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Best Of: How to Invest in the Coming Space Gold Rush with Tim Marshall · Merryn Talks Money

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: This week we're bringing you our conversation with Tim Marshall,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: author of the Future of Geography.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Just as miners in the nineteenth century ventured into the
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: lawless frontiers of North America, the presence of rare materials
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: on the Moon and elsewhere might feel a race to
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: harness the opportunities of outer space. There could be a
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: gold rush coming in space, says Tim Marshall. So if
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: you haven't heard this one, listen in. It's a fascinating
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: conversation on the extraterrestrial future of investing.
• 0:49
  Speaker 4: John Madden.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: How often do you wake up in the morning or
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: I see in the middle of the night and think
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: to yourself, Ah, God, I was going at the public sector.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: There's something and I know there is something that makes
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: you which the God that you tried out one of
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: those civil service fast track schemes or even a slow
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: tracked scheme, or literally anything at this point, because you
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: would have got what would you have got?
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: The defined benefit pension, the gold plated pension, not just.
• 1:15
  Speaker 6: A defined benefit pension, a public sector defined benefit.
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: This is yes, this is the dream, This is the
• 1:25
  Speaker 5: financial holy grail. It exists.
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: It does.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Tell us about it. Tell us about the dream. What
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: do you wake up at night thinking, Oh, indexing, indexing with.
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: No cap, uncapped indexing, the permanent backing of whatever government
• 1:42
  Speaker 5: is in power, regardless of the flavor of government. You know,
• 1:49
  Speaker 5: was it kind of no investment risk at all? I'd
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: never have to bloody we'll think about whether UK stocks
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: were cheap or not, or if they were ever going
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: to not be cheap anymore. I say, you're right, I'm standing.
• 2:01
  Speaker 5: I'm going to wake up. Thing about this tonight that
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: started thing about it is joking.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: When I said, I thought, you did I do?
• 2:08
  Speaker 6: I do wake up at.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Two o'clock, you know most nights, and this is just
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: not an age thing. I wake up at two o'clock
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: most I'm thinking, Oh.
• 2:14
  Speaker 6: God, I wish I had a the.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Just the idea that the money would come in every
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: single month, and when there was inflation, it would come
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: a little bigger, a little bigger, little bigger, little bigger.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: You never had to send, and things that said to yourself,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: oh God, how do I make that diverse portfolio of
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: global equities produce a little more yield to keep me
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: up with inflation? Never have to think that right now
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: there is a possibility, is a possibility that come the
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: next government, assuming it's a labor government. Although interesting me
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: I went to a talk yesterday. I'll tell you about
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: another time in which one of the one of the
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: speakers suggested that it wasn't the slam dunk we all
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: think of it. So that's interesting. But assuming that it
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: is a slam dunk and that we are going to
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: have a labor government, they are talking about reinstating the
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: lifetime allowance on pensions. So most people, and that will
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: definitely include you and me, will have a cap on
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: the amount of money they can have insider pension wrapper
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: tax free. But there is one group of people, one
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: group of people for whom that will not on current suggestions,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: one group of people for whom that will not be true.
• 3:21
  Speaker 6: Who are these lucky people?
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: I can't imagine. But is it the public sector to
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: find benefit pension receives?
• 3:30
  Speaker 6: So a really big deal this idea that you can
• 3:33
  Speaker 6: divide people up and give one group of people very
• 3:38
  Speaker 6: very preferential treatment over another when it comes to retirement income.
• 3:42
  Speaker 6: It's a big deal.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, No, it's myself, and it would be completely out
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  Speaker 5: of order. The one reason that my immediate instinct was, nah,
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: there doesn't nor way. You can't just turn and see,
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: we're going to reimpose the LTA for noine public sector
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: workause we're going to calvert the public sector. But the
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: problem is that so they're already is a group of
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: public sector workers who aren't aren't basically because they were
• 4:07
  Speaker 5: so well paid even when the LTA was first introduced.
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: So the judges pension is not liable for the lifetime allowance.
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: And because the way this works with the public sector
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: is that obviously final salary i'd find benefit pensions came
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: is where you get a set amount of money each
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: year based on your lifetime salary. And the way that
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: the Tax Office, very broadly speaking, works out how much
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: that is worth for LTA purposes is multiplying it by twenty.
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  Speaker 5: Now that already means that actually the public sector workers
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: get to earn more before the you know, the company
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  Speaker 5: of the LTA, because in practice, twenty is actually very
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  Speaker 5: low multiple compared to what you know, they kind of
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  Speaker 5: private sector version would be, or the fine contribution version
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  Speaker 5: would be. But yeah, so the judges already had a
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  Speaker 5: carve out for this, and the main reason that the
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  Speaker 5: LTA has become such a big issue and in years
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: is because obviously it's gone down, whereas can the doctors
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: and surgeons salaries have gotten up over time, you know,
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: with inflation or less inflation whatever, And so they came
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: about this whole stramash where you knows surgeons were kind
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: of light working, but then they would get hit working
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: attacks charities based on basical because the defined benefit pensions
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: had become so generous that the ports were so high.
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: And the point is that the government shouldn't be pretty
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  Speaker 5: playing favorites like.
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  Speaker 2: That, right job, Given that, Given that, what's your what's
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  Speaker 2: your personal finance tip for the week?
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  Speaker 6: I don't know what mine is. It's a go back,
• 5:41
  Speaker 6: go back saut he is and join the civil service.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: But you know, maybe you have a better one in.
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: The absence of time travel. Yeah, basically you need we
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: talk about diversification by asset class, well you need diversify
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: by financial vehicle as well. In the UK, it's pretty simple.
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: You know, there's there's the state pen, which you may
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: or may not kind of get the full benefit of
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: that depend what age you are now and what happens
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: between now and when you retire, there's a private pension
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: or i'd find benefit pension. If you haven't have a
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: private pension or a dB pension that's a corporate one,
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: then again you need to consider diversifying away from that.
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: And the other thing is the ISA. So basically, if
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: you don't have enough money to fill up your annual
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: pension allowance and your annualize at allowance, then what to
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: do is make sure that you split it between the
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: two of them, rather than necessarily favoring one over the other.
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: Where I would favor the pension is if you haven't
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: maxed out your auto enrollment scheme, make sure you do
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: that because it's free money from your employer. And also,
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: if you're on one of those marginal horrible bits like
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: fifty thousand before the child benefit high income tax kicks in,
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: you want to do salary sacrifice there, and at one
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: hundred thousand you want to do salad sacrifice. Otherwise, I'd
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: basically go fifty to fifty because at least the ISA,
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: you can get your money out straight away, so even
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: if they do fiddle with it, which it probably won't,
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: then you can get the money out.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: And move it elsewhere less likely to fill with ices right,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: because we will understand ices. Everyone understands an ice as
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: simple and straightforward. We love them.
• 7:13
  Speaker 6: You mess around with them, we notice.
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  Speaker 5: And the money's not trapped. I mean, that is the
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: thing about your pension. The money is trapped. It's a
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: good thing. You know, we should be able to saving
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: it with confidence, but you know you just need you look.
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  Speaker 5: I mean, they'll told me. The lifetime alone. It didn't
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: exist until two thousand and six, and when it was
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: introduced it was one point five million, and at one
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: point there was one point eight million, and then then
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: they reduced it rather than reason so that you just
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: can't trust in stability of regulation.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Maren Talks Money the podcast and with people
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  Speaker 2: who know the markets, explain the markets. I'm MAREN'SUMT web
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  Speaker 2: this week the conversation with daughter Tim Marshall. You might
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  Speaker 2: have heard me mention his name and previous podcasts referencing
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: one of his books. He's written eight fantastic titles, but
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  Speaker 2: I am a particular fan of Prisoners of Geography and
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  Speaker 2: most recently The Future of Geography. We focus most about
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: conversation on this one, The Future of Geography, because it
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  Speaker 2: looks at how power and politics in space will change
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  Speaker 2: our world.
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  Speaker 6: In fact, are already changing our world.
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  Speaker 2: Tim, thank you so much for joining us today. Hugely
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  Speaker 2: appreciate it.
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  Speaker 4: Thank you. It's an honor, good.
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  Speaker 2: Good, Right. What I want to talk about is space.
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  Speaker 2: My producer says, I'm mildly obsessed with space and people
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  Speaker 2: who talk about space, and the truth is that I am.
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  Speaker 2: And you've written a phenomenal book on this that opens
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  Speaker 2: up the world of space to everybody, and if you
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  Speaker 2: haven't read it, listen as I strongly strongly suggest that
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  Speaker 2: you do do so this week, because you really need
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  Speaker 2: to know about this. So let's start, Tim, if you
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  Speaker 2: could just set the scene for us and tell me
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  Speaker 2: they want to get onto the future of space and
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  Speaker 2: everything that is going to happen on in space. But
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  Speaker 2: what's happening right now, what's the relationship between Earth and
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  Speaker 2: all that place sixty miles above us?
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  Speaker 4: It's space race two point zero, because there is now
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  Speaker 4: a chanale to go back. I'll try and be brief,
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  Speaker 4: But Apollo eleven brought some rocks back and started twelve
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  Speaker 4: and fourteen and fifteen and sixteen and seventeen, and then
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  Speaker 4: the Americans said enough rocks and they pulled the plug
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  Speaker 4: fifty years ago, and now we're going back not just
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  Speaker 4: to the Moon but near the Moon and geosynchronous orbit
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  Speaker 4: and low Earth orbit because it is now well worth it.
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  Speaker 4: We've gone back and are going back in greater numbers
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  Speaker 4: because financially, low Earth orbit is hugely profitable for the
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  Speaker 4: satellite companies. You know, we've seen this sort of expotential growth.
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  Speaker 4: There's eight thousand satellites. Now there's going to be more
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  Speaker 4: than well over thirty thousand with just in five or
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  Speaker 4: six years. Geosynchronous orbit becomes ever more important. And we're
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: going back to the Moon because we've a found water.
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  Speaker 4: When I say we, I mean humans. We've found water,
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  Speaker 4: which means it's potential to put a base there. And
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  Speaker 4: we found and lithium and all sorts of those lovely
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  Speaker 4: metals that everybody needs for twenty first century technology. So
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  Speaker 4: there is now a Klondyke gold rush going on, and
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  Speaker 4: just as in Klondike, most people won't make any money
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  Speaker 4: out of it.
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  Speaker 2: And can we go back too. I really want to
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  Speaker 2: come on this gold rush, and I really want to
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  Speaker 2: come on for lithium and helium and all these wonderful things.
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  Speaker 2: But first I want to nail down the what's going
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: on with satellites and could you also please quickly explain
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  Speaker 2: I think everyone understand is instinctively just in case. Geosynthesis
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  Speaker 2: or bit.
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  Speaker 4: Lower th orbit is where most of the satellites are
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  Speaker 4: around about eight thousand, three hundred or so defunct ones,
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  Speaker 4: and they're the ones that spin around the world very
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: very fast. So if you've got one, let's say you
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: were a spy for example, it'll only be over the
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: bit of territory you want to look at for a
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: couple of hours. So you can put a constellation of
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: these things up which connect to each other, and you
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: can try and have a greater amount of the Earth
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  Speaker 4: that you can communicate with or look at. But geosynchronous
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  Speaker 4: orbit much higher up. That orbit turns at the same
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  Speaker 4: speed that the Earth turns, so if you put a
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  Speaker 4: satellite there, it's always over the same piece of territory.
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  Speaker 4: So whether it's communications satellite, they can always have direct
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  Speaker 4: line of sight if you like, or a spy satellite
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  Speaker 4: or your nuclear early warning codes to make sure that
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  Speaker 4: they're so far away nobody can hit them. Because we
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  Speaker 4: can hit satellites in low Earth orbit from the Earth.
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  Speaker 4: That's a very very valuable piece of real estate. And
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  Speaker 4: I call it that because it is geography, not in
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: the classic sense, but it's geography, and that is an area,
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  Speaker 4: and it's a finite area. And when you put a
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: satellite up there, it needs to have a very wide
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: beam coming down to Earth because it's so high up
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: and so consequently you can only have so many there,
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  Speaker 4: so it's first come, first served. That's geosynchronous orbit.
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  Speaker 2: So we've got around eight thousand satellites up there at
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  Speaker 2: the moment in that zone, we've got another twenty something
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  Speaker 2: thousand coming and what are they all doing at the moment?
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  Speaker 2: They pretty much control every aspect of our lives, right
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: these satellites. We don't think about that, But if the
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: satellites disappeared tomorrow, so would what we consider to be
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: normal life.
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  Speaker 4: Is that that I think there's a strong case to
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: be made for it, and a strong case to be
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: made that the satellites should be considered untreated as part
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: of our critical security infrastructure, you know, the way that
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: gas and water electric supplies are, because there is a
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: backup plan that we do have deep water undersea cables
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: which could still send Internet signals and you could get
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: your fax machines out of the office dump if the
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: satellites went down, but it would be an almighty blow
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: to the world economy or to the economy of a
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: country who's and went down, massive, massive financial loss. We
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: just think of the GPS. I mean, how is the
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: delivery driver going to get to the supermarket with the food,
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: et cetera. So I think they should be so a
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: lot of them are doing that. A lot of them
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: are just doing straightforward comms where it's telephone communications or TV.
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  Speaker 4: So they just are part of the modern world. It's
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  Speaker 4: the reason. That's the reason it's such a growth industry.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: I mean, allegedly it will be at a trillion dollar
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: a year industry. Now not to Blomberg, that's kind of
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: like loose change, but you know, trillion dollars a year,
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: that's quite a big industry and set to grow.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: And it's interesting, isn't it, because that is that's private money.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: You know, we used to think of space as being
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: a public place. In the old space race was between governments.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: This was in particular between near the US government and
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: the Soviet Union, and they were battling it out to
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: try and prove that you know, capitalism is better than communism,
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: or that was basically wasn't it. Look we can do
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: this vastrup, we can do this quicker because we're a
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: better society.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: So it was a very public space in the first round,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: and now it's a very private space. Most of these satellites,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: these are not military satellites, they know, government satellites. They're
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: owned by private companies that launched by private companies from
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: private space station. So it's a very different world up there.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: So when you talk about it being a geography, it's
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: less a public geography than private geography. And we don't
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: know who belongs.
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: To Ah, good word belongs to.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: You because the infrastructure belongs to Who does the infrastructure
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: belong to us?
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: Us? How well, allegedly it's the commons. It's the outer
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: space Commons, just like we have the global Commons where
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: the ocean waves are for all of us. But I'm
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: glad you've brought this thing off about commercial because that's
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: one of the biggest differences between the previous space race
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: and now in the how front and center private enterprise
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: is within it, both both in partnership with governments and
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: out there on their own. And that is also another
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: reason why this concept of the global commons is really frayed.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: I mean it's enshrined in the Outer Space Treaty of
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: nineteen sixty seven, which basically says no one country didn't
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: bother putting a company in because in nineteen sixty seven
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: nobody thought there would be companies out there. No one
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: country can have sovereignty over any part of space, whether
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: it's the Moon, the planets, or just the area has
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: been between them. But that's really fraying now. And it's
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: first come, first served, and it's you know, wear out,
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: they're back off. And there's even something in the Artemis Accords,
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: which is the American led effort to get back to
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: the Moon and then establish a base where you can
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: establish a secure zone on the Moon, which sounds to
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: me like sovereignty just you know, the same letter at
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: the beginning, just a different spelling.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: And how big can your security zone be?
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: Well, again, it's the languages.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Big enough to make you feel secure.
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the language is loose enough for it. And also
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: for how long can you establish the security zone? Also
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: very very loose language. Yeah, they are driving it and
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: they have allowed, well, the governments have allowed, especially the
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: Americans private enterprise in many ways to lead the way.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: And it's private enterprise and its capacity for risk Elon
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: Musk SpaceX being the greatest example where they have risked
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: all that money, for example in the SpaceX rockets and
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: being able to bring them back and land them. You know,
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: that is revolutionary technology which came out of SpaceX. It
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: didn't come out of NASA. So this is a very
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: new and different time. I mean there's the new different
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: military aspect in which commerce is playing a role as well.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: So it really is very different to the sixties and seventies,
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: and I would argue more complex and more dangerous. And
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: what existing guidelines because they're not really laws, because international
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: laws are not always laws. We just call them that.
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: They're guidelines, and those guidelines are when they were written,
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: we're okay, They're not okay anymore in the twenty first century.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Are you worried about the influent that very wealthy individuals
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: and companies will have over the way our interaction with
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: space develops.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: Is that going to be a problem, possibly up to
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: a point, I don't know. Worried about what governments do
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: as well? You know, it's always good to keep a
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: BDI on both sets. But I mean it was very
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: fashionable twenty years ago and has been ever since to
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: write off the nation state and have always argued against this.
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: If someone's burgling your house, you're not going to call
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: Meta or TikTok that matter, or if the Russians invade
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: and if I mean, if individual X space X wants
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: to launch a rocket, they have to have a license.
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: You know, it's like a plane. You can't just take
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: off and land wherever you want. You have to have
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: a license, and that comes from the state. So the
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: state ultimately would retain degree of control. But yes, in
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: so far as you know, it is not good if
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: one particular person owns too much media. It's not if
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: there's a cartel that's got to get you know, these
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: things do need monitoring. But I do think that the
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: governments will maintain most of the licensing control, and therefore
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: there's a degree of own By the way Mosque in
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: the style Internet Terms and Conditions that you sign now
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: in twenty twenty four, it says, in the event in
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: the future that you are using our kit on Mars
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: and you have any legal issues, you will not refer
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: to any earthbound government or legal entity. You will only
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: take your dispute up with the legal entity on Mars,
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: which I read to be elon Musk.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: So we have a situation where we've got a total
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: griper awl up there with private and public, with satellites,
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: with no one being entirely sure which part of this
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: geography above us belongs to them or could belong to them,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: and everyone grappling for space because there's got to be
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: a limited amount of space in space, and certainly in orbit,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: particularly now there's lots of defunct satellites in debris and
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: or this kind of thing. So there's a limit to
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: how much can be done in this close orbit area, right, yes.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: Because I mean, obviously it is an enormous amount of space.
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: I think the distance between low Earth orbit, which is
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: one hundred miles up, and then geosynchronist tall which is
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: several hundred miles further higher up. But of course that's
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: in a three hundred and sixty degree circle, and it's
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: something forgive me if I've got the figures wrong, but
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: it's three thousand times bigger than the surface of the Earth.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: You know, there's a lot of space in space, but
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: the actual orbits themselves. You know, we've already got as
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: I said, eight thousand, it's going to be thirty thousands.
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: Some people put say fifty sixty thousand. I mean the
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: Chinese are going to launch the musk is going to
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: launch ten thousand this in the next few years. And
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: so although you obviously physically could fit even more than
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: that in that big circle, the fact is the closer
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: they are together, not only is the more danger of
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: them crashing into each other. And then if one crash
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: into another one, and another one then another one, you
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: get something called the Kessler syndrome where they all crash.
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: So this it adds to that danger. But it's also
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: the military aspect to it, where countries get pretty nervous
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: if other satellites are getting very close to theirs, you
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: know you're going to try and crash into it. Satellites,
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: some of them now can have grappling arms them. You're
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: going to grapple into my satellite. So there needs to
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: this is go back to this thing about law. There
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: needs to be a new global agreement and one aspect
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: of many many that needs to be now written in
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: in the new age is how close can your satellite
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: go to mine? And or how many inspections can we
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: agree that you can inspect my satellite and I can
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: inspect your satellite to make sure you haven't got something
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: nefarious on it. We just don't have these laws. And
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: so that's why there's this finite amount of space. And
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: then if you go higher up to geosynchronous, as I said,
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: there's so much boundwidth needed in the sort of pyramid
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: coming down as you're broadcasting downwards that you can only
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: have so many and therefore it's first come, first served,
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: And so if you're not there now or in the
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: near future, you're never going to be.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: There, Okay, schip A question when a satellite is defunct,
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: do we remove them with these grappling arms, or when
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: we finished using new satellite, we just let us stay
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: up there forever, going round and around the circles and
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: potentially bumping into other people.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: Not a stupid question at all. And in fact, when
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: I was doing the research and interviewing the experts, I
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: thought the thing that they would be most concerned about
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: was war in space, and it's not. It's debris in space.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: And that includes defunct satellites, of which there are hundreds.
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: Now some of them are on a trajectory where each
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: time they go around the Earth they get slightly lower slight.
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: I mean, it can take years, but eventually, if they're
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: on that trajectory, they come into the atmosphere and they
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: burn up, flame up, and disintegrate. So there's no more
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: of that in space, but others don't, and that's still
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: evolving around there. Then there are literally hundreds of thousands
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: of pieces of metal, you know, some of the size
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: of a tennis ball, some of the size of a grape,
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: some you know, tiny, but there's hundreds of thousands of them,
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: and they're being removed at an extraordinarily slow rate. You
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: can get hold of a satellite and throw it down
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: into the atmosphere or throw it up into deep space.
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: But the fact is that the more and more stuff
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: were putting there, the more and more debris there is
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: going to be in, the more and more danger there is.
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: So the Japanese and i'd say the Europeans are probably
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: the two world leaders in pioneering new technologies to try
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: to do something about this. I mean, I know it
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: sounds sci fi. That's so much of the stuff that
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: I came across I thought was sci fi. It is
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: happening now as well as grappling arms. Satellites can have
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: actually like massive fishing nets, and they just throw these
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: fishing nets out and catch hundreds and hundreds of pieces
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: of debris, bring them all down, neither throw them into
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: the atmosphere, or they can even bring them back. That's
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: how all this stuff is happening. But it's not happening
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: fast enough.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Let me take you back to the second biggest worry then.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: If the first biggest is debris, the second biggest is war.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Space war. That's just us lasering each other's satellites. It's
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: shooting each other's satellites down from the Earth, which you
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: de said was possible and fascinating. Or we're talking about
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: something bigger. We're talking about colonizing the Moon and then
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: having a little ram me up there.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: Well, yeah, that's coming, and that could I'll try and
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: come back to the artemis. Of course, if I remember
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: right now, four countries have already done this. They have
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: launched a ballistic missile from the surface of the Earth
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: and they've hit one of their own satellites in space
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: and blown it up to test if they can do
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: it in case they need to do it against somebody
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: else's satellite, and that is Russia, China, USA and India.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: So that technology exists, and of course it would be
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: an act of war to blow someone else's satellite up.
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: So that's the first thing that has already happened, and
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: I'm sure other people are working on it. Secondly, Elon
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: Musk's SpaceX as a side company Stalink and Starlink provides
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: Internet services via satellite. And two years ago when parts
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: of the Ukrainian Internet went down because of the ground
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: stations were bombed the comp stations, Musk flew by the Russians.
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: Russian Musk flew in thousands and thousands of dishes which
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: could connect to Starlin and he got the parts of
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: the Internet back up and running. Great for civilian purposes,
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: but of course the Ukrainian military jumped on it and
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: used it to target Russian soldiers, at which point the
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: Kremlin ordered the Russian anti satellite units to open fire.
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: Is a loose term, but you can dazzle a satellite
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: from the Earth. I don't think you can yet dray
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: it with a laser bee because we have cloud's atmosphere
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: rain it diffuses the signal.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Hang on, what does that mean to dazzle a satellite.
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: Sorry, well, you send a beam of light up basically
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: at its lens and dazzle it so it can't see. Now,
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: you don't destroy the lens because many satellites lenses can blink,
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: you know, they close if there's too much light coming
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: in and or you send you spoof them. Spoofing is
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: sending up packets of information to the satellite, which confuses
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: it and so it doesn't know where to send its signal.
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: And so Musk and Putin have been playing this cat
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: and mouse game for the last couple of years, which
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: is a brand new thing in warfare. Two sovereign countries
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: at war with a third element in it, which is
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: not a state but a private company which is inadvertently
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: assisting one side's military, causing the other sized military to
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: take what is essentially military action against it. I mean,
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: this is a new time and it's something we're going
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: to have to get used to moment.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: And that when that private company is associated with a
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: third sovereign nation that is not technically involved in.
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: The war exactly, although is you know, clearly involved, but
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: not directly. And so if it's dazzled, is that an
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: attack a day Factor attack also in the United States,
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: attacking an American company, So you know, I mean, obviously
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: the Americans just coughed politely and pretended not to notice
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: too much because you know, they don't want to fight Russia.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: So third way, you may have seen a couple of
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: weeks ago the Brits of god a new laser weapon
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: to take down drones. The Americans pioneered a couple of
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: years ago. Now nobody's put one of those onto a
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: satellite because if you did, you could suit shoot down
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: a satellite from a satellite very very easily, because of
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: course it would be so powerful up there because it
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: wouldn't be diffused through the atmosphere. Now no one has
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: because if you do, you're going to spark an arms race.
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: But the temptation to has got to be great, and
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: then the last bit will be well, there's this whole spoofing,
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: dazzling thing. If there is ever a major war between
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: major countries, will immediately come into play. I mean, I
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: put a couple of scenarios in the book about China
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: basically falls the United States by dazzling. It's ones that
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: are over the South China. See looks like they're going
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: to attack Taiwan. They actually don't. They do something else.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: It doesn't matter. But that's the sort of potential future. Sorry,
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: last bit we mentioned the Artimist Accords, we mentioned these
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: safety zones. Well, what if Country X, which is an
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: ally of America or America, has already got to the
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: Moon found the best place to start drilling for the
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: limited amount of lithium there is there, and another country
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: comes along and says, not your moon, We're going to
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: dig here as well. And they're going to say, hang on,
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: we spent billions investing in this go away, you know.
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: I mean, people say that this is kind of a
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: bit outlandish, But all you're going to do is look
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: at history. All you got to do is, let's say
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: the British Empire and the companies that went out ahead
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: of them, East India Company being the best example, and
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: then following on from that, it becomes so useful that
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: the British military then follows in and becomes involved. I
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: just think it's very hard to see how that sort
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: of tension will not be there in the future. As
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: I said, I'm not convinced that the economics of mining
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: the Moon makes sense, but as I've brought that up.
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: I will briefly say why I think it might happen
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: any way.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, fascinating that because.
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: I don't think a nation state or even a major
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: energy company can really take the risk that this might
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: be one of the most profitable things in the twenty
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: first century. But we're not going to take that risk.
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: I think that will even though the economics is not there.
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: I think they'll be investment in it.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: I love it that the risk is not going to
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: the Moon, but not going to the Moon. That's a
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: fascinating datement about our new world.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the Chinese, said the chief scientist in their Moon mission,
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: because they intend, like the Americans, to have a base
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: by twenty thirty two, which you know will almost certainly slip.
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: But that's the ambition, he said. If we don't go
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: and it turns out this is where the riches are,
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: our children and grandchildren will never forgive us. I mean,
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: that's the mindset which I think will overcome the financial risk.
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: And I'll give you an example. There are private companies
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: that have signed up with NASA, and NASA will pay
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: them one dollar for each x pounds of rocks they
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: bring back one dollar so what's in it for the companies?
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: You get the license from NASA to do it, to
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: launch to land, you set the precedent that we're the
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: ones operating here, and NASA set the legal precedent that
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: you can get something from the Moon, bring it back,
• 31:02
  Speaker 4: and sell it. Because that's an important point because if
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: the Outer Space Treaty says you can't have sovereignty, well
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: wouldn't that even apply to a rock. If you can't
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: have sovereignty, how can you own that rock? And if
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: you don't own it, how can you sell it? So
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: that's why just for a dollar people are prepared to
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: and that sort of thing is already happening.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: So the fact that you can sell it establishes the
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: fact that it is possible legally to own it.
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, not according to the out of Space Treaty.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: But much as I love it and think it needs enforcing,
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: who cares about that? It's the conduct guld Rush.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Okay, So let's move away from the possibility of war,
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: because I think we talk about that in so many
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: different contexts, and you never know that there might not
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: be a war, right, there's might at all, and AMaGA,
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: let's talk about it isn't There usually isn't. Excellent point
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: they usually isn't and when, but sometimes there is. But
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: let's assume that we're going to work all this out amicably,
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: and there's plenty of everyone for everyone's satellites, and everyone
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: can colonize the Moon without having too much an argi
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: bargie about it, and possibly even Mars. We can colonize
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: all these things without fighting because there is plenty of space.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about all the good things that space might
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: do for us, might improve our lives going forward. So
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: we know at the moment amazing for communications, amazing for GPS,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: amazing for infrastructure creation, amazing for agriculture, right, I mean
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: absolutely fantastic. Has been huge productivity advances in the agricultural
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: sector as a result being able to use satellites to
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: see what's going on with your land. So these are
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: all brilliant things going forward. How is our extension of
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: the geography of our world into space going to improve
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: our lives?
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: Let me count the ways, and I'm glad you've counted
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: some of them already, because yeah, you're right, things like
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: agriculture are hugely important, and the satellites have massively helped
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: especially small scale farmers. You know where to plant and when.
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: But another one that's already happening, and I will come
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: on to the ones that of the future. And again
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: this is for developing countries. If you've got two or
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: three countries, let's say in Africa, that are trying to
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: combine their economy or link their economies, and the geography
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: the terrain of parts of Africa is very difficult. The
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: satellites are able to tell you exactly where to put
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: the rail or the road links at the cheapest cost,
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: which is a boon. It's already helping us measure the
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: temperature of the oceans, which helps us to understand climate change.
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: I think that what proof of concept has proved last
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: year Caltech, California Technology Institute, have their own little satellite,
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: their own little solar panel, and of course up there
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: the solar rays are much much stronger because they're not diffused,
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: and they're twenty four to seven because there's no day
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: and night. There was no night. They managed to transfer
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: the energy into a microwave signal and they sent it
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: down to a dish, and then they turned it back
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: into a packet of energy and they lit a light
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: bulb with it. Potentially revolutionary moment because if you could
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: afford and if you could put up fields of these
• 34:17
  Speaker 4: solar panels in space, you can now direct the energy
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: down to where you want twenty four hours a day,
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: unlike the solar panels at the moment, which of course
• 34:27
  Speaker 4: I only work daylight and sun daylight, so twenty four
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: to seven. You know it's coming down at night, and
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: it's coming down to wherever you want to put it.
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: You can beam it to wherever you want to put it.
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: So this is proof of concept, has been proved. Economic
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: modeling of it, then that's another thing. But it's the
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: sort of thing that would get help us get away
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: from fossil fuels. So that's one thing. Another is.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've talked about that on this podcast before.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: I want I want to stick with this energy thing
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: for a moment because we've talked about this on this
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: podcast before with somebody else who talked about this mirroring,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: mirroring of solar energy down to Earth and how she
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: this is a doc Piper Malgram. She seemed to feel
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: that it was reasonably close and conceivable that within she
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: didn't put a timeframe on it, I should have pushed
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: her on that conceivable that in the not two distant
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: future all of our energy problems could be solved simply
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: with the sort of massive beam of energy from space.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: And I found that incredibly compelling as an idea, given
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: that all we seem to do at the moment is
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: bitch and argue and row about different forms of hopeless energy,
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: when there might be one out there that can just
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: solvering just like that.
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: They might. I mean, perhaps we have time, we can
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: go on to helium three, but we're.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Definitely going on helium three. Can't finish those without helium three.
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: Life, I guess, yeah. I mean, look, she she knows
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: far more about it than I do. I know that
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: the scale you would need it at would involve a
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: lot of mining down here first and building and then
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: lifting the panels up. You know, we're talking about big.
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: But I mean the Japanese, you know how so good
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: they are at origami. They are brilliant at folding fairly
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: large solar panels up into very small folds, sticking them
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: in the front of a rocket, taking it up there,
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: and then unfolding them. I mean, they are brilliant at it.
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: Galactical origami I call it. So you can do that,
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: but to do it at scale the scale we're talking
• 36:30
  Speaker 4: about enormous, and the tech and the batteries, you know,
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: I mean, you wouldn't at the batteries would be relevant
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: to this, not as relevant as they are now. I
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: mean one of the problems we have now is not
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: only that it's only daylight and sundaylight. It's that we
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: can't store any excess energy because we don't have batteries
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: big enough. We have invented them. You wouldn't need them,
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: but it would still help to.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: Storm well that you'd need it a massive upgrade.
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: So I don't know the plan to say either, but
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: I do know the proof of concept, and it's that
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: sort of forward thinking and revolutionary thinking I think will
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: help us.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, helium three, that's going to change our world if
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: space Marriwing doesn't.
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: All right a legend, No, there is lots on. We
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: have helium and I hope I haven't got this wrong
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: way around. We have helium four down here, lovely stuff
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: from memory. It goes into balloons, you know, children's balloons.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: Where would we be without them? Very useful and car tires,
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: some of them certainly used to be stuff like that. Oh,
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: if you want to talk like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck,
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: helium very useful. But helium three, a most noble gas,
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: is in large quantities on the Moon because the songs
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: raised there. Again, because of lack of gravity and because
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: of lack of atmosphere, it's very very strong. It's why
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: there's so much radiation. Now. The thing about helium three
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: is that in the event you crack nuclear fusion, and
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: I hope missus Ai does, then you can use helium three,
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: which is in tiny quantities here but relatively large quantities
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: on the moon, and you can fuel the nuclear fusion
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: reactor with cheap dish and clean radiation free fuel. That's
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: the key, the radiation free bit. Again the Chinese reckon.
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: There is enough of the stuff on the moon that
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: if you crack fusion and if you can get it back,
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: ten thousand years worth of energy. So again, these are
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: the big thought that we need to be thinking. Some
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: of them might happen. Oh, sorry, you asked about the
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: future and how useful it is.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, other stuff that is good.
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you might have seen don't look up the film
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: with a big meter eye. Last year Dart they threw
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: a dart. That was the name of the mission. It
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: was basically they launched a fridge freezer at a comet,
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: at an asteroid little asteroids revolving around each other about
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: three million miles away. We fired a fridge freezer at it.
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: That's shorthand for a piece of metal about the same size,
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: and it hit the smaller of the two and it
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: deflected it off its course. Proof of concept. And we also,
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: you know, we need that as a backup plan in
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: case we do look up and think, do you so,
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: you know, without all this, without all this leaving to
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: along one side, nonstick frying pans, without the space race,
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: much of the useful tech and including twenty first century
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: tech would not be with US now. And I think,
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: on balance, despite the negative sides of it, I think
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: it's a positive.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Which countries are going to be the most powerful in
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: space in twenty five years. I mean, we can assume
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: the US, China, Russia.
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: I mean, you've named the big three, and they will
• 39:57
  Speaker 4: remain the Big three. But I believe that the top
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: two will be China and the USA because they will
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: be doing both the military and the commercial aspects. I
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: think the structural problems that Russia has means, and it's
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: already doing this. Its budget will be focused on the
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: military side of it, so they will slightly drop away
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: on the commercial scientific side.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, But then among the little guys you've got, you
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: know here in the UK we were talking earlier. I'm
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: terribly excited about the Shetland space station right which hopefully
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: we'll have launches relatively soon. And I think we've got
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: another launch station coming in Cornwall, haven't we. And then
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: there are various other countries that are setting up launching stations.
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Is it Nigeria? Is that my imagination?
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: They certainly launched satellites, and the African Union has some plans.
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: Let me come back to I mean you said little,
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: and yes, relative to the States, it's little, Bob. I
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: put it in different tiers. So there's the top three
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: or even though it's sort of two plus one, and
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: you come down to the leading second tier countries, of
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: which the UK is one, and France and Italy and Israel, UAE,
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: Japan who were I put them in a block. I mean,
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: obviously some are bigger than others, and in that block
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: is India. But India is the one in the second
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: tier that looks like it will accelerate. I cannot see
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: it catching USA China even in the timeframe that you gave,
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: but it can go ahead of that second tier. By
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: the way, Also we're talking China in America. It's their
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: companies as well. I mean, there is going to be
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: a Chinese SpaceX, I just don't know which of the
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: many startups in China it will be. So then you
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: move down the third tier, and then you're talking about
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: countries like Nigeria, which make their own mini satellites, cube
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: satellites and send them up into little constellations and there's
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: a raft of them. So there's eighty countries now have
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: a presence in space. Only a handful of them are
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: space faring, only a handful of players. And then the
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: third tier you have a presence, and then you get
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: the fourth tier, which is the majority of countries in
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: the world who have no presence there at all. And
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: given that it is finite the amount of usable space,
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: they may never get there. So you know, I'll put
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: it into the four tiers.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, you need to be there now if you're going
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: to be there long term. Ideally, Okay, let's talk about that.
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: The companies. Now, when we talk about space, we always
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: end up talking about SpaceX. But if you were able
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: to look twenty twenty twenty five years out, have you
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: any sense of what the big names commercially might be
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: out there? It might be interesting to see the big
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: mining companies might suddenly turn up with a presence in space, right,
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: the big energy companies might suddenly and we could suddenly
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: turn around and find that Shell has got a colonizer
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: moon right.
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: What Toyota, it's only you know, it's only on a computer.
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: But they've already built on the computer massive moon rovers,
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: you know, the sort of size of an articulated truck,
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: and they're in partnership with Jackson, the Japanese Space Agency. Now,
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: you know, this truck doesn't exist, it may never exist,
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: but the fact is that Tyeta are looking as it existing.
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: Some of the energy companies also, some of the Japanese
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: startups have already been up to trying to get some rocks.
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: The Indians landed at the lunar South Pole, which is
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: where the water is and most of the metals, which
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: is thought are So if you go twenty twenty five years,
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: what we're looking at twenty forty five. Let's say, no,
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: that's not true. Twenty fifteen nearly. Yes, that's a good date,
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: twenty fifteen, because that's the date that Mosques said he'd
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: have a million people on the moon, which is absolute fantasy.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: Is it possible, I mean, it's not going to happen,
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: but is it con seem well, never than a million
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: people could live on the moon.
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, twenty fifty not a I mean, just
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: do the math, you know, just divide a million by
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: twenty five years. Where are these forty thousand people every
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: year or whatever it is? So twenty fifty, I'm confident
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: we will have we'll be mining on the moon by
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: that point. I'm confident we'll have a moon base. As
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: I said, twenty thirty two is the ambition a man
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: and a woman will walk on the Moon again in
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty six, in two years time. The Americans out
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: of the submission. I mean again, these things tend to
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: slip thy six months or a year. But they're saying
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty six walking on the moon, which would be
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: great for Sting's songwriting royalties. One for the older listeners,
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: there's sorry, twenty fifty probably massive solar panels almost certainly
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: mining the Moon. Definitely some form of moon base, whether
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: it's scientific, military, commercial, or a combination of the three.
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: We will not only have got to Mars. Well, we've
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: already got to Mars. There's our rovers roving around it already,
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: but will have come back because they haven't really brought
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: things back from Mars yet. That will have happened. I
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: reckon within twenty.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: The passion has gone to Mars.
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: And robotics are going. Robotics are going so quickly that
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: by then we'll probably be able to send spacecraft with
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: robots on which can begin the very beginnings of a
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: base there. They can build it, they can three D
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: print it. You know, they don't need oxygen, water, et cetera,
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: et cetera. So I think all those things are feasible.
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: But the idea that we're going to have a million
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: people or even thousands, even hundreds on Mars in twenty
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: five years, but.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: No person on Mars in twenty years, no person on
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: Mars in twenty fiftet just a robot we.
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: May have landed. I mean it's a big ask. We
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: may have landed. I mean, there's enough fantastic Netflix and
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: other paying channels available series about things like that, which
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: are great fun. We may have ended, but it's ambitious.
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: It's ambitious. The thing about Artemis and the Chinese version
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: of it is that they've gone back to the idea
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: because there was a huge debate over the past decade.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: Do you try and go straight to Mars from here
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: or do you go to the moon first, make your mistakes,
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: learn your lessons, and launch from there. The lily pad
• 46:31
  Speaker 4: to hop and that at the moment, the Moon has
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: won out because it takes more fuel get from the
• 46:39
  Speaker 4: surface of the Earth to the Moon, far far more
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: fuel than it does to get from the surface of
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: the Moon to Mars, even though Mars is you know,
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: millions of miles away, much further because you know, because
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: of escape velocity of getting out of the atmosphere.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: And let me ask you a final question. This is
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: also about belief. If I were to say to you
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: that you were going to the Moon, I'm going for
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: ten years. It's going to be great. I'm sending enough
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: oxytion going going the Moon for ten years and then
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: you can come back. But before you go, I'm going
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: to let you invest in something. I'm going to give
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: a choice of two things. That you can have one
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: is bitcoin and one is gold. You have to choose
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: one of these things. Your entire end net worth is
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: going into this thing, and you'll be back from the
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: moon in ten years. What do you think you'd take?
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, probably plenty of gold on the moon.
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: Right. I'm not going for that long because I've got
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: a season ticket at leg United, which money to renew.
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: But if I'm forced to, and if you freeze that,
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: I'm freezing in frozen gold. I'm not convinced by bitcoin.
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: I know, it's I mean, you talk about belief. Money
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: is just as you know, it's belief. You know, I
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: believe that this piece of paper here is worth that much.
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: I believe this piece of metal is worth it. It's
• 47:55
  Speaker 4: just a belief system. And I just believe that gold
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: has farm more even in the next ten years. Now,
• 48:03
  Speaker 4: if one of the asteroids crashes on Earth has got
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: more gold in it than has ever been mined, I've
• 48:08
  Speaker 4: made a bad bet. Failing that gold.
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that asteroid might also take out the Internet across
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: the UK, across the world, which point bitcoin is worthless too.
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: In which case gold is also far more. Yeah. Gold, Look,
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: I know it's not doing very well at the moment, though,
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: is it. But it'll it'll be back.
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: Jim, thank you, thank you so much. Absolutely fascinating. John Man,
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: what did you think about that conversation? I thought it
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: was fascinating.
• 48:46
  Speaker 5: It really was just so interasting, and I also understand
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: a lot more stuff that I have to see previously
• 48:54
  Speaker 5: had a somewhat foggy.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: What about like the different kinds of rule bit, Yeah,
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: that kind of thing, and how far up everything is.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: And you know, I don't know if we said on
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: the podcast, but maybe I were in the book that
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: we think of space as being so far away, but
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: if you were to just drive upwards, it's only an
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: hour's drive away less if you break the speed limits
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: really very very close. I might have added a bit
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: about the speed limit myself, but you get the general idea.
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: I thought it was great, and I mean again, it's
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: I can see more clearly why there's a bit of
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: a gold rush now, because anytime anyone talks about Lettium
• 49:34
  Speaker 5: mine and I'm kind of like, you know, can you
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: send a rocket when you can just go to Australia
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: and kind of like, you know, dig around a bit
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: more kind of thoroughly, but I can see the arguments now.
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: And also the fascinating thing about it is we kind
• 49:50
  Speaker 5: of need a cold war to get us to explore
• 49:54
  Speaker 5: these places, which is a bit depressing, but at least
• 49:57
  Speaker 5: it's an upside.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, have a bit of a ramy, as we know,
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: we need to have a bit of a ramy to
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: get the technology going, so we can see where we're at, right.
• 50:09
  Speaker 5: It's a bit of a it's a bit of a
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: coin test, like can a virility coin test between nations?
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: And also I can get to the moon faster than you.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that was the interesting thing that the last
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: time around it was a virility thing. You know, communism
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: is better than capitalism. You know, we're a better society.
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: We can do better things because you know, when we're
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: coherent as the society. Whatever it is, the Soviet Union
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: versus versus American business. What's interesting now is the fact
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: that it's not really like that. There's a bit than
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: the background. Who gets to colonize the moon first, who
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: gets to put a personal in males first, etc. But
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: actually the majority of this work is being done by
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: private companies, and so we have this vast amount of
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: private money up there. It's a completely different dynamic. And
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: suddenly you know, Elon Musks is making rules which won't
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: hold but nonetheless make it funny, ruled about what happens
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: on Mars. Yeah, totally different dynamic. And I've been really
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: interested in that, thinking, well, you know, space really isn't
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: a public place. It's a private place, and that's very different.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: But then Tim made this excellent point that even if
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: there are no laws in space, there are still a
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: hell of a lot of laws on Earth. And everyone
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: who wants to go to space has.
• 51:21
  Speaker 6: To leave from Earth.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: So you've got to get someone's permission to send your
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: rockets up, to send your satellites up, to send your
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: spaceships up. So it's like all things. And he said
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: at the end, which was so interesting because I keep
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: saying this to people, and you keep saying this to.
• 51:34
  Speaker 6: People, never right off the nation state.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: When it comes right down to it, this is where
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: sovereignty lies. It lies within the nation state. Every state
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: makes its own ruld. They have the power. If you
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: think they don't try breaking their.
• 51:46
  Speaker 5: Lawd Oh, I was going to say that. I thought
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: it was really interesting he brought that up, because it's true.
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: I mean, I'm a big scit a fine and one I.
• 51:56
  Speaker 6: Didn't even know that about you. We know, well I
• 51:58
  Speaker 6: did about it, kept it secret for.
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: I'm just kind of coming out of the closet to
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: this terrible it was too ashamed to admit it to you.
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: But no.
• 52:07
  Speaker 5: But one of the kind of like the key features
• 52:09
  Speaker 5: of sci fi over the last kind of like forty
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: odd years, it's kind of Tim sort of says, is
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: that he's always about big corporations, kind of light, you know, dominating,
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: and the dystopias are all run by someone probably a
• 52:21
  Speaker 5: bit like Elo and Mascot or something like that, who's got,
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: you know, maybe the best intentions, but they've destroyed the
• 52:27
  Speaker 5: world who their ambition and governments are either enthralled to
• 52:30
  Speaker 5: them or they don't exist. And that is clearly kind
• 52:34
  Speaker 5: of nonsense, you know, when push comes to shove, as
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: it very much has in the last ten years, you know,
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: because I guess it sort of also came about from
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: the nineties and the end of the First Cold War
• 52:46
  Speaker 5: because everyone kind of went, oh, that's you know, we
• 52:48
  Speaker 5: all agree and we're basically like one big global country now.
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: And obviously that's proved to be complete annoynsense and you know,
• 52:56
  Speaker 5: we've seen the return of the nation state, we have
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: vengeance over the last kind of five to ten years.
• 53:00
  Speaker 5: So I thought, yeah, that was a really good point.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: But then you get to the point and we talked
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: about this a little bit with him. We talked about
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: which country are going to be most powerful in space
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: in thirty forty years, and then we talked a little
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: bit about well, who's going to which companies are going
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: to be super powerful in space, and.
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: He mentioned which I thought was just so interesting. He
• 53:19
  Speaker 6: mentioned Toyota.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: They haven't made them yet, but they've designed moon rovers.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: And so there are going to be so many companies
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: out there who are already working on stuff that we
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: never think about. And they may be household names already,
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: we just don't think of them as space orientated companies.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: And I'm just fascinated to wait and find out who
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: they are and how that's going to work.
• 53:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And I mean it's also it's more because you know,
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: there's the problem is stuff like there's an investment in
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: this sort of thing, is it's the usual story. We
• 53:55
  Speaker 5: are okay, it's very exciting in the idea, but which
• 53:59
  Speaker 5: companies are actually in a survive in mohist companies are
• 54:02
  Speaker 5: going to do based.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: And how are you going to invest in that? How
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: are you going to invest in that? And there are
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: a couple, I mean, there are ways to invest in
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: what's going on in space. At the moment I'm in.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: SpaceX of course is the most well known company in
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: this space is not listed, but nonetheless there are there
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: are a lot of funds that you can buy in
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: the UK that will hold SpaceX, mainly a Bailey geffort
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 54:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think Scottish Mortgage has got four percent of
• 54:25
  Speaker 5: its portfolio in SpaceX.
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, so you've got about five investment trusts Bailey Given
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: Investment Trust alone that holds SpaceX, and Edinburgh Worldwide is another.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: They've got nearly six percent of their portfolio in SpaceX
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: is one of their top holdings.
• 54:39
  Speaker 6: So if you.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: Want exposure, a little bit of exposure to what's going
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: on in space in a particular for this rather an
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: amazing company, that's where you go right going to. It's
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: not going to move the dial on your investments. It's
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: only the smallest percent, but nonetheless you'll know you've got
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: a tiny bit of skin in the space game.
• 54:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah, And the other way to do it.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the other way to do it is Seraphim Space,
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: which is a trusted only space companies. Now, before you
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: started telling me about your success with freem and I'm
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: can tell you about my success and that when they
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: launched a few years back, I looked at it and
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: I was as interested in space then as I am
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: now in this trust, and I thought, well, this is
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: absolutely fascinating. But but, but, butter, in the middle of
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: a growth bubble, this stuff is insanely overpriced.
• 55:20
  Speaker 6: It's a bit silly.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: And I want to tell you, John, this is one
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: of my rare successes to share prices off forty four
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: percent since that that launch. So I'm fairly pleased with that.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: But you wrote about Sarah m just a few months.
• 55:35
  Speaker 5: Ago, right, Well, yeah, all about it, as I can
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: partly a grab by a highly discounted investment trust at
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: the end of the Vember, and it was treating a
• 55:43
  Speaker 5: discount of something mildly seventy percent. And there's pretty good
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: reasons for that Interestric's going out pavorately LESTI so playate assets.
• 55:52
  Speaker 5: But yeah, it's it's upper bout eighty percent since then.
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: I mean, the one thing I would see is it's
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: trading a bit sex dyps and then now is having
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: the book ninety six pence and it's it's still a
• 56:08
  Speaker 5: big descod but it probably deserves a big descot.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: Because this stuff is super real. Even if if you're
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: not going to invest in this stuff, you don't want
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: to buy this drass whatever you and you don't want
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: any exposure to it, it is worth going to their website.
• 56:23
  Speaker 6: Go to the website just for the.
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: Fun of it and spend some time reading about these amazing, exciting,
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: innovative companies that are involved in all the amazing stuff
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: that's going on in space. There's lots of AI on
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: this website. There's lots of satellite stuff, I mean just
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: just everything, lots of weather stuff.
• 56:45
  Speaker 6: There's even one that I would love to.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: Know more about. I'm going to get it. Click on
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: this home insurance powered by Science. How does that make
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: it into.
• 56:51
  Speaker 6: A space portfolio, But it does, as.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: It's absolutely fascinating. It's worth visiting this website and spending
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: a couple of ads on it. And I can't see
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: a better way to learn about space apart from listening,
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: of course, to Ted Marshall talking about space. Thanks for
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: listening for this week's Maren Talks Money. We'll move back
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: next week in the meantime. If you like our show,
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: rate review, and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast,
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: and also do tell your friends about us. This episode
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: was hosted by Me Maren' Sumset Web. It was produced
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: by Summersidi, additional editing by Blake Maple's Betel. Thanks to
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: Tim Marshall and to John Steppek And if you want
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: to hear more, by the way on John's thoughts on pensions,
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: sign up to his news letter Money Distilled, which you
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: can see on the website.