Why are the world’s space faring nations racing back to the Moon? What is the value of establishing a new lunar economy? In this episode of On Orbit’s Future Space Economy webcast series, host Jeffrey Hill speaks with Yale University’s Emma Louden, Nanoracks’ Mike Lewis, and former SpaceX leaders David Anderman and Sita Sonty about what’s driving the new space race to the Moon. The group explores the value of lunar materials and resources, research on the “dark side of the Moon,” and the economic opportunities created by just getting there (as well as getting there first)

About the speakers: 

David Anderman is co-founder & operating partner, Stellar Ventures. He was most recently the general counsel of SpaceX, where he helped with the first-ever launch of astronauts by a private company, the maiden flight of Starship (SpaceX’s Mars colony ship), and the rollout of the Starlink global satellite internet system. 

Emma Louden is a fourth year Ph.D. candidate of Astrophysics at Yale University. She graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, and has been selected as a Brooke Owens Fellow and a Quad Fellow. Emma also is a part-time analyst at BryceTech and a contributor to Metaculus.

Mike Lewis is chief innovation officer of Nanoracks, a Voyager Space Company, where he is responsible for overseeing the technical, scientific, and engineering direction for the company. He has developed, built, and flown experiment platforms to the International Space Station, and has helped deliver more than 1,300 experiments to space.

Sita Sonty is currently on sabbatical from her position leading Boston Consulting Group’s Commercial Space team. She also previously served as the head of Human Spaceflight Sales at SpaceX, where she helped execute the first private spaceflight sales on the Crew Dragon on a Lower Earth Orbit Free Flyer mission and to the International Space Station.

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