#108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics

Thomas Zurbuchen is currently Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, where he seeks answers to big questions about the universe and our place in it. Previously, he was a professor of space science and aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan and a founding director of its Center for Entrepreneurship. In this episode, Thomas and Shane discuss the origin of his passion for astrophysics, commercial spaceflight, exciting experiments going on at the International Space Station, the challenges of space flight, how he makes decisions, whether humans will ever live on Mars, and more. -- Want even more? Members get early access, hand-edited transcripts, member-only episodes, and so much more. Learn more here: https://fs.blog/membership/ Every Sunday our Brain Food newsletter shares timeless insights and ideas that you can use at work and home. Add it to your inbox: https://fs.blog/newsletter/ Follow Shane on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ShaneAParrish Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  As a scientist, the answer must be, I don't know. And by the way, that's not a cop out. It's the answer to most questions that we ask in science. I don't know, or I don't yet know. So for me, you know, that question, we actually are making a ton, a ton of progress towards. I mean, frankly, during my professional lifetime, it's probably the question where we've made most groundbreaking discoveries. You know, kind of when I started my kind of master's degree in astrophysics, we had no planets elsewhere other than the ones in our solar system. In the meantime, we have thousands of those planets and some of them look awfully like,

• 0:43Speaker 00

  you know, like our own, kind of relative to the data we have, which are really, really, really sparse. So we're on that track towards, you know, a belief or kind of a sense that, yeah, you know, life, just like planetary systems, life could also be very much to strip it at the end of the universe.

• 1:20Shane Parrish?

  Hello and welcome to The Knowledge Project. I'm your host, Shane Parrish. This podcast sharpens your mind by helping you master the best of what other people have already figured out. If you're listening to this, you're not currently a supporting member. If you'd like special member-only episodes, access before anyone else, searchable transcripts, and other member-only content, you can join at fs.blog/podcast. Check out the show notes for a link. Today, I'm speaking with Thomas Zurbuchen, also known as Dr. Z. Dr. Z is the head of science at NASA, running a $7 billion a year science program covering multiple disciplines, including the world's top research program in earth science, planetary science, astrophysics, and heliophysics. This episode is incredible.

• 2:03Shane Parrish?

  We talk about things we've learned from running experiments on the International Space Station, our missions to Mars, and whether we'll ever colonize it, how space is governed, and decision-making. In fact, this episode is a masterclass in decision-making from someone who routinely makes billion-dollar decisions. It's time to listen and learn.

• 2:29Shane Parrish?

  Can you tell us in your own words how you got interested in astrophysics?

• 2:33Speaker 00

  You know, I grew up in the mountains in Switzerland and frankly, quite isolated. I grew up in a quasi Amish community with a father who was a religious leader. And so I didn't have a lot in my life, you know, that other people have. The only book I really read was the Bible and, you know, so, so what I did have though is an amazing environment. In that little village where I grew up, I saw the sky kind of in a way that frankly, I've rarely ever seen since my youth. And I was outside a lot at night, on my back, frankly, on the roof and looking at the stars. Over time, I bought a map, a star map, and I started looking at it. And so for me, the stars were always both a goal,

• 3:16Speaker 00

  but also an escape. Kind of for me, it was just amazing. So I started, of course, asking questions, just like we all do. That was the start for astrophysics for me.

• 3:25Shane Parrish?

  Do you remember what some of those first questions were?

• 3:27Speaker 00

  The most important question really is about, is somebody else watching the other way? I mean, for me, it just, what is there? Just the whole point, right? Going, growing up in that religious environment, I thought a lot about bigger purpose and bigger things like, you know, with the name, the Lord, perhaps, or with the name, creation. For me, for me, really looking at the stars, the patterns of them, the fact that they're there the next day also kind of made me really ask, what is it? How does it actually look? Right? And, and what can, you know, what's the relationship of that amazing sky to us

• 4:11Speaker 00

  here? Like to my little self on my back on the roof in that little village, you know, what is that big thing? You start opening up books. You know, my godfather gave me the first book. It's still in my office, by the way, at NASA. Really about the possibility of exploring those stars and you know, it just keeps on going and that question becomes more intense.

• 4:36Shane Parrish?

  Do you feel, what is your take on that? Do you think that there's somebody out there watching us?

• 4:41Speaker 00

  It's good. First of all, I believe it's very likely, right? I mean, as a scientist, the answer must be, I don't know. And by the way, that's not a cop out. It's the answer to most questions that we ask in science. I don't know, or I don't yet know. So for me, you know, that question, we actually are making a ton, a ton of progress towards. I mean, frankly, during my professional lifetime, it's probably the question where we've made most groundbreaking discoveries, you know, kind of when I started my kind of master's degree in astrophysics, we had no planets elsewhere other than the ones in our solar system.

• 5:22Speaker 00

  In the meantime, we have thousands of those planets and some of them look awfully like, you know, like our own, kind of relative to the data we have, which are really, really, really sparse. So we're on that track towards, you know, a belief or kind of a sense that, yeah, you know, life, just like planetary systems, life could also be very much distributed in the universe.

• 5:49Shane Parrish?

  I have a million questions about space. I was so excited when you agreed to come on. One of the first questions I wanted to ask is, my kids actually proposed this, which is, what's the most interesting things we've learned from running experiments on the International Space Station?

• 6:05Speaker 00

  It's a really good question. I do believe, you know, and it depends a little bit who's asking, right? So for me, I'll give two answers depending on who's, who's asking. I think the, the most important one is really kind of a series of, of answers that relate to one question, and that is, how is the human body or even life itself, kind of? Evolve or change without gravity. And there's important, very, very important work that has happened relative to our bone structure, relative to our visual system, but also now relative to our just genetic expression, right?

• 6:45Speaker 00

  We have with the twin study that one of the, an identical twin went on the space station for a long time. The other one stayed on the ground with that twin study and the kind of generosity of those individuals to make the kind of the DNA public. There's an abundance of research that really talks about how gene expressions are changing in space. So for me, that is a super exciting part, you know, and a question we can't really answer on the ground. The other one, I just want to say the space station has been the site of much research and, and, and there's a lot of experiments hanging on the outside of the space station. And for me, probably the most exciting one relates to neutron stars, you know, they're

• 7:29Speaker 00

  these kind of high energy, high density kind of stars that, that we're frankly, right now measuring kind of the ingredients of. And then we're doing that from the outside of the space station using a telescope, you know, that that's taking advantage of that unique orbit and the enhanced data rate. So that would be the second, the second answer.

• 7:51Shane Parrish?

  How do experiments work on the space station? Are they coordinated across countries or is the data shared? Does each country do their own experiments?

• 8:00Speaker 00

  For most of the data, let me just talk about NASA first. For all of our experiments, we have a policy of sharing all data. And I love that because frankly, so much of, of the, the work we do, whether it's about astrophysics and especially about earth signs, we're all better off if we share all the data because it's kind of a common good, right? As the taxpayers are paying for it, let's make it as useful as possible. And it's incredible what people figure out with those data. So what we have done in the space station work is, is we have actually created partnerships in which multiple countries are, are participating and they have their own channels up there.

• 8:42Speaker 00

  And there's an integration board that kind of makes sure that, you know, we're not doing twice the same thing that we partner when we can, but we encourage and empower both, you know. Government agencies, but also companies to put work on the space station and then coordinate that. Now, what we have done, especially for companies, we have kind of adopted IP laws in a way that does not undercut the ability of actually commercializing some of the results that are there. That's deliberately. But for the for the science work, it basically is public data where, you know, we're trying to enhance, you know, rise all boats, right?

• 9:24Speaker 00

  Kind of in science. That's a principle we really, really deeply believe in. And I think it's exactly the right principle. It was invented long before I came to now. So it's something that we went through in the last 20 years, and it made us all much better.

• 9:37Shane Parrish?

  Are there specific examples of things we've learned about the immune system or sleep from space that we can apply on Earth?

• 9:45Speaker 00

  There are lessons about sleep, about the immune system. I'm not sure whether any of them can office in the not good form in which I could just basically say, well, this is, you know, this is what we know. We know, for example, the various levels of sleep, right? Kind of the astronauts, just like here, are kind of being observed constantly. They're wired, you know, the way it's in the movies is the way it happens, right? Kind of our, we make sure that the astronauts are healthy and we are, you know, like how we they're sleeping, you know, kind of the depth of sleep, you know? I mean, I talked to a number of the astronauts, very easy to to just recognize, hey, this is

• 10:26Speaker 00

  a really different life. And it's hard. It's, you know, I mean, if you want example, you close your eyes, you see flashes going through your eyes. Why? Because cosmic rays, you know, that come from the deep galaxy, from exploding stars, they're out there. Most of them never come to the ground because between, you know, if you take a square centimeter and go all the way to space, there's a kilogram of air. Per square centimeter that shields us, right? So we're very radiation shielded. Well, if you're in a space station, that is not the case, right? Because you're on top of the air. So basically, what now happens is that radiation goes through your body. And then, you know, if you close your eyes, you see these flashes that are going through your eyes.

• 11:09Speaker 00

  And, you know, many of the astronauts, some of my friends have told me is like, how kind of tough it is to try to ignore that when you want to fall asleep first, right? You know, these kind of flashes that occur in your eye, just one tiny example.

• 11:23Shane Parrish?

  Oh, that's so cool.

• 11:26Speaker 02

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• 12:25Shane Parrish?

  Can we talk about the Earth's magnetic field and how it shields us from debris? Am I getting that right?

• 12:31Speaker 00

  The Earth's magnetic field, you know, it's, by the way, it's, it's, it's one of those things, if you really ask in detail, we still don't fully understand why it occurs. And kind of the more we know about it, the more it kind of makes us learn. For example, Mercury has a magnetic field, the Earth has a magnetic field, Jupiter has a magnetic field, Mars does not have a global. Scale magnetic field, neither does Venus. And so, so we basically, we learn from that. Okay, so what does the Earth magnetic field do? So what it, what it does, it stands there, you know, like a dipole from north to south. And what it does is the very particles I just talked about, but especially lower energy particles, the ones that come from the sun, they come into the magnetic field and, and they hit the magnetic field.

• 13:15Speaker 00

  And whenever they hit the magnetic field, think at the equator, right? When the magnetic fields look like a dipole, it's kind of right over the magnetic field. It turns the particles around. So it, it, if you want, it shields, the magnetic field shields the, the inside of the Earth, including all the way down here, but also in the space station, shields us from energetic particles, debris, you know, which are dust pieces and kind of, you know, some of them human made, kind of spacecraft that blew up or, or, you know, that are no longer used or, or, you know, upper stages that were used, of course, to propel spacecraft up there. They're way heavier, so the magnetic field doesn't really have a huge impact on them.

• 13:59Shane Parrish?

  And that's also how we get the northern lights, right? So it's the reflection off of that debris that sort of refracts the light differently?

• 14:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, so, so, so think of that particle I just described at the equator. So the particle at the equator, it goes away because remember the magnetic field force is always perpendicular to the magnetic field itself. Now let's go at the polar region. At the polar region, the magnetic fields are coming in, right? Kind of just look at, you know, Google magnetic field of a dipole. You see that the magnetic fields are coming in. So up there, the particles are like a funnel, they're coming down, they're not deflected, they're like funnel coming in. And they come in and they hit the atmospheric oxygen and whatever is there and it'll, it makes them light, like a neon light or whatever, you know, a, a light that you have in which kind of high energy particles are exciting them and they radiate.

• 14:52Speaker 00

  That's, so the, the northern lines are, are energetic particles, both from the sun, but also from the back of the Earth magnetic field, kind of funneled into the top, into the polar regions and igniting, if you want, the spectacle of light.

• 15:09Shane Parrish?

  You mentioned sort of like satellites and unused spacecraft, I guess. What happens to them after they're done? I mean, do they just float around? Do they get sent on course to the sun? As we put more and more satellites into the air, does it become a problem for launching rockets? Or?

• 15:26Speaker 00

  So if I was organizing the kind of whole spaceflight according to its challenges, this would be a top five challenge that you're mentioning. It may be even a top two or three challenge. So, so basically the issue is these particles, especially in low Earth orbit, right? Most spacecraft that we have are in low Earth orbit. The second most site is in geostationary orbit. That's where your, you know, spacecraft are that do both weather observations, but also, you know, the TV satellites, you know, the antenna on the roof points towards geostationary orbit. That's why it can point one place. It doesn't have to move at low Earth orbit. You know, there's a lot of spacecraft, thousands of spacecraft that are operating

• 16:09Speaker 00

  and, and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of debris. Now, so what happens is depending on where you are in height, that debris stays there for decades. And so basically what actually is one of the biggest challenges we have is as we launch into that space, because of our history, but also because of new things, that debris is frankly becoming a real challenge. Now, just imagine the speed by which the spacecraft move are kilometers per second. That's also the speed by which the debris moves. So what we have is we have an observation program, both by the Department of Defense, but also other places, international places with telescopes.

• 16:54Speaker 00

  And we try to catalog all the debris. So on a, on an average month, we have one, sometimes multiple almost hits. So sometimes we have to fly a spacecraft away, you know, I have tens of spacecraft that are there operating. We have to move it away to make sure the debris can pass. Those are fine. The ones that really worry me are the ones that we don't see. Like if you if you took a sugar cube worth of metal and you shot it, you know, at at ten kilometers per second, you shot it against a spacecraft, if it hits it at the right place, that spacecraft is over, right?

• 17:36Speaker 00

  So so we, if it's tiny, you know, it may take a solar cell out if it's, you know, you see the size really matters. So so we have a problem as an international community that especially low Earth orbit is clocked with debris. And it's really one of those things. I think in the next ten years, we have to solve it. We have to, in fact, clean that garbage. And also, what's important, you know, the rule number one in digging holes is stop digging, right? So so kind of so we have to make sure that everything we launch, we either fly out or we create such a short timeline that within years it's gone, right? So it's out of the space, you know, the upper atmosphere kind of has a drag force and it

• 18:18Speaker 00

  falls onto the earth like a meteor, an artificial meteor, and it disappears. So that's that's a really critical problem.

• 18:25Shane Parrish?

  You you mentioned that was one of the top, maybe five challenges. What would be other contenders for the top challenges?

• 18:30Speaker 00

  Well, I do believe that that one of the things we really want to be careful about is to keep space peaceful. And I think that's that's something we've been watching with repetition. We've signed treaties, both in the US and otherwise, you know, and we see, and it has been discussed, we see some countries, nation states that are out there that are, you know, really putting in question whether they're serious about the peaceful utilization of space. And it is, it is really worrisome because, of course, you know, it is, you know, they can use space like other countries use, they can put telescopes there, observe whoever they want to, their own people or other people, right?

• 19:15Speaker 00

  They can, they can do that. But they can, by law, right? But they cannot, for example, weaponize space. So so so for me. Kind of if you ask me kind of my kind of in lower orbit, what is my biggest worry right now? It is that that we take the common good of space that we've, you know, over decades, we've used that way, you know, in a non-interference basis, uh, you know, with international community, that we take that and move it into a place where this becomes a domain of war almost, or a domain of potential war and that, you know, I mean, and frankly, we're moving at a larger speed than we would like in that direction, unfortunately.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  And it's not, uh, you know, uh, because we want that, uh, but, uh, you know, of course, we observe what, what, what is happening.

• 20:03Shane Parrish?

  Do you think that's inevitable, that it becomes another frontier for, say, war, for example?

• 20:10Speaker 00

  God, I hope not, right? I mean, that we've, we've seen in, in history, we've seen cycles in which we, you know, armed ourselves to the teeth, then we said, this is insane, uh, let's, let's step back, you know, let's get rid of all these nukes, you know, and, and we have done that with people at times, you know, we were in a cold war with, you know, and so for me, uh, my hope is we get to a place in which we kind of really say, look, we're going to create lines and we're going to accept those lines, you know, the fact that people say, oh, we're going to do this and that, you know, that's one thing. The important thing is that we, you know, if you look at the Cold War, we went and checked each other, right, and made sure that we followed the rules.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  Well, so, so, so for me, uh, I think, you know, there's a fork in the road in the next, uh, decade or so, and in, in, in which we do that. Needless to say, the United States put a space force together in part because of that challenge is that space deserves a lot of attention and, and we can still use space as a domain from which to, uh, support kind of, uh, the US or our allies and so forth without, you know, crossing that line. But, uh, my worry really is that, uh, I mean, that discussion is one of the discussions in the next decade that's really serious.

• 21:30Shane Parrish?

  Are there other things to come to mind as like big challenges over the next decade?

• 21:34Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, I think the, the big, uh, challenge now in this case, I don't know whether it's a challenge or an opportunity. I mean, I think we're at the verge of really opening space for. For commoners, right, kind of for my family, your family, right, kind of to do a trip to space and kind of utilize it both as a commercial entity by imaging the earth, for example, and selling those images, those data, that information, or also as a tourist destination and so forth. And so for me, if we can do that, right, it creates a very different dynamic in this whole thing, right? And so for me, you know, that's also decided, I would argue, in the next 10 years, right? It's kind of, I mean, frankly, it's incredible what has

• 22:18Speaker 00

  happened in the last 20. You know, the question is, where are we in the next 20? You know, and so for me, for me, it just, I mean, that's another big question. And, you know, if we're, if that is failing, right, that kind of, that space is solely the domain of governments, right? Kind of the question we just had about one of my worries, right? It's a totally different discussion than when others are there also, right, in which we basically say, hey, look, this is, you know, just like we do a trip to Paris, let's do our anniversary trip to space, right? I mean, I, and you say, well, that's crazy. No, it is not. That is precisely what five companies are working on right now. And for

• 22:59Speaker 00

  all I see, they're successful. I mean, it's looking really promising. It's moving into the domain of entrepreneurship. So in other words, it's no longer a technology. The question is, does the business model close? So, so, so that's what that one is.

• 23:13Shane Parrish?

  How is space governed? Like, can, can I just start a company and like shoot stuff into space?

• 23:19Speaker 00

  So each, you know, the space is, you know, the United Nations Office for Outer Space, kind of, you know, with its signatories of the, kind of, of the relevant, you know, acts that came internationally, you know, for example, it says, we will use space as a common good, we will not weaponize it, we will, we will be non, act on a non-interference basis. So those things are kind of the international, the international framework, then the national framework, each country is now responsible for access to space. So for example, if you wanted to launch, and you know, you're in Canada, you would work with your

• 24:02Speaker 00

  You know, your country on how, in fact, you know, the access to space. Are you, for example, compliant with the orbital debris guidelines? Right? Are you compliant with the frequency interference stuff? You know, that we, how are you going to communicate? Those checks are done by your nation state and then you can launch based on that. So, so it's really this both national and international community that works together on those things. We know, of course, whenever there's a launch somewhere. So it's not like you can't hide. If there's a launch, we know it's almost, you know, I mean, everybody knows where there's a launch. That's why we actually tell everybody there is a launch. There may be, you know, we'll, we may be launching or I'll just call it.

• 24:47Speaker 00

  The Russians may be launching a top secret asset, but they're saying we're launching.

• 24:51Shane Parrish?

  They're just not talking about the payload, but they're just telling you that they're launching and they'll give you the trajectory and everything, I would imagine.

• 24:58Speaker 00

  Exactly right. So that's how it's, it's regulated. Yeah.

• 25:02Shane Parrish?

  How does, how does that work in the future? In the sense of we'll see more and more private corporations innovating in space. And I want to come to SpaceX later specifically. But how does that regulatory body work? I mean, ultimately you'll be able to, there'll be countries with less regulation and more regulation. And you could locate your business in any of those countries.

• 25:24Speaker 00

  I do believe, you know, back to my top five, this is one of those also. You know, as always, the speed of innovation is the relevant speed on this one. Right? Kind of, and, and the speed of regulation, like so many places, it's just not matching the speed of innovation. Right? And so, so it's because of that that I worry. Right? It is because of that, that, that, you know, you believe, I mean, it needs to, it needs to be, it can't be. A leaky bucket, right? Can't be that kind of certain countries just pollute the space by whatever means, right? Whether it's the frequency, the communication piece, or whether it's the orbital debris piece, or whether it's how they're setting their

• 26:09Speaker 00

  orbits. They need to be part of a common kind of community that actually enforces those standards and holds them. And I think that kind of commercial, by the way, the commercialization of this is a great story. So for me, especially from the US perspective, that is the goal, right? Our goal is not that in 50 years, the government does the same stuff that we did 50 years ago. That's crazy, especially when it's a research entity like NASA. We want to kind of attack the next frontier. We want to, we want to go beyond what's possible to they kind of increase the box of what's possible, you know, you know, and then let the commercial entities deal with that. So for me, that's, it's what I call a good

• 26:53Speaker 00

  problem, but it's a problem nonetheless.

• 26:56Shane Parrish?

  So with something like Starlink, did they just need US approval? Or do they need to go around the entire world and get everybody's approval to launch those into space? Like, how does that work?

• 27:06Speaker 00

  It was the US approval. So the, the, the relevant US entities both looked focused on launch, on the frequency, you know, all this stuff was approved in a, in the process that is agreed upon in the United States. So they, they went up there. Of course, what happened, you know, is, you know, the element of surprise is always there when you're working with innovation, you know, so they were a lot more bright. And, you know, everybody looked at their, I imagine myself in Switzerland on top of that, on top of that roof, I would see Starlink, right? I mean, it's like, you can't miss that, right? And, and that, that raises questions that are beyond the regulatory, right? It's kind of, is there a right to

• 27:48Speaker 00

  a dark sky, right? So it's questions like that, especially as a, as an astrophysicist, like, how does that affect the future observation? I just want to tell you, SpaceX and the Starlink team have been nothing but collaborative. They went and faced the astrophysics community. They're actively darkening their bodies, right? Kind of their spacecraft. Frankly, it was

• 28:11Speaker 00

  People didn't want to do this, right? That's not that, oh, like, I don't care, right? It's really hard to do some of these calculations the right way. And frankly, sometimes you don't know what the question is you're supposed to ask, right? I mean, who would have guessed that that's going to be the big discussion in Starlink? Right? Of course, having internet everywhere is a great equalizer. I mean, I worked on this when I was a university professor with my... I mean, I worked with Google on this problem, right? And their due diligence of company, kind of investments with them. And so for me, that's a good thing. And SpaceX is really pushing the envelope. But yes, this is an important part.

• 28:50Shane Parrish?

  Well, let's come to SpaceX a little bit later. I want to... One of the coolest things I think you're working on is a Mars sample return, which would be humanity's first round trip ever to another planet. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

• 29:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm so excited about it. So first of all, in this summer, we did launch a mission called Mars 2020 Perseverance. And it's basically a sampler.

• 29:13Shane Parrish?

  That was in July, right?

• 29:15Speaker 00

  It was in July, yes, in July, the 30th of July. I remember it exactly how it took off and it was incredible. It was named by a schoolboy is up, you know, called Perseverance. And it's like the best name ever, especially for the time we're in today. And it's on a way to Mars. It's beyond halfway to Mars and it's going to land in February 21. It's going to land on Mars and then it will has one task that it really has to prioritize on. And that is to collect samples, identify and collect samples. So we're going to land into a crater, a former crater that, you know, was a lake, used to be a lake, we know from our remote observations.

• 29:59Speaker 00

  So we're going to collect samples kind of in places where on Earth we would go find fossils, right? So that's where you would go. And so basically, that, that, we're going to collect those samples in twenty six or twenty seven, our next two spacecraft will take off, one in twenty six, one in twenty seven, we think today. The first one will go up there and it, it will, its job is to fly to Mars and using, you know, a propulsion method, ion propulsion, electric propulsion, moving into Mars and waiting. So it's kind of the carrier ship. So it's there with camera and com, then the other one comes,

• 30:39Speaker 00

  and it, it puts a rocket down on the surface of Mars. It's, it's the, it's, it's a total functional rocket. It lands a rocket, then the rover that we have will go and drop off, drop off samples, by the way, just because we don't know whether that rover will work, we have a sample fetch rover that actually is done by Canada, and it may actually turn out to be the most important part of that entire piece, kind of to go pick up kind of deposits of these sample, kind of flasks that we have, super clean things, then put them on the spacecraft and at that launch vehicle, go up and then drop kind of an orbiting sample satellite, put it there. Remember the thing that's in orbit and waiting? It's going to

• 31:24Speaker 00

  put it up. You know that Austin Powers movie? It's that, right? Kind of just to scoop up that kind of Easter egg, right? That's up there, kind of with the, with the sample in it, then come back to Earth and drop it onto the Earth. So that will be the first round trip. It's international and science driven, just like we should do those kind of big leaps. Do you think we'll ever live on Mars? I believe so. I don't think it's me, or it may be at the generation of my children, but, but it's not my generation. I think we will go to Mars with humans in my lifetime, for sure. I think we- And colonize it. I think over, over the time scale of multiple generations, I think it's very

• 32:07Speaker 00

  much possible that we could stay there for a long time. It's not clear how, right? We don't know enough. And it, it has everything to do with the resources that are there. And so for me, the question is, is the way we're going to live there like we live in the Antarctic Research Station, right? There are people living there, but it's kind of a tough life, right? It's in middle of eyes, you know, airplanes come and drop them off, they stay there for the summer. You know, and then that mean the southern summer and then they take off. Uh, you know, and there's kind of the only people who are there are just, you know, that go through winter are very healthy individuals who, you know, just keep the thing afloat. So it doesn't, you know, it's still ready for the next summer. So that's one version of living, right?

• 32:50Speaker 00

  Uh, that, and then the other version of living is like, I like we have here on earth, right? Go to an island and build houses and live there with our families. And on that whole spectrum, right? I don't know where we're going to end up, you know? If I had a hypothesis right now, and I know many people, I mean, kind of depending on who you are, some people think there are thousands of people who will live on Mars. It's like that may very well be. So that's more on the island side of things, you know, and, you know, instead of Hawaii, uh, an island in Hawaii, you know? Go to Mars, find resources, do that, perhaps even terraform Mars. That's what people talk about. Make it a different planet so we can live there. One good way of counting is just number of, of miracles you need, right?

• 33:32Speaker 00

  This is a ten, twenty miracle type of scenario that the other one kind of the Antarctic research station is maybe only a five miracle thing. So, so it kind of, the path to that certainly goes through the Antarctic research station, right? It just, I mean, first we need to do that. That's what I'm focused on. And, you know, I understand Elon, Musk and many others, they're talking about that other world. Uh, I don't think, uh, so if I, I mean, I, again, I don't know. Never underestimate the power of innovation. That is kind of, that's really important, right? Uh, but what I want to do is just break down these kind of, take the first few miracles down, right? Because it's good for all of humanity. Just take them down, but put them in the bucket of, from the miracle bucket into the bucket of that's possible now.

• 34:17Speaker 00

  So that's what I'm going to do.

• 34:19Shane Parrish?

  I'm, I'm curious as to like, what we'll find on Mars. Will we find materials that are, I, I mean, obviously exceedingly rare, but maybe they're useful. And in which case does Mars become almost a mining colony? And then we have another race to see who can get there first and who can extract these. Cause we're eventually going to run out of these rare earth materials. And if we find substitutes on other planets. How do you see that playing out? Or am I just like way too far in sci fi land right now?

• 34:48Speaker 00

  No, I think this is our lifetime kind of issue, the mining colony. Now, if you, I think what you said about Mars is highly appropriate. Kind of resources relate to living there, living off the land, but it also is creating business models that kind of make it viable. It's feasible and viability, right? Both, both matter. I want to talk to you about another celestial body, just to amplify your point. It's called Psyche. It's, you know, like psyche, like the psyche in me, you know, P S Y C A G. So it's an asteroid. We think it's a failed, a failed planet. So it's a planet that has a core, that it, you know, a metal core and kind of enormously precious, if it's true, right?

• 35:31Speaker 00

  Kind of the size, we know the size, we know its orbit. We're building a mission, we're going to launch in 22 to go, to go there and go, uh, go orbit it and learn about it. But assume this is really a fail core. That body has more value than any other body we currently know, because frankly, we cannot get that from the earth. Digging a hole into the earth to where we need to go is actually harder than just going out there and collecting that. And so for me, I think the kind of mining world, that the mining approach to the world is in space is inevitable.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  I mean, it's something that will matter for both purposes, again, to survive, but also to, uh, to, you know, to, to build new, new commercial entities. And that's why it's so important that we regulate it upfront in a way that actually protects those environments. I mean, for me, I mean, I think Mars is beautiful in its own right. Look at these images. It's incredible. We don't want to destroy it, right? And we, we know how to, we've learned a lot on earth, how to do that, right? And we should include those lessons there and not kind of get into down the road so far that we say, oops, you know, we're back to where we were or on earth and which we have an environment. So, so again, the regulation and innovation speeds need to adjust, right?

• 36:54Shane Parrish?

  Most people live in cities, so they don't get to look up and sort of see all these thousands of stars. I remember the first time I ever went to Columbia. And I was in the middle of a rainforest and I looked up and there was like thousands and thousands of stars and it was just the most incredible experience. And then you see, you know, the Hubble and you see these low orbiting satellites and it was kind of, it was really interesting and startling to see the sky with such clarity. When you think of an asteroid and landing on the asteroid and like extracting materials, do you think of that as we're landing on it and we're going to extract it and bring it back? Or do you think of it as we're going to redirect the asteroid back to Earth and bring the whole thing back somehow?

• 37:38Speaker 00

  It depends on the size of the asteroid, right? And of the energy that it takes to redirect us, depending on the size and the orbit it has is almost infinity, right? Relative to what we have. If you look at psyche, it would be the former model, like landing and extracting and bringing back. And of course, that puts into the value chain, everything from launch to extraction to, you know, to, you know, the whole risk you have to offset from the uncertainty and all the way down to, you know, the investors wanting to make money from it. So it's a really tough business model. You could do an experiment right now and basically say, suppose I took one of those big rockets, you know, take, you know,

• 38:21Speaker 00

  the biggest rocket we have and suppose by whatever miracle, I go to that asteroid and I fill, I mean, I can go there, I pay for the rocket and forget the physics. I just go there and I fill the whole thing full of gold and I bring it back and I land. Do I make or lose money? You know, and then the answer is we're starting to make money because launch is so much cheaper now than it was. You know, that is in part because of that commercial force, but it's not by enough yet, right? So kind of the, so kind of you want to, you want to make sure that you upside, rare earth metals, by the way, are actually worth more, as you know, as gold, right? Kind of in, in many of these,

• 39:02Speaker 00

  you know, applications that really depend on them. And, and so we want to do that, right? So it's a We need to learn more, right? It's kind of, we're just scratching that surface, but that's where we're going, I think.

• 39:15Shane Parrish?

  You manage one of the largest budgets in the world, let alone science budgets. I think you're seven, eight billion dollars a year. I mean, that tops most S and P 500 companies, most Dow companies. You're allocating more money into science than probably anybody in the world. I'm curious as to what's the hardest part of that job and why?

• 39:37Speaker 00

  I think the hardest part of research is always to find that edge, right? So kind of, you know, kind of, if you really look at the best research, you know, I think of it like I'm a mountain guy. Think of it as like walking in the mountains on that ridge. On the one side is the irrelevant. We've already proven it. It's easy to do research there. It's it's safe. You know, you get tenure and every professor, you know, is fine doing it, kind of twiddling around and you can make a lot of money there. The other side is the impossible, right? Kind of their, I mean, kind of research questions don't only need, frankly, the right question, but the right time for that question.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  And the hardest part is to build programs that are programs that have that, push that edge at the maximum speed viable. That requires that you learn how to fail. You're going to every once in a while drop down this way and drop down that way. And to, you know, and what you really have to do, especially the ones that fail because they went too early. You want to protect them. You want to protect your innovators, right? Because, because that's important. So for me, the hardest part is really to set the program at the right speed of innovation,

• 41:02Speaker 00

  kind of, and allow for experimentation, for iteration, as opposed to kind of being that colossal, kind of, that kind of slow organization that just wants to make everything safe, which of course we want to be safe, right? Kind of that has to live in our brain too, because when we make an investment of a $3 billion, like that March 2020 perseverance rover, right? If we make that investment, we want to do what we can, right? But, you know, to do that. So that's the hardest part, I would argue.

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• 42:32Shane Parrish?

  I'm curious internally as to how you balance that and how you think about, okay, well, we're investing $3 billion and we need to eventually ship this. But on the same token, the money at stake and in a public way, too. It's not even a private company losing $3 billion. It's the public that would be losing $3 billion. How do you think about those decisions? And how do you make them?

• 42:55Speaker 00

  So first of all, you recognize that the launch is an irreversible decision. And of the moment I say go, it's done. You don't get it back. It is over, right? So it's irreversible. So basically, whenever you make a decision like that, and many people do that in the business world, too, right, kind of these one-way doors, I think, as others call it. You only go through it once. The way you do it, I believe, is you recognize, do you want to make the decision well-informed? And with all the scrutiny upfront, so, so the way I make that decision is first of all,

• 43:36Speaker 00

  I don't make it alone. I put in the room, the people, the best people that I know, kind of from the engineers, but also the policy people and you know, and I actually have people who are don't report to each other, like I have an engineering organization, just the way we built NASA over decades, that we have an engineer organization that talks about just engineering without any other encumbrances, right? The question just is, will it work? What's the likelihood for it to work? There's one that talks about safety, just that way. Is it going to be safe, right? And no other, no other if, then, so that's their focus.

• 44:17Speaker 00

  And so you basically, the way you make the decision is you, you bring together that kind of, of course you work, you recognize by the way, the most important thing is to empower the team, right? Kind of, I mean, frankly, I'm not the most important guy in this. I'm just making the decision to live with it, you know, and I'm the guy in the congressional hearing, right? If something goes wrong. So everybody knows that, right? So I will make the decision and it's one, it's not a vote. It's one decision by one signature. The only signature that matters there for most of these missions is mine, right? Because I take the accountability, right? But I would be a fool to not listen to the others. So for me, you, you really get to know, with big decisions, I actually

• 44:59Speaker 00

  spend a lot of time meeting the teams. I want to, I've built space hardware. I can sense how good it, you know, I listen to the team. I listen to the things that are not said. I listen to, I basically figure out whether they're scrutinizing each other, whether we have a lead that squashes opposition, you know, those are all warning signs. You want to see whether, I look at mistakes people are making. Are they, by the way, I don't care if they make a mistake, but are they making stupid mistakes and over and over again? Are they, are they disciplined, right? So, so all that stuff, kind of, it's, it's years of work that come together to that decision where I said, yes, we launch.

• 45:40Shane Parrish?

  Where are you when you make that decision? Are you in a room with other people? Are you alone? Are you walking? Are you running? What are you doing when you actually make that call?

• 45:49Speaker 00

  In many cases, I'm in a room with other people, but if I'm not sure, I will take a break and I, I think, well, when I run. I think well in the shower in the morning. So I mean, there are kind of points of clarity. If I'm not sure, I will never push into a decision. I mean, I, the way I always go is I go backwards, right? Suppose I'm sitting in the congressional hearing and I just blew up X and Y. Can I explain how I made the decision in a way that it made sense there? Space is hard, and by the way, every once in a while, we will fail. And I remind everybody of that. If you want to not fail, you're in that safe space over here that's irrelevant. That's not how NASA got to where it is. It's not because people played it safe. It's because we do take risks.

• 46:34Speaker 00

  We do leave the launch pad, even though we know it's dangerous. You know, with 1.5 to 3% likelihood, it will not make it out of, out of the earth's gravity, statistically speaking. So, so we take that risk, right? So just that itself. I will never, one of the things I really believe in is don't, don't get pushed. I, I, if I'm not sure, I don't mind being the only guy who is not comfortable. You know, and, and I will, I will back off. I basically said, uh, thanks for stopping the meeting. I appreciate that. If anybody has anything that is not being said, uh, I will not make a decision for 24 hours. Send it to me by email and I will go back.

• 47:15Speaker 00

  And if I, if I find that there's more information I can gain that really is relevant, I'll do that. If I find, you know, like you get into a place where more information actually doesn't help you because it adds ambiguity to the team. I make the decision right on the spot because frankly, I'm, I'm ready for it because I, I did the work. So it's not because I came in unprepared. I did the work for years in advance. I know kind of have all these data points and I've discussed them with my, with my group of kind of diverse leaders who look at them from different perspectives.

• 47:49Shane Parrish?

  Is there examples where you, you've made that call and it's turned out to be wrong, but you got a good outcome?

• 47:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I wanna, I wanna, I'll talk about two decisions. The first one is, I was, one of the first decisions I made is a billion dollar assets. It's the June mission. I was in orbit or is in orbit around Jupiter. And so we were in an orbit of a 50 day orbit and we wanted to drop the, fire the engine and drop it down to a 15 day orbit. What that does, and I may have the date slightly wrong, but you get the point. I wanted to, to get, I have over 100 missions. So sometimes I mix up dates. I did not wanna think we're gonna talk about this. But, but anyway, I wanted to kind of increase the frequency of encounters by a factor of three. That, that's what I wanted to do.

• 48:38Speaker 00

  The question was, do we wanna do that? So the entire team, look at them from their point of view. They're frankly perfectly fine in a slow orbit. They say we need 20 flybys. It costs the taxpayer 50 more million dollars to just stay where you are. The principal investigator, everybody's like, let's just leave it where we are. There's risk. We want the minimum risk. And I'm like, well, what's the opportunity cost? You're spending 50 more million dollars to do the science. And so what I had to do is, is unentangle that kind of natural inclination, which I understand because I was in his role before, from the actual technical question. Is it, is it, is it important?

• 49:20Speaker 00

  So in that room, there were very few people who wanted to fire the engine. But I took the decision to fire the engine. And then we prepared for it. And as we prepared for it, all of a sudden, we realized that the engine had a problem. It had a leak. It was, something was wrong with it. And, and frankly, what we needed to do is basically look at the, you know, as we prepared for this exact, but what I believe is the exact right decision, we actually realized that, that we couldn't do because now we would have to fire the engine. So I made a second decision. We would have to fire the engine in a state that it had never been tested. Now I have a billion dollar asset that's basically working.

• 50:06Speaker 00

  And I need to take a risk. Is it worth that risk? So, so actually, the second decision, I had to reverse that the first decision to fire. I actually decided not to fire because of the, because of that kind of enhanced and unknown risk. We thought that the ancient people said we could probably do that. We just have never done it. And there has never been a burn that long in that configuration in any test environment. Okay, that's crazy, right? You don't, I mean, of course, I'm boiling it down to the quintessential 30 seconds of the meeting, right? Once you learn that, it's like you don't fire. So ultimately, we ended up not firing because we did the scrutiny in the first and the second decision.

• 50:48Speaker 00

  We set ourselves up in a way that actually made the science way better. Because we actually, we actually had, I had asked them to bring, you know, yes, there's opportunity cost, but tell me what you can do extra science that you weren't able to do. So we actually moved it up. So, so by failing in my first decision, we enhanced the mission significantly.

• 51:08Shane Parrish?

  I appreciate you sharing the details of that. You said there was two decisions that you recalled. What was the other one?

• 51:15Speaker 00

  So the first one was, let's fire, even though everybody opposed it. The second was, let's not fire because, you know, even though some of the technical people said we could do it, but we put in off scrutiny together that basically, basically, again, I was wrong on the first decision. I, you know, kind of if you could say, well, you know, I'm sure somebody said it's like, well, you could have just not fired and we're exactly where we are. It's like, no, that's exactly the right scrutiny. Because in a congressional hearing, I could actually now explain to you how I cautiously spent that extra $50 million. It's not because I just, I'm not handling that, that pressure. Well, we actually learned something that really matters. Learning is an important part of innovation.

• 51:57Shane Parrish?

  How do you disseminate what you learn within the organization? Like, how do you share that knowledge?

• 52:03Speaker 00

  That's a really good question and I struggle with it. And basically what happens to me on a given day, I make multiple decisions, right? And for me, what I've started to do is sit down and talk people through the decision. Kind of it's almost like see what I'm seeing, this is what you know, and really create that rigor in the organization and kind of show where, how the decision path goes, right? I asking questions out loud and talking through it. And so that's what I'm sharing in the leadership team. I worry sometimes just because NASA is so hierarchical, right? Kind of because of the fact that only one signature matters, you know,

• 52:46Speaker 00

  kind of my schedule is always subscribed by a factor of 10 every, every week, right? So, so I say no a lot more than yes relative to my time. That's my most impression, most important, good, right? So, so for me, the question I'm asking, am I spending enough time to actually disseminate things into the organizations? Because I'm, you know, it would be helpful for them to actually know this is the scrutiny we're putting on it. I try to do it and I ask people to do it, but I just want to tell you it's a question on my mind that I'm currently thinking about. You know, I just, I'm not, and that reason I'm saying it, it's like I see some of the same mistakes over and over again. It's like, no, no, I don't want, like for me, what I really hate,

• 53:28Speaker 00

  if you really want to tick me off, come show up and tell me everything is low risk. That makes me believe you haven't understood your job, right? Don't make me laugh, don't make me feel good. Make me feel scared and then make me feel comfortable because you're dealing with all the risks. Don't come and say it's all low risk. It is not low risk, it's rocket science. And so for me, it's like, you know, and at the beginning, everybody came with us because you know, you know, these organizations have their histories, their leaders, you know, like some leaders don't sleep well if they have problems, you know, so they have pain aversion, it's a big leadership weakness, like, you know, to not be able to carry worries with them, you know,

• 54:11Speaker 00

  and those worries pulling them down. So, you know, that the whole organization behaves in a way that they never bring a worry to you. You still have them, but you don't know them, right? So you get surprised, you know, and then I'm like, no, no, no, I won't. I need you to be worried more than me. Then I'm feeling comfortable. I don't want you to be calm. I need you to be worried. That's what I want.

• 54:37Shane Parrish?

  What it sounds like you're really looking for, if I'm paraphrasing correctly here, is you're wanting to know that they've thought about it in a level of detail that's appropriate and accounted for those. And if, if they're coming to you and saying, you know, I don't really have any concerns, then it begs to, it sort of makes you question whether they've thought about it enough and deeply. And that's a red flag for you that you need to like dive in and evaluate.

• 55:04Speaker 00

  Exactly right. So I, I, I look at those red flags and I look really, I listen really carefully to what's not being talked about. I listen really carefully.

• 55:13Shane Parrish?

  Double click on that.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  So, so I go into a, a meeting. I actually have a chart. I'm not sharing with people, generally speaking, but on that chart, there's technical, schedule, cost, team thing, you know, like key topics. And I listen carefully. Are you talking about technical? What are your things that you're dealing with? We just talked about that. Are you worrying about it? Are you moving them forward? And, you know, what are you, what are your top worries? I want to know what they are. Then I want to know about your team. I want to know what do you talk about your team? How is your team doing? Under pressure as they are, are they making mistakes? Are there almost mistakes you've caught? Like, you know, like, how are you making sure your team is cohesive,

• 56:00Speaker 00

  motivated, excited, you know? The, the relevant unit of innovation is a team. It's not an, an individual, right? So for me, I want to hear you talk about the team. I want to hear you talk about cost. You've thought about it. You've linked those things together. I want to hear you talk about schedule. So often for planet or mission, schedule is the most important variable because the planets need to be in the right place in the sky. So I can't take longer. I can only either go this year or two years from now to Mars, for example. Right? You know, so, so because just Mars doesn't line up with the earth the right way. So I can go there. So for me, I listen carefully for the white spaces on my chart or in my mental image of the entire collection of the mission.

• 56:44Speaker 00

  What are you not talking about? And that's where I'm going to go, right? So I sit there, I prepare, I look at every chart deck, every information I had. Frankly, I block my schedule to do that in a very aggressive fashion. I take, I take a lot of preparation time and I come in and now I listen really carefully and I take off the jar. Are you talking about this? Are you really comprehensively doing that? And I may take one of those things and I drive like five questions into depth. And you know, I want to see whether you can go, go, go, go, go until you're finally, you know, and there's some people I've never missed, I've never got to the end. There's some people two questions deep, I got them, right? It's like, okay, they're a two question

• 57:29Speaker 00

  kind of person, you know, there's, there's the other one that's, I've never found the end. After six questions, he's still going, right? It's like, like, and you know, I mean, I'm like, okay, don't worry about him, you know, or her, by the way, you know, the same is true with, with our managers, the same is true with our money people. Now tell me how, you know, you know, and I go after, and again, I want to know what you're not focusing on and, you know, as a team. And so that's, that's where I'm so again, be dishonest, red flag number one, or kind of over, over exaggerate your, your comfort. And the second one is be blind, right? Kind of forget of,

• 58:09Speaker 00

  you're not seeing that part of your trade space, kind of over focusing, I would argue, is my biggest challenge. So everybody focuses on schedule, like, oh, schedule, schedule, schedule, schedule. And it took me a long time and that could tell you a story about the James Webb Telescope. It's that story. I knew when I joined the job, a month in where the problem's going to be. Tell me that story. Well, James Webb Telescope's telescope for 20 years, we've been working on it. It's, it's one of the most difficult stories that we have in NASA, the international community, Canada built an instrument on it. So did Europeans, right? It's basically a $10 billion

• 58:51Speaker 00

  investment. It's, it's the most complex mission ever done. It's basically a telescope, six and a half meter mirror protected by five tennis court sizes, kind of sun protection shields. It's really hard. The hardest thing to do is the telescope and the instruments. When I came in, that was in integration and test and everybody focused on that. Well, there are two more swim lanes. One of them is the software operations piece. And the second one is the spacecraft bus. The spacecraft bus is just, you know, the power, the communication, you know, it goes behind the telescope and just attach it. And it's also that, you know, sun shield deployment. Okay.

• 59:35Speaker 00

  So when I came in, kind of, you know, like, like a good MBA, you know, you look at it, the critical path goes through the telescope and all these other things are off the critical path by months. And I'm like, okay. I listened for a couple of weeks to the updates and I said, you're never talking about the bus. Can I ask you about the scheduled performance on the bus? You know, and I'm learning, right? I feel very inadequate, right? They're all much better than me, which is a feeling you have to get used to in my job, you know? I'm not the smartest guy in the room by a long shot many times, but I'm there listening, right? It's like, well, tell me about the bus.

• 1:00:19Speaker 00

  And I look at the scheduled performance and they're losing schedule. And you basically take that scheduled performance, it's like, oh, we're doing fine, we're doing fine. You know, and we're so far off the critical path. I go talk to the director. He does the same kind of evasive maneuver. And I did not know yet how to do that. It's one of those things I learned in the last five years. I knew after a month, this is going to be my problem, but I didn't know. It's one of the biggest lessons of my life.

• 1:00:49Speaker 00

  During that time, as well as the year before, this team was so, had such challenges that it was making mistakes that cost the taxpayer of the United States $800 million, that the mistakes themselves cost $600 million because of lack of focus, because of lack of cohesion in the team. Stupid mistakes of the type that frankly, I would have kicked out undergrads out of my university lab if they made them. For example, they did not tighten bolts the right way. It's like, how can you have a 10 million, a 10 billion dollar asset and not tighten bolts in a way that the faster catches? Of course, it's a long story that tried to solve another problem.

• 1:01:32Speaker 00

  You know, and I'm 100% sure Shane, that there's a technician who, by the way, thousands of those bolts. There's a technician up there. Who's timing it's like these things are not catching. Is that the right thing to do? And I'm sure that was being said because it always is said the technician knows well, but the team was broken enough that kind of in that state that that information did not lead to action. Uh, we went to acoustic test, the balls start flying off. It's one of the most embarrassing things. They, the engines that are there, 12 engines were flushed out with the wrong chemical. Instead of actually checking, the person who flushes it out, they tried to clean it. That's exactly what they should do.

• 1:02:16Speaker 00

  They need to use the right chemical instead of checking with the supplier, a small company in upstate New York who did nothing wrong. Instead of checking with them, they flushed with the wrong chemical. Now, the problem is they didn't talk to anybody about it. So the engines got added, the, the engines got added to the bus. Now I have 12 of those engines to did that I now have to cut out. I have to replenish the kind of valves that are kind of seals that were etched away by the wrong solvent. And all that happened as I'm, nobody is focusing on it. And so for me, our focus, I tell you is that, you know, kind of we're focusing on this because it's on the critical path.

• 1:02:57Speaker 00

  It's such a horrible mistake that people are making, you know? I mean, and it kind of, I always it's like, you know, don't look at a chart like an MBA. And I know you have an MBA, so no offense to MBAs, we need them, we love them, but kind of look at them as a leader, right? And of course they shouldn't be, uh, they shouldn't be, uh, in contradiction, but just go with the, with the thing, kind of, don't look at the chart and say, I'm fine because my critical path moves and that's what I learned in some book is okay. Everything off the critical path is what you're going to lose sleep over one year from now, if you're not watching it. And it's not that you're divert attention from the critical path, but you also need to focus off the critical path and pattern match.

• 1:03:41Speaker 00

  Go figure out, get to know about this team. I only focused on it a year later. I basically asked, I basically gave up kind of there's a kind of the red flag version of, uh, space is you, you ask for an independent review team. I basically put the flag down and says, I lost trust. I did an independent review team that basically came back and says, we need 800 or $1 million to fix those mistakes and bring it together. And and we had a horrible time on the Capitol Hill kind of explaining that to the disappointed science community that we did and it and it was because of my mistake as a leader, not following my gut. I have in my notebooks that I had the mistake pecked. I just did not

• 1:04:26Speaker 00

  know how to how to get after it. In the meantime, of course, I stay connected with all parts of it, right? And frankly, I have the best team I've ever had. And as we're as we're getting ready for the launch next year, right, that we're going to do so because the team got a chance to actually fix itself. But I could have given that then that chance a year, one and a half years earlier.

• 1:04:48Shane Parrish?

  Talk to me about that, that sort of the team fixing itself and go into detail about how you change the how you rebuild the confidence, how you change the trust level, how you go forward with that, because I'm assuming the answer is not more bureaucracy.

• 1:05:06Speaker 00

  That's exactly right. So so for me, remember, I'm the guy who sits in Washington, right? I am not going to solve this problem. But what my job is to create the environment in which the problem is solved and to hold the leaders accountable for solving it. Right? So what is absolutely critical is all the relevant leaders, all the way to the CEO of the company, agree on what the key priorities are. For example, the first priority is mission success. Yes, we want to launch as soon as possible. The first priority is mission success. We will not rush and make stupid mistakes, because every one of these mistakes in that environment costs us hundreds of millions of dollars. So saving a day and, you know,

• 1:05:51Speaker 00

  having six months to to fix a mistake is just a bad thing. So it's it's it's really aligning that getting together, also recognizing is there needs to be a stride we find. There's the right speed at doing something. So in other words, If you, you know, like it's like biking, you teach your kid biking, it's like, you know, there's that the right speed of doing it, you can't do it any slower. It's not safer to go slower, you need to find kind of the speed of attention, the speed of learning, the speed of, you know, find that right speed, kind of allow the team to get there, but insist on the right mechanisms being in place. For example, what was really important, you know, I mean, one of the reasons airborne

• 1:06:33Speaker 00

  travel is so safe is because of the mechanisms that are put in place. Any pilot can say, we almost made a mistake. For me, that almost made a mistake mechanism is so important for big projects. Talk about the almost mistakes because they surely will be mistakes if you don't fix them. What can we learn from almost mistakes? Also, talk about the mistakes. And so for me, the question was, how do we do that? I actually met up with the leaders, met with the team to say, we got your back. We know, we need to get better. I frankly, I, we had a team, I basically replaced in my, in my reporting structure, everybody.

• 1:07:14Speaker 00

  And the simple reason for that is I wanted to basically create a before and after. I wanted to make sure that the after is one that we are together and we are one, we are locking arms. And frankly, I observe, I do that often in reviews, I push against one person and see whether the other one comes to rescue them. I want to know, like, do they let them sink? I mean, frankly, I put more edge against one person, sometimes I apologize at the end, sometimes it's exactly the appropriate thing to do, but I want to see whether their partner helps, right? Kind of, are they helping each other, not against me, but together as a team to, to come do that. This is for me, also staying in touch was important for, I mean, I cannot stay in touch with all missions.

• 1:07:59Speaker 00

  In most cases, I delegate, small missions, I delegate, I don't, I don't need to be in touch. For the highest missions, I meet with them, I meet with the leadership team, I'm, I have the leader on speed dial, I know problems before it comes to me, because we're transparent about it. So that's what, that's what I do. So it's really, again, replace the. Create a before and after. If you're in that much trouble, replace that. But then really recognize you're not going to solve the problem. Create the environment for that.

• 1:08:29Shane Parrish?

  I really appreciate that answer and the detail you gave there. I'm curious as to how the variance in presidential leadership affects your ability to build consistent programs.

• 1:08:40Speaker 00

  It's actually a really interesting question. And I just want to tell you, of all agencies in the United States, NASA is perhaps the one that's the least partisan. So basically, it's kind of interesting that if you look, I came in under the Obama administration, I worked in the Trump administration. And if you really looked at the priorities, that did not, for example, in the science program substantially change, right? We are, of course, part of a human exploration campaign to the moon and then to Mars, of which science is part. But if you look at, take the Mars sample return, kind of the mission, the WET mission, they are there. And the reason for that is that actually, the person who's in

• 1:09:23Speaker 00

  charge of collecting, of choosing the highest priority science is actually not me. And I'm really glad for that. The process that we have built in the United States and other countries have different processes, but is we use our national academies, the thought leaders in the domains to say, what is the most urgent question that we should address right now? Not, so what's the best, most important question, but what's the most urgent question? And that sets the priority. So I actually don't go argue with them, should we go to Europa, you know, the moon there? Should we go to Mars? Should we go to Uranus? We haven't been there in a while. I asked the science leaders with that collective,

• 1:10:07Speaker 00

  diverse kind of community, come up with that prioritization in a decadal plan. Every 10 years, we get that plan. And so I follow that. And that has created stability. Basically, both parties agree that that's the way to organize. And then the question really is, what's the money available? That is, that is the political side, right? How does it, how does it go up and down? And, you know, of course, there's other priorities in the world than the science program. I understand that.

• 1:10:37Shane Parrish?

  It sounds like that would be an almost, is there an equivalent for for doctors and medicine? Because it sounds like that would almost be an ideal approach to directing some of that funding as well. From a government perspective, not from a private sector perspective.

• 1:10:52Speaker 00

  There are some elements of NIH research that have a similar National Institute of Health research that have similar type of prioritization scheme. I would argue that especially with NASA and kind of the space research, we have a better, a better kind of consensus building process than many of the other disciplines. And it has really served us because it creates a constancy of purpose. So it's not so much like, I know if somebody comes in and says, hey, look, we want to focus on Earth signs. What are the next missions? They are not questions I'm like, oh, let me start thinking about this. I already know what they are because for the last decade, I frankly, I've built that strategy. And we're working on it, which is the only lever here is speed, right? So, so how fast are we doing that?

• 1:11:38Speaker 00

  Because we know that Earth is a connected system. We need to focus on it, right? And kind of, we know about global change. Now, the question is, how do we bring that data to, to the community? So it helps them thrive on this changing planet. We already know that, right? So the question is, how are we going? So for me, that is really a useful tool.

• 1:11:58Shane Parrish?

  Two decades ago, the idea of SpaceX and its ambitions were sort of laughed at by the space community writ large. How do we ensure the biases of today are not slowing or blocking the ambitious goals of private sector?

• 1:12:13Speaker 00

  It is true that, I remember I, I wrote an editorial, kind of something like 20 years ago or so, in which I basically made a simple point, and that's that, hey, the top talent right now works at SpaceX. And if they have enough runway, financial runway, they will be successful because they have the top talent right now. And I remember how much I got attacked over that. I was a university professor and frankly, the way I got to that assertion is by just tracking students, right? Where are the three sigma performers, right? And then I called MIT and I called other universities. They said that the same for them. And I'm like, that's a pattern, right? And so, so yes, I mean, of course, that time has come and gone, right? SpaceX is a force to be reckoned with.

• 1:12:58Speaker 00

  I think Blue Origin, you know, Jeff Bezos's company is right behind them. There's many others. Rocket Lab, a company out of New Zealand. I think it's incredible innovation story for small launch systems. And it is true that in the government, right? That's where I work right now. It's a very difficult time in a following sense, right? You know, and we need to make sure that we're not putting hurls into the way, right? So it's in a following sense. So what happens is if I walk into a room in any place at NASA and I basically look at the leaders, a significant fraction of those very good people grew up in a one specific environment, right?

• 1:13:40Speaker 00

  And they grew up in a place where, you know, after Apollo and which kind of NASA was the only game in town, together with some contractors that also worked on with other agencies on big systems. But you know, in a contracting relationship, using a specific set of contracting mechanisms and so forth. Okay, so where we are now is we have that other vehicle, kind of a much more iteration focused thing with failures, right? The first, you know, the first two SpaceX Falcon 1s blew up, right? You know, and frankly, you know, Elon tells the story that he was on the final money, right? The one that worked. It needed to work because it was the end of the company if it didn't, right? That's what he says. I don't, I don't know.

• 1:14:23Speaker 00

  So the question really is, how do we move forward with that? And of course, of course, the answer needs to be that we actually bring people who speak that other language on the inside of the government. See, diversity of thought is a really important criterion of team, whether it's in NASA or any other entity, right? And so for me, that's something I focused on, right? I've been, I've worked in a venture fund, you know, as an advisor, I've invested in venture things before, right? I've been on boards of companies and, and so, you know, so I'm not the best at it. I know that I'm not, I know what I don't know, but I know kind of have network over there. And so what's really critical to me is that I'm not the best in a room in NASA.

• 1:15:08Speaker 00

  And if not in the room, others are in a room who speak that language. Now, the good news is we're making progress and we're learning how to go forward. And of course, the proof of that is the crude private vehicles that are operating now. Basically, there were a lot of thought papers that said that can never happen. It's impossible. And it's not just because of SpaceX making enormous leaps forward, it's also the government making leaps forward. So I think it's going to be a struggle as we go forward and it's a struggle that we need to recognize it such and basically make sure that we all do our work in a way to advance it. It is a strength for us to have commercial entities. It's not in any way threatening.

• 1:15:51Speaker 00

  This is the future we want, that's no question about it. It's for us, the question is, how do we enable that? There's mistakes we can make in the government that are really horrible. Like if a pre-seed company pitches us for a hundred million dollars, we shouldn't just say yes, because it's a pre-seed company. See, the venture capital community, because if it's a pre-seed company, only invested one million dollar in it. Why? Because they see a lot of issues that are there on team, market fit and so forth. So we need to bring that knowledge to bear too, kind of supporting of commercial entities. Doesn't mean that we say yes all the time. It means that we, our reaction is appropriate to what these companies are and we become customers. We, we learn how to.

• 1:16:37Speaker 00

  Utilize these companies without owning them. I do not want to own these companies. I want to be a customer. And so for me, that that's really the goal I'm after.

• 1:16:45Shane Parrish?

  How has that affected your ability to recruit the best people and your internal culture and motivation with the rise of SpaceX and Blue Origin?

• 1:16:54Speaker 00

  I think in general, actually, there's more excitement in space because of those partners. I actually don't believe that that that somehow sucked the energy out of it. You know, the NASA brand remains one of the top brands in the world. And frankly, SpaceX added to that. They didn't subtract to it. And so for me, it has increased it. But what's also important, especially as we go to the leadership level, that we recognize that we need more arrows in the quiver in our leadership tools. Right? We need to learn how to handle these environments and learn how to be agile, react to it, be learning organizations. And for me, what I've done in my job is really brought in a much more diversity in the leadership team in all dimensions, but especially to kind of kind of reflect that environment.

• 1:17:39Speaker 00

  So we we need, of course, the very experienced internal NASA people who frankly know more about this agency and what's possible on the inside of the agency. But we at the same time also need the others who have worked in SpaceX and frankly are or in related industries and are helping us make good decisions.

• 1:18:00Shane Parrish?

  Do you think it changes NASA's role at all in terms of risk taking where you can start to take more risks now? And when things work out, you can pass that technology to the private sector?

• 1:18:11Speaker 00

  That's exactly what I want to do. Exactly right. That's exactly what I want to do. I want to focus on the things that a company cannot do because it's too crazy. It's too risky. So we have done things to for that, right? Kind of the James Webb Space Telescope I just talked about is one of those things. It's not possible to do in a private setting, but at this moment in time. But as we go forward, it may be. But also I have a new program, the Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program to the Moon, in which I basically said, I'm buying at firm fixed price, delivery services to the moon. Who wants to play? I did that after, you know, I came into NASA and I saw these Google X price companies that had been focused,

• 1:18:54Speaker 00

  you know, been funded by, by, uh, you know, venture capital and other sources, not government sources. I was like, okay, if you have a company that could do that, I want to be a customer. By the way, I don't want to be the only customer, not interested whatsoever to own that industry, but I want to be an anchor customer. And by the way, I'm going to take the risk. So what I did is I talked to every stakeholder, including those on the hill and say, look, the likelihood of that is not hundred percent. You should think of it as a 50 50 shot on goal. So we need to, you know, like hockey, we need to take shots on goal to score. So, so for us, it's kind of being regular, doing that, uh, is really important. So, so we have a team that is running that, that is kind of learning to dance on that stage.

• 1:19:37Speaker 00

  It's a very different thing than what we're doing to Mars or to the moon in the past, right? It's a very different, different company. And frankly, you know, it, it, you know, it, this has lifted. So it's, it's, it's both leaning forward on kind of new things, but also kind of learning how to hand off, even in places where we're not hundred percent sure yet that it works.

• 1:20:00Shane Parrish?

  How, how do you think about giving these companies, uh, not only sort of, um, those contracts, but also valuable information that makes their product better versus opening that information up to the world so that the next Elon or the next Jeff Bezos gets a head start and you're not, you're not, um, solidifying one or two companies as the only option going forward and creating effectively a monopoly that just acquires more and more information from NASA, gets harder and harder to replace as time goes on. How do you foster competition in that space?

• 1:20:36Speaker 00

  So we try wherever we can to make the information public, right? I mean, kind of whether it's the science data, how we do it, we actually encourage people to write publications that said, how did you do it? You know, we just picked up a sample at Benue. You know, this asteroid are using a new technology. It's a new can, how did we do it? Go read the publication. We wrote it, right? There are, there are some elements that kind of that we wanna respect, right? Kind of the first one is intellectual property of individuals and of companies. Kind of if you with your company develop a new technology, I mean, frankly, I don't wanna go stomp you out. I want you to be able to lift, use that to lift your company, right? That's good. Innovation needs to be supportive in that way.

• 1:21:19Speaker 00

  So for me, I need to learn standing back, right? Of course, as a, as a government person, I'm basically looking at you through the eyes of a taxpayer. Is it worth my money to, to pay for that license? I think the other one is that, of course, the laws that relate to export laws, right? That we have legal boundaries on some things, you know, certain technologies we just can't, we don't wanna, you know, there's a legal boundary we're not gonna cross. But within those boundaries, we are, you know, trying to stimulate innovation by driving forward, by making information public. We also, it's very common that we create kind of agreements with companies to help them, right?

• 1:22:02Speaker 00

  So our goal is, you know, I mean, Elon himself has talked about a lot of stuff he learned from NASA and the crew thing that frankly, we, our great experts taught him. It's not, and that's what we want to do. Kind of, and the next company can get the same service, just the same way, right? So for us, for us, we want to hand off what we can. So like you said, we can focus on the edge of innovation because companies cannot afford that yet.

• 1:22:31Shane Parrish?

  Yeah, governments can take risks that private companies can. I think that's a great place to end this conversation, Thomas. And thank you so much for your time. This has been fascinating.

• 1:22:42Speaker 00

  Thanks for your time and thanks for all you do. I've listened to your show many, many times, kind of I run every day, so, so often you're in my ear when I run.

• 1:22:51Shane Parrish?

  I appreciate that. Thank you.

• 1:22:53Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:22:58Shane Parrish?

  Hey, one more thing before we say goodbye. The Knowledge Project is produced by the team at Fernham Street. I want to make this the best podcast you listen to, and I'd love to get your feedback. If you have comments, ideas for future shows or topics, or just feedback in general, you can email me at [email protected] or follow me on Twitter at Shane A. Parrish. You can learn more about the show and find past episodes at fs.blog/podcast. If you found this episode valuable, share it online with the hashtag The Knowledge Project or leave a review. Until the next episode.