Astrolabe Podcast

Robert Zubrin | Elon, NASA, China, and why we need Mars

Cyril Shtabtsovsky — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 13:34:09 GMT

Robert Zubrin is an aerospace engineer and the founder of The Mars Society‬. He hugely influenced Elon Musk to build SpaceX.

00:51 – Favorite sci-fi
01:17 – What killed Apollo’s momentum
02:12 – What's wrong with Artemis
05:21 – today's space race
07:24 – Private companies vs government
09:05 – Moon vs Mars
12:10 – Elon’s AI story
18:28 – Why not Venus next?
19:36 – Mining the asteroid belt
24:39 – Who lands on Mars first?
27:23 – Has Elon changed?
29:38 – How to inspire more kids?
30:02 – Why we need to go to Mars now?
30:59 – Star Trek vs Star Wars
34:30 – The ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything

Emil Kendziorra | Cryopreservation, Best Chance of Not Dying, Longevity & AI

Cyril Shtabtsovsky — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 10:05:24 GMT

Dr. Emil Kendziorra is the founder & CEO of Tomorrow Bio, the world's best human cryopreservation company.

00:35 — Best sci-fi
01:35 — What Tomorrow Bio is
03:01 — How much it costs
07:13 — The two big open questions
09:11 — How we actually freeze people (no ice crystals)
13:21 — How many people will actually do this?
16:11 — Uploading, copies, and “is it still me?”
18:53 — Does a soul exist?
21:17 — Emil's actual longevity protocol
26:33 — Will AI solve aging in our lifetime?
28:37 — Is AI net good for society?
30:49 — Why this company is different
33:08 — Quickfire questions
35:29 — The ultimate question

David van Dijk | Yale Professor at YC, Why Pharma Is Broken & How AI Fixes It

Cyril Shtabtsovsky — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 10:42:56 GMT

David van Dijk is the Yale professor (12,000+ citations) and founder of CellType (YC W26). In collaboration with DeepMind, he built Cell2Sentence - an LLM that simulates human biology.

00:42 – Favorite sci-fi
03:53 – Why drug development is broken
07:49 – AI as the future model system
09:15 – Cell2Sentence & DeepMind collaboration
16:32 – Folding biology into an LLM
18:32 – Virtual drug screen that actually worked
26:23 – Spinning out & joining YC
27:24 – Why cancer?
28:16 – The data bottleneck in biology
32:07 – From single cells to tissues
33:41 – Why open-source?
37:04 – University lab vs startup
39:58 – Going through Y Combinator
44:32 – Academics as founders
47:09 – Quick-fire round
51:15 – The ultimate question

Shai Albaranes‏ | AI transformation of $8B company, what happened to climate tech, learning science

Cyril Shtabtsovsky — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 09:56:01 GMT

Shai Albaranes‏ leads Orbia's AI transformation and corporate VC.

1:04 – Do you like science fiction?
5:57 – What the Israeli army actually gives you
8:41 – Why almost every S&P 500 company has R&D in Israel
11:15 – Building an innovation function from zero
20:14 – What is the real value of AI for an $8B company?
22:07 – Is AI replacing jobs?
27:10 – The hardest part of sitting on startup boards
28:34 – Are boards more founder-friendly now?
30:51 – The most exciting deep-tech area right now
32:33 – Can fusion solve the energy problem?
33:18 – What happened to the climate tech
35:25 – Why a 50-year-old executive started learning chemistry
40:12 – Quickfire

Sasha Malysheva | GoogleX, Robotics & AI bottlenecks, Women in AI

Cyril Shtabtsovsky — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 15:22:45 GMT

Sasha Malysheva, former DeepMind and Google X researcher who published in Science at 22, shares her journey from building AI-powered exoskeletons to founding her own stealth AI startup.

00:00 - Intro & Welcome
01:09 - Favorite Sci-Fi
02:11 - Starting AI Research at 18
03:29 - Why She Left Pure Research for Startups
04:03 - Publishing Her First Major Paper
04:58 - How AI is Changing Scientific Research Today
05:55 - What is Google X? Moonshot Projects Explained
06:58 - The Exoskeleton Project at Google X (Robotics + AI)
08:14 - Main Bottlenecks in Humanoid Robotics
09:53 - AI Research vs Building a Startup
10:47 - Would You Want a Personal Humanoid Robot at Home?
11:03 - Consciousness
12:19 - Are LLMs a Dead End? Why Monolithic Models Are Ending
12:59 - Her Bold Prediction About AGI (Most People Disagree)
15:05 - Why She Started Her Own Stealth AI Startup
15:38 - The Reality of Being a Founder & CEO
17:25 - Women in AI: Challenges, Role Models & Inspiring Girls in STEM
19:05 - Investing in Startups & What She Looks For in Founders
19:43 - Quick Fire Questions (Star Wars vs Star Trek, Prizes, Einstein of our time, etc.)
21:20 - The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe & Everything

John Martinis | Nobel Prize, Entrepreneurship vs Google, AI Replacing Jobs

Cyril Shtabtsovsky — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 14:08:34 GMT

John Martinis is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, recognized in 2025 for his pioneering 40-year career developing superconducting qubits. He led Google’s team that achieved quantum supremacy in 2019, and today he is co-founder of Qolab, his quantum computing startup.

00:43 – Welcome & Introduction
00:48 – Science Fiction and "For All Mankind"
01:36 – Zero to One & Leaving Google
04:35 – Entrepreneurial Mindset & Google Experience
05:03 – Finding a Co-Founder (Alan)
08:02 – Raising Money as a Truth-Teller
08:54 – Academia vs Startup Life & Nobel Prize
11:33 – Is Quantum Volume a Good Metric?
13:52 – Optical Quantum Computing & Hype
16:07 – Science Culture: France vs USA
18:28 – Quantum Computing in France
20:15 – Theorists vs Experimentalists in Quantum
23:08 – Running Towards Problems (Entrepreneurial Mindset)
24:54 – Nobel Prize & Timelines in Research
27:48 – US Government Quantum Funding
28:38 – Issues with Academia & Publishing
30:20 – AI Replacing Jobs & Impact on Scientists
33:51 – Nobel Prize or Build a Unicorn?
34:08 – Favorite LLM (Grok & Gemini)
34:30 – $10M Research Funding Idea
35:10 – Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything