Episodes
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Space Competition: Great Power Strategy, “America First”, and The Mars-shot
This week U.S. President-elect Donald Trump continued to shape his incoming government, naming cabinet nominees, including two authors of the controversial governance plan “Project 2025”, and enlisting adherents to the “America First” political philosophy. To understand how this plan, treatise, and talk of going to Mars, together will affect the space domain, Allies, partners, and adversaries, Laura Winter speaks with Namrata Goswami, an independent scholar on space policy and great power politics and co-author of the book “Scramble for the Skies: The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space”; Malcolm Davis, a Senior Policy Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute focusing on space policy, security, strategy, and capability development; and Hermann Ludwig Moeller, Director of the European Space Policy Institute. -
Space Power: Trump 2.0 May Attempt Human Mars Landing, Establish Department of the Space Force
Space policymakers from President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration debated what may be in store for the civil and defense space sectors, including sending humans to Mars instead of the moon, and establishing a Department of the Space Force. Laura Winter speaks with Doug Loverro, President, Loverro Consulting, LLC, former NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Defense for Space Policy, and deep experience with defense space programs, classified and unclassified. -
Missing episodes?
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Space Power: President-Elect Trump Expected To Supercharge U.S. Space Ambitions
This week President Donald Trump, with the help of billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk, became the 47th President-Elect of the United States, for a second non-consecutive term. Space power advocates believe Trump, with the added influence of Musk by his side, will speed-up mission timelines that include the moon and Mars, and put monetary and political capital to work to establish and secure an American-led space economy. Laura winter speaks with the former Chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, Pennsylvania Rep. (ret.) Robert Walker, now Founder and CEO of moonWalker Associates; U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. (ret.) Steve Kwast; now Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of SpaceBilt; and Todd Harrison, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute, and much respected NASA and Defense Department budget diviner. -
Space Money: Report - DoD At Risk of Losing New Commercial Space Suppliers And Capabilities
The Department of Commerce has just released some interesting economic indicators that lean positive, and there are expectations that the Federal Reserve Board will again lower interest rates. Despite this good news, it may be some time before new venture capital invests in space technology, leaving some companies that have capabilities the Department of Defense wants, starved for cash and at risk. Laura Winter speaks with Sam Wilson, Director, Strategy and Program Support, Center for Space Policy and Strategy, The Aerospace Corporation; and Sarah Georgin, former Project Lead, Strategic Foresight Team, The Aerospace Corporation. -
Space Competition: Threats and Trends A Year After October 7th
In the year since Hamas launched its brutal attack in Israel, tactics, techniques, and procedures, as well as technologies, and security alliances have evolved in the space domain of operations. Laura winter speaks with Namrata Goswami, an independent scholar on space policy and great power politics and co-author of the book “Scramble for the Skies: The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space”; and Hector Falcon, Space and Cyber Intelligence Integrator, Space-Information Sharing and Analysis Center (Space-ISAC). -
Space Power: A National Guardsman’s View On Why A Pentagon Plan Is A “Lose-Lose Proposal”
Last week Air Force Gen. Steven Nordhaus assumed responsibility as the 30th Chief of the National Guard Bureau, inheriting a politically thorny issue: a piece of legislation that, if passed into law, would transfer Air National Guard space units into the Space Force. This episode is about why some, possibly upwards of 80 percent, of the men and women who make up these units will not join the Space Force, which could leave the branch short of some critical capabilities. Laura Winter speaks with Lt. Col. Andrew Gold, Director of Strategic Plans, Colorado Air National Guard, and a space operator, who recently finished a deployment to Africa commanding the 138th Electromagnetic Warfare Squadron. -
Space Tech: Talking To The Far Side of the Moon
On the Moon China’s ahead in the race to stake claims for lunar resources by the not-so-simple fact that it can communicate with its equipment on the far side, near the south pole. This week’s episode is about how ispace’s Mission 3 could change the state of the race and establish the very communications network that will be necessary to create a lunar economy and secure it. Laura Winter speaks with Tyler Mundt, Mission Director, ispace; Marchel Holle, U.S. Government Relations Lead, ispace; Greg Johnson, Director of Business Development, Swedish Space Corp.; and George Pullen, Chief Economist, Milky Way Economy. -
Space Money: Q3 Take - “Money Doesn’t Care”
The Fed lending rate reduction was nice, but is it enough pressure on investors to empty their money market accounts and invest in space companies, even if it’s answering a defense-related demand signal? Laura Winter speaks with The DownLink regulars, Chris Quilty, Founder of Quilty Space; and George Pullen, Chief Economist at Milky Way Economy. -
Space Competition: How To Better De-Risk Adversarial Threats To Space Systems’ Value
This episode was recorded before a live audience at the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center’s Value of Space Summit, convened in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The discussion focuses on threat trends, the lack of insurance cover for certain types of attacks; and how to better secure the value of space systems. Laura Winter speaks with Chris Kunstadter, President at Triton Space; Tomas Peña, Chief Technologist for Cyber Operations at L3Harris Technologies; and Sam Visner, the Space-ISAC Chairman. -
Space Policy: Space Force CSO - “What We Were Is Not What We Must Become”
The U.S. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman announced on Tuesday that the Space Force has started to take over recruitment and training of uniformed and civilian Guardians, from “Mother Air Force”, to create a separate “space-minded” force to meet the nation’s requirements in the friction-filled era of “great power competition.” Laura Winter speaks with the Space Force’s first Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, Maj. Gen. Kim Crider (ret.), who is a Founding Partner of the space consultancy Elara Nova. -
Space Tech: Is It A Bird? A Plane? Actually It’s A Drone
Space Force acquisitions officials have said for years that they want tactically-responsive commercial-off-the-shelf solutions that can be easily configured for military uses. The founders of BlackStar Orbital Technologies say their drone, a satellite-space plane hybrid, will answer the call, at a competitive price point. Laura Winter speaks with the BlackStar Orbital's co-Founders, CEO Christopher Jannette and CTO Kit Carson. -
Space Money: Starliner, A 737 Max Felony, and a New Boeing CEO
With Boeing’s Starliner human-rated capsule safely on the ground, the Crew Flight Test mission has ended, but with incidents and without its crew, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. Boeing, a major supplier of space vehicles and services to NASA and the U.S. Space Force, is at a crossroads with a new CEO in charge. What should Boeing do? Laura Winter speaks with Richard Aboulafia, Managing Director at AeroDynamic Advisory; Todd Harrison, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; and Clayton Swope, Deputy Director of the Aerospace Security Project and Senior Fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). -
Space Competition: Geo-Strategic Questions Over NASA’s Plan to Destroy the ISS
This is part 2 of a deep dive into NASA’s plan to destroy the 420-metric-tonne International Space Station by de-orbiting. This episode is about the geo-strategic consequences and risks associated with de-orbiting and alternative ideas for the space station after 2030. Part 1, “Space Technology: Holes Bubble Up In NASA’s Narrative On And Plan To De-Orbit The Space Station”, posted in July. Laura Winter speaks with Kazuto Suzuki, a member of the National Space Policy Committee of the Cabinet Office, the Government of Japan, Professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy at the University of Tokyo, Japan, and Director of the Institute of Geoeconomics at International House of Japan; and Namrata Goswami, an independent scholar on space policy and great power politics and co-author of the book “Scramble for the Skies: The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space”. -
Space Power: War-Gamers Say We’re “Behind the Eight Ball”
What should the new U.S. vice president and the National Space Council do if China achieved a Sputnik-like moment? According to this week’s guests, we’re “Behind the Eight Ball”, which is the title of their first report on a series of recent wargames that included former NASA and Department of Defense political appointees, representing both major U.S. political parties. Laura Winter speaks with Peter Garretson, a Senior Fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC) who also co-authored the book “The Next Space Race: A Blueprint for American Primacy” with the second guest; Richard Harrison, AFPC’s Vice President of Operations and Director of the Defense Technology Program. -
Space Tech: Defense Looking At Modular Upgrades For Greater SDA
Space Command wants “enhanced battlespace awareness”, a clearer picture of what’s going on on orbit. This episode is about how a new set of modular technologies can provide satellite operators with “upgrades” and the opportunity to participate in the space domain awareness ecosystem, to serve military and commercial customers, and to generate new revenue streams. Laura Winter speaks with Ghonhee Lee, Founder and CEO of Katalyst Space Technologies, a company founded in 2020 that has a fistful of defense contracts. -
Space Money: Silicon Valley - “The DoD Has Not Brought The Dough”
While it may not be surprising that space companies lead the Silicon Valley Defense Group's NATSEC100, there is an imbalance between the amount of capital venture capitalists are putting in and and the value of defense awards. Laura Winter speaks with James Cross, SVDG’s co-Founder and Executive Chairman, and Co-Head of Private Investing for Franklin Equity Group and Managing Director of Franklin Venture Partners. -
Space Power: SmallSats - Time To Plan, Procure, And Execute
Almost seven years after U.S. Air Force General John Hyten said, “I will not support buying big satellites that make juicy targets”, the
Space Development Agency has seemingly cracked the code on procuring and deploying small satellites, or smallsats, quickly with the desired effects. Nevertheless, experts argue that the U.S. Space Force struggles to realize the full range of possibilities smallsats present, because the culture of acquisitions is stuck. Laura Winter speaks with Charles Galbreath, a Senior Resident Fellow for Space Studies at the Mitchell Institute’s Spacepower Advantage Center of Excellence; and Andrew Berglund, a Senior Policy Analyst in the Center for Space Policy and Strategy at The Aerospace Corporation. -
Space Technology: Holes Bubble Up In NASA’s Narrative On And Plan To De-Orbit The Space Station NASA claims the commercial space sector provided no “feasible proposals” from “discussions” or “viable interest” in response to a Request for Information (RFI) on how to reuse, repurpose, or recycle part or all of the 420-metric-tonne International Space Station. Space companies say they never saw or even heard of such requests. To understand NASA’s unfunded $1.5-billion-plan, and the alternatives - some of which would support technological development for the commercial and defense sectors - Laura Winter speaks with George Pullen, Chief Economist at Milky Way Economy; Justin Kugler, Director of Business Development for new initiatives at Intuitive Machines, an alum of the NASA ISS Program Office, and a former Central Intelligence Agency intelligence analyst; ED Tate, Co-Founder & CTO at Virtus Solis; and Bill Kemp, Founder and CEO of United Space Structures.
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Space Power: NATO Summit - Defense Industry! Can You Hear The Demand Signal Now?
Before meeting with heads of state, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told leaders from the Allied defense industrial base that more than two-thirds of the Alliance’s 32 member nations were spending at least 2% of the GDPs on defense. “So there is a good market outlook for you.” To understand what the secretary general meant and this summit’s outcomes for the space domain, Laura Winter speaks with Malcolm Davis, a Senior Policy Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute focusing on space policy, security, strategy, and capability development; Brig. Gen. Bruce McClintock USAF (Ret.), RAND Corporation Space Enterprise Initiative lead, and former U.S. Defense Attaché to Russia; and John Neal, Executive Director for Space Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. -
Space Power: NATO Summit - Security Alliance Is Employing More Than Words In Space Domain
In the month running up to the 75th NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., the Alliance has been busy in the Space Domain of Operations. To understand the state of the NATO Alliance, what it has recently achieved going into the summit, and what outcomes to expect, Laura Winter speaks with Jim Townsend, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO Policy, who is now a Senior Fellow in the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), and co-host of the “Brussel Sprouts” podcast; and Juliana Suess, Research Fellow on Space Security at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), and host of the “War in Space” podcast. - Show more
