The C-List
Welcome to the C-List Podcast! Hosted by Jen and Arash, this show features interviews with senior leaders who may not be household names but are making a major impact in tech and AI. The C-List shines a spotlight on these “C-suite” leaders—lesser-known leaders who drive meaningful change in their organizations and industries. Each episode uncovers their personal stories, leadership styles, and the innovative ways they’re shaping the future. With a relaxed, yet curious tone, we explore how their work not only transforms businesses but also drives broader societal change. Tune in for authentic conversations, surprising insights, and plenty of inspiration. We hope you enjoy The C-List Podcast, powered by NLP Logix.
The C-List
The C-List Episode 2 Featuring Andrew Rush of Star Catcher
The C-List Podcast - Episode 2 Overview
Guest: Andrew Rush – Co-founder of Star Catcher | Space Company in Jacksonville, FL
About: In this episode, Jen and Arash meet with Andrew Rush, Co-Founder and CEO of Star Catcher, a company based in Jacksonville, FL that is working to build the first power grid in space.
Podcast Breakdown with Timestamps
1:00 – 2:05 | Introduction
Overview of today’s episode with guest Andrew Rush.
2:14 – 5:40 | What is Star Catcher?
Andrew introduces his company, its goal of building the first power grid in space, and why space-based power remains a challenge.
5:40 – 7:40 | How does the technology work?
Explanation of how mirrors and magnifiers collect and redirect solar energy to satellites, concentrating power over long distances.
7:40 – 9:45 | Who are the competitors?
Comparison with other companies in Canada, the UK, and California working on power beaming. Star Catcher’s approach emphasizes backward compatibility to ease adoption.
9:45 – 11:00 | Where is Star Catcher in the development process?
Overview of Star Catcher’s timeline, team growth, funding, and their progress building prototypes.
11:00 – 16:39 | How does seed funding work?
Insights into raising seed funding, what investors look for, and the 200+ VC meetings Andrew and his co-founders did in a month.
16:39 – 18:15 | What’s next for Star Catcher?
Key upcoming milestones, customer interest, and planned demonstrations.
18:15 – 21:10 | Rapid-fire word association game with Andrew
Fun and candid reactions to various space-related words and concepts.
21:10 – 24:40 | Andrew’s background and path to space entrepreneurship
From physics to patent law to space startups – how his diverse background helped him in the space industry.
25:30 – 29:44 | The commercialization of space
How the second golden age of space is transforming industries and everyday life.
29:44 – 31:40 | How do new discoveries happen in space?
Microgravity’s role in manufacturing, drug discovery, and the limitless energy from the sun.
31:40 – 33:17 | How long until space commercialization becomes mainstream?
Predictions for the next decade, moon missions, and longer-term prospects for Mars.
33:17 – 38:00 | Will we ever have flying cars?
Reflecting on past sci-fi predictions vs. today’s technological advancements.
38:00 – 40:17 | Does Andrew believe in aliens?
Personal thoughts on the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence.
40:17 – 42:54 | Building a space business in Jacksonville
Why Jacksonville is an underrated tech hub and its advantages over traditional tech cities.
42:54 – 44:33 | COVID’s impact on tech and location flexibility
How the pandemic changed perceptions of tech startups outside Silicon Valley.
44:33 – 47:47 | Speaking at the United Nations World Space Forum
Andrew shares his experience discussing space policy and access at an international level.
49:10 – 50:33 | Preventing dystopian space scenarios
Addressing risks like space debris and orbital pollution.
50:33 – 53:00 | The role of government and policy in Star Catcher’s work
Navigating laws and regulations as part of operating in the space industry.
56:12 – 56:50 | Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs
Encouragement to share ideas, network, and embrace serendipity.
56:50 | Podcast Wrap-Up with Jen & Arash
Closing thoughts and episode summary.
Jen, I think the mics are hot.
SPEAKER_02:I think we're ready to go.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. All right. So ask me what I'm excited about or not excited about, actually, in this conversation.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. So what are you not excited to talk about?
SPEAKER_00:We should probably tell people who we're talking to, though.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. Do you know?
SPEAKER_00:His name is Andrew Rush, not Andy.
SPEAKER_02:Correct.
SPEAKER_00:Co-founder of?
SPEAKER_02:Starcatcher.
SPEAKER_00:Starcatcher.
SPEAKER_02:It's a space company.
SPEAKER_00:In Jacksonville, Florida.
SPEAKER_02:Right here in Jacksonville.
SPEAKER_00:Which is kind of amazing. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I'm still waiting for you to tell me what you're not
SPEAKER_00:excited to talk about. Okay, yeah, okay, okay. So, well, let me tell you what I am excited to talk about. I want to hear how somebody gets an idea and then finds funding to make that idea happen.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That, to me, is a mystery. You might as well have said to me, I spotted a rainbow, and at the end was a pot of money, and then the company started.
SPEAKER_02:Picking the winning lottery numbers.
SPEAKER_00:But I'm sure there's more to it. I
SPEAKER_02:would assume so.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And the other thing that makes me nervous is... I'm imagining a scenario where I'm sitting out looking at the stars with my son. I go, that's Orion's belt over here. And then over there is the McDonald's logo in space. And I think the commercialization of space It makes me apprehensive.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:And I want to touch on that.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Well, just as a reminder, this is not about you. This is about Andrew.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, fine.
SPEAKER_02:We might allow you to have a few questions in there to get your needs met.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. What about you? What do you want to talk about?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I'm obsessed with space. I mean, I know nothing. I have a telescope that you can push a button and it will point you to a place in the sky where you want to see something.
SPEAKER_00:You have? telescope where you can push a
SPEAKER_02:button. I do. And not just to look at my next door neighbors either. I can see the stars.
SPEAKER_00:Well, will it, if you push a button, will it look at the neighbors?
SPEAKER_02:Well, I can't disclose that. Okay. Gotcha. I can't disclose that. But no, I'm really excited to have this space conversation. And maybe I'm falsely labeling Andrew as the he knows everything space
SPEAKER_01:related. He does. No, he does.
SPEAKER_02:I'm going to go with the assumption. Let's see how he feels about it. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, hey.
SPEAKER_02:Hi
SPEAKER_00:there.
SPEAKER_02:All right. So tell us a little bit about Starcatcher. And then we're going to get to know the real Andrew, the goalkeeper, the pole vaulter, all those details.
SPEAKER_00:So Starcatcher is a company founded to build the world's first power grid in space. The reason that we're focused on building the world's first power grid in space is that I am a multi-time entrepreneur in the space industry. And every mission I've ever been involved with in space is constrained by what we call swap, size, weight, and power. And Over the last five or 10 years, we've seen the aperture around size and weight open up because we have reusable rockets now. Rocket Lab, SpaceX, Blue Origin have these magnificent vehicles that go up and we then come back and we reuse them again. And that's really brought down the launch cost to send things to space. But power is still a huge constraint. We still basically go on these camping trips to space where you kind of bring your solar panels with you. You get the power that those generate. If you need more power, you're kind of out of luck. But at the same time, we want to do all these amazing things in space, more and more things. We want to give you 4K YouTube videos direct from satellites to your cell phone. We want to do edge computing in space to power orbital data centers and allow satellites to be smarter, to operate more freely. We want to defend the nation and the world using satellites in space. We want them to be highly maneuverable. All those things need a lot more power than is available from your average satellite with their solar rays just pointing at the one naked sun. So at Starcatcher, we're building a system to collect, concentrate, and beam essentially solar energy to those satellites to enable them to have more power, higher concentrations of power, power in eclipse.
SPEAKER_02:It seems like this is going to solve many problems. There's a lot of use cases for why you would want to have this endless supply of power in space. Does Starcatcher have a specific mission that they want to achieve within this lifetime?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, I am personally and professionally motivated to enable people to do more in space and to do new things. in space. And my co-founders alongside of me share in that desire. And we really think that in order to settle a place, in order to commercialize a new place or industrialize a new place on the planet, you need infrastructure. And so on Earth, that's basically roads and power infrastructure. We're not really building highways to space, but our highways metaphorically are the rockets that SpaceX and Blue Origin and Rocket Lab and all these people built. And we at Starcatcher, we're going to build that power grid in space so that it's as simple in space to settle or open a business or operate a business from a power perspective as it is on the ground. Like if you open a a new McDonald's here on planet Earth. It had to be McDonald's. Yeah, that's right. Sponsorship pending. You know, they just plug in a little power grid. If you have a new startup, you move into a little WeWork, and you just plug your laptop in, and your buddies plug their laptops in, and you work. You don't worry about power. And that's what we want to create. So can we actually get into the details of the technology really quickly? So how does it– what's– Kindergarten level, what's the concept here? How do you beam solar power from a machine to another machine? Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. So essentially what we are doing is putting kind of mirrors and magnifying glasses in space that collect energy from the sun. And then we kind of exclude some of the wavelengths that aren't compatible with solar arrays. But we just redirect that energy and maybe increase the concentration of it to send that to a satellite's existing solar array. Solar arrays are really cool. They are band gap semiconductors. You know, that will be the longest word I say. Yeah, I know what that is. But basically what that means is, you know, if you send a certain number of photons at a solar array, it will generate a certain amount of power. If you multiply... send five times those number of photons, five times that amount of light to that solar array. So you're mimicking the solar array, like you're mimicking the sunlight. Yeah, we're taking the sunlight from the sun and then just redirecting it, like concentrating and redirecting it to a client spacecraft that's, you know, 100, 500, 2,000 kilometers away.
SPEAKER_02:That sounds dangerous. What are the risks involved with that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's really, they're really just LED flashlights in space. Okay. You know, we are, you know, our sun, obviously, every solar eclipse that comes around, we tell all the elementary school kids, don't stare at the sun. So, you know, you know, so we're sending really just like a highly concentrated, focused kind of flashlight that we're beaming to another spacecraft at levels that it can generate more energy, but aren't going to harm it. Okay. And if it goes all the way down to the Earth, well, we have this great atmosphere that absorbs a ton of the energy, and so it wouldn't be harmful to folks on the Earth
SPEAKER_02:either. Okay. Do you guys have competition? Are you the only ones doing this?
SPEAKER_00:So this idea— kind of grew out of us studying something called space-based solar power, which is a very old concept. One of the really cool things about the space industry is that science fiction writers have been writing about all the cool things that we're going to do in space one day for literally decades longer than we could even go to space. So space-based solar power goes back to R.C.C. Clarke and famous science fiction writers like that. And that concept is to collect a bunch of energy with big solar solar arrays in space, turn that into like microwaves and like beam that down to some place on the planet. That's really technically challenging, really dangerous, but could be a way to be totally, you know, oil independent and power cities, countries, whatever. So we were looking at that. We're like, that's really interesting. We don't think the technology here yet, but where else do people, where else are people power constrained?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Which kind of gets back to satellites. And so we, developed the concept to focus, pardon the pun, on satellites. There are a few folks in Canada and the UK and then one smaller company out in LA that are also kind of focusing on power beaming either to other satellites or to the lunar surface. But we're particularly proud of the way that we're approaching the technology because we're putting a lot of emphasis on making it so it's kind of backward compatible so our customers don't have to retrofit, don't have to buy customer receiver from us.
SPEAKER_02:That's a big deal.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Because that's always a barrier to adoption. Of course. Right.
SPEAKER_02:People think, oh, great, I want to use this, but now I have to go spend more money because I have to retrofit that to whatever I have.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, you know, people kind of come along and say, hey, buy my gas cap so that I can refuel you. And so, well, why would I waste money on a gas cap if there's no gas station?
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And that's the kind of, that's the hurdle that we're overcoming by sending energy that solar arrays on, existing solar arrays on existing satellites are compatible with. And where are you in the process? Because you guys launched last year. That's right. So we announced the company and a seed round of funding in July of 2024, which feels like an eon ago and yesterday. I completely understand. Start of land. Seven months ago. Yeah, basically. Basically. And we, you know, there were three of us then. Today, we have 33 folks that work for us. Almost all of them are here in Jacksonville. off of Filth Highway. Okay. And we're really just cranking. I'm super proud of the team. They've really come together, gelled really well, and have just started building. So we have all these really amazing ground prototypes that we've shown off. Are they all just engineers that you've hired pretty much? So of the 33, I think there are four engineers maybe five of us that are not engineers. So I tell folks, I'm like, look, I'm basically like the general manager of a sports team. It's my job to put the right people in the locker room and then resource them so that they can go in championships. And so that's what we're trying to do. You're the Ted Lasso of space. You know, I think that's the kindest thing everybody's ever said to me on a podcast. Thank you. So let's talk about seed funding. Can you explain that process? Like, you have an idea, you go to investors, and they go, yeah, duh, we're signing you. Yeah, I wish it was that easy. Yeah, so to raise a seed round, you know, really to build a company, there's a lot of different approaches, right? Like, you can bootstrap it. That's what we did with our first company, Made in Space. You can kind of partner with different forms of capital. So Redwire, which is kind of the second space company I've been involved with growing, was backed by a private equity firm. And then we used their capital to build something really amazing. Redwire is a public company. It's Unicorn now. And so venture-backed companies, you're partnering with venture capitalists. that are looking for, you know, they really want that like 10 or 100x return. That's what their goal is. And at the seed stage, they're really looking at a couple of three things. They're looking at team, like who are the founding folks? Like, why do I think they can do this grand vision that they have? At this point, you have credibility. You've got at least one company underneath your belt? Two. Yeah. So on the team side, it's like, okay, are these guys just, like, where are they exceptional? You know, from a technology perspective, from a, hey, they've done this before perspective, or other differentiating factors. Then kind of the market, like the total addressable market. How big do we think this is going to be when it gets to scale? And then a go-to-market strategy. Like, hey, you have this grand vision. You want to create a power grid in space. Great. Okay, what are the concrete steps that you're going to execute to start eating that elephant one bite at a time. And space is a sector that we're not wanting for grand visions. And we're not wanting for people that have been really successful and done lots of things, but kind of taking grand vision and breaking it down into digestible chunks that provide value to customers along the way or proof points to get folks to attract more capital. That's where kind of the rubber meets the road. So we worked on that package and You know, honestly, like, so one of my co-founders, we have a little bit of a superpower. One of my co-founders is a former venture capitalist. Okay. So he has this extensive Rolodex. And then myself and my third co-founder, Mike Snyder, he was the CTO of Redwire. He was the chief engineer at Made in Space. Now he's the CTO at Starcatcher. So, like... we've built a couple of companies successfully together.
SPEAKER_02:Have the trust.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, and, you know, sometimes we like, you know, sometimes we're like a little bit of an old married couple, but you know, but then the good way and the bad way, right? Like we work really well together and, and yeah, it's, it's a, it's, it's a great, it's a great, but sometimes sleeping on the sofa. Yeah. Yeah. You know, sometimes I forgot to like get the milk or whatever, you know? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so we, you know, we basically tried to, we put together a really good, package of materials, really tried to refine our pitch. And we talked to a whole bunch of folks, a whole bunch of VCs.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And we start like, honestly, we, you know, of, you know, different kind of areas, different interests, different funding, like funding availability, and just refine and refine and refine that pitch. I mean, we did probably 200 meetings in like less than a month.
SPEAKER_02:I was just going to ask. Wow. That's a lot.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. And that's, I mean, that's pretty typical. Like if you, if you want to drive and be successful with it, it's, you know, it's an endurance race. But it's an endurance race where you have to smile and say the same jokes every time, like it was the most clever thing that you've ever thought of. And also just like show like, hey, I have the conviction for this thing that I want to do. And we know how to do it. And, you know, you have to kind of keep that energy level up because that's what the idea deserves. And hopefully it's inspiring enough to
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:To keep you there.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And so logical and or intriguing. And so that got folks to be willing to talk to us. And we were fortunate to find, you know, really, really good partners that, you know, had high conviction in us, that had some knowledge of space. They weren't just like, which way is space? Which
SPEAKER_01:way is space,
SPEAKER_00:though? It's all the ways. And, you know, and either had like really good kind of domain expertise and connections or kind of had or had access to multiple stages of capital. Because when you're trying to build a venture-backed business, it's really important to say, hey, not only say, hey, like I raised a little bit of capital. Isn't that great? You kind of got to look at where you want to get to and then map backward.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And say, okay. That makes a ton of sense. Yeah. Yeah. And like the capital formation strategy is as important as the technology roadmap is as important as the business development roadmap.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Any important dates in your future?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so this is a really big year for us. We have some really exciting things coming up. We, you know, this year's really focused on now that we have the team together doing a series of demonstrations of the technology and then continuing to build, you know, customer trust. You know, we've signed a lot of letters of intent with customers who say, hey, if this existed now, we would buy power from you, you know, at these rates and, you know, this amount. We also have some paying customers that will announce in the coming weeks months yeah yeah it is pretty exciting yeah but what are they paying for so with this yeah it's a great question yeah so so in the especially in the space sector I mean pretty much like any technology sector there's there's kind of like prototyping and development phase and then there's like the you know the kind of commercial services commercial products and services phase so we're Our customers right now are in that prototyping and demonstration phase. And then, you know, as we mature and start flying, you know, start putting assets on orbit, then we'll get into the commercial services kind of phases. So they're sort of investing in you as well, those initial customers? Yeah, yeah. You know, it's technology development, right? You got to work together with everybody to sort of get through the various valleys of death and then, you know, deliver these great new kind of products and services.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's great.
SPEAKER_02:That's
SPEAKER_01:very
SPEAKER_02:exciting. I don't know about you, but I want to dig...
SPEAKER_01:You know a little about me.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, a little bit. And then I ignore you and say, no, make this more about me.
SPEAKER_01:That's right.
SPEAKER_02:But I want to make this a little bit more about Andrew. And I would like to play... a little game. Are we
SPEAKER_00:going to do this?
SPEAKER_01:We are going to do this. Okay, let's do it. Let's do it.
SPEAKER_02:I want our audience to understand a little bit more about you. Okay. And we want to put you on the spot. Great. You're welcome. So we're going to play word association.
SPEAKER_00:Right. It can also be sentence association or paragraph association, but not two paragraph association.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we'll cut you off at a certain
SPEAKER_00:point. You've heard me talk, so you're like, okay, just give me the soundbite. Concise.
SPEAKER_02:But we want you to Think of the very first thing that comes to your mind when we say a word or a phrase. This is not a pop quiz. I mean, it kind of sort of is in its own right. But this is just to get to know the first thing that is in your brain. And then we're going to judge you for it. Great. We'll tell you how we're judging you.
SPEAKER_00:Great. I'll do like the emperor's thumb. Oh, wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I believe you have the first one.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Elon Musk. Falling from grace.
SPEAKER_02:Aliens, a.k.a. New Jersey UFOs.
SPEAKER_00:We wouldn't see them if they were here. Tang. Really tasty.
SPEAKER_02:Space diplomacy.
SPEAKER_00:Starship troopers. Space settlements. Star Trek.
SPEAKER_02:Space balls.
SPEAKER_00:Jim Bridenstine.
SPEAKER_02:1987, directed by Mel Bull. I didn't know if I was going to need to bring you back, but you passed that test.
SPEAKER_00:That was the movie that inspired where Andrew is today. So we, you know, obviously sci-fi was really popular in the space community. We still, to this day, in space, It started in our previous companies, but in the interview process, we would ask people like Star Trek or Star Wars. Is there a right answer? So I have a right answer. It's Star Trek. And Mike Snyder, my co-founder, has a right answer, which is Star Wars. So folks always pretty much, you know, it was kind of a house divided. But we do occasionally get people that will throw out interesting answers. Basically, the only wrong answer is no answer. Some folks have said Babylon 5.
SPEAKER_02:Not as good as Star Trek.
SPEAKER_00:Some folks have said Battlestar Galactica, which, you know, it's acceptable.
SPEAKER_02:It's acceptable.
SPEAKER_00:But so Jim Bridenstine, who was the leader of NASA under President Trump in the previous administration, he's a great guy. He was asked this question because this isn't just a thing that's exclusive to us at Starcatcher. And his answer was Spaceballs.
SPEAKER_02:That's excellent. I love that so much. It's a great movie. I want to now dig in to your background. Obviously, we stalked you on LinkedIn. Wonderful. Everybody does it. It's acceptable. And we noticed that you have a bachelor's from UNF. That's right. In physics. And then you went on to get your JD and became a patent lawyer.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_02:A bit unique, and I'm sure you've heard that one before. Explain yourself.
SPEAKER_00:So, you know, my mother temporarily would have said that I was falling from grace as well when that occurred. So I, in undergrad here at University of North Florida, had a company. in addition to taking classes. We sold airsoft guns and redneck toys like samurai swords and things like that. It was super fun. And I went to a professor here at UNF and I said, hey, I love space. I love physics. I wanted to be a cosmologist for a good amount of time. But I also love this business stuff. This is really fun. And he was like, well, you know, there are some folks that have physics degrees that go go into law they go become a patent lawyer and maybe maybe that would be interesting and I was like oh and I looked into it and I was like okay this is actually like a pretty interesting merger like being a lawyer which can be very entrepreneurial yeah like marriage of that with my you know my love of technology and of space yeah so yeah I went and took the LSAT you know kind of the law school entrance exam and got into Stetson which is down down in Gulfport you know in the Tampa St. Pete area and really really enjoyed that but I really also wanted to stay in space and wanted to work in the space sector. So when I was in law school, I called like every single space company that I could find, like the number for the CEO or the general counsel. And because I was looking for like a summer internship and I said, hey, like I have these skills. Like I worked at a solid state research lab here at UNF. I have a little bit, had a little experience with like liquid nitrogen and things like that. And And I love space, and I'm also going to become a lawyer, and I can write patent applications for you because the patent bar is actually separate from the lawyer bar. And so I found a company that gave me a summer internship. They were actually out in Mojave, California, which is two and a half hours from anything in California, like from L.A. and everything else. It's in the middle of the desert. But at the time, all these rocket and space companies were forming and doing interesting things. And so I got on one end of I-10 here in Jacksonville, and I drove to the other end of I-10 in L.A., and then I went and got my sort of first job in the space sector, starting to do lawyer things, patent lawyer things, and then eventually took the bar and practiced for several years.
SPEAKER_02:Does it help you today?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I think that having the— the mix of background that I have, both the, you know, the technical and then, and then the, you know, the legalistic slash commercial really has helped me not only, you know, avoid paying for lawyers, but, but understanding sort of the rhythms and, and the, you know, the boundaries of, of, you know, of, of business practice. So, you know, because from like with science and engineering, you're sort of pushing against the boundaries of, of the physical universe. And then, you know, The law is kind of the same way. You have the Constitution, state and local laws, federal laws, and that's a boundary that you've got to operate with it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, sure. Yeah. Do you see yourself within Starcatcher being able to go for any patents in what you're doing?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. So we have a few patent applications pending right now. Excellent. And we'll continue to build out that portfolio. You know, I really deeply believe, and this is borrowing shamelessly from a buddy of mine, that you know, you shouldn't have, your business model shouldn't require you to win a Nobel Prize, but we're doing a bunch of really inventive things, right? We're combining things in new and interesting ways, you know, things that work in space or can't or will be easy to make work in space, but also putting them together in a way that, you know, provides this really unique service.
SPEAKER_02:That's
SPEAKER_00:fascinating. Agreed.
SPEAKER_02:I know you're dying to get to this topic.
SPEAKER_00:forget what it was though
SPEAKER_02:Arash wants to be controversial
SPEAKER_00:now okay let's do it
SPEAKER_02:remember he had said previously oh the McDonald's that could be seen up in space makes him very nervous this is theoretical it hasn't happened yet but you have thoughts
SPEAKER_00:I'm getting nervous right now
SPEAKER_02:I know I can tell
SPEAKER_00:yeah yeah I mean you're more of a Starbucks guy
SPEAKER_01:actually yes
SPEAKER_00:that's a long that's a long conversation um You know, this may not apply, but there's a quote that I heard that we are living in a dystopia with none of the aesthetic.
SPEAKER_01:It's one of my favorites.
SPEAKER_00:And I guess part of me fears like the commercialization of space is headed towards the worst possible outcomes where we don't get this beauty of the technology. We just sort of get the logos and the industrialization of it all. I guess I'm just wanting to hear your thoughts. Appease me. Make me feel like if you in charge, it's not going to happen. Yeah, yeah. So I'm a big fan of sci-fi, as we were talking about a little bit earlier. And a lot of folks were really disappointed with the outcomes of the Apollo era because we thought that we were going to get flying cars and moon bases and vacationing on Mars. I'm
SPEAKER_02:still waiting for mine.
SPEAKER_00:And instead we got like TikTok.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know, in Bitcoin. And one of the reasons that's where the world ended up is that we did amazing things in the Apollo era. Absolutely, absolutely amazing things. But that first golden age of space was really motivated by national pride. With a side of the military-industrial complex. Because if I can put people on the moon, then I can put a bunch of nukes on Moscow. And vice versa. So once we got to the moon, the national pride was satisfied. And hey, I got a big rocket and I can do those weapon things. Today, we are in the second golden age of space. And it's not just underpinned by national pride wanting to Occasionally caring about beating the Chinese. But it's motivated by the recognition of the things that we can do in space that enrich all of our lives. Like all of us, every single moment in our life, space is helping us. You know, like the GPS constellation is not just the thing that helps Uber like get you from point A to point B. It's also a universal clock that drives our entire banking system that makes sure the money leaves your bank account, gets somebody else's bank account without it being having some terrible snafu. Can it just come into my bank account? That's right. That's right. I think that's what some folks are trying to do. But so this second golden age of space is motivated not just by that national pride and by the The innate desire that we have as humans to explore the universe and understand where we came from and how things work, but also by this recognition that we can do really interesting things that enrich humans, that we can commercialize, and we can grow, and we can expand. you know, our place in the universe. And so, and that is going to, that makes it more enduring. Folks have done really amazing things in taking the technology in your smartphones and using that to make satellites that don't cost$100 million, they cost$100,000. Like, you know, the folks at Planet Lab, for instance, that's what they did. They took these giant remote sensing satellites that took pictures of the Earth occasionally for NOAA and national security folks and made little bread boxes that could take pictures and enable us all to kind of see and to do lots of interesting conservationist things, do lots of interesting commercialization things. And so today where we are is we're just scratching the surface, figuring out that we can manufacture things in space, that we can do drug discovery, we can make stronger metals, we can make more interesting optical fibers, and we're expanding our ability to communicate with one another using space. So explain that. How is... how do you have new direct discoveries in space that you can't have? Yeah, yeah. Or interesting fibers, as you said. Yeah, so space has two or three really unique properties that we don't have on the Earth. One is a basically limitless source of energy from the sun. That's one of the things we're leveraging in StarCounter. The other is microgravity. And when you take gravity sort of out of the manufacturing equation, you can make really interesting things. Like you, you will like, like if you're doing alloys with metals that, you know, with wildly different mass elements, they don't like, they don't pull apart and settle out because gravity is pulling on them. They just, they just form up. And so we can make stronger, we make stronger alloys. Like, and they actually show that on all the way back on Apollo 14. Same thing with drugs. And then when you bring it back to earth, it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's, you do that when it's in a molten state and then it, and then it solidifies and then it's, and then it's,
SPEAKER_02:bring it right back. We can use
SPEAKER_00:it. And we're just like scratching the surface of that. And so I think the reason we're not going to go to that dystopia without the aesthetic is because we have folks that say, hey, it's they're really interesting things we can do with space. And there's been enough commercialization that. It's cheaper now for us to go to space. How far away? I don't even know if this is the right question. I'm dying for
SPEAKER_02:the timeline question to be answered.
SPEAKER_00:We're going to have a manufacturing plant of alloys on the moon in the next six years? Yeah. Or is Big Pharma going to set up their labs? Right, right. I think within the next 10 years, we will have meaningful manufacturing in low-Earth orbit. And then we will kind of expand out from there. I think we will see folks, hopefully, the first woman and the next man return to the moon's surface via the Artemis program. I
SPEAKER_02:want to circle back to that because I just heard some news.
SPEAKER_00:Certainly. I think we'll see that. But the commercialization of the moon and the commercialization of Mars is a little further off. You know, I really think that we'll first see, you know, low-Earth orbit kind of get built out, and then the activity there that, you know, will further drive down the cost of launch and the cost of operation, right? You know, having more rockets going up means it costs less to put stuff up. Having more satellites going up means it costs less to build satellites. Having a power grid in space means it costs less to power and operate all those things. And then you can use all that great savings and economy of scale to go and commercialize the moon and go on.
SPEAKER_02:So you do anticipate that within the next 10 years, we're going to see something great that's actually happening. And we will either manufacture something that we'll be able to use down here or we'll be able to further space missions in space because you won't have to worry about where the power is going to come from. What about flying cars? Is this a race? Are we going to ever have flying cars? Is that going to be one of those things where... I'm pretty sure the Chinese did do some sort of a prototype and demonstrated it. But it's like, where is everything going and what is actually going to be achievable?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You know, I think one of the interesting things about kind of future prediction projects We will hold these against you. Yeah, that's fine. So reading science fiction or things that say, hey, in 30 years we're going to have X, Y, and Z, and then looking at that versus where we are is really interesting. Because, yeah, from a sort of visceral perspective, it's a little bit sad that I don't have a Jetsons car. At the same time, we have... You know, we do have amazing technologies that keep us connected in ways that we never really imagined before. We have great medical technologies that help people stay, you know, live wonderful and full and healthy lives. Like my wife and one of my children are both type 1 diabetics. And the technology that has– the last 10 years that has evolved to make that go from– A disease that's difficult to deal with. It was a disease that means they're just kind of like cyborgs, right? They always have, you know, a constant glucose monitor on and a pump on. But they're living, you know, normal lives. Like, it's really amazing.
SPEAKER_02:What do you hope your child will see? Now that you mentioned, that's what I wanted to know. Like, you were talking 10 years. What do you hope for the future for your kids?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I hope that they will have available to them boring jobs in space. Because if there are boring jobs in space, like accountants and lawyers, that means that there's a level of people living and working in space that we've fully settled. at least a part of it. Also, those jobs won't be super boring because you get a great view. How does that realistically work? I mean, how do you actually settle space? You're imagining, are these giant spaceships? Are we on the moon with infrastructure and buildings?
SPEAKER_02:Are we going to inhabit a planet or live in a thing?
SPEAKER_00:So there are a couple of things that I don't think everybody really knows or everybody really viscerally understands. But any person... that is 24 or younger,
SPEAKER_01:has
SPEAKER_00:lived their entire lives with people living and working in space. Because the International Space Station, which depending on the day, has like six to 12 people, sometimes a few more on it, has been operating since like 2000, 2001. And that's like awesome. That actually is like we went from zero to one on like... pioneering a place. Now it's hard and it's expensive and it currently requires the effort of a nation to keep that place flying and operating. But we also live in an area now where there are multiple tourists a year that go hang out on the space station for a week. We live in an era where there are folks that There are dozens of folks now a year that go up on rockets that kind of duplicate what Alan Shepard experienced, like the Parabalk flight. They go up and come back down. And so, you know, there's that kind of like tourism element, which, you know, people love to go and explore, plus all these great like kind of industrial uses that I was mentioning earlier. So I think we'll see those things kind of synergistically continue to develop, plus the reduction in launch costs and the increased availability of things that can take people safely up and down, and things that can take hardware up and down robotically that we can use to do research and development and production. Those things will all just kind of have a virtuous cycle to get us to a place where I fully believe that Yeah, like my children will have the ability to, you know, choose a boring job in space. Yeah. And maybe I'll convince my wife to like take a retirement trip to lower Earth orbit one day.
SPEAKER_02:how the conversations change if that were to take place do you do you imagine that one day we're just gonna like oh excuse you green martian like let's get into that i have to know i mean i'm definitely a bit of a conspiracy theorist like i just love the art of the possible and if you don't know something then anything's possible so living in the industry that you do lots of Obviously, science fiction that's driving this, but what's Andrew's personal opinion?
SPEAKER_00:That's classified. No, no. That's one of the jokes he has with the seed funders. Yeah, no, but I would... Okay, look, I'm a big believer that they're in a universe as expansive as ours. I think it's absolutely reasonable to think that there are other intelligent species that... exist or have existed. Right. And this is a little bit of like kind of a human-centric view, but I think if they did exist, I think if they exist, they haven't, they probably haven't visited us yet because, you know, just as like how a human kind of, because they would be much more technologically advanced than us to travel between star systems. Yeah. And just as we as the sort of technological you know apex predator on the planet um you know when we see other other species on our planet we're not we don't like tiptoe around them and like not let them know we're here right like if like little kids they see an ant pile and they'll go explore the ant pile you know and without without regard of like ants seeing them yeah uh and so i really i think that To the extent that aliens exist. They're messing with us the same way a kid messes with an empire. And we're like, that was just a hurricane. Yeah, but I think it would just be overt, right? Like, I think they would show up and they'd be like, hey, what are you guys with your weird two legs or whatever? However, we're different or unique. And, you know, maybe they like our cinema. Maybe they think it's, you know, drivel. But I think they just I think there would be no reason for them to be clandestine about
SPEAKER_02:it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:They
SPEAKER_02:just want to play with the ant pile.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And because we don't see them in the sky, I think that's a pretty good, pretty positive indicator that they haven't actually visited
SPEAKER_02:us. Yeah. All right. That's fascinating. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Good. I mean, is there anything you want to touch on? You know, I think that one thing I would touch on is this is the third– space company that I've had the pleasure of building or scaling in Jacksonville. And Jacksonville is an area that I think is kind of unsung or underappreciated. And I've convinced a decent number of folks to move here and build really cool stuff. So we should blame you. You know, if you want to blame me, that's fine. But But really Jacksonville is this place where, you know, it's very kind of choose your own adventure, right? Like it, you know, and it's great for folks of almost all kind of stages of life, right? If you're an early career individual, we have places with great nightlife with, you know, very walkable areas with, you know, you can meet lots of folks. We have both a river and an ocean. I
SPEAKER_01:know.
SPEAKER_00:And like, that's really fun. We have an occasionally good professional football team and we're really excited for the next season. And like, we're always excited. Everyone's
SPEAKER_02:very hopeful right now.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yes. And we have things like a professional orchestra and things like that. So we have kind of big city accoutrements for, honestly, small city prices.
SPEAKER_02:And a small town feel.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Because everyone knows everybody.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it is... It is interesting because both Jacksonville is simultaneously, to your point, Jen, both large and small. It's just like the space industry, actually. I feel like it's the same several dozen people that I run into a lot, but it's a huge industry across the nation. And so, yeah, I think there are great companies here in town, not just awesome space companies, but there's really brilliant people that have done quite amazing things. Yeah, there's in town.
SPEAKER_02:A lot of talent that's here that I don't think people recognize. You know, one of our coworkers, she gets very angry when she hears people say that Jacksonville could be a great innovation hub or a great tech hub because she's like, hi, does no one realize where we are right now and what we've accomplished here in Jacksonville? She is of the belief that this is a tech center and This is an innovation hub. And I have to agree when you think about the different companies that are here in Jacksonville. There's some big names. And we have organizations that are doing some pretty fascinating things like Starcatcher. And I just don't think we get the notoriety and credibility because it's down in Florida.
SPEAKER_00:And, you know, I think one of the things that COVID– really showed is in the tech world, especially it was art. We were already sort of starting to see the cracks of the myth that you had to be in Silicon Valley to be worth anything in tech. Um, but COVID just absolutely shattered that.
SPEAKER_02:It did.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and, and I, I really think that you can build a great company with, with folks anywhere. Um, and I, and, and you don't have to be in Silicon Valley. You don't have to be in New York. Um, And people are doing that here in Jacksonville. And honestly, Silicon Valley has got a lot of tailwinds, but it's also got a lot of headwinds from a building a team perspective, from a cost of living and the cost of basically everything else perspective. And it really is important when you're building a company to take care of your team and make sure that they have a good and comfortable life. Yeah. And I think Jacksonville is a great place to do that, as well as having a concentration of folks that are that are really talented. So it's so you can hire and, you know, we hire folks from here. We also hire folks from all over the nation. And once people see Jacksonville, once we kind of tell them about it, it's it's pretty easy. It's pretty easy to convince them to come. Yeah. Do cool stuff here.
SPEAKER_02:We've experienced the same. We've located a couple of people and they're happy to. Yeah. Because there is there's the variety, I think, that's offered that you don't. get in many other cities, in your big cities, but that comes with the huge cost of living. So yeah, I can appreciate that. Let's go a little bit deeper into Andrew. You've done some other cool stuff. I have a note here that you've actually spoken at the UN World Space Forum. So I want to just... That is so intimidating. I'm very thankful you agreed to come and talk to us nobodies. But now entertain us with what that was like.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, yeah. So it's really interesting to speak, you know, at UN-organized events. That particular one was in Bonn. And, yeah, I mean, the UN is... It's fascinating to... be in a forum like that to talk about an area that I'm very passionate about and very familiar with and to folks that are also interested in it but maybe don't know as much and then have these areas of incredible expertise and concern about how do we make sure that folks all over the globe have access or can experience this second golden age of space that we've been talking about. Yeah. Um, and, and having them kind of challenge your, your, your assumptions in, in those ways is really, um, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's an honor to kind of, to do that. Um, and that was, that was a pretty, so that was, that was a fun one from that perspective.
SPEAKER_02:That I still don't know how you were able to, um, I know you were with a bunch of other smart people. So I personally would have been incredibly intimidated to be in a room full of that many people. smart people oh you're smart yourself obviously oh no not downplaying that but that is that's a different forum literally that's a very different stage to to be on uh what are some of your insecurities when you get into a room of people like that do you ever have the i don't belong do you feel like an imposter
SPEAKER_00:you know i i i was telling someone the other day that i this, this, this gentleman that was on a panel with me a couple of weeks ago and he was like very nervous. And, and I just, I told him, I said, Hey, I'm, I'm actually like basically as nervous as you are. You just, you just get used to it after a while and you just, you know, you just kind of use that as fuel to sort of drive you forward and say, and, and be focused. Um, I, for a long time in this industry, um, I was just totally intimidated by every astronaut that I met. I basically like had to become good friends with a couple of astronauts before I was like, okay,
SPEAKER_02:there
SPEAKER_00:are people and they, you know, they're, you know, they're sort of like, hey, just, just, just be cool, man. You know, and yeah, and it's, it's really, you know, so that's, that's a lot of fun. I'm still groups of like venerated physicists. I'm still absolutely just like, you know, you guys are awesome. I'm just over here. I'm some lawyer that got lost on the way to the courthouse and wound up here doing space. Do you feel like that group of people are accepting of, of like the work that you're doing or are they like, what are you doing? Oh, for sure. For sure. Yeah. You know, it's, it's the, one of the things I love about the space sector is that it is a team sport. Um, and actually I just, I stole that shamelessly from Jeff Bezos. He gave the speech at space symposium, which is this big conference in the space sector, like eight years ago. And he like said that, and there's always just really stuck with me because it is true. Like it is there of, of every industry I've ever liked. been involved with or assisted folks in, it is the epitome of the phrase like, hey, if you want to go fast, go long. But if you want to go far, you got to go together. So even competitors are just sort of like the passion of it all. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're all rowing in the same direction at the end of the day. You'll see, you know, you'll see When SpaceX has a launch failure, the CEO of, you know, one of their competitors, this gentleman named Tori Bruno, like, he'll publicly and privately be reaching out and saying, hey, we can help you. And they take that help and vice versa. And that's...
SPEAKER_02:That's encouraging.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I mean, that is... And, you know, in the same way, like...
SPEAKER_02:It should be.
SPEAKER_00:People have successes. They, you know, we all try to celebrate it, right? Because at the end of the day, like, we're all motivated to achieve the utopian goal visions of space. And we know that this is like the first inning. Do you guys have conversations about how to prevent the dystopian images of space? We have that conversation with AI all the time. Is that happening within the space industry too? Yeah, you know, there's a lot of folks that care deeply about preventing some of the negative outcomes with space. There's a movie a few years ago called Gravity that Alfonso Cuaron that featured an event called the Kessler Syndrome, which is like a satellite breaks up and its pieces hit other satellites and then that hits more and it's this cascade that we're stuck in Earth. Yeah, the pollutes low Earth orbit and we can't get out. And so that's something that we put a lot of energy in talking about, hey, how do we control space debris, both from a You know, what are good policies for how do we control our satellites and also how do we clean up the stuff that's up there already? There are also a lot of folks that are very thoughtful about, you know, weapons in space. The United States signed a treaty in the 60s that bans nuclear weapons from being in space and many, many countries have signed that treaty. So these are the things that we think about. But now you're up there making space lasers. Space flashlights.
SPEAKER_01:Sorry. You amped
SPEAKER_00:that one up, didn't you? Yeah, that's a good question that you brought to my mind, which is the role of government and policy in terms of the work that you're doing. Do you find it helpful, intrusive? What's the balance that you would like to see? Yeah. and maybe this is a little bit of like the lawyer in me coming out, but I think it's important to view the laws and regulations and players in the space sector as essentially the environment, you know, as the oceans and the mountains and the air. And that's the playing field that we have to operate in. Because it's easy to say, oh, you know, this... this export control regulation. This is getting in my way of selling to Saudi Arabia or whatever. And if I could only sell to Saudi Arabia, it'd be easy. Well, it turns out that's not really true. That's often just an excuse. And folks really have been very forward-leaning over my career in space. I've seen folks in the government, in NASA, in the Department of Defense, shift from a kind of we're going to tell you how to do it. We're going to do it just the way we want to do it to, hey, commercial industry can, you know, has really insightful views, can bring other resources to bear. And if I can hitch a ride on the same kind of rocket that flies, you know, remote sensing and telecommunication satellites to space, I can get a cheaper rocket. So then I can do more space exploration or I can do more. And then that creates that virtuous cycle. And so in that regard, we really are seeing that. in the regulation and posture of our customers and of our partners in the U.S. government.
SPEAKER_02:That's great. Yeah, that's very hopeful, too. Man, you guys really know how to do business in this industry. Well, I mean, we have the saying that data science is a team sport, and we are not in this business to cut anybody down. We don't view competition as a bad thing. We should all be learning from each other because what we're trying to accomplish— We still don't even know how everything should be used, and the technology is changing on a daily basis. So if we're not trying to do this together, then I think everything just falls apart. So it's really nice and encouraging. I had the one question about you said Artemis. I just heard there's going to be some layoffs at Boeing, and they were actually pulling people from that program. I don't know anything more about it. I haven't done any of the digging. Have you heard? What does this mean? So...
SPEAKER_00:The Artemis program, which for those, I guess, listening who don't know what it is, it's the program, it's the human spaceflight program to return American astronauts to the moon, to land, put folks back on the moon, and this time to stay. First woman, next man on the moon, and then beyond. It's a unique program in that it survived... the transition of multiple administrations. Usually, like human spaceflight programs, like new president comes in, they usually get redirected or substantially changed or cut. So it started under President Trump, and then President Biden kept it going, and now we're here again. There are folks that... are looking at the architecture associated with it. So Boeing makes a big rocket called the Space Launch System or SLS. And there's some questions about whether or not that rocket is the best rocket for doing like sustained missions to the moon. I personally think that it will be on, I personally think that we will see that rocket fly a couple more times and likely be the rocket that takes people to the moon and then they'll ride down to the surface on either a SpaceX or a Blue Origin lunar lander. But it's a vehicle that is kind of the last of its kind in that it is largely a government-directed development program compared to the modern commercially-directed development programs that have yielded SpaceX's Falcon 9, Rocket Labs Electron, Stokes Spaces Vehicles, Blue Origins Vehicles, all of these amazing rockets that are online or coming online at much lower price points and much, in some cases, much lower price points, much higher utilization than what SLS is.
SPEAKER_02:So it's not going to slow things down. Or do we anticipate maybe it will?
SPEAKER_00:We hope it doesn't. I would say we hope that the transition From one administration to the next. Doesn't slow things down. That's a hope that we almost eternally have in the space industry. Yeah. You know, because we can do a lot more with certainty than we can with cloudiness.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We're not always, we don't always achieve that vision.
SPEAKER_02:I completely get it. I think we feel similarly in our industry as well. I think there are times where just having a little bit of certainty and clarity can get you a long way. You just need a decision to be made.
SPEAKER_01:Right,
SPEAKER_00:right. Andrew, if you could give one tip, thought, piece of advice, motivation to a guy or gal who's kind of has like an idea that they're just scratching on a piece of paper and they don't know what to do with it. Like what would be your thought to them? talk about the idea with as many people as you can. Get out there and swing the bat. Because in my experience, luck is mostly about just interacting with as many different folks and areas as possible and then serendipity. Okay. Thanks. Thank you so much for joining us today. It was a pleasure. Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Well, Arash, I think it's that time. Are
SPEAKER_00:we done? I
SPEAKER_02:think
SPEAKER_00:we are. I can go for another hour.
SPEAKER_02:I know. I have so many more questions.
SPEAKER_00:We didn't ask what was more interesting in space.
SPEAKER_02:We didn't ask what?
SPEAKER_00:What Andrew thought was more interesting in space. We don't have to ask that. We can just leave that as a cliffhanger.
SPEAKER_02:And maybe we get to have him back.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:We can do a deeper dive.
SPEAKER_00:That's a deeper lift. Because you're going into space, maybe.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Good try.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you.
UNKNOWN:So...
SPEAKER_02:What was the most, I don't know, encouraging thing you've heard today?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'll say this. This was an aha moment when Andrew was talking towards the end there and he was discussing that space is part of our environment. I don't know why that light bulb never clicked for me. It's like the oceans or the air we breathe or the trees. It's
SPEAKER_02:there, even though you can't see it.
SPEAKER_00:Because even though you can express the beauty of space, that's sort of like, oh yeah, it is our environment. Earth exists within this thing called space.
SPEAKER_02:Right. No, I really liked hearing that it is a nice reminder. You don't think of it like that. And I think it's probably because the movies and the TV shows that make this... So unreal. You can feel the fantasy in it and you have this hope that it is real, but then you don't actually, you don't get to walk out your front door and see the moon that's just right across the street.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah,
SPEAKER_02:yeah. in the world because they're
SPEAKER_01:making... Just some of the money.
SPEAKER_02:Just some of the money. I mean, that's entirely fair, too. Everyone should get to make their own. I hope that our listeners realize that you can do anything. I mean, if Andrew can come from being a goalkeeper... for his high school soccer team, transition into pole vaulting, to get a degree in physics, to become a patent lawyer. Literally, for him, the sky is the limit.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that's a nice one. Good job. All right, I think that's a wrap.
SPEAKER_02:I think that's a wrap.