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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio,

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Speaker 1: and we're back. Robert Zubern back with US, president of

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Speaker 1: Pioneer Astronautics and the Mars Society, as well as a

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Speaker 1: Senior Fellow with the Center for Security Policy. Robert has

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Speaker 1: studied and researched in the fields of aerospace and energy.

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Speaker 1: He has a PhD as well. His latest book is

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Speaker 1: called The Case for Space and Robert, always a pleasure

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Speaker 1: to have you on the show. Thanks for inviting me back.

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Speaker 1: How have you been pretty good? Pretty good? The new

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Speaker 1: book is coming out tomorrow, so our timing is perfect

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Speaker 1: for this, Yes it is. And I noticed in one

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Speaker 1: of the releases we had a little quote from buzz

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Speaker 1: Aldren who's all excited about this. He's still out there

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Speaker 1: doing his thing, isn't he? Yes, he is. He is

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Speaker 1: the one astronaut who didn't just, you know, take as

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Speaker 1: Apollo Grander as a career move and move on to

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Speaker 1: the board of something. This guy wants to become a

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Speaker 1: space faring species. He stayed in the trenches, didn't he. Yep,

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Speaker 1: he really did. And I ran into him. I was

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Speaker 1: on the Larry King Show years ago with him as

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Speaker 1: one of the guests as well. And he's just a

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Speaker 1: just a nice guy. You know. You think he's mister

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Speaker 1: Tuffey all the time when you hear that story about

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Speaker 1: he punched it and out that fellow who told him

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Speaker 1: swear on a bible that you went to the moon

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Speaker 1: and stuff like it. But he's a decent, nice American

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Speaker 1: and it was proud to meet him. It really was. Yep,

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Speaker 1: I know him. The Case for Space tell me about this, well,

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Speaker 1: the Case for Space. The subtitle is how the Revolution

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Speaker 1: in spaceflight opens up a future of limitless possibility. So

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Speaker 1: that's the thesis of the book. It starts with the

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Speaker 1: revolution in spaceflight, which is going on now, and it

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Speaker 1: is a revolution, you know. Of course, the most promitive

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Speaker 1: example is Elon Musky Sex Company. You know, in February

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Speaker 1: of last year they had the first flight of the

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Speaker 1: Falcon Heavy. Now this thing. In two thousand and ten,

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Speaker 1: Norm Augustine predicted for President Obama that a heavy lith

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Speaker 1: vehicle would take twelve years to develop and thirty six

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Speaker 1: billion dollars. SpaceX did it in six years for less

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Speaker 1: than one billion dollars to capital. It's three quarters reusable,

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Speaker 1: and he has lowered the price of space launch by

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Speaker 1: a factor of five over the past ten years. Now

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Speaker 1: that's also something because see, look, you know, space technology

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Speaker 1: advanced very rapidly from Sputnik in nineteen fifty seven to

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Speaker 1: the Moon landing nineteen sixty nine. Okay, in that period,

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Speaker 1: we developed pretty much the whole bag of tricks, the

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Speaker 1: launch vehicles, in space, life support, spacecraft, deep space communication, navigation,

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Speaker 1: reentry technology, space rendezvous technology, space everything. Okay, but then

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Speaker 1: there's been stagnation. That is, for example, the cost of

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Speaker 1: space launch didn't drop a penny from nineteen seventy to

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Speaker 1: two thou and ten. So for we had, you know,

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Speaker 1: twelve years of very rapid progress followed by forty years

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Speaker 1: of stagnation. But then over the past ten years, SpaceX

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Speaker 1: first by introducing the Falcon nine is a cheaper launch

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Speaker 1: vehicle than making it reusable, making it much cheaper still

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Speaker 1: than the Falcon Heavy, making it even cheaper. They have

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Speaker 1: reduced the cost of space launch by a factor of five.

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Speaker 1: And now they're working on this thing they called the Starship.

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Speaker 1: It's not a starship like the Enterprise doesn't go to

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Speaker 1: the stars, but it is a fully reusable heavy lift

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Speaker 1: launch vehicle and it'll probably cut the cost of space

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Speaker 1: launch down by another factor. So you know, but even

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Speaker 1: more than that, what Musk is done is proven a point.

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Speaker 1: It's proven that it is possible for a well led, lean,

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Speaker 1: entrepreneur neurial team to do things that it was previously

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Speaker 1: thought that only the governments of superpowers could do, and

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Speaker 1: not only that, do it in half or one third

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Speaker 1: the time at one tenth or one thirtieth the cost.

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Speaker 1: And as a result of that, they have sparked an

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Speaker 1: entrepreneurial space race because other people are looking at that

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Speaker 1: and saying, I want to do that too. I'm going

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Speaker 1: to get into this game. And you've got not only

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Speaker 1: other billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson doing it,

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Speaker 1: you have working engineers, middle class people who are getting

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Speaker 1: investments behind them of one hundred million dollars, two hundred

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Speaker 1: million dollars, three hundred million dollars and starting their own

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Speaker 1: launch companies. And people from countries that don't even have

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Speaker 1: space programs, like New Zealand has not the government of

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Speaker 1: New Zealand but a private company in New Zealand. And

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Speaker 1: New Zealand's never had a space program, has it, Yes, Well,

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Speaker 1: they've restored it now, but not the government, a private

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Speaker 1: company right right, and the So this is happening. There's

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Speaker 1: one in Ukraine, there's five in China, and the the

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Speaker 1: the and and they're going for it, and they're going

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Speaker 1: to be competing with each other, and they're going to

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Speaker 1: be knocking the price down evermore. They're going to be

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Speaker 1: introducing new technologies. You know, you have much more creativity

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Speaker 1: going on here. And by reducing the cost of space launch,

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Speaker 1: it's going to mean that there's going to be a

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Speaker 1: lot more space launches, which also means there's going to

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Speaker 1: be a lot more new technologies tried on the spacecraft side.

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Speaker 1: And with the cost of the launch going down, the

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Speaker 1: spacecraft designers are not going to have to be so conservative.

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Speaker 1: They're not going to always say, well, I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to use anything that hasn't been used before, which has

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Speaker 1: basically been what people said for the past forty years,

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Speaker 1: which of course leads to complete stagnation. They say, let's

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Speaker 1: try something new here, let's this looks better, let's let's

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Speaker 1: get this a try. We can take the chance, and

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Speaker 1: as a result of that, the spacecraft technology is going

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Speaker 1: to start racing ahead. So um you know, there was

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Speaker 1: you know, the ancients, you know, um, and then there

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Speaker 1: was the Dark Age, and now we're in the renaissance here. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we are one of our countries like Russia and China.

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Speaker 1: Will they continue to push through through their governments their

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Speaker 1: space programs or will privatization take over in those countries too? Well?

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Speaker 1: In all these places, as there is here, there will

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Speaker 1: always remain this government bureaucracy space program and its allied

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Speaker 1: corporations and uh to and and they will be an

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Speaker 1: obstacle to innovation. But uh if in order to keep up,

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Speaker 1: they're going to have to let the cat out of

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Speaker 1: the bag because these sorts of organizations simply cannot keep up.

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Speaker 1: And I was in China a month ago, and I

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Speaker 1: was invited to witness a space launch by an entrepreneural

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Speaker 1: space company, private company, private Chinese company. Okay, that's right.

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Speaker 1: And they now this was not a launch that went

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Speaker 1: all the way to space. They this was on the

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Speaker 1: outskirts of a seaside town in Shandong Province, was on

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Speaker 1: the coast. And um, they launched this rocket up about

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Speaker 1: one hundred feet and the wind was blowing like twenty knots.

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Speaker 1: NASA would not have launched in this wind. But they

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Speaker 1: launched and they went up about one hundred feet and

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Speaker 1: they hovered there completely motionless, despite the wind, and then

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Speaker 1: they brought it back down to land exactly in the

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Speaker 1: center of the launch. It was. It was a tour

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Speaker 1: de force and the and it was a very young team.

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Speaker 1: The CEO of this company is twenty six years old.

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Speaker 1: And the expertise they demonstrate was remarkab, where'd they get

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Speaker 1: their money? Well, um, the CTO of Ali Baba, which

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Speaker 1: is okay, that's like the Amazon of China. Yeah, he

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Speaker 1: was there, Okay, so I guess that's where they're getting

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Speaker 1: their money. He must have been the money person. Indeed, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so um yeah in China, you know, they have their

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Speaker 1: own version. They have ali Baba instead of Amazon. They

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Speaker 1: have their own version of Uber, they have their own

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Speaker 1: version of Apple Pay, they have their own version of Google.

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Speaker 1: It's like a parallel universe. But anyway, they copy everything

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Speaker 1: we do, right they do, And now they're copying reusable

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Speaker 1: space launch vehicles now. So now Russia, I know there

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Speaker 1: are people in Russia that want to do it, but

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Speaker 1: the problem in Russia is the government is such a

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Speaker 1: bunch of crooks that anyone who would start their own

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Speaker 1: SpaceX would have to be afraid that someone in the

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Speaker 1: Kremlin would steal it from the steal or get greased

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Speaker 1: or something like that. They want some money doing the deal,

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Speaker 1: and so if Russia wants to play this game, they're

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Speaker 1: going to have to form. Robert, let me ask you

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Speaker 1: a dark question as we get into this incredible story

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Speaker 1: that you've written a course, The Case for Space the

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Speaker 1: book that comes out in the in the morning, What

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Speaker 1: about the possibilities of all these private companies worldwide that

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Speaker 1: are getting into this, that are launching rockets or will

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Speaker 1: have the potential to launch rockets, to also have the

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Speaker 1: potential to launch a nuke. And we don't know who

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Speaker 1: it is, where they are, but it could happen. Is

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Speaker 1: that a danger? I don't think so. Uh, you know.

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Speaker 1: I mean, firstly, you got to happen the nukeh and

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Speaker 1: nukes aren't very much the possession of governments so far

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Speaker 1: the the yeah, so you know, um, and it's just

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Speaker 1: not in the interest of a private company to launch

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Speaker 1: a nuke. And no, I don't think that's what this

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Speaker 1: is about. I actually think that, as I explained in

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Speaker 1: the book, and one of the later chapters. I think

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Speaker 1: the opening of the space Frontier will do more to

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Speaker 1: prevent war than almost anything else, because what it will

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Speaker 1: do is refute the fundamental idea that caused the catastrophes

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Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, which is that there isn't enough

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Speaker 1: to go around, that there's only so much here, and

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Speaker 1: sooner or later we're going to have to fight over it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, that is the underlying idea that

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Speaker 1: sent Germany against Russian the First World War and the Second.

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Speaker 1: And you know, let's take them out now before they developed,

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Speaker 1: because sooner or later we're gonna have to fight them.

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Speaker 1: And right now there is the hazard of such a

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Speaker 1: situation developing between the US and China. You know, there

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Speaker 1: is these planners in Washington look at China and they say,

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Speaker 1: if these guys all develop, those all have cars, there

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Speaker 1: won't be enough oil in the world. We have to

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Speaker 1: stop it. The Chinese looking at the situation to the

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Speaker 1: other side of the chessboard, thinking the same thing about us.

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Speaker 1: But it's all nonsense. We opened up the universe. There's

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Speaker 1: infinite resources, and and and and the fact that the

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Speaker 1: Chinese are going to be competing with us in this

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Speaker 1: I think it's healthy. You know, in the sixties, you know,

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Speaker 1: the Cold War was deep, but you know, the space

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Speaker 1: race had a certain camaraderie to it, you know, and

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Speaker 1: the Russians were playing. There was a challenge to it too.

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Speaker 1: It was a challenge, you know. I was in Leningrad

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Speaker 1: when we landed on the Moon and the Russians I knew,

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Speaker 1: would you know, they punched me on the show. I said,

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Speaker 1: Malodets were just like that a boy. You know. It's

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Speaker 1: like we had excelled in a sport that they respected.

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Speaker 1: They were happy, Yeah, well they were. I mean, I'm

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Speaker 1: sure the leaders were not happy, but the regular people

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Speaker 1: were about it. Yeah, and um, you know so uh

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Speaker 1: and and and you know, this new space race, it's

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Speaker 1: going to make it possible not just to go to

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Speaker 1: the Moon and Mars, but to go ever more cheaply,

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Speaker 1: so that it won't just be a government stunt. It

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Speaker 1: will be opening a frontier. It will make possible colonization, settlement,

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Speaker 1: the development of new branches of human civilization in these places.

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Speaker 1: This is a grand future that that's being opened up here.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'll tell you what I think, George.

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Speaker 1: I think that five hundred years from now, the vast

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Speaker 1: majority of the human race will not be living on Earth.

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Speaker 1: It will still be billions of people on Earth, but

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Speaker 1: we're going to be on thousands of other planets, to

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Speaker 1: orbiting stars in this region of the galaxy. And when

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Speaker 1: they look back at this time, you know what they're

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Speaker 1: gonna think. They're gonna think this is the beginning of history.

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Speaker 1: We're present to the creation. Well, we might be living

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Speaker 1: on Mars if they ever terraformed the place. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: well that too, um, but you know, um, this uh,

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Speaker 1: this point that Musk has made that the entrepreneurs can

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Speaker 1: do this kind of stuff that it was thought that

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Speaker 1: only superpowers could do. This has spread to other fields

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Speaker 1: that we're having an entrepreneurial race. Let loose infusion power

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Speaker 1: because people, you know, fusion power is one of these

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Speaker 1: things like cheap space launch that was always going to

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Speaker 1: be in the future and never came around. People start

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Speaker 1: looking at this and say, maybe the problem here is

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Speaker 1: like cheap space launch, maybe it wasn't fundamentally a technical problem,

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Speaker 1: Maybe it was an institutional problem. And you're getting fusion

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Speaker 1: power startups now that are getting funded the two hundred

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Speaker 1: million dollars five hundred million dollars. We're going to have

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Speaker 1: an entrepreneurial we already have it now, a fusion power race,

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Speaker 1: and this is going to create unlimited energy, and it's

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Speaker 1: going to create new kinds of space propulsion systems that

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Speaker 1: will make it possible not only to get to Mars

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Speaker 1: much faster, but will ultimately make possible interstellar travel. Robert,

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Speaker 1: we've got the elon Musk SpaceX, Jeff Bezos says, Blue Origin,

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Speaker 1: which one do you think is ahead? Well, right now,

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Speaker 1: SpaceX is ahead. There's no question about that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the Blue Origin has not even reached orbit yet. SpaceX,

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Speaker 1: you know, last year took over a quarter of the

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Speaker 1: entire world market of space launches, and really more than

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Speaker 1: half if you consider the fact that the other half

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Speaker 1: was in Russian China and was walled off from competition.

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Speaker 1: The the them. Now it's it's a tortoise and a

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Speaker 1: hair deal here. Musk is much more aggressive. He skates

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Speaker 1: closer to the edge of the ice, takes chances, and

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Speaker 1: he pushes like mad. All right, Now, here's the thing.

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Speaker 1: Bezos is moving slow and steady, and he has much

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Speaker 1: larger resources than Musk. I would estimate he's maybe six

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Speaker 1: to ten times richer than Musk, I mean Russ and

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Speaker 1: he probably still has access to other capital too well. Yes, now,

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Speaker 1: so the issue is this, Okay, the Blue origins great

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Speaker 1: strength is that they have unlimited funds. They're greatest weakness

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Speaker 1: is that they have unlimited funds. Because if you have

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Speaker 1: unlimited funds, you have unlimited time, or you think you do.

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Speaker 1: And whereas Musk understands, he's got to watch the bottom line,

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Speaker 1: that's right, And an aerospace cost is people times time.

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Speaker 1: So the faster you get something done, the cheaper it is.

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Speaker 1: And therefore he is in a hurry. Bezos is not

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Speaker 1: in a hurry. He's going to take less chances. But

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Speaker 1: I think he needs to pick up the pace if

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Speaker 1: he wants to catch Musk. Listen to more Coast to

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Speaker 1: Coast AM every weeknight at one am Eastern and go

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Speaker 1: to Coast to Coast am dot com for more