Full Transcript

·YouTLDR

Outer Space: The Next Economic Frontier | WSJ

27:024,843 words · ~24 min readEnglishTranscribed Jun 8, 2026
AI Summary

Space is no longer just a sector for exploration, but an emerging physical domain in low Earth orbit. Through autonomous, magnetic self-assembling structures, we can build the infrastructure required to host space-based biotech labs, manufacturing, and AI data centers to serve Earth's economy.

The transition from government-led space exploration to a commercialized, low-Earth-orbit economy is drastically lowering launch costs, unlocking unprecedented microgravity manufacturing, pharmaceutical discovery, and space-based infrastructure.

Section summaries

0:00-2:00

Introduction & Redefining Space as a Domain

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Establishes the foundational thesis of space as an immediate, near-term economic frontier close to Earth.

2:00-7:00

Limitations of Current Construction & Magnetic Self-Assembly Concept

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Critiques manual ISS assembly and introduces the physics, nature-inspired models, and design of autonomous magnetic tiles.

7:00-11:00

Testing Paradigms: Zero-G Flights and ISS Demos

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Explains the mechanics of zero-gravity testing flights and displays early hardware validations inside the ISS.

11:00-13:00

Rendezvous Robotics & Near-Term Commercial Beachheads

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Details spin-out commercial applications like orbital solar arrays, national security antennas, and space-based data centers.

13:00-15:00

The Commercial Transition Post-ISS Decommissioning

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Explains the critical 2030 transition from public ISS operations to private commercial space stations.

15:00-20:00

Biotech in Microgravity: Retinas, Organoids, and Keytruda

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A high-value segment mapping out the exact physical advantages of microgravity for drug formulation and tissue engineering.

20:00-22:00

Orbital Biolab Architecture & Operations

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Visualizes the physical docking, lab interiors, and future workforce patterns for scientists commuting to space.

22:00-27:00

Grand Architectural Visions & Off-Worlding Heavy Industry

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Summarizes the philosophy of the Anthropocosmos and how to leverage space resources to transition Earth back into a garden planet.

Key points

  • Shift from Space Sector to Space Domain — Low Earth orbit (LEO) must be viewed as an emerging physical market and infrastructure layer rather than an abstract scientific destination. With launch costs dropping from $50,000/kg to an anticipated sub-$200/kg with SpaceX's Starship, shipping cargo to orbit is shifting to FedEx-like economics.
  • Autonomous Self-Assembly vs. Manual Construction — Building space structures using manual astronaut extravehicular activities (EVAs) is highly risky and does not scale. By embedding magnetics and algorithmic intelligence directly into modular 'space Lego' tiles (Tesseray), large-scale structures like space stations, solar arrays, and communications dishes can assemble themselves autonomously in freefall.
  • Commercial Space Stations and the ISS Decommissioning — The International Space Station is scheduled to be decommissioned and burned up in the atmosphere by 2030–2031. NASA is pivoting to let commercial operators replace LEO infrastructure, freeing the agency to focus on deep-space exploration and moon bases.
  • Microgravity as a Biotech and Manufacturing Catalyst — The absence of gravity prevents sedimentation and sagging, enabling superior manufacturing of delicate physical structures. Key applications include producing high-quality artificial retinas (preventing 200-layer sagging), growing highly structured 3D organoids for accelerated drug testing, and optimizing protein crystallization for outpatient drug formulations.
  • Off-worlding Heavy Industry to Save Earth — Instead of abandoning Earth for Mars, space-based assets should be utilized to alleviate ecological pressures on Earth. Off-worlding carbon-heavy processes, chemical manufacturing, and power-hungry AI data centers to space eliminates terrestrial footprints without introducing atmospheric-trapping pollution.
If you're sitting in this room, you are significantly closer to space than you are to California. You're only about 250 miles away from the International Space Station. Ariel Ekblaw
Could we earn our right to be a space fairing species by first showing that we can take care of our first planet? Ariel Ekblaw

AI-generated from the transcript. May contain errors.

0:00

I'm Ariel Ekla. I did my PhD at MIT in

0:05

robotic self assembling space

0:07

structures. The idea basically being

0:10

like space legos that build themselves

0:13

in orbit so that you can ultimately have

0:15

infrastructure in space that is way

0:17

bigger than your biggest rocket payload

0:20

fairing. And something I like to call

0:21

out for people, especially here in New

0:23

York, if you're sitting in this room,

0:25

you are significantly closer to space

0:28

than you are to California. You're only

0:30

about 250 miles away from the

0:32

International Space Station. So

0:33

technically here we are closer to space

0:35

than Buffalo, New York. Uh which tends

0:38

to kind of surprise people because we

0:40

still think of space as very far away or

0:43

very hard. And so one of the messages

0:45

that I hope you all take away today,

0:47

particularly for this business audience,

0:49

is that space is no longer a sector that

0:52

may or may not be relevant for your

0:54

business. Space is a domain. It's a

0:56

physical emerging market. It's a layer,

1:00

particularly in low Earth orbit, that is

1:01

very close to Earth and now has amazing

1:04

potential to benefit people's day-to-day

1:06

lives in ways well beyond say GPS or

1:09

weather satellites, which we've all

1:11

become very familiar with. So today

1:13

we're going to talk about infrastructure

1:14

and architecture. You may be familiar

1:17

with space industry's love of Mars. Elon

1:20

Musk and SpaceX talk a lot about it. We

1:22

just had the amazing news about Artemis

1:24

2 historic mission. Astronauts went

1:27

farther out than we have ever sent

1:28

humans before, orbited around the moon

1:31

and came back. But what if we flipped

1:33

the script a little bit and said, "Okay,

1:35

it's lovely. It's really inspiring. It's

1:38

very important and motivational to have

1:40

these further out exploration

1:42

activities, but could we earn our right

1:45

to be a space fairing species by first

1:48

showing that we can take care of our

1:50

first planet? And so today's talk is

1:52

going to be about the infrastructure and

1:53

the opportunities in low Earth orbit

1:56

immediately relevant near-term

1:58

opportunities for building an industry

2:00

that would be profoundly beneficial for

2:02

our home planet and then hopefully be

2:04

the jumping off point for a lot of other

2:06

great infrastructure elsewhere in the

2:08

near neighborhood of our solar system.

2:10

So this is the current state of space

2:14

architecture. If you notice, it's all

2:16

essentially um aluminum tin cans. It's

2:19

pressure cylinders. And I always thought

2:21

that it was a little funny that you're

2:23

in space where you could grow your

2:25

architecture in any dimension and yet we

2:28

still do axial xyz

2:31

little coordinate planes for space

2:33

architecture which is a little funny. So

2:36

the alternative to this, how would we

2:39

change this paradigm? How could we learn

2:41

to build things that are not just

2:42

cylindrical because they don't have to

2:44

be squeezed into the tyranny of a rocket

2:47

tube of a rocket payload fairing? What

2:50

would it take to get to something like a

2:52

ring world, a much larger structure

2:55

often theorized in science fiction that

2:58

could actually encircle the Earth? Are

3:00

we that far away from this? It turns out

3:03

from a science perspective, no. We have

3:05

the material science. We have a lot of

3:07

the fundamental knowledge of physics,

3:09

orbital mechanics to be able to pull off

3:11

something like this. To be able to scale

3:14

to this kind of infrastructure though,

3:16

what we need is a different paradigm for

3:18

construction. and we need engineering

3:20

and funding progress.

3:22

So this is how the International Space

3:24

Station was originally constructed. This

3:26

is kind of a blowout model of the

3:28

current government space station up in

3:30

orbit. And the crazy thing is that many

3:33

of these pieces that you see in this

3:35

diagram were assembled like this

3:39

by hand.

3:41

So, astronauts doing an incredibly risky

3:44

and courageous maneuver in what we call

3:46

EVA suits, extra vehicular activity

3:49

suits. We call them that because a space

3:51

suit is essentially an entire space

3:52

vehicle. It's just wrapped around your

3:54

body closely. Building some of the most

3:57

advanced technology known to humankind

3:59

by hand. And this is kind of crazy. It

4:02

was very impressive for the first few

4:04

decades of human space flight. But we

4:06

know that this is not going to scale for

4:08

speed or efficiency or cost or even for

4:10

safety. It is a little bit wild that

4:13

this is how we still build in space. And

4:15

so for my PhD at MIT, what I looked at

4:18

was other ideas or archetypes for how

4:21

can you construct in a more autonomous

4:23

fashion really interesting things. And

4:26

it turns out from nature we have a lot

4:28

of lessons about self assembly. So there

4:31

are examples of how DNA self assembles

4:34

uh protein and DNA self assembles in

4:36

your cells in your body all the way up

4:38

to ants and termites self assembling

4:41

into little bridges that can actually

4:43

span gaps that would be too big for a

4:45

single ant to be able to cross. And so

4:48

building on some of these different

4:49

lessons about pieces parts in nature

4:53

where the logic for the final assembly

4:56

is actually built into the constituent

4:58

parts. What I designed were these tiles,

5:01

self assembling. We call them lovingly

5:03

space Legos where there's intelligence

5:06

built into each unit that helps all of

5:09

the units come together in some type of

5:11

a predetermined shape that can also grow

5:14

and scale a lot like this plant that

5:16

you're seeing on the screen. So, I'm

5:18

going to play a video for you that is an

5:19

artist's render of the work behind this

5:22

concept to enable really massive scale

5:25

self assembly of space structures. and

5:27

then we'll get into the tech and some of

5:29

the investment opportunities and

5:30

business opportunities that we hope will

5:32

come out of this kind of innovation.

5:36

So, I'm going to talk over the video a

5:38

little bit as you guys see it. So, we're

5:40

situating ourselves here in orbit around

5:42

the Earth. You're going to see a rocket

5:44

take off. This was modeled on a Falcon

5:46

9. So, we can do this even before Space

5:49

X's Starship becomes operational.

5:52

This could stay in orbit around the

5:54

Earth. It could go to the moon. In this

5:56

case, you're going to see it go all the

5:57

way to Mars. It doesn't really matter.

5:59

We just want to be in orbit around a

6:02

celestial body. And that's because when

6:04

you're in orbit around a planet or a

6:07

moon, you're in freef fall. So, you feel

6:09

like you're floating, which is why you

6:11

see all those amazing videos of

6:12

astronauts playing with water and all

6:14

the physics feeling very different. So,

6:17

now that we've got to our orbit, you're

6:18

going to see these tiles that are

6:20

basically packed flat like Pringles in a

6:22

can or like Pez dispenser if people

6:24

remember those candies from like a

6:26

decade ago. These tiles pop out one by

6:30

one and they have very powerful magnets

6:33

on their edges. So what these magnets

6:36

allow them to do because there's

6:38

floating, there's no friction, they're

6:41

not being weighed down by gravity, the

6:44

magnets pull them together really

6:46

elegantly. There's no propulsion

6:48

required, which is useful in this case

6:50

because propulsion is non-renewable.

6:52

Once you've used up all your chemicals

6:54

that are on your particular propulsion

6:56

unit, you don't have anything left. And

6:58

so this structure allows us to passively

7:01

with just the power of the magnets bring

7:04

these tiles together. And once one ball

7:07

or bucky ball has formed, multiple balls

7:10

can form together for a future space

7:12

station.

7:14

So if that was the artist's render, this

7:16

is all of the engineering that actually

7:18

makes it happen. So I've been working on

7:20

this since 2016, so about a decade now.

7:23

First at MIT and now at my spinout

7:25

Aurelia Institute. We have this

7:27

combination ecosystem. Aurelia Institute

7:30

is a incubator nonprofit where we do

7:33

really far future space research and

7:35

then we have Aurelia Foundry which is

7:37

our VC fund where we can invest in

7:40

technology that makes sense to spin out.

7:42

This is some technology that we have

7:44

spun out. I'll show you a little bit

7:45

more where it's headed after this but

7:47

these are the iterations of how we

7:48

actually test prototypes like this in

7:51

orbit. So we start on zero G flights.

7:54

Has anybody here been on a zero G flight

7:56

or familiar with it? Affectionately

7:59

known as the vomit comet.

8:01

So, this is a plane that does what you'd

8:03

want a plane never to do. The plane

8:06

pitches really steeply upwards at 45°,

8:09

noses over, points towards the ground at

8:12

45°. At the top of that arc, you get to

8:16

float. If the pilots are good, you get

8:18

about 20 to 30 seconds of true

8:21

weightlessness. It is incredibly

8:23

sublime. And then you do that arc 30 to

8:26

40 times in the sky. So it's like a

8:29

roller coaster in the sky. This is how

8:31

NASA trains astronauts. It's how we test

8:34

our work before we actually take it to

8:36

space proper. So this is an earth-based

8:38

simulation. You're basically in a short

8:40

period of freef fall inside of a plane.

8:43

So we do all kinds of testing on

8:45

platforms like these on Blue Origin's

8:47

New Shepard rocket. Yes, Katy Perry did

8:49

go up in that rocket. We went about 7

8:51

years earlier, but sadly not myself as a

8:53

human, just our research payload. Uh,

8:55

and then we have graduated now to

8:57

multiple tests inside of the

9:00

International Space Station. So, we take

9:03

these tiles and they're smaller than

9:05

what they would ultimately be as habitat

9:07

scale and we test them in miniature to

9:10

make sure that we get the algorithms

9:11

right and the code right and the

9:13

autonomous self assembly with the

9:15

magnets right as a precursor to now

9:17

preparing to really build at scale.

9:20

So, these are photos. Um, you're

9:22

actually looking down at Earth through

9:25

the Koopa window of the International

9:27

Space Station. Those tiles are about the

9:29

size of my palm and they self assembled

9:32

into this beautiful little fuette. You

9:34

might be wondering why is it a ball? So,

9:36

this is a subsection of the ball. It

9:39

turns out that to get stuff to space,

9:41

the part that's really expensive is the

9:43

exoskeleton. It's the surface area

9:45

that's going to encapsulate the

9:47

breathable air for the humans or the

9:48

satellites or whatever is going to be

9:50

stored inside of it. And a given for any

9:53

given surface area, you want to maximize

9:55

the volume that you get on the inside.

9:58

And a sphere is the perfect shape. But

10:00

it turns out it's kind of hard to

10:01

manufacture a sphere and pack that up in

10:04

bits in a rocket. So, a bucky ball or a

10:07

glorified soccer ball, which is the

10:09

shape of that ball that you saw in the

10:10

artist's render video, that is an

10:12

approximation of a sphere. And that's

10:14

why we're so interested in that

10:15

geometry.

10:17

So, here's a video from the

10:19

International Space Station um from

10:21

years ago now. Actually, we've continued

10:23

to really progress through the hardware

10:26

and you'll get to see what it looks

10:27

like. So, this is an astronaut's hand or

10:30

two hands inside of a glove box while

10:32

they're floating in orbit.

10:35

You'll see the tiles be very gingerly

10:37

released. He's trying not to impart any

10:39

emotion to them. The field of the

10:42

magnets cause them to do this dance to

10:44

piouette and dock together. So if you

10:48

ever put your MacBook charger into your

10:50

Mac and you feel how it kind of seats

10:51

itself, that magnet seating, that's

10:54

exactly what you just witnessed live.

10:56

Now imagine that happening at the scale

10:58

of a tile that is as big as this stage

11:01

and then 32 of those tiles coming

11:03

together to form a really massive

11:05

structure and that is the engineering

11:07

work that we're now doing and that we're

11:09

scaling up to. So I mentioned before

11:11

that we have this combination ecosystem

11:13

Aurelia Institute and Aurelia Foundry.

11:16

So the nonprofit research org and the VC

11:18

fund. We have just spun out our first

11:21

company to take this self assembly work

11:23

forward. It's called Rendezvous

11:25

Robotics. My passion is really human

11:28

space flight and turning this technology

11:29

into habitats. What Rendevu Robotics is

11:32

going to focus on is near-term beach

11:35

head markets in the space industry that

11:38

need massive scale self assembly but are

11:41

not quite as complicated as habitats.

11:43

Turns out it is really hard to get

11:44

humans to be able to breathe in space,

11:46

do all of the environmental control and

11:48

life support systems that you need. So

11:50

rendevous is going to focus on things

11:51

like massive solar panel arrays in

11:55

orbit. You can get very efficient solar

11:57

power when you're up above the clouds.

11:59

Things like massive communication

12:01

antennas for the national security

12:03

applications for the US government. And

12:05

yes, maybe even AI data centers in

12:08

space. I think we can have a great uh

12:10

debate off the stage about the technical

12:12

pros and cons of this as a concept. But

12:15

because there is so much capital being

12:17

thrown at this industrialization of AI,

12:19

we would really like to be able to be

12:21

that partner that can support the

12:23

inspace construction at massive scale.

12:26

If you're trying to build something that

12:27

is three or four football fields in

12:30

size, you're not going to fold that up

12:32

like origami into a rocket. You're going

12:33

to have to learn how to do modular self

12:36

assembly in space. So we're really

12:38

excited for the future of rendevous

12:39

robotics.

12:42

Taking this forward within Aurelia,

12:44

which is the incubator, we're thinking

12:46

about this technology roadmap. So, we've

12:49

built a 30foot habitat mockup. It's

12:52

actually up in an MIT lobby right now in

12:54

Boston if anybody would like to come and

12:55

see. And then this is a little bit of

12:57

our road map towards the other

12:58

structures that we'll be building in

12:59

space.

13:02

The first application that we think

13:05

we're going to have for a habitable

13:07

version of this infrastructure in orbit

13:09

is going to be a replacement to the

13:11

International Space Station, but with a

13:13

very specific flavor. And so this is

13:15

kind of the next few minutes of the talk

13:17

is going to take you guys through what

13:19

is a near-term pragmatic, you know,

13:21

something that will have revenue that

13:23

could actually be generated in lower

13:24

Earth orbit based on this type of

13:26

habitat tech. So, one of the motivating

13:28

factors is that the International Space

13:30

Station, which we've been continuously

13:32

inhabiting since the early 2000s, is

13:35

about to get shut down. NASA has decided

13:37

that they're going to decommission it in

13:39

2030 or 2031. What decommissioning means

13:42

is carefully take everything out of it

13:44

and let it burn up completely. Let it

13:48

incinerate in the atmosphere basically

13:50

and be no more. Um, they're very good at

13:52

this. We know how to do it safely, but

13:54

it is a huge gap for the United States

13:57

to not have a commercial or in this case

14:00

originally a government space station in

14:02

orbit. There are some proposals to try

14:04

to extend its life. But what NASA has

14:07

been doing is taking a playbook that

14:09

they did very successfully with SpaceX

14:11

where they basically said, "Hey SpaceX,

14:13

we want you to get us to the

14:15

International Space Station. We don't

14:16

want to have to supply the

14:17

transportation anymore." and they built

14:20

up space as a success in being able to

14:22

do that. NASA is now saying, "Hey, we

14:25

think we've spent enough time as a

14:26

nation in low Earth orbit with

14:29

government money. This emerging market

14:31

is really finally starting to build out.

14:33

We're going to let commercial companies

14:36

build space stations in low Earth orbit.

14:39

And we NASA will go further out. We'll

14:42

build the moon base on the moon like

14:43

Jared Isacman, the new NASA

14:45

administrator, just announced. will go

14:47

look for life on Europa. So, there's

14:49

this moment right now that's about to

14:51

open up for the first ever commercial

14:54

space station operators. And there's

14:56

maybe six companies that are vying to be

14:59

the replacement to the ISS. It's really

15:01

urgent. We need to be able to replace

15:03

this infrastructure, but we should also

15:05

expand. We shouldn't build it in exactly

15:07

the same way the second time that we

15:09

built it the first time. And so what

15:10

Aurelia Institute is looking at is how

15:13

could we add a specific type of

15:16

capability here to a future space

15:19

station. So we would not be the entirety

15:21

of the space station. We would use the

15:23

tesseray self assembling tech that you

15:25

guys saw to self assemble a biotech

15:28

module. And this is why. So two trends

15:32

here to kind of call out and take away

15:33

from this talk. The first is just the

15:36

drop in cost to get to space. So 15

15:40

years ago under the Obama administration

15:42

with the kind of the end of the NASA

15:44

shuttle program, it was about $50,000 a

15:47

kilogram to get mass to orbit to get

15:50

cargo to orbit. Today is about $1,500 a

15:54

kilogram. And with SpaceX's Starship

15:56

coming online, it's anticipated to be

15:58

under $200 a kilogram, which is

16:02

remarkable. That's like FedEx. If you

16:05

can ship something around the earth,

16:07

cargo, not the humans, we're a little

16:09

bit more fragile, a little more

16:10

expensive, but if you can ship cargo

16:12

around the world, you can ship it to

16:15

space. It's really remarkable how much

16:17

reusable rockets have profoundly changed

16:19

the economics of space, which is why

16:21

it's plausible to have these massive

16:24

scale buildouts of say hundreds of

16:26

thousands of space Legos building

16:29

infrastructure in space because we can

16:30

finally afford to ship that mass up to

16:33

space. The second really interesting

16:35

driver is that we've had 20 years of

16:38

really beautiful, exquisite

16:40

biotechnology research that has been

16:42

done by the government and some academic

16:44

partners on the International Space

16:46

Station across a whole range of

16:48

different topics. And it's ironic now

16:50

that we're about to lose the

16:52

International Space Station, right? When

16:53

we could finally be scaling up cures for

16:55

cancer, organoids, tissue engineering,

16:58

all of these really interesting

16:59

applications that have been developed in

17:02

microgravity because it turns out when

17:04

you're floating, the science performs

17:07

really differently, particularly biology

17:10

because so much of our biology evolved

17:12

here, in fact, all of it evolved here on

17:14

Earth in a gravity-based environment.

17:16

So, with the rise of AI models, wanting

17:19

ever more data about biology, and the

17:22

opportunity now to build on all of these

17:24

NASA insights, and the drop in cost to

17:26

get to space, we think we're about to

17:28

see basically a little explosion of new

17:31

startups and new activity in this

17:33

domain.

17:35

So, these are a few specific trends to

17:37

watch at the intersection of biotech and

17:39

space. The first is tissue engineering.

17:42

So, a wonderful example here is things

17:44

like artificial retinas. These are super

17:48

delicate little structures that get

17:49

implanted by a surgeon in the back of

17:51

your eye. In the future, if this company

17:54

that we're working with, if they get FDA

17:55

approval, it would be able to restore

17:58

sight due to loss of sight from macular

18:01

degeneration or retinitis pigmentotosa.

18:03

So, basically, as you age, if your eyes

18:06

are giving out on you, this is an

18:08

opportunity to have a replacement of

18:09

your retina. The reason it works so well

18:12

is that when you're floating in a

18:14

gravity environment, the delicate little

18:16

layers of the retina, which take 200

18:18

layers of the super super thin layering,

18:21

they sag if you're on Earth. They don't

18:23

sag when you're floating. And so you can

18:25

get this incredible quality improvement.

18:27

It's like a manufacturing quality

18:29

improvement by taking some of these

18:31

processes to space. Second category is

18:35

drugs that are based on aging. So it

18:38

turns out in the zero G environment,

18:40

we've started testing these little

18:41

things called organoids. Has anybody

18:43

heard of organoids here? It's a model of

18:46

organs. So these are tiny little clumps

18:49

of cells that are artificial models of

18:52

bigger organs in your body. It's really

18:54

important because it allows scientists

18:56

to grow them artificially without having

18:58

to practice on real organs every time we

19:01

want to develop a new cure or a new

19:02

drug. And it looks like these little

19:05

balls of artificial organs, these little

19:07

things that we call organoids, they grow

19:10

better in zerog than they do on the

19:12

ground. They have better 3D shape to

19:15

them and they mature a little bit

19:17

faster, which means that that's a great

19:19

target to test cancer drugs and

19:22

Alzheimer's drugs on that tissue in

19:24

space. So really, really profound. And

19:27

then the most exciting example of the

19:29

three, which should be relevant to some

19:30

of you here if you're tracking um a drug

19:32

like Kruda. So Merc's current cancer

19:35

drug, $30 billion drug, like 30 billion

19:39

in revenue. Amazing drug for Merc. It's

19:42

a cancer drug. They took an early

19:44

formulation to space to figure out the

19:48

crystallizing the protein

19:49

crystallization in the drug and that

19:52

helped them take it from a IVbased drug

19:54

where you have to go into the hospital

19:56

to a shot that you can do as an

19:58

outpatient. Now what they used space for

20:01

was just to get the data to be able to

20:03

make this new formulation. They do not

20:05

have to manufacture every dose of Kruda

20:08

in space. So it's a huge unlock for

20:11

Merc. We're super excited to be working

20:13

with a slew now of different biotech

20:15

partners to explore this potential of

20:18

microgravity for science data that can

20:21

change your drug formulation and then

20:22

maybe eventually manufacturing of really

20:24

unique drug formulations in zero g.

20:29

So, if you're curious how all of this

20:30

works within a space station and within

20:33

this new model of space stations that

20:35

we're pioneering, these self assembling

20:37

ones, this is a little bit about what

20:39

the system architecture, what we like to

20:41

call in the space industry, the conops,

20:43

the concept of operations might look

20:45

like. So, you have this payload fairing

20:47

from the tip of a rocket spits out the

20:50

tiles very gingerly, one by one. They

20:53

self assemble into this bucky ball, this

20:55

glorified soccer ball. On the inside of

20:58

the soccer ball, we have outfitted it to

21:01

be a next generation biolab. This means

21:04

best-in-class robotics, uh, benchtops

21:07

for not just astronauts, but citizen

21:10

scientists. So, I usually say it about

21:12

this point in the talk, if you guys have

21:15

kids, your kids may very well commute to

21:18

space for work. And maybe not 9 to5

21:21

every day, but in the way that you would

21:22

go two weeks on to go do a study in

21:25

Spalbard in the Arctic and then come

21:26

home for two weeks or three weeks on an

21:29

oil rig and then you get two weeks off.

21:31

That potential is now coming for space

21:35

applications in orbit like this. And so

21:37

you could very well have your child or a

21:39

niece or a nephew be a scientist who

21:42

doesn't have to be a NASA astronaut

21:43

their entire career, but they get to go

21:45

to space to be part of this new wave of

21:47

industry. And so we are really

21:49

intentionally designing now because as

21:52

architects we have to think about this

21:53

20 years in the future. We are designing

21:56

the interiors of these bio facilities in

21:59

space to be more welcoming to a much

22:01

broader swath of humanity. And then you

22:04

see a little uh Dragon capsule. So this

22:06

is an example of a current delivery

22:08

vehicle that is part of the SpaceX

22:10

ecosystem that is able to dock with that

22:13

space station, bring up samples, bring

22:15

up supplies, and then take some of the

22:17

research back down, take some of the

22:19

samples or the produced activities back

22:21

down.

22:23

So we're coming to the end of the talk

22:25

here and I just wanted to call out two

22:28

really big picture ideas that I think

22:30

you can take away from the field of

22:32

space architecture which feels very new

22:35

to many people. So the first is I just

22:37

shown you this example of an orbital

22:39

biolab

22:41

near-term a lot of capital being put

22:44

into this right now. But if we take a

22:46

step back, the reason that space is such

22:49

a special domain to build in is that you

22:52

can make things that you would never

22:53

have been able to make on Earth. And so

22:55

I just want to show you guys this

22:56

example as one of the two closing

22:57

thoughts. This was meant to be Newton's

23:02

scenet. So it was meant to be a memorial

23:04

to Isaac Newton. It was designed in the

23:07

mid to late 1800s. It's a 150 meter span

23:12

dome. And those tiny tiny little things

23:14

that you guys see on the screen at the

23:16

bottom, those are the humans for scale.

23:20

This could not be built at the time

23:22

because it would be near impossible to

23:24

build an arch of that span. But this is

23:27

the kind of monument to humanity. If we

23:30

have ambitions as a society and as a

23:33

space fairing species to go out and do

23:35

really big things, this is the kind of

23:37

thing you could uniquely build in space

23:40

because you don't have gravity. You're

23:42

going to have other forces. You're going

23:44

to have some air pressure trying to push

23:45

out against a vacuum. But this is the

23:48

kind of incredible monumental

23:50

architecture that we could be building

23:52

in space. And so I really like to

23:54

encourage people to think about space as

23:56

this domain that opens up not a blank

23:58

slate, but an incredible new series of

24:01

opportunities for humanity. And it's

24:04

worth also thinking about this in the

24:05

context of what I call the

24:06

anthropocsmos, which we need to do a

24:09

little bit of better branding on that.

24:10

We need a slightly less of a tongue

24:11

twister, but the idea is to call into

24:14

consideration this notion of the

24:16

anthroposine, which is the era of

24:18

Earth's history where we've now come to

24:20

accept that humanity has a really

24:22

dominant role on Earth for good and for

24:24

worse. If we're about to go into our

24:26

next era where we will have all of this

24:29

opportunity and potentially a big impact

24:31

as a species on the near neighborhood of

24:34

our solar system, that would be the era

24:36

of the anthropo.

24:37

And it comes with really amazing

24:39

opportunities but also a lot of

24:41

responsibilities. And so at Aurelia

24:43

Institute we try to think of the balance

24:44

of those different opportunities and

24:46

policy work about the responsibilities.

24:50

And then the final idea that I want to

24:52

leave you with today if Newton's scen is

24:55

an example of kind of looking outward

24:57

and looking up and into space about what

24:59

we could build. This is an idea to

25:01

anchor us back on earth like we started

25:04

at the beginning of the talk. So there's

25:06

this notion in science fiction about

25:09

off-worlding, not off-worlding the

25:11

humans, but off-worlding the heavy

25:13

industry. So get mining, get chemical

25:17

byproduct manufacturing that pollutes

25:19

our waterways. Try to eventually get

25:21

those industries off of Earth. You can

25:24

do them in space in some cases in a much

25:26

more responsible way. It's not like

25:28

we're just going from polluting Earth to

25:29

polluting space. When you're in the

25:31

vacuum, you don't have a water vapor

25:33

atmosphere that's trapping a lot of this

25:35

stuff in the way that we trap it down

25:37

here on Earth in our biosphere. So,

25:39

there's a really profound opportunity to

25:42

begin to think of space as a tool for

25:45

Earth. So, space exploration is not

25:47

about abandoning Earth. If you don't

25:49

want to go live and die on Mars with

25:51

Elon, that's okay. He's allowed to do

25:53

that, making incredible progress towards

25:55

it. But we can also use space

25:57

technologies as a lever to help Earth

26:01

and to try to treat Earth well and maybe

26:03

eventually let Earth recover as a garden

26:06

planet. And I think one of the maybe the

26:08

first applications of this is things

26:10

like AI deniseters in space. They're the

26:13

first new wave of industrialization that

26:16

hasn't really been built extensively on

26:18

Earth yet. Maybe it's a great

26:20

opportunity to move that natively into

26:22

space. begin thinking about offloading

26:25

off-worlding that carbon footprint

26:26

before we have a big scale out. So,

26:28

there's some really interesting

26:29

near-term opportunities with things like

26:31

off-worlding.

26:34

And on that note, I just want to say I

26:35

think it's time to build. I hope I've

26:37

shown you a bunch of different ways that

26:38

we might be able to get there with self

26:39

assembly, future of orbital biotech in

26:42

space, and then also just these grand

26:44

ambitions that I think we can have as a

26:46

society, as a species around going out

26:49

to space and having great exploration

26:51

opportunities, but also thinking about

26:53

space as a tool for Earth. And let's put

26:56

space to work for Earth. Thank you so

26:59

much.

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