Rapid Response: Landing on the moon, with Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines

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All stations, this is uh Mission Director on IM1. We're evaluating. Uh how we can refine that signal and uh dial in the pointing for our dishes, what we can confirm. Without a doubt. our equipment is on the surface of the moon, and we are transmitting.

So Congratulations, I am team. We'll see how much more we can get from that. And over to our CEO, Steve Alter. Yeah, if I could just pass on a few words to the entire team in uh Intuitive Machines at Superfab and here in the here in the uh Mission Control. Uh more than outstanding effort. I know this was a nail biter.

But we are on the surface and we are transmitting. And uh welcome to the moon. Houston. Odysseus has found his new home. Hey everyone.

Bob Safian here. That was Steve Altemus, the CEO of Intuitive Machines, which recently became the first company ever to land on the moon and the first US presence there in more than fifty years. But So many things didn't go as planned, requiring multiple rapid responses. Always with imperfect information and under intense time pressure.

The fact that the Odysseus lander made it to the moon's surface at all, even if it was on its side. is kind of miraculous. Back in the day, Steve worked on space shuttle launches at NASA, some forty of them. Now he's trying to start a whole new industry in space. And Odie, as he calls the Odysseus Lander, is the first step in that process. My colleague Reith Hoffman talks about entrepreneurship as jumping off a cliff and building a plane on the way down. Steve and his team found themselves rebuilding Odie while in even thinner air in space from more than two hundred thousand miles away, with little to guide them. А не стип се.

It worked. Let's listen in. I'm Bob Safe and I'm here with Steve Altimus, uh the CEO of Intuitive Machines. Just been a crazy couple of weeks.

It takes a lot out of you and so. Uh, I needed a little rest here and the whole team's catching up right now. But it's a great feeling. You spend all this time planning. I I know you you 3D print your own rockets, you pull together a communications network to stay in touch. You developed autonomous landing process. Odysseus becomes An autonomous vehicle as it approaches the surface, which which we'll get to. So much prep, but you said in advance.

That only 75% chance of success. Uh, do you expect things not to go as planned as you're going into something as difficult and dramatic as as you know trying to land on the moon. So many things have to go right, have to go absolutely perfectly only Forty percent. Of all missions to the moon.

In the history of mankind. We're successful. That means a sixty percent failure rate. And that includes all the Apollo missions that were successful, right? It's hard to know which dramatic moment to ask you to to walk us through first.

You have the February fifteenth launch. And then as you get closer to landing, all kinds of trouble breaks out. Which you Resolve And are able to land on the moon, but then things are not quite operating as you hoped once you're on the moon. We launched off of a uh Falcon Nine, a SpaceX Falcon Nine rocket, and uh we had our problems

with uh loading the liquid oxygen, liquid methane onto the onto our land or You know, that has not been done in over thirty years. It was very hazardous. We went through two wet dress rehearsals and then finally a launch. Uh, getting to launch vehicle separation and acquisition of signal was another major piece where we fly then separately from the rocket.

um on our own, on our way to the moon, and we have to orient ourselves in space. That was a major, major uh milestone. This liquid oxygen, liquid methane engine that we three D print in house and we built the whole thing and invented the whole thing ourselves. Had never been fired in space. Or never been fired in a vacuum.

So was that gonna work? So take me to the first sort of Mission critical moment when you're approaching landing. I you're it's the night of the twenty first. It's around ten o'clock. And you get a Call to come in.

Boy, it was one of those calls like you don't want to get at night when it says You ought to get in here. Right now. Turns out that our lunar orbit insertion Maneuver that.

puts us into a roughly a hundred kilometer by hundred kilometer circular orbit around the moon. was mishapen. We were very low on what they call parallel in the bottom of the orbit. Near the South Pole. And we know that the mountains in the area in the south pole that we were flying by were six kilometers high. And you know, folks were worried about

Oh, we're gonna hit the moon, we're gonna hit the south pole of the moon, we're too low. Says wait a minute. Let's just calm down. Everybody just stay focused. Take our time. Let's get this maneuver right. And we actually um

Burn the engine again and raise that Uh parallel up. to the right altitude. to set us up for power descent. And so that was a matter of You know.

Just keeping our heads together. Deal with the problem that was right in front of us. Solve that one. To go live another day to solve the next problem that was coming. One of the hardest challenges for leaders

In all situations is knowing sort of when to delegate And when to Roll up your sleeves and do it yourself. In Times of um

crisis or critical moments. How you carry yourself is really important and a calming influence. in this case was necessary. Um The operations team

Knew what to do. They had a plan. But the the criticality or the consequence of doing that wrong was so severe we were gonna lose the mission to the moon. That we need to take a deep breath. We have three operations teams.

Red, white, and blue team. And then on the outside the control room. There's a team four. And I was uh one of the two leaders of Team Four. So we're there to troubleshoot to make sure to get the experts together and make a decision.

And then give that to the mission director to go implement. And that's what we did here in this case with the with that critical lunar correction maneuver to raise that orbit. And it worked. It worked. So

M my understanding is that Odysseus, as it approaches landing, it becomes an autonomous vehicle. I in other words, it's gotta find its own spot to land, right? And you've got to uh hazard detection avoidance HDA which are sort of cameras and lasers that help The computer on the on the vehicle find the right place to land. Am I explaining that the right way? Yeah, the vehicle had to be prepared.

Uh to autonomously start the engine. The Odie burned the engine himself. Um And Cruised along and took Um pictures or images of the

Of the craters and then could tell how fast He was going over the surface by how fast the craters moved underneath him. We look ahead at the landing site and scan um with hazard relative navigation cameras, we call them HRN scan. And we found nine different points within our Landing ellipse.

that were clear to land in Um and uh that had slopes less than ten degrees and rocks Smaller than bowling balls. My understanding is that th that there were lasers that you were planning to use for this landing

But that for some reason they weren't operating. And so you sort of borrowed lasers from Uh from a uh a project that you were carrying on On Odysseus, on the vehicle for NASA. Tim Crane, who uh He's my partner in a company. He's he's also uh

was a mission director, and when I told him Hey, uh we're gonna have to land without laser rangefinders. He turned white as a ghost. It was like a punch in the stomach. He's like we can't. We can't land without r rangefinders.

So we're walking down the hall trying to figure out You know, do we do we put a script in there and just Pretend we understand the surface of the moon and go for it and you know, a simulated script. No no no that won't work. And then all of a sudden the light bulb goes on in his head. He's like

I know. We've got three lasers on board. That aren't being used. Those are the NASA Doppler LIDAR lasers. Brilliant, brilliant idea of how to use the spacecraft and how to use other assets on the spacecraft. And so uh we made a phone call as team four to

NASA and said hey, um You have this NASA Doppler LIDAR, and we're watch it and it's shadowing our landing. We want to have the actual navigation application read those laser measurements.

So we made makeshift uh laser range finders out of the NASA Doppler LIDAR. um by reprogramming our navigation application to trick the software to have those laser beams think they were the laser range finders. We took about a month's work of of navigation software development and did it in about um forty five minutes.

You mentioned earlier this sort of the The adjustment you were making on the orbit Was this adjustment around the lasers happening at the same time? The fact that we had a low orbit Uh coming in after lunar orbit insertion.

We Turned on one of the lasers. And attempted to fire it to see what our altitude was and we didn't get the laser to fire. So all of a sudden we realize we have to do something So if you hadn't had that orbital problem

When you discovered the laser problem, it might have been too late to make the adjustment that you ended up Making that al allowed you to land the way you did. Oh yeah. Absolutely. We would not have been able to make it.

As it turns out though. As we w we worked it all day to write that software to solve the problem with the NASA Doppler LIDAR, as we went into power decent. We did not receive those N D L measurements and so we landed Without the laser altimeters in the end. But we had done some work, you know, to get us there. And we looked at the NASA that blue light art um telemetry and boy did it track perfectly. So it would have really put us down softly if we could have

Read those measurements. I see. So you you went through this effort to pull that together, but in the end It didn't impact the way the vehicle actually Operated. Right. We we we failed to ingest those measurements and so we didn't get the benefit of using them.

But that's okay. We did the work and we showed it could be done. And then in the end, um it proved out just how accurate our um our navigation application is. So that while some people th say you landed short of your landing site. Or you landed hard, um, probably three meters a second versus one meter per second. The fact is it's like flying a fighter jet.

Blindfolded. with a dead stick onto a s uh an aircraft carrier. That that's what we did on the moon, basically. And uh it just showed that these the algorithms that we have for navigation were so accurate that we were able to salvage the the the landing Um without all the necessary equipment.

So I was watching the video of the landing and sort of the lander gets to the surface. I'm I'm watching Your your control room there, which I guess for you is just the office, but it it look it looks like a control room. It's a control room. And it gets this surface. And silence. Like there's like one minute and two minutes and you're sort of w waiting. Like what is going through your head while you're waiting

To find out because you don't know whether it's at that point whether it's landed successfully or not,'cause you're not getting any Data back, right? Yes, I'm looking over my shoulder. And there's the prop console, which is watching the engine firing. And there's the f um flight dynamics officer who's watching how we're tracking the spacecraft.

Everything looks perfect. And then all the screens go purple. And that's an indication that we don't have communications. So it's funny'cause all of the NASA VIPs that were here were in the Uh conference room.

That looks over the control center through big glass windows. And we're like, Okay. I better go say something to him. Um so I went in there and I says, Look, we had good propulsion. We had Good flight dynamics and control.

But we don't have communications yet. And boy, their faces were kinda stern. And then I go back into the control room and we're sitting there for minutes. And then all of a sudden Ping, we get a ping from the spacecraft. That's when you saw a little bit of cheering in the control room, just modest.

And then we I went back into the conference room with the NASA officials and said, We have communications. And they just were ecstatic at that point. And from that point on, just more and more communications and more and more understanding as we got data back on what the vehicle was and And and that we were gonna be able to do science on the surface. And we were gonna be able to receive all the

data back from how our system performed on the surface. And so it just got better and better. One of your colleagues said to me that there were eleven different things that went wrong. That each had like a seventy percent chance of being able to fix them, which in aggregate means that the odds of success were like Two percent when you put all that together. When you look at all that, do you feel like

Oh, we were lucky? Like H how do you gauge The your success in light of those parameters. Odysseus or Odie.

Uh wouldn't let us sit back and watch. We had a lot of work to do all the way to To the last moment. There is something um spiritual about it. I think there was a whole lot of people around the world pulling for our success, and there is a certain

reverence and respect we have for uh The mission. to return the United States to the moon. Um, in the first time in fifty two years. But how do you take Those odds of potential failure.

And it was the team who showed agility and resilience and stick to it or perseverance. No one gave up. Until the last Moment, sort of the last breath of Odie when the sun was

was was leaving the solar rays and the battery was discharging, we blast it down the last image. And I think that's how you raise the odds is is you have that attitude like we're not gonna give up. We're gonna find a way. We're gonna be innovative to the end. And that's what we did. There is something spiritual, as Steve puts it, about navigating through all those last minute travails, especially when you're up in the heavens. But there were also challenges once OD was on the surface of the moon, and then of course all the business challenges back here on Earth.

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Before the break, we heard CEO Steve Altemus of Intuitive Machines talk about being in the control room as the first US moonlander in 50 years. Encountered difficulties on its way to the surface. Now we dig into the touchdown, whether it was a success and how his background at NASA paved the way for his business. Plus Planning for the next moon buggy and other adventures in the emerging space exploration industry.

Which thanks to Odie. is now operational. You're started your career, spent a lot of your career at Nassa. Um

And you left. And I'm curious, like Why? Obviously you're working very closely with NASA.

Yes, absolutely working closely. I worked at Kennedy Space Center. Um for about sixteen years and was involved in forty launches of the space shuttles, half of which were off of launch complex pad A. Um which is where we launched our own spacecraft on the SpaceX rocket.

And then went and ran um engineering at the Johnson Space Center for human space flight programs. Um for another decade or so. And that was my career and and we had no political will at the time I left to uh return the United States to the moon. I think

That period of time inside of NASA working in engineering with no um destination was very frustrating and I went through the cancellation of the constellation program, which was the moon program. And came up with this idea to fly uh A walking robot to the moon in a thousand days and do it in within engineering like an entrepreneur. And so I started that.

And that was successful. We flew that um Thirty seven times. And uh we built a walking robot and flew that on the international space station. We never got to go to the moon, but we did that uh for pennies on the dollar and show that You can be innovative, you can be agile within a bur bureaucracy.

You can be uh lean and and affordable. Um, so that was the premise going into starting intuitive machines, that culture. And that's why we uh were able to be successful, I think. And I think we've continued to be successful as a result of that. And so when Odie's there, but

It's on its side. It's not exactly where you want it to be. And there's there's challenge about how to maximize communications and data exchange and stuff. How do you think about the relative success of the mission? 'Cause you're still scrounging at that point, right? I think um Let me just say. Unqualified success.

And that's Land softly on the moon. Do your science on the moon and return that data back to your customer. And in the end, we used our model, our business model, and proved it right. Which is this lean, affordable

um fixed price way of contracting to go to the moon. Um and I think we've established A new economic limit. And Um

are ready to open up the cis lunar economy as a result of it. Um and be the first ones pioneering through it. So From that perspective, this is a wild success. What I've liked The gear to stand up.

Uh to that heavier load or touchdown. Sure. And you know, there's a lot of detractors on social media who say you broke a landing gear. Well you know what? Our spacecraft Got the opportunity to use their landing gear. Um not many have.

Right, in in the past. Because of all the drama around this landing In some ways, you got more attention. Maybe then you might have gotten Otherwise. D do you think about that at all? Um well I I guess there's n there's no bad press. All press is good press. I would like to be perfect going to the moon, but

I'll tell you, there has ne I've been associated with a lot of spacecraft missions, a lot of uh space exploration missions. There has not ever been a perfect space exploration mission. Period. Um Forty shuttle launches, there was always um in flight anomalies.

I think there's a little naivety in the community, um, outside of uh the space community that Think that it's can be perfect. Um it's just Physics and hardware and software and

And sometimes they're And harsh environments and sometimes they're in conflict and you have failures that you have to deal with. I'm thinking you know, back in two thousand three. after the shuttle Columbia fell apart on reentry and killed everyone aboard. You were you were part of the the team, the reconstruction team. During the last few weeks. Did you find yourself like reflecting on that and going back to those experiences? Or do you try like

Not to think about that. Like I don't want to think about what the worst that could happen is. I led a team of about four hundred people in the reconstruction of Columbia back in two thousand and three. Very intense time. But what we were doing was we were solving a problem To return the United States back to flight of the space shuttle. Yeah, we

had gone through the mourning period and now this part And finding a solution was cathartic for us. I'm sure you've gleaned a bunch of

Technical lessons from the experience. Are there process and leadership lessons as well that The last two weeks have either anchored for you or introduced for you. Oh my goodness, yes. Um There's so many technical and operational things. Um but

I think one, it's the culture of this company. Right. Um the people. You build a company that is mission focused. With a purpose. A national strategic purpose.

Um And they're gonna give you every bit. You know, Odie didn't leave anything on the table. There was no methane left, there was no helium left, there's no power left. And I think this team did the same.

It uh this team gave everything to this mission And that's why we're successful and now Um we have not only the ability to To build incredible spacecraft. We have the team that

Knows how to do that and can fly'em in space. So we're uh Leaps and bounds ahead of of others in the in the world that are trying to do this. Yeah. So what's at stake now for intuitive machines?

I think what we've done is shown that there's a different model in aerospace in in space exploration. Um, one we're a publicly traded company. Lunar is our call sign, L U N R Amazing call sign, by the way. It's coolest ever. And then uh

We have Two more missions to go. Uh you know, probably later this year and then one early next year. We've d we designed and and offer to the government uh their next human moon buggy, the lunar terrain Vehicle.

And we would deliver that to the surface. It's about the size of an F one fifty pickup truck. And uh and sell that as a service to the government and sell it to commercial uh interests also. And so providing that Space infrastructure as a service.

is kinda we're on our way for landing softly, communicating, navigating, and bringing equipment. Cargo and Mobility to the surface. I think we're a category defining business at this point. Publicly traded space exploration company. Well somebody said it, um

That Back in Apollo days. It was a great time to be alive as a as a aerospace engineer. Um, everybody would say that and look back at Apollo and say, Boy, that was the best time. And now we say

This is the best time to be alive as an aerospace engineer because you can dream this big and succeed. Um, and have a business that that does that for a living. So I think it's a it's a really special time in history and Uh love to be a pioneer and a and a Oh.

Breaking this new frontier for the United States. Well, Steve, this has been great. Thank you. Thanks for sharing all this, even though I know you're still recovering. Just a little bit. I'm gonna take a vacation. My wife's gonna steal me away for a week and uh hide me away in the world someplace. To be honest, I've never been much of a space buff.

When I was running fast company editors would pitch space related stories, and I was always lukewarm. It just seemed more like science fiction than business. But what Intuitive Machines and Odie have done kind of turns me around. Operating in space seems Fantastical, but it's becoming real. There's so many lessons in this journey about planning and about adaptability, about taking ideas from everywhere, about software and autonomous vehicles and the potential of AI. But Most of all for me. It's about dreaming.

About creating the future we want through active, deliberate. Considered effort. And yes. A little bit of luck too. There are a lot of intractable problems on earth right now. But if we can manage to handle difficulties all the way on the moon

Maybe, just maybe. We can be inspired to handle things here at home, too. I'm Bob Safian. Thanks for listening. Hey there, it's Jill Slessen. I'm launching a new show. It's called Money Moves, and your money is going to move.

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