00:00We've closed the books on the first day of trading for SpaceX as a publicly listed company.
00:05And when you think about what this means for the broader space ecosystem, the broader space
00:10investment landscape, we do talk about this sort of halo effect all the time that SpaceX and all
00:16the hype and information about it has brought. But put that into context for us, Heather,
00:21what have you observed from your chair about what that has actually meant in practice?
00:26Absolutely, Katie. And it has been an exciting day for SpaceX. And this is really positive for a
00:34maturing industry. So we're seeing pathways to profitability through things like communications,
00:42through launch, through position navigation and timing. And so what SpaceX is doing through their
00:49IPO, they're showing that they can deliver and that the rest of the ecosystem needs to follow
00:56suit. So we're really excited about this. And what has this meant when you think about sort of the
01:04investment landscape here? Because the fact that you do have this company, a space company, a rocket
01:10company debuting as the largest IPO ever, has that made investing in space maybe, you know, a broader
01:19conversation here? I guess I'm curious, you know, you think about all of the the capital intensity that
01:25goes into sort of starting up a space focused company, I have to imagine that those needs are intense.
01:33Well, just this year alone, there's been 31 billion dollars invested in the space market. And so we're
01:41well on to a positive year. If you look at what the investment was last year in the space ecosystem,
01:48it was right around 48 billion dollars. So we're going to have a banner year in the space market,
01:56thanks to this investment in others. The other thing I'd like to really contextualize
02:02for you is that SpaceX is not the only space company that has IPO'd. There are approximately
02:1040 companies that have IPO'd that are out there and contributing to this market. But there are
02:18thousands more that are still looking at the development of their technologies and making it
02:24profitable and building that commercial sector of the overall global space economy.
02:31Well, I want you to talk a little bit more about that, too, Heather. And I don't mean to be
02:35glib
02:35about this, but is there a sense here? Is this in search, a solution in search of a problem? I
02:41mean,
02:41I know your organization has been around for a few decades now. And, you know, I guess traditionally,
02:46at least I'm from a generation where it seemed like most of what we saw when it came to space
02:49was
02:49usually coming through NASA or one of the government agencies. We've now seen sort of the
02:54commercialization of this. And I am just curious as to, I guess, for lack of a better phrase,
02:58what exactly are we searching for out there? Oh, you know, and I'm really glad you asked this
03:03question because there are a couple of different answers that we need to look at. First and foremost,
03:08is that the public underappreciates how much space is infused in our daily lives. Everything from
03:17position navigation and timing, when we're using our handheld devices to navigate, when we're doing
03:23financial transactions that have timestamps that depend on GPS satellites that are up there,
03:30every day we are using space. And so that's why companies like SpaceX are so important
03:37to pay attention to. And space as an ecosystem is important to pay attention to. There's more
03:44capability that we can glean. And you mentioned a really interesting point, Romaine, and it's that
03:52what used to be only the domain of governments, we used to rely on the United States government to get
03:59to space. And now we have a higher frequency. It's easier to get to space. It's more affordable.
04:05And that really opens up the market to more innovation and more companies there.
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