Join Tim and Jason Aspiotis on a discussion around the socio-economic side of space.
Jason Aspiotis is a Business developer, strategist, finance innovator, and technologist for the long-term socio-economic development of the Space frontier. Currently a Business Development Manager for Axiom Space. Also Founder & Chairman of Finsophy PBC (Public Benefit Corporation), a Financial Innovation & Technology company developing solutions for transparent, long-term, and Space industry-aligned capital. Total experience of 19+ years in entrepreneurial, technical, organizational and project leadership, R&D, systems engineering, strategy, and business development. Career includes 8+ years in startups, 17+ years in the aerospace & defense industry, and 6+ years in innovative finance & banking.
Connect with Jason: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-aspiotis/
Full Transcript:
[00:00:00] Tim Chrisman: Hello, and welcome to another edition of podcasts for the future. I'm your host, Tim. Christmann the executive director of foundation for the future. Today. We're joined by Jason Aspiotis. Jason is a business developer, strategists, finance, innovator, and technologist working on the longterm socio-economic development of the space frontier.
Jason's currently a business development manager for Axiom space. He's also the founder and chairman of fin Sufi PBC, a financial innovation and technology company. That's been developing solutions for transparent long-term and space industry aligned capital for over seven years. He has a total of 19 years of experience across entrepreneurial technical organizational, and project leadership, research development systems, engineering strategy, and business development.
His career really does span the full range of activities that you can do in the space sector. And we'll be able to hear about that his career includes over eight years and stuff. 17 years in the aerospace and defense industry and six in finance and banking. So we'll make sure we touch on all those.
Let's get to it. 📍
[00:01:41] Tim Chrisman: Alrighty. Great to have you here today, Jason. And it's been an exciting year for you and excited to hear more about that. And what's been going on. Yeah. So before we, get into what you're doing over there at Axiom [00:02:00] space, I wanted to. Take a second to hear more about what was it that got you here, where, what was the Jason special for the path to where you're at now there at Axiom space, because, you started off with your education in physics and did a lot of engineering work and now you're doing business development and have an eye towards finance.
[00:02:25] So what was that journey?
[00:02:28] Jason Aspiotis: Boy take a seat back. We got about 30 years to cover. So I must attribute this to my father, actually, because back in the eighties, when I was a kid he put a giant post to the solar system in my bedroom wall. And I remember the poster was actually quite in a very intricate, very detailed with the sun, the planet spot.
[00:02:52] Basically detailed, which is a distances or rather the difference of the planets from each other. But what it did to me as a kid, it gave me a sense of, the solar system is [00:03:00] out and it's close. And as a kid, I remember thinking, it'd be really nice to visit the entire solar system in my lifetime if possible.
[00:03:10] So that sort of fascination grew as a function of time. I read books. I remember. No cosmos like hell Sagan in my early teens. And I got myself in a science fiction. And then I reached a juncture in my life. I was a mid teenager and I actually had a passion for soccer or football back in Europe. And then I remember asking my dad saying, Hey dad, I really want to explore.
[00:03:37] Being a potential professional footballer. He's like we could do that. Or you could go and get a, an education as a national physicist, a physicist then pursue your dream space. So long story short, I picked the the Lhasa and the GaN, my Korean space as a astrophysics, undergrad of Florida tech, which was a great [00:04:00] experience.
[00:04:00] At the end of the program, I realized. Even though I love to astrophysics and learning about the universe and how it all works. I also realized that if I want to apply myself the best way to post. To get me to the solar system at some, for my lifetime, I should become a little bit more applied to practical, so transitioned to applied physics and got a master's in applied physics at university of central Florida.
[00:04:26] So that was from an academic perspective and I was very fortunate to have spent a lot of time with professors doing hands-on research from both. Engineering for some physics experiments, those engineering for space instruments. The quick internship over at NASA KSC. I've been heavily involved.
[00:04:45] Hands-on in academic research and engineering side. It's a very young age in the emergent space industry. And then back in oh eight, I got hired by Raytheon space Naval systems. [00:05:00] On a bunch of satellite systems for NASA DOD, some commercial stuff, and started maturing as a veteran engineer, quote unquote.
[00:05:10] And then at some point transitions to be more of a technical project manager, doing some BD stuff, proposals and started getting. An interest in that part of the industry. And I really enjoyed that.
[00:05:26] Tim Chrisman: And if I, sorry to interrupt, if I remember right, there was some high energy laser work there, that's always fascinated me.
[00:05:34] Especially, by. Mid two thousands early teens. You're not talking all deteriorate fluoride, hydrogen, fluoride lasers that are going to kill you. If you're in the room with them. Some of these are, pretty exciting. I don't know if you did coil, solid state anything like that, but yeah, love to.
[00:05:55] Jason Aspiotis: Yeah. So actually in grad school, I worked on femtosecond terawatt [00:06:00] lasers. As part of my applied physics and optics and lasers degree. Yeah. And then at Reagan, I did work hind you laser programs at Raytheon. They will solid state lasers. Can't get the details, but yeah it was it was a very cool experience and the technology has matured quite some bit since then.
[00:06:20] And that was the juncture in my life where I bridge from purely technical to also business development, because I was public seeing that Raphael and that help sets up their current pretty large laser business line. So that was a pretty cool experience. Both from. Pushing a really cool technology and helping develop it towards our personalization, but also be so the entrepreneur and a big in a fortune 500 company topics about the new business and a new product line for them.
[00:06:53] So that was the really good expense.
[00:06:54] Tim Chrisman: Yeah, no, that sounds amazing. And anything with lasers automatically. Sounds cool. So I [00:07:00] imagine BD for something like that has gotta be a lot of fun.
[00:07:03] Jason Aspiotis: It was if I wasn't passionate for space as I am, I probably would've stayed in late, surely thereafter.
[00:07:11] So around 20 13, 20 14 as Elan was gaining law of attraction and popularity for space X and Jeff Peters was just barely coming out of the woodworks with what he was doing with florigen. And of course, Sergio Branson with Virgin galactic, inspired me to really rethink about our position in time and how that aligns to my childhood visions.
[00:07:39] Space and being able to travel this all system in my lifetime. And it really is reinvigorated me to go dump a dive head first back into the industry. So at that point I broke off from Raytheon and started a company that was focusing on developing new financing mechanisms, [00:08:00] long-term financing mechanisms to support this impending growth of the space economy.
[00:08:05] And that company was called. Philosophy. And, we worked on a few cool projects including developing a community, same as account for space, professional space, enthusiastic that may want to appropriate their deposit capital and supportive long-term capital formation for debt financing of space projects, space infrastructure.
[00:08:26] Did that for a few years. Through Booz Allen on some other cool capabilities and tech, both for space and DOD stuff. And then finally in 2021, about 14 months ago, I learned that an Axiom as a BD manager and been here ever since and really enjoying it. And actually it was a great company doing some pretty amazing things, but I look forward to the questions about that.
[00:08:50] Yeah.
[00:08:51] Tim Chrisman: And yeah, as as you look back. It, each one of these steps, no doubt seemed like a natural next one, going [00:09:00] from theoretical physics to apply to managing that as a engineer and finally, ending up where you're at doing business development. But when you look across the arc of it.
[00:09:14] It can look like it's a wide variance and that's, one of the nice things that we're seeing more and more in the space sector that where you start doesn't need to be where you in. It's, you kept coming back to following this passion, this dream, and that was always. North star for lack of a better term.
[00:09:37] At any point, were you looking out and thinking like this is a weird job trajectory for me to be taking? Not where I expected.
[00:09:49] Jason Aspiotis: I you're absolutely right. There was always the north star. No guiding vision for where I want to focus myself. And yeah, there were [00:10:00] parts of the journey that may not have been perfect at time.
[00:10:03] And so in terms of specific responsibilities of specific roles, but you're also right that every single one of them was a good stepping stone towards the next step. And, from the applied side to the engineering management side to BD and then finance all the previous steps, help inform and made me better.
[00:10:24] I believe that doing the next step. So I think quite relevant, the industry you have for better or for worse, plethora of specific categories of people that either focus on the science, engineering business, et cetera. It's hard to find people that have touched upon. All areas necessary to support this emerging economy, because unlike other industries, We're very unique.
[00:10:52] The technology spans so many different areas. The nature of doing business in space and operations of space, it's just [00:11:00] hard. Yeah. And then furthermore the economics and the. The associated financing to get the are also hard and haven't been done before in a way. So it takes a very unique breed of people.
[00:11:14] I believe, to be able to touch upon all those things. And orchestrate the entire ecosystem step by step forward. So I think part of my journey has been similar in the journey that the space industry is going through in a way.
[00:11:28] Tim Chrisman: Yeah, no agreed. And I think that. The more people like that, that are coming in the better, the entire industry's becoming, it's not just a bunch of rocket scientists sitting around in lab coats.
[00:11:45] You have this variation and you have these varied career tracks now. And so I think that's only making the sector stronger. So yeah,
[00:11:56] Jason Aspiotis: I was going to throw the laser physics. [00:12:00] Joke into this, you, sometimes you, sometimes that means nonlinear optics to make fun things happen. So I can still myself, a nonlinear optics and in the space ecosystems.
[00:12:11] Tim Chrisman: Ah, there we go. Just make sure your mirrors are polished.
[00:12:14] Jason Aspiotis: Yeah.
[00:12:17] Tim Chrisman: And so one thing that contributed to us originally meeting was your work around space finance. And so a lot of what got me going here in the space sector was long-term financing for space, but not really being a thing for the government.
[00:12:38] And so we connected early on. And as near as I can tell, you're one of the original people who was advocating for debt financing for space. I don't know that's accurate, but it's at least directionally accurate. What was that like, in the early days? Yeah.
[00:12:57] Jason Aspiotis: I'll tell you about the inspiration.
[00:12:59] I [00:13:00] talked to the problems a little bit, seeing Ilan Jeff Bezos and of brands. Putting their money where their mouth is. It was invigorating to get myself back into the space industry. Headfirst presents a bit not troubling, but concerning because. I saw that the government had a very short term vision for the space industry and associated funding for it.
[00:13:29] And, we couldn't just be dependent on billionaires to do the job. It's great that they're doing it. And no doubt, they have made a huge difference for the U S and humanity in general. I always upload all three of them in any boy. That's an invest in the space economy because of the.
[00:13:45] The visionaries and patrons of, I think the advancement of our species to what's becoming multi-planetary. But again I was concerned that we calmed this bet on just billionaires funding, this future, and part [00:14:00] of my inspiration to create community bank and derivative. Debt financing based mechanisms for funding space infrastructure was because of the fact that I just didn't want to see all our beds being hedged on billionaires.
[00:14:14] Yeah. And then it evolved towards, we need more institutional debt financing as part of the problem. That's part of the solution. Sorry. No equity can finance early stage innovation and development and early stage growth. But when he gets the kinds of infrastructure that role envisioning to underpin growth, the space economy that has to be.
[00:14:39] That you look at human history, equity plays a role, but when it comes to infrastructure, debt is always the way the mechanism to, to finance the creation and sustainments of set infrastructure. So it shouldn't be any different space and
[00:14:56] Tim Chrisman: yeah, Everybody's selling equity in a mall.[00:15:00] Yeah,
[00:15:01] Jason Aspiotis: Yeah.
[00:15:03] So yeah, I came to that realization as part of the fence, the team back in probably 20, 15, 20 16, and ever since then, I've been pushing it as much as I can, my team and I to make it a reality. And, the industry has. Definitely gained a lot more awareness since then. I remember being at a conference back in 2016, talking about this and people would just look at me so strange, like you want to do debt financing for essentially space settlement.
[00:15:36] I was like, yeah, that's the way to do it. And people just gave me very strange looks, fast forward since then, and, talking about this and it's relevant, but I don't know if you remember the report that came out of I believe they FRL DIU and other parts of space force, written by key folks from was going to traditions.
[00:15:56] Thing was the state of the space industrial rapport for [00:16:00] 2021. And they talked about the importance of human of humans. Be parts of the loop over overall. National space strategy because humans lead to economic growth leads to more infrastructure, more logistics, and all that provides a more solid foundation for both us economic growth and national security.
[00:16:23] And I was just dumbfounded that, five years since people would give me strange looks about debt financing space settlement. Now you have the space force a has been created. Talking about the importance of syringes in the synergies between national security, priorities and economic growth as a function of human expansion into the frontier.
[00:16:45] So a lot has happened the past five years, so I'm really
[00:16:48] Tim Chrisman: happy about it. It's true. And I always get a kick out of talking about, long-term financing for space because. Technically for the space sector, those are advanced [00:17:00] financing mechanisms or innovative or novel. But in every other sector that some of the original sources of financing, bonds loans, those are, that's what we started with for financial markets, not equity sales.
[00:17:17] So it's funny that this sector is having to catch. From a thousand plus years of financial service development. And it's just, I'm delighted by the irony.
[00:17:30] Jason Aspiotis: Yeah. It's happening. And, part of it has been, the economy has been a starch the past two years where a private capital that's focused on venture and an equity type investments has been pretty abandoned.
[00:17:44] So it's a, sort of a. It has been, for better or for worse, a low hanging fruit, the policy he is. Yep. So as the private capital markets for equity have been abundance, then of course people are going to resort to those. Then [00:18:00] some facts of course happened the past couple of years.
[00:18:02] And those seem to be converging to drying up per se. So the I strongly, the next big step is debt financing. And I think this. Organizations out there being developed to do that. Exactly. And actually you're seeing it in Europe a little bit. So the European investment bank has pledged a bunch of debt, capital to boards emerging companies in Europe maybe focusing on infrastructure.
[00:18:31] So it's not like it's not being done. It's just a matter of when there's going to be. In the U S at the scale necessary to set our collective vision into reality, the next 10, 15, 20 years.
[00:18:45] Tim Chrisman: And when we, I've, as part of our push for the space corporation act, which would help backstop some of these credit markets talking with even big institutions like BlackRock there, they [00:19:00] don't have an objection to investing in the space sector.
[00:19:03] They just need help developing a model of. Where the risk is. And typically that's done by making investments and you figure out what the risk is. And so it's a cycle there, but having. A initial credit fund bank. Some semblance of that gives the rest of the industry something to measure off of.
[00:19:24] And now everybody can start jumping in with with Gusto. Yeah.
[00:19:32] Jason Aspiotis: I can't stress enough. How important the emergency. Or I should say establishments or the space pool space force has been for all this. And I'm loving what I'm seeing from space force in regards to an orbit, refueling more of a servicing the narrative.
[00:19:52] They're helping paint for space to breathe and space for being both the problem, but also an opportunity for prior.[00:20:00] Companies commercial space to take on and make money from. So I think the space force is good. Good thing. Both obviously for a national security perspective, but also from driving or seeding some of the infrastructure that is going to be required to.
[00:20:18] Develop further infrastructure and Lewis orbit and be all. Yeah. And some of the things that space we're still unavailable or be refueling will some point will not start proliferating debt. Financings may be the number one way to finance that infrastructure.
[00:20:34] Tim Chrisman: Yeah, no. And there's a lot of objections to space force and don't military space, that sort of thing.
[00:20:40] But when we look back across human history, new lands, new communities grow up around. The military expansion, the British empire grew and then settlement came along with it. And so those initial, [00:21:00] military ports, military settlements were what sparked the commercial gains. And I think we should recognize that and, Embrace it when, once you embrace reality, you have a lot easier time.
[00:21:13] Jason Aspiotis: And even, quote unquote, recent American history, westward expansion railroads are not only used by private citizens and the commercial side, them, the military as well. It was classic dual use infrastructure that enabled an expansion of the U S and the. Economic explosion in a good way, right at us.
[00:21:39] So similar to what we're trying to achieve with the space industry.
[00:21:45] Tim Chrisman: Yeah, no. Agreed. So yeah let's turn to your work at Axiom. So you've been there about 14 months, 15 months the first Axiom mission, just splashed down yesterday. For us recording this. It was [00:22:00] actually supposed to splash down quite a bit earlier, but just worked out.
[00:22:04] So what what has been going on there? What have what's it look like on the inside watching that?
[00:22:13] Jason Aspiotis: I got to say that we're all super excited and, seeing that happen was Definitely all emotions, cause it's one thing saying we're building a commercial space station and doing, private national missions, one thing actually doing it and see it be so successful and impactful.
[00:22:34] And let me just say because a lot of people, I've heard a lot of people talk about private national missions, but what is that? How's it different from tourists. And I actually struggled with that for a couple of months, my joint vaccine, but I did finally get it. And it's a big difference now.
[00:22:52] I think both are good, right? I'm not saying space tourism, that there's no place for that. But what Axiom is doing [00:23:00] with private astrals professional nationals, we're actually setting up. Conditions necessarily from a social economic perspective for humans to normally go to space, but also live in work and space and add value to the global economy from space.
[00:23:19] Yeah, the four rational we sent up. Yes they paid in a low mind to go off, but they also paid. For research and payloads to come up with them. And they spent, 12, 13, 14 hours a day working on those payloads and doing research. Your life sciences bio medicine materials we had that we had a wonderful, oh, Simex actually a couple of, oh, Sam experiments, enabling capabilities of future on orbit assembly manufacturing advanced edge processing experiments.
[00:23:54] Yeah. I spend a lot of things that are esoteric to the space economy we're also extends [00:24:00] or are extensible to the earth economy. So I think that's the base upon which we expand the ecosystem and lead to human advancement. It's not just about going into space, the sake of space or going to space explore it's about going to space, learning how to live the.
[00:24:17] Working in space and then learning how to create those value chains between earth and space that lead to trade lead to industrialization which then leads to further advancement and development from an economic perspective. So that's why it's hugely important. And then a lot of people don't see it that way, but I'd like to emphasize that this is why we do what we do.
[00:24:40] This is why private national missions are really important. Also above that I say this, but the other important reason is, transportation costs even they come down a lot in the past is thanks to space X. They're still pretty high, right? They're still in the range where it's not really affordable wifi, most people and our [00:25:00] companies to really do much in the space unless you're a big government or defense.
[00:25:05] The fact that you have people want to pay to go up there. And that creates a feedback of more people want to pay more spacecraft, the rockets being built and operated to do so creates a positive feedback loop where the price comes down. More people pay for the price, keeps going down, more people pay for it.
[00:25:25] So it's a, it's an economic lever. And if you look at the early stages of aviation, back in the twenties and thirties and 40. Yeah, it was only wealthy people fall into fly back. Most people use ships to cross the Atlantic, even though even all the way to the fifties and sixties. So it has to start somewhere and not only are we executing on figuring out how to get people to live.
[00:25:50] Work and produce value in space, but we're also helping create that feedback loop or reducing systemic transportation costs, [00:26:00] which will further lead to more economic growth and development for everyone.
[00:26:04] Tim Chrisman: Yeah, no, I think those are two great points and, there's often the criticism that, we're just wasting money on space.
[00:26:13] Why don't we help starving children or cure cancer? But I think, what's, you're highlighting there between the science missions and the transportation costs really helps encapsulate the counter to that. And that is. The we're not shooting pallets of cash into space. We're sending missions up to do dozens hundreds, if not more experiments or prototypes of products, services, and tech that directly improve our lives on the ground.
[00:26:48] That's fantastic. Having the ability to test things in a harsh environment or do things we couldn't do down here in the gravity. That's amazing. That's worth way more [00:27:00] than whatever we're paying, but on the transportation side what is really interesting about air travel is a lot of cargo rides along with the passengers.
[00:27:11] And so in effect. Passenger flights subsidizes our ability to mail things around the world. And, we saw that with this mission to the ISS. These passengers were going there one way or another. And they said, Hey, let's bring along a bunch of stuff. So we're useful that, once you get that feedback loop going, now you have the ability to have a ton of experiments, a ton of new things, moving to space for, in some cases virtually free.
[00:27:45] Whereas now they cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to get up there. And. We're not quite at the point where you can set up eliminate stand in space, but it's coming,
[00:27:58] Jason Aspiotis: give it a few decades. [00:28:00]
[00:28:00] Tim Chrisman: That's right. That's right. No, and it was, it's gotta be so cool to be able to see, like you said, this actually happening because for decades now, People have been talking, companies have been planning, commercial space stations or private missions.
[00:28:19] And now it's real now. It's no kidding. And this isn't CGI, this isn't made up this isn't a plan it's for real. And so I imagine that. The a huge shot of adrenaline to everybody in the company that's developing, the space station programs. And you all on the BD side, now you have hard data to show as you're going out, talking with people, what is that change in what you're doing?
[00:28:49] I
[00:28:50] Jason Aspiotis: mean, we, we've been planning several missions that ahead of the time as well. So acts two, acts four are the things we know we're going to happen. What changes now is we have [00:29:00] operational past experience and successful that are off. So that's definitely a good badge to be able to wear, especially from a BD perspective.
[00:29:11] Yeah. Our plans for ax two, three, and four. Remain and we're excited to, to get those done as well. And, we have hosts who have more payloads experiments, demonstrations, and I'll blanket it as economic value generating. Payloads as part of all these missions and then eventually the interactive station, right?
[00:29:37] So the first module goes up in a point of 24 attaches to no-till the ISS. And then as my colleague Dr. Mike bane, our chief engineer very correctly said, the moment that the first module attached to the ISS is I paraphrase a very unique time for humanities [00:30:00] history and our step foods becoming a multi-planetary species.
[00:30:04] The first time you have a commercial module. Be not being attached to the government infrastructure of the ISS and operate as a purely private commercial piece of infrastructure. That's humans living in a working space.
[00:30:23] Tim Chrisman: Yeah. I struggle to cabin analogy to what that is like in history to, you have to go back a really long ways to even start getting close to a useful analogy, to how big, a deal that sits.
[00:30:41] We've had no power water. Transportation on the ground forever. That's easy. You find the water, you walk you have the sun, but those things are now, you're plugging into that there on station. And you're doing that as a [00:31:00] company. It's yeah, it is incredible. And,
[00:31:06] Jason Aspiotis: and I can't find an analogy there for
[00:31:12] Shipments and human history, but this is what this is going on. The big ones.
[00:31:16] Tim Chrisman: Yeah, no, it really is. And it does seem like once that gets attached, the pace starts picking up and build out of independent station and it's a. It's going to be, it's going to be incredible to watch that start to take shape.
[00:31:33] Jason Aspiotis: Yeah. Yeah. We have three modules thereafter to attach to the first module we would put up on the ISS. And the last module is what we call a power and thermal module, which enables us to become a free flying self-sustainable space station. And that. We'll break off in the ISS. And the ISS will soon thereafter retire [00:32:00] and having done that made a job, starting all this.
[00:32:04] The eyes is another restorative moment in our history because yeah, it was government created government operated, but it started all this. So credit, given what credits. With one amazing piece of infrastructure. The ISS has been in the ecosystem. It has helped set up and they're handing off the Baton to Axiom and other companies developing commercial space stations.
[00:32:29] And I'd like to think that by 2030, there's going to be at least two or three space stations that. Are now tripling essentially the economic value that the ISS has been enabling and growing that to even more level higher levels in the 2030s and beyond. So it's such an exciting time to be around.
[00:32:51] Yeah.
[00:32:51] Tim Chrisman: Oh no, for sure. And if anybody at Helton there, Marriott's listening. No doubt. Axiom is more than willing to add [00:33:00] a hotel module. If you all want to co-brand it. So that's you didn't have that option with ISS. You do here.
[00:33:10] Jason Aspiotis: This is not, there's no one official action opinion, but as Jason can say, that's a good idea.
[00:33:14] Tim Chrisman: It is going to be a hard time watching the ISS get retired, because that has been, we've had a permanent Offworld presence for over 20 years now. But it is going to be nice that there's not going to be a gap with it is going to be a handoff, however, seamless or not. But it's going to
[00:33:36] Jason Aspiotis: continue let me spend a few moments around that.
[00:33:38] Cause that's a good segue. Both to, what's new about Axiom station, just managerial perspective. Yeah. The industry is going from a sustainability perspective and also how it ties back to the financing perspective. Whereas the past, 40, 50 years we've treated space infrastructure as disposable.
[00:33:57] Assets or goods. Yeah. [00:34:00] We need to start thinking about is how do we keep stuff in space? How do we enable the staff? We're putting space to actually become assets that stay up there and get used as much as possible. Other than some of the old technology residing in the ISS, the LA law, the material, and all the models up there, or.
[00:34:21] Good piece of infrastructure, and it'd be nice if you're going away, how to salvage most of it, if not all of it to continue using and leveraging just that the basic infrastructure materials for the types of construction projects. So actually I'm as developing the station to be up there for at least 30 years.
[00:34:42] The modes that have been designed to have their own propulsion avionics, and therefore, we can at some point repurpose them or bring them to a different orbit at the end of the lifetime. And of course all the refueling as we discussed before enables [00:35:00] all of that stuff where the commodity of how you move things from point a to point B is no longer problems.
[00:35:06] It's a lot of expensive. And if you have the logistics in place, then you can talk about. Very long of infrastructure that you can move around repurpose and keep using this for as long as possible. And why is that important for financing? If you want to go get debt capital to, to do project financing or infrastructure financing, be nice to know that the infrastructure financing will be around for 20, 30, 40 years generating in a sort of predictable revenues.
[00:35:34] So I think the emergence of. As a sustainable ecosystem goes hand in hand with debt financing that creates that ecosystem expands it. And it goes hand in hand with making sure we keep stuff in space for as long as possible. So to your point, I wish there was a way to keep the eyes to.
[00:35:54] Forever if possible. So we'll see if we can figure out something how to do that, but that'd be nice [00:36:00]
[00:36:00] Tim Chrisman: putting it in a parking orbit. We'll make it a national park or Memorial. But yeah, it's when I've looked at some of the renderings and the designs and the plans for these commercial space stations It really hits home how old station is.
[00:36:19] If you look inside the ISS, there's no free space. There are cables running everywhere. There is beds hanging from the walls. It's incredible. And you look at a lot of these new plans and it looks like you would think a space station would look like modified trailer from Alabama that a hoarder lives in it starts to look and feel like, no, this is for real, this is a real space station.
[00:36:45] It's amazing. So that's gonna be, that's gonna be really cool. Yeah. I know we're coming up on time here and so is there anything we didn't talk about that you want to circle back around and hit.
[00:36:59] Jason Aspiotis: I [00:37:00] think we're good. Pretty comprehensive. I'll say that, the Axiom part of our business enterprise is to look at the variety of applications in space.
[00:37:08] And I did a mention when my role as an Axiom, we have a team focused on obviously the private astronauts professional nationals. We have a team focused on research and how to leverage the microgravity environment to manufacture new products and processes that will post-season space.
[00:37:27] But we also have a team that I'm part of that looks at how do we use space station infrastructure to support. Or be an enabling piece of infrastructure and platform for other applications, like potentially, oh, Sam type demonstrations type developments and other related as applications in orbit and beyond, it's not just about the research manufacturing and the astronauts.
[00:37:54] It's about having large scale infrastructure that. Is much, much [00:38:00] bigger than, traditional satellite buses has a local power local. He would judge capacity. So there's engineering advantages that we could pass on and support other enabling capabilities for more.
[00:38:16] Tim Chrisman: It's really cool. The breadth of opportunities that are opening up with this. So it'll be exciting to watch and see how this progresses and we'll have to bring you back here to hear more about what what the new. What the changing is cause can't imagine it's not going to be moving fast.
[00:38:37] Jason Aspiotis: It'd be fun to reconnect in 10 years and see how true we will or not. There
[00:38:41] Tim Chrisman: we go. There we go. We'll we'll create a chart of the fact check ourselves and see what the score is. Cool. All right. Thanks. Thanks for being on here, Jason. It was a great time and look forward to seeing you out there
[00:38:54] Jason Aspiotis: in the community pleasure being here.
[00:38:56] Thank you.
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