“Startup – now be honest” with Isar Aerospace founder Daniel Metzler: The future will be decided in space

The future will be decided in space
“Germany cannot currently detect any intercontinental ballistic missiles”

January 16, 2024, 4:19 p.m

Crazy billionaires, space tourism or colonies on Mars – that’s what many people think of when they think about space travel. It is much more important and affects everyone and everything: how we communicate, how we find our way around and what we know about the earth. According to a current study by Roland Berger, the market for space-based solutions will grow to around 1.2 trillion euros by 2040. Anyone who is not at the forefront of space will not be a technology leader. The problem? Politics doesn’t play along. “Pretty much every country in the world is doubling, tripling or quadrupling their space budgets, while Germany is cutting it,” says Isar Aerospace founder Daniel Metzler angrily in the ntv podcast “Startup – now be honest”. Will Germany be left behind? The space entrepreneur doesn’t want to allow that. He’s planning on doing it this year his first rocket launch. He wants to soon Putting satellites into space cheaper than any other provider.

ntv.de: Politicians like Robert Habeck like to be photographed in your factory and talk about future technologies, at the same time the federal government is cutting the space budget by 15 percent. How does that fit together?

Daniel Metzler: This is an opportunity that we are missing because both the established industry and politics have not fully grasped space travel. In addition, around half of all the parameters that determine the planet’s climate are space data. Accordingly, my expectation would be that if we already have a green Ministry of Economics, where space is mainly attached, there will be significantly more. Pretty much every other country in the world is doubling, tripling, quadrupling their space budgets, while Germany is cutting them. That doesn’t add up. We have a discrepancy between what politicians say and what actually happens.

Do you despair about politics?

I would be lying if I said no. People often talk about the past decades: Germany as a whole is resting far too much on the laurels of the past. For me as an entrepreneur, this is the biggest risk that I see for this country: We don’t make tough decisions and don’t think ahead enough. It’s easy to despair when I hear people talking about politics and know that often what’s being said isn’t happening in the background.

Can’t you understand that in times like these, when there is hardly any money for anything, politicians say: We need the money somewhere else.

The most important thing is to first understand why we do space travel. In the last two years we have seen a very good example: If there were no space travel – in this case even private systems from Elon Musk, Ukraine would most likely have already lost the war. When Russia invaded Ukraine, they destroyed the entire telecommunications network. The worst thing for a defending army is to be unable to communicate. Elon Musk’s company SpaceX brought internet to Ukraine through its satellites. As a result, other countries such as Taiwan also said that this was an eye-opener for them. They are now developing their own systems in a goal-oriented manner. Europe, on the other hand, is turning this into a political issue and is thinking about how to subsidize the right companies, but is not providing any incentive to design the service in such a way that it really helps the continent.

In 2022 there were around 80 rocket launches in the USA, 60 in China, 20 in Russia and five in the rest of Europe. Currently, Europe has completely lost its access to space. What does that mean?

Why do European satellites have to fly on American rockets and not the other way around? That’s why we said: This can’t be the case, we have to do something. By 2021, more than half of Europe’s rocket launches will have taken place with Russian launchers, which have not been available for a good two and a half years. However, the billion-dollar programs that had promised European sovereignty were not available when they were needed most. That annoys me a bit – even as a European citizen.

What specific risks are involved?

It is extremely important that we in Europe have the opportunity to defend our own values. An example: If an intercontinental ballistic missile is launched from the other side of the earth, it will take 30 minutes until it hits us. At the moment, Germany does not have the ability to detect this missile and launch a counterattack. As a European, I no longer feel incredibly safe.

Do we need more competition?

Absolutely. The federal government or any other government in the world should never become solely dependent on one supplier. You don’t do that as a company and you shouldn’t do that as a government either. In this respect, more competition is certainly very positive. Many politicians believe that startups inherently pose a risk. My biggest appeal is that space travel and startups are there to minimize exactly this risk by no longer being dependent only on established companies.

But now you still have to prove that your startup can really send a rocket into space. When will that be?

We inaugurated our first space port in Norway together with Crown Prince Haakon at the end of 2023. That means, just as airplanes take off from the airport, our rocket takes off from the space port. We still need to get the final approvals from the Norwegian government and once that is done we can carry out our final tests on the launch site. Then the rocket will fire completely, with all the trimmings. This is the last test we do at the beginning of the year. Then it goes into the first test flight.

Janna Linke spoke to Daniel Metzler. The conversation has been shortened and smoothed for better clarity. You can completely do it in the ntv podcast “Startup – now to be honest” listen.