joining us now is Justin, Cyrus Ceo of lunar
outpost. Thank you so much for joining us Justin
I want to start by getting your view of the
space economy as a whole. So where do you
think we're going and how promising does it look for
you where we stand right now? Yeah, thanks
for having me, Shannon. Uh, really excited
to be here, I think to look at where
we're going in the space economy, we kind of
need to take a step back and look at where
we're at today. We have thousands of satellites in
Earth orbit providing communications, providing GPS, providing remote
imaging. That's pretty fundamental to the way our economies
operate here on earth now. All that being said
as the cost of launch goes down and we see
these heavy launch vehicles come online like sls like starship
, like Blue Origins, new glen that really starts
enabling new business cases further out into space. So
we're heading towards a future where there's a sustainable presence
not only on the moon but on mars and beyond
and that's going to be enabled by companies like ours
that are providing the robotic systems that are providing the
infrastructure to make that sustainability possible. And just to
reflect a little bit about where we're at on the
space economy today, it's a truly unique point.
We've never had public private partnerships that have been this
strong, we've never had the commercial opportunities that are
available today and we've never had the backing of the
venture community, the investment community as we do today
as well, so certainly, you know, and
I think the phantom space ceo was talking about it
a little bit the next decade is going to be
extremely exciting. Not only on the winter surface but
other key points in space as well. And we're
really looking forward to being a part of it.
I was saying it sounds like you already are a
part of it because you guys have a big mission
coming up next year. Can you tell us a
little bit more about that? Yeah so our first
mission is headed to the lunar south pole. So
what's pretty unique about the lunar south pole environment?
It's actually where Artemis astronauts are going to be heading
in 2025 2026. So think of these rover missions
as scouting missions, exploration missions. So we know
what the terrain looks like. We know what the
temperatures the radiation environment looks like. Um And it's
going to be critically important to collect that data early
now this first mission is launching on a SpaceX falcon
nine rocket landing on an intuitive machines, Nova C
. Lander. And this is gonna be the first
rover at this location in human history. So we're
gonna be collecting data and going places where no one
has ever been before. Now. One of the
most exciting things about this mission is that it's fully
commercial. So Nasa does have a payload on board
with us and we're actually gonna be collecting and selling
the first space resource to Nasa as a part of
this mission. But it is fully commercial. So
we have partners like Nokia M. I. T
. The italian space agency and others that are gonna
be riding along with us on mission one. Wow
that is so cool. So how will your partnership
with Nokia advance the future for human spaceflight? Yeah
Shannon. I love that question. I think it's
perfectly placed. So Nokia is providing inter lunar surface
communication and just real quick. What that means is
high bandwidth communication on the lunar surface and what that
allows is hundreds of devices whether it's astronauts that our
lives streaming face timing back here to earth are its
swarms of robotic systems that are communicating with each other
and also communicating with ground station or operations in sis
lunar space. So that high bandwidth communication is critical
for advanced technologies to be able to build out infrastructure
as we move forward. Now this first mission just
to give a clearer picture of what we're doing.
We're actually deploying to Nokia antennas on our first rover
which we're quite excited about. They'll be relaying information
data real time data. We're collecting back to our
intuitive machines lander which will be beaming them to ground
stations all across the globe here on earth and we
can get that data from the moon all the way
to back here to Earth in less than seven seconds
. So still a little bit of lack a little
bit of delay but significantly better than what communication communications
are in place now at much higher bandwidths seven seconds
. That's not bad at all considering it's coming from
out of space but but you're not gonna start there
. You're then partnering with Nasa on the next mission
set for 2020 for So what do you have in
store for that one? Yeah. Mission number two
is pretty exciting as well. Uh Really our job
along with johns Hopkins Applied Physics laboratory is to go
explore Reiner Gamma. So Reiner Gamma is a magnetic
anomaly on the lunar surface that has puzzled scientists for
hundreds of years. Uh So no one really knows
why it's there, why it formed. Um And
so we're taking a magnetometer, a microscope and a
few other science instruments to figure out exactly why that
magnetic anomaly is on the lunar surface. And that's
gonna tell us more about how the lunar surface was
formed, how the earth was formed and how our
solar system was formed. Which is really gonna push
forward our understanding of planetary science, which we're quite
excited about uh launch and landing is the same load
out for us on that one. So, SpaceX
falcon nine into the machine's nova. See just a
very different location on the winter surface and that's something
I do want to highlight. A lot of people
think of the moon as oh hey, it's it's
kind of just all the same right. You know
, it's just all gray rock and dust, but
in reality it's a very day dynamic environment. So
when you're looking at one of these equatorial regions verse
of lunar south pole mission, it's a very extremely
different environment. Not only from your temperature profile but
the resources, the materials that are actually there,
whether it's water, whether it's titanium, your platinum
group, metals, your palladium, your iron,
all of that differs depending on what spot you're on
on the winter surface. Now. You know,
I'm looking at this rover on the screen, I
thought it was a big like like truck or tanker
. And then I see the guy bringing in,
I'm like, oh that thing is small. So
are you just releasing one of them multiple? And
you know, and are there plans for larger ones
as well? Yeah, it's an excellent question.
So certainly early on in our design profile, we're
constrained by how much mass we can put on the
winter surface. But what's exciting is with these early
rovers, we've made them a lot smaller but they're
just as capable if not more capable than a lot
of the historic rovers. So these are around 10
kg class size of a small dog. But we
do have multiple other rovers as well that are larger
and more capable. But the idea behind these rovers
on the winter surface is not that we're just gonna
have one of them, not just have two of
them, but hundreds of these robots operating simultaneously in
swarms to build out infrastructure. So your habitat,
your roads, launch and landing pads, communication power
. And once we are able to do that,
then we want to utilize that infrastructure. We're building
to access the resources that are available on the moon
, further out in space for the betterment of humanity
. So with all of this that you're doing and
all the partnership that you have, I mean,
what's next? I mean, and how do you
measure your success? Because it seems like you guys
are doing it all. So what's next after these
missions? Much appreciated? It's, it's definitely an
exciting time to be in space. We're very fortunate
to have the partners and the opportunities we do,
um, there's a lot of work left to be
done first and foremost, we need to prove that
it's possible for a small commercial company like ours to
operate a robot on another planet's everybody. We have
already found ways to utilize that technology that we're building
for space here on Earth and you know, certainly
have to talk more about that. But once we
prove that we can operate these robotic systems on the
moon, then it can fundamentally shift the way that
we're thinking about commercial space right now. Everything in
commercial space has, you know, Earth Day to
tie ins. But once we prove we can operate
on that other planetary body, then really, you
know, I would say sky's the limit, but
stars of the limit on what we can do out
in space. We can build mega structures, we
can have space tourism and we can access the resources
and power that are available beyond earth orbit. So
where do you hope to take lunar outpost in the
future? It's yeah, it's a good question Shannon
. I mean, step one prove that it's possible
to prove that we can operate on the moon.
And I think we've taken quite a few steps towards
that and every launch. Every step including Artemis one
I think is perfectly suited to prove that it's possible
. Step number two is we're providing those mobility services
on other planetary bodies. So similar to how to
launch companies today provide access to certain points in space
. We provide access to certain points on planetary bodies
. Step number three is building infrastructure that makes space
sustainable. Uh, and we're gonna do that utilizing
our robotic swarms. And then step number four comes
back to resources. We have severe shortages of critical
resources that are needed for all sorts of industry here
on earth, including aerospace, including energy, including
even the clean energy transition. Um, and those
resources are available in space. So if we can
find a cleaner, better way to access resources without
destroying our environments here on earth. And frankly accessing
the unlimited resources of space, then that truly fundamentally
changes the way that we operate as humanity. So
that's where we're headed. But certainly we know we
got to get to step one which is landing and
operating that rover on Emma. Well, I say
, forget the race to the moon or the race
to outer space. It looks like you're in a
race to live there, and I think it's definitely
gonna be possible Justin Cyrus, thank you so much
from the lunar outpost. We appreciate your time.