Space infrastructure administration with Tim Chrisman

Interviewee‍

Tim Chrisman, Co- Founder and Executive Director at Foundation for the Future, a nonprofit leading the policy conversation around space infrastructure. He holds two master's degrees, one in Intelligent Studies, and one in International Relations and Affairs from American University.

Transcript‍‍

Tim Chrisman: So, as you mentioned, I run the Foundation for the Future. This is a nonprofit that's really all about making space boring enough to be real. You know, right now the vast majority of people in the world look up into the night sky and it's a sense of awe and wonder, you know, and this is throughout humanities history, we've looked to the stars for, you know, our gods and our demons and our inspiration. And for the first time we have a chance to actually be a part of that. But for most people, they associate space with something better or bigger than them. You know, if you want to be an astronaut, there's, you know, you almost need to win a gold medal before you can even try out. It's crazy. And so that has limited who comes in to start new companies to work in the space sector and it's done so needlessly. If somebody is good at just about anything other than maybe making baskets, they are needed to make the space sector vibrant. And so we're trying to demystify and make space normal.

Elisa Muñoz: Could you share a little bit about what kind of activities you guys do?

Tim Chrisman: Yeah, so one of the things that's emerged is that there's a ton of people and organizations that are investing in the space sector individually. You know, they may not make more than a 10 or 20 million bet on the sector at large or any single company, but together they represent billions of dollars of investment capital far more than you know, these billionaires or any single government is putting into making space real. And so we saw that this voice was not, not being heard, not recognized, and not speaking coherently. You know, it's dozens or hundreds of smaller institutes trying to make change happen. And so we launched the Association for Space Finance with the intent of organizing that voice, the voice of the space investor, and delivering that voice to the US Congress and policy makers around the world.

We're starting here in Washington DC because as you mentioned, you know, my education is in US political science, but we have extensive ties throughout Europe and Asia trying to connect with like-minded organizations and governments so that any policies we're advocating for or designing, you know, are not us specific. They can be tried anywhere, they can be applied anywhere. And that's really our goal.

Elisa Muñoz: Wow. So this nonprofit idea actually is kind of new, in the space industry. I mean, how does that work? Do you take a percentage out of the investments or what's dynamic like?

Tim Chrisman: Yeah, so we are a member supported nonprofit. And so what, essentially what that means is organizations and people who support our mission and want to be a part of the network, pay a membership fee to join the, that you know, for individuals starts at $30 a year for companies a hundred dollars a month. So it's, we try to keep it accessible and we try to ensure that we're offering benefits to those members, whether it's networking, connecting with government agencies, or giving them a chance to help write some of the policies and regulations that we're submitting to decision makers here in DC last year we helped write 1% of all the laws that were passed in the US and so a big piece of that was influenced and assisted by our membership.

Elisa Muñoz: And I was looking through the website and I know that you guys like to launch certain types of events, you kind of create a network somehow. When did you start doing this?

Tim Chrisman: It was December of 2020. We first started doing events and we thought, well, you know, CO's happening, maybe we'll have an event every couple months, every other month. And one of the people that I was working with at the time suggested, Hey, you know, why don't we just go big, let's just do it every month. At the time we thought this is, you know, crazy who would do a monthly event.

But since then we've been doing one every month and we're bringing together, you know, two days of content thought leaders from across industry, from our membership, from academia, government, you know, we've had everyone from the current head of space force through middle school students speak and talk about what are the challenges they're facing, what is, you know, the next big thing they're working on and how the public or policy makers can help make this future real. And you know, because of that we've been able to expand our network and start branching out to non-space audiences. This year we've talked at investor conferences, been asked to speak at defense conferences, and so trying to expand outside of the space world where it's a bunch of engineers and space nerds talking to other engineers and space nerds, that's fun, that's great. But that's what's always happened.

And so it's, it's high time we start talking to people outside that bubble to get them excited. You know, I think of this kind of 1990s internet. There were tons of internet conferences where internet nerds talked to each other, but it wasn't until Walmart and General Motors and some of these big non-internet companies jumped in that it really took off. And so we're trying to connect with both the innovators outside the space sector and those big players.

Elisa Muñoz:  So let's say that I want to get involved. What would you say it's the best way to do so?

Tim Chrisman: So there's, there's the best and there's the easiest. The easiest is going to our website, F four F space.org, letter F number four, letter f space.org and just sign up for our newsletter once a week. I write what you know, what's been going on over the past week and what's coming up and it lets you plug in, see what's going on. And just about every week I mentioned some way for people to get involved, whether it's answering a poll or you know, giving their thoughts on what sort of thing that we should be talking with Congress about. So that's the easiest, you know, that's free.

You get, when a lot of people call an entertaining email once a week, it's just me writing down whatever I feel like writing down every Sunday. But, so that's the easiest, the best is, you know, connecting with me and sharing, you know, what are you good at? What, what is it you're passionate about doing? And then let's connect you to space. There's a need for it. And let's, let's figure out how to plug you in.

Elisa Muñoz: What would you say has been the biggest challenge that you have faced since you started the nonprofit?

Tim Chrisman: I think the biggest challenge has been really understanding the landscape of what, what's doable. You know, I spent most of my time working in government and where things move fairly slowly a lot of times. And so once I started the foundation and saw that the pace of business is a lot faster, it was at times a challenge to realize that I need to be adapting to what's coming in as fast as it comes in. And that holding onto a position or an idea or a product too long is, is sure a way to die as closing all our bank accounts. And so I think that's been really a critical lesson and something that is gonna be applicable wherever I go.

Elisa Muñoz: Do you have any advice for future entrepreneurs or people starting on this path?

Tim Chrisman: Yeah, I think the biggest thing is Just go the I I started the foundation, you know, sitting right here, you know, and this is the basement of my house and because I realized I was waiting for somebody else to act and I didn't like that, I didn't want to be dependent on someone else to make my future. And so started the foundation just to give it a go. And you know what, if it works great, we've been able to help the lives of people. If not great, I was, you know, able to learn, grow, evolve. And that's the same for any entrepreneur. Waiting till somebody else gives you permission to go, it's never gonna work out so just don't do it.

Elisa Muñoz: Thank you so much Tim for being super honest and for taking the time to be here today.

Tim Chrisman: Thank you.