Mo Islam
Kate, welcome to Pathfinder.
Kate Kelly
Thank for having me, excited to be here.
Mo Islam
So I’ll tell you an interesting fact, is before you, we’ve only had one nuclear, what I would call a nuclear company on our show. We just celebrated episode number 100 a couple of weeks ago. So basically, with your appearance on the show, nuclear has only been 2% of our entire content around space.
Kate Kelly
Well, I’ll take it.
Mo Islam
No, I’m particularly excited about the conversation. I mean, there’s a lot more really interesting technological changes and advancements that are happening in space nuclear. there’s a lot for us to talk about. But before we get into BWXT and what you do there, tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you end up at BWXT? How did you end up pursuing nuclear? Give us a little bit of the Kate story.
Kate Kelly
Yeah, happy to. You know, I kind of fell into space nuclear, nuclear first and then space, which in the space industry, I feel like is an outlier. There’s so many people that are just so passionate about space and it was almost like intrinsic. And so while my entry into the industry was really gradual, I wasn’t inspired to go into it from the get-go. I’ve certainly been inspired to stay. So I have what I would say is not a traditional background for someone who spent their career with a nuclear company. I have a chemical engineering degree. I saw kind of two opportunities as a student. I saw the opportunity to enter the workforce and go into oil and gas. And I saw the opportunity to go on to grad school, and become a PhD chemical engineer.
And I know that there’s tons more opportunities, but that’s what I felt like the options were. And neither really appealed to me. But I’m still trying to figure out what to do. I end up with an internship with a nuclear energy company that’s headquartered in my hometown. And I really loved it. I was working on a new plant program. I saw so much opportunity for the industry. I felt nuclear was so underutilized as an energy source and I was inspired to stay. Now, I graduated at a time when it was not the best time to try to find a job in the nuclear industry. was recently after Fukushima, natural gas prices were at almost an all-time low. So there weren’t a ton of job opportunities, but there was this really exciting program that was going on in Lynchburg, Virginia with BWXT, but it was B&W at the time to build a small modular reactor program. So I joined the company, moved to a city that I had never heard of, and I’ve been here ever since.
Mo Islam
So give us the quick minute on BWXT. I know they do a lot more than just what you’re working on on the space side.
Kate Kelly
Yeah, so we’re about an 8,000 person company, so large business. We have operations across the US and Canada with a small footprint in the UK. The largest part of our business is delivering the fuel, nuclear reactors and plant components for the Navy submarines and aircraft carriers. And then we do a number of things in the commercial nuclear industry in Canada. We have a medical isotope business that’s also based in Canada. And then we have our advanced technologies portfolio, which is the group that I work in and the group I’ve been with for the last six years or so.
Mo Islam
So I have to ask, it’s really rare to find someone these days, especially at our age, that have been at one company for a majority of their career. And it looks like you’ve been at BWXT for a big portion of your career. I am very curious, tell us a little bit about the company that’s made you stay for as long as you have.
Kate Kelly
Yeah, so I joined the company in 2012 right out of school as a system design engineer on this small modular reactor program. I just really enjoyed it. The program, unfortunately, is no longer active. And so after about two years in that role, I didn’t want to leave the company. I saw a lot of opportunity. So I moved to go work in our manufacturing facility. So it’s the site that we make, specifically the nuclear reactor portion of that supply chain for the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. And it’s a facility that’s been operating for almost seven decades. It’s the only one of its kind in the country. And it’s just the rigor that goes into the operations day in, day out. It really drew me in. And then in around six years ago, the company was starting to look at, and this was right the government was gaining a lot of interest in new nuclear applications. So we start seeing pressure to decarbonize. We start seeing an interest in expanding our capabilities in space. so BWXT started this new product organization, that’s Advanced Technologies. And I joined, I was one of the earliest hires into this new group. I joined to just manage projects all related to space, all related to advanced manufacturing. And once you start working in space, it kind of really sucks you in. then, so then over, the projects got larger, a little more complex, our portfolio started to grow. And then around three years ago, I assumed leadership of our space nuclear portfolio.
Mo Islam
So give us a little bit about that. your role now is director of space and emerging programs. And I want to highlight that it’s AND emerging program. So I’m curious, what are you doing in space? And then why is it and emerging programs?
Kate Kelly
Yeah, so at a high level, I’m responsible for the strategy and execution of space and advanced concepts programs. So not too much about the advanced concepts work is public right now. And space is certainly the largest part of that portfolio. But just as we started to see an interest seven or so years ago to start to use nuclear fission reactors in new places and for new applications. There’s a lot of synergy across other applications, national security applications, other domains where there’s a need for this insertion of high consequence emerging technology, these complex strategic systems and the handling of complex special materials that are kind of really adjacent to these other space and terrestrial markets that we’re pursuing new nuclear in.
Mo Islam
So have you watched the show For All Mankind?
Kate Kelly
I have, yes.
Mo Islam
Okay, so I actually literally just finished season four yesterday. So I watched season one, two and three, like, I don’t know, like a year ago. And then once season four came out, it just like kind of sat on my like, you know, to watch list forever. And I was like, I need to get to it, I need to get to it. And then finally, about a week ago, I started it. And I just I’ve literally like, I mean, like last night, I finished it and I don’t want to give anything away for, because we actually have a lot of people who I know watch that show, but there’s a scene in season four where one of the spacecraft called Ranger One is using nuclear propulsion technology to maneuver around space. And I remember thinking how funny that I’m speaking to you tomorrow. And I wanted to ask you know, like in the way that nuclear propulsion is depicted in like these, you know, science fiction style shows and TV shows and movies, like is there, is that, is that what it’s like? Like tell us a little bit about like what nuclear propulsion is, what it looks like. You know, in the show, I remember at one point someone got really close to an engine that was literally like, you know, using nuclear propulsion and nothing happened to them. I had all these thoughts like, well, that doesn’t seem like realistic, but anyway, would be curious to get your thoughts on
Kate Kelly
Yeah, I loved the show. It certainly, it was such a useful tool for me to start like facilitating conversation with family and friends about what we do and what I do in my job, because there it was so neat to see some of these technologies depicted in such a futuristic way and almost in a way that, you know, that’s the future that we’re envisioning and the future that we’re working towards with the development of nuclear power and propulsion technology. With that said though, I couldn’t help at certain times think like, well, that’s not how we would do it. There was a scene where they’re launching the nuclear rocket out of the ocean and you just see it emerging. that’s certainly not how we, in the ConOps, that’s certainly not how we plan to deploy these systems. It’s certainly not how the government will deploy these systems.
So, but yeah, you I think that show was powerful in the sense maybe even if it wasn’t technically accurate in all these cases is that like nuclear does have a place in that future. And it does have a place where, you know, we’re seeing it deployed on earth much more broadly too, and a lot of these new programs where it’s gonna become much more common. And to do that, there’s certainly some risks and know, nuclear gets probably more bad press than been good press, hopefully that changes. But we’re seeing this evolve so that we know we can deploy these systems safely. We know that they can be used for human exploration. And we know that we can gain all this knowledge from decades of development and make these a reality.
Mo Islam
So you guys announced last summer, I believe, that your reactor and fuel are going to be key components in the world’s first demonstration spacecraft using nuclear thermal propulsion. Tell me a little bit more about that and what does that relationship look like with the DoD.
Kate Kelly
Yeah, so that was a huge accomplishment for our team. It was a significant milestone for advanced technologies and really a significant milestone for our country where the government is saying, yes, we want to do a flight test of nuclear thermal propulsion technology as soon as 2027. And we, you the contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin. BWXT providing the fuel and nuclear reactor for that component. And so what goes into that activity is we’re finishing the design, we’ll do the prototype surrogate demonstration and testing that we need to do to get ready for that flight test, and then we’ll deliver the flight hardware and support the integration of that on orbit demonstration. And yeah, been a whirlwind with that program. It’s so visible and space nuclear and we’re just really excited to be a part of it.
Mo Islam
So what are some key milestones that you can share that the firms achieved within sort of space nuclear over the last few
Kate Kelly
Yeah, so the DARPA Draco Phase 2 Award was one of them. That was a big one. There were some significant milestones, technical milestones that we accomplished in six or so years leading up to that. And so we started doing development work on nuclear thermal propulsion in 2017 with NASA. So NASA started doing early materials development, some component testing, some initial design. And the interest just grew from there. You started to see NASA start up other activities to mature design. You started to see DARPA express an interest and in parallel a lot of industry competition to help push that technology forward.
One of the key technical accomplishments of the team was we were able to successfully innovate on some manufacturing and fuel technology. It was technology that had prohibited some of the NTP programs that the country had studied in the past. So there was a large development campaign around the 60s and a program called the NERVO program where we actually built and tested two dozen nuclear thermal propulsion reactors on Earth. And we were able to improve upon that fuel technology. And those innovations were really essential to giving us the confidence that we can you know, meet this near-term flight demonstration.
Mo Islam
Can just take a quick step back. What is sort of like space? sorry. What is nuclear’s role within space exploration? Right. So like, why does why does BWXT care about this division? Like, why does NASA, DOD care about this division? Like we have propulsion technology. You know, we have a lot of different ways that we’ve been doing it for or I shouldn’t say a lot of different ways, there’s a number of different fuels that we use and we know it works and it’s tried and tested and we’ve used it to visit outer planets and we have propulsion technology already. What does nuclear thermal propulsion solve?
Kate Kelly
Yeah, so I’ll answer that question first and then I’ll talk about how it integrates with broader, maybe our country’s broader space exploration goals. So in a nuclear thermal propulsion system, so or what we call a nuclear thermal rocket engine, you’re using nuclear fission to generate extremely high temperatures. That engine is going to transfer heat produced by the reactor to a which is expanded and then exhausted through a nozzle to propel the spacecraft. So when you compare it to chemical propulsion, which we use today, that nuclear reactor can generate much more heat, which then translates to efficiency. So you end up with a system that’s two to five times more efficient than chemical propulsion, which means you can travel through cislunar space much faster and you can even use nuclear thermal propulsion to extend human exploration from the moon to Mars. And it can yield, that means a much shorter duration travel time for the crew.
Mo Islam
So I know that we have not demonstrated nuclear thermal propulsion yet. And obviously, that’s what we’re working on. But from a power perspective, nuclear and space have been going hand in hand since the 60s in a lot of different ways. And I know that even during the Apollo era, the astronauts used various kind of power systems, radioisotope power systems, to power various things on the moon. I’m curious, what kind of work are you guys doing on the power side as it relates to space?
Kate Kelly
Yeah, so we had over the last two years, we’ve announced a series of awards and partnerships related to the development of space nuclear power systems. And when we talk about space nuclear power systems, we there’s kind of two types, there’s systems that you’d land on the surface of the moon or eventually the surface of Mars to generate electricity. And then there’s nuclear electric propulsion systems which generate on orbit power. So you’re using nuclear fission to generate electricity that then powers a spacecraft. And we were participating, so NASA is pursuing a program related to the fission surface power, or a fission surface power system. They just announced they’ve completed phase one and they have plans to proceed that to phase two. We were one of the awardees with Lockheed Martin.
We, in parallel, you know, we’re starting to look at where are some of the other applications for nuclear power in space and what are some of the other end users and, you know, lunar exploration is an interest, not just of the US, but some of our allies as well. So we started to see the UK demonstrate an interest in fission surface power system as well. And just a few months ago, right around Space Symposium time, we announced that we had been awarded a contract with Rolls Royce Submarines Limited in the UK to mature a fission surface power concept for the UK Space Agency as part of their International Bilateral Fund. So those are our surface power activities NEP side or nuclear electric propulsion side, the Air Force Research Lab a couple years ago started to express an interest in having the capability to have higher power systems on orbit. And so they kicked off a program called Jetson. And we are a participant in that.
We’re a partner with Lockheed Martin. And then there’s a small business who they’re named Space Nuclear Power Corporation. they it’s a group of people who had spent careers at different parts of the US government and had done this really unique test called the Krusty demonstration 10 years ago, not quite 10 years ago, where they actually built and tested a power reactor at the Nevada test site. And they have this really mature, really cool concept. And so we’ve partnered with them and Lockheed on that program to working towards hopefully a flight demonstration of nuclear electric propulsion technology.
Mo Islam
So going back to fission surface power, is that, just to kind of ask sort of a bit of an ignorant question, but is that defined as fission power that’s used on a planetary body or like the moon? Is that the best way to think about that?
Kate Kelly
Yeah, that’s the best way to think of it.
Mo Islam
And are there any, so just to kind of take an extra step, take it extra step further, arguably the most extreme environment ever, right, to have a power system. Are there any Earth-based applications of taking, well, we have an ability to build this power system on the moon, but what if we threw a power system in somewhere, you know, an extreme or hostile environment on Earth where we need power?
Kate Kelly
Yeah, so the benefit of nuclear and the benefit of nuclear and space specifically is that nuclear is so energy efficient, so you can produce a lot of electricity in a very small volume. so space is the ultimate remote environment, but there’s certainly applicability of these miniaturized nuclear reactor systems to provide power on Earth as well. so there’s, you know, there are my peers and other parts of our organization within BWXT have some really exciting things going on to do just that. And so there’s tons of synergy around this momentum we have in a terrestrial nuclear space to deploy these reactors, whether it’s for to decarbonize certain industrial processes or to reduce our country’s reliance on diesel generators to power remote operating bases. So a lot of recent activity and new programs in those fields as well.
Mo Islam
Have you, within BWXT, has there been any work done in understanding how big the potential commercial or the sort of government market is for these technologies? Or, yeah, maybe talk to me a little bit about how you guys are thinking about the actual dollars behind, the long-term dollars behind these technologies.
Kate Kelly
Yeah, you know, we’re an established company. We have, you know, this flagship business where we’re producing, you know, a couple reactors a year for a primary government customer. And that has a long history and still has a lot more opportunity. You know, with all these new entrants in this new interest, whether it’s for a terrestrial market or space, that model is certainly applicable. Also with the push to decarbonize, we see that really exploding from a commercial deployment standpoint, so truly commercial reactors on Earth. But then we also see that opportunity in space. So I think space probably leans more towards the government applications, at least in the near term. But as we need to create this additional capability as our interests increase in space, whether that’s for economic reasons, so a commercial market, whether it’s for scientific exploration interests with NASA, or whether it’s for a national security purpose, we need that new capability and that’s what nuclear can provide.
Mo Islam
What is the, how do you interface with sort of the broader BWXT team, right? So how many people currently work within your division?
Kate Kelly
Yeah, we have about 400 in our division. Yeah, yeah.
Mo Islam
wow. Okay, that’s a bit larger than I expected actually.
Kate Kelly
Yeah, about 400. And so, you know, the we’ve talked a lot about the Draco program. That’s the most visible. It’s the largest space program that we have. Probably 30 to 40 percent of that group is working on, you know, those initiatives. A large portion of the other portion of the rest of that 400 is working on a program called Project Pele. And so I had alluded to it earlier. But, you know, the the army is motivated to deploy mobile nuclear reactors to power remote operating bases. And PELAY is a demonstration with the Strategic Capabilities Office, where we’re actually, you we’re building hardware right now to deploy that microreactor and create that new capability. And so it’s a prototype. There’s a lot of parallels between that program and Draco from the standpoint of, you know, what they mean the industry and what their objectives are, which are to develop and show that this technology can be adopted, can be commercialized, and it can be deployed to give us additional capability.
Mo Islam
So to think about the regulatory side for a second, the NRC is a complex organization, to say the least, that their primary mandate is around civilian power generation. This doesn’t quite fall under that scope. Project Paley doesn’t, nor does Draco. I’m kind of curious, what is the regulatory process for nuclear technology, specifically for space-based applications? What does that look like? How are you guys working and communicating with the regulators and who are they?
Kate Kelly
Yeah, that’s a great question. It’s certainly a question that gets a lot of attention too. think the nuclear regulatory process just raises a lot of debate. think you see, especially with all of the commercial activity that’s ongoing, you see the role that they have in deploying that technology and helping enable it. In space, though, aren’t seeking an NRC approval to get permission to operate the system. There’s a couple aspects of the regulatory process that we have to work through. So we do have to work within our existing regulatory framework with the NRC when it comes to all of the things that we do on Earth. So how we make the reactor, where we can make it. So BWXT has special licenses that allow us to make this reactor in our facilities, how we transport it so the NRC governs that process. We have to show how we comply with it.
Our government team really helps guide us through that process as do our partners Lockheed Martin, the integrators of this system. Because once we get the reactor to the launch site, we have to integrate it with the spacecraft, show that we can comply with all those regulations. But then we also have to go through the launch regulatory process. And that’s governed by the interagency called INSURB. So it’s an intergovernment safety review board. DoD’s on it, NASA’s on it, EPA, a number of other government agencies that all contribute to reviewing how and dictating that yes, this reactor is safe to launch and then it’s safe to operate on orbit. And I say it in that order because that’s exactly how we do it. So you load the reactor as a payload. It’s launched in a standard launch vehicle in a completely off position. And then once we’re on orbit and a sufficiently far distance from Earth, so the reactor can never return or can never return until it’s for a very, very long time, that’s when we start the that’s when we power on the reactor and go through the flight test and eventually the on orbit operations.
Mo Islam
So, and I know you can’t give away any of the secrets sauce, but can you give me a sense of like, is specifically propulsion technology, nuclear thermal propulsion technology, where is it today? Like today, July 2024, I know that Draco, there’s a demonstration date of 2027. Is that, I’m not gonna ask you if that’s realistic, because I know you’re gonna say it is but where is the technology today and how far is it from being commercialized? How do you think about that? And can you give folks, myself, that don’t spend a ton of time in this specific area, how we think about the practicality of us getting to a point where we’re firing a thermal propulsion engine, based engine, in 2027.
Kate Kelly
Yeah, so there is so much history and so much that we can pull from across different applications and different industries. So the hard thing about this flight demonstration is navigating that launch process for the first time, building this type of reactor for the first time, and kind of going through the integration aspects to get there. The technology around the reactor has a lot of heritage associated with it, so that risk goes away. Even the technology within the reactor, we’ve been working on for seven years. So we build it at prototype scales. We’ve built all the key components of it. Now it’s just putting the pieces together. We have the test data to show that we’re confident that we can do it. And from a deployment standpoint, I think one thing that always surprises people who aren’t very familiar with what the product is that we’re delivering, that BWXT specifically is delivering. they think nuclear reactor, they think very complex.
And while it is complex, it’s not very big. So the system that we’re delivering is about the size of a 55 gallon drum. So just to put that in perspective. So that, I think, gives us a lot of schedule confidence that we can deliver it. And it’s another reactor for the US government building reactors is hard, building them for the first time is hard, but there’s a lot of heritage that we rely on to give us the confidence that we can do that within these aggressive time scales. And then the other part of your question was around commercialization of it. So this 2027 flight demonstration is kind of a, it’s a huge accomplishment for the country. It’ll demonstrate the technology, it’ll show the feasibility, it’ll do something we’ve never done before but it’s the first step in that commercialization. you know, it’s a bit, that alone doesn’t create a new commercial market, but it’s certainly the enabler for it. So that is to have a full-fledged, you know, commercial market around nuclear thermal rockets, or is, you know, a few years out past that.
Mo Islam
So if the 2027 demonstration is successful and it hits all the marks that you’re looking to see from BWXT’s perspective, what’s the next step? Is it like, hey, 2027, we nailed this, and all of sudden we know a ton of people who want this, and we’re to have all these orders, and all of a sudden we’re have a path towards a sustained presence for this technology in space? What do you think about post 2027, what does that look like?
Kate Kelly
Yeah, it goes into the scale up of the manufacturing. So taking transitioning, and I think there’s a lot of space companies that are going through kind of similar hurdles. see the Clips program is doing a lot of things for the first time, but we see their model of they’re not doing it for the first time once. They have an enduring business that goes around it. so I just use that as an example that and there’s a lot of work that’s going to occur in parallel to help get us ready for that. So not just for the scale up, but actually to continue to build that advocacy and to create that mission pool with these variety of end users. And I say variety because it’s not just one. We talked about NASA, we talked about the commercial market, there’s a DoD market as well. And so all of that could take.
Mo Islam
Can we talk for a second about safety? And, you know, there’s a lot of discussion and debate about what chemical propulsion does and will continue to do for Earth and the environment. And, you know, there certainly been safety concerns and deaths related to chemical propulsion technology on Earth so far. Now I know the nuclear, for now, nuclear thermal propulsion is being discussed for space specifically, and of course for uncrewed systems. But are there any risks associated with the fact that you’re putting. Well, I’ll take a step back, right? I think there’s a historic public perception issue with fission-based technologies in terms of radiation, and we’ve had of accidents in the past that have been portrayed as media is way, way, way, way worse than they were actually in terms of like actual impact and effect. When you think about putting these kind of miniature, you know, fission reactors in space, is there, are there any safety concerns, I guess is what I should say.
Kate Kelly
I mean, the decision to pursue a crewed mission using nuclear thermal propulsion technology is one that won’t be made lightly, but it’s certainly on the table. it’s certainly a possibility when we go through all of the necessary qualifications to ensure that the system can operate safely and is not causing a harm to our crew also not causing harm to, long-term harm in a space environment. And the decisions we make today are decisions that future generations need to live with. So it’s not something we go into lightly at all. With that said, there’s good data around the deployment of nuclear systems on Earth and where, before we make the decision to do that, there’s sufficient safety reviews, there’s sufficient regulatory process to ensure that those can’t cause harm to the public. nuclear has gotten bad press. There are very significant incidents that we’re still dealing with the consequences of as a society. And we can’t forget that, but anything new that we do today has so much more rigor around the safety of the materials we’re using, the reliability of them, and all of that just goes forth to show that we can do this, and I think we can get there.
Mo Islam
What about testing, right? Propulsion systems, right? For most chemical-based propulsions, you attach it to a stand, throw it on a field, hope that there isn’t anyone standing around it, and then you fire. So how do you guys do testing of your systems?
Kate Kelly
Yeah. Yeah, so and there are not that you know there are other systems that have similar challenges you know non-nuclear space systems like the you know the CLPS program I just used that as an example because it’s gotten so much press really over the last year like there’s aspects that you can’t replicate in those systems in aspects of the lunar environment you can’t replicate on earth so you know your first landing attempt really becomes your the first go at that fully integrated attempt. And that’s not dissimilar from aspects of the nuclear system. So in those cases, you break down to a component level, sub-component level and test what you can in the environment that you can. And so that’s our approach for these nuclear thermal rockets. It’s what we’ve done a lot of activity around, trying to create as representative of an environment as possible on Earth do as much testing as we can, get as much data, and then integrate that into our models to show, this is what we assumed was gonna happen, this is what actually happened, how far off are we? And then you just try to get as complex as you can to get the data that you need to. Now, the challenge with why we are not planning this first initial demonstration on the ground is because to build a nuclear reactor, and operate it on the ground, then you’re starting to get into that NRC regulatory space. Now, a nuclear thermal rocket, you have this hot exhaust that in space is okay, but to test on Earth, you’d be just exhausting into the atmosphere. And that’s a risk to the public that we’re not gonna take. Now it is possible, but you’d have to show that you’re not gonna cause any harm to the public. And that’s a very expensive test facility, it doesn’t currently exist. We’re certainly not going to test things in 2024 or even in out years the same way that we tested them in the 1960s when we did go through that two dozen reactor test campaign in the country.
Mo Islam
Right. What about competition? You’re I know you’re not the only company out there focused on nuclear propulsion technology and power systems in space like you know what is the competitive environment look like?
Kate Kelly
It’s growing. It’s growing rapidly at nuclear thermal propulsion and between nuclear thermal propulsion and then the power variants. I think the power variants you’re certainly seeing a lot more new entrants, a little bit of a bigger market, a lot more competition right now. That’s not to say that there isn’t that competition in the NTP side as well. But, you know the capability that BWXT has where we have that kind full life cycle of deployment right now is unique. the manufacturing experience and that capability to deliver these high consequence reactors, deliver the fuel for it, that’s something that BWXT has, I think, an advantage in. But with these I think that applies just for the prototypes. These prototypes are going to be pathfinders. They’re going to be enabling for future variants, future competition. I think the market, when we succeed on these initiatives, is going to well surpass the capability of any one organization. I think that’s, if we get to that point, that’s a huge mark of success, not just for space, but think nuclear more broadly.
Mo Islam
Right. Yeah, I certainly buy that this could be a market where, you know, there could be many, many successful players operating in tandem. I am kind of curious coming from, you you’ve been at BWXT for most of your career and, know, it’s an 8,000 person company. How do you think about the how do you think about startups now? Normally, I think, well, I would say because it’s nuclear, because it’s a much more regulated market, I think it’s a little bit more complex than most other markets, especially when you’re thinking about hardware-based technologies. There’s just an additional component of risk here that exists that doesn’t exist in a lot of other types of businesses and industries. But how do you think about the startup market? Obviously, larger companies are known not to be as nimble, not to be as flexible, tend to be a little bit more bureaucratic. But how do you think about BWXT’s place in competing against startups that might be developing these or similar systems, I should say?
Kate Kelly
I think there’s a lot that we can learn from startups. There’s a lot that I admire about these. I think the risks these new startups are willing to take. I think how bold they are, how lean forward they are with their technology. We’re seeing some have a lot of success and gain a lot of momentum. I know you talked about having another nuclear host on in one of the earlier 100 shows. I know they’re working on some radioisotope power systems. I think that’s a really innovative concept. And it’s really bold to try to take on these new, because to your point, you know, there’s a lot of, I guess, rigor that comes with nuclear that isn’t easy to build, isn’t easy to start up. So we do, you know, we have strong relationships with a number of startups.
You know, I try to keep track of, you know, just how quickly this market is growing. And a lot of that growth is through startups. But part of what we can learn from these startups is that, and I think it’s telling in how I talked about, we created this new group to look into these new nuclear markets and develop these new nuclear products. So the same rigor that you apply to deliver with a very established product line where you’re making hundreds of the same thing or same variant isn’t the same thinking that gets you into this new space. So we try to find a balance of both because I certainly recognize that there are strengths and weaknesses kind of wherever you sit. So finding that balance is critically important.
Mo Islam
So as we kind of think about the next decade, right, in space in general, there’s a lot of big things that are going to happen. We’re going to go back to the moon. The ISS is likely going to be deorbited into the Pacific Ocean, and we’re going to have a private commercial player that takes its place. We’re going to have, we might even be on Mars, actually. Actually, if you look out 10 years, right, that’ll put us into 2036. We may be on Mars. Where does nuclear technology in space look like in sort of the next 10 years? What do you think? Where do think we are? Is it widely used or is it just starting? Is it really being used for very specific applications?
Kate Kelly
think we’ll be right on the cusp of that broad use. So we know that our ambitions for space exploration are incredibly bold. think they’re incredibly achievable. We see so much emerging interest. And the more that we want to do in space, the more you need the resources to exist and the resources to sustain that exploration. And that looks like the power that you need to even survive in these conditions, survive for the durations that we have planned. And it also means the transportation that you need to get through space at a more efficient pace than we can today. And so I think nuclear has to be part of that solution. And I think we’ll see multiple variants of nuclear systems in space US-based nuclear systems in space 10 years from now.
Mo Islam
So we talked about For All Mankind, but I’m curious if you draw any inspiration from any other space movies, TV shows, books that help you think about your work at BWXT.
Kate Kelly
that’s a tough question. that’s a tough question. Because for all mankind have gotten such visibility over the last couple of years. And it’s such like a good representation of kind of what our future could be. And it has some really powerful, important messages. So it’s really hard for me to top that one. Yeah.
Mo Islam
Okay, that’s fair, that’s fair. Yeah, yeah.
Kate Kelly
I’m pretty selective with the TVs and movies that I do watch. We’re pretty busy these days, so that tends to occupy a lot of my time.
Mo Islam
Well, in that case, I was going to ask, what do you do in your free time when you’re not focused on building nuclear thermal propulsion systems?
Kate Kelly
Yeah. So it was kind of crazy. as we’re, you know, I said, I took this role three years ago, you know, about a year ago, we announced that we were awarded the DRACO phase two contract and about a year and a half ago is when we had our first child. So that’s certainly that was like a monumental adjustment in the midst of all of this career growth. So she certainly keeps us busy. So in our free time if we’re not out hiking in the central Virginia area in the Blue Ridge Mountains, trying to play golf maybe with my husband without our child. yeah, yeah. Not a whole lot of time for that either, though.
Mo Islam
Okay, all right, I like it. Yeah, I’m not a big golfer. I’m a big top golfer. But I’m not, you won’t find me on the course too much. But that’s actually, it’s not because I don’t like it, or I wouldn’t like it, because actually the times that I’ve gone to a driving range have been really, really fun. It’s just hard in New York. There’s just not that many, there are not many golf courses that are quite close.
Kate Kelly
Yeah, not a lot of open space.
Mo Islam
So, yeah, not a ton of open space. Maybe one day they’ll turn a portion of Central Park into a golf course, but I doubt that. But Kate, anyways, was a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for being on it. Very excited to see the sort of the future of BWXT and, you know, looking forward to that 2027 date and having you back on the show to talk a little bit more about how the program is going and, you know, our path towards a nuclear future in space.
Kate Kelly
Yeah, we’d love that. Thanks so much.
Mo Islam
Thank you.
