About this episode
Paul Jarley: It’s Space Week at UCF and I’m like a kid in a candy store. So many questions. For one, everyone’s talking about going to Mars, but why? What problem are we solving? What does Mars offer that other planets or the moons don’t? And if the answer is survival or curiosity, does that really require an economy, people trading air, power and data in some kind of cosmic barter system? Or is Mars just a science project? Let’s be real. Most moms or dads did their kids science projects. Nobody ever monetized anything from any of them.
This show is all about separating hype from fundamental change. I’m Paul Jarley, Dean of the College of Business here at UCF. I’ve got lots of questions. To get answers, I’m talking to people with interesting insights into the future of business. Have you ever wondered, Is This Really a Thing? On to our show.
In the past few years, the College has been undergoing a transformation. We’ve been asked to build a Business School that’s a key asset to Florida’s leading engineering and technology university. That’s meant bringing in people who are a little different from our typical pragmatic, data-driven faculty. The ones who teach students to manage people and PNLs. A few of these new faces can fairly be called dreamers. One of them is Zaheer Ali. He, along with Greg Autry is leading our space commercialization efforts, including our space MBA. It’s not a nickname, it’s a space MBA. As we were setting up for Space Week, Z claimed that a Martian economy would really be a thing. Well, he said something like that. I gave him a skeptical look, he countered with a panel of experts.
Listen in.
Zaheer Ali: Well, thank you Dean Jarley. I like to say that, you know, in our business, we turn sci-fi into sci-reality. And one of the people who helps make sci-fi and is now helping make science reality is Danica Vallone of the Making Space Agency. Her path to space is very interesting coming from Hollywood of things like costumes and sets of such high fidelity and accuracy that the space industry said we need some of that. In my time at NASA, one of the things we did was we always built very high fidelity simulators and simulation systems to prepare people and equipment for the challenges of the space environment. So welcome Danica.
Danica Vallone: Thank you very much.
Zaheer Ali: We also have Dr. Pascal Lee of the Mars Institute, of the SETI Institute, one of the leading planetary scientists in the US and indeed the world Co-Chair of the National Space Society Space Settlement Summit and International Space Development Conference. Welcome, sir.
Paul Jarley: So I’m going to start this conversation by asking the same question I ask anybody who pitches me an idea, what problem does this solve? If you’re going to Mars and establishing an economy, what problem does that solve?
Danica Val
