>> Maria Varmazis: There's the old saying that art imitates life, but 9 times out of 10 Hollywood gets it totally wrong. Ask anyone in the space industry what the worst space movie is and, yeah, there's going to be some disagreement, but there's a pretty good chance that that film would be "Gravity." Sorry, Sandra Bullock. And it's mainly because that movie gets so much of the science dead wrong. So I want you to imagine our intrigue here at N2K when so many of us who are in the space, cybersecurity, and defense industries watched the recent Netflix film "House of Dynamite." And we all found ourselves breaking out in a cold sweat. Could it really be that close to reality? Well, who better to ask than the real life expert? Shall we?
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>> Maria Varmazis: I'm Maria Varmazis and this is "T-Minus Deep Space." My guest today was the advisor to director Kathryn Bigelow on her recent hit "A House of Dynamite." The film chronicles what happens when the unthinkable unfolds. If you haven't seen "A House of Dynamite" yet we will be discussing it quite a bit in this interview so I do highly recommend watching the film to get the most out of this chat. With that said, I'll let retired Lieutenant General Daniel Karbler tell you more about his background and how he got involved in Hollywood.
>> Daniel Karbler: I served almost 37 years in the army. Started way back in 1987. I graduated West Point. My career field was air and missile defense which I've done my entire 37 years. I culminated as the commander for U.S army space and missile defense command headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama at Redstone Arsenal. But we also had elements of our command global as we provided missile early warning as well as, you know, missile defense with our soldiers in Fort Greely. And prior to that I spent three years as a STRATCOM chief of staff. So became pretty well versed in strategic deterrents, nuclear operations, and at that time STRATCOM had the missile defense responsibility too so it was kind of a melding of all your classic elements or your elements of classic deterrents. Impose unacceptable cost. Deny benefit. And then being able to credibly message it. I also just by way of some background too I was the army's test and evaluation command commander. So as a two star. So all army testing that took place for weapons systems, you name it, I was responsible for that testing which proved to be pretty -- very helpful and just different than other jobs that I had. And then I spent, you know, did my penance up in the Pentagon as well. Several tours up in the Pentagon. Part of my career too that I need to mention is the fact that I worked for just some incredible, incredible bosses. John Hyten when he was a STRATCOM commander. The deputy was Chas Richard. And I was the chief of staff. And then Chas went on to become the STRATCOM commander when I was the commander for space and missile defense command. So I was his army service component commander. And then Tony Cotton, the current STRATCOM commander. Jim Dickinson. I just had these great space and missile defense experts, leaders, super -- just incredibly strategic thinkers that I've got to give a lot of credit to.
>> Maria Varmazis: Thank you so much for joining me. We're going to be specifically talking about a more recent project that brings us together. I feel like I shouldn't be the one to introduce this, but I will spoil it. The Netflix film "A House of Dynamite" which has been just on the lips of everyone I work with lately. You had a major major part in that film. Can you please give me sort of the pitch about what you were involved in with that film?
>> Daniel Karbler: Sure. So, you know, first off I retired from the army about a year and a half ago. Being a technical advisor to Kathryn Bigelow in a movie was not on my retirement to do list. It didn't even make the top 100 of -- on the one to end list. But what happened was Doug Lute who was a general. Retired Doug Lute who was ambassador Lute, he had been doing some advising to Kathryn for some of the White House situation room scenes and she asked him. She said, "Do you know anybody who knows anything about STRATCOM or Fort Greely or missile defense?" He said, "I got a guy who just retired and he actually did all those jobs." And so he put me in touch with the producer. Greg Shapiro gave me a call, said, "Hey, would you like to advise in this movie?" I said "Sounds intriguing." He goes, "We'll set up a Zoom call with Kathryn and myself, couple other folks as part of the production." And so we set up the Zoom call. And much like you and I are, you know, having our call here, everybody was kind of popping in. And then I had an idea and so I left my camera off as everybody's popping in and they're chatting. And then there was a little break in the conversation and I click on my microphone, but I still left the camera off. Clicked on my microphone, said, "This is the DDO from the Pentagon convening a national security conference. Classification. This conference is top secret. TK. SI. Polling. U.S STRATCOM. U.S northern command. U.S.N.O Pacific command. Secdef cables. Military assistant to the secretary. Secdef cables please bring the secretary in the conference. This is the secretary. This is the DEO because of time constraints and this missile attack. Recommend we transition immediately from a national security conference to a strategic terms conference and we bring the president in the conference. PIA. Please bring the president in to the conference." And I stopped there and then I clicked on my camera and I said, "Ladies and gentlemen, that's how the worst day of America's history will begin. I hope your script does it some justice." And that was my cold opening. And Kathryn, and I kind of kid with my wife on this -- Kathryn Bigelow she's won an Academy Award for best director so she has to have an eye for good acting talent. Said, "Oh my gosh. That was amazing, Dan. I want to have you in my movie." So nailed the audition and here I am, you know, 12 months, 15 months, later.
>> Maria Varmazis: Hollywood. I mean that is a hell of a pitch. And for those who haven't seen the movie, the camera off is a really great device in the film. So I'm sure she got that idea from you. That is -- that is oh my god. I mean yeah. Amazing how the roads in life take us places because that is chills just even hearing you saying that. And yes. You are in the film and you nailed it by the way. So it's just great to see you in there. It was so cool.
>> Daniel Karbler: I'm glad. And I told Kathryn when she said she would cast me in the movie and as the chief of staff and I said, "For you, Kathryn, I'll take the demotion. I'll go from three stars to two stars to be the STRATCOM chief of staff."
>> Maria Varmazis: I was going to say you're basically sort of advising the actor version of yourself in the film. Right? Is that --
>> Daniel Karbler: I should have done a better job advising myself too. I don't know if I delivered my lines as well as I should have, but --
>> Maria Varmazis: This is what I would have liked to hear. Yeah. On the worst day ever I mean honestly. Well, Dan, it is a genuine thrill to be speaking with you. And I was telling you right before we started recording I just watched the film. So my opening question for you, and I mean this with like fullest respect, is how did you sleep at night doing that job?
>> Daniel Karbler: Well, a lot of times you didn't sleep at night. Many times it'd be 10 o'clock at night and I'm throwing my uniform on, going back in to the STRATCOM headquarters to the battle deck because, you know, our adversaries they don't sleep. Particularly in 2017 KJU he was I mean he was testing it seemed like just about every weekend, every other weekend. I mean the number of Saturdays that were ruined because we were responding to another missile test, lost count of them. But I did -- but, you know what? Knowing the professionals that we had whether on the missile defense side up at Fort Greely or the great airman sailors and soldiers that were manning, you know, our bombers and the ICBM fields and our subs, they trained very, very hard. And we train as an enterprise quite a bit. So even though the topic and the subject is it can be mortifying, we have to stay ready. And we were. And we practiced it quite a bit.
>> Maria Varmazis: I don't want to talk too much about like what I thought of the film because I want people to go see it if they haven't already. I wanted to ask you about, oh my gosh, so many things. But one of the threads that goes throughout the film that is a clear driver of the drama is the lack of attribution of this inbound. That to me was a really fascinating point about we didn't know where this ICBM is coming from, we just our missile defense warning system sort of just didn't catch where it was starting from. Were we potentially internally compromised? Can you walk me through the realistic -- how realistic that kind of scenario is and like what would that really look like? I don't quite understand.
>> Daniel Karbler: Sure. So first off not a far fetched scenario. When -- before I came in to STRATCOM just before general Hyten, before John Hyten, took command at STRATCOM Ash Carter who was the secretary of defense did a no notice exercise. Now I don't want to say no notice like oh so we just saw nuclear missiles being shot at us and we didn't know what was going on, but he basically said on morning, he said, "We are going to do a nuclear operations conference right now." And he started it. And he started it with an unattributed missile launch from the Pacific because he wanted to see how everybody would react. Now -- now and this brought in the entire cabinet and as well as, you know, the military that, you know, MMCC all the way to STRATCOM and all of our components. And so as you might expect the military swung to action and went through our processes and procedures. The civilian side was a little rusty. I'll charitably say it was a little rusty. Cabinet members weren't in place. Did not have the right communications set up to be able to dial in to the conference. Some of the principles didn't have a good understanding with our strike advisor. And, you know, what the strike advisor was to do for them, you know, with the -- as the scene in the movie the nuclear decision handbook. And so it was a good exercise to have because people needed to practice. Ash Carter made it complicated by having a missile that was non attributed. Now why he did it that way I could speculate that he didn't want to -- vilify is not the right word, but he didn't want to make an enemy known, you know. Oh look. The secretary of defense just made China the aggressor on his own exercise. He must really be against China. Right? So Kathryn kind of left it vague. Kind of sort of like how the movie did too. No real villain in the movie identifiable because that was -- you can broaden the discussion then. It's too easy to just say "Well, it was Russia" or it was China or it was North Korea. And then the discussion gets very narrow and Kathryn didn't want to do that. She wanted to keep the discussion very broad. Now when you look at the actual attribution and, you know, why did it happen that there wasn't attribution, so Gabe Basso's character Jake Baerington, deputy national security advisor, who is the most unlucky harried staff guy in the government --
>> Maria Varmazis: I'm sure you cannot relate.
>> Daniel Karbler: Yeah. Yeah. The scenes where he's on his phone and going through security, we've all kind of been there. Right? We can relate to him. But, you know, he alludes to, you know, maybe it was cyber penetration. And that certainly is, you know, we always are concerned about our different, you know, the threat surface areas that are out there that our adversaries could potentially get in to. And so that being end of the script and then helps the believability factor of the plot is oh maybe this is what happened. All my space, you know, compadres and friends and of course they're like, you know, [inaudible] would have seen it. You know, come on. And well we know that it would have, but it wouldn't have seen it potentially if there was a cyber attack that somehow, you know, penetrated in to the system which again as Jake Baerington alludes to then too this is -- or maybe it was General Brady, Tracy Lett's character, who said part of a larger more coordinated attack against the U.S. So you have to give a lot of credit to Noah Oppenheim, the script writer, who did so -- did such fantastic research to make sure that, you know, it's pretty the plot is pretty it's pretty iron clad really. I mean people are going to pick around the edges which, you know, that's good because you're getting the discussion going. But in terms of the feasibility of it I thought it was good. That's why I signed up for it too. When they gave me the script, you know, I didn't immediately agree to work with them. I wanted to look at the script first. When I looked at the script and I saw it and I go "Okay. Yeah." This is all feasible and I can definitely work with this as a whole scenario.
>> Maria Varmazis: Yeah. My background is predominately in cyber so when I heard that phrase about, you know, the potential of cyber compromise my mind started going to "Oh my gosh. Is there a larger campaign? Is there an insider threat? Is this even a real missile?" Are we for -- are we absolutely sure that the information being displayed is actually accurate or is this completely compromised? And I'm sure that was part of the intent and that was just part of what made it so panic inducing for me [inaudible]. Just like oh gosh. I mean we're all assuming that there's going to be a mushroom cloud, but what if this is all fake to try and, you know, flesh out U.S's defenses? And I'm sure this is all stuff that you all drilled for constantly and just practiced over and over. And I what -- just again harrowing scenarios. I'm not sure there's even a question in there. I'm just going "Oh my god."
>> Daniel Karbler: Well, you know, in all the different exercises, practice, rehearsals that we did it ran the gamut of different scenarios. One off. Bolt out of the blue. To, you know, existential, you know, 400 missile attack coming on to you because you have to be able to understand the procedures, processes, communications, decisions, how - you know, what kind of advice that you're going to present. Recommendations you're going to present throughout that whole range of potential scenarios you might face.
>> Maria Varmazis: Yeah. I have a sort of related question and this is specifically about when the president is looking over at the -- I'm putting it politely, the diner menu towards the end. This is where I go, "Is it actually realistic that the president would have no idea what these potential attack options would be until that moment?" They don't -- do we know? Does the president usually have an idea of what those are? Or is it really the first time that he would potentially see them?
>> Daniel Karbler: The president gets briefed before inauguration day on the book.
>> Maria Varmazis: Okay.
>> Daniel Karbler: STRATCOM commander's responsibility is to brief the president on the book.
>> Maria Varmazis: Okay.
>> Daniel Karbler: Then that can take as long as the president wants to take.
>> Maria Varmazis: Okay.
>> Daniel Karbler: But then following that when we do exercises the president does not participate. When I was at STRATCOM the highest level cabinet member that participated was Secretary Mattis, secretary of defense. Rich Correll who just testified for his confirmation hearing to be the next STRATCOM commander he testified that Jimmy Carter was actually the last president to participate in one of the nuclear operation exercises. I had been told it was Ronald Reagan, but it goes back even further. It goes back to President Carter. People ask me about that too and my thought is this. First I really can't blame a president for not participating because even though the conferences are at the, you know, highest level classification it's my sense that word would get out about what that president's decision was. And whatever the president's decision was he or she is not going to win. It could be don't respond at all which is going to get, you know, all sorts of criticism from some camps. Or it could be decide to respond and whatever level they respond with is going to get criticism from the other camps. And so a president not participating gives himself or herself a great amount of political decision space just as they're just doing the office without having a bunch of, you know, distraction about, you know, they're trying to run the country and now oh what they decided this on the whole nuclear thing and that would take up a lot of their bandwidth. And so again I can't blame the president for not participating. Cabinet members' participation is important. When I was at STRATCOM we would often get, you know, first off we'd have cabinet members come visit STRATCOM headquarters. We'd run them through scenarios. They sat in the chair right next to General Hyten or Admiral Richard. And Secretary Mattis, like I said, you know, 2017 when the North Koreans were testing, you know, every week, every other week, Secretary Mattis was in every one of those conferences. Sometimes he was quiet and then you'd hear him at the end. And you're like "Oh. Boss was listening." Got to remember he was a marine general, four star. He's all about rehearsals and practice and then after action reviews. And so we got very practiced at it and always expected Secretary Mattis to be in on the calls.
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>> Maria Varmazis: We'll be right back.
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>> Maria Varmazis: So I have another question for you about I mean I know you were heavily involved in this film. I'm curious where you think in real life things would significantly diverge from what was portrayed in the film.
>> Daniel Karbler: Yeah. So, you know, one of the things that we are always trained when we go through the scenarios is especially in a scenario like this is we are trained to say, "Mr. President, you do not have to make a decision right now. In the case here -- well, you are not going to lose your ability to respond. You still have all of your ICBMs are available. Your subs are available. Your bombers are available." Because again this is just one missile that's coming in to a city not targeting our nuclear response capabilities. So we're trained to say "You do not have to respond immediately." Now it's tragic. I mean you're going to lose the city of Chicago in this case or whatever metropolitan center you might lose. But when you look at proportionality then that a response might engender or in proportion to how a response might engender that's where you give the president the opportunity to say, "Okay. Let me consult." And these are very collaborative. The conferences are very collaborative even though it's only a 30 minute time frame when you bring in the cabinet members. They are collaborative. And then when you say "Hey, don't have to respond right away. President can consult." There are other strategic ways to respond to an adversary's attack of something like that. Now again 10 million people lost in the case of the movie scenario. I don't know how you atone for 10 million people being killed, but the president then has time to bring together a coherent whole government approach in responding to the adversary. Any the other piece too is ultimately you are going to have attribution on that launch. You know, we would figure. We would figure it out. And then any president's response then would be obviously tailored towards that adversary who shot at us.
>> Maria Varmazis: That is especially on -- both those items are actually very comforting. I know the movie's a thriller and things are heightened for dramatic effect, but that's actually quite comforting to hear both of those. So someone who was --
>> Daniel Karbler: It wouldn't be a very exciting meeting if at the start of the conference trace, you know, admiral -- or General Brady said, "Mr. President, you don't have to make a decision right now. Okay." That's, you know.
>> Maria Varmazis: Like you're good. We've got you. Yeah. Okay. Well, movie over. Yeah. Yeah. No. I generally do really enjoy heightened thriller films like this one. This one I think because it feels so of this time it does feel more immediate. And I think gave me -- I had to really break myself down from it when I was watching. So it was very effective. And I --
>> Daniel Karbler: Very prescient too because when we shot at golden dome [inaudible] was not a thing.
>> Maria Varmazis: Right.
>> Daniel Karbler: So imagine we're shooting the movie. And then the president comes up with the executive order for Gulf of North America and then the movie's plot lines kind of feed right in to golden dome for America.
>> Maria Varmazis: Right. Yeah. That is very true. And that is -- I've heard a lot of people discussing this film in that context when I'm having those conversations, and it's been really fascinating how much these -- if different ecosystems do really feed on each other sometimes, it is really fascinating to sort of watch that happen as a fly on the wall in my case.
>> Daniel Karbler: And it's the duty of the movie as it gives -- it gives everybody an opportunity to discuss whether you're, you know, for non proliferation. You have a lot to be able to discuss. If you're, "Hey, we don't think sole authority is right, you know, it needs to be, you know, something that's more collaborative and decision building or a decision made by more of a consensus or more collaboration" you can talk about that. If you're for modernization of the nuclear triad and our strategic deterrent or golden dome for America or space and you want to make sure that, you know, our space capabilities, you know, are protected, so there's all -- that's why the movie's wonderful because it gives everybody an opportunity to be able to discuss their viewpoints.
>> Maria Varmazis: Yeah. Speaking of space I'm curious if you have sort of a space wish list that you would love to see in the realm of sort of what we've been discussing.
>> Daniel Karbler: You know, I would love the X37. So I actually joke with General Hyten about this. I said -- I said, "You know, we should paint some windows. We should paint like a cockpit window on the X37, fly that around and see what our adversaries think of that. That would be the first wish list.
>> Maria Varmazis: Confuse everybody. That would be great. I would love that.
>> Daniel Karbler: But from space you know the ability of that platform to be able to do what it does and if you were to just take it to the next level and say, "Hey, look. If you have some sort of space based intercept capability that you could park on that, and then get it to whatever place it needed to be in orbit based on indications and warnings, man that would be -- that would be a game changer." You know? Especially as we're trying to solve, you know, any kind of space based intercept capabilities and you look at, you know, a plethora of on order platforms that you'd have to have, you know, in order to be able to counter any kind of missile launch from wherever as they go in to orbit. You know, having a very mobile platform to be able to get a space based interceptor in a position to intercept. You asked me about my wish list. That would be one of them.
>> Maria Varmazis: Yeah. That 100%. I think a lot of people would agree with you on that one for sure. I want to ask about the film's very human portrayal. I know this is not necessarily the lane of what we wanted to discuss today, but I found it very compelling to see the way that, you know, servicemen and women were portrayed doing their duty wonderfully and also being very human. And I just was curious to get your thoughts on that.
>> Daniel Karbler: Yeah. A lot of thoughts on it. First off when we do our exercises, 400 a year, processes, procedures, communications, recommendations, we never play a human element in it. Right? We will go through it. We will come up with our options and decisions and they will execute. We will AAR it. Nobody's died. Nobody's been threatened. And so it's kind of sterile when it comes to the human -- the humanity side of it. The movie now touches on a part that we never even really explore in our exercises which is incredible because you have the different human reactions. I can't say that, you know, the Fort Greely soldiers when their missile misses, you know, you have the one guy going, "Hey, we've got to get some more interceptors up. We've got to get some more interceptors up." But we wanted to portray the human element there on those soldiers. And, you know, some of my missile defense friends are like "Sir, you know, we can't believe that, you know, they wouldn't just quit. They wouldn't just give up." And I said, "Yeah. I got it." But the movie wanted to touch on the human element there and those soldiers, you know, that are up there at Fort Greely. They have a human side too. And personally my -- both of my kids are missile defenders. And they're the same age as the lieutenant and the -- my daughter's a captain. My son's a lieutenant. So they're the same age as the crew members there. And so when my wife saw the movie and she -- the scene where the lieutenant picks up the phone and calls his mom, my wife was very moved.
>> Maria Varmazis: Yes.
>> Daniel Karbler: Very moved by that. And then I look at the young staff sergeant there, Sergeant Mary Nolan, who's the censor operator, and I think of my daughter's a missile defender and, you know, how is she going to respond. And then I, you know, real world. Two years ago. It was two years ago on Thanksgiving morning. She was in Iraq and she was under attack from drones and missiles texting me as she's in the bunker under attack. My first guidance to her was "Don't tell your mom."
>> Maria Varmazis: The universal advice. My god.
>> Daniel Karbler: She was cool as a cucumber. Just, you know, of course very excited with a lot of, you know, salty language in there. But she trusted her system to work and which it did. And so yeah. So I had a whole range of emotions watching these characters being a leader of soldiers of these particular soldiers at Fort Greely and then having my own family dynamic interspersed in that. So yeah. Thanks for asking that question because the human dynamic piece that gets touched on in the movie is really important.
>> Maria Varmazis: I appreciate you saying that. And I -- it's -- I thought it was really incredibly powerful and I think something that is often maybe missing in films like this. And that exact moment when he called his mom too as a mother, and my daughter's only eight, but I remember that got me crying because I was thinking, you know, that's somebody's son. You know, we've all got families. We all, you know, dread that phone call. So but my goodness. Yeah.
>> Daniel Karbler: And the other thing I tell people is like look at how resilient he is. I mean the worst thing in his training that ever could happen just happened, but he tells his mom just want to check on her. Nope. Things are okay. You know? So he's pretty stoic through it all, but he's got the human touch to want to talk to his mom at that point.
>> Maria Varmazis: It was really beautiful. And, as I said, like everybody's doing their jobs. They are the height of confidence. And it's just very admirable to see them doing what they're doing, what they've been trained to do, and also being human beings, but still doing what they've got to do. And it's just yeah. It was -- I could say a million wonderful things about this film that you I'm sure have heard, but I just really enjoyed it. I'm fresh off of it. So --
>> Daniel Karbler: Has your heart rate come down yet? Is your hear rate still, you know?
>> Maria Varmazis: I had to take a little walk. I won't lie. I had to take a little walk. But it did exactly what I would want a film like that to do, and I will be thinking about it a lot. And I've already -- I was already talking to my husband about it because we like films like this, but usually it's we've got to make sure we're ready for it. So. Dan, I -- you have been so generous with your answers. I want to make sure I ask you two last questions. The first one is what's the sequel to "A House of Dynamite" that you're working on no doubt?
>> Daniel Karbler: So I joke with people. The sequel's called "Golden Dome: The Empire Strikes Back."
>> Maria Varmazis: There you go [laughs]. It is "Star Wars" all over again. Isn't it? It's true.
>> Daniel Karbler: Yeah. Believe it or not I am doing some initial consulting with another director on another military movie.
>> Maria Varmazis: Nice.
>> Daniel Karbler: Just very, very at its [inaudible] stages right now. So Kathryn told me when I first started out with her that she goes "Don't be surprised. You know, you're going to get these calls." And sure enough this director reached out to me. So I'm helping him along. So that's one thing. And then, you know, what's in the future? My son gets promoted to first lieutenant here in a couple weeks so I'm going out to --
>> Maria Varmazis: Congratulations.
>> Daniel Karbler: Thanks. Going out to Fort Bliss Texas and El Paso for his promotion. And next week I'll head up to joint base Lewis McChord where my daughter's stationed at. She's a battery commander out there. And she's filled a new air defense system. And so they're going through their big long collective training period. And we have a grand dog up there that somebody has to go watch for a few weeks. And so dad drew the straw to go watch the grand dog while my daughter's out in the field. So short term things that I'm working on. And then long term, you know, hopefully this new movie will come to some fruition.
>> Maria Varmazis: I look forward to your cameo in that one too. So I'll be looking for you. [Inaudible] oh my gosh. That's so cool. So I want to always give my guest sort of an opportunity for wrap up thoughts. Anything you want to leave the audience with at all? Anything at all. The floor is yours.
>> Daniel Karbler: Thanks. You know, people ask me about, you know, "What's it like in the movie business?" And I tell people the amazing parallels between the military and the movie business. And if you look at it this way you have a commanding general. You have a general who's in charge. And you have a director who's in charge. And if you think about it that general their ultimate objective is to, you know, put some effect out on to an adversary. A director, Kathryn's job, is to put an effect out on to an audience. And then you think about the complicated processes and capabilities and enablers that are underneath it. You know, a general's got, you know, staff and weapons systems and HR and, you know, maintenance and intelligence and, you know, everything that goes in to helping deliver that effect. A director has got cast, actors, electricians, props, script. You know all of that brings it all together to deliver an effect. And then the other thing too is just their styles. Right? We've all worked for different -- I've worked for bosses who were, you know, pretty directive in nature and they just do it this way. You work for other bosses who are empowering. Just kind of give you their commander's intent and let you go with it. And I found in the movie business you have some directors who are just right behind the camera and they'll be like, "No, Maria. I don't want you holding yourself that way. Go this way." And then you have other directors who like Kathryn she's off set. She's at a playback monitor watching the camera angles from there. And she told me her reasoning is because if she's right there the actors become too mechanical and she wants them to be able to grow in to their character. You think about a commander who empowers his force to grow in to themselves, professionally develop themselves, and that's kind of that's where I reside is much more empowered. Just give the commander's intent. Come back to me if you need some additional guidance. And Kathryn's the same way so we got along great on the set. And she was wonderful to work for.
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>> Maria Varmazis: That is "T-Minus Deep Space" brought to you by N2K CyberWire. We'd love to know what you think of our 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 review on your podcast app. Or you can send an email to space@n2k.com. We are proud 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 helps space and cybersecurity professionals grow, learn, and stay informed. As the nexus for discovery and connection we bring you the people, the technology, and the ideas shaping the future of secure innovation. Learn how at n2k.com. N2K's senior producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliott Peltzman and Tre Hester with original music by Elliott Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. Peter Kilpe is our publisher and I am "T-Minus" host Maria Varmazis. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.
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