The New Space Economy: Why Commercial Space Matters for the Future

Susan Wise: Welcome to Stars Launch Pod: Space Technology and Research Sciences, brought to you by StarSciences.org, where we connect, collaborate, and accelerate. I’m your host, Susan Wise, and with me is Joe Pawelski from Dynamic Space. Did I say that right?

Joe Pawelski: You sure did. Thank you.

Susan Wise: Joe is the co-founder and CTO at CisLunar Industries. His academic pursuits in engineering from the Rochester Institute of Technology and Space Resources Management from the Colorado School of Mines have honed his expertise. Ultimately, Pawelski is motivated by the transformative potential of space technologies and their ability to shape humanity’s future, driving him to push the boundaries of aerospace and defense innovation. Welcome to the show. How are you doing, Joe?

Joe Pawelski: Oh, I’m doing great. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Susan Wise: What are you working on right now to further the space industry? And tell us more about CisLunar—explain to us what that is and what you do.

Joe Pawelski: Absolutely. CisLunar started as an in-space resources and space manufacturing company. We realized that upmass is one of the most costly things to do in space. Now SpaceX has really helped lower that cost and make it more accessible, but it’s still about six to seven thousand dollars per kilogram just to get to low Earth orbit, which is sort of where space begins.

If you want to get into GEO, it can cost two or three times that amount. If you want to get to the Moon, it could be a hundred times as much. So moving things around in space is very expensive, which makes us look toward questions like: How do you assemble things in space? How do you reduce how much mass you have to launch? How can you do in-space manufacturing so you don’t have to keep launching things?

That’s really how CisLunar got started.

My whole thesis was this: the best way to keep Earth as an awesome place for people to live—because right now we don’t really know of any other places we can get to anytime soon that would support life—is to move our energy production and resource extraction elsewhere.

There are many thoughts on how to save the world. I figured the best way is to get our energy and resources elsewhere. That’s something I think we can all agree on—keeping Earth primarily for living.

The Sun produces a ton of energy, and there are huge amounts of resources on the Moon and asteroids. So let’s use those instead of using up Earth’s resources.

That was really the basis for CisLunar.

Anyway, we started by asking: what did the original industrialists do? They focused on materials—steel. Steel really built the industrial backbone of the United States and the rest of the industrialized world.

Steel isn’t very abundant in space, but aluminum is. Aluminum oxide is abundant on the Moon.

Since power was really what I was after—power beaming, harvesting energy from the Sun, and returning that energy back to Earth—large structures like reflectors would be needed. Aluminum is a really good material for that.

So our original work with NASA was actually to harvest space debris, which is predominantly metal, and also to study aluminum oxide on the lunar surface—how to reduce it and turn it into metal, and then how to build things with that metal in space.

That’s how we started.

What’s interesting is that we ended up making a pivot. Using electricity and electromagnetic induction, we built what’s essentially a tractor beam to pull materials into a furnace—because there’s no gravity in space.

The team I hired consisted mostly of electronics engineers, and we came up with all this really interesting electronics—high voltage, high power, big magnetic fields.

We realized that the real foundation of space manufacturing and the space economy is power. What we’re actually very good at is transforming power to run space systems.

So currently, that’s what I’m working on—how to transform power to run space.

The amount of power you have on a spacecraft really dictates how much you can do with it.

A lot of commercial space originally started with CubeSats that run on tens or maybe hundreds of watts. But to really do interesting things in space, we need kilowatts or even megawatts of power.

That’s what we’re focused on building—higher power systems and higher voltages to transfer that power.

Right now, two of the really cool projects we’re working on involve Hall thruster power processing units. These take the electrons generated by a solar panel and convert them into hundreds of volts to create plasma, which moves spacecraft using plasma thrusters.

So this is straight out of Star Wars or Star Trek. Plasma thrusters are used to move modern satellites around in space. They’ve actually been around for a while and are becoming very common. SpaceX even uses plasma thrusters on their satellites.

Susan Wise: It reminds me of Apollo 13. We’ve come a long way from when they said, “You have this much wattage to do this, and this is what it takes to run a vacuum cleaner.”

Joe Pawelski: Exactly. That’s a great way to put it.

Some of the largest commercial spacecraft today operate with about the power of a vacuum cleaner. There are some defense satellites that are more powerful, but there are only a few of those and they’re very expensive.

We need to get to the point where commercial spacecraft operate in the tens of kilowatts or more.

That’s the kind of work we do.

Once you get something into low Earth orbit—which costs about six to seven thousand dollars per kilogram—you can then use onboard propulsion to move it. Once you’re out of Earth’s atmosphere and in orbit, you can use plasma thrusters to move into GEO much more cheaply than launching directly with a rocket.

And if you have more power, you can move bigger things faster.

The other project we’re working on right now is a very high-voltage power supply designed to operate X-ray systems. This involves over one hundred thousand volts, which is difficult to handle anywhere.

Susan Wise: Yeah.

Joe Pawelski: And operating that in space is even harder.

Susan Wise: Where exactly do you test this stuff? I mean, you’re not testing it out in space yet.

Joe Pawelski: Right. We use a variety of testing equipment. Vacuum chambers are common, and getting zero gravity is always a challenge.

We’ve actually done parabolic flights—also known as the “Vomit Comet”—to test things in zero gravity. The movie Apollo 13 actually filmed many scenes using that aircraft.

It’s called the Vomit Comet because, well… people often get sick.

But it allows us to test things like space manufacturing or deploying solar panels in zero gravity.

For electronics, thermal behavior is important. On Earth, heat rises. In space, without gravity, it doesn’t. So heat behaves differently.

In a vacuum environment, we mostly deal with radiant heat transfer rather than convection. On Earth, air moving across a surface carries heat away—like when a fan cools something.

Heat can also move conductively through materials like metal.

So vacuum chambers help us simulate the thermal environment of space.

We also do a lot of electronics testing. In our lab we have something that looks like a Van de Graaff generator—a big metal sphere on a tower. It looks impressive, but it’s basically a giant resistor.

At extremely high voltages you get something called corona discharge. Any sharp point can cause electrical discharge, so surfaces have to be very rounded to prevent that.

When you’re working with hundreds of thousands of volts, those surfaces have to be quite large.

So we use specialized probes and test equipment to avoid electrocuting ourselves—or accidentally shooting lightning bolts across the room.

Susan Wise: Sounds like you’ve had quite a few challenges along the way. What’s been one of your biggest, and how did you overcome it?

Joe Pawelski: Everything in space is a challenge.

We joke about it all the time—how many rocket scientists does it take? Well… we actually are rocket scientists.

Recently, high-voltage systems have been especially challenging. Designing something that won’t off-gas, that uses materials suitable for launch conditions—it’s tough.

High voltage behaves a lot like high-pressure fluids. If there’s a tiny crack, it will force its way out.

The same thing happens electrically. Even oil from your skin can create a conductive path if insulation materials aren’t set up correctly. Then the voltage escapes and destroys everything.

So that’s been the latest “butt-kicker” project.

But we did manage to make our unit five times smaller than the next available product on the market.

Susan Wise: That’s the important part, right?

Joe Pawelski: Exactly. It’s the smallest super-high-voltage unit anyone has made, as far as I know.

Susan Wise: Wow.

Joe Pawelski: Yeah.

Susan Wise: What was your “aha” moment?

Joe Pawelski: It happened when we were performers in DARPA’s Luna-10 program. There’s actually a book about it.

About forty years ago—when I was just a little kid—a study came out describing how humanity could sustain life and build an industrial presence on the Moon.

It didn’t happen in the 1980s like people thought it would, but now we’re investing in space again.

When we were working on that project, we realized something important: if you have enough power, you can do all kinds of advanced manufacturing.

You can make metal, build large reflectors, construct solar arrays—anything.

But you need at least about a megawatt of power to make manufacturing on the Moon cost-effective.

Below that level, it might actually be cheaper to launch materials from Earth, especially with larger rockets becoming available.

But once you get to that threshold—and especially around one hundred megawatts—manufacturing on the Moon becomes dramatically cheaper.

That was our “aha” moment.

We realized all the difficult work we’d been doing revolved around transforming power.

So we decided to focus entirely on transforming power to run space systems.

Metal was the foundation of the Industrial Revolution. Power will be the foundation of the Space Revolution.

And you can see that everywhere today—data centers, AI, everything. It’s all limited by power availability.

Susan Wise: Is there something happening right now that you’d like to share?

Joe Pawelski: Yes. We currently have a payload already on a SpaceX rocket scheduled to launch at the end of the month.

It’s a one-kilowatt power processing unit for a Hall thruster.

This will be the first time we’ve flown a power processing unit for a Hall thruster. We’ve flown two other units before for electron-beam welders, but this is the largest payload we’ve launched so far—and the first one entirely built by CisLunar.

We’ve previously built payloads integrated into other systems, but this one is completely ours.

We also have two additional launches scheduled this year. One includes a plasma thruster that runs on water. It splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, which can power both a chemical rocket engine and a plasma thruster.

So it can produce high thrust like traditional rockets while also operating as an efficient electric propulsion system.

We’re also launching that super-high-voltage X-ray system with a partner in October.

And we have several other ambitious missions in the works this year.

Seeing our hardware on a rocket stack has been incredibly exciting.

Susan Wise: You’ve got some exciting work ahead of you. Do you have any advice for our listeners?

Joe Pawelski: Spend more time doing the things you enjoy and less time doing the things you don’t.

I don’t have many regrets in life, but one thing I do regret is not starting this company sooner.

The only thing holding me back was worry—thinking it might be harder than I expected.

My advice is simple: just go do it.

Susan Wise: Did you always know you wanted to go down this path?

Joe Pawelski: I did.

When I was really young, I wanted to be a “music man,” like in the old Disney movies where the guy plays the drum and the horn at the same time.

Then my dad bought me an Estes model rocket set. Like many people interested in space, that changed everything.

Around age five or five and a half, I became completely obsessed with space. I knew I wanted to be an engineer.

My first master’s degree was in thermal fluids engineering, but I was always fascinated by high voltage and electronics.

In high school I built Tesla coils that produced lightning bolts.

Susan Wise: In high school?

Joe Pawelski: Yes.

I grew up in Richmond, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., and close to places like the Naval Research Laboratory.

I met mentors through the Tesla Coil Builders of Richmond who were working on amazing things—railguns, lightning experiments, and more.

One of them actually built the first hobby fusion reactor in his garage.

Susan Wise: In his garage?

Joe Pawelski: Yep—attached to his house.

Meeting those people as a teenager had a huge impact on me.

Years later, some of those same people are working with us now.

One of our lead engineers actually came from that community. He invented singing Tesla coils and other fascinating high-voltage systems.

So my advice is: if you see something cool, find out who built it, find out who does it best, and make them your friends.

Get as close as possible to the things you love doing.

Susan Wise: Surround yourself with smart people.

Joe Pawelski: Exactly—smart, cool people who do the things you enjoy.

Susan Wise: Before we wrap up, Joe, do you have a passion project you’d like to mention?

Joe Pawelski: Right now my passion project is building CisLunar Industries.

In past careers I worked in high-speed manufacturing. I even had things featured on the show How It’s Made.

During that time my passion projects were always high-energy experiments and lightning machines.

Now I have a whole lab and a team of engineers building these things. It’s amazing to walk in and see what they’ve created.

Susan Wise: That’s incredible.

Joe Pawelski: It really is.

Susan Wise: Have you made a lightsaber yet?

Joe Pawelski: The lightning gun is a little bit like a lightsaber. It shoots lightning bolts like a glowing sword.

Maybe building a lightsaber should be my next project.

I’ve also built ridiculously fast go-karts with my kids.

I’m also an avid sailor—even though we live in Colorado. My sailboat has a solar-powered electric motor for auxiliary power.

Susan Wise: Of course it does.

Joe Pawelski: It’s totally silent, which actually helps during races.

Sometimes I’ll have just one sail up and pass other racing boats that have all their sails deployed. They’re wondering what’s going on.

Susan Wise: Joe, you’re a ball of energy yourself. Trying to contain you has been interesting—but I love your enthusiasm and everything you’re doing with CisLunar. Thank you so much for sharing your story.

Joe Pawelski: Thank you for the opportunity.

Susan Wise: Make sure you join us where we connect, collaborate, and accelerate. If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review and subscribe.

Until next time—keep looking up. 🚀