Seven, six, five, four-stage engine start.

Three, two, one, and lift off.

We close with good night, good luck, and God bless all of you on the good earth.

Welcome to Next Giant Leap, a podcast from GZ's Blue Circle Studio and produced in partnership with MDA Space.

I'm Mike Massimino, Columbia Engineering Professor and former NASA Astronaut.

And I'm Mike Greenling, CEO of MDA Space, a global leader in communication satellites, Earth, space observation, and space exploration

and infrastructure. Imagine growing human organs in zero gravity, or collecting rare resources

from asteroids, or building a supply chain that stretches beyond our planet and into the stars.

Sound like science fiction?

You might be surprised. As space becomes more accessible, we're entering a new era, one where the industrialization of space could transform life here on Earth. But how close are we to this new reality?

And what will the world look like as we take our most crucial industries beyond Earth's atmosphere?

Today, we're exploring the surprising innovations and infrastructure that could lead to a new era of industrialization in space.

Mike, when people talk about the industrialization of space, it can sound a bit abstract, but you working in reality. So what does that idea of industrialization of space? What does that

mean to you? To me, it means taking a lot of the industries that we have here on Earth, but doing

them in outer space, either in orbit around the Earth or another planet, such as the Moon or to Mars.

So today we would do surveillance of the Earth, for example, using airplanes or helicopters

and looking down with cameras. But we do all that from space, from satellites. Today on Earth,

we have cellular phone systems and communication systems

using fiber optic cables, but we do all that wirelessly from space now with communication

satellites that bring internet data to the whole world and or direct-to-device communications

right to your cell phone. But we're starting to see that expand in all kinds of interesting

new areas. We have commercial space stations under development to replace

...