Best New Ideas in Money

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Mike Massimino: The next step is going to the moon. I think that that's doable in the next few years. Mars is a lot more difficult because you're so much further away, but I think we're going to learn a lot on the moon, and I think the moon is a very good step toward exploring Mars.

Stephanie Kelton: Welcome to the Best New Ideas in Money, a podcast for MarketWatch. I'm Stephanie Kelton. I'm an economist and a professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University.

James Rogers: And I'm James Rogers, a financial columnist at MarketWatch.

Stephanie Kelton: Each week we explore innovations in economics, finance, technology, and policy that rethink the way we live, work, spend, save, and invest.

Speaker 4: Five, four, three, two, one.

James Rogers: You're hearing audio from the first test launch of SpaceX's enormous starship, the tallest and most powerful rocket ever designed. SpaceX, which is Elon Musk's space exploration company, undertook the test in April of this year. Although the rocket exploded just about four minutes after its successfully cleared the launch pad, the big experiment was considered a major success. So Stephanie, have you had thoughts about going to space?

Stephanie Kelton: I have. I watched some of the recent launches and I can imagine how cool it would be to climb into one of those shuttles and get to go where few people have ever gone before. But honestly, I sort of like my feet planted firmly on the ground. What about you, James?

James Rogers: I grew up watching launches and seeing the space shuttle, and I really like the idea of it being an astronaut. It would've been amazing. But now I'm a journalist and I have been fortunate enough to cover the space program. I've covered a launch from Cape Canaveral. I've interviewed quite a lot of the Apollo astronauts, so I've been able to get involved in it in my own way.

Stephanie Kelton: I'd like to see a launch from a healthy distance, of course. But let's get to the episode.

James Rogers: Today we're talking with Mike Massimino, whom I first met in 2019 when I was covering the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. Massimino was an astronaut. He's been to space twice on the space shuttle, and today he's a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia University in New York. He's also involved with the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, also in New York City, where he's a senior advisor for space programs.

Stephanie Kelton: So what are the big new ideas in space? Back to the moon? Asteroid mining? How about Mars?

James Rogers: All of the above, actually. And that's exactly what I asked Massimino about. Mike, can you tell us a little bit about your experience in space and why did you want to go in the first place?

Mike Massimino: Yeah, so James, I'm old enough to remember when I was a kid watching Neil Armstrong take those first steps on the moon. I was six years old and I wanted to grow up to be like Neil Armstrong.

Speaker 5: Okay, Neil, we can see you coming down the ladder now. (inaudible).

Neil Armstrong: That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

Mike Massimino: I never thought I could actually do that. That's what I want to do, as I got older though, reality started to set in. How in the world do you do something like that? I had no idea how to make anything like that happen.

Stephanie Kelton: Massimino initially gravitated to a career in the space program thinking, even if he couldn't go to space, he could at least help with the effort. But eventually, after several applications, he got a yes from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, and was selected for the astronaut class of 1996.

Mike Massimino: Yeah, I went through my initial astronaut training with NASA and then was eligible to be assigned to a flight. And the two missions I was assigned to, I was assigned to my first flight in 2002 on Space Shuttle Columbia, and we went to the Hubble Space telescope. And then seven years later, I had my second mission to the same place. I went back again to the Hubble Space telescope, was a space walker again on the telescope. And those were my two missions while I was an astronaut with NASA.

James Rogers: Hubble is still orbiting Earth today, but I want to ask you about the new $10 billion James Webb Space telescope, which was launched in 2021. The first images from Webb were released in 2022. What did you think? And is a picture really worth $10 billion?

Mike Massimino: Well, I don't know if a picture is worth $10 billion, but I think the information that it's going to lead us to, that understanding, that knowledge, the truth of what's out there, maybe where we came from and how did we get here is worth a lot more than that if you ask me. But it's not just a picture, it's really the knowledge that you're getting and trying to unlock the mysteries of the universe, of who are we, how did we get here, where do you go after? Is there anybody else out there? And I think those are important things. The Webb is fine-tuned to do that compared to Hubble. Hubble's able to see over the array of wavelengths of light, including the visible light spectrum. Whereas Webb is really tuned to look into the infrared, and that is because its objective is to try to go back to the beginnings of the universe or the first light to the Big Bang, to the creation of the universe to try to learn more about that. And that light is so far in the past and so far away from us that it's really hard to see. And so it's not visible and you have to use infrared detectors, like Webb has, to see that. And also to do things like search for life, analyzing the atmospheres of planets, Webb has been tuned to do that as well, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else it comes up with.

James Rogers: We're obviously in an exciting time at the moment. In 2020, Morgan Stanley estimated that the value of the space industry could go from 350 billion to more than a trillion dollars by 2040. Where do you see the big opportunities here, both for the private and public sectors?

Mike Massimino: I think they both help each other. I think the big change that happened is when we went to commercial programs. And NASA made, I think, a very bold decision going beyond what they had done before, not just thinking about going and exploring space, but also creating the opportunity for economic development, which would also help NASA explore. It has expanded the opportunities in space. My students at Columbia have flown two flight experiments, one on a Blue Origin vehicle and another one to the space station on a SpaceX vehicle. That would've been impossible even just a couple years ago. So I think it's created opportunities that never existed before. And once people, scientists, whoever it might be, realize that something is possible, it creates more demand. And I think that is what's very exciting to me, is that it's not just governments, it's now private enterprise. NASA, by turning over a lot of the low earth orbit operations to commercial enterprise, at least getting there, getting cargo people there as a commercial enterprise now, they've been able to turn their attention to going back to the moon with the space launch system and Orion and on to Mars and exploring space beyond low earth orbit. So I think it's a pretty exciting time.

James Rogers: There is so much happening in the private space sector these days. You've got Elon Musk with SpaceX. They've been in the news. They recently pulled in another $1.7 billion in equity funding. United Launch Alliance is pushing towards its first vulcan rocket launch later this year. Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin was awarded a NASA contract for a lunar lander. And then, let's not forget, Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is in the middle of making its first commercial space flight. Now, how do you think the private space industry is doing?

Mike Massimino: I think that it's creating lots of opportunity. I think the price still needs to come down, particularly if we're going to look at space tourism. But we have some very talented people, some great entrepreneurs involved, and it's lots of companies out there popping up all over the place. So I think it's attracting a lot of talent. I think as they get more and more experience, I think the prices of access to space is going to come down, which is going to allow more people to go and more things to be done. The government doing that is restricted because you're dealing with taxpayers dollars, but these private companies are taking risks. They're not risking people's lives. They've had a pretty good record, which is good, but they're able to take more risks and make decisions more quickly than our governments are and are able to do. And so I think that's been helpful at the speed that they've been able to make these developments. So I think they've done really well. I'm excited about what's happening and looking forward to what's coming down in the future.

James Rogers: How do you think NASA's role is going to evolve within this? Because like a lot of people grew up with, you mentioned space exploration, it's synonymous with NASA. My kids are growing up in a world where space exploration might be synonymous with SpaceX and Blue Origin and Virgin as well as NASA. How is that going to change the dynamic from what we saw during the Apollo era to what we're seeing now?

Mike Massimino: I think it's a good thing. And again, I think that's what NASA has wanted for decades. They were actually rewriting the manuals for the space shuttle so that a commercial airline pilot could fly the space shuttle and they were flying guests and visitors and companies on the space shuttle. And then the accident happened, and that all ended.

Neil Armstrong: From ABC, This is World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. Tonight reporting from Washington.

Peter Jennings: It is the worst disaster in the history of the American space program. And President Reagan has declared a week of mourning for the seven astronauts, five men and two women who lost their lives on their way into space this morning.

Stephanie Kelton: On January 28th, 1986, the space shuttle, Challenger, broke apart shortly after launch. Many Americans watched the terrible tragedy unfold on live television. And according to Massimino, the disaster put an end to NASA's ambitions to develop commercial space travel for some time.

Mike Massimino: A lot of the commercial activity that they wanted to do, that they wanted to help, just in the airplane industry where governments typically for military purposes developed aircraft and then at the commercial airline industry, I think that's what NASA was hoping for.

Stephanie Kelton: Massimino sees today's space industry with NASA working alongside commercial operators as what the agency long intended.

Mike Massimino: So I think that this is all great for NASA and it allows them to do more things. I think their role is going to be maybe more in the area of doing the things that commercial companies are not ready for, like setting up the infrastructure to go to the moon, like going back to Mars, maybe doing things for science purposes and research more than for trying to generate an income or money. Whereas with private enterprise, if they can figure out ways to make money with this, I think they'd be able to do some pretty exciting things and NASA will be able to focus on the things that it does well, maybe more of the research and development and doing things that aren't ready yet for the commercial sector.

James Rogers: When we're back, I ask Massimino how soon we'll send people to Mars. That's after the break.

Stephanie Kelton: Welcome back to the Best New Ideas in Money. Before the break, former astronaut Mike Massimino talked about the evolution of space travel and the increasing involvement of the private sector.

James Rogers: Now we're going to hear about what's coming up in the near future and what may still be light years away. Let's talk about Mars. There's been a lot of hype about going to Mars, but how soon do you expect to see astronauts walking on the red planet, and have you got any thoughts about any innovative approaches or technologies that are being explored for long duration space travel?

Mike Massimino: I think Mars is still way off. I know Elon Musk and maybe Jeff Bezos has his sights on that too. I don't know. I don't know what they're thinking, but if they decide to turn their attention to doing that, I wouldn't doubt that that they're going to do it. But I think from what I see right now, the next step is going to the moon. Turning over lower earth orbit to private enterprise commercial space stations, I think that that's doable in the next few years. We are sending a crew to orbit the moon, and then there's going to be a landing crew that's going to be announced, I think, shortly, to land on the moon a few years after. And then trying to set up an infrastructure so that we can ferry people and material back and forth to the moon. I think that that's doable in the next, hopefully in the next 10 years. Mars is a lot more difficult because you're so much further away. But I think we're going to learn a lot on the moon, maybe be able to use the moon as a launching location to go to Mars. So I think taking it step by step is probably what's going to have to happen. And I think the moon is a very good step toward exploring Mars. On the science side of it, where we have un-crewed vehicles of sending probes out to the moons of Jupiter to look for signs of life, in that, we're looking for the things that could support life, like the possibility of oceans underneath the surface of some of the moons of Jupiter and possibly some other elements that could be the building blocks of life. I think that's going to be very exciting. And then continue to explore with observatories like Hubble and James Webb to see what else we can find about the origins of the universe and life in other places. So I think it's going to be human exploration. I think it's also going to be the amount of science being returned from these various spacecraft and telescopes that we have in space. I would expect a lot. I'd expect all those things in the next 10 years. And I would think hopefully in 10 years from now, we have maybe not anybody on Mars, but we certainly have a plan to get people there relatively soon after.

James Rogers: Look, Elon Musk has talked at length about living on Mars. When do you think that will happen, if ever?

Mike Massimino: I think that will happen. I wouldn't contradict anything he says because he's proven that he can accomplish great things with that company he has. I think that we could certainly send a mission there. Once you go there, you're going to stay there for a while before you come back. But I think a crewed mission to get people to Mars is certainly possible. There's a lot, you mentioned technologies that we need to be able to develop. I think one is radiation protection and being able to protect the crew. They're going to be out there in what we consider right now to be deep space where they're unprotected, they're going to be out, even in lower earth orbit, we're fairly protected. Where we are in the International Space Station, where I was at Hubble, you do get a higher radiation. You start going toward the moon, for example, and you even further toward Mars, you're really exposed to radiation levels that you need to protect yourself from. So I think ways to protect us from that are going to be really, really important. And the propulsion technology to get you there quickly, and also the communications technology and the AI that's going to be needed. You really are going to be independent going to Mars. So when you are in lower earth orbit and you have a problem, Houston, we have a problem, you're going to get a response and help within about a second or so. On the moon when they had trouble on the moon, Apollo 13, Houston, we have a problem. It was about probably three seconds before they said, what is it? What do you need? On Mars, you're going to say, Houston, we have a problem, and like 20 to 30 minutes later, someone's going to say, what was that? So you're going to need to be on your own very independently to handle all kinds of things. Medical emergencies. We have some medical issues we can handle in lower earth orbit, but the plan for major things is to bring the person back, because you can do that. You're not going to be able to do that on Mars.

Stephanie Kelton: Right now, going to Mars and coming back would probably take around three years according to NASA.

Mike Massimino: So you're going to have to have the ability to do all types of things emergency-wise that we can't handle right now to be able to do that remotely in space. So that's what we need to do is how to protect people and keep them healthy, food source, water, all these things. That's why it is hopeful that there might be a water source on the moon that we can find near the poles. Maybe that's the same thing that we're going to be able to find in some places on Mars, we don't know yet. But these are the things that we're going to have to figure out before we can really do these things, especially Mars, because you're so far away, you can't come home easily.

James Rogers: I want to ask you about another medium to long-term idea, which is often brought up as a way that space companies might eventually make money. And that's asteroid mining. How soon will we be mining asteroids, and what's the idea here?

Mike Massimino: Asteroid mining is certainly something that could be a way to go out and get an asteroid, bring it close to the earth. We could mine its resources, the metals that it's made of, the energy sources, it might have. Certainly things like that that become possible once you figure out ways to get off the planet more quickly, more easily, more efficiently. I think that what we're trying to do, I've heard Jeff Bezos, for example, speak about this, is that we get off the planet to save the planet. Instead of polluting our planet, we can get off of it and find energy, resources, and power and things that we need off the planet instead of continually relying on the resources we have here, look to resources off the planet so that we can keep this planet healthy.

James Rogers: You've got a book coming out later this year. The title is Moonshot: A NASA Astronaut's Guide to Achieving the Impossible. Can you share a story from the book that might help listeners achieve the impossible?

Mike Massimino: Yeah, sure. There's lots of stories, I'll just pick one. For example, one thing I talk about, one of the chapters is on letting mistakes pass. When you make a mistake, letting it go. But how do you do that? And so one thing I learned from a astronaut, a friend of mine named C.J. Sturckow. C.J. is a Virgin Galactic pilot right now, so he's been in the space a couple times with Virgin Galactic, and he's a Marine. And what he said was, "Give yourself 30 seconds of regret." He calls it 30 seconds of remorse and then move on. When you make a mistake, it's okay to be mad about it or mad at yourself, or how did I do that? So you give yourself 30 seconds to beat yourself up. Call yourself every name in the book. Don't vocalize it because you'll scare your friends, just do it silently, but do it for 30 seconds. And then once that clock is done, once that 30 seconds is over with, leave that in the past. Let it go. It's done. Your team needs you to be engaged and move on and be helpful in trying to solve the problem that you might have just created with your mistakes. So 30 seconds of regret and move on is something that helped me in space. When I made a mistake working on the Hubble, I made a terrible blunder. I talk about that in the book. I stripped a screw and I couldn't believe I did that. And it took us about an hour and a half to figure out what to do, and the ground came through for me. But I needed to be engaged in that problem solving, and I did it with the 30 second rule. So that's one of the things that I share. That's the lesson and then the stories behind it.

Stephanie Kelton: Thanks for listening to the Best New Ideas in Money. You can subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. If you like what you heard, please leave us a rating or a review. And if you have ideas for future episodes, drop us a line at bestnewideasinmoney@marketwatch.com. Thanks to Mike Massimino. To learn more about space exploration, head to marketwatch.com. I'm Stephanie Kelton.

James Rogers: And I'm James Rogers. The Best New Ideas in Money is a podcast from MarketWatch. The producers are Michael McDowell, Mette Lutzhoft, and Katie Ferguson. Michael McDowell mixed this episode. Melissa Haggerty is the executive producer. Steve Kutz was our newsroom editor on this episode. The Best New Ideas in Money theme was composed by Sam Retzer. Stephanie Kelton is an economist and a professor of economics and public policy at Stony Brook University and not part of the MarketWatch newsroom. We'll be back next week with another new idea.