Space Business Podcast #110 - Jaret Matthews, Astrolab: Planetary Rovers

Our guest this week is building a lunar rover. Jaret Matthews is the CEO & Founder of Astrolab, based in Hawthorne, CA. He was previously at SpaceX and also at JPL, where he worked on Mars rovers. Come join us to hear all about planetary rovers!  https://astrolab.space/ SPACE ECONOMY BOOK: Raphael's fully revised introductory book on the Space economy, "To Infinity" - https://a.co/d/6jIQ2LO Upcoming newsletter - sign up: https://spacebusiness.substack.com/ Follow us: Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/podcast_space LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/raphaelroettgen/ Instagram -  www.instagram.com/raphael_space/ Learn more about space & the space economy: Check out the edX/EPFL Space Economy MOOC: https://www.edx.org/course/new-space-economy There is now a certificate for those wanting to enter the space sector: https://www.spacecertificate.com The Space Business Podcast is sponsored by NanoAvionics. Support us at https://www.patreon.com/spacebusinesspodcast Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 2:21 Elevator Pitch 3:11 "Last Mile" on the Moon 5:27 Flex rover in the context of other rovers 9:10 Payloads 11:30 Scaling challenges 13:46 Autonomy 15:33 "Off-road" capability 19:23 Vehicle specs 22:23 Vehicle lifetime and surviving on the Moon 29:34 Spare parts 33:06 Infrastructure 34:22 Main use cases 38:27 Vision for mobility landscape on the Moon 41:37 The motivation behind Astrolab 46:46 What else is interesting in the space sector 48:15 What could be the "first killer app" for the Moon? 50:07 Sci-Fi