75 countries, that's how many nations sent representatives to
1 conference this week not to talk about nuclear weapons or
climate change or trade deals. Talk about space junk.
The Saudi Space Agency hosted the second annual space debris
conference. If you want to sign.
The commercial space industry is actually growing up.
This is the time the gold rush phase, launch fast, grab your
orbit, figure out the mess later is giving way to something more
sobering. A global reckoning with what
we've left behind up there in the companies building mega
constellations like Starlink. They are the elephant in the
room. So today I want to walk through
these stories that taken together paint a picture of
where Space Flight is right now. We've got the debris problem
demanding attention. We've got NASA pushing ahead
with Artemis 2 getting ready to send humans around the moon.
And we've got nuclear propulsion tests that could reshape how we
think about deep space travel entirely.
Growth and accountability happen at the same time.
And that's what a maturing industry looks like.
That's what the Space Flight industry looks like right now.
We're going to get into that right after this very short
break. So let's start with this debris
conference. The numbers here are massive. 75
countries showed up. The event was organized by the
Saudi Space Agency, but it had backing from the United Nations
Office for Outer Space Affairs in partnership with the
International Telecommunication Union.
Here's what Artie Holimany, the director of UNOOSA, said.
Global cooperation among international organizations,
governments, industry and academia in addressing space
debris challenges is no longer merely A desirable objective is
become an absolute necessity. She also said that leading space
faring nations must develop concrete plans to address
accumulated legacy debris. Legacy debris is a polite way of
saying the stuff we've been leaving up there for decades.
All the junk. Now why does all this matter
though? The International
Telecommunication Union manages satellite orbit allocations.
They're the people who coordinate who gets to park
where in space. When they show up at a debris
conference, signals that orbit management and debris are now in
the same conversation. They were kind of a side thing.
That debris thing was for a while, but now it's all coming
together. Can't talk about where new
satellites go without talking about what's already cluttering
up those lanes. Now.
Space is huge. And here's where SpaceX comes
into the picture, even though they weren't mentioned by name.
Starlink has thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit.
They want to get hundreds of thousands into low Earth orbit.
Thousands more are planned for the next few years.
Amazon's working on their own consolation.
China is doing the same thing. It's getting uncomfortable up
there really fast. And more objects mean more
collision risk. If something happens to 1
satellite, if one SpaceX Starlink satellite breaks, a
piece from that Starlink satellite could destroy numerous
satellites. Could be a chain reaction.
More collisions equal more debris, and more debris means
more collision risk. It's a feedback loop that keeps
people up at night From the UNOOSA.
They also featured something called the Debris Solver
Competition at that conference, 20 projects showcasing
innovative solutions for actually cleaning up space junk.
We're not just wringing our hands with the problem, just
saying like, hey, there's debris up there.
Who cares? It's space.
It's not down here. There's engineers and people
that want to make money, entrepreneurs actively working
on fixes for this. They want to make Nets,
harpoons, there's lasers, robotic arms.
If there's space junk, there's going to be money to be made.
It's like having a garbage person pick up your garbage in
front of your house. There's somebody there that does
that. There's a business that makes a
lot of money doing garbage pickup.
That's what these entrepreneurs want to do too.
They want to pick up the garbage in space.
They want to haul it someplace else.
So some of these ideas sound crazy, right?
Sound like science fiction, But so did Spacex's reusable rockets
for about 10 years ago. Now, something else crazy is
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So there's a reckoning going on too.
There's an execution with what NASA is actually doing right now
about this. Artemis 2 is moving forward very
soon. February, NASA announced they're
pushing ahead with what's called a wet dress rehearsal for the
mission. And a wet dress rehearsal is
essentially a full simulation of launch day.
You load the rocket with propellants, that's the wet
part, Run through the entire countdown sequence and stop just
before ignition. They do everything they need to
do before launch, and then they just don't launch the rocket.
It's how you find problems before they become catastrophic.
If there's any leaks, they find them before the actual launch
day. This is huge because Artemis 2
is the mission that sends humans around the moon for the first
time since Apollo 4 astronauts. A loop around the far side of
the moon and the first crude flight of the Space Launch
System and Orion capsule working together.
And that's after Artemis 1 proved the hardware could make
the trip on crude. This is the next step.
And then Artemis 3 should have people stepping on the moon's
surface again. Now, there's also a Utah
connection worth mentioning here.
The solid rocket boosters, the power SLS during liftoff are
manufactured there. Utah has been part of NASA's
human spaceflight story since the space shuttle days.
So we talked about Artemis. We're talking about supply
chains and expertise that span across the country, and the
University of North Dakota is also involved in supporting this
mission. When you see universities
embedded in NASA programs, it's something about the depth of
those efforts. Together, the university and
NASA working hand in hand, it's huge.
They're not just building rockets, though.
They're working all across the nation, pulling in academic
research, industry partners in multiple states.
So the Artemis 2 mission needs to get through the orbit that
the debris fields are in now. They will plan that properly so
nobody gets hurt. But the Artemis missions going
forward will need to clean up some of this garbage.
Artemis 2 may face delays if the wet dress rehearsal doesn't work
out as planned. The heat shield issues from
Artemis 1 took a lot longer to resolve than anybody wanted to
talk about. In getting through this
rehearsal successfully would be signal that the program is way
back on track. So let's go beyond the moon
here. NASA is testing advances in
space nuclear propulsion. This all matters because it's
all tied into the orbit of all the space debris.
This is going to be a technology that could genuinely change the
game for deep space exploration. Chemical rockets are great for
getting off Earth. They produce tremendous thrust,
but once you're out in space, they're inefficient for long
journeys. You burn through fuel really
fast and you can only carry so much of it.
And once that fuel is gone, the fuel is gone.
You can't get more. Nuclear propulsion is a whole
different beast. Nuclear thermal rockets heat
propellant to extreme temperatures using a reactor,
generating far more efficiency per unit of fuel.
And the result of that is that you could cut the transit time
to Mars significantly. Some estimates suggest getting
there in three to four months instead of 7 to 9.
That's huge for safety. Less time in transit means less
radiation exposure for astronauts.
Fewer things can go wrong if you shorten the time frame.
And NASA has been researching this for years, but recent tests
suggest real progress there. And it's not going to be ready
next year. But we might be talking about it
getting ready for a Mars mission that are currently on the
drawing board sometime in the 20 thirties.
So this is the context here. We're serious about becoming a
multi planetary species, which is something both NASA and
SpaceX talk about constantly. We need propulsion systems that
can handle the distances involved.
Chemical rockets can get us to the moon.
Nuclear propulsion might be what gets us to Mars and beyond any
practical time frame. Now we have to talk about one
more thing. Rocket Lab, a small company
that's sort of pseudo competitor to SpaceX, their Neutron rocket
experienced a test failure recently.
We don't have all the details yet, but analysis seems to be
maintaining confidence in the company despite the set back.
Because they're going to fix it. It's notable because Rocket Lab
is one of the few companies seriously competing against
SpaceX in the medium lift market.
Neutron is their answer to Falcon 9.
But you know, test failures. They're part of the rocket
development programs. SpaceX blew up plenty of
prototypes on the way to success.
And now look at the Falcon 9. Hundreds of launches, hundreds
of landings. The question is always whether a
company can learn from the failure and move on.
And Rocket Lab has had a strong track record with their smaller
Electron rocket, so I'm not going to count them out.
But this business is hard, and they will learn from their
mistakes and they'll move on from it.
So where does this all tie together?
The same week that 75 countries gathered to talk about cleaning
up Earth orbit, NASA was testing the nuclear engines and
preparing to send humans back to the moon.
This is progress, and it's going to be a little bit longer, but
we're going to get there. And they're simultaneously
pushing boundaries and dealing with consequences the same exact
time. The early years of any industry
are about proving the tech that actually works, and now the
middle years are scaling it, and we're heading into the later
years of this. So they need to sustain it.
Commercial spaceflight is entering that third phase.
The launches will keep coming. Hundreds of SpaceX Starlink
flights will happen every year. Starship will fly and it'll take
thousands of Starlinks into orbit, amongst other things.
Starlink will grow, but so will the other competitors, and so
will the conversations about responsibility.
Question for SpaceX and every other player in the industry is
whether they can keep doing this and keep launching without
somebody there to clean up their mess and who's going to pay
those people in those jobs to clean up this mess?
We're going to have to find that out in the future.
Is it going to be the countries or will the will the companies
be taxed for clean up over the time that they have their
satellites in orbit?