HELLO FUTURE: Guardians of the Next Frontier

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Who's guarding the galaxy, who's guarding the Solar System, who's
guarding Planet Earth, who's guarding Americans' access to outer space?
And no, I'm not talking about astronauts. Well, I am
talking about astronauts a little bit, but I'm also talking
about that the average American uses space technology more than
two dozen times per day. We are relying on space,
even if we don't believe that we are, or if
we can't touch it. It's a lot more than just
looking up into the sky and the stars at night
and seeing what's up there. Hello Future, it's me keV.
This is a dispatch from the Digital Frontier. The planet's
still Earth. I'm working on it being somewhere else. You know.
I'd love to go to space one day. The year
is twenty twenty six. Can you believe it? We made
it to twenty twenty six. I can't believe we made
it to twenty twenty six, but we did. And my
name is Kevin, Sir. I'm the founder of MTF dot
TV's and Meet the Future. Check out our new website
MTF dot tv. And today my guest is the President
and the CEO of the Space Force Association, The Guardians
and the Space Force, the United States Space Force. They
are the ones tasked with protecting and securing Americans' freedoms
here on planet Earth and in our country, but also
as we become more and more reliant on outer space.
And so Damon Feltman, I was with him down in
Orlando the other week at the Space Force Power Conference
and they announced Damon that he was going to be
the new president and CEO of this. You know, the
Space Force is only six years old. He's a retired
US Air Force General Officer season Space Professional, Brigadier General
Damon Feldtman, congratulations, Ranks. I think what one of the
things that really resonated with me as I was covering
this and last night at the A gala as well,
is just the culture of the Space Force. It must
be really exciting as the Space Force turned six years old,
must be really exciting to kind of be a part
of something that you know is literally shaping the future
of humanity for well beyond our lifetime.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
So when the board approached me really wanted to interview.
So I've been affiliated with with SFA for since its creation,
but me taking over CEO is not a given. The
board did a deliberate call for candidates and interview processes, etc.
But the thing that had me excited about taking on
the job and being part of the CFA is the
fact that the Space Force is six years old, it
is still growing, and it's still emerging out from under
the shadow of its parent service. So the majority of
the Space Force grew out of the Air Force. The
Space Force has absorbed some positions from the Army and
the Navy and the Marines, but the vast majority of
members that created the Space Force came from the Air Force.
Part of what a service does is create a culture,
and Guardian culture is unique from the other services. Part
of that is driven by the fact that the other
services they get on ships and they go someplace. They
get in airplanes and they go someplace, They march to someplace.
They are at the human to human side of conflict
most often. The Space Force we do two things, I
say we but the service does two things. Number one,
it secures the domain, the domain of space, and so
that it can provide support to terrestrial forces. Support to
terrestrial forces are the things that we've grown accustomed to
over the past nearly forty years since Desert Strong, one
which was GPS is a thing that the Space Force
provides to the world. Global selled communications, whether missile warning,
all those types of functions are services that we provide
to the nation, provide to our allies and parties, and
provide to the services our mission partner services so that
they can do their job faster, better, safer, things like that.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
That's what I think is. I think the average American
might not fully understand, or maybe it's just me slowly
starting to catch on, so I'll be the every medal.
But precisely that is that the Guardian really is protecting
our military at a very simple level. They do many things,
but at a very simple level, they're protecting our military's
ability to communicate, but also they're protecting the average American's
ability to enjoy the communications. I'm going to use the
word blessings of what it means to live in the
United States. So what do I mean by that banking system?
But very simply, I live in Washington, d C. I've
been known to use my phone to pull it out
and get a scooter to scooter on to someplace. Well
that's interacting with some type of satellite, and so I
don't think the public really understands that that these guardians
are protecting the communication systems that we rely on. Yes,
from a military to military standpoint, but also just from
an everyday life appreciation, we should be thanking these guardians
for their sacrifice and their family sacrifice for us being
able to enjoy modern.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Life very much. So, you use communications as an exemple
of it, but it's much more than much more than that.
What the Space Force does and the Guardians do one
is they operate military unique satellites, but the banner of
the Space Force itself is a security blanket of sorts
for the domain. You're absolutely right. The modern world, particularly
what I would call liberal democracy world. Liberal democratic world,
is tightly interwoven with space. We were having a conversation
before the interview started that the entirety of the world's GPS,
the thing that is running your phone right now that
allows you to do those things like call up a scooter,
or call up uber or do your banking, that is
all underpinned by GPS in terms of the positioning signal
that it's given and the timing signal that it's giving.
That whole system starts in Colorado Springs at a Space
Force base in a room that is about the size
that we're in right now, and there are eight to
ten people that are running GPS at any one time
in the average age of those operators is about twenty
six years old.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
It's a huge responsibility. I mean, when you put it
in that perspectives, I call them meet the future moments
that you've got a room of twenty somethings running the
entire country's GPS system. I mean, and I'm saying it
with a dose of humor, but it's an awesome responsibility.
And so how do you train guardians for this type
of responsibility? Because you not only have to be physically fit,
you have to be mentally tough and mentally not even
but mentally. It's like a puzzle. These are big responsibilities
that these guardians are having to think about. So how
is that even, you know, in year six of the
Space Force, how are you even thinking about training and
recruitment for these guardians?

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Sure, I will start with the recruiting side, because I
had a conversation with General Chance Saltzman, the Chief of
the Space Force, this morning. The Space Force, compared to
other services, does not have a recruiting problem. There are
more people trying to get in, then there are available slots.
It's very similar to the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps
very successful with the recruiting year in and year out,
but recently there were a lot of media stories about
the other services not meeting their anal Quotas. The Space
Force is small, that helps, space is interesting, that helps,
and so a lot of people want to be in
the Space Force. The Space Force actually interviews everybody that
wants to be a Guardian, So it's not like going
to a recruiting station at your local strip mall and
signing up for one of the services. That's just the
start for the Space Force. It culminates. You don't get
your final yes you're coming in until you sit down
with another guardian and go through an interview panel, sort
of like getting into one of our country's elite colleges.
So part of that interview process is to kind of
sense out a culturation ability for the guardian culture. Part
of it is to help understand are they able to
kind of process the space these spatial problems that the
Space Force is dealt with, and so that's kind of
the first part. Getting into the Space Force is a
little bit more challenging than getting into the other services.
But then when you get into your training, it is
technical in nature, very technical in nature, and it also
requires an ability to in your brain deal with complex
problems with a system you might not actually be able
to see. So when a spacecraft breaks for whatever reason,
it may be two hundred miles away, you know, in
orbit in lower th orbit, and you're doing that remotely,
or for a geostationary satellite, it may be twenty three
thousand miles away, and so you're working through a turnitry screen,
so a computer screen, and you're getting tolemetry data off
of the satellite, and you're having to process that kind ofly.
You know, you have procedures that help you. Obviously, if
this is the condition that you're seeing, here's your checklist
to help you understand what's going on. There's that part
of it. But to really make the platforms work in
their most optimal condition, there's a lot of human involvement
in the systems that you were talking about at the
conference this week that are putting on the via goggles
helping the person contextualize what's going on. That's a gigantic advancement. Really. Yeah,
when I came through. You know, I did this for
thirty one years, started out as a lieutenant in nineteen
ninety two. My training was not kidding, learning these six
digit codes about to lemergy data point. It's decimal data ranges,
and it was a huge, huge mental load to be
able to understand. I can see a drawing of the spacecraft,
but I can't go out and touch it and interpret
what I'm being Now with virtual reality, now, virtual reality,
it's a significant advancement for younger guardings coming in.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
I believe, as you've heard me say, that we're living
at the start of the Second Industrial Revolution and the
advancements of quantum computing, which will come after artificial intelligence.
And we just talked about virtual reality, and one of
our episodes about satellites and planetary defense and all of
these massive issues. And I always feel optimistic whenever I
interact with the Space Force because I think to myself,
thank God, someone's thinking about these problems, because they're not
necessarily thinking about these problems unfortunately. And I don't want
to get political, but in Washington, DC, on either side,
so I'm very grateful that Space Force is solving and
thinking and sextualizing several of these issues, but it has
to be I would imagine a challenge when technology is
evolving so quickly to stay on the cutting.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Edge of that it is. I'll go back and politely
correct you on one item. So you'll hear in academic
circles this narrative that we are in the fourth Industrial
Revolution so versus second. There's a person that I know,
he's a space economist, and he refers to this as
the fifth Industrial Revolution because the interconnectingness caused by space
and the technolo that you're talking about. So I wanted
to go back and kind of set up the questions slightly.
Modern advancements in technology really are dramatic. So some of
the things that are being looked at for space systems
even today very primitive in their implementation, but it is
indicative of a trajectory on where we're going. So there's
a lot of dialogue on space based cloud computing centers.
So instead of having these big behemoths that are taking
football fields of terrain just for storing things in the cloud,
can you put that into space? Yes? Yes, But so
cloud computing has a thermal management problem, and space has
its own unique thermal management issues. So that's an example
where the technology we want to get this into space,
and there's some nascent experiments for that. That's one example
artificial intelligence in space edge computing, So imagine edge computing
not just being the edge in kind of two dimensional
flat land that we live on here on Earth, but
three dimensional that some of the edge computing is going
to occur in space. We're seeing some of those applications already.
One of my favorite ones is space based solar power.
So solar power is inherently from the Sun, but to
extend that a little bit further, it is technically possible
to have a giant solar array collect energy from the Sun,
convert that to either a laser wavelength or a microwave wavelength,
and transmit that to the surface of the Earth and
get it converted into electricity. Now, today the technology is
such that you have to gigantic arrays on the ground
to make it scalable, but still China is very much
investing in it, the US is exploring it. A couple
of years ago, Great Britain really started looking at it
heavily for their use cases. But that's just another piece
of technology. Kind of imagine what the next cycle of
evolution of space hardware and space capabilities could be when
you have a cloud computing and space, when you have
edge computing and space, when you have people who are
looking to in space as simply manufacturing better pharmaceuticals through space. Yes,
the health the component is incredible. The health commonents are fantastic.
Fiber optics believe it or not, work better when they
are manufactured in space versus manufactured on the ground.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Agriculture and space.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
Agricultural practices are dramatically improved through space. So all of
these technologies, they look like they're just you know, space
for space sake, but the reality is that they are
improving the lives of humans. And to borrow maybe from
Gebizo's philosophy, he sees space as it means to get
the toxic behaviors of humans off the planet. Yes, into
a place that is much more suitable for their use.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
Amazing. So, as you look at the next year, final
question for you, give us some of the things that
you're you know, I know you're very close to the
current a founder and chairman and CEO, Bill Hippie Wolf.
But as you are thinking of where to take this
in the next twelve months, where are you open to go?

Speaker 2 (13:54):
So Foremost, the Space Force Association exists for the Space
Force and the Guardians. Our mission is to champion a
strong Space Force, uplift the Guardians, and be a premier
in national association that unites the public and private sectors
for this shared purpose. With that in mind, my plan,
my vision, hopefully the board will be on board with this,
is to do what we can to improve support to
the Guardians. The Space Force itself as an instrument of
the US government, its organic processes that it has to follow, and,
like you were saying a moment ago, down to be
political Washington, d c. As the help of our political
engine is peculiar in many ways. Getting stuff out of
that peculiar environment and communicating to the public is important.
Helping guardians achieve their personal and professional goals while they're
in the Space Force and beyond. That's one of the
things that we want to try to scale, but really
probably the most impactful thing we can do in the
very near term, helping the public understand why this organization
called the Space Force exists, what's their purpose. In the
first Trump administration, did he choose to task Congress to
create another service biparties and support yeah with very much
by party. It's one of the few places where the
political machine of DC often works together. It is in
national security space, the space of national security space. So
we had this conversation piece before the interview started. For
the average person, they need to understand that because the
Western liberal democracy is built around space, our political adversaries
seek to either a denies that ability to use space
or surpass our abilities and use it for their purposes.
And right now, the best practices of space tend to
be oriented towards liberal democracies. We set the norms and
standards of what goes on in space. So the binary choice,
and it very much is a binary choice for not
just the US but our like manded partners in the world,
is what model do we want to extend into space?
What model of governance? Is that a one that's based
generally on Western democratic principle liberal democratic principles, or do
you want one that is based on Russian and Chinese practices.
China has been very public about their aspirations in space
and about their aspirations for supplanting the US as the
economic engine of the world. Russia, with their recent behavior,
has reputational damage that is going to take a long
time to overcome. And so I think right now the
safe bet is to follow the American lead into secure
space with a liberal democratic model versus the alternative.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
So well said, I think it's a perfectness to end on.
And as I was listening to I was just thinking,
you can the words space and future are just so intermixed, right,
I mean, every time you're saying space, it really is
the future. So like protecting the future really means protecting space.

Speaker 2 (16:47):
Thank you so much, episode.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
That's an honor to be here my first one. Hopefully
I'll this will be my new annual venture to Orlando
every year.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah, we will be here next year, generally the week
of the twelfth in December here in Orlando will be
the next one. So up to see folks out.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Awesome first