The DownLink Podcast

Rocket Lab & SpaceX: Upping Their Defense Business Game Defense primes with offerings in the space sector buckle up. The upstarts coming, prepared. Rocket Lab and SpaceX have just established defense business lines organized to offer U.S.-based end-to-end white-glove space services to the Department of Defense with a proven competitive rate card. Laura Winter speaks with Rocket Lab Founder and CEO Peter Beck; the Mitchell Institute’s Senior Space Fellow Chris Stone; and Quilty Analytics Analyst Caleb Henry.

What is “resiliency” technologically? You regularly hear the word in talking points about defense and space strategy, but space supremacy is driven by technology. This week’s episode, coming out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, is about the development of two very different resiliency technologies, the companies, and a space business incubator, backed by the Air Force Research Laboratory. Laura Winter speaks with: - NewSpace New Mexico’s Founder and CEO, Casey DeRaad, and Scott Maethner, the organization's head of Strategy & Integration. - Goodman Technologies’ Founder and President, Bill Goodman - RS21’s CTO Kameron Baumgardner, and Carrie Powell, the company’s Project Manager for space.

What can we learn from the start of President Xi Jin-Ping’s third term at the helm of the Chinese Communist Party? What we know is that he has frozen out the old guard and elevated leaders from China’s space and aerospace sectors to the highest party and government positions. To unpack just what the era of Xi has in store for the space domain and international security, Laura Winter speaks with Malcolm Davis, Senior Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute focusing on space policy, security, strategy, and capability development; and Namrata Goswami, independent scholar on space policy and great power politics, Faculty Associate at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, and co-author of the book “Scramble for the Skies”.

Russian Sanctions Target U.S. Space & Milley’s “Various Technical Means” This week’s podcast is all about the Bear and space. Laura Winter speaks with former U.S. Defense Attaché to Russia, Brig. Gen. Bruce McClintock USAF (Ret.) about Russia’s move to place personal sanctions on a number of commercial space sector leaders. But first, just how did the Biden Administration and NATO determine that a Russian-made missile that hit eastern Poland was actually an errant Ukrainian air-defense munition? Winter speaks with Jim Townsend, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO who is now with the Center for a New American Security; and spacepower expert Col. M.V. “Coyote” Smith, USAF (Ret.), who is an Associate Professor and Director at the Air Command and Staff College.

Ursa Major is betting that its one and only product line - 3D-printed rocket engines - will not only disrupt how rockets are manufactured but lower costs for budding launch companies and the Air Force Research Laboratory. What also makes Ursa Major special is where it prints its engines - Youngtown, Ohio. The city has seen some very hard times since the closure of many of its steel mills in the late 70s and early 80s. Nevertheless, it making name for itself in the space economy for its advanced manufacturing of the 3D printed kind. Laura Winter speaks with Jesse Blacker, Ursa Major’s Director of Government Business Development, and with Barb Ewing, the Youngstown Business Incubator’s CEO.

NASA wants the commercial sector to provide pretty much everything, from housing to mining operations on the moon. But first, the space agency needs to establish itself as the anchor tenant to bring the commercial sector along. Meanwhile, China plans to establish a base within the decade. Laura Winter is at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium’s Fall Meeting at the University of Texas, El Paso. She speaks with U.S. Representative Veronic Escobar, representing El Paso; and Jim Reuter, NASA’s Associate Administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate.

No Satellites, No Economy: What You Need to Know About High Altitude Nuclear Detonation There's been a lot of talk about “tactical” nuclear weapons and rational choices. That discussion has been firmly anchored to ground effects. But what if the state actor simply wants to destroy the economy, without actually destroying much at all, at least immediately, on the ground? They would aim for space, specifically the Van Allen belts. To understand this threat - High Altitude Nuclear Detonation - and get an idea of what can be done to deter such an attack or mitigate its effects, Laura Winter Speaks with Lt. Col. “Tony” Vincent, the Director of Advanced Physics Courses at the Air Force Academy; and Chris Stone, author of “Reversing the Tao – A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence”, and Senior Fellow for Space Studies at The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

“It Is Weird Out There”: Space Economists & Space Capital Market Experts To demystify just what is happening in the space capital markets and the space economy writ large, Laura Winter speaks with Justin Cadman Partner at Quilty Analytics; George Pullen, Chief Economist at Milky Way Economy, Adjunct Professor at Columbia University in New York, and Author of the book, “Blockchain and the Space Economy”; and Brendan Rosseau, Researcher and Teaching Fellow at Harvard Business School, and Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton.

This week the Biden Administration released its long-awaited National Security Strategy. To unpack just what the strategy means and doesn’t for space as a region and a warfighting domain, and for our space-based critical infrastructure, Laura Winter speaks with Chris Stone, author of “Reversing the Tao - A Framework for Credible Space Deterrence” and a Senior Fellow for Space Studies at The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

Voyager Space and its subsidiary Nanoracks are aiming to launch Starlab, a commercial space station in 2028. They just announced an agreement with The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio to build the terrestrial home for the science and technology the space station produces. Why Ohio? The state’s got a growing ecosystem of small businesses that are at the cutting-edge space manufacturing on and possibly off-world. Laura Winter speaks with Jeff Manber, Voyager’s President of International and Space Stations at Space and Nanoracks Chairman of the Board; John Horack, the Neil Armstrong Chair in Aerospace Policy at The Ohio State University, and a professor in the College of Engineering’s Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department and the John Glenn College of Public Affairs; and Mark Norfolk, President and CEO of Fabrisonic, an innovative manufacturing technology company that uses sound waves in its 3D metal printing process.