Space CEO explains why he believes private space stations are a viable business

Summary

It’s a critical time for companies competing to develop a commercial successor to the International Space Station. NASA is working with several companies, including Axiom Space, Voyager Technologies, Blue Origin, and Vast, to develop concepts for private stations where it can lease time for its astronauts. The space agency awarded Phase One contracts several years ago and is now in the final stages of writing requirements for Phase Two after asking for feedback from industry partners in September. This program is known as Commercial LEO Destinations, or CLDs in industry parlance. Time is running out for NASA if it wants to establish continuity from the International Space Station, which will reach its end of life in 2030, with a follow-on station ready to go before then. One of the more intriguing companies in the competition is Voyager Technologies, which recently announced a strategic investment from Janus Henderson, a global investment firm. In another sign that the competition is heating up, Voyager also just hired John Baum away from Vast, where he was the company’s business development leader. To get a sense of this competition and how Voyager is coming along with its Starlab space station project, Ars spoke with the firm’s chairman, Dylan Taylor. This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity. Ars: I know a lot of the companies working on CLDs are actively fundraising right now. How is this coming along for Voyager and Starlab? Dylan Taylor: Fundraising is going quite well. You saw the Janus announcement. That’s significant for a few reasons. One is, it’s a significant investment. Of course, we’re not disclosing exactly how much. (Editor’s note: It likely is on the order of $100 million). But the more positive development on the Janus investment is that they are such a well-known, well-respected financial investor. If you look at the kind of bellwether investors, Janus would be up there with a Blackstone or Blackrock or Fidelity. So it’s significant no...