Technology, Connected - How To Make Money Investing In Space

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

The space economy is set to reach $1.8 trillion by 2035. Everyone talks about rockets. Almost no one talks about the infrastructure that connects orbit to Earth. This is where billions of dollars of that space investment are being increasingly allocated. Mark Boggett runs Seraphim Investments, a London-based fund that backs the companies building the foundations of the space economy. In this conversation, he explains why the future of space isn’t about launch or tourism, but data, defense, and the networks that will define a trillion-dollar market.We look at how falling launch costs from SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and Firefly have moved the bottleneck from rockets to downlink infrastructure - the networks that move satellite data back to Earth. Boggett outlines the under-invested opportunities in ground terminals, communications, and cybersecurity that will define the next decade of the space economy.He also talks about the rise of direct-to-device connectivity through companies like AST SpaceMobile and Globalstar, the coming laser mesh networks led by Amazon’s Kuiper constellation, and the new markets emerging in orbital services: debris removal, refueling, and regulation-driven sustainability through firms like Astroscale and LeoLabs.This is the quieter side of the space race, the infrastructure and data layer where long-term investors are quietly shaping a trillion-dollar future.Enjoy the show. And please subscribe so we can continue building the channel, and thinking on Paper. --TIMESTAMPS(00:00) Trailer(01:56) Disruptors & Curious Minds(03:08) Mark Boggett (03:27) The Reality Of A 10-Year Investment Period(04:07) Predictions On The Space Economy(04:39) Space Race 2.0: The USA V China (05:54) Direct to Device Space Communications(08:05) Public Markets Love Space Tech Investments(09:35) Space Exits & IPOS(10:36) Trump & Musk To Dominate Space Agenda(11:17) The Space Ecosystem 2025(12:10) Satellite Companies: Hardware & Software(12:36) Launch Companies: SpaceX, Firefly & Rocket Labs(13:50) Satellite Constellations(14:24) HAPS (High Altitude Platforms)(15:22) Data Collection, Ground Terminals & Cyber Security(16:46) Downlink: The Growth Area Of Space Investments(18:50) Satellite Data Companies(21:08) Space Verticals: Climate Success Stories(22:20) How Satellites Verify Carbon Credits(24:37) Space Debris & New Regulations To Clean Up Orbit(26:38) Getting Old, Rickety Satellites Out Of Orbit(30:26) Giving Regulators Teeth(31:15) Geopolitics And Defense Based Space Investment(36:33) Terraforming Mars(36:48) Best Sci-Fi Movie(36:56) Do Kids Look Up? The Accessibility Of Space(37:20) The Best Reason To Go To The Moon(39:51) What Should Humans Be? ----Other ways to connect with us:⁠Listen to every podcast⁠Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠Follow us on ⁠X⁠Follow Mark on ⁠LinkedIn⁠Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠Read our ⁠Substack⁠Email: [e-mail]

Where is the smart money being invested? We are investing other people's money, and they typically expect to see it back within a 10-year period. Space Race 2.0 hotsup rivalry between the US and China will continue to drive both governmental and commercial markets. You've got SpaceX out in the lead that have effectively got almost a monopoly on the global launch market. You've got some newer companies there that are now operational,

such as rocket labs and fireflies. But what we've got in the market is about 100 or 200 other finance rocket companies all around the world that are now vying to become operational. 2025 will be the year that direct to device satellite connectivity hits the mainstream. And they can see an object the size of a penny from a thousand kilometres away. And that penny is going around our planet at 17,500 miles an hour. SpaceX has spent 17 billion on buying Spectrum from Echo Star so that they can have the spectrum that's required to be able to from satellites, communicate directly to mobile phones, do cell towers in space. It's about creating a mesh network of satellites in orbit that communicate directly with each other by lasers. What's the geopolitical situation versus investing in space looking like?

change very significantly this year. We've got currently two funds operational, one of them's a public fund listed on the London stop mark here. That fund, the revenues of that fund are nearly 80% defense. Disruptors and curious minds, welcome to another episode of Thinking on Paper where we unpack the future with the people building it in real time. Mark, where are we headed? The global space economy reached $546 billion in 2023 and the World Economic Forum predicts $1.8 trillion of investment by 2035. So my question for listeners as we go through today's show is, where is the smart money being invested? Space is no longer the final frontier. It's maturing, capital is spreading to a broader set of companies, a broader set of technologies. We've spoken

about a lot of them on thinking on paper. Public demand is rising. And today's guest is Mark Boggart, the CEO and co-founder of Serafin, an international investment firm, focused on space technology. And he is going to help us understand who's investing, where they're investing, and what we can expect over the next few years in the advancements of space technology. I'm excited, Jeremy. Welcome to the show, Mark. Yeah, well, I'm excited as well. We're going to be talking about space.

It's great to be on the show, guys. You speak about space every day. It must be an amazing position to be. I'm pinch myself. The stuff that's going on, the real stuff that's going on, but the stuff that's on the near-term horizon that we're going to talk about today, I think he's going to get everybody excited. That's a very interesting point that you made because when I was looking at the seraphim investment portfolio, it is very much the near-term. It's very actionable. It's very of the moment. It's not this grandiose Star Trek vision of space technology. Correct.

We are investing other people's money. And they typically expect. to see it back within a 10-year period. So that really sort of narrows our focus about what we're going to invest into. And whilst there's all these amazing, exciting things that are going on on the moon and Mars and asteroids, they're fantastic. But can you make money in a 10-year period in those? Well, the answer is probably no. So this is the reason why we stay a little closer to home when it comes to where we're

deploying our money within the space market. Makes sense. Well, let's, yeah, let's dive right in. So the reason we reached out to you was related to some predictions you had in the space economy at the beginning of the year. And it's always fun to kind of noodle back and see what those are doing, what's happening. Let's jump in and see those. I haven't looked at me out here. I haven't looked at those predictions since I think I wrote them in December.

Mark, the advantage here is that you can analyze and critique your own score because you know much more than we do. So you could just say, yeah, that's exactly what happened. So prediction number one, space race 2.0 hotsup rivalry between the US and China will continue to drive both governmental and commercial markets. 2004 has seen a surge in large funding rounds in Chinese space tech companies. That is set to continue. Do you stand by that prediction? You know, the US in the first half of last year really fell behind China in terms of the volume and value of investment that was going into space. That was rectified in the second half of the year. But in the first half of this year, China has not been investing as much as we saw last year.

Relatively speaking, there's been a huge boost to the US there. So, yes, I think I'm safe in saying that that's correct. Why do you think that is? Why are China spending less? They just had an exceptional period in 2024. And the other thing with the Chinese numbers is that you can't really rely on them. They paint a picture, but, you know, I think they do little more than that. but we have enough evidence to see that it's a really hot race.

And, you know, these are two horses running neck and neck. And you've got Europe, which is sort of squeezing in between the two, with very significant capital that's been allocated this year. So we're expecting this to become a three horse race. Prediction number two, direct to device ready for prime time. Following on from Apple's recent 1.5 billion investment in Global Star to improve space-based communications for iPhones, We expect 2025 will be the year that direct-to-device satellite connectivity hits the mainstream

with SpaceX, AST, Space Mobile and Skylo all launching direct-to-device offerings. Well, another one, I'm pleased that I said that one. So, yeah, we've just seen in the last week or so that SpaceX has spent 17 billion on buying Spectrum from Echo Star so that they can have the spectrum that's required. to be able to from satellites communicate directly to mobile phones. And then the other company that we referenced there, AST, so that company, if you pull up the stock price ticker on that and look at the chart, they've had an incredible year.

They hit $18 billion valuation earlier in the summer. They're about $15 billion now. So the rest of the market are really expecting them too to start coming through. So what these guys do, they do sell towers in spin. And they provide them, they provide the ability to be able to connect to any mobile phone without any hardware or software adjustment to that phone. Just any old phone can roam onto these cell towers in space that are provided by AST. Just a quick thing on that, the cell towers in space, any technology that can bridge an old technology and make it easy to connect and use and all of that has great success, right? And we're seeing that with these guys.

It's really clever. What it basically does is it tricks the ground base. infrastructure to believe that the space-based infrastructure is actually on the ground. So they can't distinguish the fact that the satellite is in space. And these things are absolutely massive. There's 700 square meters in space. These things are huge. It sounds like a space-based VPN.

That's a good idea. I'm going to back you with that business. Thank you. I'm thinking that mainly from my mom who needs better phone reception. So anything which helps there, I'm awful. prediction number three, public markets learn to love space tech again. 2024 has seen a significant recovery in the share prices of many space tech companies that went public during the SPAC boom of 2021.

Several of these companies, most notably Rocket Lab and AST Space Mobile, have now been propelled into the ranks of most valuable space tech companies in the world. Yeah, you know, so that is the case. Several space-related IPOs have happened in 2024, including one of our portfolio companies, Voyager. So that's one of the space station companies they IPO about two months ago. So there's been three space related IPOs this year. The most recent one was Firefly, which is absolutely flown. This is a rocket launch American company. So yeah, you know, that is true. There has been, the market has been very receptive to these space companies as they've come to the market.

So I think that that one is true. We should definitely stop there now because I'm probably going to get all the rest of them wrong. Hey, I'm good with that. We can run with three for three. Didn't Voyager have a particularly interesting technical achievement moment this year or recently? These guys are the space station company. They're effectively building science parks in space. So what we're now invested into are the tenants of those science parks.

So we're investing into the companies that are doing things like new materials or doing things like biofarmers inventing drugs that will effectively be the customers on those space stations. Number four, private markets reaching for the stratosphere, but exits to remain rare. We expect 2025 will be another year of record-breaking investment activity in the private markets. More space tech companies will raise VC funding than ever before. Although the heights of 2021 may not be quite surpassed, we do suspect investment to grow substantially, year on year. Yeah. So it is growing, but, but.

not as fast as I was sort of thinking back back then. So we're still up on 2024, but I think it's like 10, 12, 13%. I was expecting it to be more like so 50, 60, 70%. I think I still, this is probably going to be one of my predictions for this year. I think that we're going to see, you know, a very significant influx of cash from investors who've just discovered space, realized about all these amazing things that are happening. And I really see that lifting up. So I'm grading my own homework here.

So I'll probably give myself a C on that one. Okay. And the last one, Trump and Musk to dominate the space agenda. That is definitely happening, but not really in the way that I would have liked to have predicted at the time. We're sort of moved into reverse gear when it comes to sort of space exploration. We've had some big cuts at NASA. So yeah, that's definitely definitely. definitely one that I think they've had an impact, but I'm not, I'm not so sure that it's the

positive impact that we were all really hoping for. But time will tell. Sounds good. Thanks for, thanks for entertaining us through those, through the revisit of your predictions. That's always fun to do. I want to talk about this map. So it's a 2025 map of essentially the space ecosystem, the economy, that sort of thing. And the categories are really interesting to me and the tangible nature of what you're putting together on one page. So these companies are the venture-backed companies that are really the new space leaders. We've created this map to help investors understand who the competitors are, the leading competitors within different parts of the market. So we've broken it down between upstream and downstream. So put simply,

upstream is about the building and launching and creation of the satellite platforms, whereas downstream is about taking the data back down from space, down to earth, and for it then to be used within software and as an input to different businesses. So let me just talk you through each of these to help you understand. So on the upstream side, you've got build. So this is the building of satellites, the building of this, everything that goes in relation to building that. So you've got the hardware side and then you've got the software side.

So we break out the two different types of companies that relate to that. You've got things like propulsion within the hardware side, and then within the software side, you've got AI elements, and then you've got the operational elements. Next of all, we've then got launched, and you'll see that there's a whole range of companies there in the launches. Now, this is a really interesting sector, because this is really considered to have a big bottleneck at the moment. You've got SpaceX out in the lead that have effectively got almost a monopoly on the global

launch market. You've got some newer companies there. are now operational, such as rocket labs and firefly. But what we've got in the market is about 100 or 200 other financed rocket companies all around the world that are now vying to become operational to address this big bottleneck that we've got in the space environment. Launch costs are still the biggest obstacle that the industry faces. Well, launch costs have come down considerably. So I wouldn't characterize the launch costs as the issue for the industry.

You know, they've continued to fall, and ever keeping ahead, SpaceX have got their next rocket that they've just about to bring to the market, which is called Starship, which is this rocket that takes 100 metric tons to space in a single launch. So that's going to take the price down by an order of magnitude further. So price is not really something that's the sort of main focus at the moment. It's the availability. So next of all, we've got platforms. So this is our word for satellite constellations.

So this is where you've got a satellite operator that's got many different satellites. And the reason why a constellation would grow is that these satellites are all gathering data about Earth. And the more satellites that you add to the constellation, the closer to real time the data gets that is being gathered by those satellites. So you can see that the value increases as the frequency that you collect that data goes closer to real time. The other one that's in there is called haps, high altitude platforms. So these are pseudo satellites that sit in the stratosphere, and these are sort of balloons or planes that effectively hover above a certain area.

They have all of the sort of same payloads as a satellite, but they're inside of the orbit just. The Chinese balloons that were in the news a few years ago, would that be a hap? Yeah, that would be a good example. Balloons and, you know, think about, you know, like the good year, blimp. This is what many of them look like. You know, this is a market that is still very embryonic, but we're expecting to grow quite significantly because it has a whole range of benefits over

the satellite industry. If your high altitude platform isn't working properly, you just bring it back down to Earth, fix the problem and send it back up again. Of course, you can't do that with satellites. So, you know, this is one of the real values that HAPS has to offer. So then, we're then talking about downstream. So this is about how you get this data that's been collected by all of these satellites that are looking down at Earth and monitoring everything that's going on. How do you get that down to the ground? There's the communication element. There's the ground terminal element. And then there's the cyber security and the storage of all of that. So this is one of the areas that is the most underinvested within the space market. Everyone's been focused on launchers and on

satellite constellations. So building out the infrastructure, building this critical infrastructure, this effectively, this network in space. We consider it's like a new internet that's being developed in the space environment. Now we've got to start getting this data down. And speed is everything. So the quicker you can get the data down, the more value that it has. Is that because it's more difficult or less exciting? Why is there a lack of investment now? I think you, I think you put your finger on it there. Investors have just. not being able to get themselves excited about invested into ground terminals. You know, they'd much rather invest into rocket launches or satellite constellations.

But what these companies are now finding is that actually this is a really important element of their offering and they really need to, you know, get data down as quickly as possible in a cyber secure way. And we believe that this is one of the growth areas of the future. Just because it's been so underinvested in the past, typically, Out of all of the market, the downlink only gets about two or three percent of total spend. And it's been pretty consistent at that sort of level, you know, for the last 10 years. It's just never been in fashion.

And I think it will be coming into fashion because many of the new investors that are coming into this market are not really looking for the most exciting part of the space market. They're looking for the picks and shovels and the more mundane businesses that relate to space can really get on the space bandwagon for the growth of space, but they're more traditional-type businesses. How's the technology doing to reduce latency in getting the data from space to Earth? The thing that is exciting that's expected to happen

during the course of the next few years, and in fact, Amazon have been talking about doing this for a long time, and they're now just putting up the first satellites in their constellation. It's about creating a mesh network of satellites in orbit that communicate directly with each other by lasers and then effectively have sort of one central unit to actually send all of the data down. What's really compelling about that is one,

particularly if it's Amazon that do that, it's all immediately connected into the cloud. And it actually changes the design of satellites because if this mesh network is available and open for everyone to use, you just need to effectively have a laser and a receiver that, you know, is on the right sort of frequency for you to be able to then, you know, use that for your downlink.

So it should really increase capability, reduce latency and significantly reduce cost when this network is up and running. And there are a few other private companies and actually some really big government companies or not rather than government companies, large sort of conglomerate type companies that are also looking to focus on this area. So this is another area of growth. So next of all, you've got Analyze. So these are companies that are focused exclusively on satellite data. So their entire business is about the data set that is being drawn from space. You know, for example, they don't use any other data sets to provide their service to their customers. It's all about leveraging this data capability.

The next level down... Can you give a couple of examples of what data? Let me give you the example of Planet Watchers. They access space data in order to be able to help companies use this data. So they may well have a customer who's in the insurance market that wants to understand what's happened in a particular field that's growing crops as to whether those crops have been grown or whether those crops were damaged by a flood or a hurricane. So they would be a customer of a company like this, that all of the input that they're using to sell to those customers is this data from space.

The customer itself has no knowledge about how to access this data, how to analyze the data. They just want to know the answer to their question. Did that field grow that corn or was it, did it not grow anything because of a flood or other kind of climate-related issue? So basically, yeah, so converting that data into intelligence for, that business to use one way they do that. And we call the sector Analyze. It's the analysis of space data, whereas the next one down is around product. So this is where space data is part of a range of different inputs that provide a product. You know, there are companies in there, for example, that are like B-0, that are effectively focused around climate credits. So they would be sort of

evaluating a climate credit as to whether it's good value or not. So they'll take some space data, but they'll also take a whole range of data from other sources in order to be able to provide their client with the outcome of their service. So a product is where space data is just one element of the data that's important to that product. For anyone who's not watching just listening, the five product verticals there are climate insurance, location and mapping logistics. and other. On climate, I mean, if we just pick Earth AI, stands out as a catchy name there. Are we seeing any success stories in these climate companies and where is that being realised? It's still relatively early days on these companies. The leading ones, you know, have got revenues

of less than a hundred million. So these businesses are scaling, but they are, they're not reaching sort of levels where the companies are, you know, are growing to unicorns on the back of that growth. They're focused around a market that is still embryonic, but is almost certain set to grow. Many of these companies are enabling this market to grow because what it's bringing is transparency to the data. If you're Google and you've got all your data centers, you need to offset all the carbon that you're producing by buying carbon credits. When you go and buy a carbon credit, do you know that you are actually getting, you know, a thousand dollars of carbon offset for the thousand dollars that you've just spent on that carbon credit or not?

So what some of these companies, Rhinoster is a good example of a company that's doing exactly that. What they're saying is this carbon credit, they look down at the forest that the carbon credit is written on and they analyze how many trees, at what type of trees are there, what is the density of those trees, what's the health of those trees? what's the health of those trees? And then what they're able to do then is accurately build up an understanding of what the carbon sequestation capability of that forest actually is. So you can then say, well, this carbon credit that's costing you a thousand dollars, you actually get $4,000 of carbon sequestation for that $1,000.

So that's great value. But you might say you only get $500 for that $1,000. And obviously it's bad value. So what this is doing is it's bringing confidence and transparency to a market that has largely been troubled by exactly that. Whilst these companies are sort of new, embryonic and, you know, are in the early stages of growth, the market in which they're playing into is potentially, you know, ginormous and will be ginormous in the future. Makes sense. Yeah. So as we go through this map, we have kind of the infrastructure piece component. the things that are used to collect data.

And then we have the ability of getting that data from space to Earth. And then we have the ability of making that data usable to businesses and companies and entities and a translation of that. We get to the bottom of this map into the in-space economy. We're all thinking about in the future, the big things that we could do in space. So is that where this category is landing? It is, yeah. So this is, as the name suggests, it's all of the new,

markets in the space environment. Everything above the line here is really about space serving Earth. And now we're now moving into the in-space economy is kind of space to space. So we break that down into four parts, space services, space infrastructure, in-space R&D in manufacturing, and then space exploration. The space services are companies largely around the debris management in space. I'm sure many of the listeners have seen the film Gravity. where small fragments of a broken space station cause absolute havoc. That's the number one question that our audience ask is about space debris and how hazardous it is and what can we do about it?

To answer that question, it isn't a problem today. Space is big. If you think about the Earth, 70% of the Earth is covered with sea, and on that sea we've got millions upon millions of boats all operating and not colliding with each other. too often. Each time you move another sort of 10 metres out, that's a whole new plane that effectively

covers all of the earth. As you go out in these planes, you know, the environment is absolutely huge. So what we really need to make sure that we do is now respectful of the space environment and not unnecessarily create more debris as

we're building out this network in the sky. You know, there's only ever been 18,000 satellites ever launched in history of space. Half of those were launched since 2020. So we're going through this very rapid growth of the number of active satellites in the space environment. So the regulators are quite rightly now focused on making sure that regulations are in place so that when a satellite reaches the end of its economic life, that it's down to the operator of that satellite to remove

that satellite. So there's a whole industry that has now grown in order to be able to provide the services that the regulators are saying are required so that these satellite operators abide by these rules and remove their satellites. So companies like Astroscale, which is one of our portfolio companies, is the market leader. They can not only remove satellites from space, they can go to a satellite that's run out of battery and they can then extend its battery life so that that satellite, that could have cost, you know, $500 million to a billion, that they can extend the life of that rather than the owner having to buy a new one.

How do you get an old rickety satellite out of orbit in, you know, out of the ecosystem? What you effectively do is you go and you grab hold of it with a sort of robotic arm. You then push it towards the Earth's atmosphere where it burns up and disintegrates. The other alternative is to effectively tow that satellite to a graveyard and leave all of the satellites that are not operational in one place. Satellite Graveyard and tow trucks pulling satellites, old rickety satellites into satellite graveyards is a fantastic idea. How many? Not an idea.

You know, this is what's happening right now. You know, astroscale IPO a year ago now, you know, this is a sort of multi-billion dollar market already. It's something that's essential if we're going to make sure that space continues to be a habitable commercial environment. So out of those 18,000-ish, you know, satellites that have been launched and are up there, what percentage of them have fallen into the rickety category and been kind of either pushed in the atmosphere or dragged to the graveyard, ish? Or need to be. There's about 10,000 operational satellites now. So it's about 8,000 that are, you know, not working and effectively just debris. Who funds the cleaning up of that stuff?

Is it, would the owner of the satellite go to this company you're talking about? And it's like you said, it's their responsibility. They have to fund it. What happens if they don't? Looking backwards is quite hard to, because the regulation didn't exist. And, you know, it's hard to hold anyone to account. At some point, we need to find a way to just go and clear up, you know, everything that's there already. What the regulation is really focused on now is stopping adding to that problem.

The regulation is moved and is moving. in the direction of that you won't get a license to launch unless you can prove one that you've got independent propulsion that in the event that your satellite is not working, that can independently provide the propulsion necessary to send it back towards the earth where it burns up in the atmosphere. And the other alternative is to have a contract with a company like Astroscale or D-Orbit where you've already paid to have this satellite remove when it either breaks down or reaches the end of its economic life. Or the third option is to have an insurance policy. And that insurance policy would then have a contract with a

company like Starfish or Astroscale to remove this satellite when it reaches the end of its economic life. But it might be a cheaper way of doing that. So the obligation of needing to do that is then pushed on the operator. And then, you know, effectively they then have to account for that. They have to, you know, provide the budget for it as part of their strategy. And the whole thing is done in a sustainable way. So this is really how regulation is really helping making all of the players be good actors in the space environment. And then there are companies like Leo Labs,

which is another one of our portfolio companies that uses ground-based radars that look up into space and they can see an object the size of a penny from a thousand kilometres away. And that penny is going around our planet at 17,500 miles an hour. And what they're able to do is identify all of that debris so that you can then use that data in real time for satellite operators to

avoid the collision with debris. It's used by the regulators to make sure that the satellite operators are removing their satellites as they're supposed to under the regulatory requirements. So in this year, we've seen the first year ever where a regulator has fined a space company for not removing its satellite when it said it was supposed to. So it gives the regulators teeth. It also gives information and data to the insurance companies so that they can better work out the risks around collision and the risks within the space environment.

Was the fine more than it would have cost to get the satellite out of the sky? Well, is it substantial fines? No, no, it wasn't. No, not in today's dollars. Like any new industry, the cost of, you know, the first move is very, very... high and then once that becomes routine, it really comes right down. So no, no, it wasn't.

Okay. Well, thank you, Mark. I think you've constructed a very good picture of what the investment of the space industry looks like. If we move the conversation on a little bit, geopolitically, the world is in a, at best, a state of transition, let's call it. How much of investment is defense-based? Is it already the dominant investment? Do you see a way of having a more humane, less defense-orientated investment strategy happening? What's the geopolitical situation versus investing in space looking like? It's changed very significantly this year. This year.

This year. You know, space investment is safe to say is now dominated by defence. But this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Defence has got significant budget that it wants to deploy in building capability in the space environment, arguably to make our world a safer place. And what that defence dollars are doing is that they're accelerating the technology roadmap of these companies faster than they would have gone naturally. And they're growing the constellations in size to get them towards being big enough to provide a real-time data set faster than the otherwise would have done. Now, the reason why that is good news.

And, you know, in my – so we've got currently two funds operational. or one of them's a public fund listed on the London stock market, that fund, the revenues of that fund are nearly 80% defense now. And it was nothing like that, you know, three or four years ago. But what I've just described is that defense is really driving the speed of the build-out of this digital infrastructure. But the real beneficiary of that is going to be the commercial markets. It's going to be the insurance, the real estate, the oil and gas.

because they are effectively going to be using this data in a myriad of different ways, and they're going to be able to access that data sooner at a lower cost than the otherwise would have done if it wasn't for the increasing defence spend. So right now, well, defence is sort of 70 or 80% of the revenue. During the course of the next five years, it will go back to being more like 20%, with 80% of this coming from commercial. I think there's a history, too, of things spinning out of, you know, defense-funded stuff. I mean, the Internet is obviously the simplest example of things there.

GPS. GPS. Rocket launches in the 60s. You can list all of the technologies as well from the PowerPoint pen, you know, through to Velcro and... Superglue. Yeah. I mean, the list just goes on and on and on.

Well, Mark, you've done a tremendous service to the listeners in creating just a tangible explanation of really what's happening today that investors can generate returns on within 10 years, because if you don't have that, you're not going to have progress. You're not going to get to the moonshots that we're all super excited about. I've got a couple of like more ethereal questions to kind of think about that that are always on my mind. So space is the exponentially more complex version of the Wild West. Who should create the rules of the road for space, for it to work for humanity? So during the heights of the Cold War, the US and Russia were cooperating in space. During the course of this year, American astronauts have gone to the International Space Station

on a Russian rocket with Russian satellites, with Russian astronauts. So space diplomacy is something that has sort of risen above earth-based geopolitics, and I believe that that is going to continue into the future. So I think that this is a really good message for your listeners to hear. The telecommunication, SACCOM industry, is governed by something called ITU, where effectively, when it was originally created, all of the countries got their spectrum directly above their country as their spectrum. And it was very fairly organized.

And to this day, you know, it continues with a everybody largely agreeing and operating to this set of rules, where they're, they are not putting up satellites that interfere with the spectrum of their neighbours so that they are sort of causing problems with their neighbours. So again, that's another great example of a commercial activity that's continued to work. And, you know, I believe that that sets some standards for what's going to happen as we go into the future. You know, another area that pretty much everyone's agreed on is around debris management and space traffic control and all of these. things because everyone recognizes if you get that wrong, you know, we're all going to suffer from it.

So I think that there are some really, it's still hard to do all of these things. And we could, we could talk about this subject, you know, for the rest of the day. But, you know, I'm really positive about the history of where we're coming from. And despite the horrible world that we live in at the moment, the very fact that, you know, astronauts are going to the International Space Station together, living together. this level of cooperation going on, I think that that stands as in good stead for the future. Wonderful. Well, I think the simplicity of the maybe three astronauts working with three other astronauts

brings everyone back to, hey, we're all made of the same stuff. We're all humans. Like, this is a bigger picture. Could I ask you a couple of one word questions first? And then we'll get into our follow-over questions. Hey, good job. Yes or no. Should we be having any conversations about terraforming Mars?

No. Who's your favorite science fiction writer? Al Thercy Clark. Best science fiction movie out there that best captures the essence of space exploration. Interstellar. Do kids today still look up with the same awe and wonder that you did and we did? More than ever. You know, it's more accessible.

They watch SpaceX launches. Spaces become more accessible to everybody. And children are so excited about it. That was supposed to be a yes or no. Apologies. That's brilliant. That's exactly what I wanted to hear. We had a guest on Sanjay Vigendron. He was the lead of Solaris for the European Space Agency. He left a question, which we've been keeping for the right person.

And I think that right person is you. His question was, what's the best reason to go to the moon? The best reason to go to the moon is to enable us to use it as a stepping stone for going somewhere else. So you've got to on the moon create a habitat and an environment that we can live in, create all of the features that are required for us to successfully live off planet. So we can effectively use the moon as a training ground to get it all right much closer to home. And then when we've got that working, then it's time to move on to somewhere else. So there's been a lot of debate whether the moon has the resources,

the assets that we need to build the things we need to on the moon to make it, make it a stepping stone. Do you believe that the moon has resources, the things that we need to build and make it successful up there? Yeah, I do. Provided that, you know, we're not expecting too much from it. You know, it'd be horrible to see the moon with, you know, huge chunks taken out of it. But no, you know, I believe that it has.

But it's also just, it changes the game for being able to launch. you know, because of the lack of gravity, you know, you don't require the same amount of thrust. So moving elsewhere from the moon, I think, is of a different order. And we've got to, you know, find ways of being able to produce all of the material and all of the equipment that we need in space by using materials that we can lay our hands on. So the moon is going to sort of help us work out how to use regolith, which is soil on the moon, how we can sort of put that into a 3D printer and out of the other end pops, you know, solar

or, you know, any other type of material that we might need. So this is why, you know, it's a training ground. I think it should be treated as a training ground. You know, I'd hate to see, you know, the moon effectively being terraformed and, you know, really, really, you know, ending up looking like Earth. I don't think that's the name of the game. I think it's a training ground for us to do. do something, go somewhere a little bit further. A lab, a sandbox. I love that idea.

The final question from the famous Kevin Kelly, he left a question that we now ask all our guests at the end of the show. What should humans be and how does technology help us get there? Humans should be a steward of the earth. And from a space perspective, this is about effectively using space to help us be a good steward of the earth by safeguarding Earth's ecosystems. It's biodiversity, it's climate. So using technology to help us repair and regenerate the stuff that we've harmed. So things like carbon capture, environmental monitoring from space. These type of things I think are going to help us address the big problems like deforestation, melting ice, wildfires, you know, the heating of the ocean.

All of these things, I believe we're going to be able to be better stewards of by using the technology that develops from space. But that's only part one of my answer. I've got three parts. The second part is about using the stewardship beyond Earth into space. So we've already talked about it in our discussion earlier. It's about preventing the pollution in space. We've made a terrible job of our own planet, and particularly, you know, the oceans.

You know, we've just treated them like a dumping ground, and we can't do that in space, particularly the small part of space that surrounds, our Earth, which is, you know, very, very fragile and precious. We could actually fill that with so much junk that we can't actually get off the planet anymore. So it's about us being a steward for next generations who might need to escape the planet and we need to make sure that we are preserving that. And then this third one is a little bit more contentious, but I believe in it, which is about being a steward of

the earth around defence and using technology for security. and restraint rather than it being about domination and control. I think we can use the technology from space and the monitoring to ensure that we've got equity and justice. And we've got a record of what's going on. We've got a record of who the bad actors are and we can use that to hold them to account. So I really believe that space is a force for good and it enables us as stewards of the earth to do good things.

I think technology is going to be a real and enable of that. Wonderful. Wonderful. Very thoughtful answer that I will continue to unpack as it settles into my brain. That's great. What about a question for our next guest on any topic you desire? Yeah. So this thing always puzzles me, and I'd like to work out how to sort of put it into a question.

But one of the things around technology that never ceases to amaze me was that we had Concord. We could fly from New York to London in a couple of hours. And everybody did regularly. And then we pulled them the technology, you know, out of everyday use. And 20 or 30 years later, we still haven't replaced it. So my question is, are there any other examples of technologies where we have actually developed a technology that's been practically used where we've then actually gone backwards and gone and gone back to the situation before?

We could turn that into a little thinking on paper study. That could be fun. Yeah. Yeah. It's a brilliant question. I want to be able to get to New York in two hours. It's the reason for my question.