Today is January 21st, 2025. I'm Maria Varmazis and this is T-minus. Redwire has signed a definitive agreement to acquire UAS provider Edge Autonomy, Axiom Space and the Turkish Space Agency have signed an agreement to explore and identify potential supply chain opportunities for the Turkish space industry ecosystem. China launches its first commercial rocket of 2025. Taikonauts on the Tiangong Space Station conducted the world's first in-orbit demonstration of artificial photosynthesis technology, producing oxygen as well as the ingredients necessary for rocket fuel. U.S. President Trump takes office, allowing to pursue our manifest destiny into the stars and aims to plant a U.S. flag on Mars. And today's guest is Daniel Fox, founder of The Future of Space. Daniel has just returned from the space to sea Antarctica adventure, along with space legends such as former NASA astronauts Charlie Duke and Jose Hernandez, as well as astrophysicists Neil deGrasse Tyson and many, many more. And we'll be sharing what the experience was like with us later in the show. Happy Tuesday everybody and unless you've been living under a rock for the last few months, you'll know that yesterday marked the first day in office for the new U.S. administration. Donald Trump has resumed his previously held role as President of the United States and ushered in a new era of U.S. leadership with space front and center of his planned objectives. The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons. And we will pursue our manifest destiny into the stars launching American astronauts to plant the stars and stripes on the planet Mars. Yes, the 47th president of the U.S. who has a very close relationship with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is looking to Mars. Trump said Americans are explorers, builders, innovators, entrepreneurs and pioneers. The spirit of the frontier is written into our hearts. The call of the next great adventure resounds from within our souls. Musk was in attendance at the inauguration and cheered along with the crowd when Trump spoke of his ambition. Unsurprisingly, Trump's speech bolstered space stocks, which we're climbing earlier today, intuitive machines, rocket lab, AST space, mobile and red wire were all trading up following yesterday's inauguration and a sign that space may once again be on the up under the new administration. Taikonauts on the Tiangong Space Station have conducted the world's first in-orbit demonstration of artificial photosynthesis technology. The aim of the research was to produce oxygen as well as the ingredients necessary for rocket fuel. China Man's Space says the Taikonauts used semiconductor catalysts to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen while producing ethylene, a hydrocarbon that can be used to make spacecraft propellants. The tests focused on technologies that would be essential for resource production and human survival in space. And speaking of China, Galactic Energy launched its series One Rocket on Monday, marking the first commercial rocket launch in China for 2025. The Beijing-based RocketMakers mission on your shoulders delivered five satellites into orbit. Four of those satellites were Yunya One satellites, which are all equipped with Global Navigation Satellite System occultation detection payloads, which means they acquire data on atmospheric temperature, humidity pressure, and ionospheric electron density, all of which may be blocking or occulting GNSS signals. The other satellite is the JTX-A05, which is equipped with a hyperspectral camera payload to acquire remote sensing images. Moving on now to Turkey, and Axiom Space and the Turkish Space Agency have signed an agreement to explore and identify potential supply chain opportunities for the Turkish space industry ecosystem in the development of the planned Axiom Station and other Axiom space activities. The two parties signed a memorandum of understanding covering mutual cooperation in fields such as space technology, aerospace, textiles, material science, advanced manufacturing, communications, and life sciences. The partnership aims to engage Turkey's younger population in space activities, inspire future astronauts, engineers, scientists, and leaders, and support the sustainability of the space industry while fostering innovation in other sectors. And, Redwire has signed a definitive agreement to acquire EDGE Autonomy, which is a provider of uncrewed airborne system technology, in case you are wondering what UAS stands for. Redwire will acquire the UAS company for $925 million on a debt-free, cash-free basis. The merger consideration is expected to be paid using $150 million in cash and $775 million in shares of Redwire common stock. Following the merger, EDGE Autonomy and its subsidiaries would be wholly owned subsidiaries of Redwire. Redwire says the acquisition will make the company a global leader in multi-domain autonomous technology, broadening its portfolio of mission-critical space platforms to include combat-proven autonomous airborne platforms. And that concludes today's Intel Briefing. Head to the selected reading section of our show notes for links to further reading on all the stories mentioned throughout the show, and, today we included two extra stories for you. One's on General Atomic's Test on Nuclear Thermal Propulsion, and another is on the Canadian Space Agency's support of Quantum Key Distribution Technology. You know, we are just under a week away from Commercial Space Week in Florida. And by the way, we here at T-minus will be recording at booth 1217 from January 28th through 30th, so come by and meet the team, say hi, let us know how we can improve the show for you, or book a time to speak with me. Yes, I will interview you! By emailing us at space@n2k.com to arrange the time. Hey T-minus crew, if you are just joining us, be sure to follow T-minus Space Daily in your favorite podcast app. And if you could do us a favor and share the intel with your friends and coworkers, we would really appreciate it. Maybe by Friday show three friends or coworkers's podcast because a growing audience is the most important thing for us and we would love your help as part of the T-minus crew. So if you find our show useful, and of course we always hope that you do, please share it so other professionals like you can find it. Thanks so much for your support everybody, it means a lot to me and all of us here at T-minus. Our guest today is Daniel Fox, founder of The Future of Space. For 15 years I did Soto Wilderness expedition under the banner of Feel the Wild, which was kind of a narrative of our own journey with nature has this place of teachings and lessons. Not necessarily about nature, but more about us using nature as a teacher. And after the combination of my book Feel the Wild that published in 2019 and COVID, I was given the opportunity to reassess how to move forward. And this is where I coined myself with space. As an explorer, I always understand what the value of these new front of these new places. And as someone who is maybe not necessarily a space geek and never thought that space was feasible, I really did a pivot and created a company called Future Space with the intent of continuing that storytelling and understanding the power of these places and trying to reshape the narrative of how these new frontiers matter and how they're part of the equation in the world of being so divided. I think that there's a value in reconnecting ourselves with the capacity to figure things out. So, space is really this platform where we tell stories. We get to experience them and we get to bring people together. And now we just tell our inaugural space to see a voyage of legends that was in Antarctica. Yes, and you are fresh back from that. My goodness. Space to see this incredible voyage that you went on. I'm going to read the highlight of the guests for our listeners and viewers. William Shatner, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Moonwalker, Charlie Duke, Ann Curry, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, Jose Hernandez, Celine Cousteau, and also someone I'm a huge fan of also is the artist Stefan Wiltshire. I love his work. So, I just was so pleased to see that he was part of that as well. But I'm sure that is just the tip of the iceberg. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for the incredible conversations that must have been just happening everywhere on that voyage. My goodness. Where do you even start describing how that, what that was like? It was, I think, really something magical that happened. But I think it is a testament to the type of experiences that we want to create and where here we are on a ship. We have 240 different individuals from different backgrounds, different economic realities. We had a billionaire, we had teachers, we had young, old, and yet in the end, the biggest takeaway from all of this, Antarctica was impactful as the background. People got to be reminded of these remote places. But one of the biggest takeaways was the sense of community. These relationships that were created on board, that sense of connection. This is really the biggest takeaway and why it matters. I think it's an important reminder and that in times where so much of everything is divided because we brand our opinions, have high and loud. It's the first thing that we share with the world. The reality is that when we come together, this is where the magic happens. To have Celine on the stage between Neil deGrasse and Scott and having her presence and her energy really balancing and being delivered with so much elegance, it was incredible what Anne brought to the conversation. What Steven, an artist that is subtle, easy to miss, and yet the power that he brings to the conversation. There were so many moments, even from our ugly sweater contest, but it was just a reminder of what we can achieve and what we can do. Antarctica, these remote places, need to be experienced. They need to be done in a way that we understand why they matter. I know that there's a conversation that is happening about, "Well, we should leave these places alone. We should never go to Antarctica. We should never go to the moon. Why go to space? Well, we've already done so much damage." These new places are always part of the equation. We need to experience them. They can give you a sense of perspective. They give you a sense of how everything is interconnected. For us, to be able to create a platform where people were able to experience that was just priceless. I can just begin to imagine. I'm imagining all those different people coming on board for quite some time during the holidays, no less. I imagine there must have been a lot of preconceived notions, a lot of hopes and dreams that people had, and a lot of changed minds by the end of it. People may be coming away with conclusions they didn't expect that they would be having, but really a lot of unexpected experiences. I'm wondering if you have any examples, obviously you don't have to name names for people's privacy. Anne Curie said she was not interested in going back until, unless her children were coming along. Sillin-Kustil is the same thing. She was not interested in going back to Antarctica, except if it was for her son to experience that. The physicality of these places is not to be forgotten. They're not physical species. We need to expand these things. There's a lot of people who came away as like, listen, I didn't feel that I would be able to contribute or that I mattered because I haven't done much and yet I've never felt the sense of being excluded or that I didn't matter. I think it's again this constant reminder of what we can achieve and the power of traveling. Why do we travel? Because we go out and we're reminded of the things that we take for granted back home. It makes you fall in love again with the things that we forget. The Drake passage, we're able to experience these things now where before you either had to be like a lone wolf or a crazy person or because you didn't fit in society and you thought like, I'm just going to go and get stuck on the ship and I'll all die in the process. Before going to these remote places, you had to be a scientist or you had to be a hard-core adventure where you would be on a research vessel for two months, eating oatmeal for the entire time. Not really pleasant. Now we get to bring common regular people who felt that this was not available for them. Our voyage was quite exclusive, but the reality is that you have different options if you want to go to these places. Yes, we are connected to the internet, Starlink all the way through, which is an added value. You can share. Being on the bow deck with family members or sharing that experience with their family back home is precious. We have all these preconceived notions of these experiences and these voyagers until you go there and you get to experience it and then you go, my God, great. I understand why it matters. I cannot fatten how remote and how crazy these voyagers of Shagleton and Scott and Amundsen are. When these experiences are curated and crafted in a way that information, context, and education is done, they become the most powerful and impactful experiences in your life. I can totally believe it. What also I'm hearing a lot from what you're telling me is as much as these places are extraordinary, and goodness knows I really hope I can visit Antarctica one day myself. That's definitely on my bucket list. It sounds like to me, you seeing what other people are getting out of these voyages and seeing their transformation is extremely rewarding for you. Given how much you have traveled this world, it almost sounds like the place is secondary to the experience of the people that you're with. I hope I'm not misreading that, but it sounds a little bit like that. It is. It's funny. I remember some many years ago, I was having this radio interview after doing a lot of Alaska and they were asking me, what's your favorite place? What's your favorite mountains? I found myself answering in that moment and surprising myself. I said that mountains are mountains, wildlife are wildlife. Ultimately, there are the backdrop of something bigger that is happening, which is all these human connections, these human relationships. Everywhere that I've been to, part of my creative process was to stay with local people, share a table, sit with them, share a glass of wine, and hear their stories. Those became the most cherished discoveries along the way. If I was connecting more with a mountain or with a bear, I would have to start asking myself a question, really, like, who am I? Because I'm human. Ultimately, it's the human connection that really enriches my life. The rest is basically accessories to define more what type of relationships you will have. Am I someone who creates those relationships more by going to the outdoors or by going to a movie theater? These things, kind of, are more the filter of what defines the group of people that you hang out with. Our voyage to Antarctica was that. It was people who understand or wanted to experience the power of these places. Now, obviously, you're on the ship with like-minded individuals, but all the travel, right? The travel, right? We get to experience food from different places, but ultimately, it's the people along the way that really became that most cherished discovery. I can totally believe that, too. I think that would be my takeaway as well. I think that's- the scenery is always incredible and the experience is also- but you always remember the people first and foremost for good and bad, but hopefully for good. I can't help but wonder what your next adventures are going to be. I'm sure you've got a lot already planned. Well, we do have Galapagos November. This is going to be something really different, much smaller, just because of the nature of the experience itself. It's a smaller ship. The Galapagos are very extremely careful about how they manage, so you cannot be more than 100 voyages on a ship. There are limited amount of ships, but we'll do something before and after. There's other programs and other experiences that we're going to be creating, or everything that we do. Everything that we do is founded on these three kind of statements that define everything that we create. So embracing new frontiers, celebrating the human experience, and elevating the conversations. Everything that all these experiences, these events that we're going to be doing, are going to stem from these three statements that for us kind of define really what we are as a species. We'll be right back. Welcome back. If you didn't know what those brilliant glittery streaks across the skies above the Caribbean were last Thursday, it's understandable if they freaked you out, or if you went, "Ooh, shiny!" Starship exploded during test flight number seven last week, and when things go right during these test flights, Starship goes up, goes orbital, and comes back down to Earth, either burning up on reentry, or splashing down in a remote patch of the Indian Ocean. But we humans make plans and the laws of thermodynamics laugh at them. And in this case, nine minutes after liftoff, Starship came back down to Earth near the Caribbean island of Turks and Caicos instead in a lot of itty-bitty pieces. Thankfully, no one was injured by the falling debris, but those pieces are littering the land and shores of the tropical beach paradise. In a story reported by Denise Chow of NBC News, tennis instructor Ray Garcia saw the debris rain down on the tennis court and golf course where he works in Turks and Caicos. He said, "I was actually very scared. I was thinking it was a meteorite. It kept exploding and exploding and exploding. It was strong. You could feel the explosion. It felt so close. It is very, very lucky indeed that no one was hurt." And I hate to add this qualifier, but we're very lucky that no one was hurt this time. It's safe to say most of us listening to this show understand the math. More satellites in Leo, more launches, the greater the likelihood of something dire happening. That is part of the reason why a growing group of advocates from the space industry and the space research community are urging the United Nations to add a safeguard for space, especially low Earth orbit, in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs. Such a goal would primarily have the aim of preventing the dreaded Kessler effect where Leo becomes unusable because of all the space debris orbiting us, but the problem of space debris collisions in Leo didn't seem too urgent until suddenly it was. And it seems we are nearing a similar point with space debris raiding down on Terraferma. Might be worth some space in that SDG. Just a thought. That's it for T-minus for January 21st, 2025, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes at space.n2k.com. We're 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 Elliott Peltzman and Trey Hester, with original music by Elliott Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iben, our executive editor is Brandon Karp, Simone Vartrella is our president, Peter Kilpie is our publisher, and I am your host, Maria Varmazes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. T-minus. T-minus. T-minus. T-minus. [BLANK_AUDIO]
