The DownLink Podcast

This is Your Primer on AI, Space, and Defense, not ChatGPT Did you know that in the past five years, the U.S. Government has inked more than a billion dollars in contracts to develop and utilize artificial intelligence, or AI, according to a Brookings Institution report? While it’s unsurprising that the Department of Defense inked about 87 percent of these contracts, it is a space company that has won the greatest number. This week’s episode unpacks just what AI is before exploring AI’s role in the future of space, the space business, and defense. Laura Winter speaks with Dan Brunski, True Anomaly’s co-founder and Chief Technology Officer; George Pullen, Milky Way Economy’s Chief Economist; Gabriel DeVille, a consultant and market analyst with Euroconsult; and Dick Wilkinson, Proof Labs co-founder and Chief Technology Officer.

China Learns Lessons From Ukraine’s Use of Space This week is the fourth and final episode of a month-long look at the different aspects of Russia’s War in Ukraine and space, the space business, and defense. It is highly recommended to listen to the prior episodes first, to understand how Ukraine is using American and European commercial space-based assets to close the kill-chain and achieve strategic decision-making advantage against Russia. This episode’s focus is on what China, a major space-faring nation and space power, has learned from watching how Ukraine, a smaller outgunned and outmanned democratic nation, maintains access to and uses commercial space capabilities to control the strategic narrative and retake its sovereign territory from Russian forces. Laura Winter explores what these lessons are and how it has affected China’s war planning with Namrata Goswami, an independent scholar on space policy and great power politics and co-author of the book “Scramble for the Skies”; Malcolm Davis, who is a senior defense and space policy analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute; and Christopher Stone, a Senior Advisor and Consultant with Core-CSI, LLC, who is a former Special Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy, and author of “Reversing the Tao: A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence”

Should the U.S. Military Defend U.S. Commercial Space Operators Involved In Ukraine? This week is the third episode of a month-long look at the different aspects of Russia’s War in Ukraine and space, the space business, and defense. It is highly recommended to listen to the prior episode first, to understand how Ukraine is using commercial space-based assets to close the kill-chain and achieve strategic decision-making advantage against Russia. As U.S. commercial space operators are involved in the conflict, a first in any war, this episode explores just what responsibility does the U.S. government have in defending these U.S. flagged assets. Laura Winter speaks with Steve Wood, the Senior Director of Maxar Technologies’ News Bureau; Christopher Stone, a Senior Advisor and Consultant with Core-CSI, LLC, who is a former Special Assistant to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy, and author of “Reversing the Tao: A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence”; and with David Burbach, an Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College, who is an expert on space and warfare.

David, Goliath, & Space - Is This How Future Wars Will Be Fought? This week is the second episode of a month-long look at the different aspects of Russia’s War in Ukraine and space, the space business, and defense. This episode explores the David and Goliath story of how Ukraine has used space-based assets, the majority of which are owned and operated by third-parties that are mostly from the commercial sector. Is this a preview of how future wars will be fought? Laura Winter speaks with Bryan Clark, a Senior Fellow and Director of the Hudson Institute Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, who has led studies for the Defense Advanced Research Products Agency on new technologies and the future of warfare; and with David Burbach, an Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College, who is an expert on space and warfare.

How Russia's War in Ukraine Is a Boon for Space Business The week’s episode kicks off a month-long look at the different aspects of Russia’s War in Ukraine and space, the business, and defense. In this first episode, Laura Winter tackles the war’s effects on various space verticals, the capital markets, and the investment challenges and opportunities that have come out of Russia’s exit from the Western space ecosystem with Chris Quilty, Founder of Quilty Analytics; George Pullen, Chief Economist at Milky Way Economy; and Rich Smith, a space investor and a writer at The Motley Fool.

What You Need to Know About The Great Ground Station Game Part 2 This week is the second and final episode looking at what rarely comes to mind when we talk about space - the ground. This week is about the great ground game being played out in what has traditionally been in the U.S. sphere of influence - South America. The southern continent is where Chinese entities have access to or wholly manage a rough dozen ground stations, which has caused some concern in defense circles. To understand just what is going on below the equator, Laura Winter speaks with Matthew Funaiole, Vice President of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ iDeas Lab, and a senior fellow of China Power Project; and Brian Hart, a CSIS fellow with the China Power Project. Their report “Eyes on the Skies - China's Growing Space Footprint in South America” can be found here: https://features.csis.org/hiddenreach/china-ground-stations-space/.

What You Need to Know About The Great Ground Station Game Part 1 This week’s episode and the next are all about what rarely comes to mind when we talk about space - the ground. This week is about the great game being played out in the High North on the strategic ground where the U.S., its allies, and adversaries, have located critical ground station infrastructure and the capabilities to disrupt and destroy satellite communications. To explain just what’s going on, Laura Winter speaks with Greg Falco and Nicolò Boschetti both from the Institute for Assured Autonomy (IAA), a joint Whiting School of Engineering and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory research institute. Falco and Boschetti recently published the paper “Commercial Space Risk Framework Assessing the Satellite Ground Station Security Landscape for NATO in the Arctic and High North”, which can be found here: https://bit.ly/CommercialSpaceRiskFramework

There’s No Need To Be So Toxic! This week’s episode is about a potentially disruptive group of thruster technologies that are already being used by space agencies and on U.S. Space Force, DARPA, and other Department of Defense space missions. These thruster technologies are green - better for the environment and humans - and give more real bang for the buck. Could they displace highly toxic gas fuel Hydrazine, which may soon be banned in Europe, but upon which an entrenched thruster industry relies? Laura Winter speaks with Benchmark Space Systems’ Executive Vice President For Business Development And Strategy Chris Carella; Dawn Aerospace Co-Founder Jeroen Wink; and Benchmark’s Propulsion Chemist and Propulsion Engineer Sammy Graham.

Four Space & Finance Experts: What You Need to Know for a “Weird” 2023 Welcome to a “weird” New Year! Most publicly traded space companies are listed on the NASDAQ, which shed a third of its value in 2022. Add to that the highest interest rates in 15 years and dire predictions that at least some of the world’s economies are headed into recession. Yet, the space economy keeps on growing, with new predictions saying it will be worth $10 trillion by 2040. What’s going on here? Laura Winter speaks with Chris Quilty, founder of Quilty Analytics; Pacôme Révillon, CEO of Euroconsult; George Pullen, Chief Economist at Milky Way Economy; and Ryan Brukardt, Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company.

Happy Birthday, Space Force… And Happy New Year This week is the U.S. Space Force’s third birthday. While a lot has been accomplished over the past 12 months, there is a lot more yet to do to make the service branch truly independent and first for purpose. This episode’s guests also reveal what they think were the biggest developments for space, in space, or from space for earth in the past year. Laura Winter speaks with Peter Garretson, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, coauthor of “Scramble for the Skies The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space”; Chris Stone, a senior fellow for space studies at The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, and the author of “Reversing the Tao: A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence”; and Stephen Melvin, who has been involved military space operations in a variety of roles inside and outside of the government for years.