Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: Polaris Dawn mission commander Jared Isaacman joined Bloomberg Technology host
Speaker 2: ed Ludlow to discuss his experience with SpaceX and the
Speaker 2: Polaris mission, when to expect Plaris too, and is involvement
Speaker 2: in the Starship program. Let's take a listen to that conversation.
Speaker 1: Jared, Now that you have had time to process and think,
Speaker 1: what is the conclusion you've reached about the significance of
Speaker 1: Polaris Dawn. What was the result of the mission and
Speaker 1: the experiment that you conducted.
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 4: Well, first one, sorry I can't be there in person.
Speaker 4: I really would have liked to. Second, to be honest,
Speaker 4: I can't say that I've had a lot of time
Speaker 4: to really think and reflections coming back.
Speaker 3: It's been just kind of a whirlwind.
Speaker 4: We've had a lot of you know, data reviews, debriefs,
Speaker 4: science research. We've we've been kind of bouncing around a
Speaker 4: bunch and it's still ongoing for some time. So but
Speaker 4: I will just say I think polaristam was just it
Speaker 4: was always meant to just be a small step in
Speaker 4: the right direction, you know, a huge team effort to
Speaker 4: move the ball forward as part of the you know,
Speaker 4: broader space ex vision of making life multiplanetary. So we've
Speaker 4: gone a little farther into space than we've been in
Speaker 4: a long time. We've tested out a new suit, which
Speaker 4: is just one small step in towards you know, towards
Speaker 4: building a uh, you know, a more scalable suit that's
Speaker 4: capable of walking on on the Moon or Mars someday.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: You know, we tested out Starlink, which worked incredibly well
Speaker 4: as an alternative pathway to mission control, which is also
Speaker 4: a step in the right direction off of legacy infrastructure.
Speaker 4: And then a lot of science and research experiments which
Speaker 4: collected tons of data points on but you know, really
Speaker 4: it's up to the researchers, the you know, the principal
Speaker 4: investigators to kind of you know, analyze that data and.
Speaker 3: Reach the reconclusions. But we're happy to support it.
Speaker 1: The milestones and mission goals were very different to Inspiration four,
Speaker 1: and I understand that was were you more deeply integrated
Speaker 1: within the SpaceX or in how you worked with them
Speaker 1: in preparation relative to the inspiration for mission.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 4: I mean the kind of phases you go through are
Speaker 4: all relatively the same. You know, there's kind of you know,
Speaker 4: a mission design period where you know what's in the
Speaker 4: realm of possible, you know, and then you kind of
Speaker 4: move into training for it. The difference with you know,
Speaker 4: Pleriston is it's a development program as part of a
Speaker 4: broader development initiative of the player's program, So we actually
Speaker 4: had to build things. You had to build a new suits,
Speaker 4: so you know, we were there working alongside the engineers
Speaker 4: from the first version of the IVA Space or of
Speaker 4: the EVA Space Suit to what ultimately became you know,
Speaker 4: qualification and testing of the the ultimate flight articles that
Speaker 4: we took to the vacuum chamber that we took into orbit.
Speaker 3: So that's very different.
Speaker 4: You know, we were there as you know, software is
Speaker 4: being developed to meet mission objectives or you know, the
Speaker 4: EQUALISS system, the extra nitrogen.
Speaker 3: Tanks and oxygen tanks.
Speaker 4: That we had, you know, the support pressurizing though, I
Speaker 4: would say like, yeah, we were much more deeply involved
Speaker 4: because the mission required us to be, because we were
Speaker 4: trying to do things that hadn't been done in a
Speaker 4: long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the stakes will say, hide Jared, you are not
Speaker 1: a SpaceX employee.
Speaker 4: No, I'm not a SpaceX employee.
Speaker 1: But how deeply are you involved in now the Starship program?
Speaker 4: Not very involved. I mean we're kept very well informed.
Speaker 4: I mean we're ultimately going to fly it, so you know,
Speaker 4: Hilarious will be the first crew that will take you know,
Speaker 4: starship to orbit. So so we we absolutely will are
Speaker 4: kind of kept informed and that there will be a
Speaker 4: time where we will get i think, very embedded in
Speaker 4: the development testing when it actually comes to when when
Speaker 4: they're actually working on things that are you know, most
Speaker 4: relevant for a human crew.
Speaker 3: You know, right now they want to get to orbit.
Speaker 4: Uh, they want to come back and catch their you know,
Speaker 4: their their booster and eventually their starship because that's how
Speaker 4: you achieve rapid reusability, which is so important if you're
Speaker 4: going to take starships to Moon or Mars, it needs
Speaker 4: to get fully topped off and refueled in lower Earth orbit.
Speaker 4: So there are just some immediate priorities that come before
Speaker 4: and like my attention would would go towards Polaris too,
Speaker 4: where we build off of Plaris one and and we'll
Speaker 4: be you know, kind of repeating the mission design, development
Speaker 4: and training phases again.
Speaker 1: What is the timeline from here for the rest of
Speaker 1: the Polaris program.
Speaker 4: I think the balance of this year is still very
Speaker 4: much like the data review and debriefs. You know, what
Speaker 4: did we get right, what could we have done better?
Speaker 4: And again, what is now in the realm of possible
Speaker 4: for the next mission, because you're going to build off
Speaker 4: of this one. I think, you know, SpaceX was very
Speaker 4: quick to say on the you know, on the X
Speaker 4: spaces after we came back, that you know, continuing to
Speaker 4: improve upon the suit running at higher pressure to minimize
Speaker 4: pre breathe requirements, a portable life support system. I think
Speaker 4: those are all reasonably easy to predict, you know, but
Speaker 4: we got to learn, you know, we've got to like
Speaker 4: really understand what we gathered out of this mission first,
Speaker 4: and and I think that's the balance of this year.
Speaker 4: And then I expect probably early next year, we're going
Speaker 4: to start designing the next Polaris mission again, just kind
Speaker 4: of move the ball forward.
Speaker 1: And I guess it would be an appropriate time to
Speaker 1: kind of ask what the broader mission statement is for
Speaker 1: the Polarists, the program at large, Jaron.
Speaker 4: We're really just trying to kind of accelerate, you know,
Speaker 4: SpaceX's timeline towards you know, making life multiplanetary starship is
Speaker 4: the obvious vehicle to do that. But we don't have
Speaker 4: Starship today. We have Dragon. So and Dragon was initially
Speaker 4: developed to go from point A to B, from here
Speaker 4: to the space station and back and do it very well.
Speaker 4: And now we are taking that vehicle because it's here
Speaker 4: and there's not a lot of Spaceship choices to work with,
Speaker 4: like it is the best one to use as a
Speaker 4: development platform, uh to ultimately, you know, better prepare humankind
Speaker 4: when Starship comes online. So to give you examples, like
Speaker 4: we flew Starship Life support sensors on our Dragon mission,
Speaker 4: Like you know, the various sensors that detect you know, oxygen.
Speaker 3: Levels, CO two levels, you know, pressure levels.
Speaker 4: You know, these are these are our bank of sensors
Speaker 4: that are part of the Ecless system.
Speaker 3: We're all Starship ones and not Dragon ones, you know.
Speaker 4: So that's that's kind of the idea is to you know,
Speaker 4: bridge this massive gap from what we have today with Dragon,
Speaker 4: which is which is an awesome spaceship, but to Starship,
Speaker 4: which is going to be you know, a revolutionary step forward,
Speaker 4: like it is a it is a total game changer,
Speaker 4: and when it comes online, you know, we're going to
Speaker 4: very quickly be able to return to the Moon and
Speaker 4: go to Mars. And you're gonna need suits, You're gonna
Speaker 4: need new communications systems. There's a lot of things we're
Speaker 4: going to have to figure out because they're not planning
Speaker 4: to build you know, three or four of them, they
Speaker 4: have two factories to build potentially hundreds of them.
Speaker 3: Right, that's the aim of players are kind of help.
Speaker 1: And an approximation. Please, when will you fly Starship I?
Speaker 4: You know, I leave that to the experts at SpaceX
Speaker 4: and Elon to kind of determine the timeline on it.
Speaker 4: We'll fly it as soon as it's ready. But right now,
Speaker 4: there's a lot we can do with Dragon, and that's
Speaker 4: why the first two player's missions were were designed for Dragon.
Speaker 1: Jared, what we want to do with this is help
Speaker 1: our Bloomberg Technology audience around the world understand what is
Speaker 1: really happening inside of SpaceX. Explain it, what it's like
Speaker 1: working with the engineers, and how important you feel this
Speaker 1: company is not just to an industry, but I suppose,
Speaker 1: as you put it, humankind's future outside of Earth's atmosphere.
Speaker 4: I what an awesome question, right, Look, SpaceX is an
Speaker 4: extraordinary organization. You know, since I've been sixteen. Since I
Speaker 4: was sixteen years old, I've been in business and have
Speaker 4: worked with literally like thousands of companies, you know, across
Speaker 4: a lot of verticals, including defense aerospace. I was the
Speaker 4: CEO of a defense aerospace company I started for you know,
Speaker 4: almost twelve years, and I've never seen an organization like SpaceX.
Speaker 4: You know, there's a lot of a lot of companies
Speaker 4: that have a mission and vision statement on their website
Speaker 4: that no one cares about. I can tell you there's
Speaker 4: fourteen thousand people who show up for work every day
Speaker 4: at SpaceX, and they believe that there is no greater
Speaker 4: impact they can make in the world than trying to
Speaker 4: make life multiplanetary, because the world is a more interesting
Speaker 4: place when you can journey among the stars.
Speaker 3: I mean, they believe it.
Speaker 4: There's some of the smartest people in the world, and
Speaker 4: they're very passionate about getting there as quickly as they can.
Speaker 4: Every question, every development initiative, every dollar that's spent, you know,
Speaker 4: has the question posed to it of will this help
Speaker 4: us get to Mars? And that's applied to all the
Speaker 4: objectives that you know, we assemble as part of the
Speaker 4: player's program. It's very cool to watch people work so
Speaker 4: quickly towards such an outrageous goal, and the vast majority
Speaker 4: of it is is privately funded.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, think about it.
Speaker 4: This is like a Manhattan Project level endeavor, or take
Speaker 4: the Space Race of the nineteen sixties, but without the
Speaker 4: four and a half percent of GDP us GDP being
Speaker 4: you know funded, and you know, in Tanasa, it's largely
Speaker 4: a commercial, private endeavor for the benefit of everyone. All
Speaker 4: that aside, I do want to say that, like SpaceX
Speaker 4: isn't solving all of the world's problems clearly, and even
Speaker 4: going to Mars, like they may develop the optimal vehicle
Speaker 4: to take us there and back, but there are still
Speaker 4: you know, like who knows how many potential challenges that
Speaker 4: will exist on that journey. They're making it a self
Speaker 4: sustaining city and coming back. So I think so cool
Speaker 4: about SpaceX is they inspire so many other engineers, you know, scientists,
Speaker 4: researchers who start up different companies that follow SpaceX philosophies
Speaker 4: like it. It will take so many SpaceX like companies
Speaker 4: to make this to make the world a much better place.
Speaker 4: And they're just a great beacon that is like inspiring
Speaker 4: many others to do the same.
Speaker 2: That's Jared Isaacman, Polaris Dawn mission commander, speaking with host
Speaker 2: ed Ludlow, Dan Schwartzman, And this is Bloomberg