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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

In the month running up to the 75th NATO Summit in Washington, D.C., the Alliance…

We’ve reached the end of Q2, which means it is time to take a look at the top space business and finance events in this year’s first half, how they are shaping the remaining six months, and what space businesses big and small are doing, and how investors in the public and private markets are reacting. Laura Winter speaks with Chris Quilty, founder of Quilty Space; and George Pullen, Chief Economist at Milky Way Economy.

This week’s episode is coming from the 7th Prague Space Security Conference in Czech, where government officials and experts from Europe, the United States, East Asia discussed what Western nations, space agencies, and militaries can and should do to protect and defend access to space and space capabilities. Laura Winter speaks with Antje Nötzold, lecturer and research associate at the Chair of International Politics at Chemnitz University of Technology; Lina Pohl, Research Fellow at European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) seconded by German Space Agency (DLR); and Petr Bareš, co-Founder and President of the Czech Space Alliance and Managing Director of Iguassu Software Systems.

While the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee has sent its draft of the FY 2025 defense spending bill to the full Appropriations Committee without drama, a Trump campaign representative is reportedly urging Republican senators to block any spending package from passing until after the presidential inauguration in January. Despite the budgetary fog, the Space Force’s strategy, outlined in the Biden Administration’s 2025 budget proposal, is becoming clear. Laura Winter speaks with Sam Wilson, a senior policy analyst for the Center for Space Policy and Strategy at The Aerospace Corporation, about his latest report: “Fy 2025 Defense Space Budget: Continued Emphasis On Proliferation Under A More Constrained Top-Line”.