Hey, everyone.
Welcome to my podcast.
Insights by Ben Segal.
The name of the podcast was based on the idea,
notion that every episode will have one insight or one nugget of knowledge.
After hearing from our guest.
I'm Ben Segal, managing director of private wealth at UBS Financial Services.
Our team, Kahner Segal Partners, is based in New York City, Miami and Boston.
After the podcast, I can be reached that Benjami.Segal@ubs.com.
Today's guest, Dylan Taylor, the highly talented
CEO who has pivoted to leading a space defense company.
Dylan, a big welcome.
Thank you Ben. Great to be here.
So will the International Space Station be replaced by one or multiple stations.
And if there is, then why? Yeah.
So the International Space Station is aging.
I think it's 26 years old today.
It just had its anniversary.
In fact.
And what NASA has said is that they would prefer to have commercial space stations
as opposed to building and operating their own space station in the future.
This has been done before.
You might recall we had the space shuttle that was sunsetting
and what, replaced that were commercial launch
capabilities, best exemplified by space acts, of course.
So the same thing is happening on the space station side.
There was a phase one award.
There were a few companies that, received contracts.
If I'm correct, three of them.
That's correct. Yeah, we were one of them.
We were very fortunate to be one of them.
Northrop Grumman was another.
And Blue Origin, which is Jeff Bezos.
This company was the third.
Northrop Grumman subsequently joined our team.
Fantastic. Yeah. So it's really blue and ourselves.
And then there are a couple other, companies competing as well.
There will be a phase two award sometime in 2026.
But fast forward in 2030, let's say approximately,
you'll have commercial space stations in orbit, and the International Space
Station will actually be orbited, dropped somewhere in the Pacific, probably,
SpaceX actually has the contracted to orbit the station.
So we're headed to a commercial model.
So is there going to be one space station, or is there going to be ten of them?
I don't know if they'll be ten, but they'll definitely be more than one.
NASA believes, and I believe this as well, that they need
to have some pricing competition so they'll likely select two.
We don't know for sure.
I think it's unlikely it's one.
It's certainly very unlikely. It'd be ten.
I could see it being three, perhaps, but I think it's most likely to be two.
And then I think if you fast forward, you know, deeper into the 2030s,
I think we will have more stations and there'll be special purpose.
So you can imagine, let's say, a Gulf state with their own space station
or a space station dedicated to biopharma research,
or a space station dedicated to semiconductor fabrication,
or data centers in space, which has been a big topic recently.
So I do think we'll have special purpose space stations,
but the the large commercial ones replacing the ISS, I think they'll be two.
Right.
So can you describe Star Labs mission and who
your partners are, and how did you even come up with the idea?
Well it's interesting.
So we founded Voyager, the company I run six years ago.
And one of the things we believed to be true was that
it was all about assembling capability, right, and capability for his company.
We believe that NASA was going to award these commercial space station contracts.
So we sat back and said, what capabilities do we need to be competitive for that?
And we believed we needed a services capability
and we needed a human rated hardware capability.
We acquired a company called NanoRacks, which was doing
the commercial payload mission management to the International Space Station.
And then we completed a very important human rated piece of hardware
called the Bishop Airlock, Bishop, after the chess piece.
Right. Because it was a strategic move.
So when we had those two capabilities, when the RFP came out,
we were quite competitive. We ended up winning.
So that was the original, kind of vision behind it.
We then formed an international joint venture.
Why did we do that?
We wanted to bring international partners in because one of the reasons
the International Space Station
has been so successful is the international cooperation.
So if you look at who's on the station today, it's the Japanese, the Europeans,
the Canadians and the Russians.
Remove Russia for a second for geopolitical reasons.
We wanted to focus on Japan, Canada and Europe.
So what we did was we partnered with the leading
aerospace and defense companies in those different regions.
Airbus for Europe, MBDa for Canada, and Mitsubishi Corporation for Japan.
They're all part of the joint venture equity holders.
We then added Palantir and then we added other partners
that are non-equity holders, but important partners like Northrop,
like Hilton Hotels that if you can believe that,
reimagining, what it's like to have humans in space.
So that's the that's the nature of the joint venture, Star Lab
and, you know, ours is very unique because it's an eight meter design.
International Space Station modules are four meters.
And keep in mind, in space, that's not twice as big an excuse me,
it's four times as big because everything's about volume.
In space.
Because there's no there's no up and down, right? Right.
So it's a really interesting project, and,
we're taking advantage of Elon's new heavy lift rocket Starship,
and that allows us to have this larger module.
Got it, got it.
Well, that's that's it's unbelievable
that you've been able to accomplish that in six years.
But before we delve into space and the defense area, what was your career
path and the lessons you learned from the career and leadership lessons?
You've been have amazing career, and you're still a young guy.
Well, thanks for that.
That I you know, I was hyper ambitious, like I probably a lot of young people.
And to me, I wanted to run a company, a large global
multinational company, the biggest company I could possibly get my hands on.
I had some success running public companies and running
companies at scale, large global companies.
But I would say
I reached a point in my career and this would be a lesson learned where
I was successful in quotes, but just not feeling purposeful,
not feeling like I was making a real difference in the world.
And, you know, one bit of advice I would have is, you know, make sure
that your North Star is not necessarily ambition and traditional,
you know, trappings of success, power, money, fame.
But make sure you're grounded towards a North Star that's really purposeful.
Like, you know, what is your purpose in the world?
What's your legacy going to be?
What
are you going to tell your grandkids, you did to make the world a better place?
And so in reflecting on that, I just felt like I was in the
wrong industry, doing the wrong things, working with the wrong people
that I didn't, frankly, respect or admire.
And so my passion had always been space.
And so I reflected on that and I said,
okay, well, how do I make a difference in that?
Because I think that's the next big thing for humanity.
How can I impact that industry?
And what I ended up doing initially was investing in space.
I kept my day job.
And it's not that I'm some great investor.
Bad, necessarily, but it was a way to learn the business plan, the nuances.
Nuances get to know the entrepreneurs, provide some mentorship.
At that time, the space industry was very nascent.
Not a lot of capital was being invested.
And a lot of the founders were very technologically brilliant,
but didn't have a lot of business experience.
So that's how I ended up coming into the industry initially.
And then once I got some traction and some confidence
that this was the industry, I really wanted to dedicate my,
career towards, that's what we founded Voyager in, in it was right before Covid.
It was August of 19.
So we were about six months old when Covid hit. Wow.
So but look,
the purpose we talked this about with, especially with a lot of entrepreneurs
who have exits.
And the next question is what do they do?
And so that word to me is so important.
And I think when people focus on that, they change their lives a lot.
And you've been able to pivot to space very successfully.
So what is the size or the potential business in space,
and why is space so important from a defense point of view?
Research, manufacturing.
It's just so unbelievable the opportunities, which I don't think
a lot of people understand.
Right.
Well, I think Goldman and other banks are on record saying it's $1 trillion
space economy.
So the headline number is is that's a big number.
It's mind boggling.
And by the way, that doesn't include orbital data centers.
It doesn't include quantum.
It doesn't include, mining helium three on the moon.
Right. Like and all these other more exotic business plants.
That's just traditional, you know, satellite.
In data management, in space.
So, the space economy is massive, massive, massive
national security implications.
It's the ultimate high ground right from space.
You can do things like missile interception of hypersonic missiles,
Golden Dome, which is kind of a moniker
for all these different missile defense programs.
One of the big things this administration has said they want to have
done is a demonstration of space to space interceptors.
So that's a big thing.
Is that a bullet hitting a bullet?
It's a bullet hitting a bullet, but it's more like,
a bullet moving a ten bullet speed.
Right? Being hit by a bullet. So it's pretty.
Pretty, difficult technical problem to solve.
The other thing that's really interesting,
I think about space and national security is the whole data management piece.
And so one of the one of the things I see,
and we're seeing this in the world today is the convergence
of a lot of technologies.
So I'll give an example.
Edge computing, you know, what does that mean?
Well, in a in space, you're collecting a lot of data.
So the model has been you transmit that data down to Earth.
You put it in a cloud, you machine, learn it, compute it,
and then you send the answer to the customer.
Well, the problem with that is those data streams in a contested
environment can be jammed, right?
Not to mention the fact that you're transmitting
a lot of data that might get dropped.
It might not actually be received where it's intended.
So why not?
Where you collect the data, do the data processing, and then rather than transmit
that data to Earth, you actually just transmit the answer.
So that's where things are going.
We're building a technology stack, with Palantir.
We made a, minority investment in latent AI,
which is a leading AI, company doing kind of firmware,
a SIC level, AI,
and we're building that entire technology stack
so that we can actually be part of this edge computing initiative.
So there's a lot of different ways that space is growing right now.
We just announced a quantum deal here this week.
That's regulations. Well. Thank you.
Thank you.
And that's really important because in space, GPS doesn't work.
It looks down, not up.
So how do you position yourself?
There are technologies like star trackers and other things.
But the key thing you need for positioning is a clock.
And you need a very accurate, clock due to quantum, relativity effects.
And so
what this, quantum technology allows you to do is to build a quantum
clock, on orbit that allows you to position, navigate, and time around.
Think of it as a beacon that you can build your infrastructure around.
Wow. That's unbelievable.
So you packed in a lot of information about the possibilities in space.
So if you're a young person interested
in working in space, what should you be thinking about?
Well, it's interesting.
I think no matter what your career ambitions are,
you'll have the ability to work in space.
Whether you're a chef, whether you're an artist,
whether you're a technologist, any of those things.
Because I think think of space is almost the eighth continent.
And, know, we don't talk about the China industry, right?
We don't talk about,
the European industry.
Those are geographies.
So think of space as a domain.
And really, whatever your career path
is, I think you'll have the ability to live and work in space, within,
especially if you're a young person within your lifetime.
All that being said, I think anything that is associated
with the data management piece is going to be the biggest growth driver.
So whether that's data centers, data processing,
AI enabled solutions, anything data related, I think
is going to be the biggest, growth factor going forward for the space industry.
Very, very interesting.
So as we think about space and some of the opportunities for commerce, for example,
what is microgravity and how does that benefit space manufacturing?
Yeah.
So a lot of people think there's no gravity in space.
That's not true. There is gravity in space.
But because you're in orbit, you're in perpetual freefall.
So if you think about jumping out of an airplane,
skydiving, if there was no wind resistance,
you would feel like there's no gravity because you're in freefall.
Similar thing when you're in orbit.
So that's why when you're in a space station,
you're essentially not experiencing gravity.
They call it microgravity because there are small gravitational effects.
Why does that matter?
Well, it matters because come to find out, that's like a magic laboratory
when you think about gravity.
Gravity and chemistry is about knocking molecules together.
So when you take the convective force of gravity out of the mix,
literally and figuratively, when you take that out,
think of it almost as a slow motion machine.
So whether it's a biopharma drug formulation that you're trying
to figure out or protein folding or,
let's say manufacturing a crystal,
you can actually do that almost perfectly
in microgravity and microchips to, I would imagine, microchips as well.
And people are like, well, can you make perfect crystals at scale?
We'll come to find out.
But and you don't have to, because if you can make the perfect crystal seed,
you can actually bring that back to Earth
and grow a larger, perfect crystal around that seed.
So think of this as almost like a firestarter
that allows you to do things that you literally can't do here on Earth.
So, Keytruda, one of the leading, lung cancer drugs
that was developed on the International Space Station because come to find out,
we can figure out what drugs work, but to get the right formulation
and actually manufacture it so that the efficacy in the body
is, maximum,
or maximized, microgravity allows you to do that.
So think of it as a magic laboratory.
And the reason there's not more done on the International Space Station today
is it's capacity limited, whether it's rack
space lab space astronaut time.
And that's why we call our project Star Lab, because we're really focused
on the research and laboratory elements in microgravity.
So can we think of it as a region in space, and that there is
only a limited amount of people who want to own that real estate up there?
Yeah, I think that's a genius way to think about it.
I think, think of it as,
a reach.
Think of it as a capital asset that generates massive amounts of cash
and, you know, back to supply and demand, which is classic economics.
Of course.
You know, a lot of people will look
at the International Space Station and say, okay, well, there's demand for 1
or 2 stations, but what they're forgetting is
this is a situation where supply is not addressing demand.
It's creating demand.
I'll give you an example.
Space-x when they came out with their Falcon
Heavy rocket, there were a lot of people saying, well,
SpaceX is going to launch all the payloads
to orbit in January and February
and the other ten months of the year,
they're going to be sitting around twiddling their thumbs.
And I my point at the time was no, no, because we have
that capability, we're going to launch more satellites to orbit.
And that's exactly what happened.
Right now we have Starlink and all this other things.
So we've launched more satellites.
We, meaning humanity, have launched more satellites in the last 12 months
than the entire history
of the space industry put together to that period of time last 40 years.
And it's because we now have this the heavy lift
capability similar with the space station, because we have this commercial model,
because we have this capacity, we're going to have a flourishing
of demand for all these different use cases that we've talked about,
that just that that opportunity is endless, right?
Just like SpaceX.
So I was sort of thinking about defense companies.
Could you be a defense company today without being involved in space?
I think you can.
Let's say if you were doing,
you know, I don't know, I'm making this up at tanks or something.
That's like but I think almost every everything is
when you think about domains, you have the sea,
you have land, you have air, and you have space.
Space is the ultimate high ground.
But there's a lot of overlap between space and air.
So drones are a big thing as well, right?
But when you think about how you orient drones,
how you keep them from being signal jammed, how those,
those drones that might be collecting data, that data is processed.
A lot of that is, is, leveraging space based assets, right.
So I think, you know, if you look at andro, which is a,
which is a very prominent private company, disrupting,
the defense primes, we collaborate with them on a few things.
You know, they're looking at it multi-domain.
So I think to your,
you know, to your point that I think if you're not leveraging the space domain,
I think it's hard to optimize your capabilities in these other areas.
Right.
And that transmitting of data for drones is very, very important.
Yeah.
So we talked about AI, quantum computing, robotics.
What are the applications in space that you think could happen,
sooner than later?
Well, I think near-term,
near-term, there's a few things that I would focus on.
The data centers might be a little bit further out.
Commercial space stations will come online in 2030.
The big thing right now is, constellations.
So we're building constellations.
Elon in jail for building, internet service Starlink.
And then Kuiper is the Amazon project.
So I think that near-term, that will be the biggest thing that people will see.
You'll have direct, to your cell phone, internet service and text.
So that's a big one.
I think the other one, will continue to be
pushing to the lunar environment as well.
The US and China will go back to the moon sometime in the 2020s or early 2030s.
I think we'll have a moon base.
So I think that's another, you know, key area to, to monitor, as we go forward.
And then, as I mentioned, the commercial space stations.
And the other thing related to data is, signals intelligence.
This has overlap between space and defense.
What does that mean?
It as you're mopping up all these electrons, as we say,
and all this data, the big innovation which you alluded to is AI.
So we can create insights around that data that previously we weren't,
you know, it was just noise.
And now we can actually find signal
in that noise because of the intelligence that we have.
Wow. So it's just endless, endless amount of, opportunities.
Yeah. you've been very lucky because you've actually been to space.
I have, and so, do you think?
Or two insights people should, think about?
Individuals know about space?
Well, I think space is a lot of things.
It's an investment opportunity.
It's a technical challenge.
It's a hazardous environment.
But first and foremost, space, in my view, is a tool for transformation.
And what do I mean by that?
It allows humans, I think, to reimagine what's possible.
You know, think of it as a blank canvas that we can,
not only bring out the best of humans.
You know, when I think of the astronaut corps
or the professional astronaut corps, not commercial astronauts like myself.
This is the best that humans have to offer.
Right.
Whether it's intelligence or capability, but probably even more so.
Collaboration, right?
If you if you talk to astronauts, I know, you know several been there
some of the most humble people in the world.
Unbelievable.
And they do that because the people who really pound their chest
through the astronaut selection process are screened out.
So this really are the best of humanity.
So I think space is one of these things where we can imagine what's possible.
We can imagine how we can treat each other better.
We can imagine how we can create
a better future for us and for our kids and grandkids.
So that's what excites me about space
is this notion that we can reimagine what's possible.
And, and then I also, you know, I'm an explorer by nature.
And so to me, it's like, well, what's over the hill?
Is there a life on on some of the the moons of Saturn, like Europa?
You know, I don't know. Nobody knows.
So let's go check it out.
Right.
And one of the things that I've noticed that when people who come back from space,
they all said it's changed their lives.
They have more clarity.
Be clarity about life.
And, I, I think that's fascinating.
Why do you think that is?
You know, it changed my life.
I'll talk about my personal experience
for a second, and maybe there's some some insight there.
I mean, I think it's a few things.
One is, you know, think of a new emotion.
Three parts to the emotion.
One is the sense of affection and admiration and love.
If I can use that term where everything you ever known, every person you've ever
met, every experience you've ever had, is right there in front of you.
And you just feel this, you know, it's almost like a little child or puppy
where it's like you have this unconditional love,
but you also realize the fragility of it all.
Which transitions to the next emotion, which is terror.
Because when you're up there, you realize we just have a thin whisper.
I can imagine, I mean, a thin whisper of an atmosphere,
and everything else is cold, dark, dead and hostile.
So far as we know. Right.
So you've got here.
And then the third part, you know, it's almost like anger, in a way,
because you feel like you've been whispered a password.
And it's like, why don't people understand? Right?
There is no other place and there is no other people.
There's only us in here.
That's what you realize up there.
So imagine that kind of love, terror, fear,
merged together into a new emotion.
I don't know what you would call it.
Multiply by a billion and bury it so deep inside of you that you can't un
feel it or un remember it for the rest of your life.
And that's what it feels like.
And by the way, you know, you've met several astronauts.
I know several. We have several involved with company.
It doesn't matter if it's American, Russian, Korean, Japanese fighter pilot,
atheist, Christian,
everyone I know who's been up there has been impacted in a very similar way.
So they call it the overview effect.
A term that was coined by Frank white at, Harvard University.
And it's a real thing.
It really is.
I can I can testify that I was impacted by it. Wow.
That's that's that's really unbelievable.
Hopefully I can make a trip up there.
Turning to NASA, how has their mission evolved?
And and can you describe how the public private partnership, partnership works?
Yeah.
Well, I think NASA is,
like a lot of parts of the government rethinking their budget constraints
and reimagining how they can get better outcomes for less money.
And that's a theme in our government and actually,
frankly, governments around the world.
I think they do believe that
commercial activities benefits NASA.
You know, there's probably still people within NASA
that are less excited about commercial activity than others.
I think space,
has been so successful
with human spaceflight capability that I think a lot of people
are believers, that commercial can have a positive impact.
So I think the tide is turning to your point.
Public private partnerships are a big thing.
There's an actual mechanism that NASA has
that other agencies don't have called this Space Act agreement.
And that was actually what we won for the Commercial Space Station phase one.
that essentially allows milestone based payments
to be made, based upon us actually achieving milestones.
We agree with NASA.
So I think it's a very good model.
know, the knock on commercial space station
or a commercial activities have been that some of the commercial
providers haven't actually delivered on their promises.
But I think, I think that noise is starting to die down
as these companies continue to deliver technically on their milestones.
We've achieved 27 milestones with NASA.
We're on time. We're on budget.
So I think that gives them confidence that we're on the right track
on time, on budget is always works well.
So let's turn to fuller entropy.
Can you tell us about your charity and how brings the global,
community, community, to involvement in space?
Well, thank you so much for asking about that.
So it's called space for humanity.
I founded in 2017, and the idea was, how do you democratize access to space?
And the idea was we could send people to space to actually pay for their ticket,
but in return, they'd have to come back and do something to benefit
life here on Earth.
So we've actually set six people to space thus far.
We said the first Mexican born female,
to space, Katya, she's turned into a celebrity cover of Vogue.
And has her own Barbie doll and her own Stem education center.
Barbie doll.
Her own Barbie doll. Her her space suit.
Or, you know, flight suit with the space for humanity logo
was just, installed in the Smithsonian Museum.
So that's been a big win.
We said the first Arab female to space
in the Egyptian national, Sarah Sabry.
And then a really great story.
There was a guy named Ed, Dwight, who was the first African
American astronaut selection.
By JFK did not go on the Apollo missions.
Sadly, was passed over, and he shouldn't have been, but he was passed over.
Became a beloved figure in the space industry as an artist.
And we were, very happy to sponsor his flight together with a couple others.
And at the age, I think, 82, he was able to finally get his astronaut wings.
This was about a year and a half ago.
So in addition to sending people to space, I think of it
almost as a little bit of a social movement around wider space matter.
You go to space. Space to benefit Earth.
So, yeah, I'm very proud of that charity.
And, so it's a unifier, like sports.
It is. Yeah.
But it's a great, great analogy.
Then, unifier.
And it's a global organization.
We have major donors.
Jeff, Jeff gave $1 million, which was very kind of him.
Richard Branson was a big donor.
We flew to a mother daughter,
team on Virgin Galactic as well.
So it's been it's been a great it's been a great joy.
And, we have a terrific executive director, who's doing a great job.
So if you haven't, people haven't realized you haven't accomplished enough.
Can you tell us a little about the documentaries and the film
and how you're sharing space with, vast audience?
Well, thanks for that.
Yeah.
So I did form a media company
that was later merged into Space News, which is another media company.
But the media company I founded was called Multiverse Media,
and we made two films.
One was on Gerry O'Neill, who is a legendary Princeton professor
who provided a lot of the thought leadership, and inspired Jeff Bezos.
In fact, Jeff talked about him in his high school valedictorian speech.
I think Jeff went to Princeton.
Yes, he did, because because Jerry was a professor there.
But that was a great film.
He really kind of told the story around Jerry O'Neill and his ideas.
And then we made another one called fortitude.
And, that movie was really about
an update of what's happening in the space industry today.
Why it matters.
The different technologies that are being developed.
So those are the two films we've made and, you know, will we make a third film?
You know, I think it's like remodeling your house.
It's like every time you
you do that, you're like, I'm never going to do that again.
And then about two years later, the the pain fades and you
then you think to yourself, maybe I should do another one.
But the whole idea behind it is that as you alluded
to, to try to educate people about what's happening in the industry.
Oh that's fantastic.
So I'll leave with one last question.
Do you envision down the road people having appeared to tear in space?
I do, I do.
So, I think, you know, Hilton Hotels, as I mentioned, is a partner
on, on, Star Lab in our joint venture.
And, I think we'll have a moon base.
So. Yeah, I think so, Ben, I mean, I so when is the next question?
I don't know, mid 2030s or something.
I think that's a possibility, but, are you interested?
100%. Maybe it's a little retirement place.
There you go. There you go. We'll be neighbors. Okay.
Well done.
Thank you so much for sharing your views about space
and all your success and everything you've done.
From a philanthropic point of view and what you're doing for our country
with regard to space.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Ben.
And to our audience, thank you for listening.
Until next time.
This is insights by Ben Segal.
And stay tuned for our next episode.
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