 |
| Peter Diamandis (left) and Bjørn Ottar Elseth at Think Outside the Planet's stand at ONS 2010. |
This is the full transcript of an interview with Peter Diamandis of the X Prize Foundation for the technology transfer network Think Outside the Planet and the Norwegian Space Centre at ONS on the 24th of August 2010.
Interviewers:
Berit Ellingsen, science journalist and contributor to the Norwegian Space Centre website,
Geir Hovmork, deputy director general of the Norwegian Space Centre,
Bjørn Ottar Elseth, senior adviser for industrial relations at the Norwegian Space Centre and organizer for Think Outside
the Planet,
Brage W. Johansen, vice president for strategy and business development at IRIS and organizer for Think Outside the Planet.
Berit:
The first question we have is: If you were the leader for the space program of a small country like Norway, what would you
do?
Peter:
We were just discussing that. It’s not just any small country. Norway has a number of extraordinarily unique assets which
you can bring to space that few other countries have. First of all it has its entire oil and gas industry. And then it has
its mining industry. So why are these important?
Mining and oil and gas both are high margin global industries that basically are taking humans and human made technology to
extreme environments. Whether you’re going down deep into the ocean hundreds of atmospheres at high temperatures, or whether
you’re going into the mines and have to operate in extreme conditions and extract metal. Both of these are industries and
technologies which can be brought to space.
If you stop and think that everything we hold of value on Earth; metals, minerals, energy, real estate, are in near infinite
quantities in space, you realize that we are just at the beginning of human growth and expansion. And to think about Earth
as the only place where we are going to extract these high valued minerals and metals is foolish. In fact, eventually we will
have to move to gain access to extraterrestrial resources, in order to maintain the growth rate on Earth.
Realizing that to maintain the levels of prosperity that humanity wants as China and India and other parts of Asia are continuing
to grow, we’re going to need to continue the extraction of metals. Look at the battery technologies that utilize rare earth
elements, whether it’s platinum or palladium as catalysts, or hafnium, we don’t have the level of resources easily available
in the Earth’s crust.
But what we do have is the realization that our solar system has very easy to reach metallic asteroids which constitute probably
about 15 percent of the asteroids out there. Many of which are actually easier to reach than the moon from a delta v energy
point of view. So the question is what companies are going to be able to build the technology and take the financial risks
to go and mine these extraterrestrial resources.
Perhaps if not a 5 or 10 year vision, it could be a 20 to 30 years vision. And frankly, if I had to pick a country which has the combination of those resources, Norway is one that comes immediately to mind. And so for that reason I think there’s a huge opportunity which is out there to be had. You know, Norway is on par with Russia and the US as having that unique combination of capabilities.
Berit:
What do you think about the US space program today, which direction would you like to see it moving towards?
Peter:
You know, after 20 years it’s fun to see many of the people I've worked with all my life, are now leading NASA, Lori Garver,
who is a good friend and who is the deputy over there, and many of the people who are operating at what is called the ninth
ward, the executive leadership. The decision that was recently made by the Obama administration to invest in core technologies,
I think was one of the smartest decisions that’s been made in a long time.
I want to see humanity, I want to see the United States, going back to the moon, going to the asteroids, going to Mars. Ultimately,
the cost of doing it has been unaffordable using the technology that we currently have.
But around the world we’re seeing a number of technologies that are in rapid exponential growth; computers and network systems,
artificial intelligence and robotics, biotechnology, nanomaterials. In all of these areas the price performance is dropping
by a factor of 2, in the biotech area as much as 4 times, per year. Which is what is driving multibillion dollar markets.
I believe that NASA and the space industry has not really been tapping into these industries in anywhere near the capacity
they can. I recently started a new University in partnership with Google and NASA Ames, called Singularity University. We
are focused on taking the top companies and industries around the world that are tied to exponential growth technologies and
then applying those technologies.
The question would be if we really were looking at putting space on Moore’s Law, such that the cost of satellites were halving
every year, or the price performance was coming down by a factor of 2 every year, that would be an exciting place to be.
But the question is how do we do that? These are the areas that I’m most excited about. And I think if we could in fact get
space technology on that track, then it would really change our abilities to go to the moon, or go to the asteroids. So I
think the fundamental first question is how to change the types or risks we take, increasing the risk profile of going into
space and increasing the frequency with which we go, and changing the technology that enables that.
Berit:
Would you say that that’s the biggest obstacle for the kind of exothermic reaction for space, as you’ve called it?
Peter:
Thank you for reading some of the stuff I have said (laughter). Yes, I think we need to hook space onto real economic engines.
So as long as space is always driven by defence or is driven only by national agendas and not meeting real economic needs,
that is always going to be expensive.
The only way to change the cost equation is to hook it to real huge commercial markets. For me, the biggest commercial market
now is the satellite market and telecom and remote sensing. So that’s been great. And that has been driven a lot by space
for the last four decades. What are the next markets? Space tourism is a market place. And I think an even larger market place
is space resources. Metals, minerals, energy.
Bjørn Ottar:
Where do you see Europe in this equation?
Peter:
That’s a great question. I see selected countries in Europe being able to take a leadership role. The biggest challenge is
to really take a leadership role, which is going to take a larger risk appetite than I have seen Europe take in the past.
There are huge resources to be had but it’s not about doing it safely. It’s about really trying to drive some true breakthroughs
and fundamentally change the cost equation of getting into space. If you think about the last 50 years the price of getting
into space has arguably gone up, it’s not gone down, in constant dollars. So how do you change that? It’s not easy and it
takes a lot of risk appetite. Do you agree with that?
Geir:
Absolutely. It’s one of the problems we see in the difference between Europe and the US. You have been able to raise commercial
enterprises. We had a Norwegian company that was involved with launches, SeaLaunch. It failed because the space transportation
market is not purely commercial. There are other forces that adjust it, so to say.
But besides yourself and maybe Virgin Galactic, where you have been strongly involved, we have no private enterprise because
people are afraid to lose money going into space. How can we raise the funds needed to do everything we think is necessary?
The political situation in Europe, today at least, is making that difficult.
Peter:
That’s what keeps the activities down, yes. It really is about taking a strong and bold vision and finding those individuals
that might take the risk. This is what we were talking about with the asteroid mining before. Because the levels of risks
are not one that governments usually take, or that large corporations usually take. It’s an individual.
In the US it was Elon Musk who was willing to commit a hundred million dollars of his own money to get the company to the
point where it could win the government contracts. Or it’s Richard Branson or it’s Paul Allen or it’s Larry Page or whomever
the entrepreneurs are.
The question is: are there individuals in Europe, are there individuals in Norway, who can see how large the market could
be and are willing to make a legacy. But you know, these are people who have to be willing to fail. And that’s the biggest
thing. There is a cultural difference here. In the US, if you start a company and it fails, it’s ok. You start the next one
and the next one. You keep trying until you get one to succeed.
Coming to our program at the Singularity University I had the top 20 executives from the Abu Dhabi advanced technology investment
corporation, ATIC. The Abu Dhabi government has 900 billion dollars. ATIC bought 25 percent of AMD, Advanced MicroDevices.
Intel and AMD are the two larges chip manufacturers. They were asking “Where do we put our investments? How do we get innovation
going?”
The same questions that you have here in Norway, because they are a completely petrochemical based economy. They got to diversify
very quickly. The challenge is that the culture there is very risk adverse. If you fail publicly, your life is in a ruin.
In order to innovate you have to be willing to fail often and fail early. And keep trying and trying and trying until you
find something that works.
Brage:
When the first oil platform was towed out in the North Sea from here, the headlines in the newspapers were “Norway will go
bankrupt, because we will never manage to pay back the cost of making the platform.”
Peter:
Isn’t that great? (laughs)
Brage:
It was a crisis. It was calculated that it would take Norway 100 years to be able to do that. My second point is about asteroid
mining. I hope you will take a good look around here. The North Sea is the most advanced laboratory for new mining technology
in the world. When you look around here (at the conference) you can see a lot of remotely controlled robotics. I hope you
will find inspiration for asteroid mining.
Peter:
I do and I will.
Geir:
You must take the risk of failure. If you look at space transportation, that you have somebody like Musk coming up again.
Everybody knew (about his failure). Maybe we are too conservative in Europe? We see so many failures we don’t dare to do it.
Nobody believed in space tourism. I think I heard about it for the first time in the late 1980’s. Then most people laughed
at it. Until it was shown it is possible.
Bjørn Ottar:
Do you have some advice for young people out there? If you were 15 years old today, what would you do?
Peter:
My advice to young people always is to follow your dreams. If you do anything that is hard, if you love it and you’re doing
what you would do anyway, no matter what it is, then you’re not working, you’re playing. For me, since my childhood, I’ve
wanted to open up space and to go into space. It’s been what’s driven me all my life. I do it not for the money or because
someone tells me to, I do it because it’s in my heart and my soul.
Ultimately, whether you’re a kid or in high school or in college or whatever, do you know what you really love to do? Do you
know what it is? And if you do, then you’re lucky. Go do that. You can make a career out of anything these days. The best
video game designers, the best decorators, the best journalists, the best engineers, whatever it is. If you find out what
it is you love, you will do that night and day, and you will do that better than anybody else, because you want to do it.
