Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio in this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Jeff Nosanov. He is with Orbital Velocity. Welcome.

Jeff Nosanov: Hi. Thank you very much for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about orbital velocity. How are you serving folks?

Jeff Nosanov: Sure. Well, so orbital velocity is my basically my consulting company. I’ve only been in Atlanta for about a year, but I’ve lived over all over the country. And most of that I was working for NASA in different ways, different organizations. And basically what I do through orbital velocity is help aerospace technology companies find work with the federal government or in the state and state government in some cases. But basically I help people find money.

Lee Kantor: And so what’s your backstory? Have you always been involved in space?

Jeff Nosanov: Well, I have been involved with the space for about 15 years. I’ve always been a space nut kind of personally. And I’ve worked for several NASA centers as an employee, as a consultant, as a researcher. I’ve done work with NASA headquarters. I do a lot of work with universities, which are often major partners in various kinds of technology and space exploration work. And here in Atlanta, I’m basically trying to find ways to contribute to those those national efforts by helping companies that are trying to provide technologies or or missions or really anything that government needs.

Lee Kantor: Now, I guess on the surface, Atlanta doesn’t seem like the logical place to start a consultancy for space. Is there things that we’re not aware of that may be happening, unbeknownst to the kind of regular folks here in Atlanta.

Jeff Nosanov: Sure. So so, you know, right on there. I moved here from my wife’s career, basically, and I do help companies all over the country. But there is actually a very significant advanced technology world here in Atlanta, largely centered around Georgia Tech and surrounding, you know, companies that spun out of that. I also basically, I also do work with any agency that does research. So that includes the medical ones. So that could be at Emory or the hospitals and so on. So basically if it’s an if a government agency gives up money for research or development, I’ve probably helped somebody with a proposal there. So so basically if you’re looking for federal funds that’s I can probably help.

Lee Kantor: Now do you work with startups at all because we have a pretty good startup scene here.

Jeff Nosanov: Yes, I love working with startups. I’ve had one myself. I may again in the future. And it’s really a great time to be a startup because there’s so much money, there’s really stupid amounts of money kind of sloshing around the country, in the world and private equity and venture capital. So it’s a great time to be starting a company. And most of them are going after the largest customer out there, which is the federal government. So a startup is a great partner and an exciting, exciting customer to work with.

Lee Kantor: So, um, let’s look at it through the lens of a startup. Say there’s a startup here in, uh, in metro Atlanta or Georgia. I don’t know if you’re aware, at one point a few years ago in South Georgia, they tried to, um, try to get a spaceport of some kind going in South Georgia that was kind of trying to get some of the stuff that Florida couldn’t get to. They were trying to kind of fill that gap, but I don’t think they were able to get approval for the land usage. Um, but it seems like we’re close enough because obviously Florida is a place for space. But also Huntsville, Alabama is kind of rocket central in their kind of world. So you’d think that Georgia would have opportunities kind of with the entrepreneurial community we have here. But if you’re a startup here, how at what stage do they kind of start talking to you? Do you want to meet them when they have an idea on a napkin, or do they need to have funding? Like where do where do you come in, you know, to kind of get the most out of your expertise?

Jeff Nosanov: I find it exciting at all stages. I mean, I love helping, working, working through business plans and investor pitches and all that. And and I do that for fun. It’s just an interesting and exciting world. But where the where I can really add a lot of value is when they have a promising technology that they may not know exactly what part of the federal government is interested in. Now they need to know that to get venture capital funding. Certainly that will be a question they’re asked, but also the making sense of the federal government, especially right now in July of 2025, is is a real challenge. And that’s something I’ve been doing for 15 years. It’s figuring out what what the government actually wants to buy and how how they want to buy it. So so again, you mentioned the, um, southern Georgia, uh, spaceport question. It really would be a great place because it can launch you can launch stuff south over the or the, over the ocean. Um, for a lot of space reasons, there’s a lot of good reasons to launch to the south. And obviously it’s a it’s a competitive marketplace with Florida nearby. So I don’t think that’s the last we’ll hear of it.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I was pretty bullish about it, actually. I was kind of disappointed that that didn’t kind of, uh, happen. Uh, but you know how this goes. It’s, uh, nothing happens fast. Um. So. Yeah. Is in your work. Is there, uh, something you’ve done that you’re kind of the most rewarding success that you’ve had in your career that you could share?

Jeff Nosanov: Yes, absolutely. So I’ve, I’ve won over $2 billion. That’s with a B of, uh, funding, uh, over my career for different companies and customers. Uh, but what I’m really excited about is actually something that’s launching in a few months. It’s a space mission that will study the, uh, basically the interaction of the sun with the rest of the solar system, that I could go on and on about that, but it’s basically studying the sun. And, um, so in 2018, I was a consultant at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, and I was a proposal manager for this mission. And, um, it’s been quite a journey since then in all kinds of ways. And, and this mission is still going on is not affected by the proposed cuts to NASA, which is another subject I could go on about, but I’ll try to spare you. But basically, this thing is going to launch into space in a few months, and I plan to be there. Hopefully they’ll invite me. If not, I’ll just show up and it will actually be the first the first space launch I’ve ever seen. And it will be really exciting for that to be a rocket launch with a mission on it that I helped make happen. So and I hope to bring my family there as well. So that’s probably the the proudest, uh, the proudest professional accomplishment for me.

Lee Kantor: How what does it like like how do you kind of wrap your mind around working on projects that you’re you’re so passionate, everybody’s fired up, and it just takes years and years and years and years before something happens. Like, how do you mentally prepare for that kind of a long term outlook?

Jeff Nosanov: I love that question because because the answer is really that it this kind of work in space and, uh, and in, in any kind of advanced technology that usually has a long term, a long term timeline. You really kind of have to deliberately adjust your your context, your frame of mind. So, you know, we’ve been exploring the universe for about a hundred years. It was about a hundred years ago, actually, that the something called the rocket equation was was discovered or invented that actually showed that we could launch things from the Earth. You know, that wasn’t a game that wasn’t a given. If the Earth was about 10% bigger, in fact, that wouldn’t be possible at all, at least not with with the way we do it now. So. So it’s really only been 100 years, and we’ve really only been doing it consistently for about 70 years. And that’s that’s a lifetime, right? And it really is a fact that most meaningful scientific explorations of the solar system, they take ten years minimum, ten or 20 or 30 even. And when you when you kind of fall in love with the subject the way I did and so many other people do.

Jeff Nosanov: It just puts a different perspective on your life and your career. I know people who, if they’re lucky, they will have one completed space mission in their entire working career. And that will be that will be everything. That will be an enormous achievement. It’s just the way the universe works. And I’ve found that one of the most rewarding parts about this work is it forces that kind of humble humility, rather, in the face of very literally, the universe and the rules that the universe has that we we have to follow. We can’t we can’t bend them. Really. So so that’s really the only way I can answer that question is it forces a humility before the universe that I think is pretty healthy. I mean, the universe is what it is. You know, we live on a planet full of water and air and food largely, and it’s right there for us. But but, um, you leave the planet, you got to change your your frame of mind because it’s not going to. Not going to make it easy for us. So so that’s really how I think about it.

Lee Kantor: Now what do you, um, what do you say to people that are that think that going into space that’s, uh, wasteful use of resources that, that why aren’t we spending anywhere near the amount of energy in the oceans and that are right here that we barely know anything about that. And that’s like right under our feet.

Jeff Nosanov: So I love the question. And it’s a really important one. And and it usually comes from, um, some misunderstandings about how this all works. So we’re not just sending money into space and, you know, blowing it up, blowing it away. We’re we’re spending it on Earth here in our communities and our institutions and our our our neighbors salaries. I mean, all of that spending is local. And, um, it’s really a really small amount of money, actually, there’s a pretty consistent, uh, mistaken assumption going all the way back to Apollo. Because the Apollo program in the 60s, it really did consume 5% of the federal budget. And there’s a whole bunch written about that and how that never would have happened if not for Kennedy’s assassination. And and they would have shut it down because of that expense, if not for Kennedy’s assassination and all of that. But a lot of people still think that’s close to the number, but it’s it’s less than one tenth of that. It’s it’s 0.2% or something like that. 0.3. Uh, it’s trivial. Really. And, and and on top of that, uh, and keeping in mind all that spending is, is on American citizens and American companies. Uh, every single economic study of NASA has shown that it either returns between 2 or 7 times the amount back to the economy.

Jeff Nosanov: So so it’s a net gain for for the country and the economy. Um. There’s a couple of interesting examples that I like. For example, in the 60s, in the early semiconductor industry, the early computer chips of the modern sort. Nasa was one of the biggest customers that literally built the American semiconductor industry, because NASA needed a consistent supply of them for Apollo, and they needed to be reliable. So so there’s all kinds of stories from the last 50 years, basically, that that NASA not just created markets for technologies that would then later, uh, I should say, not just use them, but literally created markets for industries that the US would then lead in for decades. So that’s really my answer to that question is it’s it’s not a negative. It doesn’t actually cost us anything. It actually returns much more than we spend. And as for the oceans, I agree there’s we know more about other planets than we do about parts of the ocean. And I imagine if we if we had that sort of scientific commitment to the oceans, we probably have similar economic returns also. So. So that’s that’s my answer. And, um, I hope to be part of sharing that more broadly. So I’m really glad that you asked me.

Lee Kantor: So for you it’s an and not an or like we should be doing more kinds of research and studying all kinds of things, including space and the oceans. It’s not like we should be cutting back in either.

Jeff Nosanov: Right. And the Arctic and the poles, I mean, there’s there’s the big the I think one of the challenges that science communication faces is you can’t really prove that spending money here is going to produce benefits there. But you can look at you can look backwards and show that it almost always does. Another example from Apollo is this is actually something that a distant relative of mine worked on. Um, basically any kind of, uh, kidney Dialysis that that any kind of device that that does kidney dialysis, it that technology that allowed that to be invented was developed under the Apollo program. It was used for fuel filters and things like that. But but that kind of membrane technology was developed for exploring moon and then became fundamental to keeping millions of Americans alive today. So. So sometimes you have weird connections like that. Nobody would have expected that to be an output of the Apollo program. Um, but it was. So we, uh, we should be doing things like curing, trying to cure cancer. But, uh, it turns out that if you set even not more ambitious goals, if you set really ambitious goals like sending humans to the moon or Mars, it turns out you have to invent a lot of stuff along the way. And there’s really creative people, uh, who take those inventions and say, well, we can actually use that for this or that. And those things go on to create enormous markets, uh, in industries and of course, in the other in the case I mentioned save lives. So. So again, it’s I could go on about this for hours but but it really does not actually cost us money to do this exploration. It makes us money eventually.

Lee Kantor: Right. And but it’s just hard to tell people that they should spend money now on things that there might be unintended consequences later that’s going to benefit everybody just by being this curious and this, uh, trying to solve problems that are hard.

Jeff Nosanov: Right? Right. And, and, uh, I think a, a mixture of short and long term research is probably the better the better policy. But but it’s hard to have those kinds of rational policy discussions right now. And I’ll leave that there.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, in your work over the years, is it, um, is there any like what are the qualities of a young person? Are you seeing more young people attracted to this? Are they getting kind of burnt out?

Jeff Nosanov: Um, actually, you know, there’s there’s it’s a wonderful time as a young person to be going into space and scientific fields because, um, there’s huge amounts of, of small companies that are entering the market. I mean, SpaceX really showed that, that individual companies. Now it helps if you’re if you start with $1 billion or more. But there are a lot of small companies that are, uh, that are making meaningful advances and not just in the US. So it’s a great time as a kid to fall in love with space. And, you know, uh, political wins here and there aside, um, the whole world is really embracing these, uh, these technologies and companies. Um, and so it’s, it’s I would encourage anyone to study these things. And again, if you study physics, if you study engineering, these are this is objective reality, right. Like you can it’s never bad to study objective reality. We need buildings to stand up straight. You know we need bridges to stay. We need plans to fly. Um. And sometimes I think in, in our in our day to day community and, and social and political lives, it’s easy to forget that, um, we need our cars to operate without engines exploding. You know, we need we need to respect nature in that way. And physics and engineering. It gets back to to what I was saying earlier about, um, um, it’s never a waste to to learn and explore because that’s the real world that we live in. So, um.

Lee Kantor: Right. But it seems like the we’re always trying to have that balance of yeah, that’s great that it it’s almost like a nice to have where we got to have, you know, things working here like air traffic controllers have to do their job today and, you know, going to Mars. It seems like a nice idea, but I don’t know if I need that today. But, you know, in order to go to Mars, we got to do work today. Um, that won’t show up for five years.

Jeff Nosanov: There’s a great example from 100 years ago that there were people exploring quantum physics. And it was it was this was right after the, the, the the person who ran the patent office who famously said, I think in 1890 something. He said, oh, uh, every everything that’s been invented is everything that will be invented, has been invented already. And this was 1890. And so you have these scientists studying quantum physics, which was was incomprehensibly unrelatable to people. But it but then 20 or 30 years later, the computer was invented. And it those principles absolutely underlie every single minute of every single day of every single person on earth, because otherwise our electronics wouldn’t work and our computers wouldn’t work. So. So a nation, uh, you know, an organization ought to have a kind of short, medium and long term, uh, approach to these things. So, yeah, we need to solve the immediate problems. But if we don’t, if we don’t explore the unknowns, you know, first of all, someone else is going to and then they will lead those industries. Um, but, you know, it takes a balance.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you know which kind of, uh, I’ll call it a quote unquote moonshot. Should you be focusing in on? How do you prioritize? Like, you know, a lot of people want to go to Mars now. Uh, people are exploring the edges of the galaxies. Um, how do you and you mentioned this, you know, going doing research towards the sun. How do you kind of prioritize and go, you know what? This is where we have to put our chips.

Jeff Nosanov: Sure. Well, that’s another great question. And, and, uh, it reminds me of a really interesting scenario that happened in the, in the late 60s, which was, you know, when you, when you’re when no human being or no machine has ever left the Earth, You know, it’s pretty obvious where to go, which is to go up, you know? Uh, and the first place to send humans is pretty obviously the moon, because it’s the closest thing. It’s the easiest thing to get to. It’s obviously still exceptionally difficult, but it’s still the easiest thing. And NASA had a real question after that, which was, well, now what? Now that we’ve shown we can leave the earth and send machines and even people places. What do we do next? And and the history of NASA since then, which I could again go on all day. But I’ll try not to. Uh, it kind of really reflects that question. I mean, um, NASA started sending robotic vehicles to other planets first to Mars and Venus, which were the closest ones in either direction, and eventually leading to having sent robotic vehicles either to or past all of the planets in the solar system. And, you know, we haven’t sent humans anywhere since other than than the space station.

Jeff Nosanov: So so that’s a really important question. What do we do next? And the way NASA handles it. Kind of connecting back to my work is with with competitive proposal opportunities, where the federal government, through the National Academies will basically say, here are some scientific questions of interest. And they’ll actually be a sort of competitive process where organizations build teams and they say, well, okay, we have these technologies. We can go, we can go explore the rocks on Mars and we can ask the questions about life on Mars, or we can go study the clouds of Venus and so on. And so there’s no great easy answer to your question other than an ongoing, ongoing discussion between experts and policymakers and and people like that. And, and what we’ve seen throughout the history of NASA since then is pretty much all of those challenges will yield and demand technology developments that become useful elsewhere. Um, so again, another great question. Uh, there’s no easy answer to it, but the history of what we’ve done so far kind of, I think shows a pretty reasonable approach.

Lee Kantor: Now, what about the input like you mentioned earlier, of now you have billionaires that have pet projects. Um, and, you know, they have resources to do some interesting things. Um, are they kind of skewing those priorities to what their kind of interests are?

Jeff Nosanov: Uh, that’s a very interesting question. And it and it I’ll start off by talking about space. Space. What they did basically was there was a business observation that the bar for contractor performance for the federal government was actually really low. And I mean by contractor, I mean the aerospace contractors of the late 20th century that were building rockets, uh, they were really good at at making a lot of money on SpaceX launch. And what SpaceX realized was that, hey, if we build this all in-house and we we charge for it roughly at cost. Plus, you know, a modest fee, they could reduce the cost by a factor by, by 90%. And that still is the case. And that’s why SpaceX just celebrated 500 launches of its of its Falcon nine vehicle. Um, now. So that’s a great that’s a really positive example of of industry and, and market forces really reducing the cost of, of a critical, critical need. Now, uh, other subjects, I mean, the, the, the philanthropy of billionaires or, or the investment of, of billionaires can, can really jumpstart a lot of technology projects, uh, in ways that the federal government would take a lot longer to fund. Um, so I think it’s a great it’s a great part. It’s a it’s a wonderful outcome of basically the enormous economic success of the United States over the last 50 years is that there even are people with that amount of money that rival governments in some cases.

Jeff Nosanov: Um, now, what we’re seeing now is, is, uh, is something a little more concerning to me, which is some, uh, some of the wealthiest people in the US actually trying to try to kind of capture some of the what used to be federal government priorities, like medical research and things like that. Uh, in order to then have more control of those services in the marketplace. At least that’s my perception. Um, that’s the only way I can make sense again, without getting super political. That’s the only way I can make sense of reducing things like NIH budgets and and research. Uh, is by uh, is by saying, well, if you have the resources to do that privately, well, then you also control that. You control the availability and pricing of the ultimate services. So I think it’s a it’s a net positive Because, um, that kind of largesse can be applied to research questions faster. But, you know, as anything at that scale, there’s there’s going to be some, some ethical considerations that, you know, I think are worth paying attention to.

Lee Kantor: And if the if it was through the government, it sounds like the outcomes or those unintended consequences were for the betterment of all. Whereas if a private company is doing it, then they kind of lock down that new. I mean.

Jeff Nosanov: Yeah, that that’s that’s sort of where that’s sort of the conclusion I’m, I’m coming to. I mean, any specifics are a lot more complicated. I’m certainly not going to argue that the government is the most efficient organization out there. And certainly companies are able to capture publicly funded research for their own private gain. I mean, that happens in pharma all the time. Um, but in principle, at least, having public research organizations and private, I think is a good mix for our society. Um, you know, with, with the acknowledgment that it would take the rest of the day to really break down all of the pieces.

Lee Kantor: Right. But conceptually, though, public private is probably the best thing, knowing that each. There’s no perfect one. And. Right. And it’s going to be messy no matter what. Which way you go.

Jeff Nosanov: And you don’t really want you don’t really want the government operating a factory, a medicine factory, but you also don’t want, um, you also don’t want a single company controlling, all.

Lee Kantor: Right, to have a monopoly on that.

Jeff Nosanov: Right. Exactly. So, so these aren’t really new, you know, economic debates. They probably go back to, you know, the, the, the enlightenment, you know, but but, um, it’s rare that as we’re seeing in 25, there are such drastic changes in these things being, being, you know, put out there, uh, particularly Early today and literally today. As you know, the the the federal budget is in is in debate. So these are all things that that someone competing for federal money would want to keep in mind. And some of the, some of the contexts that I bring to my customers.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you? What what are some of the things that you want to accomplish in the short term, in the long term, and what resources do you need to make those happen?

Jeff Nosanov: Well, I really appreciate that that question. I mean, what I always want to do is meet people, uh, who are interested in solving these big problems and whether or not they become my customers is is less important because I just like meeting people like that in general. But I can also help people like that find a pathway to creating something that can can do something big or really help people. Um, so so that’s really what I hope if anyone’s listening, who who works at a company like that, or has an idea or doing some kind of research. Those are the kinds of people that I want to meet.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, if somebody wants to learn more and connect with you, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Jeff Nosanov: Yeah, it’s, uh, orbital velocity dot space. And I love that both our companies have the velocity in it. Um, and I imagine my email or phone number might be in the show notes for this, but you can just go to my website, Orbital Velocity Space and send me a note there.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, Jeff, thank you so much for sharing your story today, doing such important work. We appreciate you.

Jeff Nosanov: Thank you. And likewise, and it’s a pleasure to speak with you and the the local community.

Lee Kantor: All right. This Lee Kantor we’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.