I'm John Batchel with David Livingston.

This is Hotel Mars Episode N.

And we're very, very privileged to have Eric Berger,

the man who watches SpaceX very closely ever since the testing days out in the Quadlan

group in the Marshall Islands.

But now we're testing out of Boca Chica. That is a piece of the puzzle

called space policy. Eric, I note who was present. The president-elect was present with

Elon Musk, also the commander of the Space Force was present, and Senator Cruz was present. That's

quite a lot of authority. What is the thinking about integrating SpaceX's successes in with the

Space Force or with the U.S. government? Well, it was definitely notable since you know, you had the

President-elect there, you had the

chief of the Space Force who, you know, increasingly relies not just on SpaceX launches, but

their Starlink capability under the Starshield banner.

You know, it hasn't been specified clearly, but obviously there's multi-billion dollar contracts

with the DoD and the internet, lower

the internet capabilities of Starlink.

And I think Senator Ted Cruz being there was significant as well.

He's long been one of the US senators interested in commercial space, more so than most.

And now he's going to be chairing, likely chairing an influential committee in the Senate

that will oversee space policy and regulation.

And so to have all three of those officials there suggest that the U.S. government is, you know, very interested in SpaceX's capabilities,

and we'll be looking to probably increase their use of them in the coming years.

...