This is a clip from a conversation with Keoki Jackson on the Artificial Intelligence podcast. He is the CTO of Lockheed Martin and we were discussing the race to put a human on Mars. You can watch the full conversation here: http://bit.ly/2Zla5Ko If you enjoy these, consider subscribing, sharing, and commenting below.

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Keoki Jackson is the CTO of Lockheed Martin, a company that through its long history has created some of the most incredible engineering marvels that human beings have ever built, including planes that fly fast and undetected, defense systems that intersect threats that could take the lives of millions in the case of nuclear weapons, and spacecraft systems that venture out into space, the moon, Mars, and beyond with and without humans on-board.

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What are your thoughts on the efforts of the new folks, SpaceX and Elon Musk?

What are your thoughts about what Elon is doing?

First of all, certainly Elon, I'd say SpaceX and some of his other ventures are definitely a competitive force in the space industry.

And we think we're very strong competitors.

I think competition is what the US is founded on in a lot of ways and always coming up with a better way.

And I think it's really important to continue, to have fresh eyes coming in, new innovation.

I do think it's important to have level playing fields.

And so you want to make sure that you're not giving different requirements to different players.

But I tell people, I spend a lot of time at places like MIT.

I'm going to be at the MIT Beaverworks Summer Institute over the weekend here.

And I tell people this is the most exciting time to be in the space business in my entire life.

And it is this explosion of new capabilities that have been driven by things like the massive increase in computing power, things like the massive increase in comms capabilities, advanced and additive manufacturing are really bringing down the barriers to entry in this field and it's driving just incredible innovation.

It's happening at startups, but it's also happening at Lockheed Martin.

I talked about some of these like Maya and Orion, but we're in the middle of what we call smart sets and software-defined satellites that can essentially restructure and remap their purpose, their mission on orbit to give you almost unlimited flexibility for these satellites over their lifetimes.

So those are just a couple of examples, but yeah, this is a great time to be in space.


Speaker 0: What are your thoughts on the efforts of the new folks, SpaceX and Elon Musk? What are your thoughts about what Elon is doing? Do you see him as competition? Do you enjoy competition? What are your thoughts?

Speaker 1: First of all, certainly Elon, I'd say SpaceX and some of his other ventures are definitely a competitive force in the space industry. And do we like competition? Yeah, we do. And we think we're very strong competitors. I think competition is what the US is founded on in a lot of ways and always coming up with a better way.

And I think it's really important to continue, to have fresh eyes coming in, new innovation. I do think it's important to have level playing fields. And so you want to make sure that you're not giving different requirements to different players. But I tell people, I spend a lot of time at places like MIT. I'm going to be at the MIT Beaverworks Summer Institute over the weekend here.

And I tell people this is the most exciting time to be in the space business in my entire life. And it is this explosion of new capabilities that have been driven by things like the massive increase in computing power, things like the massive increase in comms capabilities, advanced and additive manufacturing are really bringing down the barriers to entry in this field and it's driving just incredible innovation. It's happening at startups, but it's also happening at Lockheed Martin. I talked about some of these like Maya and Orion, but we're in the middle of what we call smart sets and software-defined satellites that can essentially restructure and remap their purpose, their mission on orbit to give you almost unlimited flexibility for these satellites over their lifetimes. So those are just a couple of examples, but yeah, this is a great time to be in space.

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Competing with SpaceX: America Was Built on Competition - Lockheed Martin CTO | AI Podcast Clips