Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Anpanman - Europe SatCo JV, AI Data Centers, Launch Time

Transcript

Anpanman - Europe SatCo JV, AI Data Centers, Launch Time · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:06
This is the AST Space Mobile podcast and.
0:10
We just basically turn the phone be seamless regardless of where
0:14
you are. We don't want the user even to
0:16
know that it's connected by satellite.
0:21
Listen, the opportunity that we have is very, very, very large.
0:24
Large. Hey, what's up everyone?
0:28
Hope you guys can hear me. I'm going to bring Jacob up here
0:32
too. I can hear you.
0:38
So someone, yeah, I can hear you too.
0:41
So someone was saying, oh, you're going to front run Kook's
0:43
face. Yes, I am.
0:45
Or we are. It's going to be like we're
0:49
going to we're going to go through Kook's tweet thread for
0:52
the week and then when he comes on, he won't have anything to
0:55
say. It's almost like that rap battle
0:58
in an 8 Mile when Eminem takes fun of himself and then the the
1:03
guys he goes up against, they, they have nothing to say.
1:06
But no. I just figured we'd talk 'cause
1:09
there's like so much stuff going on and then Kook's space is so
1:12
late. I thought we could have a pre
1:15
show like Tailgate before the big, the big show, the event.
1:20
So anyway, Jake, how you doing? Are you walking your dog?
1:30
Oh, I guess he lucked anyway. But yeah, I I know Kook is going
1:36
to cover some of this stuff, but yeah, there's been a lot of
1:38
stuff going on just over the course of today, but also this
1:43
past week. And so I just wanted to talk a
1:45
little bit about some of the stuff that happened today, which
1:49
is kind of nuts. Let's see if it comes back and
1:54
bring it back up. But yeah, this morning.
1:57
So I guess starting yesterday and then really, I guess peeking
2:04
today, but who knows where this is going to go.
2:08
Elon Musk has just been hammering the EUI get you know,
2:12
he's he's obviously upset about the fact find that they levied
2:16
on him. And you know, I'm not, I'm not
2:19
going to get into the politics of it, but is probably most
2:24
people have seen this is a pretty bullish development for
2:28
AST space mobile. And you could argue for Rocket
2:32
Lab and, and any, basically any other space player that is not
2:36
named SpaceX or within the the SpaceX complex.
2:40
But but yeah, Ilan, you know, he speaks his mind, you know, good
2:46
for him. He's a pretty political dude.
2:48
And so he this morning was retweeting, you know, some
2:55
content that basically likened the EU to Nazi Germany.
3:01
And then, you know, he's talking about abolishing the EU.
3:05
And, yeah, I mean, again, not going to the politics of it.
3:10
But the key thing, the reason why people, you know that this
3:15
is caught people's attention is that for those that don't know,
3:20
ASD Space Mobile has this joint venture that they recently
3:24
formed with Vodafone earlier this year.
3:28
It's called Satco JV. And the way that that joint
3:32
venture is structured is that it's, it's controlled and
3:37
primarily and has majority ownership by European entities,
3:40
primarily Vodafone. And eventually once other
3:44
European MN OS are brought on board, you know they're probably
3:47
going to take some ownership taken in as well.
3:49
But ESDC Mobile's probably my guess will end up being a 49%
3:55
economic owner, but then in terms of voting control be a
3:59
minority. And so for all intents and
4:01
purposes, that entity is is European controlled, European
4:05
owned. When the consolation goes over
4:09
Europe, that entity will have sovereign control over
4:13
consolation. And so they'll have a kill
4:16
switch as they call it. And they'll have the ability to,
4:19
you know, beam down service, cut off service, you know, run the
4:22
data, all that stuff. But yeah, I think the key thing
4:28
and you're seeing, you know, this this reaction from AST
4:33
Space Mobile folks and and Cooke, we'll talk more about
4:35
this later, but this is almost kind of like the Trump Trump
4:42
tantrum between Trump and Elan. You know, this is like 2 point O
4:46
when when obviously that that relationship kind of soured.
4:49
And then you saw AST Space Mobile and Rocket Lab, you know,
4:54
rally significantly when, when that that relationship kind of
4:57
broke down. And as we say, I, I tweeted this
5:00
before, but some of the stuff that Elan has been putting out
5:03
there about the year, like you can't the genies not of the
5:07
bottle, like you can't put that stuff back in.
5:09
And what's been done is done and can't be undone.
5:13
And so why that's important is that EU regulators are going to,
5:19
you know, your next year there's going to be a ton of regulatory
5:22
activity on what to do in terms of allocating MSS spectrum over
5:30
Europe. And Echostar has their renewal
5:34
coming up. I forget exactly if it's like 15
5:37
by 15 megahertz or maybe it's 10 by 10.
5:39
But but yeah, they're going to go to regulators and say, hey,
5:42
we're, we're well positioned to, you know, serve Europe and we're
5:47
going to do that with Starlink. And so please give us an
5:51
spectrum allocation back. And and then I think the
5:53
regulators are going to look at them and say, well, first of
5:56
all, you've done nothing with it for the last, I forgot how long
5:59
the concession was. I think it was like 18 years.
6:02
You've done nothing with it. And and now you're in partnering
6:05
with this, this company and this guy who basically says we
6:09
shouldn't exist. So why should we give it to you?
6:12
That's going to be really tough hill to climb.
6:15
And I think it's also important to note that that Echostar, the
6:21
transaction that they entered into with SpaceX is actually
6:25
just for US Spectrum. So I know and it's a little,
6:29
it's been a little unclear when you, when you hear like Echostar
6:34
talk about it and SpaceX and it takes, you know, some digging
6:37
through the Spectrum purchase agreement.
6:40
But that deal is only for US Spectrum.
6:43
It's not for global Spectrum now obviously and that's AWS 4, AWS
6:48
3 and parts of the H block. And so when SpaceX paid $19
6:54
billion for that slug, first slug with Spectrum, that's just
6:58
for US. And then they paid another over
7:00
the 2 to 3 billion for some AWS 3.
7:04
But SpaceX is actually in the same shoes as us.
7:07
They actually need to go around the world and by either Wheeling
7:12
and dealing with with companies that already own spectrum or
7:18
perhaps entering partnerships with them or going to regulators
7:21
and procuring spectrum, whether that includes some amount of
7:25
money or commitments or sometimes that's just free
7:29
there. It's going to be kind of a a
7:32
jump ball situation. It's a it's a race right for for
7:35
all these parties to go get spectrum.
7:37
That said, just to give you an idea of like what that could
7:41
look like, Saudi Telecom who entered into a 10 year, you
7:47
know, M&O agreement, definitive agreement with us for $1.8
7:51
billion, minimum 175,000,000 prepaid revenue and there's
7:55
minimum revenue commitments there.
7:56
They actually already owned 'cause they, they won this
8:01
through an auction, they already owned 60 megahertz of S band
8:04
spectrum. That's right.
8:05
Yeah, S band spectrum and they, and by the way, like L band
8:10
spectrum in Saudi Arabia is not even allocated.
8:13
And so in that instance, we're already partnered with the MNO
8:17
that owns all the S band spectrum in the country.
8:22
And and that spectrum is for satellite use.
8:25
And so if you put one-on-one together that, that 60 megahertz
8:29
is going to be brought to bear with our constellation, which is
8:32
why I think Saudi telecom, you know, uses this.
8:34
So it's strategic and and so and that doesn't include the L band
8:40
spectrum, which again, hasn't been allocated yet.
8:43
So I think I mean, that's kind of the danger.
8:47
Like Ilan clearly is a super smart guy and and can execute
8:51
and inspires people around him, but but he's super political
8:55
too, right? And so if you can imagine, if
8:59
you're on the regulatory team, like I think Dave Goldman, it's
9:03
SpaceX, you know, he's the famous guy who called AST space
9:07
mobile own. He called out the foreign
9:12
partners giving SpaceX a hard time in, in one of his complaint
9:17
letters. And obviously we all found that
9:19
funny because Deutsche Telekom or, or you know, Spacex's key
9:23
partner, T-Mobile is like, you know, owned by Deutsche Telekom,
9:28
which is a foreign entity. And you know, there's like
9:30
political, there's been some political hey, about whether or
9:33
not it makes sense for a German company to own such a a large
9:37
quantum of US spectrum, which is highly strategic.
9:40
But we're not going to talk about that anyway.
9:43
Quick question, quick point of clarification.
9:46
So the spectrum that they that startling Hardy is using for the
9:51
fixed wireless, do you know, off the top of your head, which I
9:55
mean, that's like upper that's like 3030 thousand plus, right,
9:58
or 3000 plus, right. OK, so that that that's it's a
10:02
similar like path through all the regulatory environments,
10:05
right. And so I'm wondering, I guess my
10:07
my only question was, is that SpaceX have some sort of leg up
10:09
there in the sense the company has already gone through regard,
10:13
you know, take Elon on an equation just just at what they
10:15
already have. Does that is that lean to the
10:18
idea that it's going to be at least somewhat easier for them
10:21
to get this next bands of spectrum for direction of ice?
10:26
That's a good question that it could ease it a bit for
10:31
countries where they already service KA and K band spectrum,
10:35
which is what you're talking about, which is much higher.
10:37
It's it's, you know, high, high band spectrum.
10:40
But when it comes to MSSI think in particular, and that this is
10:45
primarily for Europe. I I just the fact that Echostar
10:49
and SpaceX and the lawn are tied at the hip.
10:52
I think they just, I think literally the last few days kind
10:56
of estimated any hope to get that renewal.
11:00
That said, it's not as if SpaceX owns that spectrum 'cause that
11:05
that spectrum in Europe was not included in the transaction.
11:09
And so one, one thing that I'm actually, and this is like for
11:13
any Echostar bulls, this is something to really think about
11:17
'cause I, this morning when I saw these tweets, I was like, Oh
11:19
my God, this could be a good shorting opportunity for
11:21
Echostar. But then when I looked at the
11:24
deal docs, it's like, OK, it's not contingent on this.
11:27
But you know, if I guess taking this step back, if you were
11:32
SpaceX and you did this Echostar deal and you, you paid a nice
11:36
price for the US spectrum, you, you probably have ambitions and,
11:40
and you're talking to Charlie Oregon and Oregon's obviously
11:42
very incentivized to work with you because he's going to own a
11:45
lot of SpaceX stock. Your, your next plan is to go
11:50
get that European spectrum right.
11:53
And, and the key thing of course is renewal because, and this is
11:56
kind of like how all these things come together and it's
11:59
important that renewal's in May 2027.
12:03
If you look at the transaction, the deal, the deal doesn't close
12:08
actually until 2027, which I think lines up with the maturity
12:12
of some of its debt. But there's, it's like a 2 step
12:15
deal where the, the US spectrum gets put into her trust and then
12:20
it, it's there, you know, this regular by the way, it's like
12:23
for Echostar, the regulatory process to actually get this
12:26
spectrum approved back from terrestrial to, you know,
12:33
satellite use, space use is, is a very long road.
12:36
And then on top of that, it's not, I think previously the, the
12:42
spectrum was approved for maybe it was like GO use, but now they
12:45
have to get it approved for Leo. So moving back from terrestrial
12:49
to set space and then from space from GO to to Leo.
12:53
And so there's a lot of steps there.
12:54
And so as a reminder, like this stuff, the, the, the deal is
12:58
actually not going to close until 2027.
13:00
And that's what they've guided people to.
13:02
I think it's like November 2027. And so part of me was like when
13:05
I was reading this stuff, seeing what Ilan is writing on, it's
13:08
like, oh, you know what, like SpaceX basically has this
13:11
transaction is an option. It's an option, the transaction
13:15
with Echostar is an option to see if they'll get regulatory
13:20
approval. But then within that time frame,
13:22
you're going to have the European reallocation process
13:26
happen. And you're going to know before
13:28
the deal this, you know, the current deal closes, whether or
13:30
not Echostar is going to get that spectrum.
13:32
And so that's actually pretty the deal is not contingent on on
13:37
the European spectrum getting reallocated.
13:40
But if you're SpaceX, you might have some level of buyer's
13:43
remorse or say, hey, you know what, Charlie?
13:44
Like part of the not in written, but our verbal green was like,
13:49
you were going to get that European spectrum, you didn't
13:52
get it. And so maybe we'll cut the price
13:54
or whatever it is, right? And so that's something to be
13:57
aware of it because the transaction is structured in a
13:59
weird way, like it's the deals not closing until 20 late 2027.
14:03
And so you're going to have this risk of Europe not giving
14:07
Echostar that allocation, which technically is not part of this
14:11
deal, but it is. I would argue it is part of the
14:14
deal. But then, you know, if I'm
14:16
urgent, I'm like, hey, you guys, Elan's warpath against the EU,
14:22
Kibosh our ability to get the renewal.
14:25
And then and then, you know, you might get into this huge
14:27
argument. I, I guess I would say is that
14:30
in terms of if you want to do a deal with somebody an M and a
14:35
deal that has a very long tail on it in terms of timing.
14:39
You know, Elon Musk may not be the best partner because we all
14:42
saw that with Twitter where how he threatened to cut the price
14:45
or walk away. But of course, that deal got
14:48
enforced in the courts and then you decided to just go through
14:50
with the deal. And I'm not saying that's going
14:51
to happen here, but it's a consideration.
14:54
I think as the political he turns up political rhetoric with
14:59
the EU, the ability to you get that renewal, the risk goes up.
15:04
And then I think also just getting MSS spectrum globally,
15:08
that risk goes up as well because you're dealing with
15:10
someone who one day is supporting one political party,
15:14
the next day might be sort of reporting another one and and
15:17
undermining your country, right, Because he's got a a huge social
15:21
media platform to do so. And you saw that in spades
15:25
today. So anyway, I mean, yeah, it's,
15:29
it's, but it's super bullish for AST because I think, you know,
15:33
Iris probably gets some allocation of MSS spectrum.
15:36
And then if you've got like Vodafone and a bunch of European
15:42
carriers like Orang and you know, Altice and then and
15:47
Telefonica, a whole host of other carriers come come to you
15:51
and say, hey, we want allocation of this.
15:53
And and by the way, like this consolation is going out and
15:56
it's going to go up well before Iris ever even starts putting
16:00
together a solar panel. Then I think that's pretty
16:04
compelling, right? And and it's European.
16:06
It's you're going to create Sacco JV is going to be a
16:09
European champion, right? And it's going to be able to
16:11
provide consumers with connectivity and it's going to
16:15
ensure from a military point of view in defense, you know, a
16:21
communications capability, whether it's, well, not just
16:23
communications, but other non communications capabilities that
16:27
will, you know, help help the continent defend itself against
16:31
Russia or whoever else. But but on the flip side, you
16:35
know, there there is that I'm sure Europeans still be some,
16:39
some concerns and, and about the fact that the company that this
16:42
consultation will be shared with US and the company is, you know,
16:46
it's it's AUS company. But, but I think you can
16:50
structure around that where at least you will have sovereign
16:53
control when it's over Europe. And you know, you'll ring fence,
16:57
you'll you'll ring fence the the technology such that it's not
17:02
it's not going to be, you're not going to have these conflicts.
17:04
But anyway, but yeah, that's that that's something to keep an
17:08
eye out. And I don't know, it seems like
17:12
that whole, the whole European versus Ilan is like going to get
17:17
worse. And so in a perverse way, like
17:22
that's better for us. And quite candidly, it's like
17:25
for every space company, like if you're if you're Rocket Lab or
17:30
some of these other companies that are competing with SpaceX
17:32
for business outside the US, that it just opens more daylight
17:37
for you to go pursue contracts. As I think the bigger
17:43
controversy that that Elon kind of, you know, musters up like
17:47
that's that's going to give governments and private
17:50
interests, it's going to give them a second thought.
17:53
But yeah, so. Real quick, last, last thing on
17:57
the spectrum. I can't I'm trying to, I was
17:59
trying to look it up while you're talking, but somebody
18:02
early maybe beginning of summer or something like that or over
18:04
the summer talked about it was there's a basically that the EU
18:07
regulators stated or somebody expert in the field say there's
18:11
no presumption of renewal. So especially for something like
18:14
Echostar, like who hasn't who's had this spectrum license for
18:16
what 10 years plus or whatever it's been and then they haven't
18:19
actually done anything with it. Like there, there was AI don't
18:23
know. It's, I almost feel like that's
18:24
going to cause like them to be pissed off like, well, you know,
18:27
you've had this, you've had this spectrum for however long and
18:30
now and you know, you didn't do anything with it.
18:31
Why should we renew it or give it to you for renewal?
18:33
I don't know, just to I, I wish I could find a reference, but I
18:36
felt like it was probably you or somebody in ASD that definitely
18:39
like shared it this summer. Yeah, no, that, that's right.
18:43
I mean they haven't they haven't done anything with anything with
18:45
it. And so and then I think Biasats,
18:48
the other player they, they provide with some of the MSS
18:52
spectrum they have, they actually provide airlines with
18:54
connectivity. But then funny enough, Starlink
18:57
has actually started taking all that business in Europe.
19:00
And so I'm not even sure they can justify keeping their
19:03
allocation. But I think there's been there
19:07
there the EU had asked participants who are, who are
19:11
seeking spectrum, how would you divide it up?
19:14
And I think it is going to be probably allocated to two or
19:17
three players. But I, but I'm almost, it's
19:21
almost guaranteed as my guess is that IRS will get the decent
19:24
allocation. And then the key question is
19:26
like, who else gets that? And I think, you know, AST makes
19:30
a very compelling case. And I'd be surprised.
19:32
I mean, I don't know if they will just completely lock out
19:35
Echostar, but I'd be surprised that they get a large
19:38
allocation. And if they do, if I were the
19:41
regulators, I would, I would make it a requirement,
19:45
obviously, that if Echostar ever decided to lease that spectrum
19:49
or to sell it, that you would have the ability to, you know,
19:53
basic effectively a poison pill, put a veto on it.
19:56
And then if, if they weren't, if they're you might have like some
20:01
kind of build out requirements or usage requirements.
20:03
And if they don't, if they don't use it, then they lose it.
20:05
And then, you know, that gets allocated to somebody else.
20:07
But, but yeah, I, I 2026 in particular for that situation is
20:12
going to be pretty damn interesting.
20:14
And then, yeah. And then I guess Jacob, we can
20:18
talk about like AI data, which is like the soup du jour.
20:23
Yeah, yeah, that. I was like, I'm like, oh, we're
20:25
gonna have a spectrum conversation.
20:27
I was like, I'll try. Yeah, yeah.
20:30
No, no, the, the a data centers, it's, it's kind of funny because
20:33
I, I think I, I mentioned this before, but it, it's, it's like
20:39
one of these when you look at like what Star Cloud proposed
20:41
and I know and was great, by the way, everyone should go back.
20:44
And I think it's like 3 weeks ago that Jacob hosted Star Cloud
20:48
CEO. And so that was a pretty
20:50
informative space. It was unfortunate one that,
20:53
that I missed because I was at my son's soccer practice.
20:55
But it's definitely going back, worth going back and listening
20:58
to. But I think the key, one of the
21:00
key things that the CEO talked about is or a key problem is,
21:04
is, you know, dissipating heat and figuring out radiator
21:08
solutions. And so that, but, but then, you
21:13
know, as I was brushing my teeth, getting ready to, to do
21:17
this space, it must have been brutal for this guy because and
21:20
because we, we all faced it back in what was it September 2022,
21:25
when, when it's like a we're leading, we're we're doing this
21:27
thing. And then Elon comes out and
21:29
says, I want to do it too. And then it just drops a hammer,
21:33
which on the one hand, it's great because this the star
21:35
cloud CEO, it's like he's gotten a ton of attention and followers
21:40
and, and everyone's like, Oh my God, this is real.
21:42
Just like me. When I kind of I saw the, the
21:45
YouTube video of, of the architecture he's putting up and
21:48
I was like, holy shit, that's like got Kessler syndrome
21:50
written all over it. But then, but then because Elon
21:53
Musk is, is talking about it and people are now doing work and
21:57
and then they're realizing, oh, Google's been talking about this
22:00
and everybody, you know, there's been this like discussion
22:02
already. And he's kind of, I'm not saying
22:05
Elon is like late to the game, but he's validated it by
22:08
acknowledging like, Hey, SpaceX is going to do it.
22:10
And of course, like it's perfect timing, right?
22:13
Like he's the company is having a tender and they're going to
22:18
buy back stock from they or well, they and then outside
22:21
investors are going to buy stock from insiders and that's going
22:25
to happen at an $800 billion valuation.
22:28
There's it's not as if, you know, the timing of the whole
22:32
idea of discussing data centers is perfect because it, it gets
22:35
people, it gets people going, like they say.
22:37
And, and I, what was that movie blaze of steel?
22:43
You, you say something provocative to get people going
22:45
And, and that's a identity data centers.
22:47
I think it's, it's, it's kind of silly in the beginning when you,
22:50
when you, when you start talking about it, But then when you go
22:52
to the numbers and you, you think about the limited
22:55
resources here on earth and how much stuff, it's how much, how
23:01
much energy and cooling like water and things like that.
23:04
It's going to take here. And, and the fact that, you
23:06
know, if everyone's looking at their heating bill recently,
23:10
it's like, oh, my electricity is, is going, is, is like
23:12
gapping up and going straight. It's going vertical.
23:15
It's not sustainable. And so, so at some point, and
23:20
who knows, like this AI bubble, it's probably a bubble to a
23:23
degree. And you're going to have like
23:24
some pull back, but it's in this inexorable rise, like that's
23:28
going to continue, whether you know, it pulls back and then
23:31
keeps going up or a year from now, it does that.
23:33
But it seems like that's going to be the trend.
23:35
And so I, I think like, I think putting, so it's kind of, I
23:41
think it's important to kind of separate two things, right?
23:44
Like it's not as if data centers on Earth are going to be
23:48
completely replaced with data centers in space, but I think
23:52
for a particular applications, at least in the beginning.
23:54
And we'll see where things go. But you know, we talked about
23:58
this in one of the chats, I think with Jacob, where, yeah,
24:03
if, if you're going to put up Golden Dome, you're going to
24:06
need, you're going to need AI processing out in space.
24:10
And that's going to have to be fully independent and cut off
24:16
from Earth, right? Like if you want this golden
24:18
Dome to be smart enough to like stop threats, it cannot be
24:21
depended on anything down on Earth, right?
24:24
Because those things on Earth, like if you need someone to make
24:28
decisions or you have a data center on Earth that's going to
24:30
enable, like it's got AI processors and it's going to
24:33
enable a response. What if that data center's gone?
24:38
You cannot rely on any ground infrastructure to be successful,
24:42
right? For it to be resilient.
24:44
Because in a conflict, if your adversary has already lit up a
24:49
few of your cities and the data centers are there or they, they
24:53
in a smart way, they target data centers on Earth.
24:57
You know, maybe population centers aren't targets anymore.
24:59
It's going to be infrastructure, right?
25:02
Then you're going to need, you know, AI computing capacity out
25:07
in the out, not in the cloud, but out in space.
25:10
And so that's where, you know, when people look at star cloud,
25:14
I know there's some folks who are like skeptical and like, Oh
25:17
my gosh, that's five gigawatts. Like, no way.
25:19
It's like, no, no, no, we're not that that's that's where they're
25:22
out and we'll figure out. I mean, who knows?
25:23
Technology is going to change. And yeah, I don't, I don't think
25:26
we should be putting up massive structures like that in space
25:29
because they probably already get smashed by a meteor or
25:33
whatever it is, right? And then that's bad news for
25:35
everybody. But, but you are going to need
25:38
distributed computing out up in space.
25:41
And you might need, you know, I joked about like a data bird,
25:45
right? But but it imagine like an ASD
25:48
space mobile Bluebird, but you take out all the antenna
25:51
elements, you replace the ASICS or Fpgas that are focused on
25:56
signal processing, beamforming and doing all those
25:59
calculations. You replace those with GPUs or
26:04
Tpus. But you have got, you know, Elon
26:05
Musk today he said, hey, you know, the way this would work is
26:08
you might need a satellite that has 100 kilowatts of power.
26:10
Well, yeah, a Bluebird Block 2 has 100 to 120 kilowatts of
26:15
power now. And you know, you can you don't
26:18
have to orbit it at a the same inclination that, you know,
26:23
we've been talking about. You could actually do it in a
26:26
sun synchronous orbit or who knows, right?
26:28
There's there's various ways to to send those birds up and have
26:33
them, you know, focus on the sun completely or maybe they're in
26:35
and out. But I think the key thing though
26:38
is that I think that the key thing is that you, you will need
26:43
computing capacity out there. I know some folks have asked,
26:46
well these Bluebirds like do they have optical inter
26:49
satellite links? Because I don't remember seeing
26:51
that. Yeah, actually block one does
26:54
and that was part of the testing the regime that was required by
26:57
some of these defense awards. And my guess is FM 1 and FM 2
27:00
have them and my guess is going forward all of them are going to
27:03
have them. But I think you know, having
27:06
intra satellite links, you know as I mentioned before, like you
27:09
take out the you take out the the antennas and you take out
27:14
anything related to, you know, direct to device, direct to cell
27:18
communications. You keep the QV feeder links
27:21
that will be able to communicate with the earth.
27:23
And by the way, like I think the Star Cloud CEO is saying, well,
27:26
we're not going to communicate with the Earth because we don't
27:28
want to deal with light, you know, spectrum licenses and, and
27:31
having to go through all that technological, you know, the,
27:34
the hoops to get there. It's like, well, oh, these
27:37
black, these repurposed Bluebirds already have the high
27:41
throughput data links down to Earth.
27:44
And so, so yeah, I think, I think you could, I mean, you
27:47
have the building blocks, right? And there would have to be
27:49
design changes, but I don't think the design changes are
27:52
that Herculean. And so, you know, you add
27:55
battery. I mean, there's already
27:56
batteries, but perhaps you add more batteries.
27:59
I I talked about this idea of not having storage on the
28:02
satellites and just keeping storage on Earth.
28:04
But if least in the, in the golden Dome type of application,
28:10
you actually want a decent amount of onboard storage
28:13
because again, perhaps the things that you rely on down on
28:17
Earth might be gone in a conflict.
28:19
And so these things need to be fully self, you know, self
28:24
reliant and, you know, autonomous.
28:26
But but yeah, you don't like, I was talking with Jacob and, and
28:30
of course, you know, I think there's some other companies
28:32
that are well positioned, like I think Rocket Lab in terms of end
28:36
to end space systems. You know, they, they, they've
28:38
actually build. It's pretty sad because like
28:43
Jacob and and other Rocket Lab bulls have talked, talked about
28:47
this ad nauseam. And I guess I just didn't pick
28:50
up on it, but they, they did, you know, Rocket Lab did buy
28:53
this. He's laughing.
28:56
They they did buy this solar solar company that's focused on
29:00
space that has a unique technology that can build solar
29:03
panels that are basically gallium arsenide, but much
29:07
thinner that thinner films like it doesn't have the backing.
29:10
So it's much lighter even. But, and I think those, I think
29:14
the efficiency is like pretty high, maybe it's like 30 to 45%
29:18
or even higher. But but it seems like those
29:22
those sort of panels are or the sort of cells modules are for
29:26
highly specialized applications because they're they're very
29:28
expensive, but who knows the price.
29:32
Yeah, yeah, I, I was going to say I looked at, I mean they're,
29:35
they're definitely going to get some, some pricing advantage
29:38
with their new like so the part of the CHIPS Act, they got 25
29:43
million or so and then state of New Mexico added another
29:45
25,000,000 so they can upgrade their basically the reactors,
29:49
the thing we talked about earlier, the epitaxial layer,
29:52
the growth for the actual cells, those the tools that do that
29:55
machines do that. They are purchasing new ones,
29:58
the newest models from Vico who's a big name in the
30:00
industry, semiconductor industry in general.
30:02
But so that will drop the price. But I was gonna say the primary
30:07
use case for those solar cells is like, oh, we're going to go
30:10
to it's like deep space missions.
30:11
Their their radiation heart are tolerant, you know, or if they
30:14
that's what's going to be using the ingenuity Mars helicopter,
30:18
stuff like that or, or the solar Parker probe.
30:20
So like real, real specialized stuff that they cannot fail and
30:23
they need a high efficiency for lower mass because of, you know,
30:26
the distant shots. That's like that's like the the
30:29
bread and butter of where that comes in.
30:31
Stuff like, you know, Starlink or even AST space mobile cells,
30:36
they're using it because everything low Earth orbit,
30:38
lower lifetime, like shorter lifetime, stuff like that.
30:40
They haven't needed that that advantage.
30:43
So just in pure terms of pure scaling, yeah, that technology
30:47
is not that, that type of cell would I mean wouldn't be the at
30:52
least of the the the first choice.
30:53
I mean, maybe because it's internalized they would have
30:56
enough of a cost advantage to to make it make sense.
30:58
But yeah, they're they're not going to go out and be selling a
31:01
gigawatts levels of a power out of using this type of
31:05
technology, right. At least I don't think so.
31:10
Yeah, that, no, that makes sense.
31:11
I mean, it's, it's a very specialized and really expensive
31:14
technology. And so sending that to like, I
31:17
was, I was reading this guide, you know, of course I got sucked
31:21
into the Twitter hole over the course of the day, even though I
31:23
had all these other things to do.
31:25
But I was reading this guy's post who was saying like,
31:28
there's no one's going to be able to survive on Mars because
31:30
there's so much radiation. And it's, it's like, even if you
31:34
build structures to, to live in, they're going to be, you know,
31:38
out of metal, heavy metal, like eventually they're going to
31:40
become radiated. And then people are like, well,
31:42
you just like lawn Mousk can just use boring company and
31:45
we're going to live in caves at Mars and get around it.
31:48
But, but I could see like how having having a vehicle on Mars
31:54
with, with solar, it's you're going to need obviously
31:57
something more, more, you know, resistant and, and, and
32:03
efficient, but resistant radiation and can survive really
32:07
harsh environments, which is what Rocket Lab has right,
32:10
versus the, the silicon that, you know, it's.
32:14
So for, for those that don't know, like HT space mobile and
32:17
Starlink use basically consumer like silicon, silicon grade or
32:23
silicon based solar cells and modules.
32:26
And then they, the companies themselves actually harden
32:29
those. And so you use some types of
32:32
resins and then also maybe like a glass that can block radiation
32:36
and you put that over it. And that's good enough for, for
32:39
low Earth orbit. But then as Jacob mentioned,
32:42
like as you get out to higher orbits and then of course, in
32:46
deep space, that stuff's not going to fly, especially if it's
32:50
like mission critical because you know, for, for Starlink or
32:53
AC space mobile, like if you have parts of the solar panels
32:56
like that that fail, that's OK. Or the entire satellite pricks,
33:01
then I mean, it's not great, but that's, that's not, that's OK.
33:04
But then if you're sending one or two satellites on the mission
33:06
to Mars, like nothing can fail. So, but yeah, I mean, Jacob,
33:11
like what's your thought about I guess Rocket Lab and and how
33:14
it's positioned for potential data centers in space?
33:18
Yeah, I mean, I, I, I have got, I've definitely like done a 180
33:22
on this whole topic since, I don't know, since the summer.
33:25
I mean, even just leading into that interview with the
33:27
Starcloud CEO, like I was, I was, I don't know that two weeks
33:31
before. So it was when we got when we
33:32
got the message and Francisco was able to connect us for that
33:37
interview. And so I started reading his
33:38
white papers, started being more into it and I was like, all
33:40
right, well, I'm not. And then I started to like move
33:42
to neutral and then, you know, and the, the time since then,
33:45
I've kind of gone into the more bullish stance on it.
33:48
But so, so like total cost of ownership is what I'm like for
33:52
specific Rocket Lab, like it their approach like total cost
33:54
of ownership of the, of the, you know, of a day center.
33:58
Let's let's not assume it's a giant single unit.
34:02
It's, it's more of a going to be like distributed architecture
34:04
kind of thing. Then, then, then it's like, you
34:07
know, they, they can build the buses.
34:09
They, you know, there, you have the tech there they, you know,
34:11
all the, all the reaction wheel start everything that goes in a
34:14
normal satellite they already produce in house.
34:17
And and then the cortical payload for this would be would
34:20
be the GP us, right? And that's the biggest payload.
34:23
You know, if they as soon as they close my ARC, they'll have
34:25
the optical satellite interlink. So they they own the whole stack
34:29
to be able to go into this, obviously other than the GP us
34:32
themselves plus launch. And so, you know, they're
34:34
getting internalized launched. We'll have internalized launch
34:37
cost for that. I mean, to me, if it's, if it is
34:40
actually a real revenue generating like good business
34:43
model and that'll kind of get proved out over the next couple
34:46
years. I feel like they're, they're
34:47
well positioned, take advantage of it, you know, just because of
34:52
the, you know, they already, they already touched everything
34:55
that's on a satellite. They already build enough
34:56
different kinds of them that like, if this becomes something
34:59
that, that whatever customer wants to actually have up there,
35:03
then I, I, I don't know, it feels like, it feels like they,
35:06
they are well positioned to be able to, to do that.
35:08
Some of the areas where I'm like they're either going to need to
35:11
make some acquisitions or have, or come up with some like, you
35:14
know, internal R&D kind of thing for it is the an area that AS CS
35:19
world has the advantage on? It's the, the radiators, right,
35:22
dissipating the heat. Sorry, I'm bringing up, but you,
35:26
you brought up a one of the patents they have around
35:32
basically the each the each of the microns has their own, it
35:35
dissipates the heat locally at each Micron.
35:38
And so instead of having like a rack of GPUs and then having to
35:42
kind of, you know, use some liquid cooling loop through the
35:45
whole thing, you could have the you could have a rack of GPUs
35:48
quote, UN quote, distributed out over the entire satellite, Which
35:51
I don't know that I mean that at least on the surface, seems like
35:54
a basically instead of, you know, it's like you're
35:58
distributing the architecture onto the satellite and the same
36:01
idea of distributing the the the entire AI data center over
36:04
several satellites. I like the idea of that.
36:07
So I don't know at least if, if it, if it's a good business
36:10
model. I I mean, and and and it's like
36:12
something that could be really revenue generating.
36:15
I I mean Rocket lab seems really well positioned for this.
36:17
They're the full vertical integration there AST space
36:21
mobile, same thing. The only piece that they, you
36:23
know, that Rocket lab would have over that would be the the
36:25
launch in house. So I mean, yeah, I guess it's
36:30
still the use cases. I, I def so the, the thing that
36:33
the star cloud CEO said, the initial cases would be for
36:35
things like, you know, the data that's already created on orbit,
36:40
processing that data on orbit and then passing down the actual
36:43
results so that, you know, the inference of that stuff.
36:45
So that's all the, that's all the earth observation groups
36:49
because right now, like planet labs, they, they basically
36:52
inactive over the oceans or that, that all that imaging
36:55
process is, is lost and, or something like that.
36:58
And so there's like this tons of data that's up there that for a
37:01
while now that, you know, RF is not good enough to send all that
37:06
data down. It's too, too much, you know,
37:09
you need. So that's why the whole, oh, I
37:11
see passing it around on orbit with optical interlinks, which
37:14
has much higher data rates. Then you could process the
37:17
information up there and send out a result kind of thing.
37:19
So you would you have a way of like basically not dumping all
37:22
of this useful, potentially useful data all the satellites
37:26
are collecting. And that's like on the EO front.
37:28
I'm not sure how this affects the comms front, but I'm sure
37:33
there's there's, I mean, as stuff gets more, I don't know,
37:35
it's got to be a reason to have more compute up there, right?
37:38
So I feel like those are the first use cases is is the data
37:40
that's created on orbit, whatever that may be defense
37:43
civil in processing that data on orbit.
37:46
I don't think they're going to have any sort of like, you know,
37:49
a training cluster up there anytime soon kind of thing.
37:51
But I could definitely see the near term using, you know,
37:55
basically what's the star called CEO point.
37:57
That is the biggest first use case.
37:59
Right. Yeah, it seems like this is
38:02
really there's going to be some initial use cases and it's
38:05
probably going to be related to it.
38:06
Like you said, where if you have data intensive applications and
38:12
and you need AI to, you know, if it's Earth observation to make
38:16
sense of everything and and you have all these satellites that
38:18
are constantly ingesting information imaging, especially
38:23
in video to draw some insights. Like it probably makes sense to
38:28
do that in space versus put beam down certain things that that
38:33
are limited because you can't like you were saying you can't
38:37
beam down that much data. And so I think like going back
38:41
to the Golden Dome example, you're going to need space based
38:46
processing to make your AI to make those types of decisions.
38:51
And so I think and perhaps like, you know, if it's the military,
38:55
you're going to need some level of redundancy, you know, command
38:57
and control out in space versus if if something gets, you know,
39:02
wiped out here on Earth. And so, but wholesale, you know,
39:06
replacement of data centers that that seems like it's going to be
39:10
quite a few years away. Yeah, on that point you were
39:14
pointing to the different reasons why this could become a
39:17
more useful case later. So we had a space last week and
39:20
talked about a little bit about it.
39:21
But, you know, so like some of the gating factors will be
39:24
launch cost coming down the then the power, the power basically
39:30
trade off like it it stuff starts gets more expensive on
39:32
earth for power, it starts to be more useful.
39:35
And then the last piece I was talking about before was that
39:37
maybe it's not cheaper to put it in space yet, But what if it's
39:41
faster? What if you don't have the
39:42
regulate regulatory hurdles of of, you know, building the
39:46
finding the land, building it, hooking to the grid, all that
39:49
stuff. And if you could, if you could
39:51
take all that and shorten it to be able to just launch like
39:55
let's say it's few years from now, the technology's matured
39:57
and then you could launch it. And like, then you look at a 2
40:00
pass there right from starting at, you know, let's say it's
40:02
2030, it's just starting from zero.
40:04
I want to build a new data center.
40:06
Is it faster or, you know, do I want it fast or I want it cheap?
40:10
And maybe it'll be faster to do it on orbit at that point, I
40:12
don't know. Yeah, that's a good point.
40:15
And I, I think, yeah, it, it's the more, the more like I look
40:20
into this, it seems like, and this is the key thing, right?
40:23
Like technology is going to improve and it's going to become
40:26
cheaper and, and of course, launch is becoming really cheap.
40:30
And so it, it's probably, we're going to be entering the next
40:35
few years where all these companies are going to start
40:38
partnering with space companies. And there's only a few that
40:42
actually, I mean, you could go work at the prime like a Boeing
40:45
or, you know, one of the other Lockheed Martin.
40:48
But then we all know how how efficient those companies are in
40:54
terms of cost and speed versus working with some of these new
40:57
space companies, which as I mentioned in the space before,
41:01
like it's not, it's not just the, it's not going to be just
41:05
Google or Amazon or Microsoft. Obviously, you know, Grok is
41:12
going to be, is going to be integrated with SpaceX.
41:14
But but, but yeah, it's going to be those companies, but it's
41:17
also going to be the data center companies.
41:19
Because if you're, if you're, let's say an Iran or Cor weave,
41:24
like you're going to want to understand what the economics
41:28
are and the exposure is of space competition.
41:32
And so you're going to probably take strategic stakes or joint
41:35
ventures. You know, we saw this with
41:37
American Tower when AT Space Mobile was first put together.
41:41
And perhaps like a few years after development, American
41:44
Tower took a strategic stake and got a board seat because they're
41:47
like, oh, this company, if they're successful in what
41:50
they're doing, they're going to put a big, they're going to put
41:53
a big hint, you know, they're going to stop our growth in
41:57
certain areas. Because people are going to then
41:58
start making the, the cost benefit decision of whether or
42:02
not a terrestrial tower makes sense or whether or not in a, in
42:06
a, you know, less populated area, it makes more sense to
42:09
just have a satellite, you know, cover that.
42:11
And that's not really the tower company's decision.
42:14
It's actually an MN OS decision. Like do they actually want to
42:17
pay to build a tower or do they want to have something covered
42:20
by satellite? And is if that's good enough?
42:23
So as this narrative kind of builds, and This is why I wanted
42:27
to to talk about him. And I know Kook will talk about
42:29
it even more because we discussed it over the last few
42:32
days. But this is kind of the whole
42:36
this is a whole like NVIDIA narrative, right?
42:39
Like you, you NVIDIA was like a graphics card accelerator
42:45
company, you know, you bought that you bought the card put in
42:47
your PC so you could play quake or doom or you know, Call of
42:51
Duty counter Strike and that was it.
42:54
But then as, as, as we started moving over to AI, it's like,
42:59
oh, these GPU's are optimized in the best, the best your
43:04
processors to do training and, and inference and all that
43:07
stuff, right. And so then the company's
43:10
narrative changed where, and this is kind of like for AC
43:14
space mobile or just space applications in general.
43:17
When people kind of look at space companies, they're like,
43:21
oh, that's kind of a backwater and it's nascent.
43:23
But then now we're kind of moving to this new phase where
43:26
it's not just, you know, obviously communications is big
43:29
and and launch is big, but then there's been this desire to find
43:35
other killer applications, which no pun intended, But then, you
43:38
know, golden Dome is probably the most visible, like third
43:43
application for space that that's going to have real
43:46
dollars behind it. And then data centers is
43:49
probably not that far off, at least in terms of hype and
43:52
people talking about it and the possibilities it's there.
43:55
And so when you have that, how that impacts your an investment
44:00
thesis and how the market, you know, potentially discounts
44:05
pulls forward the future, that can change the story quite a
44:08
bit. And you know, we, we've seen
44:11
this with like the, the SMR, the modular reactor companies for
44:15
nuclear where, you know, 2-3 years ago, you can sell that
44:19
idea to anybody except for just really far out there BCS they're
44:23
like, Oh yeah, this is going to be important.
44:25
But then as the narrative shifted and, and it's like, Oh
44:29
my God, AI is going to eat the world because you need all these
44:33
data centers and all these processors are going to eat
44:36
power. So where are we going to get
44:38
that power from? And I think Morgan Stanley today
44:40
there was a report they were saying like there's going to be
44:44
a deficit of like 40 gigawatts in the next few years.
44:48
It was like in the 20s or 40s. I, I can't remember.
44:51
I think maybe the, the full demand is like 60 and we can
44:54
supply 40 and then maybe the deficit was like 20, something
44:57
like that. But but yeah, that that so
45:00
that's shipped to the narrative where it's like, OK, these, you
45:03
know, these nuclear technologies that aren't going to be viable
45:07
for another 20 years. I'm going to discount that today
45:11
to back to today and give people credit because I want it to get
45:14
funded and I want it to become a reality because we really need
45:16
that. And so so that, you know,
45:19
whether that's Akalo or SMR, like these companies just took
45:23
off, right? And, and some of these other
45:25
earlier stage companies too. And so that's, that's kind of
45:29
the opportunity where and, and somebody on Twitter kind of said
45:33
it very specifically. They're like, we kind of
45:35
stumbled into perhaps another growth vector, right?
45:38
And, and that's exactly what NVIDIA did.
45:41
And that's, and I think that's, that's kind of why everybody's
45:44
been excited for the last few days where it's, you also have
45:49
this other pillar of growth. And it's not something that's
45:50
new because as I mentioned before, you know, I, I remember
45:56
talking to the portfolio manager at at Hennessy and these guys
46:01
are, you know, long only have been long term holders of AST
46:05
space mobile, perhaps like one of a few handful that have held
46:09
since the beginning. But you know, they specifically
46:12
mentioned to me at when I met with them for the block one
46:17
launch, they said, well, one of the key areas of growth is, is
46:20
the fact that these constellations are going to be
46:22
massive power generating entities out in space.
46:25
And you can do a lot of cool things with that.
46:27
And at the time, I didn't really understand what that meant.
46:30
Like, Oh yeah, so power generator entities.
46:32
And they've got a lot of they specifically said like you got
46:35
solar panels, you got batteries. So there's, there's a whole host
46:38
of things you can do. And now it makes sense, right?
46:43
I think Elan, as he, as he so often does, can articulate
46:47
things very well. And when he talks like people
46:50
listen because he is a visionary.
46:52
So today, like when he specifically said, well, you,
46:54
you know, you'd like to have a satellite that has 100 kilowatts
46:58
to 100, you know, 100 kilowatts of power and it's going to be
47:01
distributed. You can have these AI data
47:03
centers in space that magically fits like what we're doing.
47:07
And so, so then the mind can dream.
47:12
The tech companies or data center companies, I think we're
47:15
probably going to see more of those.
47:16
And, and so I think the other thing is, you know, having the
47:22
other thing is having the experience of being a space
47:25
company, because obviously doing things in space is very
47:27
different. Google in particular, for
47:29
example, they're doing some initial early stage testing with
47:32
Planet Labs. Google has an investment stake
47:35
in Planet Labs and I think they're putting up two tube sets
47:39
to see how AIGPUS performing space.
47:43
And you know, Star Cloud also put up a cube, a cube sat with
47:49
the first NVIDIA processor to see, you know, how that's going
47:52
to how that would react in space.
47:54
So you're seeing like some baby steps right now.
47:57
But if you think about who has the flight heritage and the
48:01
ability to to manufacture and put up, I mean, in particular
48:05
for AST space mobile, like a 5000 to 6000 kilogram satellite
48:09
with massive solar arrays, you know, a novel like unfolding
48:17
array architecture that fits into a standard fairing, you
48:20
know, you may not need yeah, you definitely wouldn't need this
48:23
massive control set probably. So you could say wait and maybe
48:28
reduce the form factor. But you know, also, again, like
48:32
Rocket Lab putting together satellites that can do missions
48:35
to Mars. Like this stuff is hard.
48:37
And, and I, I, I kind of look back at like star, the Star
48:43
Cloud CEO and, and others. And, and that's like AST back in
48:48
2020-2021. It's like, you know, stars in
48:52
your eyes and you're like ripping ready to go on, like I'm
48:54
going to take on the world. And then man, it's like a
48:57
grizzled path. But if you've got the fortitude
49:00
and the capital and the belief, like people can do it.
49:03
And, and I think that's, but, but I also think like the the
49:08
folks who who've recently traversed that probably are
49:11
pretty well positioned to be partners to help develop the
49:15
market. And so, yeah, it's exciting.
49:17
And I think it's going to become a building part of the narrative
49:22
for space. And it seems like it's going to
49:24
be a big opportunity. Initially it it will enable
49:27
space based processing for those applications that sit outside of
49:31
Earth. But eventually perhaps you'll
49:34
see some data centers move up there.
49:36
But but yeah, I don't know. Do you have anything else?
49:41
Yeah, I was just going to put it in there.
49:42
So two things. One is that like the the, I
49:45
guess even the more bullish thing that I could see is just
49:47
like with comms and everything else is when Elon gets involved,
49:50
it's he wants the whole stack. And so it doesn't allow for
49:53
partnerships. And then, you know, if he's
49:55
going to be doing this primarily for his his technologies, whole
49:59
portfolio of companies, XAI stuff like that.
50:01
Suddenly like it's going to be a rush to these other hyper
50:04
scalers or others other big names in the in that they're
50:07
going to want this or need this or you're going to be looking
50:09
for that, you know, a non a non SpaceX partner.
50:13
So yeah, that'd be that. That's just AI guess a bullish
50:17
sweetener. But then the other thing I
50:18
wanted to say is maybe to throw some cold water just to give the
50:22
bare idea. Is that so so the two TP us, the
50:26
two sats that the Google G Google TP us are going on are I
50:31
think this is a new alsat for for a planet labs.
50:34
So if they're going to put the DPU directly on the SAP, it's
50:37
taking the data in. Suddenly my mind was like, all
50:40
right, I don't know how much the power requirement would have to
50:43
change or how big of the, you know, big design change these
50:45
satellites. But what if you just had these
50:47
distributed GPUTP whatever into all the satellites that are
50:51
getting launched up then? And then at least in the short
50:55
term, maybe you don't need a massive like, you know, you
50:59
don't even need a third, a third kind of satellite up there or
51:01
secondary satellite there that has just that.
51:04
It's just the data center 1. And in the short term, maybe you
51:06
could do all those, that, that computing on the satellites
51:09
themselves. I was just in a, a thought I was
51:12
having before is like, all right, if this whole distributed
51:15
architecture, I'm like, why don't you distribute the GP us
51:17
right on to the satellites that are collecting the data kind of
51:20
thing. I, I don't, I haven't looked
51:22
into that. Just this is a cautionary note
51:25
on that. Yeah.
51:27
And I will say this is not, I mean this is very quick
51:32
research. I just asked Gemini, like how
51:35
many NVIDIA processors in which recent ones could you
51:40
theoretically operate reasonably on a 120 kilowatt satellite?
51:48
And I guess the answer is if it's a Blackwell GB 200, you
51:54
could run 72 of those and then let's see.
51:58
That's a lot more than I thought.
52:00
If it's a hopper, it's 88. And so, so yeah, that's a pretty
52:04
decent amount. But then, you know, you're not
52:08
again, you're not going to be replacing data centers on Earth.
52:10
But at the same time, as we all know, like technology is going
52:13
to advance and, and I think the capabilities that you'll be able
52:18
to put out in space, yeah, it's going to, I think it's going to
52:21
surprise people. But but yeah, I, I, and that's,
52:26
I think we're 2026 after kind of going through all this, it's
52:30
like this is going to be a pretty exciting year.
52:32
I think you're going to have some of these large companies,
52:36
Google, Microsoft, any number of of data center companies too.
52:42
They're going to, they're probably going to announce some
52:44
types of partnerships to start developing technology and it's
52:49
going to be with, you know, some of the the large firms, but it's
52:53
going to be on the new space companies here, quite frankly,
52:55
have figured out a better mousetrap and can do it cheaper
52:58
and faster. And so, and that's going to be
53:02
in competition with SpaceX, which is good.
53:05
I mean, competition is great. And I think there's going to be
53:09
enough opportunity for, for all these different companies.
53:12
And, and I think, you know, for example, Rock Lab, you guys
53:15
mentioned like they're, they, they have very specialized
53:19
technology for solar cells and modules.
53:21
Like there's going to be demand for that.
53:23
And then for for companies that are already, I mean.
53:26
Yeah, so, so for the solar cell thing earlier we were talking
53:29
about that like at the the other port is they, they, you know,
53:32
they, they don't, they produce all the the paneling and stuff
53:34
as well, all all of that. So even if they ended up saying
53:37
like, all right, it's not cost effective to use these high end
53:40
solar cells. I mean, they they just buy that
53:42
off the market that every else is buying off of it, right.
53:45
And using these, these, if it's a Leo kind of thing, I don't
53:47
know, just in general, Rocket Lab guys are really excited
53:50
because we've been, we've been like beating our like, like
53:54
hitting the wall trying to figure out what is this magic
53:57
space application potentially that that they could be doing
54:00
right? I mean, there's been so much,
54:01
it's been years of like, well, what are you going to do?
54:04
And, and, you know, the company's been really coy, but
54:06
man, so much of that, what they've bought lines up with
54:10
this potentially like, so I don't know, We just for on our
54:15
end, it's, it's exciting because, you know, I feel like
54:17
we've been without a home for what eventual applications going
54:20
to be like be everybody's been beating their head against the
54:22
law. So if this ends up really being
54:24
something, it kind of lines up more with the timeline that that
54:26
peers were talking about where I I kind of been putting like 2028
54:29
plus kind of lens on it for the application layer.
54:33
So I don't know, I that's why I got overly excited about this
54:36
personally. But I mean, but it is exciting
54:37
for the industry because we, I mean, we've all been looking for
54:40
what's next big thing is going to be on orbit manufacturing,
54:42
asteroid mining or, you know, something like something.
54:45
What, what is the next thing? So if it, if it is AI, if it's,
54:48
if it's infrastructure, AI data center kind of thing, it's
54:50
that's exciting. I don't know.
54:53
I got a message from Kook that our our producer Kook, he told
54:57
me he's starting at 8:35. So all right.
55:00
I'll shut up. No.
55:02
No, no, it's OK. No, this has been good.
55:04
It's it's good to have somebody else speaking versus just me
55:07
rambling. So that's good.
55:10
But yeah, I think Tuesday we're going to have our weekly space
55:13
and, and by them, I'm sure there's going to be even more
55:16
news that will come out. But but yeah, what an exciting
55:20
time. I think it's, it's kind of funny
55:22
because I think for anybody who's best in space, we probably
55:26
we're laughing stock for 2022-2023, 2024.
55:30
But then all of a sudden it's like, hey, this is the place to
55:34
be invested in and it's like everything is coming to a head,
55:36
which is great. But anyway, I'm going to I'm
55:40
going to cut it there. This is this was the early show
55:44
and we're going to transition to the Kook show Sunday Night Live.
55:48
So thanks everyone for joining. He's going to run that space in
55:52
about 3 minutes. So I'll see you guys there.
55:54
Take care. That was good.
55:56
Thanks then. Yeah, take care, Jacob.
56:00
Thanks for listening to the AST Space Mobile podcast.
56:04
If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the
56:06
podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social
56:10
media, or leave a rating and review.
56:12
To catch all the latest news about AST Space Mobile, make
56:16
sure to subscribe. Thanks again and I'll see you
56:19
next time. We're doing something very, very
56:24
big, and I think with this technology we can really affect
56:27
billion lives. AST Space Global is the only
56:30
company that has proven technology to deliver cellular
56:35
broadband connectivity directly from state to be everyday
56:38
smartphone. People will just basically turn
56:41
their phone and be seamless, regardless of where you are.
56:44
We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
56:47
satellite. Our role is to bring this into
56:51
reality, always in partnership with the enemy.