FULL TRANSCRIPT
Slava (00:00)
In this episode of Smart Humans, we talk about the world of space. We talk with Bradley Hatton Jones, CEO and founder of Orbit to Orbit, the company helping other companies prepare to get into space with launch and practice. We discuss the economy and SpaceX specifically. What is the impact of the IPO on the space market? And what is the potential for SpaceX stock in the future? All of this and his picks for three years out.
Slava (00:56)
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Smart Humans. I'm excited for today's guest because we're going to be talking about space. Space is a hot topic for many reasons and today we have a founder in the area. So Bradley Hatton-Jones welcome to the show.
Bradl (01:12)
Thank you for having me. It's really nice to be here.
Slava (01:15)
Absolutely. So you're actually coming in from Australia. Is that right?
Bradl (01:21)
That's right here on the Gold Coast of Australia and more specifically North Gold Coast area where the beaches are just a little bit better.
Slava (01:30)
Thank you, thank you. So, you we were able to align time zones. You are the CEO and founder of Orbit2Orbit, which is a very interesting space company. We're gonna jump into that a little bit in the future, but let's just get started with the same question we always start with. How did you get into this world? So take me back, you know, wherever it is really the origin story. Is it from when you were a little kid? Is it something that happened in high school? Was it your first job out of college? How did you get into this world?
Bradl (01:59)
So I've always been interested in space right from the very get go. And I grew up in South Africa and in South Africa when you enter into engineering, you especially the time when I was there, you mostly entered into oil and gas or mining. And so I ended up in mining for the longest time. And even while in mining building,
gold operations, uranium operations in places all over the world. I always had this fascination with space. I was always drawn to the latest news. I always had watch parties with the Curiosity Rover landed down on Mars. so moving then into Australia later on in life and COVID hits and we couldn't go out to the different mindsets. I couldn't service a lot of that industry.
And I reached out to a couple of universities and said, hey, I am so bored. What can I do? Is there anything I can help with? Surely you've got some sort of research projects going on. And they told me to reach out to another space company that's here on the Gold Coast to find out if they are interested in doing something. And so being an engineering background, I reached out to them and said, was there any help that you guys would like?
And so I worked in this aerospace company doing aerospace manufacturing as an engineer for them working specifically on the Ares rockets. So I probably gave away which company that is. And then I also helped them build Australia's largest factory. It's their largest rocket factory. And that experience showed me how much investment and engineering effort was going into reaching orbit.
But it also shone a light to me coming from mining and all the rest of it and working a lot with different infrastructure. It showed me just how little infrastructure existed in space once hardware had arrived there, right? So launching things into orbit has mostly been solved and it's a highly competitive place. And that's something that when I left that area and I knew I wanted to start my own thing.
it was something that I didn't want to focus on. I didn't want to focus on launching things into orbit. I founded Orbit2Orbit to build what comes next, that logistics, the service and the distribution and just that orbital economy. And so that's really how I got into it. And that is how we got to the stage now of where we are.
Slava (04:31)
So just to talk about some time, some dates. So did you say you were born, you started in South Africa?
Bradl (04:38)
Yeah, I've been in Australia now for 15 years and prior to that I was in
Slava (04:41)
Okay, what was
that trigger? How did you move from South Africa to Australia? What was that reason?
Bradl (04:51)
When I was working in a gold mine in the Solomon Islands, I helped to get that gold mine built up and operational. so going from South Africa to the Solomon Islands, I would transition in through Australia. And so got to learn a little bit about that. And my wife and I wanted to start a family. And so that became increasingly difficult in South Africa with a lot of the
and the corruption that was taking place in over there. And so we knew that that wasn't the right place for us to start a family. And so we made that conscious efforts of then going and saying, we need to get out of Africa and we'll come and set up here in Australia. Africa is still a lovely place, still beautiful in all of its nature. Just wasn't the right place for us to start that family.
Slava (05:39)
And is this your first company, Orbit2Orbit?
Bradl (05:42)
No, I've had a small company in the past that I was operating. It's called a Droid Programming, which created digital twin softwares for the mining industry to train them up and to get everything in operation. then coming into Australia, I was working as a, I'm still a shareholder, director and general manager for a mining technology company called Philblast.
Slava (06:11)
Very cool. And what was that moment where you thought to yourself, I need to start a space company. Can you just magnifying on that?
Bradl (06:21)
Yeah, so it was I was working with a lot of pretty high up engineers in the space industry. I was talking to people from SpaceX, I was talking to ex SpaceX people, European Space Agency, in that role of helping to build that rockets factory here in Australia.
And so I got a really good network of a whole bunch of these really, really interesting people really high up in their field. And I had my own idea of what I wanted to build and what that should look like. And so I wrote a white paper, which I named message in a bottle. And so I sent that white paper out to all of these different people that I've known and I asked them to just get
your red pen out and write down exactly what you thought shouldn't be in this company and what's wrong with it. Instead, what I got was an overwhelming support that came back to say that this is a fantastic idea. This is exactly what the industry is needed and what it looks for. And they wanted to know when, when is this going to get started. And so that was really that trigger for me to go and say, okay, this is validation. This is looking good. We got to get this company rolling.
Slava (07:37)
Very interesting. What year did you send out message in a bottle to the folks?
Bradl (07:42)
2024 and then starts the company started 2025.
Slava (07:48)
So this is gonna be really helpful for the people in the audience. So when in 2024 did you send that? It doesn't have to the exact day, like what quarter?
Bradl (07:55)
quarter three quarter four somewhere else over there
Slava (07:59)
So in like the fall of 2024, you wrote this white paper. How long was it?
Bradl (08:05)
The white paper itself,
Slava (08:07)
Yeah.
Bradl (08:08)
about 80 pages somewhere there.
Slava (08:11)
So it's like 80 pages. You hadn't started the company, right? You hadn't incorporated yet?
Bradl (08:14)
Nah. Nah.
Slava (08:15)
And you sent it to how many people?
Bradl (08:19)
Centered to 14 people.
Slava (08:22)
And these are people you really respected.
Bradl (08:24)
Yes, and they're really top of their game in the space industry.
Slava (08:28)
And in your mind, you were like, I'm starting a company no matter what, I just want their feedback, or you were not sure if you were starting a company, you really had a lot of passion, you documented it in 80 pages and you sent to them. Which one was it?
Bradl (08:40)
I had a lot of passion. I wanted to see if I was drinking any crazy sauce and I needed them to just check to validate what was going on and that the validation came back positive.
Slava (08:52)
That's great, and was it 14 out of 14 were like thumbs up or was it 10 out of 14? How many were into it?
Bradl (08:57)
12
out of 14. The other two just kind of said on a message that it looks good. And I guess that's validation. But the other 12 actually gave nice written responses as to exactly why they thought this was good.
Slava (09:11)
Yeah, this is really interesting. So in the fall of 24, you send out message in a bottle. And when did you actually start Orbit2Orbit? What's the day of incorporation in?
Bradl (09:20)
quarter one,
so February 2025. So quarter one 2025 is when
Slava (09:25)
So should we say
like four to six months later?
Bradl (09:28)
Yep.
Slava (09:30)
so cool. This is kind of an interesting playbook for the listeners in terms of, not saying it's the right way to do a startup or the wrong way, but it's an interesting way, which is you just put all of your energy and all of your thoughts into writing. And often it's just like a deck, right? It's like some 10 page, very simplified abstraction. You really put a lot more information, a lot more detail.
and people got to react to it, which is very interesting because they got to react to it on their own time, right? They got to really process information. Super interesting. Thank you for sharing that. I love the message in a bottle as a title. Anything else that you would share around that message in a bottle experience?
Bradl (10:05)
So message in a bottle, the whole reason it was called message in a bottle is we, had this idea of these orbital space vehicles that would move between different space stations to do that cargo logistics and to make that happen. And one of the inaugural missions that I wanted to do, because I communicated this in the white paper, the hardest part of building this company is not going to be the technology. The technology is pretty well understood. And I laid that out.
it is getting over a lot of the geopolitical hurdles. And what does that look like when you're going from one sovereign nation space station to another sovereign nation space station. And so that inaugural mission was to have inside of it a small message in a bottle, a message of peace and operational in space.
Slava (10:56)
Nice, I love it. So we're gonna turn the page here into how you like to invest your own net worth. The traditional portfolio is 60 % public equities, 40 % bonds, 0 % alternative investments. What is your percentages between those three major categories of 100 % of your net worth? So how much is in public equities? How much is in bonds? And how much is in alternative investments?
Bradl (11:25)
So I don't have much in internal, in alternative investment. I don't have much in alternative investment. I focus pretty much all of my net worth, all of my investment into Orbit2Orbit this stage. I put pretty much all energy and soul into that. Any additional energy that I would put out in there would be.
a lot of the consortium members that are part of Orbit2Orbit and inside of our technology consortium, I would put a lot of work and effort into them. But actual holding of equity bonds, all the rest of it is fully 100 % in Orbit2Orbit at this stage.
Slava (12:02)
Well, so you're all in an Orbit2Orbit. Well, how about your like savings or your retirement or your like long-term holdings, your rainy day, market money, your money to feed the family, all of that is that in public equities, bonds, cash, how do you handle all that?
Bradl (12:17)
That is all in cash and the rest of it is all in Orbit2Orbit If I've got an extra dollar to spend at the end of the month, it's going into buying something for Orbit2Orbit to make that move faster.
Slava (12:32)
All right, so you're all in. So just to double click on alternatives, and you say you're not so much in all terms, but we're just gonna go through them each. So you're not investing beyond your primary home into real estate, is that correct?
Bradl (12:43)
That is correct. I own I'm in my own house. That's all fine. I don't have any additional houses that I've got.
Slava (12:53)
Sure. And then in terms of crypto, a lot of the audience likes to hear about people's perspective on crypto. Are you exposed to any Bitcoin, Ethereum, crypto, et cetera?
Bradl (13:03)
Yeah, so I've got crypto, but it's not something that I focus on. It is something that when it was crazy hyped up and all the rest of it, I managed to get a couple of it. I wouldn't say that I'm an expert in that. I've got I've got some Bitcoin, I've got some Litecoin. Yeah, that's about it, I think.
Slava (13:23)
Okay. And then how about in terms of any other yield oriented products like private credit or anything like that? Are you investing in any of those things?
Bradl (13:31)
No, the only other place where a lot of my money sits and that's a benefit here in Australia is that we have what's called superannuation. And so
Slava (13:42)
Sorry, what is it called?
Bradl (13:43)
superannuation. Yeah,
Slava (13:44)
Superannuation, okay.
Bradl (13:47)
so yeah, it's just a lot of, you know, a significant portion of salary just goes into superannuation. And that is where a lot of that other investment goes into. But yeah, I'm
That is so I'm really sorry. I'm really the probably the wrong person to talk about with these kinds of investment questions.
Slava (14:05)
Awesome. So obviously you're all in on Orbit2Orbit. In terms of your point of view on the market, this is a very open ended question, which is obviously you have your lens from Australia. It's a global economy. Things are very dynamic now with AI. People are talking about inflation across the world. People are talking about jobs and what is the unemployment rate.
What are your thoughts on the economy and, for example, the U.S. stock market? What's your point of view? It's a very open-ended question.
Bradl (14:38)
That is a very open ended question. It's a little bit different taking it from the perspective here inside of Australia. What happens on the US stock exchange obviously does affect us in some way or another. But we, we've mostly been shielded from a lot of the turmoil and the fluctuations that does take place just simply because we've got such a wide band of other
partners in geopolitical trade space that we end up working with. So, yeah, that's.
Slava (15:10)
How do you think about the economy, whether it's Australia or the global economy right now? Are you bullish on the economy, bearish on it? Like, where are your thoughts on where we are in the macro?
Bradl (15:21)
I think we don't spend enough money on our economy, on deep tech, on capital investment towards technology that makes sense. We seem to spend a lot of our money on things like mining in oil and gas. We don't spend enough money in figuring out what happens after those resources have been mined out and been depleted.
We currently have wars fighting over oil, but there is sufficiently good technology out now that spending enough capital in that means that these wars become silly to approach.
Slava (15:57)
And given the fact that you're so involved with Deep Tech, what's your point of view on the discussion around AI taking jobs? Do you think AI creates abundance and will be net positive in terms of job creation? Or is it one of those things where AI will replace so many jobs that we need to figure out with all the people that might not have a job to pay for bills? What's your point of view there?
Bradl (16:23)
I wouldn't get scared on AI taking jobs. I would say that it's one of those growing industries now that it's going to shift what other people are doing, but doesn't necessarily remove the fact that they cannot get employed in something else. And so you have a look at so much AI now is actually going in towards hardware capabilities, new material science, understanding what
pharmaceuticals busy doing and how to improve in a lot of that. That doesn't mean that you stop having biotechnicians, you don't stop having machinists that are working in these roles. And so it just changes, it just shifts the way you end up doing your employment, how you do your work, actually see this as a positive gain in the world of technology, I don't see this as a negative at all.
Slava (17:17)
So three years from now, you predict that we still have, let's call it stable economy in regards to employment, whether it's in Australia or globally, meaning it's like today, or it's better or worse as it relates to employment.
Bradl (17:35)
So when it comes to employment with AI three years from now, I think there is going to be quite a lot of jobs that we can automate. And that doesn't mean that we remove those people from getting employed that have had their jobs side shifted from AI. What it means is that we've got to use those tools more effectively. Those people that perhaps were not you sitting in that role that now an AI computer can handle.
take call centers, for example, we can see that AI has taken over a lot of call centers. Those people that were traditionally sitting behind the phones and they were doing that, they could probably now be part of the AI team that is actually training to improve on how to do a lot of these kinds of work. So it just upskills them, it moves them into a better position. So I think in three years time, a lot of those jobs and those roles are going to be almost supervisory.
over a lot of the AIs, making sure that everything is working fine. It's not going to be a complete replace of them.
Slava (18:37)
So in general, it sounds like you're neutral to bullish.
Bradl (18:41)
I'm neutral to bullish. I don't think that putting an AI in is going to hurt the economy. I think it's going to strengthen things. I think we're going to find that there's going to be acceleration. There's new technology that is going to be growing out of this. That technology needs to be validated and improved on. And those validation improved on methods is where those humans are going to start getting creative and start working in those environments.
Slava (19:07)
Awesome. And then as it relates to the stock market, there's a company that went public soon. I'm sure you've heard of it. You even mentioned it already called SpaceX. It's pretty big talk in the United States and I believe really across the world and probably in your circles. What is your point of view? Literally Bradley's. What is your point of view on AVI PO? And more importantly, with your perspective, what is
where is this gonna land a year from now or three years from now? Now the easy answer is five, 10 years from now, it's gonna be worth a lot. That's not really my question. My question is the pricing that it's at today versus where it'll be a year from now or three years from now, what are your thoughts on that?
Bradl (19:54)
So I think with SpaceX IPOing, it's one of those ones where I think a lot of people in the industry kind of go and say, why didn't this happen a year ago? This should have happened a lot sooner. We think this is a fantastic move for the entire industry. I think that the SpaceX IPO is going to plateau and stabilize for the next year. It's going to find its footing and it's probably
roughly where it is at the moment. And I think after that, as SpaceX starts getting Starship rolling a little bit more commercially, they start delivering a lot of their promises that that stock price is going to start going up. But I don't think it's going to be this major jump. It's going to start rapidly increasing, because we're going to also see from a public perspective.
how exactly does SpaceX get into those different positions, into those different heights? There's not so much hidden mirrors as you would have in a private company to sort of jump out into these different games. And so that is going to, know, like you said, the easy answer is it'll be bigger in five to 10 years time, but it's about watching that journey now going into that increased state, I think is going to be a really interesting watch.
Slava (21:17)
Okay, so I'm gonna put you a little bit on the spot here. I know you're gonna say you shouldn't be guessing these things, but we here like to have these discussions, which is right now SpaceX is about $115 a share, which makes it about a one and a half trillion dollar company today. When it IPO'd, it was a little bit higher actually, and then it took a really quick jump to
almost over $200 a share. So not quite double, but it almost touched, I believe, three trillion, but not quite. It has since come down significantly, but it still is a massive number. So $115 a share. Where is it 12 months from today?
Bradl (22:07)
I'd say about $150 a share. would, I'd see it climbing. I wouldn't say it doing any massive jumps. Um, and there's a lot of followers around SpaceX, a lot of people that would jump at any opportunity. So I think when he does make big announcements, you are going to see these little spikes taking place. Um, but it's going to be, like I said, there's really slow progression going up. I think within a year, you're probably sitting at about 150.
Slava (22:36)
So 150 from 115 is a 35 increase, which is about 30%. 30 % on top of 1.5 billion puts it just under, I think, just under 2 trillion. So, which is kind of where it popped at IPO. So.
Bradl (22:54)
And I
think that lines up quite nicely with the rollout of Starship and Starship becoming commercial. That's what I think is really going to give you that increase in the share price.
Slava (23:05)
Starship becoming commercial, that's like the big catalyst. Can you just double click on that? What does that mean, Starship becoming commercial for the audience?
Bradl (23:15)
So Starship is one of the largest space vehicles that is going to be delivering cargo to low-earth orbit. It's also going to be supporting a lot of the lunar missions. It is one of those vehicles that isn't going to be worried about how we're going to do the small 50 to 100 kilogram satellites going into orbit. It's going to be that vehicle that goes and says, now we can go and build big space stations in orbit. We can build
giant assets in orbit. And that's really going to be this major increases uptake in what that in orbit economy looks like. And it really is going to be dependent on large vehicles like that. And Starship isn't the only big vehicle for everyone to watch out for. You've obviously got Blue Origin with their vehicles, the New Glenn coming out, but Starship really is the one that is leading the way on that.
Slava (24:08)
What is the vehicle that SpaceX is using today that Starship will replace or complement?
Bradl (24:15)
one Starship is up and running. I don't see much, in the way of getting the Falcon heavy in orbits. it's just seems to be one of those middle ground vehicles that would probably end up getting phased out. I'd imagine that the Falcon nine would probably still run for a little while longer. and, I, it's, I wouldn't say it's a surprise to anybody. If you can
between the lines that SpaceX's intention is to drive forward into outside of low Earth orbits. So they're focusing on lunar, they're focusing on high Earth orbit, they're focusing on Mars. And so I think that as the technology progresses into those spaces, the flights on Falcon are going to start dropping down a little bit more and then eventually that's going to phase out. But I would...
I would, if I had to make a prediction, I'd say Falcon 9 probably phases out within the next two years. And then after about a year, it would be hard pressed to actually launch a Falcon Heavy.
Slava (25:20)
So let's just give the audience comparison. What's like the size or volume or whatever metric you want to use comparison between a Falcon 9 and a Starship.
Bradl (25:31)
So I'll try and put an analogy in place. Falcon nine is kind of like a large cargo truck. It is the one that is moving for your audience, moving a whole bunch of materials from Texas to Los Angeles. And it is just,
Slava (25:50)
It's like an 18 wheeler.
Bradl (25:51)
it's like an 18 wheeler. Yeah. And the Starship is like a
cruise ship that's just got containers and containers on it. And so there's vastly different methods of moving things around. once you've got your cruise ship in place, and you can go directly to your different ports with your big things, you don't really need to fire a whole bunch of different 18 wheelers in that space. But what that does,
Slava (26:19)
That's great
metaphor, just so I understand. So if it's a cruise ship versus an 18-wheeler, are we talking like 100X or even more?
Bradl (26:29)
In terms of its cargo capacity, I wouldn't give a number at 100X, but it is moving a significant amount of cargo. If we're just directly on low Earth orbit, it can distribute tons and tons of cargo into low Earth orbit. But where
Slava (26:45)
Awesome.
Bradl (26:46)
it really becomes important is that Starship is now that vehicle that can take a significant amount of cargo to the moon and back.
really really easily.
Slava (26:56)
When is Starship supposed to launch?
Bradl (26:59)
A couple of launches have already happened. They've been mostly test flights. They've been doing a couple of landings, reusability demonstrations of the Starship, which has been very, very impressive. And if we had to go on SpaceX time, which I know that it's a little bit of a joke along with a lot of people in the industry. But if we had to believe SpaceX time,
we're probably looking at mid 2027 to end of 2027 is when that just becomes less of internal developments and less of internal use for like styling, for example, and more of rolling out more clients, commercial clients start rolling out to that.
Slava (27:44)
Awesome. Super helpful. you think SpaceX goes from 115 today to 150 12 months from now and you painted a fairly bullish case. If you were bearish and you had to paint a bearish perspective, if things didn't go as well as you thought, what do you think the stock is a year from now in your bearish scenario? And I imagine Starship has been pushed in that scenario. What else has happened in your bearish scenario and what is the stock price 12 months from now?
Bradl (28:13)
So if we had to think of a bearish scenario, we're probably looking at about 130 in the stock price. that would,
Slava (28:25)
130.
Bradl (28:26)
yeah, yeah. Yeah,
Slava (28:28)
So it's still up 10%.
Bradl (28:29)
yeah, yeah. I wouldn't say, I don't see a reality where SpaceX goes down in value.
Slava (28:36)
Okay.
Bradl (28:37)
Yeah.
But what I would say is it probably doesn't climb as quick as it needs to be in this sort of scenario. And the only reason that I would see that happening is if Starship does get significantly delayed for whatever reason that would be, if Blue Origin comes out with a wild card and shows the world a new type of delivery, a new type of vehicle capability, or just better commercial outcomes. And that's not the first time they've done that.
initial inaugural launch of New Glenn was a major surprise to everybody in the industry. So it's not to say that they wouldn't do that again. And so there are other factors that taking place, but it's really hard to put a prediction on what that could be.
Slava (29:18)
Perfect. So, Orbit2Orbit, it's your baby. Not everybody knows it. So, can you tell us what Orbit2Orbit is?
Bradl (29:28)
can. So Orbit2Orbit is busy building what comes before launch and what comes off the launch. The simplest explanation that I can put in is that we're not a launch company and we're not a space tech company. Think of us as more of a space infrastructure company. And what that does is enables space businesses to succeed by helping them before that launch and
service in them after they arrive in space. So today, that begins with Lab2Space. We help customers integrate and validate their hardware through stratospheric and suborbital and eventually into orbital flights. And we do this by providing clients a standard housing unit called a payload housing unit. And this is cross compatible on all of the launch vehicles that are in our network and allows clients to fly test
repeat and get confidence. And that then ensures that they get all of this information before they spend five to $10 million on their mission. And it is not lost or blows up. And as soon as they leave the launch vehicle and that can happen because a simple cheap components that could have been discovered in a program like lab to space ends up becoming the final outcome of their mission. So
That's what we're doing now. That is our commercial focus. Longer term, we are building a reusable spacecraft and a servicing infrastructure that moves cargo, deploys payloads and retrieves hardware and it supports and upgrades between those orbital platforms. That means that clients don't have to have their own bespoke satellites to fly these missions into space. They can rapidly improve on their sensors.
science at a fraction of the price, all staying within those payload housing units that we would fly in our vehicles as well. It also means that they're in, that we'll be in a good position to service all these different in-space economies and in-space logistics that happen around space, including massive infrastructure that is going up there like data centers. So we're building that logistical layer, that horizontal layer.
that operates in space and takes place after the rocket launch.
Slava (31:51)
Super interesting. So what's an example or two of a client?
Bradl (31:55)
Funny enough, couple of our clients that have come to us are not actually space clients. They're not space related. are pharmaceutical clients. are biotechnical, biochemical clients. They are material scientists. There are solar cells. They're all trying to get into space and they've spoken to Orbit2Orbit and said that, you know, they don't understand the first thing on how to get into space. And we said, that's okay.
We learn about their ambitions and what they want to do. We provide them with that payload housing units and we help them every step of the way. So some really fun ones that are on that we've already got as clients is a communication company. They're busy flying a very, very particular piece of their technology in a high altitude platform so that they can understand how their technology behaves in a near space type environment. We've got
quite a few line on suborbital just to make sure that their technology doesn't break when being experienced with hypergravity. And those are solar cell companies that are trying to gain access into space. We've also got a lot of interest from robotics companies, and they want to go and test what their technology would look like in space and how does that behave. They don't have to go and fly the entire test article. They could just go and fly some of their smaller components that they're not entirely sure about.
just so that they can climb that TRL ladder, they can end up getting their confidence.
Slava (33:22)
All right, what is TRL for the audience?
Bradl (33:25)
TRL, sorry, so technology readiness level. And that is generally on a scale. so breaking that down for you, TRL one to three is really in your conceptual phase. You're trying to understand how your technology is gonna work. And then three to six is where you start doing a lot of your prototype, your developments, and you start increasing on that complexity of your hardware.
And then six onwards is really where you start focusing on that commercial aspect, how you're going to use this in the industry. And so we help a lot of the clients climb up that ladder very, very cheaply and very quickly. And so then that way they can get their stuff into space, lowering their risk, improving in their confidence and making sure that they five to $10 million mission doesn't get scrapped the moment they leave the launch vehicle.
Slava (34:13)
So today, that was super helpful. Today, your core product, if I'm correct, is this payload housing unit and helping the customers who are all these fascinating technologists who are not space experts to be able to make sure that their tests or engineering or their innovation is ready for that experience in space. Is that right?
Bradl (34:36)
That's right. Yes. And so the last thing you want to do is have all of your systems meet in space. So the last thing you want to do is have all of your systems meet in space for the first time, because that is where failures are going to happen. And we've seen this multiple times. There's thousands of small satellites that end up launching in every single year, and just about half of them end up
completely fail in the moment it leaves the launch vehicle. And it's really, really hard to identify why that failure happened. Sometimes you can figure it out, but you can't get your payloads to come back to you once they've already been launched. So a lot of it is speculation. And it could be something as simple as a 10 cents O-ring has now destroyed your $5 million mission. So you would much prefer to find out those hard lessons on a lab to space flight where you end up
getting your payload to come back to you, you can figure out why it didn't work in a condition that is fairly similar to being in space, not exactly, but it's close enough as a representation. So you learn those hard lessons on a cheap flight, improving your technology and then fly again. But you know,
Slava (35:46)
Sorry, that laughs to
space flight. That's a real flight or that's a simulation?
Bradl (35:49)
No, that's a real flight. So we really fly you into near space environments. So
Slava (35:55)
okay.
Bradl (35:55)
all of our launch vehicles that are joined onto this lab to space environments, they are high altitude platform systems. They are suborbital vehicles and we've got global access now with a whole bunch of our launch capable vehicles all over the world.
Slava (36:11)
Okay, so the client, i.e. the solar cells or the robot company or the telecom company, they come to you, they get to put their product or their item in the payload housing unit, try to make sure it's prepared. You then put it into lab to space as a test experience before you actually send it into real space. Is that right?
Bradl (36:32)
So what we do is we give the clients the payload housing units. And so that comes in different shapes and sizes. So that comes in different shapes and sizes. At the moment, we're focusing on one U and a U is a measurement of volume. It is 100 millimeters by 100 millimeters by 100 millimeters. So it's a cube. And so we get that in a size of between one and four U.
And so those are the sizes that we're busy focusing on now. And so we give you that and we give you what we call a desktop docking unit. That desktop docking unit connects to your payload as in units, and you connect that into your laptop. Then what happens is you end up getting profiles of all the different launch vehicles that you can fly on this lab to space program. And that gives you an idea of how your payload is going to behave. So if a launch vehicle, for example, goes and says,
your five minutes to launch, then your technology starts knowing what it is that it needs to do at that time. So you can program your technology to go and say, right, I need to turn on all my sensors. I need to make sure that my camera's going, whatever it is that you need to do. So you program and you build that on the lab bench, on the desktop docking unit. And you say, I'm ready to fly. I've developed as much as I can in the lab.
And so then you go and bring it to us and then we will work with you to identify which is the best TRL path for you to climb. And so that may be going onto a stratospheric operation and we'll take you up to the stratosphere 25, 30 kilometers up for about a week. And then you'll learn quite a lot of about your technology up there. What's, for example, if you rely on the atmosphere here on the ground to keep your technology cool, how
Do you then go and rely on that when you've suddenly had the atmosphere removed away from you? And so you need to then go and think about these problems. So you get that technology that comes back to you, that payload housing comes back to you. You can do some post flights analysis and you can understand what's going on. But then you say, hey, I've learned enough. That was fantastic. I need to now understand the next stage, make sure that my technology can survive flights. And so then we put you on a suborbital.
will fly you 150 kilometers up. You get hypergravity on your way up. You get microgravity. You get a whole bunch of shock. So shock forces are pretty much big vibrational forces. And you learn a lot about what your technology does at that time. And so now you've done all of these different steps. You've also done the normal qualification steps that you would have done along that way. And so now when you go and put that payload on SpaceX or on Rocket Lab,
or on New Glenn, wherever it's gonna go.
You end up getting a lot more confidence that your technology is going to survive. It's going to work. And that's because it hasn't met this environment for the first time. It's met it a few times and it's met it in different kinds of aspects.
Slava (39:36)
Awesome. there's, was that kind of like three stages that like 25 to 30 kilometer, I believe you call it near space. And then there was the 150 kilometer and then there was the full on SpaceX experience. Is that right?
Bradl (39:47)
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So laboratory is phase zero. Then we go sub orbital or so we will go laboratory is phase zero stratospheric is phase one, 25, 30 kilometers, then sub orbital phase two. It's going up to 150 kilometers and then orbital. And the nice thing is
You don't have to do it in that direct path as well. You can swap and you can change it as you want. We work with you to understand what that flight campaign looks like. But the idea is to make sure that you're ready for space and that you've got the confidence before you end up flying.
Slava (40:25)
Super interesting. How many clients do you have?
Bradl (40:29)
We've got four 2026, a lot of the flights that we have rolling in now, 2026 is for our own internal development and our own internal technology build. And in 2027, we've got over 133 total U capacity to fill out. And so now we're rolling a whole bunch of customers into 2027 and we're trying to get that moving as quick as possible.
got a really nice go-to-market team that is now focusing on the rest of the world to start filling in this lab to space.
Slava (41:02)
Very cool. And where are you in your fundraising process?
Bradl (41:06)
So we've started a new round now, $8 million Canadian, and that is just prior to us going IPO. And so we are looking pretty good at this stage. There's a heck of a lot of interest that is happening and don't think it's going to be too long until we end up closing this round.
Slava (41:26)
Sorry for this dumb question, but why is it eight million Canadian, meaning why Canadian?
Bradl (41:32)
because we are IPOing into the Canadian Stock Exchange.
Slava (41:36)
okay, got it.
And how do you know that? Like, is that already committed?
Bradl (41:43)
That's already committed. So if you look us up and there's an announcement that went out about that about a week and a half ago. So Orbit2Orbit is doing a reverse takeover onto a Canadian company and we're going to be listening on that Canadian company.
Slava (42:00)
Wow, amazing. Is there a ticker on that?
Bradl (42:03)
We've got our own ticker that we're going to be registering on. And so the ones that we've put forward as selection is Orbit, as ORBT. ORBT, yeah. And then there is another one, but now it's completely escaped me. But I think we're going to try and push for Orbit. Yeah.
Slava (42:26)
Amazing, super interesting.
Anything else you want to mention about Orbit2Orbit? We learned a lot here.
Bradl (42:32)
so we could probably talk a little bit about what the future past lab to space looks like and how that's that movement between the two platforms works. you're happy with that.
Slava (42:43)
Go for it.
Bradl (42:46)
So after Lab to Space and looking a little bit into the future, we've got our in space vehicles and these vehicles are going to be moving between the different space stations and they're going to be servicing that in orbit economy. So earlier when we spoke about SpaceX, we called them these massive shipping containers and they used to have these big trucks. What did you call them? 18 wheelers? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry.
We don't call them 18 wheelers here in Australia, we just call them trucks.
Slava (43:14)
Yeah, yeah.
Bradl (43:16)
And so you could think of Orbit2Orbit as those small minivans in space. We do that last mile logistics. And so when cargo arrives to a particular space station, we can then go and move that cargo from one space station to another space station. And that means that you can now introduce cargo sharing into the low orbit network.
Cargo itself isn't the only thing that we end up supporting. Because we've got these payload housing units, these clients have been building and developing in this. People can now go and make use of our vehicles by not having their own bespoke satellites. So you don't need to go and build your own five to $10 million satellites and then worry about how I'm going to do comms, how I'm going to move and reposition the satellite. What am going to do about power? All of that can escape your development path.
You connect onto our vehicles. We'll fly you out. You can go and do your scan and you can go and do your particular science. And then when that's done, we take you back to the space station. We take your payload off. We'll put it on a shelf somewhere. And then you can then just wait until you want to fly out again. You schedule your next flight. So we become that reusable vehicle and that last mile logistics. But we are also targeting how do we end up supporting
a lot of the new data centers that are coming up in space. These data centers are very, very sophisticated satellites, and they're going to have a giant fleet of these things. But if you keep on decommissioning these satellites and returning them back down to Earth by just burning them up every single time, because of a small failure on these satellites, it becomes ridiculously expensive to maintain and keep these things. And so you really want to work with a company like us, like Orbit2Orbit, where
something small goes wrong on your satellite, you don't want to replace the entire part. You want to get Orbit2Orbit to come out to your satellite and help sort out what it is that is exactly happening, whether it just be replacing a particular part, partnering with a company that could perhaps use their robotic arms to go and actually do the repair work if necessary. So like I said, think of Orbit2Orbit as that infrastructure, that way of
enabling that in-space economy to try and make sure that it operates at the scale that it needs to operate and it doesn't stall.
Slava (45:40)
Very cool, very cool. So you're obviously a very smart guy. I know a lot about space and more. What is it that you like to listen to, watch, read? Give us a couple Bradley nuggets here.
Bradl (45:53)
I do like to read Andy Weir is currently in my one of my favorite authors and so his movies just been released on the Hail Mary. But if you don't know, he's also got a book called Artemis and so I'm busy reading that at the moment. And a couple of other nuggets about Bradley is I do like to play video games and I know this is going to sound really
corny, but it is extremely true. I play a video game called Space Engineers and you end up building your own little space vehicles and you end up flying around and mining different asteroids and gathering resources. So yeah, it is very corny. You can get
Slava (46:32)
What platform is that on? What platform is
Bradl (46:35)
that on Steam. Yeah, so it's a PC game. So yeah, it's very, very...
You know, of course the space engineer likes to play a game called space engineers.
Slava (46:45)
Does that actually in any way help you with any of your thing or is it just a good release for you?
Bradl (46:51)
It's just a little bit of a release for me. A lot of the physics and space engineers is pure rubbish. And so you just use that as a little bit of fun times to go and build a complex piece of equipment to go and crash it into an asteroid.
Slava (47:08)
I love it. I love it. I think that's the first time we got a video game recommendation. So that's awesome. So now our final segment here, which we always put our guests here on the spot for two predictions for three years out. One public markets prediction. So actually a stock pick. And the second one is a non-stock pick anything that's not on the public markets. So first let's go with the public markets pick. What is your public markets pick and why for three years out?
Bradl (47:33)
My
public, my public market pick is actually Rocket Lab
Slava (47:38)
OK, great.
Bradl (47:40)
and, I can't recall what their ticker is. but Rocket Lab is extremely impressive. They've grown a tremendous amount on a fraction of the capital that a lot of other space companies have done. And, they've just acquired a, company called Iridium. And so that is really just give them a major leap in.
how things are going to be moving in space. And a little bit biased in this one, but I'm gonna throw another, you should really look at this company called Orbit2Orbit. So they're gonna be on the public markets and they've got a lot of good things happening in the pipeline. The one to look out for that isn't in the stock exchange now, but then could be.
just trying to think about whether I should, I don't think I'm allowed to actually say anything about them. Sorry, with space companies, there is a lot of secrecy around things.
Slava (48:38)
Well, I'm not telling you which pick to pick, but we want to hear a pick. So give us any pick that's not in the public markets.
Bradl (48:44)
So a pick that isn't in the public markets but is probably going to be doing quite well is most likely going to be companies like Space Machines. And there's D-Orbits, there's Portal Space.
Slava (48:59)
Sorry, Space Machines and the Company.
Bradl (49:01)
Space Machines is a company, they're an Australian company. They built
Slava (49:03)
Yeah, what did they do? Okay, I'm showing from.
Bradl (49:05)
Space Tugs.
And space tugs are very important. They're very different to what Orbit2Orbit is doing. Space tugs move satellites into different orbits. Once they leave the launch vehicle, they may not want to be in that particular orbit. so space tugs, purpose is to then go and deliver them into the orbit that they want to be. It's a really important role. Orbit2Orbit doesn't do that. We do a completely different sector, but a lot of the people sort of make that mistake of going and saying, you're a space tug.
no we're not.
Slava (49:37)
Okay, perfect.
This is super helpful. Thank you, Bradley, for joining. We covered a lot of ground from starting in South Africa with aerospace manufacturing and building a rocket factory, then coming to Australia, being enamored with space, creating Message in a Bottle as your white paper manifesto, sending it to 14 folks and getting feedback to that, becoming a new company five, six months later.
such an interesting way to start a company. You expressed to us that you're all in on Orbit2Orbit. You're not really investing in other spaces. You do have a little bit of crypto, but mostly you're all in on Orbit2Orbit. You're not very scared about AI taking people's jobs. You're really neutral to bullish as to what the global job market could look like because of AI. You were talking to us about how SpaceX impacts
The stock market, more importantly, where it can land, you're thinking probably about $150 12 months from now, which is about 30 % up. And the main catalyst is Starship going commercial, obviously replacing Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, etc. It could go a little bit less than that, but either way, you're bullish. You don't really see the stock going down. You actually said, I don't see a reality of SpaceX going down. We're going to put a pin in that and we'll see what the reality is a year or two from now. And as it
Bradl (51:00)
Yeah.
Slava (51:02)
relates to Orbit2Orbit,
You gave us a whole explanation of the awesome innovations that you're working on, whether it's the Payload Housing Unit, whether it's the Desktop Unit to support that, the Lab to Space program, whether it's going up the levels of TRL, which is the tech readiness level that you taught us about, going on maybe the lab level to the 25 kilometer level to 150 kilometer level to all the way into space and getting a ride on SpaceX, et cetera. You have interesting potential clients. You're working with
this unit size of a U, I've never heard of that. You're working with one to four U's, which is fascinating. And all of this on a small amount of fundraising and you're about to close an $8 million Canadian just before going listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange, which is quite rapid considering that you're starting just about two years ago, plus minus. Hopefully your ticker symbol will be ORBT. We're not sure just quite yet. You love Andy Weir. I'm a big fan of Project Hail Mary the movie.
I have to set check out his other content. You did tell us about our first video game, which is Space Engineers. I'm gonna have to check that out or maybe have my son check that out. And you gave us two picks because you were playing the game with us. One in the public markets, Rocket Lab very much fits all of your knowledge. And of course, Space Machines, otherwise as Space Tugs, which is private. Thank you very much, Bradley.
Bradl (52:23)
Thank you very much.
