Natalya Bailey: Rocket Engines and Electric Spacecraft Propulsion | Lex Fridman Podcast #157

Lex Fridman 0:00 The following is a conversation with Natalia Bailey, a rocket scientist and spacecraft propulsion engineer previously at MIT, and now the founder and CTO of Axion Systems, specializing in efficient space propulsion engines for satellites and spacecraft. So, these are not the engines that get us from the ground on Earth out to space, but rather the engines that move us around in space once we get out there. Quick mention of our sponsors: Munk Pack low-carb snacks; Four Sigmatic mushroom coffee; Blinkist, an app that summarizes books; and Sunbasket, meal delivery service. So, the choice is snacks, caffeine, knowledge, or a delicious meal. Choose wisely, my friends. And if you wish, click the sponsor links below to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say something about Natalia's story. She has talked about how when she was young, she would often look up at the stars and dream of alien intelligences that one day we could communicate with. This moment of childlike cosmic curiosity is at the core of my own interest in space, in extraterrestrial life, and in general, in artificial intelligence, science, and engineering. Amid the meetings and the papers and the career rat race and all the awards, let's not let ourselves lose that childlike wonder. Sadly, we're on Earth for only a very short time, so let's have fun solving some of the biggest puzzles in the universe while we're here. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter @lexfridman. And now, here's my conversation with Natalia Bailey.

Lex Fridman 1:46 You said that you spent your whole life dreaming about space, and also pondering the big existential question of whether there is or isn't intelligent life, intelligent alien civilizations out there. So, what do you think? Do you think there's life out there? Intelligent life?

Natalya Bailey 2:03 Intelligent life. That's trickier. I- I think looking at, you know, the- the likelihood of a self-replicating organism, given how much time the universe has exi- existed, and how many stars with planets, I think it's likely that there's other life. Intelligent life, I'm hopeful. You know, I'm a little discouraged that we haven't yet been in touch.

Lex Fridman 2:34 Uh, allegedly.

Natalya Bailey 2:35 I remain hopeful.

Lex Fridman 2:35 I mean, d- it's also-

Natalya Bailey 2:37 On the- in- in our dimensions-

Lex Fridman 2:38 Right.

Natalya Bailey 2:39 ... and so on, yeah.

Lex Fridman 2:39 It's also possible that, uh, they have been in touch and we just haven't ... we're too dumb to realize they're communicating with us, in whichever is the- it's the S- Carl Sagan idea that they may be communicating at a timescale that's totally different.

Natalya Bailey 2:54 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 2:54 Like, their- their signals are on a totally different timescale, or on a, like, a totally different kind of medium of communication. It could be- it could be our own- it could be the birth of, like, human beings, like, that th- the- whatever the magic that makes us who we are, the collective intelligence thing, that could be aliens themselves. That could be the medium of communication. Like, the nature of our consciousness and intelligence itself is the medium of communication. And when-

Natalya Bailey 3:24 And, like, being able to ask the questions themselves.

Lex Fridman 3:28 Right.

Natalya Bailey 3:29 I've never thought of it that way.

Lex Fridman 3:30 Like, actually, yeah. Asking the question-

Natalya Bailey 3:32 Yeah. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 3:32 ... whether aliens exist might be the very medium by which they communicate. It's like they- they send questions as opposed to answers.

Natalya Bailey 3:38 So, some- this, like, collective emergent behavior is- is the signal?

Lex Fridman 3:44 Is the signal, yeah. (laughs) So, the ob-

Natalya Bailey 3:47 That's interesting, yeah.

Lex Fridman 3:48 'Cause maybe that's how we would communicate with ... If you think about it, if we were way, way, way smarter, like a thousand years from now, we somehow survive, like how would we actually communicate? In a way, that's like, if we broadcast the signal, you know, and then it could somehow, like, percolate throughout the universe. Like, that signal having impact on-

Natalya Bailey 4:10 Multiverse.

Lex Fridman 4:11 Multiverse, of course. (laughs) Uh, that would have a signal in- uh, uh, an effect on the most possi- the most-

Natalya Bailey 4:19 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 4:19 The highest number of possible civilizations. What would that signal be? It might not be, like, sending a few, like, stupid little "Hello, world" messages. It might be something more impactful. Where ... It's almost, like, impactful in a way where they don't have to have the capability to hear it. It, like, forces the message to have an impact.

Natalya Bailey 4:42 Right. My (laughs) train of thought has never gone- gone there.

Lex Fridman 4:46 Good.

Natalya Bailey 4:46 But I like it.

Lex Fridman 4:47 (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 4:48 And also somewhere in there, I think it's implied that something travels faster than the speed of light, which I'm also really hopeful for.

Lex Fridman 4:58 Oh, you're hopeful? A- are you excited by the possibility that there's intelligent life out there? Sort of, you work on- on the engineering side of things. It's this very kind of focused pursuit of, uh, moving things through space efficiently.

Natalya Bailey 5:15 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 5:15 But, you know, if you zoom out, one of the cool things that this enables us to do is find ... uh, forget even an intelligent life, just life, on Mars or on Europa or something like that. Does that excite you? Does that scare you?

Natalya Bailey 5:31 Oh, it's very exciting. I mean, it's the whole reason I went into the field I'm in, is to contribute to building the body of knowledge that we have as a species, um, so very exciting.

Lex Fridman 5:47 Do you think there's life on Mars? Uh, like, uh, no longer ... well, already living but- uh, currently living, but also no longer living? Like, that we might be able to find life. There's- there's- some people suspect basic mo- microbial life.

Natalya Bailey 6:03 I'm not so sure about in our own solar system, and, and I do think it might be hard to untangle if we somehow contaminated other things as well.

Lex Fridman 6:14 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 6:15 Uh, so I'm not sure about this close to home.

Lex Fridman 6:19 That would be really exciting.

Natalya Bailey 6:20 Yes.

Lex Fridman 6:21 Like, do you think about the Drake equation much, of like-

Natalya Bailey 6:23 That was what, yeah, what got me-

Lex Fridman 6:26 (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 6:26 ... (laughs) into all of this, yeah.

Lex Fridman 6:28 Yeah, 'cause, uh, one of the questions is how hard is it for life to start on a habitable planet. Like, if you have a lot of the basic conditions, not exactly like Earth, but basic Earth-like conditions, how hard is it for life to start? And if you find life on Mars or find life on Europa, that means it's way easier. That's a good thing to confirm that if you have a habitable planet, then there's going to be life. And that, like, immediately, that's g- that would be super exciting 'cause that means there's like trillions of planets-

Natalya Bailey 7:02 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 7:02 ... with basic life out there.

Natalya Bailey 7:04 Though, of all the planets in our solar system, Earth is clearly the most habitable, so, uh, I would not be discouraged if we didn't find it on another planet-

Lex Fridman 7:15 Sure.

Natalya Bailey 7:15 ... in our solar system.

Lex Fridman 7:17 True, and again, that life could look very different. It's habitable-

Natalya Bailey 7:19 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 7:19 ... for Earth-like life.

Natalya Bailey 7:20 Right.

Lex Fridman 7:21 But it could be, uh, totally different. I still think that trees are quite possibly more intelligent than humans, but their intelligence is carried out over a timescale that we're just not able to appreciate.

Natalya Bailey 7:33 Huh.

Lex Fridman 7:33 Like, they might be running the entirety of human civilization, and we're just, like, too dumb-

Natalya Bailey 7:37 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 7:37 ... to realize that they're, they're the smart ones.

Natalya Bailey 7:40 Maybe that's the alien message. It's in the trees.

Lex Fridman 7:44 It's in the tr- (laughs) in the trees.

Natalya Bailey 7:47 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 7:47 Uh, yeah, it's not in the, uh, monolith in the Utah desert, it's in the trees.

Natalya Bailey 7:51 Right, yeah.

Lex Fridman 7:51 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 7:52 So, le- let's go to space exploration. Uh, how do you think we get humans to Mars?

Natalya Bailey 7:57 I, I think SpaceX and, and Elon Musk will be the ones that get the first human setting foot on Mars, uh, and probably not that long from now, from us having this conversation. You know, maybe we'll inflate his timeline a little bit, but I tend to believe, um, the goals he sets. So, I think that will happen relatively soon. Um, as far as, you know, when and what it will take to get humans living there in a more permanent way, um, you know, I have a glib answer which is, you know, when we can invent a, a time machine to go back to the early Cold War, and instead of uniting around sending people to the moon, um, we pick Mars as the destination. Uh, so really, I, you know, I, I say that because there's nothing truly scientifically or technologically impossible about doing that soon. Uh, it's more, you know, politically and financially and, and those are the obstacles, I think, to that.

Lex Fridman 9:04 Well, I wonder of when you colonize with, you know, more than, say, five people on Mars, you have to start thinking about the kind of, uh, r- like, rules you have on Mars.

Natalya Bailey 9:16 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 9:16 And speaking of the Cold War, who gets to own the land? You know, you start planting flags and you start to make decisions. And, uh, (laughs) like SpaceX has this ni- it's probably a little bit trolly, but they have this nice paragraph in their contracts where it's like, it's, it talks about (laughs) that, uh, like human, uh, governments on Earth or Earth governments have no, uh, jurisdiction on Mars. Like, the rules, the martians get to define their own rules.

Natalya Bailey 9:50 (laughs) Sure.

Lex Fridman 9:50 And it sounds very much like, uh, (laughs) like the Founding Fathers for this country. That's the kind of language. Uh, it's interesting that that's, that that's in there and it makes you think, perhaps that needs to be leveraged, like you have to be very clever about leveraging that to, uh, to create a little bit of a Cold War feeling. It seems like we're, w- we humans need a little bit of a competition. Do you think that's necessary to s- succeed and, um, to get the, the necessary investment? Or can the pure pursuit of science be enough?

Natalya Bailey 10:28 No, I think we're seeing right now the pure pursuit of science, I mean, that results in pretty tiny budgets for exploration. Um, there has to be some disaster, impending doom (laughs) um, to get us onto another planet in a permanent way. I don't know... Financially, I just don't know if the private sector can support that, and, but I don't n- I, you know, I don't wish that there is some catastrophe coming our way that, that spurs us to do that.

Lex Fridman 11:03 Yeah, it's un- I'm unsure what the business model is for colonizing Mars.

Natalya Bailey 11:08 Yeah, exactly.

Lex Fridman 11:09 Yeah, like there is for, we'll talk about satellites. There's probably a lot of business models around satellites, but there's not enough short term business. I guess that's how business works. Like, you should have a, (laughs) you should have a path to making money in like the next 10 years.

Natalya Bailey 11:25 Well, and

Natalya Bailey 11:26 m- maybe even more broadly and, and looping back to something we, we said earlier, I don't know that getting humans off this planet and, you know, spreading (laughs) um, like bacteria is what we're supposed to be doing in the first place. So-

Lex Fridman 11:45 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 11:46 ... maybe we can go but should we? And, and I'm probably a, uh, unusual person for thinking that in my industry because humans want to explore, but I almost wonder, you know, are we putting unnecessary obstacles, like, uh, or very finicky biological things in the way of some more robotic or-... you know, more silicon-based exploration. Um, and, yeah, do we need to colonize and spread? I'm not sure.

Lex Fridman 12:20 What do you think is the role of AI in space? Do you, uh, in your work, again, we'll talk about it, but do, do you see more and more of the space vehicles, spacecraft being run by artificial intelligence systems? More than just, like, the flight control, but, like, the management?

Natalya Bailey 12:41 Yeah, I don't have a lot of color to the dreams I have about way in the future in, in AI, but I do think that removing... You know, it's hard for humans to even make a trip to Mars, much less go anywhere farther than that. And I think we'll have, you know, more, uh, this, again, I'm probably unusual in, in having these thoughts, but perhaps be able to, to generate more knowledge and understand more if we stop trying to send humans and instead, you know, I don't know if we're talking about AI, um, in a truly, you know, artificial intelligence way or AI as, as we kind of use it today. Um, but maybe sending a petri dish or two of, like, stem cells and some robotic handlers instead if we still need to send our DNA because we're really stuck on that. Um, but if not, you know, maybe not even that petri dish. Um, so I see, I think what I'm saying is, you know, I see a, a much bigger role in the future of AI for space exploration.

Lex Fridman 13:47 It's kind of sad to think that, uh, I mean, I'm sure we'll eventually send a spacecraft with, uh, efficient propulsion, like some of the stuff you work on out that travels just really far with some robots on it and with some, with some DNA in a petri dish.

Natalya Bailey 14:05 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 14:05 And then human civilization destroys itself, and then there'll just be this floating spacecraft that eventually gets somewhere or not.

Natalya Bailey 14:13 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 14:14 That's a sad thought, like this lonely spacecraft just kind of traveling through space and humans are all dead.

Natalya Bailey 14:20 Well, it depends-

Lex Fridman 14:21 That's a possible future.

Natalya Bailey 14:22 ... it depends on what the, what the goal is, right? (laughs)

Lex Fridman 14:26 (laughs) I don't-

Natalya Bailey 14:27 Another way to look at it is-

Lex Fridman 14:28 I don't know what the goal is. Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 14:29 ... we've preserved, it's like a little time capsule of knowledge, DNA, you know, that we've-

Lex Fridman 14:34 Mm-hmm.

Natalya Bailey 14:34 ... that will outlive us. So-

Lex Fridman 14:36 Well, that's beautiful.

Natalya Bailey 14:37 Yeah. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 14:38 (laughs) Uh-

Natalya Bailey 14:39 It's how I sleep at night. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 14:41 So, you also mentioned that you wanted to be an astronaut.

Natalya Bailey 14:43 Yes.

Lex Fridman 14:45 So, even though you said you're unusual in thinking, like, it's nice here on earth and that we might want to be sending robots up there, you wanted to be a human that goes out there. Would you like to one day travel to Mars? You know, if it's, if, if it becomes sort of more open to civilian travel and that kind of thing. Like, are you, uh, like vacation-wise, like if we're talk- if we're talking vacations, would you like to vacation on earth or vacation on Mars?

Natalya Bailey 15:15 I wish that I had a better answer, but no. I wanted to be an astronaut because I, first of all, I like working in labs and doing experiments and, um, I wanted to go to, like, the coolest lab, the ISS.

Lex Fridman 15:33 (laughs) Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 15:34 Um, and do some experiments there. Uh, that's being decommissioned, which is sad. But, you know, there will be others, I'm sure. Um-

Lex Fridman 15:43 The ISS is being decommissioned?

Natalya Bailey 15:44 Yes. I think by 2025 it's not going to be in use anymore. But I think, um, there are other, there are private companies that are going to be putting up stations and things.

Lex Fridman 15:55 So, it's primarily like a research lab essentially.

Natalya Bailey 15:57 Yes.

Lex Fridman 15:57 A research lab in space. That's a cool way to say it. It's like the coolest possible research lab you c-

Natalya Bailey 16:02 Yes. That's where I wanted to go, and now though, my, you know, risk profile has changed a little bit, I have three little ones-

Lex Fridman 16:10 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 16:10 ... and, um, I won't, I won't be in the first thousand people to go to Mars, let's put it that way.

Lex Fridman 16:18 Yeah, earth is kind of nice. We have our troubles, but overall, it's pretty nice. Again, it's the Netflix.

Lex Fridman 16:26 Okay, let's talk rockets. Uh, how does a rocket engine work or any kind of engine that can get us to space or float around in space?

Natalya Bailey 16:36 The basic principle is conservation of momentum. So, um, you throw stuff out the back of the engine and, oops, uh, and that pushes the rocket and the spacecraft in the other direction. So, uh, there are two main types of, of rocket propulsion. Um, the one people are more familiar with is chemical because it's loud and there's fire. Um, and that's what's used for launch and is more televised. So, um, in, in those types of systems, you usually have a f- a fuel and an oxidizer and, um, they react and combust and release stored chemical energy. Um, and, and that energy heats, um, heats the resultant gas and, and that's funneled out the back through a nozzle, uh, directed out the back and, and then that momentum exchange, um, pushes the spacecraft forward.

Lex Fridman 17:32 Is there an interesting difference between liquid and solid fuel in those contexts?

Natalya Bailey 17:36 They're both lumped in the same. So, uh, chemical just means that the release of energy from, from those bonds essentially. So, a solid fuel works the same way. Uh, and the other main category is electric propulsion, so instead of chemical energy, you're using electrical energy, um, usually from, you know, batteries or solar panels. And, uh, in this case, the stuff you're pushing out the back, uh, would be charged particles. So, um, instead of combustion and heat, you, you end up with charged particles and you force them out the back of the spacecraft using either an electrostatic field or electromagnetic. Um, and, but it's the same momentum exchange and, and same idea stuff out the back and everything else goes forward.

Lex Fridman 18:27 Cool. So, those are the big two categories. What, what's the difference maybe in like (exhales sharply) the challenges of each, the use cases of each, and, uh, how they're used today? The physics of each, like-

Natalya Bailey 18:45 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 18:45 ... and where they're used, all that kind of stuff. Anything interesting about the two categories that distinguishes them? Besides the, the chemical one being the big sexy flames and-

Natalya Bailey 18:56 Yeah. (laughs) Fire.

Lex Fridman 18:57 ... fire. (laughs) Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 18:59 Chemical is very well understood. Um, you know, uh, in its simplest form, it's like a firework, so it's been around since 400 BC or something like that. Um, so that... Even the big engines are quite well understood. I think, you know, one of the, one of the last gaps there is probably, um, what exactly are the products of combustion? Um, our modeling abilities kind of fall apart there, um, because it's hot and gases are moving. And, uh, you end up kind of, you know, having to venture into, um, lots of different interdisciplinary fields of science to try to solve that, and that's quite complex. But we have pretty good, um, models for some of the more like emergent behaviors of that system anyways. But that's, I think, one of the last unsolved pieces. Um, and really the, the n- kind of what people care about there is, is making it more fuel efficient. So, the chemical stuff, um, you can get a lot of, um, instantaneous thrust, but it's not very fuel efficient. It's much more fuel efficient to go with the electric type of propulsion. Um, so that's where people spend a lot of their time, um, is trying to make that more efficient in terms of thrust per unit of fuel. And then, um, there's always considerations like heating and cooling. It's very hot, which is good if it heats the gases but, you know, bad if it melts the rocket and, and things like that. So, there's always a lot of work on heating and cooling and, and the engine cycles and things like that. Um, and then on electric propulsion, I find it like much more refreshingly poorly understood.

Lex Fridman 20:54 (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 20:55 Um-

Lex Fridman 20:56 Lots more mysteries.

Natalya Bailey 20:57 Yeah. I think so. Uh, one of the classes I took in college spent... We spent 90% of the class on chemical propulsion, and then the last 10% on electric. And the professor said like, "We only sort of understand how it works, but it works kind of." And I was like, "That's-

Lex Fridman 21:15 That's what I'm gonna work on. (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 21:15 "... that's interesting." Yeah. And, uh, you know, even, uh, an ion engine, which is probably one of the most straightforward because it's... it has just an... it's just an electrostatic engine. But it has this really awesome combination of like quantum mechanics and, um, material science and fluid dynamics and, uh, electrostatics and, and, um, it's just very intriguing to me. Um-

Lex Fridman 21:42 First of all, can you actually zoom out even more? Like, 'cause you mentioned ion propulsion-

Natalya Bailey 21:47 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 21:47 ... engine is a subset of electric p-

Natalya Bailey 21:50 Of the electric. Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 21:51 So like, maybe... Is there categories of electric engines and then we can zoom in on ion propulsion?

Natalya Bailey 21:55 Yes. So... Sure. There's, um... The two most kind of conventional types that have been around since the '60s are ion engines and Hall thrusters. And ion engines are a little bit simpler because they don't use a magnetic field for generating thrust. Um, and then there are also, um, some other types of plasma engines but that don't fit into those two categories, so just kind of other plasma like, um, a VASIMR engine, which we could get into. Um, and then those are probably the main three categories that would be fun to talk about. Oh, and then, of course, the category, um, of engine that I work on, which is, um... has a lot of similarities to an ion engine but could be considered its own class called a colloid thruster.

Lex Fridman 22:44 Colloid. Cool. Okay. So, what is an ion propulsion, ion engine?

Natalya Bailey 22:48 Uh... Okay. So, in an ion engine, you have an ionization chamber and you inject the propellant into that chamber. And this is usually, um, a neutral gas like xenon or argon. Uh, so you inject that into the chamber and you also inject, um, a, a stream of really hot high-energy electrons. And everything's just moving around, um, very randomly in there. And the, the whole goal is to have, um, one of those electrons collide with one of those neutral atoms and turn it into an ion. So, kick off a secondary electron and now you have, uh-

Lex Fridman 23:29 Plasma.

Natalya Bailey 23:30 Yes.

Lex Fridman 23:30 Okay.

Natalya Bailey 23:31 And now you have (laughs) ... Um, uh, and now you have a charged, you know, xenon or argon ion and, and more electrons and so on. Um, and then, uh, some fraction of those ions will happen to make it to this downstream, um, electric field that we set up between two grids with holes in them.

Lex Fridman 23:53 Mm-hmm.

Natalya Bailey 23:54 And, you know, in terms of area, the same amount of those ions also makes... runs into the walls and lose their charge and, um, that's where some of the inefficiencies come in. But the very lucky few make it to those holes in, in that grid and they're, um, two grids actually, and you apply a, a voltage differential between them and, and that sets up an electric field. And a charged particle in an electric field, uh, creates a force. Uh, and so those ions are accelerated out the back of the engine and the reaction force is, um, is what pushes the spacecraft forward. Um-... if you're, you know, following along and tallying these charges, now we've just sent a positive beam of ions out the back of the spacecraft, um, and, and for our purposes here, the spacecraft is neutral. So eventually, um, those ions will come back and hit the spacecraft because it's a positive beam. So you also have to have an external cathode, um, producer of electrons outside the engine that pumps electrons into that beam and neutralizes that. So now it's net neutral everywhere and it won't come back to the spacecraft. So that's, that's an ion engine.

Lex Fridman 25:07 What temperature are we talking about here? So in terms of like the, the chemical-based engines, those are super hot. Uh, you mentioned plasma here. How hot does this thing get?

Natalya Bailey 25:18 Um-

Lex Fridman 25:20 I mean, is that an interesting thing to talk about in a sense that... Is that a-

Natalya Bailey 25:23 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 25:23 ... interesting distinction or is heat... I mean, it's all gonna be hot.

Natalya Bailey 25:28 No, so it's important, uh, especially for some of these smaller satellites people are into launching these days. So the, it, it's important because you have the plasma, but also those high energy electrons are hot, and, um, if you have a lot of those that are going into the walls, you do have to care about the temperature. So, um, I... Uh, I'm having trouble remembering off the top of my head. I think they're at like 100 electronvolts in terms of the electron energy, and then I'd have to f- remember how to convert that into kelvin.

Lex Fridman 26:00 Can you stick your hand in it? Is that, not room temperature?

Natalya Bailey 26:03 No, not recommended. (laughs) Yeah.

Lex Fridman 26:04 Okay.

Lex Fridman 26:05 So what's a colloid engine?

Natalya Bailey 26:07 So the same rocket people that, um, came up with, with these ideas for electric propulsion, um, probably in the middle of, of last century, uh, also realized that there's one more place to get charged particles from, um, if you're going to be using electric propulsion. So you can take a gas and you can ionize it, but there are also some liquids, particularly ionic liquids, which is what we use, that you also can, um, use as a source of ions. And if you have ions and you put them in a field, you generate a force. So they recognized that, but, um, part of being able to leverage that technique is being able to m- kind of manipulate those liquids on a scale of nanometers or, or, you know-

Lex Fridman 27:00 Hm.

Natalya Bailey 27:00 ... very few microns. So, you know, the diameter of a human hair or something like that.

Lex Fridman 27:05 Oh.

Natalya Bailey 27:05 And in the '50s, there was no way to do that, so they wrote about it in some books and then it kind of died for a little bit. And then with, um, silicon, MEMS computer processors, and, and when foundry started becoming more ubiquitous, and my advisor, um, started at MIT, uh, kind of put those ideas back together and was like, "Hey, actually there's now a way to build this and bring this other technique to life." Um, and so the way da- the way that you actually get the, the ions out of those liquids, um, is you put the liquid in a, in, again, a strong electric field, and the electric field stresses the liquid, and you keep increasing the field, and eventually the liquid will assume, uh, I'll go this way, a, a conical shape. Um, it's the, it's when the electric field pressure that's pulling on it exactly balances the liquid's own restoring force, which is its surface tension.

Lex Fridman 28:05 Mm-hmm. Cool.

Natalya Bailey 28:06 So you have this balance and the liquid assumes a cone, um, when it's perfectly balanced like that. And at the tip of a cone, um, the radius of curvature goes to zero right at the tip.

Lex Fridman 28:18 Mm-hmm.

Natalya Bailey 28:18 Um, and, uh, the radius, uh, sorry, the electric field, um, right at the tip of a sharp object would go to infinity, uh, 'cause it goes, um, uh, as one over the radius and, one over the radius squared, and instead of the electric field going to infinity and maybe like generating a wormhole or something, um, a jet of ions instead starts, you know, issuing from-

Lex Fridman 28:44 Mm-hmm.

Natalya Bailey 28:44 ... the tip of, of that liquid. So the field becomes strong enough there that you can pull ions, um, out of the liquid.

Lex Fridman 28:50 Uh, what is the liquid we're talking about? What-

Natalya Bailey 28:52 So, um-

Lex Fridman 28:52 ... or is it, there's a bunch of different ones?

Natalya Bailey 28:54 You can do it with, um, with different types of liquids. It depends on, you know, how easily you can free ions from their neighbors and if it has enough surface tension so that you can build up a high enough electric field. But, um, what we use are called ionic liquids and they're really just positive. They're, uh, they're very similar to salts but they happen to be liquid over a really wide range of temperatures.

Lex Fridman 29:19 This sounds like really cool. (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 29:21 It, yeah.

Lex Fridman 29:22 Okay. So how big is the c- uh, how big is the cone are we talk- uh, what, what's the size of this cone that generates the ions?

Natalya Bailey 29:27 So if you have a cone that's emitting pure ions, um, the... I can't remember if it's the radius or diameter, but, um, that emission is happening from, of that cone is something like 20 nanometers.

Lex Fridman 29:41 Oh. (laughs) I was imagining-

Natalya Bailey 29:44 So-

Lex Fridman 29:44 ... something slightly bigger. But so like this is, so this is tiny, tiny.

Natalya Bailey 29:48 Yes.

Lex Fridman 29:49 Hence the only being able to do it recently.

Natalya Bailey 29:52 Yeah. That's right.

Lex Fridman 29:52 So this is all controlled by a computer, I guess. Like, or like how, how-

Natalya Bailey 29:57 (laughs) Yeah. Which one?

Lex Fridman 29:58 ... how do you control s- how do you create a cone that generates ions at a scale of nanometers exactly?

Natalya Bailey 30:04 So the kind of main trick to making this work is that physically, we manufacture hundreds or thousands of sharp structures and then supply the liquid to the tips. So that does a few things. Um, it makes sure that we know where the ion beams are forming so we can put holes in the grid above them to let them actually leave instead of hitting, right?

Lex Fridman 30:27 This is so cool. (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 30:28 Um, but it also reduces the actual field we have t- the voltage we have to apply to create that field because the field will be much stronger if we can already s-... give the liquid a tip to form on, um, and those tips we form have radii of curvature, um, on the order of probably, like, single microns. So, we are working at a little bit larger scale, but once we create that support and the electric field can be focused at that tip, then the tiny little cone can form on top of that.

Lex Fridman 31:00 So wait, so th- there's something in the ... There's an already ... Like, a hard material-

Natalya Bailey 31:04 Yes.

Lex Fridman 31:04 ... that, like, gives you the base for the cone?

Natalya Bailey 31:06 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 31:07 And then you're pouring, like, liquid over it? Whatever the heck-

Natalya Bailey 31:08 From the bottom, yeah. It's porous, so we actually supply it from the back of the chip and then it wicks-

Lex Fridman 31:13 And then liquid forms on top-

Natalya Bailey 31:15 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 31:15 ... on, on that structure?

Natalya Bailey 31:16 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 31:17 And then you somehow make it, like, super sharp, the liquid?

Natalya Bailey 31:20 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 31:20 So the ions can-

Natalya Bailey 31:21 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 31:22 ... like ... (laughs) Uh-

Natalya Bailey 31:24 And then we've applied that field to get those ions, and that same field then accelerates them.

Lex Fridman 31:31 That's awesome. And there's, like, a bunch of these? Like-

Natalya Bailey 31:34 Yeah. I should have ... I should have brought something. Um, so we-

Lex Fridman 31:38 Well, you could just pretend that-

Natalya Bailey 31:39 Yes.

Lex Fridman 31:40 ... you have some nanometer cones on, on the table here. (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 31:41 So actually, you know, kind of about this scale, um, we build ... We call them thruster chips, and it's just a convenient form factor and it's a square centimeter, and on each square centimeter, today we have about 500 of the actual physical ... We call them emitters, those physical cones, um, and we're working on increasing that by a factor of four in the coming months.

Lex Fridman 32:05 In, in size or in the density?

Natalya Bailey 32:07 In number ... In the density, the number of emitters-

Lex Fridman 32:10 Okay.

Natalya Bailey 32:10 ... within the same square centimeter chip.

Lex Fridman 32:12 So that thing ... 'Cause I think I've seen pictures of you with, like, a tiny thing in your hand-

Natalya Bailey 32:15 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 32:15 That must be the th- (laughs) okay.

Natalya Bailey 32:18 Yeah. Yeah.

Lex Fridman 32:18 So that's an engine?

Natalya Bailey 32:19 Um, so that is kind of the ionization chamber and thrust-producing part of it. What's not shown, you know, in that picture, um, is the propellant tank, so we can keep supplying more and more of the liquid to those, um, emission sites, and then we also provide a power electronic system that talks to the spacecraft and turns our device on and off.

Lex Fridman 32:43 So that's the colloid engine?

Natalya Bailey 32:45 Yes.

Lex Fridman 32:45 That's the core of the colloid engine?

Natalya Bailey 32:47 Um, it's ... The way I've been talking about it, it's, um, more of ion electrospray. Colloid, um, tends to mean, like, liquid droplets coming off of the jet, but if you make smaller and smaller cones, you get pure ions, so we're kind of like a subset of colloid, yes.

Lex Fridman 33:07 What, uh, aspects of this ... You said that it's been full of mysteries from the physics perspective. What aspects of this are understood and what are still full of mystery?

Natalya Bailey 33:19 Yeah. Recently, um, we've been understanding the kind of instabilities and, and stable regimes of, um, you know, how much liquid do you supply and, and what field do you apply, and, um, why is it flickering on and off, or why does it have these weird behaviors? So that's, in the past just couple years, that's, um, become much more understood. Um, I think the two areas that come to mind as far as, um, not as well understood, are, um, the boundary between ... You know, you have ... Um, we, we actually use kind of big molecular ions and if you're looking at the molecular scale, you have, you know, some ions that you've extracted and they're in this electric field. One ion, uh, you know, it's a big molecule, it's getting energy from the electric field and some of that energy is going into the bonds and making it vibrate and doing weird things to it. Sometimes it breaks them apart. And then zooming out to the whole beam, the beam has some behaviors as this beam of ions, and there's a big gap between what are those ... What ... How do you connect those, um, and how do we understand that better so that we can understand the beam performance of, of the engine?

Lex Fridman 34:45 Is that a theory question or is it an en- engineering question?

Natalya Bailey 34:48 Theory, definitely. We're ... Accion is a, a startup and we're more in the business of building and testing and observing, um, and characterizing, (laughs) um, and we're not really diving much into that theory right now.

Lex Fridman 35:03 Okay. Zoom- zooming out a little bit on the physics, uh, apologize for the way too big of a question, but do you from either a s- ... You mentioned Accion is, you know, more sort of an engineering endeavor, right?

Natalya Bailey 35:16 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 35:16 But from a perspective of physics in general, science in general, or the side of engineering, what do you think is the most, to you, like, beautiful and captivating and inspiring idea in this space?

Natalya Bailey 35:30 In this space, and then I'm gonna zoom out a little bit more, but, um, in this space, I keep butting up against material science questions. So, I ... Over the past 10 years, I feel like every problem or interesting thing I, I want to work on, if you dig deep enough, you end up in material science land, uh, which I find kind of exciting and it makes me want to dig in more there, and, um, I was just ... You know, f- ... Even for our technology, when we have to move the propellant from the tank to the tip of the emitters, we rely a lot on capillary action and you're getting into wetting and surface energies and-

Lex Fridman 36:15 At a scale of, like, nano scale?

Natalya Bailey 36:18 Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you're ... It's, uh, all ... If you look further, it's quantum too, but it, it all is ... You know, I would-

Lex Fridman 36:25 Wait, capillary action (laughs) at the quantum level? (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 36:27 Yeah. So I would ... I, I kind-

Lex Fridman 36:30 Oh, that's so cool.

Natalya Bailey 36:30 It all comes back to me-

Lex Fridman 36:32 (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 36:32 ... to, you know, material science. (laughs) there's so much-

Lex Fridman 36:34 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 36:34 ... we don't understand at these sizes, um, and I, I find that, um, inspiring and exciting, um, and then more broadly-... you know, I remember when I learned that the same equation that describes flow over an airfoil is used to price options, the Black-Scholes equation, and I was like, "Pfff." And it's, you know, just a partial differential equation, but that kind of connectedness of the univer- you know, uh, oh, I don't want to use-

Lex Fridman 37:08 (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 37:08 ... options pricing and the universe in the same...

Lex Fridman 37:10 (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 37:10 But you know what I mean. This connectedness, I find really magical.

Lex Fridman 37:15 Yeah, the patterns that mathematics reveals-

Natalya Bailey 37:17 Yes.

Lex Fridman 37:17 ... seems to echo in a bunch of different places.

Natalya Bailey 37:20 Yes.

Lex Fridman 37:21 Yeah, there's just weirdness. It's like it really makes you think, I think we're definitely living in a simulation. Like whoever-

Natalya Bailey 37:28 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 37:28 ... whoever programmed it-

Natalya Bailey 37:29 I like that that's your conclusion.

Lex Fridman 37:30 ... is using, (laughs) I know, is th- using, like, shortcuts to program it. Like, they didn't, they just copy and pasted some code for the different parts.

Natalya Bailey 37:38 (laughs) Yeah.

Lex Fridman 37:38 It just-

Natalya Bailey 37:38 Think of something new or just paste from over there.

Lex Fridman 37:41 Yeah. They won't notice.

Natalya Bailey 37:42 My conclusion from that was, "I'm gonna go interview for a finance job." So I had, like, a little detour. Um ...

Lex Fridman 37:49 That's the back, that's the backup option? So,

Lex Fridman 37:52 in terms of using, uh, Colloid engines, what's, what's an interesting difference between a propulsion of a rocket from earth once you're standing on the ground to orbit and then the kind of propulsion necessary for once you get out to orbit or to, to like deep space to, to m- move around?

Natalya Bailey 38:14 Yes. The reason you can't use an engine like mine to get off the ground is, you know, the thrust it generates is, instantaneous thrust is very small, but if you, if you have the time and, and can accumulate that acceleration, you can still reach speeds that are, um, very interesting for exploration and, and even for missions with humans on them. Um, a- an interesting direction I think we need to go as, as humans exploring space is, um, the power supplies for electric propulsion are, are limiting us in that, um, you know, solar panels are really inefficient and, and bulky. And batteries, I don't know when anybody's ever gonna, um, improve battery technology. I know a lot of people that work on that. Um, and nuclear power, um, you, we could have a lot more powerful electric propulsion systems, so they would be extremely fuel efficient, but more instantaneous thrust to do more interesting missions, um, if we could start launching more nuclear systems. But-

Lex Fridman 39:25 Oh, so like s- so something that's powered, nuclear powered, if that's the right way to say it-

Natalya Bailey 39:31 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 39:31 ... that ... But is in a small enough container that could be launched?

Natalya Bailey 39:36 Yeah. So, um, I mean, uh, as a world, we do launch, um, spacecraft with nuclear power systems on board. But size is, is one consideration. It hasn't been a big focus, so the, the reactors and the heaters and everything are bulky and so they're really only suitable for some of the much bigger interplanetary stuff. Um, so that's one issue, but then it's a whole, like, rat's nest of political stuff as well.

Lex Fridman 40:06 I, I heard, uh, I think Elon describe or somebody, but I think, I think it was Elon that described the, uh, EVTOL, like electrical-

Natalya Bailey 40:15 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 40:15 ... vertical takeoff and landing vehicles. So basically saying rockets ... Um, obviously Elon is interested in electric vehicles, right? But he said that rockets can't, uh, in the, in the near term, it doesn't make sense for them to be electric. Uh, what ... Do you see a world with the rockets that we use to get into orbit are also electric based?

Natalya Bailey 40:40 Uh, it's possible. You can produce the thrust levels you need, but you need this, uh, a much bigger power supply and, and-

Lex Fridman 40:47 Like nuclear.

Natalya Bailey 40:47 ... I think that would be nuclear. And the only way people have been able to launch them at all is that they're in a, you know, 100 times redundancy safe mode while they're being launched and they're not turned on until they're farther off. So if you were to actually try to use it on launch, uh, I think a lot of people would still have an issue with that. But someday.

Lex Fridman 41:08 It's a- it's an interesting concept, nuclear. It seems like people, like everybody that works on nuclear power has shown how safe it is as a source of energy.

Natalya Bailey 41:17 I know, right?

Lex Fridman 41:18 And, uh, and yet we are s- seem to be, I mean, based on the history, based on the excellent HBO s- series-

Natalya Bailey 41:26 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 41:26 ... I'm rushing with the Chernobyl, it seems like we have our r- risk estimation about this particular power source is, uh, drastically inaccurate. But that's-

Natalya Bailey 41:36 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 41:36 That's a fascinating idea that we would use nuclear as a source for our vehicles.

Natalya Bailey 41:42 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 41:42 Uh, and not just in outer space. That's cool. I'm gonna have to look into that. That's super interesting.

Natalya Bailey 41:47 Well, um, just last year, Trump eased up a little bit on the regulations and NASA and hopefully others are, are starting to pick up on the development. So now is a good time to look into it 'cause there's actually some movement.

Lex Fridman 42:02 Is that a hope for you to, to explore different energy sources that the entirety of the vehicle uses something like, uh, uh, like the, the entirety of the propulsion systems for all aspects of the vehicle's-

Natalya Bailey 42:15 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 42:15 ... life travel is the same or electric? Is it possible for it to be the same, like the Colloid engine being used for everything?

Natalya Bailey 42:24 You could a- and you would have to do it in the same way we do different stages of rockets now where once you've used up an, an engine, um, or a stage, you let it go because there's really no point in holding onto it. So I wouldn't necessarily want to use the, the same engine for the whole thing, but the same technology I think would be interesting.

Lex Fridman 42:45 Okay, so it's possible. All right. But, uh, in terms-

Natalya Bailey 42:48 Yeah. It comes down to the power source.

Lex Fridman 42:49 The power source. It's, that's really interesting.

Lex Fridman 42:51 But for the current power sources and its current use cases, what's the use case for electric, like the, uh, the, the Colloid engine-... can you talk about where they're used today?

Natalya Bailey 43:01 Sure. So chemical engines are still used, um, quite a bit once you're in orbit, but that's also where you might choose instead to use an electric system and what people do with them, and, and this includes, you know, the ion engines and hall thrusters and our engine, um, is basically any maneuvering you need to do once you're dropped off. Um, there's... Even if your only goal was to just stay in your orbit and not move for the life of your mission, you need propulsion to accomplish that, because the Earth's gravity field changes as you go around in orbit and pulls you out of your little box. Um, there are other perturbations, um, that, that can throw you off a bit. Um, and then, you know, most people want to do things a little bit more interesting, like, uh, maneuver to avoid being hit by space debris or, uh, perhaps lower their orbit to take a higher resolution image of something and then return. Um, at the end of your mission, uh, you're supposed to responsibly get rid of your satellite, whether that's, um, burning it up, but if you're in GEO, um, you want to push it higher into graveyard orbit. Um-

Lex Fridman 44:17 What's GEO and what's G- what's, uh, graveyard-

Natalya Bailey 44:19 Um, so low earth orbit and then geosynchronous orbit or geostationary orbit.

Lex Fridman 44:23 And there's a graveyard? What's the graveyard?

Natalya Bailey 44:24 Yeah. So those satellites are at, um, like 40,000 kilometers, so if they were to try to push their satellites, um, back down to burn up in the atmosphere, they would need, you know, even more propulsion than they've had for the whole lifetime of their mission. So instead, they push them higher, where it'll take, you know, a million years for it to naturally de-orbit. Um, so we're also cluttering that higher bit up as well, but it's not as pressing as, as LEO, which is low earth orbit, where more of these commercial missions are going now.

Lex Fridman 44:56 Well, so what... How hard is the collision avoidance problem there? You said some debris and stuff. So, like, how much propulsion is needed? Like, how much is, uh, the life of a satellite is just like, "Oh, crap." Trying, (laughs) trying to avoid, like, little bits down there?

Natalya Bailey 45:09 Yeah. I think one of the recent, um, you know, rules of thumb I heard was per year some of these small satellites are doing, like, three collision avoidance maneuvers. Um, so that's-

Lex Fridman 45:22 Oh, it's not too bad.

Natalya Bailey 45:23 ... that's not... Yeah.

Lex Fridman 45:24 Well-

Natalya Bailey 45:24 But it's not zero, um, and it-

Lex Fridman 45:26 (sighs)

Natalya Bailey 45:26 Yeah. It takes a lot of, um, planning and people on the ground and, you know, n- n- none of that really, I don't think, right now is autonomous.

Lex Fridman 45:36 Oh, that's not good. (sighs)

Natalya Bailey 45:37 Yeah, and then we have a lot of folks taking advantage of, you know, Moore's Law and cheaper spacecraft, so they're launching them up without the ability to maneuver themselves and they're like, "Well, I don't know."

Lex Fridman 45:47 (sighs)

Natalya Bailey 45:47 "Just don't hit me." (laughs)

Lex Fridman 45:49 And three times a year, that could be, become affordable if it's like... If it gets hit, maybe it won't be damaged kind of thing? That kind of logic?

Natalya Bailey 45:57 Affordable in that instead of launching one satellite, they'll launch, you know, 20 small ones. Yeah.

Lex Fridman 46:02 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 46:02 So if one gets taken out-

Lex Fridman 46:04 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 46:04 ... that's okay, but the problem is that, you know, one good-sized satellite getting hit, um, that's like a ballistic event that turns into 10,000 pieces of debris that then-

Lex Fridman 46:14 All right.

Natalya Bailey 46:14 ... are the things that go and hit the other satellites.

Lex Fridman 46:17 Other... Right.

Natalya Bailey 46:17 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 46:17 So

Lex Fridman 46:18 do you, do you see a world where, like, uh, in your sense, in your own work and just in the space industry in general, do you see that, that people are moving towards bigger satellites or smaller satellites? Is there going to be a mix? Like what's... And what are we talk- what, what does it mean for a satellite to be big and what's... And small? What size are we talking about?

Natalya Bailey 46:36 So big... The space industry prior to, I don't know, 1990, you know, I guess the bulk of... The majority of satellites were the size of a school bus and-

Lex Fridman 46:49 (laughs) Wow.

Natalya Bailey 46:49 ... cost a couple billion dollars. Um, and now, you know, our first launches were on, um, satellites the size of shoe boxes that were built by high school students. So (laughs) that's very different, you know, to give you the two ends of the spectrum. Um, big satellites will... I, I think they're here to stay, at least as far as I can see into the future, um, for things like broadcasting. Um, you want to be able to, you know, broadcast to as many people as possible. Um, they're... You also can't just go to small satellites, um, and say Moore's Law for things like optics. So if you have an, an aperture on your satellite, you know, that just, that doesn't follow Moore's Law. That's, that's different, so it's always going to be the size that it will be. You know, unless there's some new physics that comes out that I'm not aware of, um, but if you need a resolution and you're at an altitude, that kind of sets your... The size of your telescope. Um, but because of Moore's Law, we, we are able to do a lot more with smaller packages and, and with that, be- you know, comes more affordability and opening up access to space to more and more people.

Lex Fridman 48:03 Well, what's the smallest satellite you've seen go up there? Like what, what are the smallest kind? You said shoe boxes.

Natalya Bailey 48:09 Yeah. So I think, you know, the smallest... They're, uh, smallest common form factor can fit a softball inside.

Lex Fridman 48:16 Wow.

Natalya Bailey 48:17 Um, so it's 10 centimeters on each side.

Lex Fridman 48:20 So cool.

Natalya Bailey 48:21 Um, but then there are some companies working on, um, you know, fractions of that even.

Lex Fridman 48:26 Okay.

Natalya Bailey 48:26 And they're doing things like, um, IOT-type applications, so it's very low, you know, bandwidth, um, type things, but they're finding some niches for those.

Lex Fridman 48:37 Do you mean like there's a business... There's a thing to do with them?

Natalya Bailey 48:40 Yes, either-

Lex Fridman 48:41 Like what do you do with a small satellite like that?

Natalya Bailey 48:43 Um, you can, you know, track a ship going across the ocean as... Like, if you need to... If you're just pinging something, you know, you can handle that, that amount of data, um, and those latencies-

Lex Fridman 48:55 And so you have to-

Natalya Bailey 48:56 ... and so on.

Lex Fridman 48:56 You have to have propulsion on that. You have to have a little engine.

Natalya Bailey 48:58 No, those are just, you know, letting fall out of the sky, um-

Lex Fridman 49:03 Okay. (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 49:03 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 49:04 But what, uh... So what kind of satellites would you equip a colloid engine on?

Natalya Bailey 49:09 Anything that's bigger than probably about 20 kilograms, um, anything that needs to stay up for more than a year, or anything somebody spent more than, like, 100K to build are kind of the ways I would think about it.

Lex Fridman 49:22 That's a lot of use cases.

Natalya Bailey 49:23 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 49:23 What's a sm- what's a small sat?Like, what-what category?

Natalya Bailey 49:26 Small sat's actually very big. I think it's, like-

Lex Fridman 49:29 Okay.

Natalya Bailey 49:29 ... 700 kilograms or ... Hitting my microphone.

Lex Fridman 49:32 Oh.

Natalya Bailey 49:33 Um, maybe a thousand kilograms down to 200 kilograms, or-

Lex Fridman 49:39 Right.

Natalya Bailey 49:39 Uh, people have their own kind of definitions of how they break them up. But small sat is still quite large and then, um, it's kind of also applied as a blanket term for anything that's not a school bus-sized satellite.

Lex Fridman 49:53 So-

Natalya Bailey 49:53 We need to get our jargon straight in the industry.

Lex Fridman 49:55 (laughs) So what, uh ... Do you see a, do you see a possible future where ... I think, you know, there's a few thousand satellites up there now, a couple thousand of them functioning.

Natalya Bailey 50:05 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 50:05 Do you see a future where there's, like, millions of satellites up-up in orbit? Or forget millions, tens of thousands, which just seems like where the natural trajectory of the way things are going now is going.

Natalya Bailey 50:20 Tens of thousands, yes. Uh, the two, you know, buckets of applications, one is imaging and the other is communication. Um, so imaging, uh, I think that will plateau because one satellite or one constellation can take an image or a video and sell it to, you know, infinity customers. Um, but if you're providing communications like broadband internet or satellite cell or something like that, satellite phone, um, you know, you're-you're limited by your transponders and-and so on. So to serve more people, you actually need more satellites and-and perhaps at the rate, you know, our data consumption and things are going these days, um, yeah, I can see tens of thousands of satellites.

Lex Fridman 51:12 Can I ask you a ridiculous question?

Natalya Bailey 51:14 Yes.

Lex Fridman 51:15 So I've recently watched this documentary on Netflix about, uh, flat Earthers.

Natalya Bailey 51:21 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 51:22 That bel- you know, that people ... That believe in a flat earth. As some- (laughs) as somebody who develops propulsion systems for-for-for satellites and for spacecraft, what's, uh, to you, is the most convincing evidence that the earth is round?

Natalya Bailey 51:40 Probably some of the photos taken from the moon.

Lex Fridman 51:48 Photos from the moon?

Natalya Bailey 51:49 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 51:49 Okay, so it's not from the s- from the satellite space. You're like-

Natalya Bailey 51:53 Yeah, I think seeing tho- that perspective ... I ... Maybe I'm just ... I'm answering too personally 'cause I really love those photos.

Lex Fridman 52:02 'Cause they're beautiful? Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 52:04 I really like the ones that show the moon and, um, the lunar lander and they're taken a little bit farther back, so you see earth and first you're like, "Wow, that's tiny and we're insignificant," and that's kind of sad, but then you see this really cool thing, that we landed on another- (laughs)

Lex Fridman 52:21 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 52:22 ... you know, planetary body and you're like, "Oh, okay."

Lex Fridman 52:24 Can you actually see earth? I-d-d-I don't ... I don't know if I remember those-

Natalya Bailey 52:27 Yeah, I'll send you ... I'll send you that picture.

Lex Fridman 52:29 'Cause I love the pictures or videos f- of just earth from more ... from orbit and so on.

Natalya Bailey 52:34 Right, yeah.

Lex Fridman 52:34 Just like those ... That's really bea- ... That- that's like a perspective shifter. That's the pale blue dot, right? The- it probably appears tiny.

Natalya Bailey 52:41 Yeah, and just that, you know, juxtaposition of the insignificance that-

Lex Fridman 52:46 You're in another-

Natalya Bailey 52:47 ... we built this really cool thing. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 52:49 (laughs) Yeah, take the picture.

Natalya Bailey 52:50 Um, I just love that, yeah.

Lex Fridman 52:50 Ah, that'd be cool. I can't ... I personally love the idea of humans stepping on Mars. I'm such a sucker for the romantic notion of that and being able to take pictures from m- Mars, like selfies.

Natalya Bailey 53:01 So you would go?

Lex Fridman 53:03 I ...

Natalya Bailey 53:04 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 53:05 ... I, uh, yeah, I would be ... W-what did you say? You said you wouldn't be in the first 100.

Natalya Bailey 53:09 Not in the first thousand.

Lex Fridman 53:10 Tha-thousand.

Natalya Bailey 53:11 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 53:11 Which it's funny because to me that's-that's brave to be in the first million. I think when the Declaration of Independence was signed in the United States, there was, like, two million people. So I would like to show up when they're signing those documents.

Natalya Bailey 53:29 Okay.

Lex Fridman 53:29 So maybe the two million. Like, what- what-

Natalya Bailey 53:31 Oh, that's an interesting way to think of it. Okay.

Lex Fridman 53:32 'Cause like then we're like participating as citizenry and defining the direction.

Natalya Bailey 53:38 Mm-hmm. So it's not the technical risk, you just don't want to show up somewhere that's like America before ... (laughs)

Lex Fridman 53:47 Yeah, because-

Natalya Bailey 53:48 Before that.

Lex Fridman 53:48 It's ... Oh, I- I ... From a psychological perspective, it's just gonna be a stressful mess as- as people have studied, right? It's like ... It ... People ... Uh, most likely, the process of colonization, like, looks like basically a prison. Like, you're in an inc- ... A very tight, enclosed space with people and it's just a really stressful environment.

Natalya Bailey 54:13 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 54:13 You know, h- how do you select the kind of people that would go? And then there would be drama, there's always drama. And it's ... And I just want to show up when there's some rules. But I mean, you know, it depends. So I'm not worried about the health and the technical difficulties.

Natalya Bailey 54:25 Yeah, interesting.

Lex Fridman 54:26 I'm more worried about the psychological difficulties. And also just not being able to Tweet. Like, what are you gonna ... How are you-

Natalya Bailey 54:33 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 54:33 ... how can you ... There's no Netflix. So, yeah, maybe not in the first million but the first 100, uh, thousand. It's exciting to define the direction of a new ... Like, how often do we not just have a revolution to redefine our government as, you know, smaller countries-

Natalya Bailey 54:49 Sure.

Lex Fridman 54:49 ... are still doing to this day.

Natalya Bailey 54:50 Start over.

Lex Fridman 54:51 But literally start over from scratch. There's, uh, just our financial system, it could be, like, based on cryptocurrency. You could think about, like, how demo- ... You know, we have-we have now the technology that can enable pure democracy, for example, if we choose to do that.

Natalya Bailey 55:09 Mm-hmm, yeah.

Lex Fridman 55:09 A-as opposed to representative democracy, all those kinds

Lex Fridman 55:12 of things. So we talked about two, uh, different forms of propulsion which are super exciting. So the chemical-based, that's doing pretty well, and then the e- electric-based. Is, um ... Are there types of propulsion ...... that might sound like science fiction right now, but are actually within the reach of science in the next 10, 20, 30, 50 years, that you kind of think about? Or maybe even within the space of even just, like, (sighs) like even ion engines. Is there, like, breakthroughs that might 10X the thing? Like, really improve it?

Natalya Bailey 55:49 So, you know, the real game changer would be propellantless propulsion, and so every couple of years you see a new, now a startup or, um, a researcher comes up with some contraption for producing thrust that didn't require... You know, we've been talking about conservation and momentum, mass times velocity out the back, um, mass times velocity forward-

Lex Fridman 56:14 'Cause there's usually a mass.

Natalya Bailey 56:14 Yes.

Lex Fridman 56:14 That's what-

Natalya Bailey 56:15 Exactly. And you have to, you know, carry that up with you or find it on an asteroid or harvest it from somewhere if you didn't bring it with you. So, not having to do that would be, you know, one of the ultimate game changers, um, and- and I, you know, unless there are new types of physics, um, I don't know how we do it, but it comes up often, so it's something I- I do think about, and, um, you know, the one, I think it's called the Casimir effect, um, if you can- if you have two plates and- and the space between them is on the order of these, like, the wavelength of these ephemeral vacuum particles that pop into and out of existence or something, um... I may be confusing multiple types of propellantless forces, but, um, that- that could be real and could be something that- that we use eventually. Um-

Lex Fridman 57:11 What would be the power source?

Natalya Bailey 57:13 Yeah, the most recent engine like this that has- was just debunked this year, I think, in- in March or something, was called the EmDrive, and, um, supposedly you- you used a power source so, you know, batteries or solar panels to generate microwaves into this resonant cavity, and people claimed it produced thrust. So they- they went straight from this really loose concept to building a device and testing it, and they said, "We've measured thrust." And sure, on their thrust balance they saw thrust, and different researchers built it and tested it and got the same measurements, and so it was looking actually pretty good, um, no one could explain how it worked, but what they said was that, um, this, inside the cavity, um, the microwaves themselves didn't change but the speed of light changed inside the cavity, so relative to that, um, you know, there-

Lex Fridman 58:07 Wow.

Natalya Bailey 58:08 ... momentum was conserved.

Lex Fridman 58:09 Okay.

Natalya Bailey 58:09 Um, and I don't, you know, I, whatever. Um, but finally someone I think at NASA built the device, tested it, got the same thrust, then unhooked it, flipped it backwards and turned it on but got the same thrust in the same direction again, and so they're like, "This is just an interaction with the test setup or, you know, some-"

Lex Fridman 58:29 Got it.

Natalya Bailey 58:29 "... the chamber," or something like that.

Lex Fridman 58:30 Well said.

Natalya Bailey 58:31 So, um, thwarted again, um, but, you know, it would- it would be so wonderful for everybody if we could figure out how to do it, but I- I don't know.

Lex Fridman 58:40 That's an interesting twist on it, because that's more about efficient travel, long distance travel, right? That's not necessarily about speed. That's more about-

Natalya Bailey 58:50 Sure.

Lex Fridman 58:50 ... enabling, like-

Natalya Bailey 58:51 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 58:52 ... less-

Natalya Bailey 58:52 So hook that up to the nuclear power supply-

Lex Fridman 58:55 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 58:56 ... there you go.

Lex Fridman 58:56 Okay.

Natalya Bailey 58:57 (laughs) Yeah.

Lex Fridman 58:58 (laughs) But still, w- wha-

Natalya Bailey 58:59 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 58:59 ... in terms of speed, in terms of trying to, so there- there's recently a s- already, I think, been debunked or close to being debunked, but the, uh, signal, a weird signal from, um, our nearby friends, nearby exoplanets from, uh, Proxima Centauri, uh, a signal that's 4.2 light years away. So, you know, the- the thought is, uh, it'd be- it'd be kinda cool if there's life out there, alien life, uh, but it'd be really cool if we could fly out there and check, and so what kind of propulsion, and d- do you think about what kind of propulsion will allow us to travel close to the speed of light or, you know, half the speed of light, all those kinds of things that would allow us to get to Proxima Centauri in a reasonable, in a lifetime?

Natalya Bailey 59:50 You know, there's the project Breakthrough Starshot-

Lex Fridman 59:54 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 59:55 ... um, that's looking at sending those tiny little chip sets, um, there actually-

Lex Fridman 59:59 And, like, accelerating really fast.

Natalya Bailey 1:00:01 Yeah, using a laser, so launching them and then while they're still relatively close to the earth, you know, blasting them with some, I forget what even what power level you needed to- to accelerate them fast enough to get there in 20 years.

Lex Fridman 1:00:15 Super crazy sounding, but, uh, a lot of people say that's a legitimate, like, it's crazy sounding, but it can actually pull it off.

Natalya Bailey 1:00:22 Yeah, I love that project because there are a lot of different aspects, you know, there's the laser, there's how do you then, um, get enough power when you're there to send a signal back? No part of that project is possible right now, but I think it's really exciting. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:00:37 Yeah. But do you, uh, do you see, like-

Natalya Bailey 1:00:40 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:00:40 ... human, uh, like a spacecraft with a human on it, so there's, like, a heavy one, being, like, us inventing new propulsion systems entirely, like, do you ever see-

Natalya Bailey 1:00:50 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:00:50 ... that in the- on the radar of propulsion systems like that, or are they completely out there in the impossible?

Natalya Bailey 1:00:57 Well, we're going to quickly leave the realm of what I can describe with any credibility, but-

Lex Fridman 1:01:04 Yes.

Natalya Bailey 1:01:04 ... um, I think- I think because of special relativity if we tried to accelerate some mass to close to the speed of light it becomes infinitely heavy and then we just don't, we'd have to, like, harness a lot of suns to do that, or, you know, it's just that- that math doesn't quite work out, but, you know, in- in my...... child's... My childlike heart, I believe, that, you know, we're missing something. Um, whether it's, you know, dark matter or other dimensions. And if you can just have some antimatter and a, a black hole and then ride that around and somehow-

Lex Fridman 1:01:47 Right, so-

Natalya Bailey 1:01:47 ... you know, turn that into some-

Lex Fridman 1:01:49 Like mess with gravity somehow.

Natalya Bailey 1:01:51 Yeah. I, I feel like, uh, we're missing lots of things in this puzzle and that... You know.

Lex Fridman 1:02:00 I wonder how hard-

Natalya Bailey 1:02:00 There's something...

Lex Fridman 1:02:00 ... that puzzle... Yeah, right. Well, I can speak with confidence as a descendant of, uh, apes that we don't know what the hell we're doing. (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 1:02:08 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:02:09 And so there's a... We're, like, really confident, like physicists are really confident that we've, like, got most of the picture down, but-

Natalya Bailey 1:02:17 Right.

Lex Fridman 1:02:17 ... it f- it feels like... Oh boy. It, it feels like that, that we might not even be getting started on some of the essential things that, um, that would allow us to engineer systems that would, uh, uh, allow us to travel to space much, much faster.

Natalya Bailey 1:02:36 Yeah. And there's even things that are much more commonplace that we can't explain but we've started to take for granted, like, um, quantum tunneling. You know, um, just things like, "Oh, the electron was here with this energy and now it's here with this energy and it's just tunneling." Um, but so I... You know, we're missing a lot of the picture, so yeah, I don't know. Uh, to, you know, use your same question from earlier, I don't know if you and I will see it but, um, yeah,

Natalya Bailey 1:03:07 someday.

Lex Fridman 1:03:08 You, uh, you're the co-founder of, just like we've been talking about, Axion Systems. Uh-

Natalya Bailey 1:03:12 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:03:12 ... this is... Would you say a space propulsion company?

Natalya Bailey 1:03:15 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:03:16 Broadly speaking. Um, so, uh, how do you... Big question, how do you, uh, build a rocket company? From like (laughs) a propulsion company from one person, from two people to 10 people plus? And actually, you know, take it to a successful product?

Natalya Bailey 1:03:41 Yeah. Well, I think the early stage is quite, uh... I'm not supposed to use the word "easy" when you work in rocket science, but straightforward. Um, when you're working on something, you know, sexy like an ion engine, it's more straightforward to raise money and, and get people to come work for you because the vision's really exciting and... Actually, that's something I would say is very important throughout is, um, a really exciting vision because when everything, you know, goes to crap, um, you need that to get people-

Lex Fridman 1:04:15 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 1:04:15 ... getting themselves out of bed in the morning and thinking of the, the higher purpose there. Um, and, you know, another thing along the way that I think is key in, in building any company is, um, the right early employees that also have their own networks and can bring in, um, a lot of people that, um, you know, really make the, this, the whole greater than, than just the sum of the early team.

Lex Fridman 1:04:46 And how do you build that? Like how do you find people? It's like asking, uh, like (laughs) how do you make friends? But is there, um... Is it, uh, is it luck? Is there a system? Like how... I- in terms of the people you've connected with, the, the people, um, you built the company with. W- is there some thread, some commonality, some pattern that you find to be, to hold for what makes a great team?

Natalya Bailey 1:05:17 Uh, I think, you know, personally, uh, a thread for me has been my network and being able to draw on that a lot, but also giving back to it as much as possible in like an unsolicited sort of way. Like making connections between people that, you know, maybe didn't ask but that, uh, I think could be really fruitful and, um, even, you know, weirder than that is just really getting... You know, having weird, uncomfortable conversations with people, like at a conference, and getting over the small talk quickly and getting to know them quickly and having a relationship that stands out and then being able to call on them later because of that. Um, and I think that's... It's... That's been because I'm introverted and I, you know, wanna poke my eyes out instead of go and do small talk and so-

Lex Fridman 1:06:14 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 1:06:14 ... I huddle in a corner with one person and, you know, we talk about aliens or things like that.

Lex Fridman 1:06:19 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 1:06:19 And, um, so, you know, that's all to say that, you know, having a strong network, I think is really important but a genuine one. And let's see, other ways to build a rocket company. Kind of making sure you're paying attention to the sweeping trends of the industry. So everybody just cares about cost and, um, being able to get out ahead of that and even more than we ever thought we'd need to as far as what we needed to price our systems at. You know, people for... Since the start of the, the US space industry, they've been paying 20, 25 million in adjusted dollars for an ion engine and seeing that now people are going to want to pay 10K for an ion engine, um, and just staying-

Lex Fridman 1:07:07 Wow.

Natalya Bailey 1:07:08 ... out ahead of that and those kinds of things. Um, so, you know, being out in the industry and, and talking to as many people-

Lex Fridman 1:07:14 It's crazy.

Natalya Bailey 1:07:14 ... as possible.

Lex Fridman 1:07:15 So there's a drive... I mean, I suppose-

Natalya Bailey 1:07:17 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:07:17 ... SpaceX really pushed that.

Natalya Bailey 1:07:18 It's frustrating for me. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:07:19 (laughs) Yeah. So, uh, SpaceX really pushed this-

Natalya Bailey 1:07:22 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:07:23 ... uh-

Natalya Bailey 1:07:24 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:07:24 ... the application of, uh, I guess, capitalism of driving the price down of, um, basically forcing people to ask the question, "Can me- this du- can this be done cheaper?"Um, thi- this can lead to, like, big problems, I would say, in th- in the following sense. I see this in the car industry, for example, that, uh, p- people have s- it's such a small margin for profit. Like, they've driven the cost of everything down so much that there's literally no room for innovation-

Natalya Bailey 1:07:59 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:08:00 ... for taking risks. So like, cars ... (sighs) Which is funny because not until Tesla, really, which is one of th- in a long, long time, one of the f- first successful new car companies that's constantly innovating. Every other car company is really boring in terms of their technological innovation. They innovate on design and style-

Natalya Bailey 1:08:23 Right. Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:08:23 ... and so on, they u- that people fall in love with the look and so on, but it's not really innovation. The, in terms of the technology in it, it's really boringly the same thing and they're really afraid of taking risks. And that's a big problem for rocket space too, is like, y- if you're cutting out cost, you can't afford to innovate, to try out new things and then-

Natalya Bailey 1:08:44 Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly.

Lex Fridman 1:08:45 That's definitely true with the (laughs) eye- ion engine then, right? Uh, so, but what, um ... So how do you compete in this, uh, in this space? Do you, by the way, see SpaceX-

Natalya Bailey 1:08:56 Hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:08:56 ... as a competitor? Uh, and what do you say in general about the competition in this space? Is it really difficult as a, as a business to compete here?

Natalya Bailey 1:09:06 No. I, I don't see SpaceX as a competitor. Um, and I see them as one day, not too long from now, a customer, hopefully.

Lex Fridman 1:09:14 (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 1:09:15 Um, uh, I mean, to compete against that, I think you just have to do things in an unconventional way. So bringing silicon MEMS manufacturing to propulsion. You know, NASA doesn't make ion engines using a batch, mass-producible technique. They have, you know, one guy that's been making their ion engines for 20 years, like bespoke pieces of jewelry.

Lex Fridman 1:09:41 (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 1:09:41 So, uh, bringing things to what you're trying to innovate to, to make them, you know, in our case more cost-effective was, was really key.

Lex Fridman 1:09:53 I like, I like the idea of, uh, somebody putting out ion engines on, like, Etsy.

Natalya Bailey 1:09:57 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:09:58 (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 1:09:58 My, um, advisor at MIT would ... You know, the thruster chip I was holding up, he would wear one as a lapel pin.

Lex Fridman 1:10:05 (laughs) But in general, just on the topic of SpaceX, you know, 2020 has seen some difficult things for human civilization and, uh, it's been a lot of ... First of all, it's an election year. There's been a lot of drama and division about that. There's been riots over all different, um, reasons. Racial division. There's been, obviously, a virus that's testing the very fabric of our society. But there's been really i- for me, at least, super positive things, which, inspiring things, which is, uh, SpaceX and NASA, uh, doing the first commercial-

Natalya Bailey 1:10:42 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:10:43 ... f- human f- flight. Uh, launching humans to space and did it twice successfully.

Natalya Bailey 1:10:49 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:10:50 Uh, what is that, um ... Did you get to watch that launch? Did you, uh ... What does it make you feel? Uh, do you think this is, uh, first days for a new era of, um, space exploration?

Natalya Bailey 1:11:05 Yeah, I did watch it. We played it outside on a big screen at our place.

Lex Fridman 1:11:09 That's awesome.

Natalya Bailey 1:11:10 And, um, I was a little ... You know, they kept saying, "Bob and Doug. Bob and Doug." (laughs) And, you know, astronauts usually are, um, treated with a little bit (laughs) more fanfare so it felt very casual, but maybe that was a good, a good thing. Like, this is the era of commercial, crewed-

Lex Fridman 1:11:28 Mm.

Natalya Bailey 1:11:29 ... missions and-

Lex Fridman 1:11:29 Oh, it wa- it was a little bit more, um, what is it? Um, what's his name? Chris Hadfield, like, playing guitar.

Natalya Bailey 1:11:37 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:11:37 It's more ... It's a different flavor to it of a-

Natalya Bailey 1:11:41 Yeah, exactly.

Lex Fridman 1:11:42 ... more like fun, playful, celebrity type of-

Natalya Bailey 1:11:46 Yes, exactly.

Lex Fridman 1:11:47 ... astronaut versus, um, the, the au- the aura of the magical sort of, h- heroic-

Natalya Bailey 1:11:53 Right. Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:11:53 ... element of the single human representing us in space.

Natalya Bailey 1:11:56 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:11:57 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 1:11:58 I think that's all for the better though. It's so cool that it's such a commonplace thing now that we send ... You know, I can't believe that sometimes I'll have to ... You know, you don't even realize that astronauts are coming and going all the time, you know, splashing back down and it's just so common now, but, uh, that's quite magical I think. Um, so yes. We did watch that. I love, love, love that we finally have that capability again to send (laughs) people to the space station. Um, and it's just really exciting to see the private sector stepping up to fill in where the government has pulled back in the US and I think pulled back way too soon as far as exploration and science goes. Probably pulled back at the right time for commercial things, um, and, and getting that started, but, um, I'm really happy that it's even possible to do that with private money and, and companies.

Lex Fridman 1:12:55 Do you like the, the kind of the model of competition of, uh, NASA funding ... I guess that's how it works is like they're providing quite a bit of money from the government and then, then private companies compete to be, uh, to be the delivery vehicles for-

Natalya Bailey 1:13:11 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:13:11 ... the, whichever the, th- the, uh, the, the government missions, like NASA missions.

Natalya Bailey 1:13:17 Yes. I think for ... This type of mission is a little bit kind of straddles, um, commercial and, and science, so I think it's good, but I do, in general, feel like, um, we've pulled back too much on, you know, NASA's role in the science and exploration part and I think our pace is too slow there, you know, for my liking, (laughs) I suppose.

Lex Fridman 1:13:43 What do you mean on the scienti- uh, okay. So did you have ...I mean, on the cost thing, do you feel like NASA was a little too bureaucratic in a sense, like, too slow, too heavy cost-wise in their effort, like when they were running things purely without any commercial involvement?

Natalya Bailey 1:14:03 So I suppose it's more that I just want the government to fund.

Lex Fridman 1:14:08 I see, yeah.

Natalya Bailey 1:14:09 Um, and- and maybe NASA's not the best organization to- to do it rapidly. Um, but I think that, you know, again depending on the goals, we're just kind of at the very starting point of space exploration and science and- and understanding, so we should be spending more money there and- and not less. And, um, other countries are starting to spend more and more, and I think we'll fol- we'll fall behind because of that.

Lex Fridman 1:14:38 So you have quite a bit of experience, first of all, st- starting a company yourself, but also I saw, maybe you can correct me, but you s- you have a quite- quite a bit of knowledge of, um, just in- in general the startup experience of building companies that you've interacted with people. W- if, is there- is there advice that you can give to somebody, to a founder or co-founder who wants to launch and grow a new company and do something big and impactful in this world?

Natalya Bailey 1:15:10 Yes. Uh, I would say, you know, like I mentioned earlier, but make sure the vision is something that, you know, will get you out of bed in the morning and- and will get... and that you can rally other people around you to- to achieve, uh... 'Cause I see a lot of folks that sort of cared about something or saw a window of opportunity to do something and, you know, startups are hard and- and more often than not just being opportunistic isn't going to be enough to make it through all the really crappy, um, things that are going (laughs) to happen.

Lex Fridman 1:15:48 So the vision just helps you psychologically to carry through the hardships for you and the team in this situation.

Natalya Bailey 1:15:53 Yeah, you and the team. Yeah, exactly.

Lex Fridman 1:15:56 Okay.

Natalya Bailey 1:15:56 To kind of younger people interested in getting into entrepreneurship, I would say, you know, stay as close to, like, first principles and- and fundamentals as you can for as long as you can, um, because really understanding the problems, you know, if it's something scientific or hardware-related or, um, even if it's not, but having a deep understanding of- of the problem and the customers and what people care about and, um, how to move something forward is more important than taking all of the entrepreneurship classes in undergrad.

Lex Fridman 1:16:31 So being able to think deeply, yeah.

Natalya Bailey 1:16:33 Yeah, exactly.

Lex Fridman 1:16:34 (laughs) Yeah. Well, have you been surprised about how much, like, pivoting is involved? Like, basically rethinking what you thought initially would be the right direction to go?

Natalya Bailey 1:16:44 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:16:44 Or is there, if you think deeply enough, that, uh, you can s- stick in the same direction for long enough?

Natalya Bailey 1:16:50 So our, you know, our guiding star hasn't changed at all. Um, so that's been pretty consistent, but we, w- within that, we flip-flop on so many things, um, all the time. And, you know, to give you one example, it's do you stop and build a first product that's well-suited to maybe a smaller, less exciting segment of the market, or do you stay head down and focus on, you know, the big swing and- and trying to hit it out of the park right away? And we've flip-flopped between that, and there's not a blanket answer and there are a lot of factors, but, um, that's a hard one. And I think one- one other piece for the aspiring founder, um, spending a lot of time and effort on the culture and people piece is so important and is always an afterthought and something that I haven't really seen, like, the founders or- or executives at companies purposefully carve out time and- and acknowledge that, yes, this is going to take a lot of my time and resources and then... But you see them after the fact trying to repair the, you know, bro culture or whatever else is broken at the company. Um, and I think that it's starting to change. Um, but just to be aware of it from the beginning is important.

Lex Fridman 1:18:19 Right. I- I guess it should be part of the vision of what kind of place you want to create or what kind of, like, human beings...

Natalya Bailey 1:18:28 Yeah, exactly. Like, you can't wait five, 10 years and then just slap an HR person onto trying to fix it. Like, it has to be thoughtful from the beginning.

Lex Fridman 1:18:37 Yeah. Umm, don't get me started on the HR people.

Natalya Bailey 1:18:41 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:18:42 Uh, (sighs) don't leave HR to HR people, but I'll just leave it at that. You didn't say that, I said it. Okay.

Natalya Bailey 1:18:48 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:18:49 (laughs) Uh, yeah, HR is... Actual HR is really important. It's just so, so important.

Natalya Bailey 1:18:55 Yes, but so overlooked.

Lex Fridman 1:18:55 Yeah, culture is so important. Yeah. So...

Natalya Bailey 1:18:58 And then I also was surprised, like I thought you could say, "Here will be our culture and our values," and that it was kind of distinct from who I and my co-founder were as people.

Lex Fridman 1:19:11 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 1:19:11 And it was like, no, that's not how that works.

Lex Fridman 1:19:12 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 1:19:13 We just kind of, like, ooze our our behaviors and then the company grows around that. So you have to do a lot of, like, introspection and-

Lex Fridman 1:19:21 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 1:19:21 ... self-work to not-

Lex Fridman 1:19:23 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 1:19:23 ... end up with a shitty culture. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:19:24 (laughs) It's kind of a... It's a- it's a- it's a relationship, but as- as opposed to a relationship with two people, it's a relationship with many people.

Natalya Bailey 1:19:31 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:19:31 And, uh, you, yeah, you communicate so much indirectly by who you are. You have to be-

Natalya Bailey 1:19:36 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:19:37 You have to live it, yeah. Uh, as somebody... I think about this a lot 'cause generally I'm full of love and all those kinds of things.

Natalya Bailey 1:19:46 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:19:47 But, like, I also get, like, really passionate and when I see somebody i- in the context of work especially, when I see somebody who I know can do a much better job and they don't do a great job, I can lose my shit-

Natalya Bailey 1:20:03 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:20:03 ... in a way that's, like, Steve Jobsian.... and you have to think about exactly the right way to lose your shit if you're going to, or i- if at all.

Natalya Bailey 1:20:13 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:20:13 You have to really think through that, 'cause it sends a big signal. Uh, you know, sometimes that's okay, like if you do it deliberately. Like, if you're going to do it deliberately, if you're going to say like, "I'm going to be the kind of person that allows this and pays the cost of it," but you can't just think it's not gonna have a cost.

Natalya Bailey 1:20:30 Yes. This was, like, the first thing I worked on with my leadership coach, was to, how not to just snap at people-

Lex Fridman 1:20:40 (laughs) Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 1:20:40 ... when they were being an idiot.

Lex Fridman 1:20:41 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 1:20:41 And, um, first I got really good at apologizing. That was the first step (laughs) because it was gonna take longer to fix-

Lex Fridman 1:20:50 That's, that's brilliant.

Natalya Bailey 1:20:51 ... the behavior.

Lex Fridman 1:20:51 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 1:20:51 And then she, I've got, I'm actually a lot better at it now, and it started with things. She's like, "Every time you walk through a doorway, think, you know, calm and take breaths before responding."

Lex Fridman 1:21:03 (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 1:21:03 And there were all sorts of these little-

Lex Fridman 1:21:04 Yeah, little hacks.

Natalya Bailey 1:21:05 ... things we did.

Lex Fridman 1:21:05 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 1:21:05 And it was mostly just changing the habit.

Lex Fridman 1:21:08 Yeah. (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 1:21:10 You know?

Lex Fridman 1:21:11 Oh boy, it's a long road.

Lex Fridman 1:21:13 Uh, okay.

Natalya Bailey 1:21:14 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:21:14 So, people love it when, uh, we talk about books. Is there books, maybe three or so, technical fiction, philosophical, that had an impact on your life and you might recommend? And for each, is there an idea or so that you, uh, take away from it?

Natalya Bailey 1:21:31 Yes. Um, so I've been a voracious reader all my life, um, and I'm always reading, like, three or four or five books at a time. Um, uh, and now I use Audible a lot too, and, you know, podcasts and things like that. Um, so I think the first one that stands out to me is, um, Ten... It's a novel, um, Tender is the Night by Fitzgerald, and I, I read it when I was much younger, but I went back and read it recently, and it's not that good, so I'm not sure why it has, like, such an (laughs) important place, um, in my literary history. But, um, I love Fitzgerald as an author because he's very, he has very, like, flowery prose, um, that I can just picture what he's saying, but he does it in a, such a creative way. I remember that one in particular 'cause it, you know, I read a ton as a kid too, but it kind of set me, it was like the beginning of my adult reading life, and, um, getting into classics and, um, I kind of, I do feel like I, they seem intimidating maybe, and then I realize that they're all just, like, love stories. Um, uh, so-

Lex Fridman 1:22:51 (laughs) Yeah, uh, isn't everything (laughs) a love story-

Natalya Bailey 1:22:53 You know?

Lex Fridman 1:22:53 ... somehow?

Natalya Bailey 1:22:53 Yeah, it's really- (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:22:55 Yeah, at the bottom.

Natalya Bailey 1:22:55 Even, you know... I don't know. I, I was surprised that even, like, a lot of the Russian authors, um, you know? That's all, they're all-

Lex Fridman 1:23:03 Yeah.

Natalya Bailey 1:23:03 ... just love stories. Um-

Lex Fridman 1:23:04 We humans are pretty simple. There's not much-

Natalya Bailey 1:23:06 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:23:06 ... to work, there's not much to work with, so.

Natalya Bailey 1:23:08 So, I think maybe that was it. It made, like, that whole world less intimidating to me, and, and cemented my love-

Lex Fridman 1:23:15 That's cool. (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 1:23:16 ... for reading.

Lex Fridman 1:23:17 People should just approach the classics like, "Th- there's probably a love story in here."

Natalya Bailey 1:23:20 Chick flicks. Yeah. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:23:21 Sure. (laughs) "It's a, it somehow boils down to a chick flick-"

Natalya Bailey 1:23:24 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:23:24 "... so I'll just relax and, and enjoy the ride." Uh-

Natalya Bailey 1:23:27 And then-

Lex Fridman 1:23:28 So, what else?

Natalya Bailey 1:23:29 Um, changing gears quite a bit, um, The Beginning of Infinity. Do you know it? By David Deutsch. Um, so he's a physicist, um, I think at Cambridge or Oxford, and so I was introduced, like, more formally to a lot of the ideas, like a lot of th- the things we've talked about he, um, has a lot more, like, formalism and, um, physics rigor around. And so I got introduced to, you know, mo- more, like, jargon of how to think about some of these ideas, um, um, you know, like memes and, you know, DNA as, as ultimate meme, um, uh, the concept of infinity and, um, objective beauty. Um, but he has a really strong grounding in, in physics. Um, and then-

Lex Fridman 1:24:19 So he has a rigorous way of talking about these, like, big topics?

Natalya Bailey 1:24:22 Yeah. So that was very mind-opening to me to read that, but it also, I think is probably part of why I ended up marrying my husband is related to that book, and then I've had some other really great connections with people because I had read it and so had they. Um, so-

Lex Fridman 1:24:40 I like how you turned that, that bo- even that book into a love story.

Natalya Bailey 1:24:44 (gasps) I did. I know.

Lex Fridman 1:24:45 (laughs) So ha-

Natalya Bailey 1:24:46 No, it's good. It's good.

Lex Fridman 1:24:47 (laughs) It's, it's a good look.

Natalya Bailey 1:24:47 Your robot has a heart.

Lex Fridman 1:24:49 (laughs) Yeah, exactly.

Natalya Bailey 1:24:50 (laughs) And, okay, the third, uh, series is, it's just, it's Harry Potter. Um-

Lex Fridman 1:24:57 Of course, which-

Natalya Bailey 1:24:58 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:24:58 ... somehow connects to... I d- I haven't read Harry Potter. I'm really sorry.

Natalya Bailey 1:25:02 Oh, no.

Lex Fridman 1:25:02 I'm, I... Forgive me. Forgive me. Uh, but, uh, I've read Tolkien, but just Harry Potter-

Natalya Bailey 1:25:08 Okay.

Lex Fridman 1:25:08 ... just haven't, haven't gotten to it. But, uh, uh, your company name is mo- I think connected to Harry Potter.

Natalya Bailey 1:25:13 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:25:13 Right? I think I heard this.

Natalya Bailey 1:25:15 So, my... I always feel like I have to justify my-

Lex Fridman 1:25:19 (laughs)

Natalya Bailey 1:25:20 ... fandom. Um, the first three books came out when I was 10, so I went along this journey with Harry, um, age-wise, and I read them all, like, nine or ten times, all seven books. And I think, um, anything that just keeps you reading is, is what's important, and, you know, there are, I have lulls where I don't feel like reading anything, so I'll reread a Harry Potter or a, you know, trashy detective novel or something, and, and I don't really care. And that's why I mention Harry Potter, because it, you know, whatever just keeps me reading I think is important. And, um, it was (laughs) a big part of my life growing up. And then yes, Axie On, uh, the official...... story of the naming of the company is that Accion is like a concatenation of accelerate and ion, but it actually came from Accio, the summoning charm, and then we just added an N and it was perfect.

Lex Fridman 1:26:22 What's the summoning charm? It's just, uh, this, one of the spells in Harry Potter?

Natalya Bailey 1:26:25 Yeah, it, um, mo- probably most notably Harry uses it to summon his broomstick out of his dorm room when he's battling a dragon somewhere else. So he says the spell and the broomstick comes to him, so summoning in that way. Okay, there we go. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:26:44 (laughs) This is brilliant. So the, the, the big thing is that, uh, it's something that you carry with... It's like your ca- it's your s- safe place you return to-

Natalya Bailey 1:26:53 Yeah, and it-

Lex Fridman 1:26:53 ... something like a Harry Potter.

Natalya Bailey 1:26:55 ... that, you know, I reread them still. Um, whatever keeps me reading I think is, is the most important thing.

Lex Fridman 1:27:02 Okay, I got it. So-

Natalya Bailey 1:27:03 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:27:04 ... I'm actually the same way in terms of the habit of it. It's important-

Natalya Bailey 1:27:09 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:27:09 ... that it's important to just keep-

Natalya Bailey 1:27:11 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:27:11 ... keep re- keep reading.

Natalya Bailey 1:27:12 Exactly.

Lex Fridman 1:27:12 But I have found myself struggling a little bit to, because I listen to a lot of audiobooks now, I've str- struggled to then switch back to-

Natalya Bailey 1:27:22 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:27:22 ... reading seriously, uh, 'cause just I read so many papers, I read so many other things, it feels like if I'm gonna sit down and fo- and have the time to actually focus on the reading, I should be reading, like, blog posts or papers or more condensed kind of things.

Natalya Bailey 1:27:38 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:27:39 But there, there's a huge value to just reading long form still.

Natalya Bailey 1:27:42 Yeah, and, you know, my husband was never that into fiction, but then someone told him, or he heard, um, you know, you learn a lot of empathy through reading fiction. Um, so you could think of it that way 'cause-

Lex Fridman 1:27:56 Well, yeah, that's kind of, uh, th- yeah, yeah. The... And it's also, fiction is a nice, um, like non- less so with non-fiction, is a chance to travel. I see it as kind of traveling-

Natalya Bailey 1:28:07 Mm-hmm. Yeah. Exactly.

Lex Fridman 1:28:08 ... as you go to this other world and it's, it's nice 'cause it's, like, much more efficient. You don't have to get on a plane, you don't have to... (laughs) And you get to meet all kinds of new people. It's like people say they