Guest: Open Lines Discussion led by Dr. Space; Topics: Multiple topics including the news story about the shutting down of Masten Space and their lunar lander work, entrepreneurial capabilities and promotion, startup company investing due diligence, importance of team and team leads for space companies, NSS, space advocacy, and ISDC with Dr. Sherry Bell, Falcon 9 safety comparisons with Marshall, UAP hearings and evidence and more.
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Welcome to our Open Lines discussion. During out 95 minute discussion, we had multiple callers on many topics. As I started the program, I mentioned a few items to talk about. One was my dinner with Dr. Sherry Bell, well known in space and NSS arenas for decades. Sherry and I have been good friends for years and she has been on TSS many time. She ran a track at the recent ISDC, will do the same at ISDC in Texas next year so since we both live in Las Vegas, we met for dinner at the Red Rock Casino, talked space, advocacy, NSS, the loss of many of our dear friends over the years and more. Sherry got the waitress to take a few photos of us and I posted them on the blog for this show. Sherry is a walking encyclopedia of NewSpace, the players, the history, outcomes both good and bad, books, programs - you name it. I'm quite sure Sherry will be calling in on other Space Show programs. She not only can walk us down Memory Lane and into the world of space history like no other, but she can clearly see and help us to see our space future.
Next, I brought up the story by Doug Messier on Parabolic Arc about Masten Space Systems going under and possibly adversely impacting the Artemis time line with lunar lander delays. You can read the Parabolic Arc story at www.parabolicarc.com/2022/07/14/cash-strapped-masten-space-furloughs-employees-moon-landing-mission-at-risk. I thought this would prove to be a popular topic on the program but only one person called about it, Dr. Jurist. There were a few email comments as well. While I have no information about Masten and what happened other than what Doug wrote about in the article, I did comment on a few things which I believe extend way beyond Masten and even to comments I have made recently about getting all the PR notices to put this or that startup on air touting Round 1 financing completion or something else. When I did the most simple of all due diligence into the PR, I found all too often the message greatly exaggerated. This has been going on for years but with the discovery of so many PR agencies pushing for news for their clients re the new commercial space industry, in my opinion such publicity is often over stated. What I read from Doug triggered my thoughts on this once again as Doug reported that a major investor that Masten was counting on pulled out at the last minute. Masten had under bid their NASA CLPS agreement assuming the investor was solid. Again, according to Doug, the big investor was not happy with the Masten engineering team and team leader, probably because the leader did not have the right experience for a lunar hab or lander. In the early days of TSS, getting the right experienced workers was a bit of an issue given the lack of such experienced people in and available for the newly developing commercial industry. Companies had to select a degree of related type of experience for their employees which was fine. But it appears to me regarding what I read in the Parabolic Article, that for this investor today, somewhat related engineering experience, i.e. construction, was not sufficient and was a major cause of the investor pulling out. Since Doug had not talked to Dave Masten or someone else from the company and I have not talked to Dave in years the assumption on my part was and is the story is accurate. Should Dave Masten wish to return to The Space Show as a guest, he would be most welcome and given a priority program date as the story is timely and hearing from Dave would be important. Doug used the term furlough in describing the current state for Masten which implies a possible comeback. Dave and his team and his investors have worked very hard to create a space company doing landers with capabilities to operate in space and get to the Moon. I hope he can find the financing to take him to the finish line with NASA. If coming on TSS would be helpful to that objective, I would be glad to help with a quality objective and factual discussion with Dave or someone he might designate for the interview. Honesty, openness, transparency and factual can be helpful so the invitation stands. One more thing. Dr. Jurist had some interesting commentary on the general situation and was important. However, he called in a cell that was at times fading in and out. I believe I balanced most of that out in editing for archives but I do apologize for some challenging audio during his call.
I would like to step in and say something about my on air commentary about due diligence. Again, based on Doug's article, the fact that an investor did some serious due diligence type of investigation and then decided to pull support, while painful for Masten. I see this as something good. For commercial space to evolve to a mature, successful and growth industry here to stay, surviving real due diligence probes is a must. While such an investigation by an investor does not assure business success, it goes a long way from la la land type of investing and money raising that went on years ago and still does from time to time. The more professional the businesses, the investors, and the higher quality the teams and team leaders in place to accomplish the business goals and bring to market the products they are to build, the better and faster the industry will grow, the more solid it will become, and the more innovation we will see take place. I hope the type of due diligence mentioned in the Parabolic Article becomes the industry standard and sooner not later. Now for my caveat, while I am expressing honest and true sentiments, I realize I am making assumptions about Masten based on what I read and that is hardly sufficient material for making quality assumptions. Thus, I am fully ready to learn more, modify or change my assumption or make whatever clarifying comments may become necessary as more information becomes available.
Ft. Worth John called to bring up the SpaceX booster explosion July 12. He wanted to know about damage reports, possible delays and such. He then made some comments on the Friday Scot Stride program and talked about another alternative theory to the Big Bang, the Bounce Universe Concept as proposed by Dr. Ann Ijjas and others (see https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/ekpyrotic-theory-says-the-universe-started-with-a-big-bounce). Dr. Anna Ijjas (https://anna-ijjas.com) has been invited to be a guest on TSS on this topic. In addition, John talked some more about the congressional UAP investigations and the possibility of members of congress seeing far more through classified videos than what has been released or discussed in public.
Dr. Bell called the show and we discussed NSS, ISDC and she even got a listener email question asking about the status of the book Declan O'Donnell was writing before he passed away. Sherry also updated us on the Kepler Space University in Florida. Following Sherry, we heard form Marshall who brought up some safety comparisons in flight numbers between the Falcon 9 and the Space Shuttle among other topics..
Please post your comments/questions on our blog for this show. If you want to get in touch with any of our callers, let me know.
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