Tag: Arizona Space Business Roundtable

Video of panel discussion of Ukraine War’s impact on the global space industry

5:39 pm

Stephen Fleming, who founded the Arizona Space Business Roundtable which co-hosted the Ukraine War panel discussion on April 5th with the Arizona Technology Council has now made the video of that event available on line.

The event was intended to outline and review what the impact of the Ukraine War on the global space industry might be.

You can download a video podcast of the event here.

The speakers:

Robert Zimmerman: The impact on Russia and the Ukraine space industries
Alex Rodriguez: The impact on the world’s space-related defense and military industries
Stephen Fleming [moderator]: The impact on the rest of the world’s commercial space industries

Also speaking remotely was Jim Cantrell, former CEO of Vector and now in charge of Phantom Space.

As expected, the event ran long, though no one left or fell asleep. Instead, there were good questions and comments. Alex reminded me of something I had completely forgotten about: When NATO had expanded after the fall of the Soviet Union, it only did so after signing an agreement with Russia calling for joint military operations, in order to convince the Russians that the expansion was not intended as a threat. That agreement, signed by Yeltsin, was essentially “shredded by Putin,” as Alex noted.

Give it a watch. You might find it enlightening.

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Upcoming Event: The impact of the Ukraine War on the global space industry

9:23 am

LAST CALL: If you wish to watch this event via Zoom or in person you need to comment below. I will then email you the log in information or the location details in Tucson of the event.

Original post:
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On the evening of Tuesday, April 5, 2022, I will be one of three panelists discussing the overall global impact of the Ukraine War on the world’s space industry at another Arizona Space Business Roundtable event in Tucson.

The panelists will be, in speaking order:

Robert Zimmerman: The impact on Russia and the Ukraine space industries
Alex Rodriguez: The impact on the world’s space-related defense and military industries
Stephen Fleming [moderator]: The impact on the rest of the world’s commercial space industries

My readers know who I am.

Alex Rodriguez has worked for Vector and now with Freefall 5G. In the late 1990s, as an Action Officer inside the Pentagon’s J-5 Directorate for Strategic Plans and Policy of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Alex worked directly on the first round of NATO enlargement in both the Executive Branch and as subsequent detailee on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that authorized the ratification of NATO enlargement.

Stephen Fleming, who founded the Arizona Space Business Roundtable, made seed or early-stage investments in over a dozen aerospace companies, including XCOR Aerospace, ICON Aircraft, Nanoracks, RBC Signals, Vector, Freefall, and Phantom Launch. He was also one of the founding investors in the Space Angels Network.

After we each describe the ramifications of the war in these three areas, the room will be opened to Q&A from the audience.

The event will begin at 5:20 pm (Pacific), and likely last until 6:30 pm, though if the discussion is lively we will certainly go on longer.

This is a public event in Tucson, being held jointly by the Arizona Space Business Roundtable and the Arizona Technology Council. It will also be broadcast online.

If you want to attend via Zoom, you will need to express your interest as a comment below, and I will then email you the Zoom url and password. We are not publishing this information publicly to avoid a hacking during the event.

If you wish to come in person please comment below as well and I will then forward you the location. The event is open to the public but I wish to do it this way so that the organizers will have a reasonably accurate estimate of the number of attendees, for planning purposes.

Note that I have written these essays previously about other Arizona Space Business Roundtable events:

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Upcoming Zimmerman public lecture available for all – Last Call!

10:40 am

Tomorrow I will be giving a lecture on the Artemis Accords to the Arizona Space Business Roundtable, a monthly event in Tucson, founded by space businessman and local all-around good guy Stephen Fleming, to bring together the business-oriented space community of this city and southern Arizona.

From Stephen Fleming’s announcement:

Bob has spoken to the Roundtable before; this time, I’ve asked him to focus on the Artemis Accords… the USA’s attempt to “to create a safe and transparent environment which facilitates exploration, science, and commercial activities for all of humanity to enjoy.” What does that mean? It’s an attempt to break the international logjam that has blocked the private sector development and exploitation of resources on the Moon, asteroids, and other celestial bodies. How is it working, who has joined on, and what does China think about all this? Come find out from Bob!

The event will be open to the public, no charge, and will also be available on Zoom. It is scheduled for Tuesday, August 3, 2021, from 5:00 — 6:30 pm (Arizona time, which presently corresponds to Pacific time).

If you wish to come in person, the event will be at 110 E. Pennington St, Room 215, in Tucson.

If you want to attend via Zoom, you will need to express your interest as a comment below, and I will then email you the Zoom url and password. We are not publishing this information publicly to avoid a hacking during the event.

Let me repeat: You need to express an interest in attending by Zoom by posting a comment. Otherwise you will not get the password and will not be able to watch. (I will send out the password tomorrow to all those in the comment thread.)

If you are coming in person Stephen would appreciate it if you say so in a comment below also, so that he can estimate a count. He provides, out of his own pocket, cookies and coffee for in-person attendees, and needs to gauge how much to provide.

Note that I have written these essays previously about other Arizona Space Roundtable events:

19 comments

How one region’s space industry represents the world

9:20 am

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On October 2 I attended for the first time a monthly meeting of the Arizona Space Business Roundtable, an informal gathering put together by Stephen Fleming of the University of Arizona’s Strategic Business Initiatives and designed to allow the various space businesses of southern Arizona to network together as well as highlight what they are accomplishing to themselves and to others.

This particular meeting involved the presentation to the business community of a study that looked into the potential growth possibilities for space within the Tucson region. The study had been financed by the University of Arizona, several local venture capital companies, and the local county government, and had found that southern Arizona’s most likely source of space business in the near future would revolve around the need to track and monitor the large number of satellites expected to be launched in the coming decades. This would also involve substantial military work, as well as related space junk clean-up duties. The study also found that the southern Arizona space industry is well suited to provide much of the growing support services that future space missions, both governmental and private, will need. You can read more about the study’s results and the meeting at this Arizona Star article.

What struck me most about this gathering and the space industry of southern Arizona, however, is how much it resembles the regional space industries in numerous other places throughout the United States and the world. In fact, during a panel discussion after the presentation Fleming specifically asked the panelists — made up of several local companies (Vector, Worldview, Paragon) and two venture capital companies — what other regions in the U.S. posed the most competitive threat to southern Arizona. The panelists quickly listed Denver-Boulder, Silicon Valley in California, Huntsville in Alabama, the Space Coast in Florida, and New Mexico. They also made it clear that this list was not complete.

All of these regions are presently prospering and, more important, growing. All see a bright future in space, and all are aggressively competing to grab as large a market share in this future as they can. Even more significant, there appears to be more than enough business to go around. With numerous new countries pushing their own space efforts (China, India, UAE, Great Britain, Luxembourg, to name only a few), and both the American government as well as private companies attempting their own missions to the Moon and beyond, the possibilities appear endless. A lot of government money and investment capital is presently being poured into space, and numerous regions throughout the world are reaching for that money and the future profits it will bring.

And all of these regions are stock full of numerous independent and private companies and individuals, all pushing their own ideas about how space should be explored and conquered.

There are many aspects of the present charge to explore and settle the solar system that I do not like and believe will actually hamper and slow that exploration and settlement. Nonetheless, this charge is happening worldwide, and with amazing and increasing vigor. Even the worst proposals, such as NASA’s Gateway project, are going to eventually lead to new space technologies and capabilities that will sooner or later make it possible for the human race to routinely travel throughout the solar system.

It appears that the next two decades will lay the groundwork for the next few centuries of space exploration. And much of that groundwork will take place out of sight of the general public, with small companies located in regions like these. As with all great endeavors, the structure is that of a pyramid. At the top is the leader (such as SpaceX) that everyone watches and admires. Below it however is a vast subculture that provides the foundation for that leadership, even as it pushes upward to compete against it.

These are exciting times. I suggest if you love space you climb on the rocket now, before it picks up so much speed it will be beyond your reach.

22 comments