[MUSIC] The space industry is no stranger to making history. In fact, over the last few years, the impact of all their historical missions have almost been lost due to the sheer number of events, like the first commercial human transport mission to the ISS, the first commercial orbital mission, the first commercial company to land on the moon. And now we're closing in on the first commercial mission to an asteroid. Deep Space, here we come. [MUSIC] T-minus, 20 seconds to L-O-I, we're in for a report. [MUSIC] Today is October 28th, 2024. I'm Maria Vermazes, and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] The FCC approves a deep space mission license for AstroForge. All NASA SpaceX crew eight members are now in Houston. SpaceX launches a fourth NRO mission. And our guest today is Bryce Kennedy, executive director of the Space Valley Foundation. Bryce will be giving us an update on his new role and how he's working to build a bridge between space and the humanities in New Mexico. [MUSIC] Happy Monday, everybody. We're kicking off with a met milestone for the first commercial mission to an asteroid in deep space. AstroForge has become the first company to receive a license from the Federal Communications Commission to operate a commercial mission in deep space. The authorization gives AstroForge approval for the flight and the green light to establish communication networks with ground partners that will enable near real-time data transmission and operational oversight as the company's Oden spacecraft travels deep into the solar system. AstroForge says this approval for the Oden spacecraft marks a significant leap forward for the future of deep space commercial activities and resource extraction. Adding, the approval of this license is not just a step forward for us. It's a step forward for humanity's future in space. AstroForge is in final preparations for their second mission, which is set to launch later this year aboard Intuitive Machines' IM2 lunar mission. Oden's role is to gather critical imagery of the target asteroid, preparing the way for the company's third mission called Vestri, which will aim to land on the asteroid and then begin extraction. Very cool. And we finished our podcast last week on Friday with a bit of a cliffhanger after news broke that a member of the NASA SpaceX crew 8 team had been hospitalized after their return to Earth early on Friday. The four-person crew were all transferred to the hospital after splashing down off the coast of Florida after nearly eight months on the International Space Station. One unnamed crew member remained under observation overnight, but was later discharged, returning to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston on Saturday. NASA says the crew member is in good health and will resume normal post-flight reconditioning with other crew members. The US Space Agency has not disclosed details about why the crew were taken to the hospital or why a member was kept in for longer observation. NASA says specific details on the individual's condition and identity will not be shared to protect the crew member's medical privacy. The National Reconnaissance Office, in partnership with the US Space Force, Space Launch Delta 30 and SpaceX, successfully launched the NRL-167 mission, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket last week. It was SpaceX's fourth mission for the National Reconnaissance Office this year. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, carrying classified Star Shield satellites. The NRL-167 mission added an unspecified number of satellites to the growing constellation. Chile has become the 47th country to sign on to the NASA-led Artemis Accords. NASA welcomed Chile to the cooperation agreement at a ceremony in Washington, DC on Friday. Chile is now the 7th South American country to commit to the agreement, which outlines responsible exploration of space for all humanity. And speaking of Artemis, we've got some Artemis updates for you now. A team at NASA's Stennis Space Center has completed a safe lift and installation of the interstage simulator component. The part is needed for future testing of NASA's exploration upper stage in the B2 position of the Thad Cochrane test stand. The component will function like the SLS interstage section that helps protect the upper stage during Artemis launches. And NASA has identified an updated set of nine potential landing regions near the lunar south pole for the Artemis 3 mission. NASA says it will continue to survey potential areas for missions following Artemis 3, including areas beyond these nine regions. Moving on from Artemis, AST Space Mobile has successfully deployed its first five commercial satellites, Bluebirds 1-5. The spacecraft unfolded in orbit ahead of schedule six weeks after the launch of the spacecraft. The Bluebirds are now preparing for commercial and U.S. government operations. Oman hosted a delegation from the United States last week to discuss partnerships in space. The country's Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology invited a delegation from the United States, which included representatives from organizations including NASA and commercial companies like SpaceX, Planet, Maxar and others. The visit aimed to strengthen Omani American ties in the space industry and involved discussions between the American delegation and various Omani government agencies and private companies that are active in the space field. And this rumor mail has been going around, you might have heard it, could Boeing be selling its space business? Those rumors started late last week that the new CEO of Boeing, Kelly Ortberg, is looking to streamline the company and cut its financial losses. The space side of the business has been hit with huge financial losses in the last few years, mainly thanks to setbacks with the Starliner program, as you might imagine. Ortberg told investors and I quote that "we are better off doing less and doing it better than doing more and not doing it well." Boeing has reportedly held discussions with Blue Origin about taking over some of the Boeing-led NASA programs. And we've included an opinion piece from Bloomberg on the possible Boeing sale in our show notes, along with a video update from the Chianggong Space Station. You'll find links to those stories and more in the selected reading section of our show notes. Hey T-minus crew, if you would like daily updates from us directly in your LinkedIn feed, be sure to follow the official N2K T-minus page over on LinkedIn. And if you're more interested in the lighter side of what we do here, we are @t-daily over on Instagram. And that's where we post videos and pictures from events, excursions, and even some behind-the-scenes treats. Links are in the show notes as always. Hope you'll join us there on social media. [Music] Our guest today is friend of the show Bryce Kennedy. And we met Bryce back when he was at the Association of Commercial Space Professionals, which he is still involved in by the way, but he's now taken on the role as Executive Director of the Space Valley Foundation, which is a nonprofit organization in New Mexico that's looking to bridge the gap between space and the humanities. So here's Bryce on why this is happening in New Mexico. New Mexico has these amazing assets. I mean, we have white sands, missile range, we have the spaceport America, we have AFRL in our backyard, Kirl in their force base. We have all these incredible things. We have Oppenheimer, Los Alamos, Sandia, insane, insane, insane assets. But, you know, we're two million people in this state. And we're also a lot of time people come up to me, they're like, well, I'm not STEM. I'm not this, you know, I can't be an astronaut or I don't want to be an astronaut. How else can I participate in space? And that's when we started peeling back the beauty of New Mexico. And we realized, wow, we have this, we have, New Mexico for some reason has like really birthed itself in the space ecosystem without knowing it. So we have Roswell, we have the aliens, we have the Bistite Badlands, alien eggs. We have five dark sky sanctuaries. We have the Santa Fe Opera, it's open air and they came up to us and like, we're part of Space Valley. Like, how would you be part of Space Valley? Like, we're open air, we're under the stars, you know, half of our operas are about the gods and humans mixing together. And we're like, wow, this is amazing. The narrative is being painted for us. And so that's where we really, we really decided to say, OK, cool, what if we branded New Mexico as Space Valley, two words, in this container, like Silicon Valley, and then brought in traditional economic development, like you would see in traditional aerospace workforce development, you know, K through 12 types of stuff from our partners, and then also merged the arts, the humanities and tourism under this umbrella. So there's now speaking to each other for the first time ever. And we're creating a blueprint and becoming the front door that anyone comes to space. They're not only learning about the economic development aspects, but they're also looking about how they can live here, how they can be part of it and speak to, you know, the more personal side of it. And so it's never been done before. It's a very audacious, especially to brand an entire state. But it's already part of the ecosystem. I mean, we have celestial creation stories. We're looking at petroglyphs from Native Americans thousands of years back that are already mapping out the stars and talking about the solstices. It's embedded into who we are. There are so many businesses I've spoken to that are based in New Mexico. It's quite amazing. And I know it's not just because Alice is based there. It just it really does. It does work out that way where there's just a lot of startups and in more established companies too that where New Mexico just makes a lot of sense for them. Can you walk me through what that might be like? How maybe they would work with you all? How they would interface with maybe interfaces more the right for it. But yeah, to walk me through that. So as we're building out our program and we have three main functions right now that we're looking at, we're creating a large language model as the central focus of what Space Valley does. I think we have three or four hundred different data points from companies, from festivals, from unique sites, from all these different areas. So when they come, they'll be able to access this LLM at the front of our website, spacevalley.org. And get a holistic view of exactly where they can plug in, which has never really been done before. So wow. OK. That is yeah. And it's from who do I need to contact that UNM who's working on propulsion systems and blah, blah, blah, blah. And where can I also find, you know, Alien Dogbone Company that sells the Amazon of Walmart, which exists and is a real thing. So there's that. And where do I go camping in Chaco Canyon and how do I do that so my family can, you know, I'm an astrophotographer. All of that exists in the first time in a cohesive unit that we're launching very soon. So the whole basis of Space Valley is that we're not trying to recreate anything that exists. We're just pulling all the assets together so that we can point them in the right direction. So there's that. The second part is we're doing promotional partnerships. So with the Space Valley branding, the more and more people come to us, which is happening a lot. And they're asking, how do I partner with you guys to a, get visibility on this massive LLM or on the front of your website? Because, you know, we're making this play to be the front door to space. And so immediately they can they can have access to that either to look for it or to start branding themselves. I had a real estate guy come up to me once. He's like, I want to be part of Space Valley. He's like, if you do your job right, I will be the Space Valley real estate realtor. And it is beautiful. It's just how this synchronistically works. And then the last part is, is we're we're now also pulling again, all the assets of New Mexico together and making a play for our version of the South by Southwest. And that's that's going to launch in June. And so again, these are three major touchpoints that companies or people can start coming to that wouldn't normally have access. And that's that's that's the biggest selling point to me in New Mexico. I wish I could talk about the tax breaks or whatever. And those are important. But the access to me supersedes any tax incentive, any traditional economic plan that you would go to another state, because everyone understands space here. Everyone gets it again, from aliens to astronauts to the DOD to to start up culture, whatever it is. You can within I found within 48 to 72 hours be put in touch with a person that has the authority to help move you along faster than if you even got that opportunity in another state, which could take months. Yeah, yeah. That access is invaluable. And that's New Mexico. Because two million people and everyone are working, you know, they're really working for the the betterment of the of the state and humanity at large, I believe. I would love for you to tell me a bit more about sort of the the the arts and culture side of things they care too, because that's a really interesting component to what you all are building. And I mean, before I was I mean, I've always been a space nerd. But before I really knew so much as I do now about the business of space in New Mexico. I mean, I knew of New Mexico as a place for great stargazing. And that that was my that that's what I had done. I had gone to Rock City near Silver City and done a lot of stargazing out that way. It's just absolutely gorgeous. So tell me about how you're sort of weaving that in. I mean, because that is a smart thing to be doing. So we're we're working on subcommittees right now or committees that are subcommittees under that. And the again, we really believe it. If you're going to do since space is such a massive, massive lift to get there to do it to be economically successful, we can't leave out the parts that be that really created the wonder, the odd, the curiosity of space and people to begin with, which is which is just it's funny how the two have never really spoken to any other. And yet, you know, when they set up the National Space Council, they invited sci fi writers to speak to see what was possible before they brought in the scientists and the engineers. It's just it's it's funny how we forget that. And like, and so one of the things that we have like axis rising, it's this 11 story observatory in the middle of Mexico, we have the Bestie Badlands. Like I said, that they have this rare rock formation that we call alien eggs. We have a UFO networking community. There's astronomy clubs here. Like I said, the Sky Sanctuaries, it's pretty wild. What's here? We have a great organization called STEM Arts Lab that is run by Agnes Chavez. And she merges art and data that comes from NASA and other resources from around the world and merges that. So kids are actually they are learning STEM, but now it's STEAM, which I really appreciate. But she does it in a way that is creating pathways for students that they can launch into other careers. And so again, it's about merging, merging, merging instead of denying these things exist. You know, we were talking to when we put up our event on the 18th, it turns out our AV guy comes up. He's like, I want you to know I'm a closet space nerd. And I was like, oh, man, why do you need to be a closet? You know, the $7,000 lightsaber. He's a Trekkie. He goes to these things and he's talking to me about quantum entanglement. I'm not even joking. I'm like, I've tried to get this event launched. He's like, I've even heard of quantum entanglement. I was like, oh, my God, amazing. I love it. But I need to blow up these balloons, too. So and so what we're looking at is if we if we make this play right and we're we what we're what we're playing on doing is is bringing in organizations, their needs, their business plans, going after mega grants with like, hey, here is our economic plan. We have inserted all the different organizations created this this this unified blueprint. Let's go after really, really large grants and that includes the arts, you know, the culture, all this other stuff. So now we can start funding the artists so that they can they can benefit just as a startup doing incredible tech can get funded as well. We believe that the two should be equally as important. And yeah, and we can start providing resources for them. Yeah, so that that's that's the way that we're looking at that as well as having these committees that include arts and culture that are, like I said, on par with the scientists and engineering. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Calling all citizen scientists and fans of fall. NASA needs your help. The US Space Agency's global learning and observations to benefit the environment program, also known as globe is calling on volunteers of all ages to help students and citizen scientists document seasonal change through leaf color and land cover. The data collection event will support students across North America, Latin America, Central America and Europe, who are all working together to document the seasonal changes taking place from September through December. Green down is the seasonal change when leaves change from green to brown and then fall to the ground. NASA is looking for volunteers for green down data collection. If you want to take part, all you need to do is take regular daily photos of trees to document the transition in color. I've been doing that already without even knowing it. Regular observations of land cover and tree height capture the broader changes happening around the tree. And by gathering this data, you can provide important information about when a single tree changes ahead of or behind others in your region. When this data is paired with satellite observations, researchers gain a much stronger picture of how seasonal and climate variations impact the life cycles of plants and animals. So get outside and spend some time in nature and you can help scientists in the process. [Music] That's it for T-Mine is for October 28th, 2024, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes at space.n2k.com. And we'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like the show, please share a rating and short review in your favorite podcast app. Also, please fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to space@n2k.com. We're privileged that N2K Cyberwire is part of the daily routine 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, N2K makes it easy for companies to optimize your biggest investment, your people. We make you smarter about your teams while making your teams smarter. Learn how at n2k.com. 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 Kilpie is our publisher. And I am your host, Maria Varmausus. Thanks for listening. We will see you tomorrow. . T-minus. T-minus. [BLANK_AUDIO]
