Who you gonna call? SpaceX Debris Hotline!

[MUSIC] The fate of the International Space Station once its mission is up seems pretty set in stone now, what with NASA hiring SpaceX to eventually deorbit the station. If that idea is heartbreaking to you, you are not alone. No matter what though, the ISS is on its last legs. In come 2030, there need to be alternative stations if nations and companies still want to access orbiting labs in space. And that's why Russia has said, yeah, they're gonna make a space station all of their own. [MUSIC] Today is July 2nd, 2024, I'm Maria Varmasas and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] Firefly's noise of summer to try again. New spaceport territories in Florida, Russia's got its own space station plans. And our guest today is anthropologist Savannah Mandel. She has a new book coming out called Ground Control, an argument for the end of human space exploration. We had a fascinating conversation about her book and I really appreciated her point of view. I think you will too, definitely listen in the second half of the show. [MUSIC] It is Tuesday everybody, let's get into it. Yesterday's Firefly Aerospace's noise of summer, Alpha Flight 5, had a scrub. Due to a ground support issue at just T-minus eight seconds, stings when that happens. But the flight window opens up again tonight at 9 o'clock 3 PM Pacific time. The noise of summer mission is part of Firefly's Venture Class Launch Services Demo 2 contract with NASA, which has the goal of validating the capabilities of launch vehicles that support a new launch class and provide more access to space for small satellites and spacecraft. In the case of noise of summer specifically, there are eight CubeSats with a total of 43 payloads, all from nonprofits and educational institutions that will be conducting scientific research and tech demos in space and supported by NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative. Some new spaceport territories have now been made official in Florida. Homestead Air Reserve Base in South Florida and Tindall Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle are now official state spaceport territories, thanks to a bill signed into law on Monday by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Space Florida CEO Rob Long spoke to Florida's Channel 9 about this news, saying that these new territories give more companies room to grow in Florida, adding that Florida is a quote, "significant portion if not the global leader of launches worldwide." That gives us the advantage in terms of leading not only in space transportation, but in the aerospace industry at large. Brush's Roscosmos is publicly announcing their plans to move forward with a space station of their own as the ISS phases out. Going as far to say they'll even launch the four module core of their new space station just in time for the ISS to go to Las Vedanas in 2030. Roscosmos's Yuri Borisov earlier today said that the timeline is to launch an initial scientific and energy module in 2027, with three more modules by 2030, and then an additional two modules by 2033. So that's three years to get that initial module made and launched. No sweat, right? Meanwhile, if you feel strongly that someone, anyone, should please try to save the ISS and not eat it into point Nemo, you are not alone by a long shot. Definitely check out the opinion piece in Space News that we've linked for you in the show notes, which argues that we should try to find some way to preserve the ISS in perpetuity. I SAM startup, Tyrion Space, have announced a new $1.9 million US Space Force TACFI contract in partnership with Spaceworks. The funding will go towards supporting the development and in-flight demo of Tyrion's biomemetic system for autonomous on orbit capture. And speaking of space startups, gas stations in space orbit fab says it has delivered its very first grip refueling nozzle after successfully finishing its hardware testing. After putting the grip in space refueling nozzle through its paces in simulations at AFRL's Kirtland facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Orbit Fab says it delivered its first grip hardware, along with a few rafty refueling port units in advance of refueling missions that will be using both hardware components, including the Space Force's Tetra 5 refueling mission in geosynchronous orbit. Daniel Faber, orbit fab CEO, said, "These successful performance tests of our grip active in-space nozzle and automated docking device mark a major accomplishment and milestone for our customers' upcoming missions. The overall space economy is able to use grip and rafty refueling interfaces to redefine dynamic space operations." German startup Aurora Tech won a 20 million euro contract from Greece's Ministry of Digital Governance to build out a thermal satellite early warning system for wildfires. The contract for Greece's national wildfire system includes immediate data access from Aurora Tech's existing two thermal satellites with AI-powered analytics to automatically detect wildfire signs and predict their spread. Aurora Tech will be building out four dedicated thermal satellites and their ground stations and data processing capabilities dedicated to monitoring all of Greece with this satellite-based wildfire defense system directly connecting to Greek emergency services and Greek educational institutions to make firefighting on the ground more effective. This contract makes Greece the first country in the world to have a national satellite-based wildfire detection system. Greek minister of digital governance Dimitri Pupesteru said, "By investing specifically into orbital technology, we are making a real difference in monitoring wildfires that threaten human lives, our ecosystems, and our economy." Druba Space and Kineis have announced a strategic partnership to provide space-based IoT connectivity in India. This collaboration includes launching a Kineis IoT payload on Druba Space's P30 satellite, enhancing low-data rate satellite IoT applications in the Indian market. The partnership aims to offer cost-effective and advanced IoT solutions while developing new applications supported by Kineis' 25 satellite constellation, otherwise known as that mission with the best name ever, no time to lose. This is yet another data point showing the growing collaboration between Indian and French space companies. Druba and Kineis expect full-scale commercial service by early 2025. Germany-based Vyoma was awarded two European Defense Fund contracts for two space domain awareness projects, which are both slated to start in 2025. The Emissary and Stallion projects that Vyoma will be working on are to augment European intelligence sovereignty and enhance threat response capabilities. Emissary will develop a network of sensors linked to a European Space Command and Control Center, providing a unified picture of space threats. Vyoma will focus on the scheduling module for space-based sensors. And this Emissary project, led by Leonardo, happens to be a 100 million euro project involving over 40 partners from 13 EU countries. And as for the second project, Stallion, it is led by Nirjana Technologies with a 6 million euro budget, and it will design a system to protect European assets from Leo to Geo threats, with Vyoma developing the Leo space segment and detection software. And a quick wave hello to the ITU, which is today kicking off GSU-24, or Global Symposium for Regulators, which is being held this week in Kampala, Uganda. That's our Intel briefing for today. We have some extra reading for you in the show notes, if you feel like it, if you want to check them out, including that opinion piece that I mentioned earlier in the show about possibly not be orbiting the ISS. Pretty pleased with the cherry on top. Hey, T-Minus Crew, if you are just joining us, welcome. Be sure to follow T-Minus Space Daily in your favorite podcast app. Also, if you could do us a favor before the July 4th holiday, share the Intel with your friends and coworkers. Here's a little challenge for you. By Friday, if you're in the office, please show three friends or coworkers this podcast, maybe you can show it to them over a barbecue. A growing audience is the most important thing for us, and we would really love your help as part of the T-Minus Crew. So if you find T-Minus useful, and I say it every time, but you really hope that you do, please share the show so other professionals like you can find it and join the T-Minus Crew. Thank you so much for your support, everybody. It means a lot to me and all of us here at T-Minus. [MUSIC] Today's guest is Savannah Mandel, who is an author and an anthropologist, and she has a new book coming out called Ground Control, an argument for the end of human space exploration. Yes, we are talking about space skepticism in today's show, especially regarding human space exploration at this moment in time. And if you feel a visceral disagreement coming on based on what I've already said, I especially hope you'll listen in to Savannah's conversation with me today. First, I started by asking her to tell me how she got interested in space as an anthropologist. When I was much younger and undergrowed, I remember I went to a professor, you know, is it possible to even research space as an anthropologist? And she said no, but to give her a credit, she wasn't between being an archaeologist, she didn't know that this research existed. And it's a very small body of anthropologists who are doing this work, there's like two dozen people out there who are doing it. And then when I ended up in the UK, did a master's degree, by sheer coincidence, there were three anthropologists there doing work on space who ended up being a big research grant, I'm very left to do work with the ISS. And so I was in the right place at the right time. And they helped me find my field site at Spacesport America or the Master's degree research. And it was tough to find the field site. I had to send out a lot of emails and cold calls. But Spacesport America was really amicable to the ITF. And I went out there and I conducted research and some there, it really snowballed. I kind of nose dived into Spacesport and loved working in technical fields as a cultural scientist. I love getting to merge the two together. And so that's how it started. I find that just so fascinating. I only took a few anthropology courses in college and I'm just like, it is such a cool area of study. I'd love to know your very high level of view. Like when you're observing the sort of, I don't know, the subculture that is what's going on in space or the different things that are happening in the Spacesport, how do you, when you're at a party and people are asking you, like, what do you study? What have you learned? Like, what do you tell them? What I've learned is for one that, you know, the motivations behind interest in space exploration are sometimes really different than like the reasons for technical development. So for example, something from my current research on space mining, I've been talking to a lot of interview subjects on the topic. And it's like, I've made this list, right? Of things I've learned from them. This sort of a highlight list for myself. And it was funny because like one of the top things I put on the list was most people who have worked in space mining or did in the past don't think space mining is feasible in the near future. Yeah. Well, in the near future. But the second thing I learned from them is that they think it absolutely should happen. And so you have this huge contradiction, which has a lot to do with beliefs and values surrounding space exploration. Yeah. And I don't want to list is about technical feasibility and economic viability. And I don't know on that list is about social and cultural cosmology. So that's kind of like how I am interacting and working into space. You have written a book and it's coming out really soon. And I don't want to spoil the title because I think it's really fascinating. So can you give me the titles of your book? Yeah, the title, which my publisher chose, not me. I'd like to. Yeah. Robin is ground control and argument for the end of human space exploration. And it is exactly that. The title is accurate. The book is slightly based on research at Space for America. It is a little based on my work in space policy, but it is also for some formats, the coming of age story of an anthropologist working in STEM, not making that and what that looks like. And it's my personal journey and political commentary as well on, you know, how I went from being a hardcore believer in human space exploration and human space flight as opposed to unmanned to someone who through their research became increasingly aware of like flaws in the system and realized him maybe now is not the time to send humans to outer space. And maybe instead we should be doing earthly issues and post-cloning human space flight. And that's what this book aren't used. And it shows how I got to that perspective as a person. That's fascinating. And honestly, kudos to you for speaking to a space podcast, because I know, you know that some people here are going to go, oh, and I it's important that we explore all these points of view, honestly. So I'm not coming at you in that way at all. I think it's really important to understand because, you know, we're all living on this planet. We all have different points of view. So I'd love to know a bit about that journey. I mean, maybe a basket summarize the book, which is not fair. I would love to know just a bit about sort of how you arrived at where you got to and for the record, many other people share your point of view who also work in the space industry. So yeah, walk me through it. First off, I should say, like, you know, when people get upset about what I work and I totally understand it, because space is a topic that is close to heart for so many of us. You know, we grew up looking at the stars as children. My mom used to wake me up in the middle of the night to go watch me or showers. So I understand like how personal and like how emotional this topic is for so many human beings and how close it's been to us for our entire species lifetime. Um, for me, when I started doing work at Space for America, I love space. You know, I was not a space skeptic at all. I was curious about it in the way and all just as curious about most things. And I think I went out there and was surprised by some things. I started to be surprised about the little things I saw, how your kind of processes involved in the space for, um, that I felt like as I was taking notes, I started to see that things didn't add up. Like two plus two did not always keep cool or, or sometimes I've been told like you're on my dance equals two, that she's two plus three. What I mean by that is, you know, in one side of my notes, I would have like a list of the slenderies that were going to go on verge eclectic flights and how all these flights were going to be equate to progress for humanity and progress for New Mexico and progress for the human future. But in the other side of my notes, I would have poverty statistics for the region. I would have statistics about protests for other regions surrounding space sports. And I was like, how, how do these relate? Like how do these I on? At that point in time, not to my research, I, I didn't know. I didn't have the answers. I didn't have the answers when I came back to write my dissertation. So if you read that online, you're going to see an early version of ground control because I didn't, I wasn't thinking that way. Yeah. But when I ended up going to work in space policy in DC, I was exposed more and more to the colonial rhetoric, the territorial rhetoric, the imperial rhetoric that was still in the system in space industry, and especially the militaristic rhetoric, because at the time that I was in BC, the space force was being created. Yeah. And I was going to space hearings and seeing like the hearing in Congress, where the space force was being discussed. And I started to think, I was like, is this really how America's talking about space? Is this how we're talking about our space competitors? Is this the language that is being used? I have several chapters on this where I kind of go in depth about all of that. And I just started feeling like I was in this Orwellian novel where I was like, is there something wrong here? Is there a reason why we're not questioning how we're talking about space? What are our motivations for going to space are? Because that was the thing that messaged me is it just didn't feel right while you were going to space or when we were going to space for what we were doing in space. And I also had this great issue with who was in the conversations about space, who are getting a voice on this conversation about space, who was not. You know, we're the people of trigger consequences getting an essay and who was going on the flights and how often they were going to be flights. And expanding that basically idea to all of human space flight. And I was concerned. I was just concerned and I started looking into that more and more and the more I looked into it, the more I saw sort of cracks overall. And it was tough to think about it in that way because it feels very taboo. I think to talk about it bad about outer space or should think negatively about human space exploration because from a very young age, we are told that human space exploration is humanity's next stage. Instead of being told from a young age that restoration or maintenance of human or is humanity's future. And it's just a narrative we are taught of Americans as Westerners. Yep. And as humans might say, I really do think it's a Western American narrative truly. So that was a major part of the journey. Yeah. And I really dug into that as I began to write ground control. Thank you for sharing that. You've put your finger on the pulse of I think a lot of unsaid questions that I've often heard. And as I said, I'm you know, many people who listen to this show are obviously big boosters of space. But I think what you're saying relates to a question. A lot of the big space boosters have space fans, for lack of a better word about why is it that a lot of people just don't care. And I think what a lot of the points that you brought out are sort of the underlying questions that a lot of people have. And I'm taking a bit of an opposition point of view, but for folks you do want to see space succeed, they need to have some answers to these questions. We have to actually examine these questions and have some real answers and not just give it lip service. Otherwise, you know, if the industry is going to continue to grow, these are very valid questions that people have. Like your questions are very, very important. Well, I think it was strange for me because, you know, there's this real demographic difference that I was faced with pretty consistently when you were working in the space industry. It is a very elite industry. It's a bit of a class, white males with a lot of opportunities. And, you know, I would go home as an intern and work a bartending job where it's like my fellow bartenders didn't want to talk about space. It's not that they weren't educated enough to do so it was because like they weren't trying to pay their bills and get like health insurance. You know, and I've been kind of faced with that demographic my whole life and interacting with that demographic. My whole life since I was a teenager and I think about like where do those individuals sit in conversations about space industry? They sit in a population that is left behind. And that's a hard part to swallow. And I guess I wrote that book for them, that book for them, you know. I come at this question again. I'm not trying to sound oppositional. I grew up in a family where my family was not America. I'm a first generation American and it was just like, well, space is American propaganda. That and that's actually what I still hear pretty much predominantly in my family. And that point of view is very pervasive and it's not even not wrong either. So it's there's a lot to that. And I think these examinations are just so important. Even for people who disagree with your thesis, I think it's really important that we understand and understand who's not being, as you said, part of the conversation and also, you know, I mean, everything you're saying, I was like nodding my head because I'm just like, yeah, these are your explaining things and and couching a lot of these questions that I've heard sort of half set or unset for a long time. And you really put your finger on it because, you know, these are very valid and points. Yeah, I think I think one of the thing I want the readers who are in the opposing side to keep in mind too is that the book doesn't think we should never send humans to space. It just kind of argues that now is not the time to and that we should focus efforts on unmanned exploration, which is less expensive, less dangerous until Earth gets to a point of what I was working on stability. And I go into, again, more detail about that. But it's about, you know, dealing with issues like scarcity and climate change before prioritizing things that I feel like our little circle is like space tourism, which is not so much about accomplishing things as much science with things there. So that's something that the book argues. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Picture it. You're on a strenuous but rewarding hike in a remote mountain range. Birds are singing. The wind is rustling through the trees, not a soul on the trail, but you for hours, no sign of humans as far as the eye can see, just you and good old mother nature. Ah, and then just up ahead and a clearing on the trail. What's that? You see a smoking chunk of something very, very mechanical looking. You get closer and it confirms your greatest fear. It's space trash and you have a sneaking feeling. It's Elon's. Don't you just hate it when that happens? Now what do you do? Well, don't panic. Just grab your phone and add this to your contacts. One eight six six six two three zero two three four. That is the official SpaceX space debris hotline. Yes, I pledge to you that that is a real thing and I am not pranking you. Now, I don't want you all rushing out to call that number all at once to hear what it says. We here at T minus did that heavy lifting for you. Here is what you hear if you call. Thank you for calling the SpaceX debris hotline. If you believe you have identified a piece of debris, please do not attempt to handle or retrieve the debris directly. Instead, please either email recovery@spacex.com or leave a voicemail here with your name, number and a brief description of what you have discovered and where. Teams are actively monitoring both message boxes and will ensure the notification is handled appropriately. We are not able to respond to every message received, but our team will reach out as needed. If you have concerns about an immediate hazard, please contact your local law enforcement agency. Thank you. Your assistance is greatly appreciated. Record your message at the tone. When you are finished, hang up or press pound for more options. I did not leave a message. That email may be also for your contact list, by the way, as mentioned in the voicemail is recovery@spacex.com. After all, you really never know when you might encounter some space debris in a farm field in the mountains while on a hike. Just hopefully not going straight through your house. That is it for T-minus for July 2nd, 2024, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes at space.n2k.com. We are privileged that N2K and podcasts like T-minus are part of the daily routine of many of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector. From the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies. This episode was produced by Alice Carruth, our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester, with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iben. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Petrella is our president. Peter Kilpey is our publisher. And I'm your host, Maria Varmasas. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. [ Music ] T-minus. [ Background Sounds ] [BLANK_AUDIO]