Live from MIT: Beyond LEO and to the Moon...with Honeybee, Draper, Lunar Outpost, and Lunar Station

Last Friday, Payload moderated the “Beyond LEO” panel at the MIT Sloan New Space Age Conference in Cambridge. Joining us were: Will Hovik, engineering lead @ Honeybee Robotics; Kevin Duda, senior space systems manager @ Draper Laboratory; Forrest Meyen, cofounder and CSO of Lunar Outpost; and Blair DeWitt, the founder and CEO of Lunar Station.

Today's Pathfinder is brought to you by Kepler Communications, a company bringing the internet to space. Find out more at https://kepler.space/

• A sneak peek •

This discussion couldn’t have come at a better time. On Monday, ispace said its HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lander has entered orbit around the moon. And more “ships,” i.e., landers and rovers, are set to depart for the Moon in the coming months. Our Beyond LEO discussion centered around what comes next on, near, and around the Moon: robotic explorers, habitation modules, crewed missions, energy, lunar infrastructure, and in-situ resource utilization.

What follows are some takeaways from the panel.

$$$: Funding models changed drastically between Apollo and Artemis, and VCs can often miscalculate risk with lunar ventures. Duda estimated that NASA is paying an average of ~$1M per kilogram of payloads delivered to the lunar surface.

The new approach: Embrace failure, iterate rapidly, and buy down risk by sending multiple ships.

CLPS: The Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program is an on-ramp for NASA to support commercial players without taking over the mission. In theory this support could spur more innovation and commercial growth.

NASA: The agency is undergoing an organizational change, as it shifts from being a fully integrated operator to a customer.

Humans and machines: It’s not either-or. Striking a balance between automation and human presence is key as we return to the Moon, with robots carrying out preliminary groundwork and humans making high-level decisions and performing experiments on the surface.

Beyond LEO and lunar: Mars remains the ultimate goal of space exploration, with the Moon serving as a stepping stone to deeper space missions.

While our sights were set beyond LEO, the last decade in low Earth orbit offers lessons, both good and bad, for cislunar aspirants. LEO applications, such as satcom services or environmental monitoring, have thrived due to their direct impact on everyday life. NASA and cislunar players, it follows, should go to extra lengths to make the Moon relevant to the general public and explain how lunar exploration will benefit us back on Earth. “We don't really know what the lunar towns are gonna find,” DeWitt said, “but [they’ll] find something and it's gonna participate in helping us here on Earth."

• Chapters •

0:00 Intro & Kepler Ad 
2:11 Panel Intro 
7:36 Fundraising, capital formation, and partnerships 
12:44 How important that those first ships are successful? 
17:18 Role of NASA as a partner 
22:01 What are some pivotal technologies that are going to be used on the lunar surface? 
27:30 Automation vs crew exploration
32:15 What are the priorities for future Artemis crews? 
35:09 Positive takeaways from LEO 
37:24 Kepler Ad break 
38:12 Q&A

• Show notes •

MIT New Space Age — http://newspaceage.org/ 
Honeybee — https://www.honeybeerobotics.com/ 
Draper — https://www.draper.com/ 
Lunar Outpost — https://lunaroutpost.com/ 
Lunar Station — https://lunarstation.space/ 
CLPS — https://payloadspace.com/whos-who-lunar-landers-and-rovers/ 
Ryan's socials — https://twitter.com/Ryandoofy / https://www.linkedin.com/in/rfduffy/ 
Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace 
Pathfinder archive — Watch: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_uY3GaNf67hP-i6TRWF2n06xMv1kdkZ6
Pathfinder archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/episodes

• About us •

Pathfinder is brought to you by Payload, a modern space media brand built from the ground up for a new age of space exploration and commercialization. We deliver need-to-know news and insights daily to 15,000+ commercial, civil, and military space leaders. Payload is read by decision-makers at every leading new space company, along with c-suite leaders at all of the aerospace & defense primes. We’re also read on Capitol Hill, in the Pentagon, and at space agencies around the world. 

We publish three properties:
1) Payload, our flagship daily newsletter, sends M-F @ 9am Eastern (https://newsletter.payloadspace.com/) 
2) Pathfinder publishes weekly on Tuesday mornings (pod.payloadspace.com) 
3) Parallax, our weekly space science briefing, hits inboxes Thursday (https://parallax.payloadspace.com/)

Find out more about us at http://payloadspace.com/