How does government still fit into space?

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Time Markers

00:20 – Introduction00:46 – How has the agency changed and evolved in that time?02:27 – A different structure 03:36 – There’s some irony in the vertical integration of the commercial sector 04:23 – The ISS is international but wasn’t envisioned that way06:20 – Balancing geopolitical concerns vs long term planning08:34 – The Artemis program, a rallying point10:01 – How does NASA fit in the new paradigm?12:53 – Growing up in Jamaica and the teacher

Transcript – Douglas Terrier Conversation

David Ariosto – Doug Terrier, it’s good to see you again. Have you been?

Douglas Terrier – Hey, great to see you, David, I’m fantastic. I’m down here in Houston helping to lead the nation’s premier Human Space Flight Center. So, you know, life can’t get much better than that.

David Ariosto – Yeah, you know, you’ve been at NASA for for a couple decades now. I mean, you were, you were the agency’s chief technologist. Now you’re at the Johnson Space Center, Associate Director for vision and strategy. So I wanted to start with sort of a broad question, you know, how, really, how has the agency changed and evolved in that time? And because, because you’ve got this title of vision and strategy, which, this is a title I Love, by the way, the question is, like, where we’re heading now, so sort of the evolution and where we’re going?

Douglas Terrier – Yeah, really, really, great question. I am, you know, as you said, my job is Associate Director for vision and strategy. I think I may be the only person that has at the center that has that title. Most of us here, you know, 11,000 employees here, most of us are focused on operating the systems that we have in space now and the systems we’re developing for for low Earth orbit and cislunar exploration. I have the unique privilege of being more focused on strategically, how we’re taking the agency forward and transforming the agency to meet the challenge of, as you said, that very dynamic and evolving space ecosystem, right? So to kind of go back to the beginning, I think most people know that the genesis of Johnson Space Center generally, and NASA generally, and not John spaces specifically, is really around Apollo, what started out as primarily a fundamentally kind of a bipolar view of space exploration, an adversarial between the Soviet Union and the Western nations American and it really was primarily focused on achieving that sort of geopolitical statement of Americans preeminence in space and technology, and, frankly, in kind of geopolitical leadership globally, right?

David Ariosto – Structured differently, right? I mean, just like the nature of contracts and like the control over engineering and just like the whole agency just had this, and not to mention, like the military heritage that NASA has. I mean, yes, it’s a civilian agency, but it’s got, like, it had just sort of this, this whole sort of different structure baked into it in a way.

Douglas Terrier – That’s right. And you know what? What I think is useful to remember is that when we talk about how organizations work, right, that they’re often optimized to achieve the function that they’re really, you know, the mission and the function they’re trying to achieve. So starting with that, and I’ll describe NASA’s evolution, sort of three major phases, right? You start with that kind of bipolar, us versus them, race to the moon, very much a competitive environment. And we developed a culture and an organization and facilities, for that matter, that were optimized to achieve that sort of single event driven, get there first, which tends to lead it to very vertically integrated, insular, kind of, you know, everybody heads down get this done in the shortest time possible. We had just, if you remember, just, you know, from 62 to the end of the decade, just seven or eight years to get that done. So that drives…

David Ariosto – Which is kind of ironic in the sense that you’re seeing a lot of vertical integration now within the. Commercial center.

Douglas Terrier – It really is, it really is. So you get out of that phase. And of course, that goal was achieved spectacularly by the Apollo 11 and subsequent missions. But then, as we moved into the, let’s say, post, you know, we got into that detente era with the Soviet Union. And now the question became, as the Soviet Union breakdown, how do we engage in a much more collaborative, productive partnership in space? And so our missions move from that us versus them to the International Space Station is probably the greatest example of an international collaboration that’s truly a multinational 15 initial partners on this incredibly ambitious program. So that kind of…

David Ariosto – In that sense, Was it, was it just sort of this, like we have the ISS now. So we have to sort of play nice here with with these other, these other nations.

Douglas Terrier – It’s actually, I think it’s actually the opposite, David, I think it’s, it’s the the the the way the ISS was formulated, if and I want to go too much into history, but it was initially envisioned to be a US station that was an answer to the Soviet efforts in the low to orbit. It gradually evolved into, Hey, how can we make this joint effort in order to as a vehicle to embrace and create this international partnership so in many ways, that the mission evolved to achieve that broader goal. And then, I would say our organization then adapted from one that was really optimized around that sort of competitive posture to one that that I think over the last couple of decades has proven to be phenomenally adept at accomplishing International Engineering collaborations and the diplomacy and the partnership and all The things that go along with that, beyond the technical and then to, you know, to come to the third era. Obviously, we’re now moving into an era where that we’ve got very good at working with international agencies. Now we’re seeing, first of all, tons of emerging space agencies across various emerging whether it’s, you know, Korea, Brazil, you know smaller agencies now coming in and becoming part of this space, community and and even more dramatically, the private sector being much more, playing a much bigger role so well.

David Ariosto – Well, you mention , so go ahead.

Douglas Terrier – I just want to say that to me that that is, in a nutshell, that’s the challenge right to continue this evolution of the organization from competitive environment, collaborative environment, to now one that’s capable of being a leader and being a value to that entire space ecosystem that’s now so diverse and and rapidly growing so.

David Ariosto – So if you’ve had An agency that was sort of born out of this geopolitical competition, you had a lot of vertical integration, you had a lot of military heritage. You had a clear cut adversary in the Soviet Union, sort of that Moscow versus Washington divide. You had a lull, and now you have another geopolitical rivalry that that that’s, that’s, you know, that that’s growing. And, you know, we talk about collaboration, and clearly that’s the case in terms of space agencies across the world. But the exception, obviously, given the nature of the wolf amendment, which sort of prohibits a degree of collaboration between the US and China, you know, you have competing space stations. You have competing aspirations for a lunar presence, in terms of permanent human settlement, you have satellite constellations that are sort of juxtaposed to each other in terms of Starlink in the Beirut network and out of China. So I just, I wonder, like as a director of vision and strategy, like when you’re thinking long term about these things, what are you thinking about?

Douglas Terrier – Well, you know, it’s, it’s the nature of our business as a civilian space agents to really focus on the, you know, the obvious peaceful collaboration with with allied nations and building that coalition, right? So absolutely what you said is true that there is an element of, certainly both strategic and commercial, frankly economic competition in sooner space as we go further out into solar system. But our focus is on building out that international partnership community, and you know, and with the goal of ensuring that the United States and our partners remain leaders and embrace to the greatest extent possible the widest and most diverse membership of the international community. So you may know the Artemis Accords, for example, we’ll get into Artemis program, but …

David Ariosto – 52 we’re talking about an Artemis is that my, am I up to speed on this?

Douglas Terrier – Approximately. That’s right, yeah. So that’s, you know, that’s remarkable, right? I think they’re about 74 It depends how you count it, but let’s say viable space agents in the world, and now we’ve seen 50 of them sign on to Artemis accords and and become a part of that collaborative partnership. So our goal is really to build out that community and try to expand that net of collaboration as much as possible.

David Ariosto – It’s interesting too, like in the context of just sort of the establishment of sort of norms and practices up there, and. And I think this is where our Artemis comes in in such a pronounced way. I mean, you’ve got the the Insignia right there behind you on the wall. So, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s just it. I don’t know that there’s a precedent for for something of this, of this expanse and the nature of being there first really matters. Um, does it doesn’t?

Douglas Terrier – It absolutely does. And again, you know, I think the goal of the agency is, is of NASA, and in this role, is to serve as kind of the rallying point for this international community on behalf of the United States and our leadership of our lives. I think, as I mentioned, you know, some one way I think about this that sort of evolving. I think of this a continuum, right? You start with a two dimensional problem, the competitive problem they may get into, initially 15 dimensional the, you know, big agency partnerships around the world. And now we’ve got a 50 dimensional problem, right? So, I mean, I think you could see the direction of that, that derivative is, yeah, so that’s, that’s both the opportunity for the United States to expand our collaborative engagement, and, in so doing, bring even more, you know, resources, more partnerships, to bear on the great adventure of space exploration. So the goal would be to continue to open that aperture as much as possible.

David Ariosto – So we mentioned the International Space Station, right? I mean, this is, this is a sort of a seminal moment in space history, but this is a station that’s scheduled to retire in 2030 with new commercial stations sort of taking place. I mean, we just, we just had a conversation with Cam guffarian about, you know, AX means plant axioms, plans. You know, there’s questions of orbital reef, not to mention, you know, rival stations, like China’s Tiangong. I’m wondering, like, how NASA fits, like, how and where NASA fits sort of into this new paradigm.

Douglas Terrier – So I yeah, I think that’s the if I were to, you know, try to describe this evolution of the space economy, I would, you know, there’s two elements, right? One is the one we just went through, sort of just a exponential growth of the dimensions, right? But the other one is the public private relationship. And certainly, what we’re seeing, and by the way, this is, this is a great example of what success looks like. Ideally, the government should be tackling those problems for which there’s no business case. There’s no reason for the private sector to monitor innovation Lighthouse effect, so to speak. Yeah, exactly right. And, and so ideally, as a as a sector or segment matures, you want the government to put its energy into the, you know, the next, the bleeding edge, right? The next era. And if they’ve done their, if the government’s done a good job in the previous era that then it should be ripe for commercialization and for opportunities. So to come back to your point, with axiom and orbital reef and other opportunities in Leo, it’s not quite this clean, because we’re utilizing commercial contracts and encouraging commercialization throughout the cislunar and throughout the Artemis sector, through space. But one way to think of it is, if you think of aviation, and say, in the last century, the government invested a lot of money in aviation as that, that and a lot and developed a lot of technology that was then, you know, basically turned over to the private sector to for the Boeings and the Lockheed and, you know, the airlines to prop to, to really make, you know, make the commercial case out of and today we have a an aviation economy that is about a $7 trillion global business, yeah, quite independent of the government, frankly, right? So if you can imagine that, that next step would be to see low Earth orbit start to become more commercial, the examples you give where the government can maybe step back from being, you know, fully in charge of operating a space station, we can see that sort of being supplanted with with most commercials. And I would say commercial options, not unlike aviation, which are available for both commercial use and the government, you know, and having an opportunity to sort of amortize it across the entire space economy, and then the government is free to put more resources into that next step to the moon and beyond.

David Ariosto – So all right, so I want to get into that before, before we run out of time here. I want to transition gears here and say something that not, perhaps not everybody, knows, is that you grew up in Jamaica and you had a teacher named Mrs. Simpson just around the time of the first Apollo moon landing back in 69 and I was hoping maybe you can just sort of relate that, to relay that story, to to to the audience, but also, perhaps more importantly, tell me what she did.

Douglas Terrier – Yeah. So that’s, you know, most of us of my generation who are in this business had can describe one, you know, moment in time that kind of really, really got our attention and inspired us to be here. So I just said I was born in Jamaica, and actually in the rural part of the island, at a time when a lot of people didn’t have in that community, didn’t have even. Running water, electricity. So very pretty austere in a mining mining settlement out in the in the rural part of Jamaica and hills, I went to this very small school, and we had a school mistress, Mrs. Simpson. And at that time, there was a lot going on, which I won’t get into, but it was not a very optimistic environment, let me say that, and wasn’t really a lot to look to really inspire kids. She had the presence of mind in 1968 69 run up to the Apollo landing. We didn’t have television, but we had a small local newspaper called a daily cleaner, and she read daily to stop class and read to the entire class that the transcript, which was available on Reuters, the transcript of the Apollo team with their conversations with Houston. And I can still, I can still repeat verbatim some of those conversations all the way down to Tranquility Base. Here The Eagle has landed, and that moment, I think, for a group of kids who really didn’t have a lot to be optimistic about, that moment crystallized in my mind that, hey, that team can do that, then anything is possible. And, and that really galvanized my my drive to be here. And I’m just so grateful for what she did to give me that inspiration. And and that’s what really fuels my passion about this every day, is I’m very aware that we’re in a position in Artemis and with our collaborations with international community and the private sector to inspire the next generation of explorers. An d that’s what makes this all work well.

David Ariosto – That seems like a very good place to leave it. Doug Terrier, Associate Director for vision and strategy at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Thanks. Thanks so much for coming on the show.

Douglas Terrier – Thanks for having me, David.