SpaceCom

Justin Cyrus, former Colorado School of Mines Student, was on the Enabled Opportunities on the Moon breakout session panel at this year’s Space Com conference in Houston, where I conducted the following interview. 

His father worked for Lockheed Martin, and so did his brother. Influenced by that, he has always wanted to work in the Space Industry. In a New Jersey High School, he found out about Colorado School of Mines and knew he wanted to attend. But first he got an undergraduate degree from UC Boulder. He got a master’s degree at Colorado School of Mines in Electrical Engineering. He saw opportunity in a new niche curriculum, Space Resources. He was in the first class to graduate and he earned a PhD. What he likes about the school is that it taught him to focus and it gave him the skills he needed to succeed. Another benefit from attending the Colorado School of Mines is that he had the opportunity to network and meet leaders in the space business. He saw trends pointing to the Moon as an obvious next destination for exploration and business. 

In his current position as CEO of Lunar Outpost, he sees a bright future for the field of Space Resources. He envisions small teams of rovers on the Moon by 2024 and then swarms of rovers in 10 years. In 15-20 years, he anticipates processing and full-scale surface manufacturing using Lunar resources. 

Since the first day in business in 2017, he said Lunar Outpost’s mission was focused on the Moon and to the day when their rovers are there.