Space Forward - An Interdisciplinary Podcast
12 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 2 years ago -In this show, we attempt to break down complex ideas to first principles and deconstruct them into digestible chunks. We're trying to get answers to tough questions with perspectives from space scientists and enthusiasts.
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Episodes
Finding intelligent life in the cosmos | Part 2
January 05, 2022 17:05 - 36 minutes - 33.2 MBThis episode is the second part of our talk with Harvard Professor Avi Loeb. We discuss ― Life In The Cosmos ― an academic textbook he co-authored with Manasvi Lingam which provides an analysis of the latest scientific methodologies for detecting life beyond our planet. It’s an updated version of an original book written in 1966 by astrophysicists Carl Sagan and Iosif Shklovsky. We dive into the Kardashev Scale, a theoretical model for classifying stages the development of intelligent alien c...
Finding intelligent life in the cosmos | Part 1
November 26, 2021 16:00 - 31 minutes - 28.6 MBIn Episode 10, we talk to astrophysicist Avi Loeb about what he thinks we might find in the observable universe. Will it be biosignatures that will reveal extraterrestrial life? Or technosignatures, evidence of a past or present alien technology? Join us as he discusses his latest book “Life in Cosmos: From Biosignatures to Technosignatures”, the possibilities of self-replicating, artificial intelligent von Neumann probes, and the absurdness - or not - of eating aliens! Professor Avi Loeb is...
Finding intelligent life in the cosmos
November 26, 2021 16:00 - 31 minutes - 28.6 MBIn Episode 10, we talk to astrophysicist Avi Loeb about what he thinks we might find in the observable universe. Will it be biosignatures that will reveal extraterrestrial life? Or technosignatures, evidence of a past or present alien technology? Join us as he discusses his latest book “Life in Cosmos: From Biosignatures to Technosignatures”, the possibilities of self-replicating, artificial intelligent von Neumann probes, and the absurdness - or not - of eating aliens! Professor Avi Loeb is...
Appraising and grading Near Earth Orbit Objects - From Academia to Start-up
June 14, 2021 09:55 - 49 minutes - 45.6 MBIn this episode we discuss Earth's first on-orbit satellite inspection service, Australian startup HEO Robotics, on a quest to "Make Space (Assets) Transparent". We dive into how they pivoted from Asteroid Mining to Space Situational Awareness, the methods they used to find Product-Market Fit, and future possibilities to scale their business to the Moon, asteroids, and beyond! Joining us for this conversation, we have an enthusiastic leader in space technology research, development, and inno...
Interstellar travel is coming - The breakthrough of gram scale space crafts
June 04, 2021 13:25 - 1 hour - 93.8 MBIn this episode we will explore the bleeding edge of satellite and satellite constellation miniaturization. These awe inspiring craft commonly known as Chipsats, Wafersats, Sprites, Monarchs, Kicksats, Starchips, or even just “Smart Dust” are facilitating the rapid miniaturization of space craft following an exponential trajectory stipulated by Moore's Law, no doubt enabling new incredible possibilities and discoveries just around the corner. We talk about the unique physics and associated ...
Democratizing access to space with MIT
May 24, 2021 13:15 - 1 hour - 69.1 MBIn this episode we talk about MIT's Lunar Knowledge Graph called Lunar Open Architecture and MIT’s intriguing research on a crowd-sourced, sharing-economy-like, tokenized satellite constellation. A sat-constellation-as-public-utility. The MIT’s Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative has the goal “to invent, create, and deploy ideas that seem exotic and impossible today, but could be commonplace in ten years.” Our guest today is the research lead of MIT’s Lunar Open Architecture project, Me...
The Start-up of Space Marketplaces
May 04, 2021 11:45 - 1 hour - 83.1 MBIn this episode, we talk about the rise of Space Marketplaces and how the Satsearch Product Knowledge Graph helps solve problems for marketplace users. We ask, what kind of Acquisition Loops work in the space sector, how does their Experiment Framework look like, and should space marketplaces scale vertically or horizontally? We talk about unit economics, defensibility, and how Satsearch bootstrapped its way forward with the support of the ESA Business Incubation Center. Our guest is Naraya...
Space Commerce - The ecstasy of gold
April 15, 2021 08:30 - 54 minutes - 50.1 MBIn this episode, we’ll be diving right into the dynamics of the space sector, space commerce, space business, space industry, space market, and the fundamental forces driving their development. It’s a great pleasure to welcome Matthew Weinzierl, an associate Professor in the Business, Government, and the International Economy Unit at Harvard Business School. Matthew has worked for McKinsey & Company, and the US government as an economist on The White House Council of Economic Advisors. Whi...
Investing in Space Start-Ups - Best Practices
April 01, 2021 07:50 - 1 hour - 88.8 MBIn this episode we seek to understand the decision-making environment in which Space Business Angels operate and the mindset they follow when making investment decisions, exploring best practices, and getting an industry outlook from those with skin in the game. We talk about risk mitigation, selling shovels instead of digging gold, drivers of scale, investing horizontally vs vertically, why Luxembourg produces above the average space companies, and the role of EBAN Space. Our guest today i...
The physics of space travel - Engineering vs Breakthrough Physics?
March 18, 2021 17:50 - 1 hour - 70.2 MBIn this episode, we’ll take you on a deep dive into the physics of space travel. Are we merely grappling with a challenging engineering problem or will new breakthroughs, an entirely new physics be required in order to utilize space to its fullest potential? We will discuss this question with our guest, Professor Martin Tajmar, renowned Austrian Physicist, Professor and Chair of Space Systems at the Technical University of Dresden, and hurray, a Fellow International Space University Alumnus...
A Space for Humanity - Ethics and Governance for Living together in the Space Age
March 09, 2021 12:50 - 1 hour - 64.3 MBIn this intense episode we dig into the main issues preventing international and intercultural collaboration here on Earth which will prevent us from becoming a prosperous, inclusive, and peaceful multi-planetary species. In search of solutions, we begin with the power of law and then blast over to the ongoing space race between private actors and developing countries, uncovering who is really in power. Shattering conventional narratives along the way, we explore a supracultural code of space...
Seeking beyond the rocket equation - the prospect of space elevators
January 31, 2021 09:30 - 1 hour - 57.2 MBThis episode has at its core the implications of Tsiolkovsky’s rocket equation, which figures the hard limits of rocket-based payload transportation to Earth’s orbit. Furthermore, rockets are expensive, up to failure, risky and carry too little payload. Making rockets more efficient reminds analogically of Henry Ford’s classic: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”. One of the non-rocket approaches to get a fast, cheap, safe and repeatable transport t...