Natalya Bailey: Rocket Engines and Electric Spacecraft Propulsion

Lex Fridman (01:19.320)

and all the awards,

Natalya Bailey (01:21.240)

let's not let ourselves lose that childlike wonder.

Lex Fridman (01:24.680)

Sadly, we're on Earth for only a very short time,

Lex Fridman (01:27.680)

so let's have fun solving some of the biggest puzzles

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in the universe while we're here.

Natalya Bailey (01:32.100)

If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube,

Lex Fridman (01:34.520)

review it on Apple Podcast, follow on Spotify,

Natalya Bailey (01:37.540)

support it on Patreon,

Lex Fridman (01:38.840)

or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.

Lex Fridman (01:41.800)

And now, here's my conversation with Natalia Bailey.

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You said that you spent your whole life dreaming about space

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and also pondering the big existential question

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of whether there is or isn't intelligent life,

Natalya Bailey (01:56.760)

intelligent alien civilizations out there.

Lex Fridman (01:58.640)

So what do you think?

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Do you think there's life out there?

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Intelligent life?

Natalya Bailey (02:03.560)

Intelligent life, that's trickier.

Lex Fridman (02:07.360)

I think looking at the likelihood

Natalya Bailey (02:11.120)

of a self replicating organism

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given how much time the universe has existed

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and how many stars with planets,

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I think it's likely that there's other life.

Natalya Bailey (02:27.240)

Intelligent life, I'm hopeful,

Lex Fridman (02:30.400)

I'm a little discouraged that we haven't yet been in touch.

Natalya Bailey (02:34.420)

As I'm hopeful.

Lex Fridman (02:35.260)

Allegedly, I mean, it's also.

Natalya Bailey (02:37.000)

In our dimensions and so on, yeah.

Lex Fridman (02:39.520)

It's also possible that they have been in touch

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and we just haven't, we're too dumb to realize

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they're communicating with us.

Natalya Bailey (02:47.480)

In whichever, it's the Carl Sagan idea

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that they may be communicating at a time scale

Natalya Bailey (02:53.240)

that's totally different.

Lex Fridman (02:54.580)

Like their signals are in a totally different time scale

Natalya Bailey (02:57.800)

or in a totally different kind of medium of communication.

Lex Fridman (03:01.900)

It could be our own, it could be the birth of human beings.

Natalya Bailey (03:10.960)

Whatever the magic that makes us who we are,

Lex Fridman (03:13.380)

the collective intelligence thing,

Natalya Bailey (03:15.440)

that could be aliens themselves.

Lex Fridman (03:17.680)

That could be the medium of communication.

Natalya Bailey (03:19.540)

Like the nature of our consciousness

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and intelligence itself is the medium of communication.

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And like being able to ask the questions themselves,

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I've never thought of it that way.

Natalya Bailey (03:30.480)

Like actually, yeah, asking the question

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whether aliens exist might be the very medium

Natalya Bailey (03:34.720)

by which they communicate.

Lex Fridman (03:35.920)

It's like they send questions.

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So some of this like collective emergent behavior

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is the signal.

Natalya Bailey (03:44.480)

Is the signal, yeah.

Lex Fridman (03:46.640)

So.

Natalya Bailey (03:47.480)

That's interesting, yeah.

Lex Fridman (03:48.760)

Because maybe that's how we would communicate with,

Natalya Bailey (03:50.620)

if you think about it, if we were way, way, way smarter,

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like a thousand years from now, we somehow survive,

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like how would we actually communicate?

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In a way that's like, if we broadcast the signal,

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and then it could somehow like percolate

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throughout the universe,

Natalya Bailey (04:09.080)

like that signal having an impact on.

Lex Fridman (04:10.920)

Multiverse.

Natalya Bailey (04:11.840)

Multiverse, of course, that would have a signal,

Lex Fridman (04:16.960)

an effect on the most possible,

Natalya Bailey (04:19.160)

the highest number of possible civilizations.

Lex Fridman (04:21.240)

What would that signal be?

Natalya Bailey (04:22.520)

It might not be like sending a few

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like stupid little hello world messages.

Natalya Bailey (04:28.160)

It might be something more impactful.

Lex Fridman (04:32.480)

It's almost like impactful in a way

Natalya Bailey (04:36.280)

where they don't have to have the capability to hear it.

Lex Fridman (04:40.200)

It like forces the message to have an impact.

Natalya Bailey (04:42.760)

Right.

Lex Fridman (04:43.720)

My train of thought has never gone there,

Lex Fridman (04:46.700)

but I like it.

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And also somewhere in there,

Natalya Bailey (04:50.320)

I think it's implied that something travels faster

Lex Fridman (04:53.860)

than the speed of light, which I'm also really hopeful for.

Natalya Bailey (04:58.080)

Oh, you're hopeful.

Lex Fridman (04:59.480)

Are you excited by the possibility

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that there's intelligent life out there?

Lex Fridman (05:03.960)

Sort of, you work on the engineering side of things.

Natalya Bailey (05:08.040)

It's this very kind of focused pursuit

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of moving things through space efficiently.

Lex Fridman (05:15.800)

But if you zoom out,

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one of the cool things that this enables us to do is find,

Natalya Bailey (05:22.680)

get even intelligent life,

Lex Fridman (05:23.720)

just life on Mars or on Europa or something like that.

Lex Fridman (05:28.180)

Does that excite you?

Lex Fridman (05:29.640)

Does that scare you?

Natalya Bailey (05:31.760)

Oh, it's very exciting.

Lex Fridman (05:32.920)

I mean, it's the whole reason I went into the field

Natalya Bailey (05:36.840)

I'm in is to contribute to building the body of knowledge

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that we have as a species.

Lex Fridman (05:46.200)

So very exciting.

Lex Fridman (05:47.480)

Do you think there's life on Mars?

Natalya Bailey (05:50.680)

Like no longer, well, already living,

Lex Fridman (05:54.360)

but currently living, but also no longer living,

Natalya Bailey (05:57.300)

like that we might be able to find life,

Lex Fridman (05:59.840)

as some people suspect, basic microbial life.

Natalya Bailey (06:03.560)

I'm not so sure about in our own solar system.

Lex Fridman (06:07.360)

And I do think it might be hard to untangle

Natalya Bailey (06:10.360)

if we somehow contaminated other things as well.

Lex Fridman (06:15.680)

So I'm not sure about this close to home.

Natalya Bailey (06:19.160)

That'd be really exciting.

Lex Fridman (06:20.540)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (06:21.380)

Do you think about the Drake equation much of like?

Lex Fridman (06:24.000)

That was what got me into all of this, yeah.

Natalya Bailey (06:28.520)

Yeah, because one of the questions is how hard is it

Lex Fridman (06:31.520)

for life to start on a habitable planet?

Natalya Bailey (06:34.280)

Like if you have a lot of the basic conditions,

Lex Fridman (06:36.280)

not exactly like Earth, but basic Earth like conditions,

Lex Fridman (06:39.860)

how hard is it for life to start?

Lex Fridman (06:41.440)

And if you find life on Mars or find life on Europa,

Natalya Bailey (06:46.200)

that means it's way easier.

Lex Fridman (06:48.560)

That's a good thing to confirm

Natalya Bailey (06:49.960)

that if you have a habitable planet,

Lex Fridman (06:53.760)

then there's going to be life.

Lex Fridman (06:55.560)

And that like immediately, that would be super exciting

Lex Fridman (06:58.840)

because that means there's like trillions of planets

Natalya Bailey (07:02.680)

with basic life out there.

Lex Fridman (07:04.640)

Though of all the planets in our solar system,

Natalya Bailey (07:07.360)

Earth is clearly the most habitable.

Lex Fridman (07:09.400)

So I would not be discouraged

Natalya Bailey (07:12.440)

if we didn't find it on another planet in our solar system.

Lex Fridman (07:17.040)

True, and again, that life could look very different.

Natalya Bailey (07:19.080)

It's habitable for Earth like life,

Lex Fridman (07:21.040)

but it could be totally different.

Natalya Bailey (07:23.560)

I still think that trees are quite possibly

Lex Fridman (07:25.880)

more intelligent than humans,

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but their intelligence is carried out over a time scale

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that we're just not able to appreciate.

Natalya Bailey (07:33.040)

Like they might be running

Lex Fridman (07:34.120)

the entirety of human civilization,

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and we're just like too dumb to realize

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that they're the smart ones.

Natalya Bailey (07:40.340)

Maybe that's the alien message.

Lex Fridman (07:43.720)

It's in the trees.

Natalya Bailey (07:44.760)

It's in the trees.

Lex Fridman (07:47.720)

Yeah, it's not in the monolith in the Utah desert.

Natalya Bailey (07:50.400)

It's in the trees.

Lex Fridman (07:51.240)

Right, yeah.

Lex Fridman (07:52.680)

So let's go to space exploration.

Lex Fridman (07:55.080)

How do you think we would get humans to Mars?

Natalya Bailey (07:57.200)

I think SpaceX and Elon Musk will be the ones

Lex Fridman (08:01.320)

that get the first human setting foot on Mars,

Lex Fridman (08:06.920)

and probably not that long from now

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from us having this conversation.

Natalya Bailey (08:12.640)

Maybe we'll inflate his timeline a little bit,

Lex Fridman (08:14.920)

but I tend to believe the goals he sets.

Lex Fridman (08:19.160)

So I think that will happen relatively soon.

Lex Fridman (08:22.320)

As far as when and what it will take

Natalya Bailey (08:25.040)

to get humans living there in a more permanent way,

Lex Fridman (08:30.840)

I have a glib answer, which is when we can invent

Natalya Bailey (08:34.720)

a time machine to go back to the early Cold War,

Lex Fridman (08:38.600)

and instead of uniting around sending people to the moon,

Natalya Bailey (08:43.240)

we pick Mars as the destination.

Lex Fridman (08:45.760)

So really, I say that because there's nothing

Natalya Bailey (08:49.920)

truly scientifically or technologically impossible

Lex Fridman (08:54.640)

about doing that soon.

Natalya Bailey (08:57.720)

It's more politically and financially,

Lex Fridman (09:00.960)

and those are the obstacles, I think, to that.

Natalya Bailey (09:04.480)

Well, I wonder of when you colonize

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with more than, I say, five people on Mars,

Natalya Bailey (09:10.760)

you have to start thinking about the kind of rules

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you have on Mars, and just speaking of the Cold War,

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who gets to own the land?

Lex Fridman (09:21.840)

You know, you start planting flags,

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and you start to make decisions.

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And like SpaceX says, it's probably a little bit trolly,

Lex Fridman (09:30.120)

but they have this nice paragraph in their contracts

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where it talks about that human governments on Earth

Natalya Bailey (09:41.760)

or Earth governments have no jurisdiction on Mars.

Lex Fridman (09:46.760)

Like the rules, the Martians get to define their own rules.

Natalya Bailey (09:50.280)

It sounds very much like the founding fathers

Lex Fridman (09:53.920)

for this country.

Natalya Bailey (09:54.840)

That's the kind of language.

Lex Fridman (09:57.360)

It's interesting that that's in there,

Lex Fridman (10:02.120)

and it makes you think perhaps that needs to be leveraged.

Lex Fridman (10:07.360)

Like you have to be very clever about leveraging that

Natalya Bailey (10:10.040)

to create a little bit of a Cold War feeling.

Lex Fridman (10:14.800)

It seems like we humans need a little bit of a competition.

Lex Fridman (10:18.960)

Do you think that's necessary to succeed

Lex Fridman (10:21.200)

and to get the necessary investment,

Lex Fridman (10:25.480)

or can the pure pursuit of science be enough?

Lex Fridman (10:28.840)

No, I think we're seeing right now

Natalya Bailey (10:30.920)

the pure pursuit of science.

Lex Fridman (10:33.440)

I mean, that results in pretty tiny budgets for exploration.

Natalya Bailey (10:39.360)

There has to be some disaster impending doom

Lex Fridman (10:43.920)

to get us onto another planet in a permanent way.

Natalya Bailey (10:48.280)

I don't know, financially, I just don't know

Lex Fridman (10:50.840)

if the private sector can support that,

Lex Fridman (10:55.000)

but I don't wish that there is some catastrophe

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coming our way that spurs us to do that.

Natalya Bailey (11:03.840)

Yeah, I'm unsure what the business model is

Lex Fridman (11:05.960)

for colonizing Mars.

Natalya Bailey (11:07.960)

Yeah, exactly.

Lex Fridman (11:09.160)

Yeah, like there is for, we'll talk about satellites.

Natalya Bailey (11:11.320)

There's probably a lot of business models around satellites,

Lex Fridman (11:14.800)

but there's not enough short term business.

Natalya Bailey (11:18.160)

I guess that's how business works.

Lex Fridman (11:19.520)

Like you should have a path to making money

Natalya Bailey (11:23.000)

in like the next 10 years.

Lex Fridman (11:25.120)

Well, and maybe even more broadly,

Lex Fridman (11:29.720)

and looping back to something we said earlier,

Lex Fridman (11:33.400)

I don't know that getting humans off this planet

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and spreading like bacteria

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is what we're supposed to be doing in the first place.

Lex Fridman (11:45.480)

So maybe we can go, but should we?

Lex Fridman (11:49.000)

And I'm probably an unusual person

Natalya Bailey (11:54.360)

for thinking that in my industry

Lex Fridman (11:56.280)

because humans want to explore,

Lex Fridman (11:59.380)

but I almost wonder, are we putting unnecessary obstacles?

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Like we're very finicky biological things

Natalya Bailey (12:07.480)

in the way of some more robotic or more

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silicon based exploration.

Lex Fridman (12:15.240)

And yeah, do we need to colonize and spread?

Lex Fridman (12:19.040)

I'm not sure.

Lex Fridman (12:20.360)

What do you think is the role of AI in space?

Lex Fridman (12:22.900)

Do you, in your work, again, we'll talk about it,

Lex Fridman (12:25.640)

but do you see more and more of the space vehicles,

Lex Fridman (12:32.320)

spacecraft being run by artificial intelligence systems?

Natalya Bailey (12:37.320)

More than just like the flight control,

Lex Fridman (12:39.120)

but like the management?

Natalya Bailey (12:41.000)

Yeah, I don't have a lot of color to the dreams

Lex Fridman (12:43.880)

I have about way in the future in AI,

Lex Fridman (12:46.200)

but I do think that removing,

Lex Fridman (12:51.840)

it's hard for humans to even make a trip to Mars,

Natalya Bailey (12:54.760)

much less go anywhere farther than that.

Lex Fridman (12:58.060)

And I think we'll have more,

Natalya Bailey (13:03.400)

again, I'm probably unusual in having these thoughts,

Lex Fridman (13:05.940)

but perhaps be able to generate more knowledge

Lex Fridman (13:09.440)

and understand more if we stop trying to send humans

Lex Fridman (13:13.000)

and instead, I don't know if we're talking about AI

Natalya Bailey (13:17.780)

in a truly artificial intelligence way

Lex Fridman (13:20.700)

or AI as we kind of use it today,

Lex Fridman (13:23.840)

but maybe sending a Petri dish or two of like stem cells

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and some robotic handlers instead,

Natalya Bailey (13:32.000)

if we still need to send our DNA

Lex Fridman (13:34.000)

because we're really stuck on that,

Lex Fridman (13:36.060)

but if not, maybe not even that Petri dish.

Lex Fridman (13:40.020)

So I see, I think what I'm saying is,

Natalya Bailey (13:42.440)

I see a much bigger role in the future

Lex Fridman (13:44.800)

of AI for space exploration.

Natalya Bailey (13:47.080)

It's kind of sad to think that,

Lex Fridman (13:50.080)

I mean, I'm sure we'll eventually send a spacecraft

Natalya Bailey (13:53.680)

with efficient propulsion,

Lex Fridman (13:55.600)

like some of the stuff you work on out

Natalya Bailey (13:57.920)

that travels just really far with some robots on it

Lex Fridman (14:00.680)

and with some DNA in a Petri dish,

Lex Fridman (14:05.000)

and then human civilization destroys itself,

Lex Fridman (14:08.640)

and then there'll just be this floating spacecraft

Natalya Bailey (14:11.280)

that eventually gets somewhere or not.

Lex Fridman (14:13.920)

That's a sad thought, like this lonely spacecraft

Natalya Bailey (14:16.560)

just kind of traveling through space

Lex Fridman (14:18.620)

and humans are all dead.

Lex Fridman (14:20.600)

Well, it depends on what the goal is, right?

Lex Fridman (14:27.200)

Another way to look at it is we've preserved,

Natalya Bailey (14:29.640)

it's like a little time capsule of knowledge, DNA,

Lex Fridman (14:33.000)

that will outlive us.

Natalya Bailey (14:36.400)

Well, that's beautiful.

Lex Fridman (14:37.240)

Yeah.

Natalya Bailey (14:39.920)

It's how I sleep at night.

Lex Fridman (14:41.400)

So you also mentioned that you wanted to be an astronaut.

Natalya Bailey (14:43.760)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (14:45.560)

So even though you said you're unusual

Natalya Bailey (14:47.480)

in thinking like, it's nice here on Earth,

Lex Fridman (14:50.840)

and then we might want to be sending robots up there,

Natalya Bailey (14:53.880)

you wanted to be a human that goes out there.

Lex Fridman (14:57.140)

Would you like to one day travel to Mars?

Natalya Bailey (15:01.580)

You know, if it becomes sort of more open

Lex Fridman (15:04.860)

to civilian travel and that kind of thing?

Natalya Bailey (15:07.340)

Like are you, like vacation wise,

Lex Fridman (15:09.980)

like if we're talking vacations,

Lex Fridman (15:12.480)

would you like to vacation on Earth or vacation on Mars?

Lex Fridman (15:15.420)

I wish that I had a better answer, but no.

Natalya Bailey (15:20.260)

I wanted to be an astronaut because I,

Lex Fridman (15:23.580)

first of all, I like working in labs and doing experiments.

Lex Fridman (15:28.480)

And I wanted to go to like the coolest lab, the ISS,

Lex Fridman (15:34.220)

and do some experiments there.

Natalya Bailey (15:37.020)

That's being decommissioned, which is sad,

Lex Fridman (15:39.660)

but you know, there will be others, I'm sure.

Lex Fridman (15:43.380)

The ISS is being decommissioned?

Lex Fridman (15:44.660)

Yes, I think by 2025, it's not going to be in use anymore.

Lex Fridman (15:49.380)

But I think there are other,

Lex Fridman (15:51.000)

there are private companies that are going to be putting up

Natalya Bailey (15:54.120)

stations and things.

Lex Fridman (15:55.320)

So it's primarily like a research lab, essentially.

Natalya Bailey (15:57.260)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (15:58.100)

A research lab in space, that's a cool way to say it.

Natalya Bailey (15:59.860)

It's like the coolest possible research lobby.

Lex Fridman (16:02.420)

That's where I wanted to go.

Lex Fridman (16:03.700)

And now though, my risk profile has changed a little bit.

Lex Fridman (16:08.980)

I have three little ones and I won't be in the first

Natalya Bailey (16:15.880)

thousand people to go to Mars, let's put it that way.

Lex Fridman (16:18.660)

Yeah, Earth is kind of nice.

Natalya Bailey (16:20.420)

We have our troubles, but overall, it's pretty nice.

Lex Fridman (16:23.980)

Again, it's the Netflix.

Natalya Bailey (16:25.980)

Okay, let's talk rockets.

Lex Fridman (16:28.540)

How does a rocket engine work or any kind of engine

Lex Fridman (16:31.940)

that can get us to space or float around in space?

Lex Fridman (16:36.820)

The basic principle is conservation of momentum.

Lex Fridman (16:40.500)

So you throw stuff out the back of the engine

Lex Fridman (16:47.460)

and that pushes the rocket and the spacecraft

Natalya Bailey (16:50.060)

in the other direction.

Lex Fridman (16:51.020)

So there are two main types of rocket propulsion.

Natalya Bailey (16:57.900)

The one people are more familiar with is chemical

Lex Fridman (17:00.780)

because it's loud and there's fire.

Lex Fridman (17:04.500)

And that's what's used for launch and is more televised.

Lex Fridman (17:08.140)

So in those types of systems, you usually have a fuel

Natalya Bailey (17:12.700)

on an oxidizer and they react and combust

Lex Fridman (17:15.920)

and release stored chemical energy.

Lex Fridman (17:18.660)

And that energy heats the resultant gas

Lex Fridman (17:23.620)

and that's funneled out the back through a nozzle,

Natalya Bailey (17:26.780)

directed out the back and then that momentum exchange

Lex Fridman (17:30.780)

pushes the spacecraft forward.

Natalya Bailey (17:32.380)

Is there an interesting difference in liquid

Lex Fridman (17:34.020)

and solid fuel in those contexts?

Natalya Bailey (17:36.740)

They're both lumped in the same.

Lex Fridman (17:38.700)

So chemical just means that the release of energy

Natalya Bailey (17:43.100)

from those bonds essentially.

Lex Fridman (17:45.680)

So a solid fuel works the same way.

Lex Fridman (17:48.700)

And the other main category is electric propulsion.

Lex Fridman (17:52.780)

So instead of chemical energy,

Natalya Bailey (17:54.500)

you're using electrical energy,

Lex Fridman (17:56.820)

usually from batteries or solar panels.

Lex Fridman (18:00.660)

And in this case, the stuff you're pushing out the back

Lex Fridman (18:05.940)

would be charged particles.

Lex Fridman (18:07.740)

So instead of combustion and heat,

Lex Fridman (18:11.500)

you end up with charged particles

Lex Fridman (18:13.820)

and you force them out the back of the spacecraft

Lex Fridman (18:16.220)

using either an electrostatic field or electromagnetic.

Lex Fridman (18:21.680)

But it's the same momentum exchange

Lex Fridman (18:23.620)

and same idea stuff out the back

Lex Fridman (18:25.460)

and everything else goes forward.

Lex Fridman (18:27.820)

Cool, so those are the big two categories.

Natalya Bailey (18:30.200)

What's the difference maybe in the challenges of each,

Lex Fridman (18:35.200)

in the challenges of each, the use cases of each

Lex Fridman (18:41.480)

and how they're used today, the physics of each

Lex Fridman (18:45.880)

and where they're used, all that kind of stuff.

Natalya Bailey (18:48.280)

Anything interesting about the two categories

Lex Fridman (18:49.960)

that distinguishes them?

Natalya Bailey (18:51.520)

Besides the chemical one being the big sexy flames.

Lex Fridman (18:56.720)

Yeah, fire.

Natalya Bailey (18:57.800)

Fire, yeah.

Lex Fridman (18:59.680)

Chemical is very well understood

Natalya Bailey (19:02.280)

in its simplest form, it's like a firework.

Lex Fridman (19:06.980)

So it's been around since 400 BC or something like that.

Lex Fridman (19:12.080)

So that even the big engines are quite well understood.

Lex Fridman (19:15.040)

I think one of the last gaps there is probably

Lex Fridman (19:23.640)

what exactly are the products of combustion?

Lex Fridman (19:27.400)

Our modeling abilities kind of fall apart there

Natalya Bailey (19:32.520)

because it's hot and gases are moving

Lex Fridman (19:35.560)

and you end up kind of having to venture

Natalya Bailey (19:41.200)

into lots of different interdisciplinary fields of science

Lex Fridman (19:46.840)

to try to solve that.

Lex Fridman (19:47.720)

And that's quite complex, but we have pretty good models

Lex Fridman (19:51.920)

for some of the more like emergent behaviors

Natalya Bailey (19:54.120)

of that system anyways.

Lex Fridman (19:55.200)

But that's I think one of the last unsolved pieces.

Natalya Bailey (1:00:01.840)

Yeah, using a laser, so launching them

Lex Fridman (1:00:04.160)

and then while they're still relatively close to the earth,

Natalya Bailey (1:00:06.800)

you know, blasting them with some,

Lex Fridman (1:00:09.160)

I forget what, even what power level you needed

Natalya Bailey (1:00:12.800)

to accelerate them fast enough to get there in 20 years.

Lex Fridman (1:00:15.720)

Super crazy sounding,

Lex Fridman (1:00:16.760)

but a lot of people say that's a legitimate,

Lex Fridman (1:00:19.440)

like it's crazy sounding, but it can actually pull it off.

Natalya Bailey (1:00:22.320)

Yeah, I love that project

Lex Fridman (1:00:24.160)

because there are a lot of different aspects.

Natalya Bailey (1:00:26.080)

You know, there's the laser,

Lex Fridman (1:00:27.360)

there's how do you then get enough power

Natalya Bailey (1:00:31.280)

when you're there to send a signal back.

Lex Fridman (1:00:33.200)

No part of that project is possible right now,

Lex Fridman (1:00:35.640)

but I think it's really exciting.

Lex Fridman (1:00:38.320)

But do you see like human, like a spacecraft

Natalya Bailey (1:00:42.880)

with a human on it, so it's like a heavy one,

Lex Fridman (1:00:45.520)

being like us inventing new propulsion systems entirely.

Natalya Bailey (1:00:49.120)

Like, do you ever see that on the radar

Lex Fridman (1:00:52.400)

of propulsion systems like that

Lex Fridman (1:00:54.000)

or are they completely out there in the impossible?

Lex Fridman (1:00:57.280)

Well, we're going to quickly leave the realm

Natalya Bailey (1:00:59.720)

of what I can describe with any credibility,

Lex Fridman (1:01:03.200)

but I think because of special relativity,

Natalya Bailey (1:01:08.080)

if we try to accelerate some mass

Lex Fridman (1:01:10.640)

close to the speed of light, it becomes infinitely heavy

Lex Fridman (1:01:15.280)

and then we just don't,

Lex Fridman (1:01:17.080)

we'd have to like harness a lot of suns to do that.

Natalya Bailey (1:01:20.400)

Or, you know, it's just that math doesn't quite work out,

Lex Fridman (1:01:25.080)

but, you know, in my child's, my childlike heart,

Natalya Bailey (1:01:30.600)

I believe that, you know, we're missing something,

Lex Fridman (1:01:33.840)

whether it's, you know, dark matter or other dimensions.

Lex Fridman (1:01:38.320)

And if you can just have some anti matter

Lex Fridman (1:01:41.920)

and a black hole and then ride that around

Lex Fridman (1:01:46.640)

and somehow, you know, turn that into some.

Lex Fridman (1:01:49.520)

Mess with gravity somehow.

Natalya Bailey (1:01:51.240)

Yeah, I feel like we're missing lots of things

Lex Fridman (1:01:55.520)

in this puzzle and that, you know.

Natalya Bailey (1:02:00.080)

I want to heart that puzzle.

Lex Fridman (1:02:01.280)

Yeah, right.

Natalya Bailey (1:02:02.120)

I can speak with confidence as a descendant of apes

Lex Fridman (1:02:06.240)

that we don't know what the hell we're doing.

Natalya Bailey (1:02:08.520)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:02:09.600)

So there's, we're like really confident,

Natalya Bailey (1:02:12.760)

like physicists are really confident

Lex Fridman (1:02:14.760)

that we've like got most of the picture down,

Lex Fridman (1:02:17.480)

but it feels like, oh boy,

Lex Fridman (1:02:20.880)

it feels like that we might not even be getting started

Natalya Bailey (1:02:25.400)

on some of the essential things

Lex Fridman (1:02:26.920)

that would allow us to engineer systems

Natalya Bailey (1:02:31.320)

that would allow us to travel to space much, much faster.

Lex Fridman (1:02:36.720)

Yeah, and there's even things

Natalya Bailey (1:02:38.200)

that are much more commonplace that we can't explain,

Lex Fridman (1:02:42.440)

but we've started to take for granted,

Natalya Bailey (1:02:44.080)

like quantum tunneling, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:02:48.360)

just things like, oh, the electron was here

Natalya Bailey (1:02:50.680)

with this energy and now it's here with this energy

Lex Fridman (1:02:53.160)

and it's just tunneling.

Lex Fridman (1:02:55.600)

But so, you know, we're missing a lot of the picture.

Lex Fridman (1:02:58.080)

So yeah, I don't know, to, you know,

Natalya Bailey (1:03:02.120)

use your same question from earlier,

Lex Fridman (1:03:03.440)

I don't know if you and I will see it,

Lex Fridman (1:03:05.480)

but yeah, someday.

Lex Fridman (1:03:07.920)

You're the cofounder of,

Natalya Bailey (1:03:09.640)

just like we've been talking about, Axion Systems.

Lex Fridman (1:03:12.440)

It's a, would you say a space propulsion company?

Natalya Bailey (1:03:15.920)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (1:03:16.760)

Broadly speaking.

Lex Fridman (1:03:18.480)

So how do you, big question,

Lex Fridman (1:03:22.240)

how do you build a rocket company

Natalya Bailey (1:03:25.640)

from like a propulsion company from one person,

Lex Fridman (1:03:30.880)

from two people to 10 people plus,

Lex Fridman (1:03:35.240)

and actually, you know, take it to a successful product?

Lex Fridman (1:03:41.280)

Yeah, well, I think the early stage is quite,

Natalya Bailey (1:03:46.280)

I'm not supposed to use the word easy

Lex Fridman (1:03:48.440)

when you work in rocket science,

Lex Fridman (1:03:49.760)

but straightforward when you're working on something,

Lex Fridman (1:03:53.160)

you know, sexy, like an ion engine,

Natalya Bailey (1:03:55.680)

it's more straightforward to raise money

Lex Fridman (1:03:58.680)

and get people to come work for you

Natalya Bailey (1:04:00.800)

because the vision's really exciting.

Lex Fridman (1:04:02.280)

And actually that's something I would say

Natalya Bailey (1:04:04.640)

is very important throughout,

Lex Fridman (1:04:06.120)

is a really exciting vision

Natalya Bailey (1:04:10.040)

because when everything, you know, goes to crap,

Lex Fridman (1:04:13.280)

you need that to get people

Natalya Bailey (1:04:15.360)

getting themselves out of bed in the morning

Lex Fridman (1:04:17.160)

and thinking of the higher purpose there.

Natalya Bailey (1:04:20.480)

And, you know, another thing along the way

Lex Fridman (1:04:24.160)

that I think is key in building any company

Natalya Bailey (1:04:27.440)

is the right early employees

Lex Fridman (1:04:31.120)

that also have their own networks

Lex Fridman (1:04:33.800)

and can bring in a lot of people

Lex Fridman (1:04:36.960)

that, you know, really make the whole greater

Natalya Bailey (1:04:43.520)

than just the sum of the early team.

Lex Fridman (1:04:46.640)

How do you build that?

Lex Fridman (1:04:47.640)

Like, how do you find people?

Lex Fridman (1:04:49.360)

It's like asking, like, how do you make friends?

Lex Fridman (1:04:52.400)

But is there, is it luck?

Lex Fridman (1:04:55.920)

Is there a system?

Natalya Bailey (1:04:57.840)

Like how, in terms of the people you've connected with,

Lex Fridman (1:05:00.840)

the people you built the company with,

Natalya Bailey (1:05:07.360)

is there some thread, some commonality,

Lex Fridman (1:05:10.360)

some pattern that you find to be,

Lex Fridman (1:05:13.160)

to hold for what makes a great team?

Lex Fridman (1:05:15.720)

I think, you know, personally,

Natalya Bailey (1:05:18.320)

a thread for me has been my network

Lex Fridman (1:05:21.840)

and being able to draw on that a lot,

Lex Fridman (1:05:25.840)

but also giving back to it as much as possible

Lex Fridman (1:05:29.960)

in like an unsolicited sort of way,

Natalya Bailey (1:05:32.040)

like making connections between people

Lex Fridman (1:05:34.840)

that, you know, maybe didn't ask,

Lex Fridman (1:05:36.800)

but that I think could be really fruitful.

Lex Fridman (1:05:39.520)

And even, you know, weirder than that

Natalya Bailey (1:05:42.960)

is just really getting, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:05:46.920)

having weird, uncomfortable conversations

Natalya Bailey (1:05:49.520)

with people like at a conference

Lex Fridman (1:05:51.160)

and getting over the small talk quickly

Lex Fridman (1:05:55.360)

and getting to know them quickly

Lex Fridman (1:05:56.800)

and having a relationship that stands out

Lex Fridman (1:05:59.240)

and then being able to call on them later because of that.

Lex Fridman (1:06:03.040)

And I think that's been because I'm introverted

Lex Fridman (1:06:07.120)

and I, you know, want to poke my eyes out

Lex Fridman (1:06:09.920)

instead of go and do small talk.

Lex Fridman (1:06:13.840)

And so I huddle in a corner with one person

Lex Fridman (1:06:16.720)

and, you know, we talk about aliens or things like that.

Lex Fridman (1:06:19.600)

And so, you know, that's all to say that,

Lex Fridman (1:06:23.000)

you know, having a strong network,

Natalya Bailey (1:06:24.440)

I think is really important, but a genuine one.

Lex Fridman (1:06:28.200)

And let's see, other ways to build a rocket company,

Natalya Bailey (1:06:31.960)

kind of making sure you're paying attention

Lex Fridman (1:06:33.560)

to the sweeping trends of the industry

Lex Fridman (1:06:35.800)

so everybody just cares about cost

Lex Fridman (1:06:37.880)

and being able to get out ahead of that

Lex Fridman (1:06:41.480)

and even more than we ever thought we'd need to

Lex Fridman (1:06:44.120)

as far as what we needed to price our systems at.

Natalya Bailey (1:06:46.920)

You know, people for,

Lex Fridman (1:06:50.200)

since the start of the US space industry,

Natalya Bailey (1:06:53.000)

they've been paying 20, 25 million in adjusted dollars

Lex Fridman (1:06:57.080)

for an ion engine.

Lex Fridman (1:06:58.160)

And seeing that now people are going to want to pay 10K

Lex Fridman (1:07:03.160)

for an ion engine and just staying out ahead of that

Lex Fridman (1:07:08.920)

and those kinds of things.

Lex Fridman (1:07:10.600)

So, you know, being out in the industry

Lex Fridman (1:07:12.400)

and talking to as many people as possible.

Lex Fridman (1:07:15.040)

So there's a drive.

Natalya Bailey (1:07:15.960)

I mean, I suppose SpaceX really pushed that.

Lex Fridman (1:07:18.440)

Frustrating for me.

Lex Fridman (1:07:20.240)

So SpaceX really pushed this,

Lex Fridman (1:07:24.880)

the application of, I guess, capitalism

Natalya Bailey (1:07:26.960)

of driving the price down,

Lex Fridman (1:07:28.440)

of basically forcing people to ask the question,

Lex Fridman (1:07:31.800)

can this be done cheaper?

Lex Fridman (1:07:35.760)

This can lead to like big problems, I would say,

Natalya Bailey (1:07:41.040)

in the following sense.

Lex Fridman (1:07:43.080)

I see this in the car industry, for example,

Natalya Bailey (1:07:46.200)

that people have,

Lex Fridman (1:07:49.480)

it's such a small margin for profit.

Natalya Bailey (1:07:53.840)

Like they've driven the cost of everything down so much

Lex Fridman (1:07:57.120)

that there's literally no room for innovation

Natalya Bailey (1:07:59.880)

for taking risks.

Lex Fridman (1:08:01.240)

So like cars, which is funny

Natalya Bailey (1:08:04.520)

because not until Tesla, really,

Lex Fridman (1:08:07.560)

which is one of the, in a long, long time,

Natalya Bailey (1:08:10.520)

one of the first successful new car companies

Lex Fridman (1:08:14.400)

that's constantly innovating,

Natalya Bailey (1:08:16.240)

every other car company is really pouring

Lex Fridman (1:08:19.200)

in terms of their technological innovation.

Natalya Bailey (1:08:21.600)

They innovate on design and style and so on,

Lex Fridman (1:08:25.280)

that people fall in love with the look and so on,

Lex Fridman (1:08:27.360)

but it's not really innovation.

Lex Fridman (1:08:29.800)

In terms of the technology in it,

Natalya Bailey (1:08:31.280)

it's really boringly the same thing,

Lex Fridman (1:08:33.360)

and they're really afraid of taking risks.

Lex Fridman (1:08:35.840)

And that's a big problem for rocket space, too,

Lex Fridman (1:08:38.520)

is like if you're cutting out costs,

Natalya Bailey (1:08:41.240)

you can't afford to innovate, to try out new things,

Lex Fridman (1:08:44.120)

and that's definitely true with ion engines, right?

Lex Fridman (1:08:51.880)

So how do you compete in this space?

Lex Fridman (1:08:54.680)

Do you, by the way, see SpaceX as a competitor?

Lex Fridman (1:08:57.440)

And what do you say in general

Lex Fridman (1:08:59.840)

about the competition in this space?

Lex Fridman (1:09:01.440)

Is it really difficult as a business to compete here?

Lex Fridman (1:09:05.920)

No, I don't see SpaceX as a competitor,

Lex Fridman (1:09:09.080)

and I see them as one day, not too long from now,

Lex Fridman (1:09:12.960)

a customer, hopefully.

Natalya Bailey (1:09:16.560)

I mean, to compete against that,

Lex Fridman (1:09:18.680)

I think you just have to do things in an unconventional way.

Lex Fridman (1:09:23.080)

So bringing silicon MEMS manufacturing

Lex Fridman (1:09:27.000)

to propulsion, NASA doesn't make ion engines

Natalya Bailey (1:09:30.600)

using a batch mass producible technique.

Lex Fridman (1:09:34.880)

They have one guy that's been making their ion engines

Natalya Bailey (1:09:38.320)

for 20 years bespoke pieces of jewelry.

Lex Fridman (1:09:41.760)

So bringing things to what you're trying to innovate

Natalya Bailey (1:09:47.680)

to make them, in our case, more cost effective

Lex Fridman (1:09:51.080)

was really key.

Natalya Bailey (1:09:53.520)

I like the idea of somebody putting out ion engines

Lex Fridman (1:09:56.360)

on like Etsy.

Natalya Bailey (1:09:57.520)

Yeah, my advisor at MIT would,

Lex Fridman (1:10:00.880)

the thruster chip I was holding up,

Natalya Bailey (1:10:02.320)

he would wear one as a lapel pin.

Lex Fridman (1:10:05.680)

But in general, just on the topic of SpaceX,

Natalya Bailey (1:10:09.880)

2020 has seen some difficult things

Lex Fridman (1:10:12.520)

for human civilization.

Lex Fridman (1:10:14.800)

And it's been a lot of, first of all, it's an election year,

Lex Fridman (1:10:17.800)

there's been a lot of drama and division about that.

Natalya Bailey (1:10:20.520)

There's been riots of all different reasons,

Lex Fridman (1:10:24.840)

racial division, there's been obviously a virus

Natalya Bailey (1:10:28.440)

that's testing the very fabric of our society.

Lex Fridman (1:10:31.440)

But there's been really, for me at least,

Natalya Bailey (1:10:34.480)

super positive things, inspiring things,

Lex Fridman (1:10:36.960)

which is SpaceX and NASA doing the first commercial

Natalya Bailey (1:10:43.320)

human flight, launching humans to space

Lex Fridman (1:10:47.800)

and did it twice successfully.

Lex Fridman (1:10:50.640)

What is that, did you get to watch that launch?

Lex Fridman (1:10:54.520)

Did you, what does it make you feel?

Lex Fridman (1:10:57.960)

Do you think this is first days

Lex Fridman (1:11:00.960)

for a new era of space exploration?

Natalya Bailey (1:11:05.600)

Yeah, I did watch it.

Lex Fridman (1:11:06.640)

We played it outside on a big screen at our place.

Lex Fridman (1:11:09.840)

And I was a little, they kept saying Bob and Doug,

Lex Fridman (1:11:13.520)

Bob and Doug, and astronauts usually are treated

Natalya Bailey (1:11:19.200)

with a little bit more fanfare.

Lex Fridman (1:11:20.680)

So it felt very casual, but maybe that was a good,

Natalya Bailey (1:11:24.000)

a good thing, like this is the era

Lex Fridman (1:11:26.280)

of commercial crewed missions.

Lex Fridman (1:11:30.160)

It was a little bit more, what is it?

Lex Fridman (1:11:34.000)

What's his name?

Natalya Bailey (1:11:34.840)

Chris Hadfield, like playing guitar.

Lex Fridman (1:11:37.360)

Yeah.

Natalya Bailey (1:11:38.200)

It's more, it's a different flavor to it of.

Lex Fridman (1:11:41.160)

Yeah, exactly.

Natalya Bailey (1:11:42.560)

More like fun, playful, celebrity type.

Lex Fridman (1:11:46.120)

Yes, exactly.

Natalya Bailey (1:11:47.080)

Astronaut versus the aura of the magical

Lex Fridman (1:11:51.760)

sort of heroic element of the single human

Natalya Bailey (1:11:55.440)

representing us in space.

Lex Fridman (1:11:56.920)

Yes, I think that's all for the better though.

Natalya Bailey (1:12:00.360)

It's so cool that it's such a commonplace thing

Lex Fridman (1:12:02.960)

now that we send.

Natalya Bailey (1:12:04.600)

I can't believe that sometimes I'll have to,

Lex Fridman (1:12:07.960)

you don't even realize that astronauts are coming

Lex Fridman (1:12:10.600)

and going all the time, splashing back down.

Lex Fridman (1:12:13.600)

And it's just so common now,

Lex Fridman (1:12:15.080)

but that's quite magical, I think.

Lex Fridman (1:12:19.080)

So yes, we did watch that.

Natalya Bailey (1:12:20.960)

I love, love, love that we finally have that capability

Lex Fridman (1:12:24.760)

again to send people to the space station.

Lex Fridman (1:12:28.840)

And it's just really exciting to see the private sector

Lex Fridman (1:12:32.800)

stepping up to fill in where the government

Natalya Bailey (1:12:34.920)

has pulled back in the US.

Lex Fridman (1:12:36.200)

And I think pulled back way too soon

Natalya Bailey (1:12:38.400)

as far as exploration and science goes.

Lex Fridman (1:12:42.520)

Probably pulled back at the right time

Natalya Bailey (1:12:44.120)

for commercial things and getting that started.

Lex Fridman (1:12:47.920)

But I'm really happy that it's even possible

Natalya Bailey (1:12:51.880)

to do that with private money and companies.

Lex Fridman (1:12:55.800)

Do you like the kind of the model of competition

Lex Fridman (1:12:58.520)

of NASA funding?

Lex Fridman (1:13:01.440)

I guess that's how it works,

Natalya Bailey (1:13:02.520)

is like they're providing quite a bit of money

Lex Fridman (1:13:04.320)

from the government and then private companies compete

Natalya Bailey (1:13:08.240)

to be the delivery vehicles for whichever

Lex Fridman (1:13:12.400)

the government missions, like NASA missions.

Natalya Bailey (1:13:17.400)

Yes, I think for this type of mission

Lex Fridman (1:13:20.640)

is a little bit kind of straddles commercial and science.

Lex Fridman (1:13:25.640)

So I think it's good, but I do in general feel

Lex Fridman (1:13:29.400)

like we've pulled back too much on NASA's role

Natalya Bailey (1:13:34.040)

in the science and exploration part.

Lex Fridman (1:13:36.960)

And I think our pace is too slow there,

Natalya Bailey (1:13:40.960)

for my liking, I suppose.

Lex Fridman (1:13:42.960)

What do you mean?

Natalya Bailey (1:13:43.800)

Okay, so did you have, I mean, on the cost thing,

Lex Fridman (1:13:48.520)

do you feel like NASA was a little too bureaucratic

Natalya Bailey (1:13:52.560)

in a sense, like too slow, too heavy cost wise

Lex Fridman (1:13:58.080)

in their effort, like when they were running things

Lex Fridman (1:14:00.880)

purely without any commercial involvement?

Lex Fridman (1:14:03.720)

So I suppose it's more that I just want

Natalya Bailey (1:14:06.780)

the government to fund.

Lex Fridman (1:14:08.720)

I see, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:14:09.560)

And maybe NASA's not the best organization

Lex Fridman (1:14:12.720)

to do it rapidly.

Lex Fridman (1:14:15.560)

But I think that, again, depending on the goals,

Lex Fridman (1:14:20.560)

we're just kind of at the very starting point

Natalya Bailey (1:14:23.480)

of space exploration and science and understanding.

Lex Fridman (1:14:28.960)

So we should be spending more money there and not less.

Lex Fridman (1:14:32.320)

And other countries are starting to spend more and more,

Lex Fridman (1:14:34.960)

and I think we'll fall behind because of that.

Lex Fridman (1:14:38.140)

So you have quite a bit of experience, first of all,

Lex Fridman (1:14:41.000)

starting a company yourself, but also I saw,

Natalya Bailey (1:14:43.720)

maybe you can correct me, but you have quite a bit

Lex Fridman (1:14:46.800)

of knowledge of just in general the startup experience

Natalya Bailey (1:14:50.880)

of building companies that you've interacted with people.

Lex Fridman (1:14:54.400)

Is there advice that you can give to somebody,

Natalya Bailey (1:14:59.480)

to a founder or cofounder who wants to launch

Lex Fridman (1:15:02.220)

and grow a new company and do something big and impactful

Lex Fridman (1:15:07.840)

in this world?

Lex Fridman (1:15:08.680)

Yes, I would say, like I mentioned earlier,

Lex Fridman (1:15:13.740)

but make sure the vision is something that will get you

Lex Fridman (1:15:19.060)

out of bed in the morning and that you can rally

Natalya Bailey (1:15:23.060)

other people around you to achieve.

Lex Fridman (1:15:27.180)

Because I see a lot of folks that sort of cared

Natalya Bailey (1:15:31.100)

about something or saw a window of opportunity

Lex Fridman (1:15:33.900)

to do something, and startups are hard,

Lex Fridman (1:15:37.300)

and more often than not, just being opportunistic

Lex Fridman (1:15:42.300)

isn't going to be enough to make it through

Natalya Bailey (1:15:44.980)

all the really crappy things that are going to happen.

Lex Fridman (1:15:48.860)

So the vision just helps you psychologically

Natalya Bailey (1:15:51.300)

to carry through the hardships,

Lex Fridman (1:15:52.820)

for you and the team.

Natalya Bailey (1:15:53.660)

Yeah, you and the team, yeah, exactly.

Lex Fridman (1:15:56.180)

To kind of younger people interested in getting

Natalya Bailey (1:15:59.100)

into entrepreneurship, I would say stay as close

Lex Fridman (1:16:02.240)

to first principles and fundamentals as you can

Natalya Bailey (1:16:06.700)

for as long as you can, because really understanding

Lex Fridman (1:16:11.100)

the problems, if it's something scientific

Natalya Bailey (1:16:13.660)

or hardware related, or even if it's not,

Lex Fridman (1:16:16.780)

but having a deep understanding of the problem

Lex Fridman (1:16:20.380)

and the customers and what people care about

Lex Fridman (1:16:22.660)

and how to move something forward is more important

Natalya Bailey (1:16:26.380)

than taking all of the entrepreneurship classes

Lex Fridman (1:16:30.480)

in undergrad.

Lex Fridman (1:16:31.620)

So being able to think deeply, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:16:33.400)

Yeah, exactly.

Natalya Bailey (1:16:35.120)

Yeah, have you been surprised about how much pivoting

Lex Fridman (1:16:38.180)

is involved, basically rethinking what you thought

Lex Fridman (1:16:41.780)

initially would be the right direction to go?

Lex Fridman (1:16:44.260)

Or is there, if you think deeply enough,

Lex Fridman (1:16:46.540)

that you can stick in the same direction for long enough?

Lex Fridman (1:16:50.540)

So our guiding star hasn't changed at all,

Lex Fridman (1:16:56.320)

so that's been pretty consistent,

Lex Fridman (1:16:57.860)

but within that, we flip flop on so many things

Natalya Bailey (1:17:02.860)

all the time, and to give you one example,

Lex Fridman (1:17:06.020)

it's do you stop and build a first product

Natalya Bailey (1:17:10.220)

that's well suited to maybe a smaller,

Lex Fridman (1:17:14.140)

less exciting segment of the market,

Natalya Bailey (1:17:16.660)

or do you stay head down and focus on the big swing

Lex Fridman (1:17:22.940)

and trying to hit it out of the park right away?

Lex Fridman (1:17:25.280)

And we've flip flopped between that,

Lex Fridman (1:17:27.540)

and there's not a blanket answer,

Lex Fridman (1:17:30.240)

and there are a lot of factors, but that's a hard one.

Lex Fridman (1:17:33.560)

And I think one other piece for the aspiring founder,

Natalya Bailey (1:17:40.640)

spending a lot of time and effort on the culture

Lex Fridman (1:17:44.700)

and people piece is so important

Lex Fridman (1:17:47.780)

and is always an afterthought and something

Lex Fridman (1:17:52.060)

that I haven't really seen the founders or executives

Natalya Bailey (1:17:57.060)

or executives at companies purposefully carve out time

Lex Fridman (1:18:00.860)

and acknowledge that, yes, this is going to take

Natalya Bailey (1:18:04.500)

a lot of my time and resources,

Lex Fridman (1:18:06.500)

but you see them after the fact trying to repair

Natalya Bailey (1:18:09.480)

the bro culture or whatever else is broken at the company.

Lex Fridman (1:18:14.060)

And I think that it's starting to change,

Lex Fridman (1:18:16.440)

but just to be aware of it from the beginning is important.

Lex Fridman (1:18:19.580)

Right, I guess it should be part of the vision

Natalya Bailey (1:18:21.780)

of what kind of place you want to create,

Lex Fridman (1:18:24.180)

or what kind of human beings.

Natalya Bailey (1:18:28.540)

Yeah, exactly, you can't wait five, 10 years

Lex Fridman (1:18:31.900)

and then just slap an HR person onto trying to fix it.

Natalya Bailey (1:18:35.300)

It has to be thoughtful from the beginning.

Lex Fridman (1:18:37.820)

Yeah, don't get me started on HR people.

Natalya Bailey (1:18:43.780)

Don't leave HR to HR people, but I'll just leave it at that.

Lex Fridman (1:18:46.540)

You didn't say that, I said it, okay.

Natalya Bailey (1:18:48.540)

Yeah, HR's actual HR is really important,

Lex Fridman (1:18:53.540)

is so important, culture is so important.

Lex Fridman (1:18:58.540)

And then I also was surprised, I thought you could say,

Lex Fridman (1:19:04.040)

here will be our culture and our values,

Lex Fridman (1:19:06.460)

and that it was kind of distinct from who I

Lex Fridman (1:19:08.900)

and my co founder were as people,

Lex Fridman (1:19:11.140)

and I was like, no, that's not how that works.

Lex Fridman (1:19:12.940)

We just kind of ooze out our behaviors

Lex Fridman (1:19:16.480)

and then the company grows around that.

Lex Fridman (1:19:18.220)

So you have to do a lot of introspection and self work

Natalya Bailey (1:19:22.640)

to not end up with a shitty culture.

Lex Fridman (1:19:24.900)

It's kind of a, it's a relationship,

Lex Fridman (1:19:27.580)

but it's supposed to be a relationship with two people,

Lex Fridman (1:19:29.700)

it's a relationship with many people.

Natalya Bailey (1:19:31.620)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:19:32.440)

And you communicate so much indirectly by who you are.

Natalya Bailey (1:19:35.620)

You have to be, you have to live it, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:19:40.780)

As somebody, I think about this a lot

Natalya Bailey (1:19:42.420)

because generally I'm full of love

Lex Fridman (1:19:45.300)

and all those kinds of things,

Lex Fridman (1:19:47.100)

but I also get really passionate

Lex Fridman (1:19:49.940)

and when I see somebody in the context of work, especially,

Natalya Bailey (1:19:54.580)

when I see somebody who I know can do a much better job

Lex Fridman (1:19:58.420)

and they don't do a great job, I can lose my shit

Natalya Bailey (1:20:02.980)

in a way that's like Steve Jobsian.

Lex Fridman (1:20:06.680)

And you have to think about exactly the right way

Natalya Bailey (1:20:09.960)

to lose your shit if you're going to, or if at all.

Lex Fridman (1:20:13.460)

You have to really think through that

Natalya Bailey (1:20:14.900)

because it sends a big signal.

Lex Fridman (1:20:16.620)

You know, sometimes it's okay, like if you do it deliberately,

Natalya Bailey (1:20:21.180)

like if you're going to do it deliberately,

Lex Fridman (1:20:23.260)

if you're going to say like,

Natalya Bailey (1:20:24.260)

I'm going to be the kind of person that allows this

Lex Fridman (1:20:26.780)

and pays the cost of it,

Lex Fridman (1:20:27.940)

but you can't just think it's not gonna have a cost.

Lex Fridman (1:20:30.800)

Yes, this was like the first thing I worked on

Natalya Bailey (1:20:33.480)

with my leadership coach was how not to just snap at people

Lex Fridman (1:20:39.660)

when they were being an idiot.

Lex Fridman (1:20:41.660)

And first I got really good at apologizing.

Lex Fridman (1:20:46.660)

That was the first step because it was going to take longer

Natalya Bailey (1:20:49.700)

to fix the behavior.

Lex Fridman (1:20:51.820)

And then she, I'm actually a lot better at it now

Lex Fridman (1:20:54.980)

and it started with things.

Lex Fridman (1:20:56.140)

She's like, every time you walk through a doorway,

Natalya Bailey (1:20:58.880)

think, you know, calm and take breaths before responding.

Lex Fridman (1:21:03.340)

And there were all sorts of these little things we did

Lex Fridman (1:21:05.740)

and it was mostly just changing the habit.

Lex Fridman (1:21:08.620)

Yeah, oh boy, it's a long road.

Natalya Bailey (1:21:13.180)

Okay, so people love it and we talk about books.

Lex Fridman (1:21:18.180)

Is there books, maybe three or so technical fiction,

Natalya Bailey (1:21:21.660)

philosophical that had an impact on your life

Lex Fridman (1:21:24.700)

and you might recommend and for each,

Lex Fridman (1:21:27.460)

is there an idea or so that you take away from it?

Lex Fridman (1:21:31.540)

Yes, so I've been a voracious reader all my life

Lex Fridman (1:21:36.540)

and I'm always reading like three or four or five books

Lex Fridman (1:21:40.700)

at a time and now I use Audible a lot too

Lex Fridman (1:21:46.380)

and you know, podcasts and things like that.

Lex Fridman (1:21:50.020)

So I think the first one that stands out to me is 10,

Natalya Bailey (1:21:54.340)

it's a novel, Tender is the Night by Fitzgerald.

Lex Fridman (1:21:57.700)

And I read it when I was much younger

Lex Fridman (1:22:01.180)

but I went back and read it recently and it's not that good.

Lex Fridman (1:22:03.700)

So I'm not sure why it has like such an important place

Natalya Bailey (1:22:07.940)

in my literary history but I love Fitzgerald as an author

Lex Fridman (1:22:13.380)

because he's very like flowery prose

Natalya Bailey (1:22:17.380)

that I can just picture what he's saying

Lex Fridman (1:22:21.220)

but he does it in such a creative way.

Natalya Bailey (1:22:24.860)

I remember that one in particular

Lex Fridman (1:22:26.740)

because I read a ton as a kid too

Lex Fridman (1:22:29.300)

but it kind of set me, it was like the beginning of my adult

Lex Fridman (1:22:33.980)

reading life and getting into classics

Lex Fridman (1:22:38.500)

and I kind of, I do feel like they seem intimidating maybe

Lex Fridman (1:22:44.740)

and then I realized that they're all just like love stories.

Natalya Bailey (1:22:50.260)

So.

Lex Fridman (1:22:51.260)

Yeah, isn't everything a love story?

Natalya Bailey (1:22:53.140)

Yeah, it's really.

Lex Fridman (1:22:54.460)

At the bottom.

Natalya Bailey (1:22:55.300)

Even, you know, I don't know.

Lex Fridman (1:22:57.100)

I was surprised that even like a lot of the Russian authors,

Natalya Bailey (1:23:02.540)

you know, they're all just love stories.

Lex Fridman (1:23:04.740)

We're humans are pretty simple.

Natalya Bailey (1:23:05.900)

There's not much to worry, there's not much to work with.

Lex Fridman (1:23:08.460)

So I think maybe that was it.

Natalya Bailey (1:23:09.620)

It made like that whole world less intimidating to me

Lex Fridman (1:23:12.780)

and cemented my love for reading.

Natalya Bailey (1:23:17.100)

People should have just approached the classics

Lex Fridman (1:23:18.740)

like there's probably a love story in here.

Natalya Bailey (1:23:20.620)

Chick flicks, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:23:21.460)

So somehow it boils down to a chick flick.

Lex Fridman (1:23:24.580)

So just relax and enjoy the ride.

Lex Fridman (1:23:27.500)

And then.

Lex Fridman (1:23:28.500)

So what else?

Lex Fridman (1:23:30.420)

Changing gears quite a bit.

Lex Fridman (1:23:33.860)

The Beginning of Infinity, do you know it?

Lex Fridman (1:23:35.900)

By David Deutsch.

Lex Fridman (1:23:37.460)

So he's a physicist at Cambridge or Oxford.

Lex Fridman (1:23:41.380)

And so I was introduced like more formally

Natalya Bailey (1:23:45.060)

to a lot of the ideas, like a lot of the things

Lex Fridman (1:23:47.620)

we've talked about, he has a lot more like formalism

Lex Fridman (1:23:52.460)

and physics rigor around.

Lex Fridman (1:23:55.220)

And so I got introduced to, you know, more like jargon

Natalya Bailey (1:23:59.020)

of how to think about some of these ideas,

Lex Fridman (1:24:02.780)

you know, like memes and, you know, DNA as ultimate meme,

Natalya Bailey (1:24:10.580)

the concept of infinity and objective beauty.

Lex Fridman (1:24:16.060)

But he has a really strong grounding in physics.

Lex Fridman (1:24:19.220)

And then.

Lex Fridman (1:24:20.060)

There's a rigorous way of talking about these like big.

Natalya Bailey (1:24:22.660)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:24:23.500)

So that was very mind opening to me to read that.

Lex Fridman (1:24:28.140)

But it also, I think it's probably part of why

Lex Fridman (1:24:30.740)

I ended up marrying my husband is related to that book.

Lex Fridman (1:24:33.620)

And then I've had some other really great connections

Lex Fridman (1:24:36.420)

with people because I had read it and so had they.

Natalya Bailey (1:24:40.020)

I like how you turned that, even that book

Lex Fridman (1:24:43.020)

into a love story.

Natalya Bailey (1:24:44.260)

I did, oh no.

Lex Fridman (1:24:45.660)

Somehow.

Natalya Bailey (1:24:46.500)

No, it's good, it's good.

Lex Fridman (1:24:47.740)

Your robot has a heart.

Natalya Bailey (1:24:49.340)

Exactly.

Lex Fridman (1:24:50.580)

And okay, the third series is, it's just, it's Harry Potter.

Natalya Bailey (1:24:57.580)

Of course, which somehow connects to,

Lex Fridman (1:24:59.700)

I haven't read Harry Potter.

Natalya Bailey (1:25:01.140)

I'm really sorry.

Lex Fridman (1:25:01.980)

Oh no.

Natalya Bailey (1:25:02.820)

Forgive me, forgive me.

Lex Fridman (1:25:05.540)

But I've read Tolkien, but just Harry Potter,

Natalya Bailey (1:25:08.260)

just haven't gotten to it.

Lex Fridman (1:25:09.860)

But your company name is somehow I think

Lex Fridman (1:25:12.460)

connected to Harry Potter, right?

Lex Fridman (1:25:13.300)

Yes.

Natalya Bailey (1:25:14.140)

I think I heard this.

Lex Fridman (1:25:15.380)

My, I always feel like I have to justify my fandom.

Natalya Bailey (1:25:22.660)

The first three books came out when I was 10.

Lex Fridman (1:25:25.060)

So I went along this journey with Harry, age wise.

Lex Fridman (1:25:28.980)

And I read them all like nine or 10 times, all seven books.

Lex Fridman (1:25:34.900)

And I think anything that just keeps you reading

Natalya Bailey (1:25:39.380)

is what's important.

Lex Fridman (1:25:41.540)

And I have lulls where I don't feel like reading anything.

Lex Fridman (1:25:44.580)

So I'll reread a Harry Potter or a trashy detective novel

Lex Fridman (1:25:50.580)

or something, and I don't really care.

Lex Fridman (1:25:52.340)

And that's why I mentioned Harry Potter

Lex Fridman (1:25:55.100)

because whatever just keeps me reading,

Natalya Bailey (1:25:58.620)

I think is important.

Lex Fridman (1:25:59.700)

And it was a big part of my life growing up.

Lex Fridman (1:26:02.820)

And then yes, Axion, the official story of the naming

Lex Fridman (1:26:09.060)

of the company is that Axion is like a concatenation

Natalya Bailey (1:26:12.900)

of accelerate and ion.

Lex Fridman (1:26:15.380)

But it actually came from accio, the summoning charm.

Lex Fridman (1:26:18.820)

And then we just added an N and it was perfect.

Lex Fridman (1:26:22.500)

What's the summoning charm?

Natalya Bailey (1:26:23.700)

It's one of the spells in Harry Potter.

Lex Fridman (1:26:25.460)

Yeah, probably most notably Harry uses it

Natalya Bailey (1:26:31.740)

to summon his broomstick out of his dorm room

Lex Fridman (1:26:35.420)

when he's battling a dragon somewhere else.

Lex Fridman (1:26:37.820)

So he says the spell and the broomstick comes to him.

Lex Fridman (1:26:40.180)

So summoning in that way.

Natalya Bailey (1:26:43.020)

Okay, there we go.

Lex Fridman (1:26:44.740)

This is brilliant.

Lex Fridman (1:26:45.740)

So the big thing is that it's something

Lex Fridman (1:26:48.820)

that you've carry with, it's like your safe place

Natalya Bailey (1:26:52.820)

you return to something like the Harry Potter.

Lex Fridman (1:26:55.300)

That, I reread them still, whatever keeps me reading

Natalya Bailey (1:26:59.980)

I think is the most important thing.

Lex Fridman (1:27:02.980)

Okay, I got it.

Lex Fridman (1:27:03.820)

So I'm actually the same way in terms of the habit of it.

Lex Fridman (1:27:07.660)

It's important to just keep reading.

Lex Fridman (1:27:12.620)

But I have found myself struggling a little bit too

Lex Fridman (1:27:16.620)

because I listen to a lot of audio books now.

Natalya Bailey (1:27:19.140)

I've struggled to then switch back to reading seriously.

Lex Fridman (1:27:26.020)

It's just I read so many papers,

Natalya Bailey (1:27:27.540)

I read so many other things.

Lex Fridman (1:27:28.980)

It feels like if I'm gonna sit down

Lex Fridman (1:27:30.620)

and have the time to actually focus on the reading

Lex Fridman (1:27:33.580)

I should be reading like blog posts or papers

Natalya Bailey (1:27:36.740)

or more condensed kind of things.

Lex Fridman (1:27:38.940)

But there's a huge value to just reading long form still.

Natalya Bailey (1:27:42.700)

Yeah, and my husband was never that into fiction

Lex Fridman (1:27:47.460)

but then someone told him or he heard,

Natalya Bailey (1:27:51.540)

you learn a lot of empathy through reading fiction.

Lex Fridman (1:27:55.140)

So you could think of it that way.

Natalya Bailey (1:27:56.780)

Well, yeah, that's kind of what, yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman (1:27:58.700)

And it's also fiction is a nice,

Natalya Bailey (1:28:01.460)

unlike not less so with nonfiction is a chance to travel.

Lex Fridman (1:28:06.340)

I see it as kind of traveling.

Natalya Bailey (1:28:08.260)

As you go to this other world and it's nice

Lex Fridman (1:28:11.340)

because it's like much more efficient.

Natalya Bailey (1:28:12.700)

You don't have to get on a plane,

Lex Fridman (1:28:14.140)

and you get to meet all kinds of new people.

Natalya Bailey (1:28:17.540)

It's like people say they love traveling

Lex Fridman (1:28:19.860)

and I say I love traveling too.

Natalya Bailey (1:28:21.300)

I just, yeah, read fiction.

Lex Fridman (1:28:23.140)

I told my three year old that that was why we read so much

Natalya Bailey (1:28:29.540)

because we see the places in our mind

Lex Fridman (1:28:32.540)

and I'm like, it's basically like we're watching a movie.

Natalya Bailey (1:28:36.180)

That's how it feels.

Lex Fridman (1:28:37.020)

And she's like, I prefer watching Frozen with popcorn,

Natalya Bailey (1:28:39.580)

was her response that.

Lex Fridman (1:28:41.980)

Okay, well, you're three.

Natalya Bailey (1:28:43.540)

That's a good point.

Lex Fridman (1:28:45.260)

But yeah, there's some power to the imagination, right?

Natalya Bailey (1:28:47.620)

That's not just like watching a movie

Lex Fridman (1:28:49.460)

because something about our imagination

Natalya Bailey (1:28:53.260)

because it's the words in the world that's painted

Lex Fridman (1:28:56.740)

somehow mixing in with our own understanding

Natalya Bailey (1:29:00.100)

of our own hopes and dreams, our fears.

Lex Fridman (1:29:02.580)

It like mixes up in there

Lex Fridman (1:29:03.820)

and the way we can build up that world from just the page.

Lex Fridman (1:29:07.660)

Yeah, you're really creating the world

Lex Fridman (1:29:10.260)

just with the prompts from the book, right?

Lex Fridman (1:29:13.340)

Yeah, that's different than watching a movie.

Natalya Bailey (1:29:15.900)

Yeah, which is why it hurts sometimes

Lex Fridman (1:29:17.380)

to watch the movie version

Lex Fridman (1:29:19.220)

and then you're like, that's not at all how I imagined it.

Lex Fridman (1:29:23.660)

Well, we kind of brought this up in terms of

Natalya Bailey (1:29:29.140)

depending on what the goals are.

Lex Fridman (1:29:31.700)

Let me ask the big, you're friends with Manolis,

Natalya Bailey (1:29:35.060)

he's obsessed with this question.

Lex Fridman (1:29:36.620)

So let me ask the big ridiculous question

Natalya Bailey (1:29:38.460)

about the meaning of life.

Lex Fridman (1:29:41.820)

Do you ever think about this one?

Lex Fridman (1:29:44.140)

Do you ever ponder the reason we're here?

Lex Fridman (1:29:49.340)

Descends as the vapes on this spinning ball

Lex Fridman (1:29:52.860)

in the middle of nowhere?

Lex Fridman (1:29:54.060)

Yeah, I don't think one ends up

Natalya Bailey (1:29:57.620)

in the field of space propulsion

Lex Fridman (1:29:59.820)

without thinking of these existential questions.

Natalya Bailey (1:30:04.460)

Yeah, all the time.

Lex Fridman (1:30:05.780)

Or builds a business.

Lex Fridman (1:30:07.220)

Yeah, I know, right?

Lex Fridman (1:30:09.540)

Yeah, we've touched on a lot of the different pieces

Natalya Bailey (1:30:12.900)

of this, I think.

Lex Fridman (1:30:13.820)

So I have a bunch of thoughts.

Natalya Bailey (1:30:18.860)

I do think that the goal isn't,

Lex Fridman (1:30:23.260)

the meaning isn't anymore just to be like a Petri dish

Natalya Bailey (1:30:28.260)

of bacteria that reproduces

Lex Fridman (1:30:31.060)

and where survival and reproduction are the main objectives.

Lex Fridman (1:30:36.660)

And maybe it's because now we're able to answer these,

Lex Fridman (1:30:40.460)

ask those questions.

Natalya Bailey (1:30:42.500)

That's maybe the turning point.

Lex Fridman (1:30:45.900)

And instead, I think it's really the pursuit

Lex Fridman (1:30:49.540)

and generation of knowledge.

Lex Fridman (1:30:52.060)

And so if we're taken out by an asteroid or something,

Natalya Bailey (1:30:56.860)

I think that it will have been a meaningful endeavor

Lex Fridman (1:31:03.660)

if somehow our knowledge about the universe

Natalya Bailey (1:31:06.860)

is preserved somehow and the next civilization

Lex Fridman (1:31:12.620)

isn't starting over again.

Lex Fridman (1:31:16.340)

So that's, I always, yeah, I resonate with that.

Lex Fridman (1:31:21.860)

I always loved the mission of Google from the early days

Natalya Bailey (1:31:25.300)

of making the world's sort of information

Lex Fridman (1:31:28.660)

and knowledge searchable.

Natalya Bailey (1:31:30.660)

I always loved that idea.

Lex Fridman (1:31:31.700)

I always loved, I was donated as people should to Wikipedia.

Natalya Bailey (1:31:37.020)

I just love Wikipedia.

Lex Fridman (1:31:38.500)

I feel like it's the, that's one of the greatest

Natalya Bailey (1:31:43.340)

accomplishments of just a humanity of us together,

Lex Fridman (1:31:46.340)

especially Wikipedia and this opens like

Natalya Bailey (1:31:48.620)

in this open community way,

Lex Fridman (1:31:50.140)

putting together different knowledge is like,

Natalya Bailey (1:31:52.620)

on everything we've talked about today,

Lex Fridman (1:31:53.940)

I'm sure there's a Wikipedia page about ion engines

Lex Fridman (1:31:57.540)

and I'm sure it's pretty good.

Lex Fridman (1:31:59.500)

Like, it's, I don't know, that's incredible.

Lex Fridman (1:32:02.420)

And obviously that can be preserved pretty efficiently,

Lex Fridman (1:32:05.180)

at least Wikipedia.

Natalya Bailey (1:32:06.540)

I don't know, you'll be like, human civilization

Lex Fridman (1:32:09.260)

is all like burning up in flames

Natalya Bailey (1:32:11.500)

as there's this one USB drive slowly traveling out.

Lex Fridman (1:32:14.300)

Yeah, I know, exactly.

Natalya Bailey (1:32:15.140)

With Wikipedia on it.

Lex Fridman (1:32:16.420)

Yep.

Natalya Bailey (1:32:17.700)

That's on, from the beginning of our chat,

Lex Fridman (1:32:20.460)

that one lonely spacecraft.

Natalya Bailey (1:32:22.420)

It just needs Wikipedia.

Lex Fridman (1:32:24.940)

And then it will have been a civilization well spent.

Lex Fridman (1:32:28.700)

So pushing that knowledge along.

Lex Fridman (1:32:30.900)

Yeah.

Natalya Bailey (1:32:31.740)

Through like one little discovery at a time

Lex Fridman (1:32:35.060)

is one of, is a core aspect to the meaning of it all.

Natalya Bailey (1:32:39.100)

Yes, and I also, I haven't yet figured out

Lex Fridman (1:32:42.860)

what the connection, you know, an explanation

Natalya Bailey (1:32:46.740)

I'm happy with yet for how it's connected,

Lex Fridman (1:32:48.940)

but evolving beyond just the survival piece too,

Natalya Bailey (1:32:55.300)

I think like we touched on the emotional aspect,

Lex Fridman (1:32:59.460)

something in there about cooperation and, you know, love.

Lex Fridman (1:33:04.180)

And so I, in my day to day that just boils down to,

Lex Fridman (1:33:08.900)

you know, the pursuit of knowledge

Natalya Bailey (1:33:11.340)

or improving the human condition and being kind.

Lex Fridman (1:33:16.500)

Love and knowledge.

Natalya Bailey (1:33:18.140)

Yeah, exactly.

Lex Fridman (1:33:19.860)

So I'm pretty at peace with that as the meaning right now.

Natalya Bailey (1:33:23.740)

Makes sense to me.

Lex Fridman (1:33:24.580)

While you work on spacecraft propulsion.

Natalya Bailey (1:33:27.980)

Yes, exactly.

Lex Fridman (1:33:29.820)

Like literal rocket science.

Natalya Bailey (1:33:32.100)

Natalia, this is an amazing conversation.

Lex Fridman (1:33:34.100)

You work on such an exciting engineering field.

Lex Fridman (1:33:36.740)

And I think this is like what 20th, 21st century

Lex Fridman (1:33:40.860)

will be remembered for is space exploration.

Lex Fridman (1:33:43.140)

So this is super exciting space that you're working on.

Lex Fridman (1:33:46.820)

So, and thank you so much

Natalya Bailey (1:33:48.860)

for spending your time with me today.

Lex Fridman (1:33:50.940)

Thanks for having me.

Natalya Bailey (1:33:51.940)

This was fun.

Lex Fridman (1:33:53.620)

Thanks for listening to this conversation

Natalya Bailey (1:33:55.300)

with Natalia Bailey.

Lex Fridman (1:33:56.540)

And thank you to our sponsors,

Natalya Bailey (1:33:58.420)

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Lex Fridman (1:34:00.580)

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and Sun Basket, meal delivery service.

Lex Fridman (1:34:08.300)

So the choice is snacks, caffeine, knowledge,

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Natalya Bailey (1:34:13.180)

Choose wisely, my friends.

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And if you wish, click the sponsor links below

Natalya Bailey (1:34:16.900)

to get a discount and to support this podcast.

Lex Fridman (1:34:20.500)

And now let me leave you with some words

Natalya Bailey (1:34:22.620)

from Carl Sagan.

Lex Fridman (1:34:24.300)

All civilizations become either space faring or extinct.

Natalya Bailey (1:34:28.860)

Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.

Lex Fridman (20:00.640)

And really the kind of what people care about there

Natalya Bailey (20:04.760)

is making it more fuel efficient.

Lex Fridman (20:07.760)

So the chemical stuff, you can get a lot

Natalya Bailey (20:11.660)

of instantaneous thrusts, but it's not very fuel efficient.

Lex Fridman (20:15.360)

It's much more fuel efficient to go

Natalya Bailey (20:16.880)

with the electric type of propulsion.

Lex Fridman (20:19.980)

So that's where people spend a lot of their time

Natalya Bailey (20:23.260)

is trying to make that more efficient in terms

Lex Fridman (20:25.280)

of thrust per unit of fuel.

Lex Fridman (20:28.320)

And then there's always considerations

Lex Fridman (20:31.860)

like heating and cooling.

Natalya Bailey (20:33.700)

It's very hot, which is good if it heats the gases,

Lex Fridman (20:36.360)

but bad if it melts the rocket and things like that.

Lex Fridman (20:40.680)

So there's always a lot of work on heating

Lex Fridman (20:42.080)

and cooling and the engine cycles and things like that.

Lex Fridman (20:46.520)

And then on electric propulsion,

Lex Fridman (20:48.680)

I find it like much more refreshingly poorly understood.

Natalya Bailey (20:56.040)

Lots more mysteries.

Lex Fridman (20:57.240)

Yeah, I think so.

Natalya Bailey (20:58.800)

One of the classes I took in college,

Lex Fridman (21:03.080)

we spent 90% of the class on chemical propulsion

Lex Fridman (21:06.120)

and then the last 10% on electric.

Lex Fridman (21:07.920)

And the professor said like,

Natalya Bailey (21:09.520)

we only sort of understand how it works,

Lex Fridman (21:12.280)

but it works kind of.

Lex Fridman (21:13.880)

And it's like, that's interesting.

Lex Fridman (21:16.880)

Yeah, and even an ion engine,

Natalya Bailey (21:20.120)

which is probably one of the most straightforward

Lex Fridman (21:22.800)

because it's just an electrostatic engine,

Lex Fridman (21:27.500)

but it has this really awesome combination

Lex Fridman (21:29.900)

of like quantum mechanics and material science

Lex Fridman (21:34.160)

and fluid dynamics and electrostatics.

Lex Fridman (21:38.560)

And it's just very intriguing to me.

Lex Fridman (21:42.440)

First of all, can you actually zoom out even more?

Lex Fridman (21:44.760)

Like, cause you mentioned ion propulsion engine

Natalya Bailey (21:47.960)

is a subset of electric.

Lex Fridman (21:51.040)

So like maybe, is there a categories of electric engines

Lex Fridman (21:53.520)

and then we can zoom in on ion propulsion?

Lex Fridman (21:55.760)

Yes, so sure.

Natalya Bailey (21:57.720)

There's the two most kind of conventional types

Lex Fridman (22:01.520)

that have been around since the sixties

Natalya Bailey (22:03.680)

are ion engines and hall thrusters.

Lex Fridman (22:06.800)

And ion engines are a little bit simpler

Natalya Bailey (22:08.840)

because they don't use a magnetic field

Lex Fridman (22:11.480)

for generating thrust.

Lex Fridman (22:12.880)

And then there are also some other types of plasma engines,

Lex Fridman (22:20.000)

but that don't fit into those two categories.

Lex Fridman (22:21.960)

So just kind of other plasma,

Lex Fridman (22:23.640)

like a VASMIR engine, which we could get into.

Lex Fridman (22:28.640)

And then those are probably the main three categories

Lex Fridman (22:32.640)

that would be fun to talk about.

Natalya Bailey (22:33.800)

Oh, and then of course, the category of engine

Lex Fridman (22:36.480)

that I work on, which has a lot of similarities

Natalya Bailey (22:39.400)

to an ion engine, but could be considered its own class

Lex Fridman (22:42.600)

called a colloid thruster.

Natalya Bailey (22:44.560)

Colloid, cool.

Lex Fridman (22:45.560)

Okay, so what is an ion propulsion, I imagine?

Natalya Bailey (22:48.960)

Okay, so in an ion engine, you have an ionization chamber

Lex Fridman (22:54.320)

and you inject the propellant into that chamber.

Lex Fridman (22:57.640)

And this is usually a neutral gas like xenon or argon.

Lex Fridman (23:03.640)

So you inject that into the chamber

Lex Fridman (23:05.000)

and you also inject a stream of really high energy electrons

Lex Fridman (23:10.000)

and everything's just moving around very randomly in there.

Lex Fridman (23:16.680)

And the whole goal is to have one of those electrons

Lex Fridman (23:21.320)

collide with one of those neutral atoms

Lex Fridman (23:24.200)

and turn it into an ion.

Lex Fridman (23:26.000)

So kick off a secondary electron and now you have...

Natalya Bailey (23:29.400)

Plasma.

Lex Fridman (23:30.240)

Yes.

Natalya Bailey (23:31.060)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (23:31.900)

And now you have a charged xenon or argon ion

Lex Fridman (23:36.900)

and more electrons and so on.

Lex Fridman (23:39.020)

And then some fraction of those ions will happen

Natalya Bailey (23:44.020)

to make it to this downstream electric field

Lex Fridman (23:47.620)

that we set up between two grids with holes in them.

Lex Fridman (23:50.860)

And in terms of area, the same amount of those ions

Lex Fridman (23:55.220)

also runs into the walls and lose their charge

Lex Fridman (23:58.740)

and that's where some of the inefficiencies come in.

Lex Fridman (24:01.420)

But the very lucky few make it to the downstream

Lex Fridman (24:05.420)

and the very lucky few make it to those holes in that grid

Lex Fridman (24:09.540)

and there are two grids actually

Lex Fridman (24:11.740)

and you apply a voltage differential between them

Lex Fridman (24:14.980)

and that sets up an electric field.

Lex Fridman (24:17.700)

And a charged particle in an electric field

Lex Fridman (24:20.580)

creates a force.

Lex Fridman (24:21.780)

And so those ions are accelerated out the back of the engine

Lex Fridman (24:25.460)

and the reaction force is what pushes the spacecraft forward.

Natalya Bailey (24:30.460)

If you're following along and tallying these charges,

Lex Fridman (24:35.540)

now we've just sent a positive beam of ions

Natalya Bailey (24:39.740)

out the back of the spacecraft and for our purposes here,

Lex Fridman (24:44.020)

the spacecraft is neutral.

Lex Fridman (24:45.700)

So eventually those ions will come back

Lex Fridman (24:48.980)

and hit the spacecraft because it's a positive beam.

Lex Fridman (24:51.560)

So you also have to have an external cathode producer

Lex Fridman (24:56.300)

of electrons outside the engine

Natalya Bailey (24:58.820)

that pumps electrons into that beam and neutralizes that.

Lex Fridman (25:02.300)

So now it's net neutral everywhere

Lex Fridman (25:03.980)

and it won't come back to the spacecraft.

Lex Fridman (25:05.300)

So that's an ion engine.

Lex Fridman (25:07.780)

What temperature are we talking about here?

Lex Fridman (25:09.780)

So in terms of like the chemical based engines,

Natalya Bailey (25:13.060)

those are super hot.

Lex Fridman (25:14.860)

You mentioned plasma here.

Lex Fridman (25:16.740)

How hot does this thing get?

Lex Fridman (25:20.020)

I mean, is that an interesting thing to talk about

Natalya Bailey (25:22.140)

in a sense that is that an interesting distinction

Lex Fridman (25:25.260)

or is the heat, I mean, it's all gonna be hot.

Natalya Bailey (25:28.300)

No, so it's important especially

Lex Fridman (25:31.020)

for some of these smaller satellites

Natalya Bailey (25:32.820)

people are into launching these days.

Lex Fridman (25:35.300)

So it's important because you have the plasma

Lex Fridman (25:39.260)

but also those high energy electrons are hot

Lex Fridman (25:42.380)

and if you have a lot of those that are going into the walls

Natalya Bailey (25:46.620)

you do have to care about the temperature.

Lex Fridman (25:48.200)

So I'm having trouble remembering off the top of my head.

Natalya Bailey (25:52.540)

I think they're at like a hundred electron volts

Lex Fridman (25:54.960)

in terms of the electron energy

Lex Fridman (25:56.820)

and then I'd have to remember how to convert that

Lex Fridman (25:59.620)

into Kelvin.

Lex Fridman (26:00.700)

Can you stick your hand in it?

Lex Fridman (26:02.620)

Not move the temperature.

Natalya Bailey (26:03.660)

Not recommended, yeah.

Lex Fridman (26:05.660)

So what's a colloid engine?

Lex Fridman (26:07.700)

So the same rocket people that came up with these ideas

Lex Fridman (26:16.180)

for electric propulsion probably in the middle

Natalya Bailey (26:19.540)

of last century also realized that there's one more place

Lex Fridman (26:24.540)

to get charged particles from if you're going

Natalya Bailey (26:28.940)

to be using electric propulsion.

Lex Fridman (26:30.340)

So you can take a gas and you can ionize it

Lex Fridman (26:33.220)

but there are also some liquids particularly ionic liquids

Lex Fridman (26:37.500)

which is what we use that you also can use

Natalya Bailey (26:41.020)

as a source of ions and if you have ions

Lex Fridman (26:43.740)

and you put them in a field you generate a force.

Lex Fridman (26:45.580)

So they recognize that but part of being able

Lex Fridman (26:51.220)

to leverage that technique is being able

Natalya Bailey (26:53.380)

to kind of manipulate those liquids on a scale

Lex Fridman (26:57.340)

of nanometers or very few microns.

Lex Fridman (27:01.260)

So the diameter of a human hair or something like that

Lex Fridman (27:05.320)

and in the 50s there was no way to do that.

Lex Fridman (27:08.660)

So they wrote about it in some books

Lex Fridman (27:10.500)

and then it kind of died for a little bit

Lex Fridman (27:12.900)

and then with silicon mems, computer processors

Lex Fridman (27:17.940)

and when foundry started becoming more ubiquitous

Lex Fridman (27:21.460)

and my advisor started at MIT kind of put those ideas

Lex Fridman (27:28.340)

back together and was like, hey actually there's now a way

Natalya Bailey (27:31.680)

to build this and bring this other technique to life.

Lex Fridman (27:36.160)

And so the way that you actually get the ions

Natalya Bailey (27:40.880)

out of those liquids is you put the liquid

Lex Fridman (27:43.980)

in again a strong electric field

Lex Fridman (27:47.220)

and the electric field stresses the liquid

Lex Fridman (27:50.220)

and you keep increasing the field

Lex Fridman (27:51.800)

and eventually the liquid will assume a conical shape.

Lex Fridman (27:57.060)

It's when the electric field pressure that's pulling on it

Natalya Bailey (28:01.200)

exactly balances the liquid's own restoring force

Lex Fridman (28:04.740)

which is its surface tension.

Lex Fridman (28:06.900)

So you have this balance and the liquid assumes a cone

Lex Fridman (28:10.080)

when it's perfectly balanced like that

Lex Fridman (28:12.400)

and at the tip of a cone the radius of curvature

Lex Fridman (28:16.340)

goes to zero right at the tip

Lex Fridman (28:18.500)

and the electric field right at the tip of a sharp object

Lex Fridman (28:24.540)

would go to infinity because it goes as one over the radius

Lex Fridman (28:31.200)

and one over the radius squared

Lex Fridman (28:33.180)

and instead of the electric field going to infinity

Lex Fridman (28:37.420)

and maybe like generating a wormhole or something,

Lex Fridman (28:40.940)

a jet of ions instead starts issuing

Natalya Bailey (28:44.260)

from the tip of that liquid.

Lex Fridman (28:46.220)

So the field becomes strong enough there

Natalya Bailey (28:47.740)

that you can pull ions out of the liquid.

Lex Fridman (28:50.460)

What is the liquid?

Natalya Bailey (28:51.620)

We're talking about, there's a bunch of different ones.

Lex Fridman (28:54.580)

You can do it with different types of liquids.

Natalya Bailey (28:58.460)

It depends on how easily you can free ions

Lex Fridman (29:02.020)

from their neighbors and if it has enough surface tension

Lex Fridman (29:06.480)

so that you can build up a high enough electric field

Lex Fridman (29:09.040)

but what we use are called ionic liquids

Lex Fridman (29:12.340)

and they're really just positive.

Lex Fridman (29:13.960)

They're very similar to salts but they happen to be liquid

Natalya Bailey (29:17.100)

over a really wide range of temperatures.

Lex Fridman (29:19.380)

This sounds like really cool.

Lex Fridman (29:21.540)

Okay, so how big is the cone we're talking about?

Lex Fridman (29:25.140)

What's the size of this cone that generates the ions?

Lex Fridman (29:27.620)

So if you have a cone that's emitting pure ions,

Lex Fridman (29:33.100)

I can't remember if it's the radius or diameter

Lex Fridman (29:35.100)

but that emission is happening from,

Lex Fridman (29:39.140)

of that cone is something like 20 nanometers.

Natalya Bailey (29:41.820)

Oh, I was imagining something slightly bigger

Lex Fridman (29:45.340)

but so like this is tiny, tiny.

Natalya Bailey (29:49.220)

Hence the only being able to do it recently.

Lex Fridman (29:52.100)

Yeah, that's right.

Lex Fridman (29:52.940)

So this is all controlled by a computer, I guess.

Lex Fridman (29:55.700)

Like, or like, how do you create a cone

Lex Fridman (30:00.460)

that generates ions at a scale of nanometers exactly?

Lex Fridman (30:04.020)

So the kind of main trick to making this work

Natalya Bailey (30:08.460)

is that physically we manufacture hundreds

Lex Fridman (30:12.620)

or thousands of sharp structures and then supply the liquid

Natalya Bailey (30:16.320)

to the tips.

Lex Fridman (30:17.160)

So that does a few things.

Natalya Bailey (30:20.220)

It makes sure that we know where the ion beams are forming.

Lex Fridman (30:23.020)

So we can put holes in the grid above them

Lex Fridman (30:25.260)

to let them actually leave instead of hitting, right?

Lex Fridman (30:27.940)

Cool.

Lex Fridman (30:29.380)

But it also reduces the actual field we have,

Lex Fridman (30:32.980)

the voltage we have to apply to create that field

Natalya Bailey (30:35.280)

because the field will be much stronger

Lex Fridman (30:36.780)

if we can already give the liquid a tip to form on.

Lex Fridman (30:41.780)

And those tips we form have radii of curvature

Lex Fridman (30:46.380)

on the order of probably like single microns.

Lex Fridman (30:50.900)

So we are working at a little bit larger scale

Lex Fridman (30:53.440)

but once we create that support

Lex Fridman (30:55.660)

and the electric field can be focused at that tip,

Lex Fridman (30:57.940)

then the tiny little cone can form on top of that.

Lex Fridman (31:00.100)

So wait, so there's something in them,

Lex Fridman (31:01.980)

there's already like a hard material

Natalya Bailey (31:04.680)

that like gives you the base for the cone

Lex Fridman (31:07.140)

and then you're pouring like liquid over it,

Natalya Bailey (31:08.700)

whatever the heck. From the bottom, yeah.

Lex Fridman (31:10.140)

It's porous, so we actually supply it

Natalya Bailey (31:12.020)

from the back of the chip and then it wicks.

Lex Fridman (31:13.540)

And then liquid forms on top on that structure.

Lex Fridman (31:17.020)

And then you somehow make it like super sharp, the liquid,

Lex Fridman (31:20.540)

so the ions can leave.

Lex Fridman (31:24.860)

And then we've applied that field to get those ions

Lex Fridman (31:28.500)

and that same field then accelerates them.

Lex Fridman (31:31.620)

That's awesome. And there's like a bunch of these?

Lex Fridman (31:33.940)

Yeah, I should have brought something.

Lex Fridman (31:37.460)

So we...

Lex Fridman (31:38.740)

You could just pretend that you have some nanometer cones

Natalya Bailey (31:41.260)

on a table here.

Lex Fridman (31:42.100)

So actually, you know, kind of about this scale,

Natalya Bailey (31:44.980)

we build, we call them thruster chips

Lex Fridman (31:47.620)

and it's just a convenient form factor

Lex Fridman (31:49.980)

and it's a square centimeter.

Lex Fridman (31:51.820)

And on each square centimeter today,

Natalya Bailey (31:53.740)

we have about 500 of the actual physical,

Lex Fridman (31:56.700)

we call them emitters, those physical cones.

Lex Fridman (32:00.500)

And we're working on increasing that by a factor of four

Lex Fridman (32:04.500)

in the coming months.

Lex Fridman (32:05.660)

In size or in the density?

Lex Fridman (32:07.260)

In number, in the density, the number of emitters

Natalya Bailey (32:10.340)

within the same square centimeter chip.

Lex Fridman (32:12.300)

So that thing, cause I think I've seen pictures of you

Natalya Bailey (32:14.380)

with like a tiny thing in your hand.

Lex Fridman (32:15.820)

That must be the...

Natalya Bailey (32:17.300)

Okay, so that's an engine.

Lex Fridman (32:19.860)

So that is kind of the ionization chamber

Lex Fridman (32:24.380)

and thrust producing part of it.

Lex Fridman (32:26.100)

What's not shown, you know, in that picture

Natalya Bailey (32:29.860)

is the propellant tank.

Lex Fridman (32:31.740)

So we can keep supplying more and more of the liquid

Natalya Bailey (32:34.380)

to those emission sites.

Lex Fridman (32:36.740)

And then we also provide a power electronic system

Natalya Bailey (32:40.540)

that talks to the spacecraft

Lex Fridman (32:41.820)

and turns our device on and off.

Lex Fridman (32:43.820)

So that's the colloid engine.

Lex Fridman (32:45.740)

That's the core of the colloid engine.

Natalya Bailey (32:47.620)

It's, the way I've been talking about it,

Lex Fridman (32:50.380)

it's more of ion electrospray colloid

Natalya Bailey (32:55.580)

tends to mean like liquid droplets coming off of the jet.

Lex Fridman (33:00.500)

But if you make smaller and smaller cones,

Natalya Bailey (33:03.380)

you get pure ions.

Lex Fridman (33:04.820)

So we're kind of like a subset of colloid, yes.

Lex Fridman (33:07.460)

What aspects of this, you said that it's been full

Lex Fridman (33:10.700)

of mysteries from the physics perspective.

Lex Fridman (33:13.260)

What aspects of this are understood

Lex Fridman (33:15.820)

and what are still full of mystery?

Natalya Bailey (33:19.660)

Yeah, recently we've been understanding

Lex Fridman (33:24.740)

the kind of instabilities and stable regimes of,

Natalya Bailey (33:30.660)

you know, how much liquid do you supply

Lex Fridman (33:32.660)

and what field do you apply?

Lex Fridman (33:34.540)

And why is it flickering on and off?

Lex Fridman (33:37.980)

Or why does it have these weird behaviors?

Lex Fridman (33:39.780)

So that's, in the past just couple of years,

Lex Fridman (33:41.940)

that's become much more understood.

Natalya Bailey (33:47.100)

I think the two areas that come to mind

Lex Fridman (33:49.260)

as far as not as well understood are

Natalya Bailey (33:54.660)

the boundary between, you know, you have,

Lex Fridman (33:58.660)

we actually use kind of big molecular ions.

Lex Fridman (34:03.060)

And if you're looking at the molecular scale,

Lex Fridman (34:07.700)

you have, you know, some ions that you've extracted

Lex Fridman (34:10.460)

and they're in this electric field.

Lex Fridman (34:12.820)

One ion, you know, it's a big molecule,

Natalya Bailey (34:16.180)

it's getting energy from the electric field.

Lex Fridman (34:19.220)

And some of that energy is going into the bonds

Lex Fridman (34:21.780)

and making it vibrate and doing weird things to it.

Lex Fridman (34:24.260)

Sometimes it breaks them apart.

Lex Fridman (34:26.460)

And then zooming out to the whole beam,

Lex Fridman (34:30.460)

the beam has some behaviors as this beam of ions.

Lex Fridman (34:34.740)

And there's a big gap between what are those,

Lex Fridman (34:38.100)

how do you connect those?

Lex Fridman (34:40.540)

And how do we understand that better

Lex Fridman (34:42.260)

so that we can understand the beam performance

Lex Fridman (34:44.460)

of the engine?

Lex Fridman (34:45.780)

Is that a theory question or is it an engineering question?

Natalya Bailey (34:48.740)

Theory, definitely.

Lex Fridman (34:50.140)

We're, Axion is a startup and we're more in the business

Natalya Bailey (34:54.380)

of building and testing and observing and characterizing.

Lex Fridman (34:59.380)

And we're not really diving much into that theory right now.

Natalya Bailey (35:03.060)

Okay, zooming out a little bit on the physics,

Lex Fridman (35:06.300)

apologize for the way too big of a question,

Lex Fridman (35:08.300)

but to you from either, you mentioned Axion is,

Lex Fridman (35:13.700)

you know, more of sort of an engineering endeavor, right?

Lex Fridman (35:16.740)

But from a perspective of physics in general,

Lex Fridman (35:19.740)

science in general, or the side of engineering,

Lex Fridman (35:22.500)

what do you think is the most, to you,

Lex Fridman (35:24.700)

like beautiful and captivating

Lex Fridman (35:26.980)

and inspiring idea in this space?

Lex Fridman (35:30.620)

In this space, and then I'm gonna zoom out

Natalya Bailey (35:33.420)

a little bit more, but in this space,

Lex Fridman (35:35.660)

I keep butting up against material science questions.

Lex Fridman (35:41.780)

So I, over the past 10 years,

Lex Fridman (35:45.020)

I feel like every problem or interesting thing

Natalya Bailey (35:49.660)

I want to work on, if you dig deep enough,

Lex Fridman (35:52.460)

you end up in material science land,

Natalya Bailey (35:55.380)

which I find kind of exciting

Lex Fridman (35:57.860)

and it makes me want to dig in more there.

Lex Fridman (36:00.740)

And I was just, you know, even for our technology,

Lex Fridman (36:06.340)

when we have to move the propellant from the tank

Natalya Bailey (36:09.140)

to the tip of the emitters, we rely a lot on capillary action

Lex Fridman (36:12.820)

and you're getting into wetting and surface energies.

Natalya Bailey (36:15.980)

At a scale of like nano scale.

Lex Fridman (36:17.900)

Yeah, I mean, it's, if you look further, it's quantum too,

Lex Fridman (36:22.180)

but it all is, you know,

Lex Fridman (36:25.220)

a capillary action at the quantum level.

Natalya Bailey (36:27.860)

Yeah, so I would, it all comes back to me to, you know,

Lex Fridman (36:32.780)

material science, there's so much we don't understand

Natalya Bailey (36:35.420)

at these sizes and I find that inspiring and exciting.

Lex Fridman (36:43.340)

And then more broadly, you know,

Natalya Bailey (36:45.980)

I remember when I learned that the same equation

Lex Fridman (36:49.980)

that describes flow over an airfoil

Natalya Bailey (36:53.740)

is used to price options, the Black Scholes equation,

Lex Fridman (36:57.420)

and it's, you know, just a partial differential equation,

Lex Fridman (37:01.420)

but that kind of connectedness of the universe,

Lex Fridman (37:06.500)

you know, I don't want to use options pricing

Lex Fridman (37:09.300)

and the universe in the same, but you know what I mean,

Lex Fridman (37:11.540)

this connectedness I find really magical.

Natalya Bailey (37:15.300)

Yeah, the patterns that mathematics reveals

Lex Fridman (37:17.820)

seems to echo in a bunch of different places.

Natalya Bailey (37:20.340)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (37:21.180)

Yeah, there's just weirdness.

Natalya Bailey (37:22.260)

It's like, it really makes you think,

Lex Fridman (37:25.060)

I think you're definitely living in a simulation,

Natalya Bailey (37:27.260)

like whoever programmed it.

Lex Fridman (37:29.020)

I like that that's your conclusion.

Natalya Bailey (37:30.380)

Is using like shortcuts to program it,

Lex Fridman (37:34.340)

like they didn't, they're just copying and pasting some codes

Natalya Bailey (37:36.940)

for the different parts.

Lex Fridman (37:38.180)

Yeah, think of something new or just paste from over there.

Natalya Bailey (37:41.540)

They won't notice.

Lex Fridman (37:42.780)

My conclusion from that was I'm gonna go interview

Natalya Bailey (37:45.780)

for a finance job, so I had like a little detour.

Lex Fridman (37:49.540)

That's the backup option.

Lex Fridman (37:51.700)

So in terms of using call it engines,

Lex Fridman (37:56.020)

what's an interesting difference between a propulsion

Natalya Bailey (37:59.260)

of a rocket from earth when you're standing

Lex Fridman (38:02.340)

on the ground to orbit and then the kind of propulsion

Natalya Bailey (38:06.100)

necessary for once you get out to orbit

Lex Fridman (38:08.420)

or to like deep space to move around.

Natalya Bailey (38:13.980)

Yes, the reason you can't use an engine like mine

Lex Fridman (38:18.980)

to get off the ground is, the thrust it generates

Natalya Bailey (38:24.500)

is instantaneous thrust is very small,

Lex Fridman (38:27.180)

but if you have the time and can accumulate

Natalya Bailey (38:31.380)

that acceleration, you can still reach speeds

Lex Fridman (38:33.780)

that are very interesting for exploration

Lex Fridman (38:37.140)

and even for missions with humans on them.

Lex Fridman (38:41.540)

An interesting direction I think we need to go

Natalya Bailey (38:45.860)

as humans exploring space is the power supplies

Lex Fridman (38:51.820)

for electric propulsion are limiting us

Natalya Bailey (38:55.140)

in that solar panels are really inefficient

Lex Fridman (38:58.940)

and bulky and batteries.

Natalya Bailey (39:01.060)

I don't know when anybody's ever gonna improve

Lex Fridman (39:04.420)

battery technology.

Natalya Bailey (39:05.860)

I know a lot of people that work on that.

Lex Fridman (39:09.180)

And nuclear power, we could have a lot more powerful

Natalya Bailey (39:14.420)

electric propulsion system.

Lex Fridman (39:15.660)

So they would be extremely fuel efficient,

Lex Fridman (39:17.940)

but more instantaneous thrust to do more interesting

Lex Fridman (39:20.940)

missions if we could start launching more nuclear systems.

Lex Fridman (39:25.260)

So like something that's powered, nuclear powered,

Lex Fridman (39:29.660)

that's the right way to say it.

Natalya Bailey (39:31.420)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (39:32.720)

But is in a small enough container that could be launched?

Natalya Bailey (39:36.420)

Yeah, so I mean, as a world we do launch spacecraft

Lex Fridman (39:42.100)

with nuclear power systems on board,

Lex Fridman (39:45.180)

but size is one consideration.

Lex Fridman (39:47.780)

It hasn't been a big focus.

Lex Fridman (39:49.140)

So the reactors and the heaters and everything are bulky.

Lex Fridman (39:53.940)

And so they're really only suitable for some

Natalya Bailey (39:56.300)

of the much bigger interplanetary stuff.

Lex Fridman (39:59.900)

So that's one issue, but then it's a whole like rat's nest

Natalya Bailey (40:03.340)

of political stuff as well.

Lex Fridman (40:06.340)

I heard, I think Elon described or somebody,

Natalya Bailey (40:10.180)

I think it was Elon that described the EV to all

Lex Fridman (40:13.300)

like electrical, vertical takeoff and landing vehicles.

Lex Fridman (40:17.700)

So basically saying rockets, obviously Elon is interested

Lex Fridman (40:21.220)

in electric vehicles, right?

Lex Fridman (40:22.580)

But he said that rockets can't, in the near term,

Lex Fridman (40:27.940)

it doesn't make sense for them to be electrical.

Natalya Bailey (40:32.540)

What, do you see a world with the rockets that we use

Lex Fridman (40:36.020)

to get into orbit are also electric based?

Natalya Bailey (40:39.500)

It's possible, you can produce the thrust levels you need,

Lex Fridman (40:43.660)

but you need this, a much bigger power supply.

Lex Fridman (40:46.940)

And I think that would be nuclear.

Lex Fridman (40:49.180)

And the only way people have been able to launch them at all

Natalya Bailey (40:52.380)

is that they're in a 100 times redundancy safe mode

Lex Fridman (40:57.020)

while they're being launched and they're not turned on

Natalya Bailey (40:59.060)

until they're farther off.

Lex Fridman (41:00.620)

So if you were to actually try to use it on launch,

Natalya Bailey (41:04.020)

I think a lot of people would still have an issue with that,

Lex Fridman (41:06.680)

but someday.

Natalya Bailey (41:08.180)

It's an interesting concept, nuclear.

Lex Fridman (41:11.020)

It seems like people, like everybody that works

Natalya Bailey (41:13.420)

on nuclear power has shown how safe it is

Lex Fridman (41:16.740)

as a source of energy.

Lex Fridman (41:18.380)

And yet we are, seem to be, I mean, based on the history,

Lex Fridman (41:23.740)

based on the excellent HBO series,

Natalya Bailey (41:26.180)

I'm Russian with a Chernobyl.

Lex Fridman (41:28.220)

It seems like we have our risk estimation

Natalya Bailey (41:31.220)

about this particular power source is drastically inaccurate,

Lex Fridman (41:35.580)

but that's a fascinating idea that we would use nuclear

Natalya Bailey (41:39.660)

as a source for our vehicles and not just in outer space.

Lex Fridman (41:44.220)

That's cool.

Natalya Bailey (41:45.060)

I'm gonna have to look into that.

Lex Fridman (41:45.980)

That's super interesting.

Natalya Bailey (41:47.000)

Well, just last year, Trump eased up a little bit

Lex Fridman (41:50.980)

on the regulations and NASA and hopefully others

Natalya Bailey (41:55.140)

are starting to pick up on the development.

Lex Fridman (41:57.860)

So now is a good time to look into it

Natalya Bailey (42:00.260)

because there's actually some movement.

Lex Fridman (42:02.340)

Is that a hope for you to explore different energy sources

Natalya Bailey (42:05.660)

that the entirety of the vehicle uses something

Lex Fridman (42:09.180)

like the entirety of the propulsion systems

Natalya Bailey (42:13.060)

for all aspects of the vehicle's life travel

Lex Fridman (42:16.980)

is the same or electric?

Lex Fridman (42:19.000)

Is it possible for it to be the same?

Lex Fridman (42:20.460)

Like the colloid engine being used for everything?

Natalya Bailey (42:24.340)

You could, and you would have to do it in the same way

Lex Fridman (42:27.440)

we do different stages of rockets now

Natalya Bailey (42:29.580)

where once you've used up an engine or a stage,

Lex Fridman (42:34.820)

you let it go because there's really no point

Natalya Bailey (42:36.740)

in holding onto it.

Lex Fridman (42:37.580)

So I wouldn't necessarily want to use the same engine

Natalya Bailey (42:41.140)

for the whole thing, but the same technology

Lex Fridman (42:42.860)

I think would be interesting.

Natalya Bailey (42:45.060)

Okay, so it's possible.

Lex Fridman (42:46.260)

All right, but in terms of.

Natalya Bailey (42:47.780)

Yeah, it comes down to the power source.

Lex Fridman (42:49.420)

The power source, that's really interesting.

Lex Fridman (42:51.100)

But for the current power sources

Lex Fridman (42:52.540)

and its current use cases, what's the use case

Lex Fridman (42:55.020)

for electric, like the colloid engine?

Lex Fridman (42:58.940)

Can you talk about where they're used today?

Natalya Bailey (43:01.600)

Sure, so chemical engines are still used quite a bit

Lex Fridman (43:06.600)

once you're in orbit, but that's also

Natalya Bailey (43:09.340)

where you might choose instead to use an electric system

Lex Fridman (43:12.500)

and what people do with them.

Lex Fridman (43:15.460)

And this includes the ion engines and hall thrusters

Lex Fridman (43:18.620)

and our engine is basically any maneuvering you need to do

Natalya Bailey (43:22.580)

once you're dropped off.

Lex Fridman (43:24.060)

Even if your only goal was to just stay in your orbit

Lex Fridman (43:30.140)

and not move for the life of your mission,

Lex Fridman (43:32.540)

you need propulsion to accomplish that

Natalya Bailey (43:34.620)

because the Earth's gravity field changes

Lex Fridman (43:38.300)

as you go around in orbit and pulls you

Natalya Bailey (43:40.260)

out of your little box.

Lex Fridman (43:42.580)

There are other perturbations that can throw you off a bit.

Lex Fridman (43:47.940)

And then most people want to do things

Lex Fridman (43:50.740)

a little bit more interesting like maneuver

Natalya Bailey (43:53.460)

to avoid being hit by space debris

Lex Fridman (43:55.940)

or perhaps lower their orbit to take a higher resolution

Natalya Bailey (44:00.280)

image of something and then return.

Lex Fridman (44:02.980)

At the end of your mission, you're supposed

Natalya Bailey (44:06.500)

to responsibly get rid of your satellite,

Lex Fridman (44:09.460)

whether that's burning it up, but if you're in geo,

Natalya Bailey (44:13.560)

you want to push it higher into graveyard orbit.

Lex Fridman (44:17.380)

What's geo and what's graveyard?

Lex Fridman (44:19.340)

So low Earth orbit and then geosynchronous orbit

Lex Fridman (44:21.920)

or geostationary orbit.

Lex Fridman (44:23.220)

And there's a graveyard?

Lex Fridman (44:24.740)

Yeah, so those satellites are at like 40,000 kilometers.

Lex Fridman (44:29.380)

So if they were to try to push their satellites

Lex Fridman (44:33.100)

back down to burn up in the atmosphere,

Natalya Bailey (44:35.460)

they would need even more propulsion

Lex Fridman (44:37.840)

than they've had for the whole lifetime of their mission.

Lex Fridman (44:40.580)

So instead they push them higher

Lex Fridman (44:42.420)

where it'll take a million years

Natalya Bailey (44:44.220)

for it to naturally deorbit.

Lex Fridman (44:46.820)

So we're also cluttering that higher bit up as well,

Lex Fridman (44:50.220)

but it's not as pressing as Leo, which is low Earth orbit

Lex Fridman (44:54.180)

where more of these commercial missions are going now.

Lex Fridman (44:56.340)

Well, so how hard is the collision avoidance problem there?

Lex Fridman (44:59.300)

You said some debris and stuff.

Lex Fridman (45:00.840)

So like how much propulsion is needed?

Lex Fridman (45:03.780)

Like how much is the life of a satellite

Natalya Bailey (45:05.860)

is just like a crap trying to avoid

Lex Fridman (45:08.380)

like little things down there?

Natalya Bailey (45:09.580)

I think one of the recent rules of thumb I heard

Lex Fridman (45:14.620)

was per year some of these small satellites

Natalya Bailey (45:17.520)

are doing like three collision avoidance maneuvers.

Lex Fridman (45:21.860)

So that's not, yeah, but it's not zero.

Lex Fridman (45:25.320)

And it takes a lot of planning and people on the ground

Lex Fridman (45:30.860)

and none of that really, I don't think right now

Natalya Bailey (45:34.700)

is autonomous.

Lex Fridman (45:36.260)

Oh, that's not good.

Natalya Bailey (45:37.620)

Yeah, and then we have a lot of folks

Lex Fridman (45:39.900)

taking advantage of Moore's law and cheaper spacecraft.

Lex Fridman (45:42.980)

So they're launching them up

Lex Fridman (45:44.020)

without the ability to maneuver themselves.

Lex Fridman (45:46.060)

And they're like, well, I don't know, just don't hit me.

Lex Fridman (45:49.140)

And three times a year that could become affordable

Natalya Bailey (45:51.580)

if it gets hit, maybe it won't be damaged kind of thing,

Lex Fridman (45:56.380)

that kind of logic.

Natalya Bailey (45:57.660)

Affordable in that instead of launching one satellite,

Lex Fridman (46:00.940)

they'll launch 20 small ones.

Natalya Bailey (46:02.740)

Yeah, so if one gets taken out, that's okay.

Lex Fridman (46:05.100)

But the problem is that one good sized satellite

Natalya Bailey (46:08.100)

getting hit, that's like a ballistic event

Lex Fridman (46:11.740)

that turns into 10,000 pieces of debris

Natalya Bailey (46:14.080)

that then are the things that go and hit the other satellites.

Lex Fridman (46:17.460)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (46:18.300)

So do you see a world where, like in your sense,

Lex Fridman (46:22.380)

in your own work and just in the space industry in general,

Lex Fridman (46:25.780)

do you see the people moving towards bigger satellites

Lex Fridman (46:28.220)

or smaller satellites?

Lex Fridman (46:29.820)

Is there going to be a mix?

Lex Fridman (46:31.260)

Like what's, and what do we talk,

Lex Fridman (46:32.860)

what does it mean for a satellite to be big and small?

Lex Fridman (46:36.300)

What size are we talking about?

Lex Fridman (46:37.140)

So big, the space industry prior to,

Lex Fridman (46:42.140)

I don't know, 1990, I guess the bulk of,

Natalya Bailey (46:45.660)

the majority of satellites were the size of a school bus

Lex Fridman (46:49.020)

and cost a couple billion dollars.

Lex Fridman (46:53.220)

And now our first launches were on satellites

Lex Fridman (47:00.020)

the size of shoe boxes that were built

Natalya Bailey (47:01.860)

by high school students.

Lex Fridman (47:03.060)

So that's a very different,

Natalya Bailey (47:05.380)

to give you the two ends of the spectrum.

Lex Fridman (47:07.500)

So big satellites will, I think they're here to stay,

Natalya Bailey (47:12.320)

at least as far as I can see into the future

Lex Fridman (47:15.640)

for things like broadcasting.

Natalya Bailey (47:18.700)

You want to be able to broadcast

Lex Fridman (47:21.720)

to as many people as possible.

Natalya Bailey (47:25.920)

You also can't just go to small satellites

Lex Fridman (47:28.840)

and say Moore's law for things like optics.

Lex Fridman (47:32.040)

So if you have an aperture on your satellite,

Lex Fridman (47:34.680)

that just, that doesn't follow Moore's law.

Natalya Bailey (47:36.640)

That's different.

Lex Fridman (47:37.800)

So it's always going to be the size that it will be,

Natalya Bailey (47:40.560)

unless there's some new physics that comes out

Lex Fridman (47:43.120)

that I'm not aware of.

Lex Fridman (47:44.320)

But if you need a resolution and you're at an altitude,

Lex Fridman (47:46.640)

that kind of sets your, the size of your telescope.

Lex Fridman (47:50.320)

But because of Moore's law,

Lex Fridman (47:52.800)

we are able to do a lot more with smaller packages.

Lex Fridman (47:56.840)

And with that comes more affordability

Lex Fridman (48:00.320)

and opening up access to space to more and more people.

Lex Fridman (48:03.800)

Well, what's the smallest satellite you've seen go up there?

Lex Fridman (48:06.280)

Like what are the smallest kind of, you said shoe boxes.

Natalya Bailey (48:09.360)

Yeah, so I think the smallest common form factor

Lex Fridman (48:14.800)

can fit a softball inside.

Lex Fridman (48:17.680)

So that's 10 centimeters on each side.

Lex Fridman (48:21.360)

But then there are some companies working on

Natalya Bailey (48:24.440)

fractions of that even.

Lex Fridman (48:26.360)

And they're doing things like IOT type application.

Lex Fridman (48:30.480)

So it's very low bandwidth type things,

Lex Fridman (48:34.520)

but they're finding some niches for those.

Lex Fridman (48:37.320)

Do you mean like there's a business,

Lex Fridman (48:38.520)

there's a thing to do with them?

Natalya Bailey (48:40.440)

Yes, either.

Lex Fridman (48:41.280)

What do you do with a small satellite like that?

Natalya Bailey (48:44.040)

You can track a ship going across the ocean.

Lex Fridman (48:48.360)

Like if you need to, if you're just pinging something,

Natalya Bailey (48:51.120)

you can handle that amount of data

Lex Fridman (48:53.800)

and those latencies and so on.

Natalya Bailey (48:56.160)

You have to have propulsion on that.

Lex Fridman (48:57.400)

You have to have a little engine.

Natalya Bailey (48:58.760)

No, those are just letting fall out of the sky.

Lex Fridman (49:02.720)

Okay, so what kind of satellite

Lex Fridman (49:06.440)

would you equip a colloid engine on?

Lex Fridman (49:08.920)

Anything that's bigger than probably about 20 kilograms,

Natalya Bailey (49:13.080)

anything that needs to stay up for more than a year

Lex Fridman (49:16.400)

or anything somebody spent more than like 100K to build

Natalya Bailey (49:20.280)

are kind of the ways I would think about it.

Lex Fridman (49:21.920)

That's a lot of use cases.

Lex Fridman (49:23.560)

What's a small sat?

Lex Fridman (49:26.080)

Like what category?

Natalya Bailey (49:26.920)

Small sat is actually very big.

Lex Fridman (49:28.560)

I think it's like 700 kilograms,

Natalya Bailey (49:31.360)

or I keep hitting my microphone,

Lex Fridman (49:33.840)

maybe 1,000 kilograms down to 200 kilograms.

Natalya Bailey (49:40.080)

People have their own kind of definitions

Lex Fridman (49:42.360)

of how they break them up,

Lex Fridman (49:43.320)

but small sat is still quite large.

Lex Fridman (49:46.000)

And then it's kind of also applied as a blanket term

Natalya Bailey (49:49.880)

for anything that's not a school bus size satellite.

Lex Fridman (49:52.920)

So we need to get our jargon straight in the industry.

Lex Fridman (49:56.360)

So do you see a possible future where,

Lex Fridman (50:00.040)

you know, there's a few thousand satellites up there now,

Natalya Bailey (50:02.520)

a couple of thousand of them functioning.

Lex Fridman (50:05.440)

Do you see a future where there's like millions

Lex Fridman (50:07.520)

of satellites up in orbit?

Lex Fridman (50:09.960)

Or forget millions, tens of thousands,

Natalya Bailey (50:13.000)

which just seems like where the natural trajectory

Lex Fridman (50:16.200)

of the way things are going now is going.

Natalya Bailey (50:20.160)

Tens of thousands, yes.

Lex Fridman (50:22.480)

The two buckets of applications,

Natalya Bailey (50:26.360)

one is imaging and the other is communication.

Lex Fridman (50:30.480)

So imaging, I think that will plateau

Natalya Bailey (50:35.160)

because one satellite or one constellation

Lex Fridman (50:39.120)

can take an image or a video

Lex Fridman (50:40.680)

and sell it to, you know, infinity customers.

Lex Fridman (50:44.320)

But if you're providing communications

Natalya Bailey (50:47.560)

like broadband internet or satellite cell

Lex Fridman (50:51.640)

or something like that, satellite phone,

Natalya Bailey (50:54.120)

you know, you're limited by your transponders and so on.

Lex Fridman (50:58.680)

So to serve more people, you actually need more satellites

Lex Fridman (51:02.040)

and perhaps at the rate, you know, our data consumption

Lex Fridman (51:06.440)

and things are going these days.

Natalya Bailey (51:08.840)

Yeah, I can see tens of thousands of satellites.

Lex Fridman (51:12.720)

Can I ask you a ridiculous question?

Natalya Bailey (51:14.480)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (51:15.360)

So I've recently watched this documentary on Netflix

Natalya Bailey (51:18.720)

about flat earthers, you know,

Lex Fridman (51:23.240)

the people that believe in a flat earth.

Natalya Bailey (51:25.920)

As somebody who develops propulsion systems

Lex Fridman (51:30.040)

for satellites and for spacecraft,

Natalya Bailey (51:33.960)

what's, do you use the most convincing evidence

Lex Fridman (51:37.600)

that the earth is round?

Natalya Bailey (51:40.760)

Probably some of the photos taken from the moon.

Lex Fridman (51:48.800)

Photos from the moon?

Natalya Bailey (51:49.760)

Okay, so it's not from the satellite space.

Lex Fridman (51:52.960)

Yeah, I think seeing that perspective,

Natalya Bailey (51:57.560)

maybe I'm just, I'm answering too personally

Lex Fridman (52:00.400)

because I really love those photos.

Natalya Bailey (52:03.000)

Because they're beautiful, yeah.

Lex Fridman (52:04.000)

I really like the ones that show the moon

Lex Fridman (52:06.400)

and the lunar lander and they're taken

Lex Fridman (52:09.920)

a little bit farther back.

Lex Fridman (52:10.840)

So you see earth and first you're like, wow, that's tiny

Lex Fridman (52:14.280)

and we're insignificant and that's kind of sad.

Lex Fridman (52:17.800)

But then you see this really cool thing

Lex Fridman (52:19.720)

that we landed on another planetary body

Lex Fridman (52:23.760)

and you're like, oh, okay.

Lex Fridman (52:24.840)

Can you actually see earth?

Natalya Bailey (52:26.760)

I don't know if I remember this.

Lex Fridman (52:27.600)

Yeah, I'll send you that picture.

Natalya Bailey (52:29.160)

Because I love the pictures or videos

Lex Fridman (52:31.520)

of just earth from orbit and so on.

Natalya Bailey (52:34.040)

Right, yeah.

Lex Fridman (52:34.880)

Just like those, that's really beautiful.

Natalya Bailey (52:36.240)

That's like a perspective shifter.

Lex Fridman (52:38.080)

That's the pale blue dot, right?

Natalya Bailey (52:39.760)

It probably appears tiny.

Lex Fridman (52:41.400)

Yeah, and just that juxtaposition of the insignificance,

Lex Fridman (52:46.280)

but we built this, really cool thing.

Lex Fridman (52:49.240)

And I just love that, yeah.

Natalya Bailey (52:50.720)

Oh, that'd be cool.

Lex Fridman (52:51.560)

I can't, I personally love the idea

Natalya Bailey (52:53.080)

of humans stepping on Mars.

Lex Fridman (52:54.480)

I'm such a sucker for the romantic notion of that

Lex Fridman (52:57.840)

and being able to take pictures from Mars next.

Lex Fridman (53:01.680)

So you would go?

Lex Fridman (53:03.160)

I, yeah, I would be, what did you say?

Lex Fridman (53:08.080)

You said you wouldn't be the first one.

Natalya Bailey (53:09.120)

Not in the first 1,000.

Lex Fridman (53:10.600)

1,000, which it's funny because to me,

Natalya Bailey (53:14.400)

that's brave to be in the first million.

Lex Fridman (53:17.200)

I think when the Declaration of Independence

Natalya Bailey (53:21.160)

was signed in the United States,

Lex Fridman (53:22.680)

that was like two million people.

Lex Fridman (53:25.640)

So I would like to show up

Lex Fridman (53:27.320)

when they're signing those documents.

Natalya Bailey (53:29.200)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (53:30.040)

So maybe the two million.

Natalya Bailey (53:31.080)

Oh, that's an interesting way to think about it.

Lex Fridman (53:32.880)

Because like then we're like participating

Natalya Bailey (53:35.160)

in citizenry and defining the direction.

Lex Fridman (53:38.040)

So it's not the technical risk.

Natalya Bailey (53:41.160)

You just don't wanna show up somewhere

Lex Fridman (53:43.440)

that's like America before.

Natalya Bailey (53:46.120)

Yeah, because I, from a psychological perspective,

Lex Fridman (53:51.560)

it's just gonna be a stressful mess

Lex Fridman (53:54.120)

as people have studied, right?

Lex Fridman (53:56.240)

It's like, it's people, most likely the process

Natalya Bailey (54:02.080)

of colonization like looks like basically a prison.

Lex Fridman (54:07.320)

Like you're in a very tight and closed space with people.

Lex Fridman (54:10.520)

And it's just a really stressful environment.

Lex Fridman (54:13.440)

How do you select the kind of people that will go

Lex Fridman (54:15.400)

and then there'll be drama.

Lex Fridman (54:16.480)

There's always drama.

Lex Fridman (54:17.520)

And I just wanna show up when there's some rules.

Lex Fridman (54:21.360)

But I mean, you know, it depends.

Lex Fridman (54:22.960)

So I'm not worried about the health

Lex Fridman (54:24.360)

and the technical difficulties.

Natalya Bailey (54:26.120)

I'm more worried about the psychological difficulties.

Lex Fridman (54:29.520)

And also just not being able to tweet.

Lex Fridman (54:31.320)

Like what are you gonna, how are you talking?

Lex Fridman (54:33.640)

There's no Netflix.

Lex Fridman (54:34.640)

So yeah, maybe not in the first million,

Lex Fridman (54:37.360)

but the first 100,000.

Natalya Bailey (54:39.880)

It's exciting to define the direction of a new,

Lex Fridman (54:42.680)

like how often do we not just have a revolution

Natalya Bailey (54:46.240)

to redefine our government,

Lex Fridman (54:48.200)

as smaller countries are still doing to this day,

Lex Fridman (54:51.240)

but literally start over from scratch.

Lex Fridman (54:54.200)

There's just our financial system.

Natalya Bailey (54:56.840)

It could be like based on cryptocurrency,

Lex Fridman (54:59.640)

you could think about like how democracy,

Natalya Bailey (55:02.560)

we have now the technology that can enable pure democracy,

Lex Fridman (55:06.880)

for example, if we choose to do that,

Natalya Bailey (55:09.720)

as opposed to representative democracy,

Lex Fridman (55:11.520)

all those kinds of things.

Lex Fridman (55:12.800)

So we talked about two different forms of propulsion,

Lex Fridman (55:16.560)

which are super exciting.

Lex Fridman (55:18.000)

So the chemical based, that's doing pretty well.

Lex Fridman (55:20.720)

And then the electric based is,

Natalya Bailey (55:24.440)

are there types of propulsion

Lex Fridman (55:26.880)

that might sound like science fiction right now,

Lex Fridman (55:29.200)

but are actually within the reach of science

Lex Fridman (55:31.280)

in the next 10, 20, 30, 50 years

Natalya Bailey (55:34.240)

that you kind of think about,

Lex Fridman (55:35.960)

or maybe even within the space of even just like,

Natalya Bailey (55:39.280)

like even ION engines,

Lex Fridman (55:42.400)

is there like breakthroughs that might 10 X the thing,

Lex Fridman (55:45.600)

like really improve it?

Lex Fridman (55:47.760)

So, you know, the real game changer

Natalya Bailey (55:50.520)

would be propellantless propulsion.

Lex Fridman (55:54.160)

And so every couple of years you see a new,

Natalya Bailey (55:57.600)

now a startup or a researcher comes up with some contraption

Lex Fridman (56:03.080)

for producing thrust that didn't require,

Natalya Bailey (56:06.080)

you know, we've been talking about conservation of momentum,

Lex Fridman (56:08.280)

mass times velocity out the back,

Natalya Bailey (56:11.680)

mass times velocity forward.

Lex Fridman (56:13.520)

Yes, exactly.

Lex Fridman (56:14.840)

And you have to, you know, carry that up with you

Lex Fridman (56:18.600)

or find it on an asteroid or harvest it from somewhere

Natalya Bailey (56:21.840)

if you didn't bring it with you.

Lex Fridman (56:22.960)

So not having to do that would be, you know,

Natalya Bailey (56:25.960)

one of the ultimate game changers.

Lex Fridman (56:28.720)

And I, you know, unless there are new types of physics,

Natalya Bailey (56:35.360)

I don't know how we do it,

Lex Fridman (56:36.800)

but it comes up often, so it's something I do think about.

Natalya Bailey (56:39.800)

And, you know, the one,

Lex Fridman (56:41.680)

I think it's called the Casimir effect.

Natalya Bailey (56:44.360)

If you can, if you have two plates

Lex Fridman (56:46.640)

and the space between them is on the order of these,

Natalya Bailey (56:49.920)

like the wavelength of these ephemeral vacuum particles

Lex Fridman (56:53.520)

that pop into and out of existence or something.

Natalya Bailey (56:57.760)

I may be confusing multiple types of propellantless forces,

Lex Fridman (57:01.440)

but that could be real

Lex Fridman (57:06.920)

and could be something that we use eventually.

Lex Fridman (57:10.640)

What would be the power source?

Natalya Bailey (57:12.280)

Yeah, the most recent engine like this

Lex Fridman (57:15.120)

that was just debunked this year, I think,

Natalya Bailey (57:19.640)

in March or something was called the M drive.

Lex Fridman (57:22.400)

And supposedly you used a power source,

Natalya Bailey (57:26.080)

so, you know, batteries or solar panels

Lex Fridman (57:27.960)

to generate microwaves into this resonant cavity.

Lex Fridman (57:32.640)

And people claimed it produced thrust.

Lex Fridman (57:35.480)

So they went straight from this really loose concept

Natalya Bailey (57:38.640)

to building a device and testing it.

Lex Fridman (57:40.160)

And they said, we've measured thrust

Lex Fridman (57:42.200)

and sure on their thrust balance, they saw thrust

Lex Fridman (57:44.520)

and different researchers built it and tested it

Lex Fridman (57:47.960)

and got the same measurements.

Lex Fridman (57:49.240)

And so it was looking actually pretty good.

Natalya Bailey (57:52.080)

No one could explain how it worked,

Lex Fridman (57:53.440)

but what they said was that this inside the cavity,

Natalya Bailey (57:59.160)

the microwaves themselves didn't change,

Lex Fridman (58:01.320)

but the speed of light changed inside the cavity.

Lex Fridman (58:03.960)

So relative to that, you know,

Lex Fridman (58:06.520)

their momentum was conserved.

Lex Fridman (58:09.880)

And I don't, you know, whatever.

Lex Fridman (58:14.640)

But finally someone, I think at NASA built the device,

Natalya Bailey (58:17.800)

tested it, got the same thrust, then unhooked it,

Lex Fridman (58:20.560)

flipped it backwards and turned it on,

Lex Fridman (58:22.240)

but got the same thrust in the same direction again.

Lex Fridman (58:24.760)

And so they're like, this is just an interaction

Natalya Bailey (58:26.800)

with the test setup or, you know,

Lex Fridman (58:28.520)

some of the chamber or something like that.

Lex Fridman (58:30.640)

So forwarded again, but, you know,

Lex Fridman (58:34.640)

it would be so wonderful for everybody

Natalya Bailey (58:36.640)

if we could figure out how to do it, but I don't know.

Lex Fridman (58:39.560)

That's an interesting twist on it

Natalya Bailey (58:41.480)

because that's more about efficient travel,

Lex Fridman (58:44.920)

long distance travel, right?

Natalya Bailey (58:46.160)

That's not necessarily about speed.

Lex Fridman (58:49.040)

That's more about enabling like,

Natalya Bailey (58:51.160)

let's hook that up to the nuclear power supply.

Lex Fridman (58:55.400)

There you go.

Natalya Bailey (58:56.240)

Okay.

Lex Fridman (58:57.560)

But still in terms of speed, in terms of trying to,

Lex Fridman (59:01.360)

so there's recently, already I think been debunked

Lex Fridman (59:06.000)

or close to being debunked, but the signal,

Natalya Bailey (59:09.680)

a weird signal from our nearby friends,

Lex Fridman (59:13.680)

nearby exoplanets from Proxima Centauri,

Natalya Bailey (59:16.560)

a signal that's 4.2 light years away.

Lex Fridman (59:22.440)

So, you know, the thought is it'd be kind of cool

Natalya Bailey (59:28.120)

if there's life out there, alien life,

Lex Fridman (59:31.440)

but it'd be really cool if it could fly out there and check.

Lex Fridman (59:34.360)

And so what kind of propulsion,

Lex Fridman (59:37.000)

and do you think about what kind of propulsion

Natalya Bailey (59:39.360)

will allow us to travel close to the speed of light

Lex Fridman (59:42.120)

or, you know, half the speed of light,

Natalya Bailey (59:43.680)

all those kinds of things that would allow us

Lex Fridman (59:45.520)

to get to Proxima Centauri and have reasonable,

Lex Fridman (59:48.360)

in a lifetime?

Lex Fridman (59:50.560)

You know, there's the project Breakthrough Starshot.

Natalya Bailey (59:54.800)

Yeah.

Lex Fridman (59:55.640)

That's looking at sending those tiny little chip sets.

Natalya Bailey (59:59.640)

They're like accelerating really fast.