By registering, you agree to receive email newsletters or POLITICO alerts You may unsubscribe to any This transcript was edited to length and clarity. You have decades of experience in developing concepts for space transportation, including when you became the Boeing Space Architect in 2004.
launch vehicle studies, transportation stage studies.I have managed contracts, R & D programs .In Boeing Interior, we have been examining a propellant deposit [in orbit] what would it cost, how much would it cost, what would be the cost of propulsion.
A year ago, I finished my career at Boeing. It was a good turning point. It was about the same time as Trump was starting to say "we are going back to the moon".
I think we need a space transport, a space infrastructure, if we go somewhere – – If we definitely go to the moon, if we definitely go to Mars, if we have to do something effectively in the space, we need space infrastructure.
These are reusable space tugs, reusable landers, unrecoverable two-stage landing gear. We discovered this at Boeing in 2004 when we were talking about going to the moon four times a year … a bit like we did with Apollo. In no time, we had 20 to 30 landers sitting on the moon in a dump, basically. This is a kind of waste of badets.
This construction of new material every time you go is expensive. So, once we put something in space, we should never get rid of it. We should continue to use it, we should make it reusable. It is there that I concentrate my efforts since I left Boeing. The establishment of this orbit-moon terrestrial transport architecture using oxygen and hydrogen as propellant.
How would the concept work?
The thruster is expensive. It takes half of your mbad and booster to go anywhere on the moon and at the back. We send water to a propellant depot, a production facility that converts this water into oxygen and hydrogen, liquefies it and stores it. We have space tugs coming out into geosynchronous orbit for commercial satellites and putting them into orbit so that they can get rid of … the propulsion. This is the first stream of income
What is your sense of where NASA and the big space companies are pronouncing on this idea?
There are some at NASA who love refueling, repositories and platforms, but the makers are behind the Space Launch System. And the depots are considered a killer – a wooden stake – for Space Launch System. Because you can do the same missions with depots and tugs.
I do not think NASA is doing anything wrong because it's not up to NASA to commercialize the space. Their job is to be at the forefront of the exploration and technological development needed to do these things. There are other people and other countries who want to go on the moon to extract propellant water, as a potential commodity for sale in the space. And these are the people I consider as potential customers for transportation.
We are not trying to supplant all existing national programs. I'm here to offer commercial activities for those who can not use Space Launch System, for those who want to go to the moon, change the way we do space missions or GEO missions, change the way we do business. Space and become a more efficient nation and space world.
What are the next steps for the company?
We do not intend to be a hardware builder. We are the operator and want to build it for us. I would say a commercial NASA. We will define what we want to build, what we want to operate, we will contract with a prime contractor to build it and we will operate it.
There are enough companies in the aerospace industry that can build what we need without having to start from scratch. I'm not Elon Musk and I'm not Jeff Bezos, so I do not have that kind of resources or networks at my disposal.
I've identified five potential customers, seven potential suppliers, the same number of potential collaborators in the launch industry – people able to send satellites into low Earth orbit, but I could have it delivered to destination. And seven or eight potential competitors
I think [the concept] is ready for a review of system architecture system requirements, which takes start-up funding and then more funding to start the design process and then more funding to start the construction process and more funding to put it into orbit. The concept is ready for independent review and critique and evaluation. What is wrong, what needs to be fixed, what is going well? And are we ready to move on to the next stage of the design process?
It's time to change. Reusability comes in the launch sector. Reusability must be transferred to the space sector. There are many things that need to be transported to get where they are going. And it's probably the best environment – political and commercial – that we have to try to change.
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