Before a short note on this week’s episode…
I have some GREAT NEWS!
The DownLink Podcast, a Defense & Aerospace Report production, is a 2023 Defence Media Awards Shortlisted Finalist in the following award categories:
Best Digital submission
Best Military Propulsion submission
Best National Security Space submission
Best Technology submission
*The John Morrocco Award for Best In-depth Defence Reporting
Winners will be announced on October 8 at the National Press Club, here in Washington, D.C. The competition includes one of my favorite Space reporters Theresa Hitchens of Breaking Defense (Congratulations!), as well as Reuters, Foreign Policy, Aviation Week Network, POLITICO, National Defense Magazine, Military Times, and others.
If you scroll down a bit, I have links to the episodes and list those who helped make those episodes possible.
Now the note
This week’s episode is about what it is going to take to build and secure a Cis-Lunar economy, now that it takes a lot less treasure to land on the Moon. It also explores DARPA’s foray into Cis-Lunar infrastructure development with its new initiative, the 10-Year Lunar Architecture Capability Study (Luna-10).
I wanted to produce this episode because I don’t believe the importance of India’s Chandrayaan-3 Mission is yet fully understood, especially for what it signals about what my guest George Pullen terms “the 5th Industrial Revolution” and the Cis-Lunar economy.
Yes. India is a democracy. Yes. India signed up to the U.S.-led Artemis Accords. But when the Vikram lander touched down on the moon’s surface two weeks ago, the Indian Space and Research Organization did it for a mere $75m.
India’s budget is also slightly less than the $77.2m NASA is paying Intuitive Machines on a fixed-price contract for a demonstrator mission simply called Intuitive Machines-1 (IM-1). Launching in November, the IM-1 mission will take the Nova-C lunar lander and six NASA payloads to a site near the Malapert A crater, located in the southern polar region, where water-ice and other volatiles important to industry and space exploration and settlement have been discovered.
The price-point being established for cargo service to the lunar surface, puts building the necessary infrastructure - launch, in-space mobility, communications, manufacturing capability - to build a Cis-Lunar economy within reach.
This shrinking cost lowers the bar for commercial operations and will intensify geopolitical friction. Paying to secure this economy, may not be so cheap, and it will be necessary.
If you still think the price point is prohibitive, consider that two Hollywood executive producers rounded up $100m (not adjusted for inflation) to produce the 1991 film “Terminator 2-Judgment Day”. Pretty soon not just nations, but space companies will be saying “I’ll be back” to the Moon.
Who’s on this week’s episode
Mike Dickey - Founding Partner at Elaranova, and former Director of the U.S. Space Force Force Design Integration Office, at the Space Warfighting Analysis Center.
Courtney Stadd - Executive Vice President of the Beyond Earth Institute, with extensive stints in the Departments of Commerce and Transportation, NASA, and the White House, as well as in the private sector.
George Pullen - Chief Economist at Milky Way Economy.
What episodes made the cut
The episodes that made the finals are
January 15, 2023 - There’s No Need To Be So Toxic!
February 5, 2023 - Russia’s War in Ukraine Is a Boon for Space Business
February 12, 2023 - David, Goliath, & Space – Is This How Future Wars Will Be Fought?
February 19, 2023 - Should the U.S. Military Defend U.S. Commercial Space Operators Involved In Ukraine?
February 26, 2023 - China Learns Lessons From Ukraine’s Use of Space
The following companies, organizations and individuals participated in the episodes that made the finalist cut:
Quilty Space - Chris Quilty,
MilkyWayEconomy - George Pullen,
The Motley Fool - Richard Smith,
Hudson Institute - Bryan Clark ,
U.S. Naval War College - David Burbach,
Maxar Technologies - Stephen Wood,
National Institute for Deterrence Studies - Christopher Stone,
Independent Scholar - Namrata Goswami
Australian Strategic Policy Institute - Malcolm Davis
Benchmark Space Systems - Christopher Carella & Samantha Graham
Dawn Aerospace - Jeroen Wink
Want to nerd out on Cis-Lunar policy and money?
First, you have got to read Peter Garretson’s just published article/book chapter, “Bluewater and Brownwater Space Strategies and Their Budgetary Profiles”. This sets you up to understand the debate over whether the Space Force’s ambitions should be to look up and out or down.
The “National Cislunar Science & Technology Strategy”, from the National Science & Technology Council’s Cislunar Technology Strategy Interagency Working Group is a foundational document on where this administration is focussing efforts across the government. And here’s NASA’s policy spelled out in “NASA’s Moon to Mars Strategy and Objectives Development”.
Space Capital’s “Space Investment Quarterly Report” has the latest on where the money is and where it’s going.
Ad Astra,
Laura
