This panel from Georgetown’s 2024 Venture in the Capital Conference featured Tim Hughes (SFS’94), senior vice president for global business and government affairs at SpaceX, and Delian Asparouhov, co-founder of Varda Space Industries and a partner at Founders Fund. Phoebe Martin (MSB’24) moderated.
Hughes described joining SpaceX as general counsel after working on Capitol Hill following the Space Shuttle Columbia accident, and outlined plans to return Americans to the moon with reusable rockets. Asparouhov compared the space industry to an “AWS moment,” in which launch providers have become a platform that companies like Varda can build on, and noted how much cheaper and more flexible launch scheduling has become. The panelists discussed regulatory pathways, staffing at the Federal Aviation Administration and competition with China, and encouraged students to consider new fields such as space law.