The space ecosystem is evolving in real time. As opportunities rise, challenges rise to meet them. Investors, innovators, and integrators must all grapple with tomorrow's hard problems today. How they respond will determine what's next up in space. CIS Lunar Space poses unique physical and engineering challenges for spaceflight and operations. Nevertheless, the moon calls us back for human exploration that will help chart a path to Mars and beyond. At the same time, companies and nations the world over are lining up innovations to reap the benefits of being on and around the moon. What are those benefits? And what are the necessary first steps for a lunar economy to form and take a giant leap from viable to vibrant? We choose to go to the moon and do the other things here in the Nexus, presented by Aerospace. And you're here in the Nexus courtesy of the T-Minus Space Daily Podcast. My name is Parker Wishik with the Aerospace Corporation. And today we choose to go to the moon and discuss CIS Lunar Development with a great panel. We have Dr. Walter Schroeder, who is co-founder and Chief Product Officer at CIS Lunar Industries. Kelly Kitas Ogborn, Vice President of Global Space Programs at Space Foundation. And Ron Burke, Principal Director of Space Enterprise Evolution at the Aerospace Corporation. So we're looking at the moon. We're looking at different regions of the moon than we visited previously, the polar regions specifically. There is an obvious national emphasis on exploration of the moon, as at launch point to Mars. The economy piece, there's been differing opinions about the value proposition about the business case. So Walter, let's start with the industry perspective. Why CIS Lunar Space? What is the business case? Yeah, sure. So happy to be in this podcast. Thanks Parker for the introduction. Yeah, see here at CIS Lunar Industries, maybe a quick overview as well of the company. So we are building these different capabilities for space. We have building power processing units for electric propulsion. But we also building the next hardware that will be used on the lunar surface. So we're specifically looking into metal processing and metal recycling. And yeah, what do I want to touch on your question there on the economy of space? There's not like one big North Star for the economy, I would say, but there are several one and several opportunities. For example, if you're looking at the resources on the lunar surface, H3, helium-3, but also any possibilities to resupply spacecrafts without oxygen. So there are several use cases there to have the kind of rolling on the lunar surface. I'm reading the Commercial Lunar Economy Field Guide of Vision for Industry on the Moon in the next decade. This was published by Michael Orbit and IAC for ARI University Press, and it draws heavily on the LUNDA 10 initiative by DARPA, which Walter, you and your company participated in among others. And there is an excerpt I want to read here. What is the anchor tenant for the moon? Today, it is in-situ resource utilization, ISRU. Unlocking a sustainable human presence on the moon depends on the ability to use local resources. A complete ISRU-based economy, based lunar economy, will need to develop industries that can utilize all available resources. Talk a little bit about the ISRU state of play. Yes, sure. So in DARPA LUNA 10, we were working with 13 other companies, a consortium of other performers, to look exactly into that. And with our group, we had built a part of the ISRU bigger piece, so that was metal recycling and looking at the metal ecosystem on the lunar surface. So you would have an ecosystem where you're using some leftovers from auction production, metal select that is left over, and then have the capabilities to melt that into another form factor and process it further. So this could be rail system, this could be structures, but also other feedstock for further manufacturing. So when looking at the resources on the moon, you're looking at the things that enable an economy, which is for example, fueling spacecrafts, but also what can you do with recycled materials or resources that you find on the moon to increase the infrastructure on the lunar surface? So Kelly, that's a great segue to talk about the economy. Is there a space economy? Is this space economy a cis-lunar economy? What is the value of this region of space as kind of a driver for the whole economic picture? Yeah, well, it's a pleasure to be with you all and thank you for the question. So there absolutely is a space economy. And we can quantify it now in terms of its current value, the space foundation puts out an annual assessment. And for the year of 2024, we looked at $613 billion is what we've had in the economy, and that's broken down into 12 different subsectors. I think though, for the context of this conversation, and particularly when we're talking about a cis-lunar ecosystem, it's really important to think about the space economy as a continuum. So really like what is making money now? And those are those anchor markets I mentioned and that $613 billion. But really what we're looking for in this conversation is what is being built for future utilization and growth, and that's the cis-lunar piece. And I think when you look at it from that perspective, especially at the macro level, cis-lunar is a strategic economic frontier. There's no ifs and buts around it. And it's because of the enabling infrastructure and the services that it's going to provide, because those are going to multiply emission capability. They're going to spur industrial and technological growth. And in many ways, they're going to also reshape this geopolitical landscape and leverage, which is also really critical to economic conversations. And so really when you look at this ecosystem, when governments and industry invest in shared infrastructure together, it's going to make governance more easy. It's going to de-risk technology to a lot private capital. And really what it's going to do is get more visible signals for growth to potential customers and markets that this is real. And in many ways, that's the true economic value for this ecosystem. Excellent. And a perfect time to ask Ron, who is I'm sure beaming at all of the uses of the word ecosystem, which I happen to know he loves dearly. What are those core parts? You've written multiple papers on this topic. What are those core pieces Kelly's talking about in the infrastructure of a space economy that are those force multipliers for future production? Thank you, Parker. And wonderful to be in this discussion with Kelly and Walter. So as you mentioned, Parker, we have written several papers, one of which was titled charting a course for this lunar master of planning that recognizes that there are at least 12 foundational layers of infrastructure that are party to the process, if you will, of establishing and evolving an ecosystem in the CisLunar domain. And there are key infrastructure layers that are just absolutely necessary for the others to be able to operate. Certainly communications, navigation or foundational power is another of those. And these are the kinds of utilities that, for instance, Walter and others planning to conduct in situ resource utilization activity are going to need to have available to them to be able to operate. And the more sustainable the utilities are, the more sustainable and expandable the power is and the calm systems, the more that the other activities and activities are. And infrastructure layers can grow using those foundational utilities. We'll be right back. I should mention that y'all are three quarters of a panel at the payload lunar and Mars economy summit this month in Houston. And the topic is commercial at the core, how to engineer an economy. How do you engineer an economy taking into account all of the things that you've just discussed? How does that all come together in this wonderful synergistic way that is sustainable over the wall? Question to anybody. You know, Parker, that is like the million dollar question, trillion dollar question, right? That figuring out to this ecosystem concept how to get everything sort of humming in the right direction and pulling all the levers. I think what's interesting about the discussion is that, you know, from an engineering perspective, you can create the technology and you can create the conditions. But what we really need to get a true economy is we need scale, we need operational cadence, and we also have to have the capacity to sustain. As you heard Ron mentioning with these with these layers, it's really about sustainment. And so at the end of the day, we really need to move past this one off mission set demonstrations and move beyond this like field of dreams. If you build it, they will come mentality to true commercial use case and services that people will pay for. And again, this comes back to access and utilization. And so I think that there's multiple layers, but in and up themselves, like it's not easy to, to, neither of these is actually easy to fix on its own. But you at first need the enabling infrastructure as you heard them both say, right? Like the seed foundation to build the physical and digital rails to actually make economic activity possible. But then what you need to do is you need to create demands and markets. So like beyond the science and the flags, the geopolitical posturing, we need repeatable commercial use cases. And that really comes at anchor customers and signals of viability. And so then that then signals down to, you know, governments as a first mover, a first customer, but then allowing other people to come to the table. And so it really is this ecosystems of ecosystems approach that we're moving toward, but there's just still a lot of work to be done and I'll kick it over to them. Led by commercial right in this new era of space. Led by commercial. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I'll pick up from there, Kelly, and then of course will benefit from Walters perspectives. But several things from an engineering and economy standpoint to take into consideration is that we're tracking over 80 companies that are developing discrete capabilities relative to these 12 layers of infrastructure. And they all will be interdependent in an ecosystem environment and in order to establish an economy. They are not inherently interoperable, these capabilities that are being developed by different companies. So there's an opportunity to engineer the ability for the comm system and the power system and the in situ resource utilization systems and the logistics capabilities in order for them to work together in a way that is sustainable. And in a way, as colleagues have heard me emphasize with significant passion that not only yields the performance that's intended, but that does no harm in the process. And it turns out that it's really important to be able to do the engineering assessments of how things work together in both dimensions that they perform as they intended to, and that they do no harm in the process. It's hard to do that on paper. It's hard to tie everything together on paper. I have a hunch that this is going to require a digital scalable effort. I'm leading you, Walter, to talk a little bit about how can we draw on the lunatin experience and lessons learned and successes and throw that up to scale for an entire system economy as somebody who participated in it first. Yeah, also following up here on Ron and Kelly about how to form this economy where I see two pathways there which are done in parallel, right? You have the government that creates initiatives like DARPA lunatin where Ron said all these performers come together, work together. But then you also have venture capital that create portfolio companies or portfolios of companies that can perform and create an ecosystem themselves. So if a venture capital fund has these portfolio companies, they can better collaborate or it's easier for them because they're drawing sources from the same source. And then on how this benefits the collaboration is that you're building these digital links, but also, well, interpersonal links to other companies. So DARPA lunatin was an exercise where you're set together in a room and maybe you pull three or four of these companies and you get a concrete problem and you solve it together. Like, you know, on a tetanoluxial level, but also on an economic level, what is the flow of cash as well? How do you make transfers of any type of hardware or products that you're bringing on the lunar surface? So it's really creating this economy from the bottom and then, yeah, as well coming from the top with creating these big portfolios of performers. So there's key trade spaces that you'll have outlined as being needed, a place to collaborate, ensure interoperability, cross check that things are going to work as planned together. To make a plan for those things to work together, first off, because that's not being done right now, Ron, you've outlined a trade space where investors can come and understand the ecosystem better, inform their investments, and that will in turn help drive the economic vitality, and then simply a marketplace to conduct commerce and make business to business transactions. How do we do this? Kelly, thoughts? Yeah, I think so the first way of really going about how you do it is they all have to be churning at the same time. I think part of the way that traditional space has sort of been operated is that this happens in a silo, this happens in a silo, this happens in a silo, you wait for a mover in one area to enable movement in another, and that's not going to actually achieve what we're looking to achieve. Because it is an ecosystem of ecosystems, success in one area is going to enable success in another and vice versa. And so I think it takes a lot of coordination and really communication about how these entities are evolving and some of the real challenges and where people can step up to the plate and participate, right? Or give some sort of context and future vision toward. And so really it's conversations like this to first even understand what it is we're talking about, right? And then bringing people to the plate in the way that they can actually become part of the supply chain and become part of this ecosystem in the way that's going to be the most prosperous. I know that's not a direct answer, but it's really the most human answer, which is one of the biggest challenges. No, we choose to talk about it and that leads to actual action. And Ron, you've been participating in a series of workshops dating back to last year, 2024, on the concept of digital twins. So that means a very specific thing, but the concept of bringing together digital environments from across the ecosystem, across the industry, where we can do some of this collaboration and make some of these trades in a sort of universe. There is a recognition that this evolving domain, you have engineering that's referred to as digital engineering, is available to the community to use. And Parker, as you said, you know, starting back in 2024, some colleagues got together and put on a workshop where we invited people who might be interested in digital twins and other digital environments for the CIS loaner domain to come together and share their experiences. We expected maybe 20, 30 people. We thought that was a fairly small community. And interestingly, over 200 people joined that discussion, and we cataloged over 30 discrete digital engineering environments that were being developed for the CIS loaner domain. In the ensuing period, we've held five workshops. The fifth is actually coming up this month. And the total community is up to over 800 people. And so we're continuing to see this recognition and expansion of interest, what becomes really impactful to Kelly and Walters point is the point at which we have a common digital engineering environment for people across the community to be able to interface and interoperate in. And one that I'll mention, there are many, as I just said a second ago, but since we, Walter talked about Luna 10, there was one that was developed for the Luna 10 community that's named digital synthetic moon. And it's interesting to see and experience this environment because it has reality built in. So it has a real gravity field that has a real lighting conditions, which are highly variable in the CIS loaner domain, real radiation fields, and the ability to drop digital twins of specific systems like rovers and in situ resources. Utilization facilities for being able to test and build confidence and experience and operating together. And so 800 folks is a large community. If you're not in that community and you want to be, contact us at csg@aero.org, csg@ero.org, and you can join the Luniverse Consortium of companies and organizations. We're at time. I want to give everybody a last thought and it's either something that you want people to know about that's coming to CIS loaner space soon or what you would like to see happen in developing this area of space. Let's go to Walter Kelly and then Ron. Yeah, I would like to see a lot of collaboration on the ground, testing prototypes together and finding digital interfaces together and also a way to do transactions because then when the big rockets fly up, you're already set up for success. I think from my perspective, you know, given this ecosystem of ecosystems, it's really just challenging people to have a slight shift in perspective because of the integrated nature of what it is we're trying to build. And particularly why these digital environments are so critical because you're not just now looking for like adjusted returns and tech success. We're really looking at strategic positioning across this like nascent infrastructure market and really anchoring these interoperability standards, which if we do this correctly, it's going to allow us to bundle for relevance and send signals to other markets, whether it comes, you know, policymakers or investors or even just countries that want to engage with the U.S. or more broadly. They're going to understand it more because it's going to be more clear about the scale and the sustainment and how every factor is part of it for its future growth and success. All right. And picking up on those themes, I'd like to see the investor community, both in the private sector and the government, more fully embrace these digital environments for planning and investing and acquiring and integrating these various capabilities. From across our community of companies into solutions that are in fact sustainable and do form the basis of an economy. And to do that in a portfolio view, Kelly, you just mentioned bundling. And so there's a significant opportunity for looking at investments in multiple organizations and how they are and how they can be facilitated to be inherently interoperable and result in the core of the economic engine that we'd love to see run strong for a very long time. Sounds like CISLU development is all about perspective. So thanks to Walter Schroeder from CISLU Industries. Thanks to Kelly Keegis-Augborn from Space Foundation. Thanks to Ron Burke from Aerospace. I'm Parker from Aerospace. And thanks as always to T-Minus and you the listener and we'll see you next time here in the nexus. That's T-Minus Deep Space brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. Thank you to our partners at the Aerospace Corporation. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like our show, you share a rating and review on your podcast app, or you can send an email to space@n2k.com. We're proud that N2K Cyberwire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector. From the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies. N2K helps space and cybersecurity professionals grow, learn and stay informed. 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