could be a better way to explore space

than the

gold rush to space we can say

we're like the shovel.

Once upon a time Natalya Bailey

had big dreams of working for NASA.

I would sleep on my trampoline

at night and watch the stars

and thinking about aliens

and watching the Space Station

pass overhead

and I went on

to apply to NASA twice

to become an astronaut

and have gotten there thanks

but no thanks.

Postcards from NASA

but I'll keep applying.

So she had to settle for being a plain

old rocket scientist

and a founding member of Accion systems

a startup poised to revolutionize

space travel

with these wafer thin chips that believe

it or not our engines.

Low earth orbit is

becoming more

and more accessible to organizations

universities hobbyists

and their garages,

people that before never would have even

imagined launching a satellite.

So we're talking about you know

tens of thousands of satellites being

launched over the next decade

and currently they have no propulsion

solutions.

And that's what Accion is building as

is an engine that works on

small satellites.

OK this is actually rocket science,

so here's the bare minimum

you need to know- an ion

is a charged atomic particle

by pushing ionic liquid which is basically

a molten salt into this chip

the size of a penny billions of ions

can be discharged at mind boggling

velocities.

If you could picture an astronaut

sitting on the back of a satellite

and she's throwing tennis balls off

the back,

each time she throws a tennis ball off

the satellite moves a little bit in the opposite

direction. In Accion's engine these

tennis balls are actually ions,

and our smallest ion

engine is about the size of a pack

of cards.

Now we still need conventional rockets to escape

Earth's gravity.

But once in space Accion's chip

will increase the shelf life of satellites by

years,

and eventually enable deep space travel

without chemical propulsion

rockets. Our engines operate without any

fire flames

or loud noises so

they're not quite as visceral as say

a Falcon Heavy rocket for

example, but they're very efficient.

This is a Berkut.

It's a canard pusher

and it's kind of like our family car.

I've always wanted to

be an astronaut.

And aviation is kind

of like the next best thing.

Fortunately I married a pilot

and were raising the youngest pilot

here.

First electric propulsion engines

were actually developed in the 50s

and 60s

but they were largely ignored after that,

and it seemed to me during college that

there was this whole branch of rocket

science just waiting to be advanced.

Natalya's studies accelerated at such

a rapid pace she had to learn what it meant

to own a business while still a student

of science.

I don't think business comes

naturally to me.

I was in a lab

at MIT trying to finish up experiments

with headphones on listening to

how to be a startup CEO

and trying to learn on the

job essentially.

Our

serious long term customers

are right now people like the Department

of Defense and folks like Lockheed

Martin and Boeing.

But our first fight delivery that went

out the door was actually to Irvine high school.

So a group of high school students

is going to be launching a cube sat

with our system on it.

After hawking these chips to everyone from

school kids to the Department of Defense,

Natalya envisions Accion playing an even

larger role in space exploration.

Shoot for Mars

or

Alpha Centauri.

It's pretty a B Hag, a Big Hairy

Audacious Goal.

Is that sort of like your whole

career bascially?

Yes.

Why would you have any other way?