Episode 900: Engineering the Future of Space
Newt's World
Gingrich 360
4.7 • 6.3K Ratings
🗓️ 12 October 2025
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Newt talks with Joel Sercel, PhD., Founder and CEO of TransAstra, a venture-backed company pioneering asteroid mining and the future of the space economy. Sercel shares insights into the company's mission to use asteroids as refueling stations for rockets, potentially enabling extensive space travel across the solar system and beyond. Sercel, a former Jet Propulsion Laboratory technologist and a seven-time NASA NIAC Fellow, discusses his journey from a childhood fascination with space to leading major space engineering efforts. He highlights the strategic importance of asteroid mining for the United States, emphasizing the potential for space industrialization and the creation of a transportation network in space. Their conversation also covers the technological innovations of TransAstra, including the development of a Capture Bag for asteroid mining and the Sutter Telescope Network for detecting asteroids. Sercel envisions a future where space resources are harnessed to build vast new industries and enhance military capabilities, with a focus on robotic operations and the potential for solar thermal propulsion.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:08.6 | On this episode of Neuthorpe, Transastra is a venture-backed company revolutionizing asteroid mining and the future of the space economy, |
| 0:18.0 | including technology development and economic modeling and planning for |
| 0:22.0 | in-space transportation enabled by asteroid mining in an effort to build a transportation |
| 0:27.4 | network in space. Or, to say it in a simple way, transastra is using asteroids as gas stations |
| 0:34.2 | for rockets that one day may take us across our solar system and perhaps |
| 0:38.7 | the galaxies far beyond. |
| 0:41.0 | I'm really pleased to welcome my guest, Joel Sersel, founder and CEO of Transaster. |
| 0:47.7 | He has a PhD from Caltech. |
| 0:49.7 | He's a former Jet Propulsion Laboratory Technologist, a seven-time NASA |
| 0:54.4 | NIAC fellow, and he holds 20 plus patents. |
| 0:58.8 | He has led major space engineering efforts at Caltech, |
| 1:02.0 | the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the OS Air Force, |
| 1:04.5 | and even has an asteroid named after him. |
| 1:22.5 | ... named after him. Joel, welcome and thank you for joining me in New World. |
| 1:25.5 | You've had an incredible career from Caltech to NASA and now founding Trans Astra. What first drew you to space? |
| 1:33.0 | Well, Mr. Speaker, first I have to say this is incredible honor. I've tracked your career for decades, and I'm incredibly grateful for the contributions that you've made to this nation. So the idea that I get to spend |
| 1:45.0 | some time with you this morning is just a thrill for me. What attracted me to space? The answer is I never |
| 1:52.0 | wasn't. I grew up in various different places all over the world, but most notably in the Arizona |
| 1:58.8 | desert, and my father was a jet fighter pilot, and he would take |
| 2:03.7 | us out camping at night, and in the Arizona desert, the stars are so close and so |
| 2:09.2 | helpful that you feel a connection to the cosmos. Astronauts describe when they go into space |
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