Dear readers,
Welcome to Quartz’s newsletter on the economic possibilities of the extra-terrestrial sphere. Please forward widely, and let me know what you think. This week: US Air Force’s Space Pitch Day, a Gateway to controversy, and wine in space.
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Will Roper, a lanky bureaucrat armed with an Oxford mathematics doctorate and a penchant for colorful socks, makes for a good Pentagon mad scientist.
Roper is in charge of buying technology for the US Air Force, managing a $60 billion annual budget on everything from drones and jets to rockets and satellites. He was the former head of the Pentagon’s Special Capabilities Office, a skunk-works that developed projects like “hyper-velocity artillery” and “fighter-dispersed swarming micro-drones.”
This week, he was in San Francisco for US Air Force Space Pitch Day, where military buyers heard pitches from 30 space-focused start-ups and gave the best of them research contracts worth between $750,000 and $3 million dollars. The idea is to leverage growing private investment into space so the US military can get novel new tools faster than slow-moving traditional defense contractors can provide them. Doing business with the Defense Department though isn’t easy for small companies, or risk-loving ones.
The latter was represented by SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who made a surprise appearance to talk work-life balance (he’s been watching “Space Jam” on the treadmill). Among his advice to assembled entrepreneurs: “Organizational errors manifest themselves in errors in the product.” That rhymes with Roper’s view that “the business model [defense contractors] operate in today was created by us, and we have to uncreate it.”
“My job in the Strategic Capabilities Office was to go around the bureaucracy,” he told Quartz. “Well, now I have been given the bureaucracy.”
Like anyone in his role, Roper wants cheaper and better tech, but he argues that innovation will come from companies that aren’t reliant on profit-guaranteed government contracts used by the defense industry’s traditional prime contractors, who often rely on many subcontractors.
“We saw some amazing pitches today from companies that were being courted by defense primes, [but the start-ups] wanted to work with us directly so they have more freedom, more flexibility, more autonomy. And what I suspect is when we put them on contract, we’re going to get a much lower price for their tech than [a contract] through a prime.”
Throwing money at promising ideas is easier than turning it into a ready-to-use product for the military. SpaceX is a useful example: Though the US Air Force contributed development money to help design its rockets, Musk’s team still had to sue the service for the right to bid on launch contracts. Now, the Air Force is working on its next big rocket purchase under criticism that their approach is still too conservative.
Roper, who took his current job after the current multi-year purchase strategy got underway, says the Pentagon learned from experience and is taking advantage of the growing US space industry, with four bidders competing for the final two contracts.
Quartz also asked about the X-37B, a space drone built by Boeing that recently returned from more than two years in orbit, where it did, well, something. Roper called it “a big deal for us in future, but as to what we do with the X-37B and what it did, unfortunately that’s just going to have to remain behind closed doors.” He also declined to comment on whether the US Air Force is considering a human spaceflight program, as a recent procurement request hinted.
Roper says that development of futuristic military technology like this is being driven by geopolitical trends, particularly the increasing parity between the US and rivals like China and Russia.
“We did not have the competitor that tends to drive an innovative culture,” Roper said of the changing culture at the Pentagon. “We were dealing with terrorists, and that’s a 24-7 problem, but it’s very different than having an opponent that can match you move for move on the chessboard.”
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IMAGERY INTERLUDE
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One of the first links between space and the US military was Robert Goddard, the American scientist credited with inventing the first liquid-fueled rocket, which he flew in 1926. During World War I, Goddard was able to fund his research with help from the Department of War, mostly to develop what would come to be called a bazooka. Here is Goddard in 1935 at his workshop in Roswell, New Mexico:
During World War II, Goddard worked to develop smaller rocket motors to help aircraft take off from aircraft carriers. Though he and his advocates pushed the United States to invest more in rocket weapons, the military never matched Nazi Germany’s V-2 rockets. The creators of those “terror weapons” would soon arrive in the United States as the brain trust for America’s Cold War missile projects.
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SPACE DEBRIS
Back to the lunar drawing board.
Boeing made a pitch of its own to NASA this week: Why not pass on plans to build a way-station orbiting the moon, the Lunar Gateway, and just let us build a moon lander that can fly to the surface non-stop? This isn’t just an engineering suggestion; this is billion-dollar contract politics.
The Gateway certainly divides space experts, but it hypothetically allows for a broad array of rockets and spacecraft to head for the lunar surface. Abandoning the Gateway for a larger independent lander means more reliance on NASA’s expensive and delayed Space Launch System rocket—which just happens to be built by Boeing. The proposal contrasts with a competing lander from a consortium led by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, which is designed for use with the Gateway. And of course, Blue is also building its own large rocket that could play a role on the moon, and even offered to help build SLS more cheaply for NASA; the space agency demurred.
The Lunar Gateway was originally designed to make frequent trips to the moon by many participants as cheap as possible. That was before the Trump administration issued its “boots on regolith by 2024” deadline. It indeed might be easier to hit that target if NASA abandons the Gateway and just does Apollo-redux with Boeing. That would in turn mean that multiple trips desired by scientists and lunar prospectors would be more expensive and infrequent. Decisions about the lander will tell us what kind of moon program NASA and Congress really want.
Wine in Space.
Some readers were not pleased with Space Cargo Unlimited (SCU), a European start-up doing biological research in low-Earth orbit. SCU sent a case of wine to the International Space Station over the weekend to study how microgravity affects the aging process. Part of their funding plan involves sharing some of that wine with wealthy patrons, who receive a luxury chest of memorabilia in exchange for their philanthropy. Not everyone is comfortable with a publicly-funded project like the ISS becoming a venue for this project, as we saw with complaints when NASA announced that paid passengers will be able to visit the station in the years ahead. Still, the research here is as serious as some of the cheesier marketing projects that have visited the station—space cookies, anyone? These are the growing pains of the space economy becoming more like the one down here.
What goes up must float down.
We won’t have paid visitors on the International Space Station until Boeing and SpaceX get their commercial service ready to fly there. The focus this week is on recent parachute tests performed by the two companies, which have been struggling to make sure their new capsules bring astronauts home reliably. It gave me a chance to use a favorite quote from NASA engineer Miguel San Martin, who has designed systems to land rovers on Mars: “Parachutes are a pain in the ass.“
Space Internet Update.
One take-away from the Air Force’s invasion of San Francisco is that the Pentagon is enamored of the new generation of satellite internet companies. Roper, the Air Force technology lead, praised hiring private satellite operators instead of flying more of its own spacecraft, telling me that “we lose money putting up satellites, they make money putting up satellites.” The Pentagon is already working with SpaceX, OneWeb, Iridium, O3b and Telesat to pilot new communications systems. Oh, and next week SpaceX is expected to launch another 60 spacecraft for its Starlink network, putting more pressure on their competitors to get to orbit.
Your pal,
Tim
This was issue 22 of our newsletter. Hope your week is out of this world! Please send your best space pitches, favorite space-themed exercise media, tips and informed opinions to tim@qz.com.