43. Dr. Greg Autry: From Red Moon Rising to the Opening and Welcoming Nature of the Space Movement

Space Strategy

In this episode Peter Garretson talks with Dr. Greg Autry, Associate Provost for Space Commercialization and Strategy at the University of Central Florida, and former member of the 2016 NASA Agency Review Team and White House Liaison to NASA in 2017. They discuss a number of ideas in Dr. Autry's new book Red Moon RISING: How America Will Beat China on the Final Frontier. They touch on how Dr. Autry moved from being a software entrepreneur into the New Space movement, including his early work in China on human rights, the impact of his earlier book Death By China, and what are the stakes of Space Race 2.0. They also delve into Dr. Autry's recent testimony on the stakes of the in-space mineral supply chain, including relegating the U.S. to an economic backwater, and potentially existential threat to the US. They explore the big idea of Space Settlement, Millions of people living and working in space on new space stations, the surface Moon and Mars, and why we should populate Mars, and how China's decision to turn inward multiplied rather than solved their problems. They talk about the contribution of space toward our understanding of climate and the environment, and toward offering solutions, and Autry's contention that America can afford to have a future in space. They assess communism, authoritarianism, capitalism, billionaires, nuclear power, and the remarkable bipartisanship in space. They discuss how cooperation is boring and has resulted in very little comparative progress. They converse about NASA's tragic plans to trash the ISS, and alternatives for this tremendous piece of human heritage. They evaluate the progress of NASA's Artemis vs the tasking in the National Space Policy, and the historical reasons for its complexity and schedule delay, and concerns of a lack of urgency, and that the US may be losing in the race with China. Bridging on Dr. Autry's recent review of the Republican Platform space strategy, Greg discusses what is a vision worthy of our nation and what must be done to move forward. They conclude by discussing ways for individuals to get in involved in the Space Movement, including the National Space Society (NSS), Mars Society, Moon Village Association, and the open & welcoming nature of the Space Movement and ways to seek the education to become a space leader, such as University of Arizona's Thunderbird Executive Master of Global Management: Space Leadership Business and Policy. More of Dr. Autry's thinking can be found in his regular Forbes Science Column and Foreign Policy, and New Space Articles.