To existing platforms and our future platforms. So, you know, getting into the garbage business has been historically, you know, there's always garbage, but in space, it's a challenge. And there's a huge opportunity there to provide something of enormous value to the planet in solving the space debris problem.

Space garbage collection, you know, yeah, it's a racket, maybe eventually run by the mob, right? Right?

Right.

Yeah, we've taken over space garbage as well.

Yeah, I think simple transportation, garbage, all the basic utilities that you need for a civilization in space, the private sector should do.

I want to go back a little bit to E's question and Alex has another question, but I want to just— so some technical opportunities you brought up, like, you know, power, propulsion, all these things, you know, you're sending things to the moon, right? And so once you get in space, uh, and, and, you know, I don't know as much about this as you do, you're much more of an expert. Is there the need to harden some of the technologies that you have here on the planet to make them space ready? Or for the most part, can you repackage them as they are?

It's a great point and a great question, Adeo. The, the traditional thing is you just harden things, right? Just protect things. But the trouble is when you harden something, you add more mass, it becomes more dumb mass if you're standing in space. You want smart mass, right? And for the most part, you want to deal with atoms, right? And electrons, not massive shielding. So with the collapse of cost of technology and the increase of computation exponentially, redundancy rather than security, right? Becomes, I think, a more effective way to do it. And so don't coat the thing in lead, put two little wafers or three or five, right?

Right.

And then, and then the frequency of opportunity and where your risk is spread across many platforms. And if you look at, you know, the great planet, the great company Planet, which is started by friends of ours, you know, hundreds and hundreds of doves, these satellites that if one fails, Okay.

So Planet Labs is created by Will Marshall and it's a terrestrial mapping company with micro, essentially microsatellites, right? And so the redundancy, they might have some redundancy per unit, but the redundancy comes from just launching a bunch of them up. That's right. If I fail, so what?

Right, right. So, you know, in my company, Moon Express, we're used to think about monolithic lunar missions that would cost hundreds of millions or a billion dollars, and it just had to be successful. And when failure is not an option, success becomes very expensive. So rather than that paradigm, we're looking at small robotic spacecraft that the mission would be less than $10 million. And so you could send 5 or 10 of these little guys up on a Falcon 9 shroud and just kind of like have a flotilla, right? Of vehicles going to the moon, and if 1 or 3 don't make it, doesn't really matter.

Okay, so, um, let's— I wanna— I know my team's like, come on guys, let's get tactical. And before we get tactical, I, I— we gotta inspire people here because I'm just gonna be blunt, um, if we don't get off this, uh, planet in, in the next 10 years, shame on us, right? The promise for us to be living off-planet at scale has been unrealized for 50 years, give or take, 40 to 50 years. And we have all the technology to do it now, to your point, and the cost is coming down. So, you know, one of the things we talked about, 1,000 new companies need to be formed. So, you know, when I look at it, okay, there's what I would call short-term opportunities, which are, as you were pointing out, near the credit card. And those are things that, as you're close to credit card, you can probably make money in space within a few years, right? There's sort of medium-term opportunities, which are things like propulsion and stuff like that, like enabling technologies, if you will. Creating redundant systems for space power, et cetera. And then there's somewhat longer-term opportunities, maybe in the 10-year horizon, when we start to reach Mars or the moon again as humanity, and we might live there, you're going to need all sorts of food production.

Everything that we need is— everything we need on Earth, you're going to need up there. Right? So it's not—

Well, and some other things. We don't really need air purification and recycling on Earth as much as we'll need it in space, right? But here's the important thing about those. They're longer lead time things anyway, right? If you're going to be working on air and water, a complete recycling system for space or food production for space or whatever else, Oh, it might take you 5 years to get the business off the ground. So, I think that it's close to the credit card opportunities are obvious, right? The medium-term opportunities of propulsion, power storage, there are opportunities to use that on Earth and in space. So, I think those in many cases, so those are kind of obvious too. Do you think you can monetize these longer-term things or how would you go about doing that? And this might be a good segue into the tips. So, right, if I wanted to do space food production today, right?

Yeah.

And like, where would I get money for that? Would you even recommend doing that?

So, so the acquiring money to do research, uh, is, uh, traditionally done through applying for grants to NASA. It hasn't— not— it's— it hasn't been a— it's not— and it's not going to be an opportunity for private equity unless there's actually an endgame market, right, where you could show that this is going to lead to something, uh, whether it's a sale of technology, um, or it's a platform for a new business. Uh, so, so these, these realms of developing new operations, operational systems in space, uh, a day— it's a big challenge, right? How do you— how do you— that's the whole— that's, that's the whole challenge is how do you— how do you bridge between where you are now and where that larger vision of commerce in space is.

Well, my view is like, based on talking with friends like Elon and others, I mean, we're going to be on Mars 2025, maybe even 2022. I mean, I've heard sooner, but I think that's crazy. So, you know, sometime in the 2020s, right? That's not that far away.

That's absolutely it. And it's happening now. And I think this is to your point, Adil, that We need 1,000 companies 10 years from now. We have to start 100 this year and 300 next year. And there's going to be a complete renaissance in space over the next few years where markets will become obvious. So, so the entrepreneurs that get involved now and are the first movers in these marketplace will start servicing as soon as people believe we're going beyond Earth and we're going to the moon and to Mars. Then everything's going to be needed. Everything's going to be needed. And those markets will arise.

Well, I think, I mean, let's just get tactical for a moment here. You know, maybe this is something we can do through the Starfell initiative, but there has to be a crazy idea fund, if you will, because what seems a little bit crazy right now, as you brought up, sort of in 3 years will be less crazy, in 5 years will be sort of cutting edge, and in 10 years will be necessary. And so, again, like, "Hey, I'm starting." So, SpaceX said they're going to be designing a really cool spacesuit, right? Well, spacesuits are stuck in the '60s. I don't know. I mean, you've probably seen them more than I have.

We need the Gucci spacesuit, right?

Yeah. I mean, they're the ugliest things you could possibly imagine. They're cumbrous and awful. I mean, we need everything, right? We need suits, we need life support, telecommunications, communications. I mean, there's a lot of stuff. So, maybe some sort of crazy idea fund that helps these entrepreneurs get off the ground now.

And isn't Founders Institute a great incubator for something like that to happen?

Well, we're not going to stop any crazy ideas at all. We think they're awesome. Right. Amen to you. If you have a crazy idea to build a life support system for interplanetary travel, I'd love to help you figure out how to get it funded and survive until it's necessary. But it won't be that long in the whole scheme of things. Just to take a step back on that, Bob, and then we have so many questions. Sorry, I'm just I'm just on a big tangent here. I want to be, I'm going to get to your questions. Apologies. But so, if you start a tech startup in social media analytics, okay, it's going to take you 2 years before you know if the idea is any good. Okay. It's going to take you 5 years before you know if you have a real business and it might take you 10 years to maximize the value. Candidly, those timelines are aligning with our deep space exploration human timetable. So really a crazy idea today in space following a traditional technology timeline will align with our exploration needs. Now let's go to the question. Sorry, everybody. Bob and I can geek out about space later offline. Batis was asking, How can Americans start a space startup if they do not have pre-seed or any financing? Are there any VCs that will pre-seed space startups? You've raised money in space, you're a great guy to talk about this.

So you have to, right, Adeo, so if you just start, if you're just starting out with a great idea, there are entities called angels. People, you need to find people who believe in you, that will be able to put in some seed money. Of course, you need to be all in too. And Adele, I don't think we should get through this without gloss, without, you know, without saying how hard any startup is and being an entrepreneur is. You have to have relentless conviction, relentless passion.

And Bob, you're a testament to that. Just to let everybody know, Bob is the embodiment of a great entrepreneur. And he has suffered to make his dreams of space come true time and time again and prevailed through the suffering, right? I mean, you know, it's like torture. But honestly, it doesn't matter if it's a space.

It doesn't matter once you do it, right? It doesn't matter. Everything in life is hard. So you've got to do what you love and just be completely obsessively committed to making it happen. And entrepreneurship, no matter what you take on, is going to be a tough road.

There are a bunch of dedicated groups, space angel groups. So let me outline some things and maybe you can add to them. So to your point, you got to go all in, but you have to go all in whether you're starting a social media analytics company or a space company. It doesn't matter. You have to go all in. There are Founder Institute, for example, will give you free admission to our program, expert advisors. So you get that, boom. And we have chapters all where these people in the audience are from Singapore, South Africa, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Chile, I saw Europe. Then there are incubation programs. I believe There might be something you can talk about in a moment, but there's also the European Space Agency. NASA has the NASA Apps Challenge with prizes. So there's little programs and bigger programs that can give you a little bit of money. Then you can go get some angel money and their dedicated angel groups like Space Angels. And then you can start going into seed fund and venture and their groups like Draper Fisher Jurvetson, who's a partner who really is looking for great innovative space ideas. Is there anything you can announce on the— or talk about on the incubation front, or—

Oh, for me? Yes. Yeah. Right. Thanks for that leading question. It's really important for the entrepreneurs to help the next generation of entrepreneurs. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy of growing things and I've been fortunate enough to be able to establish operations down at the place that first inspired me as a boyadeo, as you know, down at Cape Canaveral. Moon Express occupies two launch complexes now, the old Delta pads, Launch Complex 17, and the pads just north of it, 18. And there in 70 acres of hallowed ground where much of the exploration of the solar system began. Uh, we are not just building our own Field of Dreams, but we're going to build it out as a, as an opportunity, an incubator, a, a commercial spaceport. Uh, we will help facilitate great new companies and new ideas and help solve the pain points through our presence that they would otherwise have to experience themselves, and have them come in and operate in our facilities, provide them Uh, so it's like combination incubation, co-working, right?

It's in, in like the, the hub of where space, yeah, in many ways began.

Yeah, well, we're both, you know, I think we came to Silicon Valley about the same time, um, 2007-ish, I think, Adeo. Uh, during that was an ISU led to Singularity University thing for me, and I just never left. And it wasn't until— and this was a great place to start This— I am in Silicon Valley now, by the way. I'm just down the road from you, actually, Adil. Ah, so what I say, they, uh— so here in Silicon Valley is a great place to start. Uh, we incubated Moon Express, uh, uh, resident at the NASA Ames Research Center for the first 5 years of its life. Then we relocated the company to the Florida Space Coast, uh, at Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center, which is where I am now resident, and the company's focused. So That's kind of becoming a new entrepreneurial focus. You have SpaceX there now, you have Blue Origin building all its facilities, you have OneWeb, you have Moon Express, and it's becoming a new hub of commercial space activity. So I do encourage people to take a look at both coasts.

But, and you've raised money, so, you know, just there's so many questions about raising money, and I don't want to like, so I mean, basically your point just to close out that thread is to say, and there's some more precise ones, but the first question from Batis is like, look, the money's there. It will all be easy, but it's not easy either way, right?

I mean, you raise—

yeah, the money's there. I mean, it's not easy, but, um, okay. And then like, there, Valentin asked a question. This is an interesting one. How do early space hardware startups get funding if first the prototypes will cost, uh, $1 to $2 million Uh, you know, yeah, that's a good question.

Yeah, I can't imagine a prototype costing $1 to $2 million that you need to create right out of the gate. Um, that, that's just, I think that's the wrong level of thinking.

Uh, you, right, you built a lot of space hardware.

I'm going to build a spacecraft going to the moon for that amount of money. I mean, so, so think, so, so think another magnitude less or maybe two, right? And the prototypes don't need to be spaceworthy, period. And, and what is spaceworthy these days? And space, uh, space qualified is a traditional term that came out of the thou shalt not fail culture of large aerospace government programs. Uh, you can send components into space that are almost off-the-shelf commercial, and in some cases are, that are just perfectly fine, right? You're not designing missions to last typically 10 years, and to go out, uh, to Jupiter, uh, you need things to operate and, and, and have a life cycle so you can replenish, right, and get the frequency of product up. So if you're thinking of products that are going to be out of the gate $1 to $2 million as a prototype, um, uh, I, I think it has to be magnitude less than that, and that's a fundable challenge, right?

And I mean, what about things like I don't, I haven't seen it recently, but I haven't seen anything on Kickstarter. Have any of the traditional kind of hardware funding things been used for space, or you just don't think that's even worth it?

Uh, uh, you got to think out of the, not just outside the box, outside the planet, outside this. You've got to think, yeah, and think about other disciplines. And this comes back to the importance of getting other people. If you're an engineer and you're stuck at You've got to get people from other disciplines that will disrupt your way of thinking and bring in new ideas. And it's that which will lead to the innovation that somebody with seed capital will take a venture on you.

So Temidayo, and I'm not sure where that name is from, maybe Japan, was asking, are there angels internationally investing in space? Now you started the International Space University.

So we did, we did. And now that's a different model because that's, uh, it's philanthropic. It's, uh, it started in the US as a 501(c)(3), which means a nonprofit, uh, uh, academic, uh, institution. Uh, it's now formulated— so it's a university. So it's a different model. And, and I guess that's a good point though, that start— a startup doesn't necessarily have to— a startup that is impactful and solves global problems and creates massive opportunities does not necessarily have to be a for-profit model. If you're after venture capital, there should be some sort of P&L associated, but it doesn't mean you can't impact the future and do amazing things with different types of models. Singularity University began as a nonprofit and it migrated into what's called a benefits corporation, which is a nice mix between for-profit and and grand philanthropic purpose. International Space University Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, another plug, is another organization that takes donations and philanthropy and goodwill rather than generating, promising to generate profit from investment. It still does fantastic things.

So you don't necessarily, so, so you don't necessarily have to start a for-profit. I love that. You could look at a benefits model. You should try pretty much anything for funding, which I don't disagree with. But back to the question though, I asked it because your experience internationally, do you see international startups raising money in angel money?

The answer is not no. But my personal experience is that, and I went back in previous incarnations of my commercial lunar models, Adeo, that, you know, you began with me on over a decade ago. I looked everywhere for money, right? Offshore, actually my first companies weren't US at all, right? They were offshore companies and I was in Canada at the time. But it wasn't until I came here to Silicon Valley that I found the culture that understood at least the visions that I was talking about. And there's an aptitude and an attitude for risk-taking and everything else. That's not prevalent everywhere in the world for sure. Uh, it doesn't mean it's not every— everywhere else in the world, but the— but the bashing of commercial space, this— the— the centerpiece of commercial space is happening, uh, mostly on the West Coast of the United States, but elsewhere, uh, growing on, uh, and— and starting to happen in other parts of the world. But, uh, the— the— the attitude towards commercial space And the conversion of a government-centric thought of how space has to work to a public-private or commercial paradigm is slow internationally. So it's a, it's a much bigger challenge to raise money for commercial ventures outside of the United States and in particular the West Coast of the United States. What are—

so Simon was asking, because we mentioned a bunch of hubs in the U.S., um, and they're really a lot because you have Seattle, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Florida, etc. Simon was asking, what are some of the hubs outside of the US for space? Now, you mentioned the ISU's Stuttgart campus, you mentioned Cork, which I know—

Strasbourg, yeah.

Strasbourg, sorry. What are some others?

So, All corners of the Earth have little pockets of entrepreneurial, well, far-reaching commercial space thoughts. UAE is doing some amazing things. Luxembourg is in the news a lot these days. Good for Luxembourg, right? Using policy or innovations in policy to attract space companies and adding a little bit of, well, a lot actually of money doesn't hurt. The Isle of Man has been for a long time promoting friendliness to commercial space ventures. And maybe some other pockets, but—

Well, I've heard of Brazil, some stuff down in Brazil, for example. I know the NASA Space App Challenge is running big in Brazil. So there are pockets everywhere.

There are.

Japan, I've heard of some things. Which was a good segue. There's a bunch of questions I want to get to. So, Veliko, I hope I'm pronouncing Veliko, is NASA permitted to fund foreign startups or innovations? Now, the NASA Space App Challenge does fund programs all around the world, but I think it's prize money.

Yeah, that's right. That's a little different. NASA is a congressional body and by law is not allowed to send US dollars outside of the US. However, there's a lot of international collaboration that NASA does where there's no exchange of funds. So that's— so NASA's everywhere in the world. But if you're not a United States— that was my challenge as being a Canadian. I had to get into the United States and start a company here in order to be eligible for NASA partnerships.

Um, if— and Richard was asking, if you were to found a new space startup, where would you do it?

Another one?

Yeah, well, it's more like he's— I think he's acting like, if you— with all the knowledge you have now, right, I, I want— where would you start if you could, um, today?

And where is he right now?

It's not clear because he asked, would you recommend Europe, Asia, or the US?

So it's US. It's anywhere in the US, but particularly in Silicon Valley is just the place where people are redefining the possible and the access to money and the successful company startups only in the last 5 years are just showing that these— so there's a There's a bit of a pile-on going on, and it's a great place if you have a great new idea. You can get in and talk to people. People will listen. Singularity University is right here in Silicon Valley, located at NASA Ames. And if there's some students out there that are thinking, how do I break into these innovative cultures? I didn't know what Silicon Valley was, Adil, back in 2008. It was a myth to me, like so many. No formulas or books or textbooks you could read on how do you become a Silicon Valley entrepreneur. I only, by coming here and, and understand, learn, meeting the people, understanding the culture, immersing myself, completely committing myself, uh, did I learn, um, how the system works and, uh, could align my dreams with the ways that it could be financed. And I had to reinvent my business model completely. In order to get the first funding for, for, uh, for Mint Express.

I remember I was there.

Yes, you were absolutely there. You helped me make a very hard decision.

Well, you know, listen, that's what friends are for, right? So let's, let's talk a little bit. There's some— ah man, so many questions. Uh, Gazard was asking— I hope— or Gorazd was asking, um, what niches in the space industry have the lowest barriers to entry Hence, most viable for someone without a big budget, right? So, there are probably a lot of people— and then, Shiraz was asking, so I'll try— or Shaz was asking, excuse me, is there a need for software startups so you don't even need to do any hardware, right?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So, that's a great point too. So, I guess to the first question, you can send CubeSats in space. High schools send CubeSats into space. Uh, so, so for on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars, not millions, you can build a spacecraft. Maybe tens of thousands of dollars you could build a spacecraft. And there are ways that you can get your spacecraft into space, uh, for free, uh, through NASA. And I'm sure there are other, uh, European Space Agency I'm sure has a program. I'm not aware of it, but I'm sure there is one. But, uh, you can find ways to get your products into space, uh, for tech demonstrations and so forth. So I think That's, that's important. Um, what was the second part of the question, Indale?

Well, and is there software opportunities? Because that's obviously the low part. So there's low-cost hardware opportunities, and what about software?

How do we just get, you know, 4 people sitting around a kitchen table and creating, creating software that becomes a space company? Uh, software is, is a great opportunity, uh, for, for getting involved in space. The, uh, the more that you can create spacecraft capabilities with electrons rather than atoms, the less cost to the barrier of any product in space there will be. So I know in my own companies, ADEO software has been a huge challenge.

And can you give some specifics of what you could use? I mean, obviously some may be too niche, but if you had a, like, What are the top 5 software challenges you're facing today?

Yeah, so, so, uh, in, in space, spacecraft control, um, uh, is, uh, is, is an evolving architecture. NASA has recently, uh, democratized access to a lot of the software that it's been using for its spacecraft. So a lot of this, a lot of the software, the core the core operating software. What's the operating system that you build a spacecraft application on? A lot of that is actually available now through NASA. You have to be a US organization, I'm pretty sure, to get access to that. But building the apps on top of that, where the biggest challenge that we have in space is that the bandwidth coming down from space is typically very limited. The farther you go up from Earth, the more limited that bandwidth is. So getting the compression, getting the smart conversion of data into information on the planet, all of those are opportunities for software.

Yeah, and I didn't want to interrupt you, but you brought up something very interesting. NASA's actually going through a massive initiative right now to take stuff that they have in their archives, et cetera, and put them into the public domain. And so, there are just as you brought up, there are probably very large opportunities to take some underlying software and/or hardware and/or innovations and then build on top of them businesses.

Yeah, yeah.

And as you know, in technology transfer for those of you who I don't know, but sorry, Bob. Yeah?

No, that's right. Technology transfer. And Adele, as you know, we've pioneered a lot of this. It happened a lot at NASA Ames. Thank you, NASA Ames, and thank you, Pete Worden, for being so innovative when you were director there. It was the— we had an opportunity to partner with NASA, basically pay NASA. There are actually a mechanism that you can pay NASA to get access technology for pennies on the million. So these are technologies— in our case, we got access to an entire robotic moon lander platform that had been developed through taxpayer money and had gone through its life cycle of its purpose and had just been kind of sitting there. So we were able to invest some additional capital, a delta amount, and get further value out of that technology and that hardware. And we learned right, how to fly lunar landers by utilizing a NASA spacecraft that had been part of a prior program. And we continued that model forward, uh, even to today. And NASA has, in the past few years, as you say, Adele, uh, is really opening up its inventory of just an unbelievable amount of hardware and software and capabilities that are sitting around and saying, hey, Hey, you know, if you guys think you can come up with something to do with this, you know, please give us a proposal. So there's a very ripe opportunity there for the conversion of technology transfer into new applications for opportunities and entrepreneurship.

I'm getting goosebumps. The reaction here has been phenomenal. We'll try and do one, and they're like, don't stop, don't stop. You know, listen, I don't want to stop either. My favorite topic. I could talk about it for days. The next 3-day webinar will begin. Okay, so let's get one more question and then get some closing thoughts. So, you know, Adrian was asking, and I like this question, you know, what should an early-stage company focus on besides raising money? And I presume an early-stage company in space. So this is a topic, right? So I got my idea. I think it's a good idea. I know I need to probably raise money. And you built quite a few of these. So what do you do first?

As have you, Adeo. And I wonder if we haven't— because we haven't rehearsed this, right? I wonder if you have the same thought here. I would say spend time getting your partners right, right? Those 2, 3, or 5 other people. Make sure you get that startup team right. Because you're going to be living, eating, breathing everything together. So intensely, uh, and, and you have to be able to, uh, uh, all work at an insanely, uh, uh, uh, an insanely effective and committed level, right? So getting the team right is really important. That if you get the team right and, and you've got a clear vision that you're passionate about, yeah, everybody that you pitch, everybody you talk to will see that. Right? And they'll— and, and as I'm sure you'll agree, Adel, that, you know, when, when, when I'm approached, when you're approached by people with a great idea, the idea is kind of like, you know, okay, you know, your eyes might gloss over, but, but it's the person that you become convinced in, right? And it's the team that's really important. So get the team right.

Yeah, I would— and to your point about vision, you know, I would say in space vision is probably one of the most important things because it's very easy to get distracted.

So, but not, I agree with you, Adeo, but not. So, vision without wisdom will defeat itself. Okay. So, enthusiasm without wisdom. So, you have to have the vision and the enthusiasm, but it has to have a practical edge to it, right? Otherwise, you can get completely wound up in something that's just not going to fly, right? So, wisdom, enthusiasm has to go together. That's where getting the proper— once you've got the right team, make sure you have the right mentors.

We got so many questions here. We're going to archive them all and try and get another webinar going because we've had quite a few hundred people circle through, over almost 350 people live right now. What I want to do is, you know, rather than like, we need innovation in space and we got a few hundred people watching us right this second and this will be watched hundreds of more times. You know, if you were to give everyone a message and tell, and you've talked to hundreds of students and thousands of people about space and starting a space business. What would be your closing thoughts or final point?

So, first, I would want to dispel any uncertainties that it's possible. Anything is possible that you have conviction toward and you love, right? So, you can do it, right? There's nothing that is impossible. Anything you can dream and imagine, you can make happen. And then, it's about a completely committed a completely committed execution. So, it's not just about the vision is one thing. Everybody's got a million great ideas. It's not just, you know, ask your favorite Uber driver for a great idea and they'll have 100. And it's about the execution. So, make sure that you are passionate and clear about your vision and what you want to do and how you want to change the world. Think about changing the world. Think about big things but also have a clear idea of how you're going to execute on these things and come up with— you have to be above the level of credibility, right? So there's a lot— a line of credibility. You have to be above that credibility with your team, with your vision, with your plan. And people— and that's the most important thing: the team, the vision, and the plan. And be above that level of credibility. Get great mentors, people who believe in you. It can start with one person who knows somebody else but get a team of people around you who believe in you and can make the calls, make the introductions, and open the doors and give you that boost that you need.

I mean, I remember meeting Will Marshall of Planet Labs at NASA Ames. He's working in an asbestos-laden garage building lunar landers. And I was like, Will, you're so smart. What are you doing?

Now, anywhere.

Right now, he's running the most. And Steve Jurvetson said something, and I'll leave you with this, everyone, that you got to be on the right side of history. And if right now, what are the great human milestones? Advent of fire, cultivation of crops, and becoming a multi-planetary species. You know, I think that—

I don't think that— Right, Hideo, I'm so with you on this. I think if you can put something on the scale of human evolution, it's got to be worthwhile, right?

And I mean, so what are you going to spend your time on? Hey, Mom, I made a new app that like takes pictures of, you know, my, you know, chair.

Wow.

Or are you going to help us actually do some of probably the single most important thing in our evolution as a species, at least for the foreseeable future. I agree.

Learning how to be good stewards of our home planet while we become a multi-world species is the most important challenge facing this generation right now. The next 20, 30 years is going to define our future as a species, and we have a chance, maybe with a closing thought, um, Adeo, of We have a chance now to conquer new worlds without conquering each other. And I think it's really important the way that we emerge as a species in this space, that we don't take our conflicts with them, but think about new ways. And this is what's most important to me. And I think as we emerge out of our adolescence as a species, it's not guaranteed, but we have the opportunity to evolve into an adulthood as a spacefaring species. And I think that's— there's nothing more important than helping that happen.

Leaving our adolescence. I couldn't agree more, Bob. You know, we've run over and no one's really left because it's awesome. So thanks everyone for watching. Thank you, Bob. Let me just give you a big round of applause for coming out.

Thank you.

Ah, what a pleasure. We'll do another one and we'll get your questions on, on the next one because there's so many good ones, uh, Thank you everyone. Have a great afternoon, morning, and evening.

Live long and prosper. Bye everyone.

Bye everyone.