Just Another Space Podcast: The Politics, Policy, Funding & Markets of the Space Industry

In this episode, Clayton and Tom explore all of the new hijinks, mischief and other innovative surprises satellites are up to in orbit these days - making LEO and GEO orbital offense and defense more dynamic than ever. Integrity ISR's Senior Vice President of Strategy & Development Greg Gillinger joins the show to share the latest in his observations and tracking of novel space activities that may have major implications for protecting critical satellite capabilities in orbit as well as national and economic security.

In this episode, Tom and Clayton learn what happens when an asteroid mining start up from Sydney, Australia discovers a new market using existing Earth imaging satellites to snap pictures looking up rather than down to capture images of satellites activity. HEO Co-Founder and CEO explains how the company found this new market, the opportunity to leverage underutilized assets in space for new commercial activities, the most surprising things they have observed in orbit and why UAPs are boring.

Co-hosts Clayton and Tom do a mid-season catch up on lessons learned from starting a space podcast, Golden Dome, NASA and the 50th anniversary of the Apollo-Soyuz mission.

In this week's episode, Clayton and Tom have not one but two AI experts on to talk about how AI and new service models are making satellite imagery and AL-enabled identification available to government and commercial users. SkyFi's Head of Strategy Kate van Dam and Enabled Intelligence's CEO Peter Kant talk about their companies, how they have teamed up to leverage AI solutions and integrated platforms to make more imagery and analysis available to customers and how AI technologies are impacting space products and services.

In this episode, Clayton and Tom interview Julie Kearney, partner at DLA Piper, Co-Chair of the Space Exploration & Innovation Practice and first Chief of the FCC's Space Bureau. Julie shares her journey from telecom lawyer and space lawyer, how communications licensing enables innovation and why the FCC created the first Bureau of Space in 2023.

In this episode, co-hosts Clayton and Tom interview Winnie Lai, the CEO and Co-Founder of Auriga Space, which is developing an electric powered kinetic launch company working with DOD on hypersonic and rapid space capabilities launch services. Winnie shares her story from tech to space, how many miles of track you need to launch to orbit and the potential benefits of an hourly, electric launch capability for the DOD and commercial customers.

In this episode, hosts Tom Culligan and Clayton Swope interview former NASA Associate Administrator for Intergovernmental and Legislative Affairs and new Commercial Space Federation Executive Director Alicia Brown on her time leading space policy for then-Chairman Bill Nelson (D-FL) and later NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.Alicia pulls the curtain back on how Congress and NASA really work and what each side of Penn Ave doesn't understand about each other, her experience writing bills and then having to implement them at NASA and other adventures in civil and commercial space policy over the last decade in Congress, the Administration and industry.

In this episode, hosts Tom Culligan and Clayton Swope interview Varda Space Industries' CEO & Co-Founder Will Bruey on launch day of their third mission of its orbital processing and reentry capsule for life sciences and national security. Will shares the journey of how Varda was launched, the market for uncrewed life sciences experiments, the future of this market and how the company became a merchant supplier of heat shields for NASA.

In this episode, hosts Tom Culligan and Clayton Swope interview former NASA Chief of Staff, Vice President of Space at Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) and founder of the Space Policy Group, Mike French, on a decade of very significant changes in the nation's civil and commercial space industry. Mike pulls back the curtain on the policy and politics behind the retirement of the Space Shuttle, rise of Commercial Cargo and Crew and how the "Journey to Mars" as back in the Artemis Era.

In this episode, hosts Tom Culligan and Clayton Swope talk with Matt Gialich, the Co-Founder and CEO of AstroForge, to discuss the future of asteroid mining and the commercial space economy. They explore Matt's journey from working at Virgin Orbit to building scooters at Bird to founding AstroForge. The conversation delves into what makes Space Mining 2.0 different than AstroForge's predecessors, the technological innovations that enable asteroid mining today and the competitive landscape. Matt shares insights on what it takes to start a space company that has a lot of "firsts" and the future missions planned for AstroForge.

With the start of a new year, new Congress and new Administration, hosts Tom Culligan and Clayton Swope launch a new podcast covering the politics, policy, funding and markets around the space industry. This episode features Rocket Lab's Vice President of Government Operations & Business Strategy, Andrew Bunker, to look at whether 2025 will be the "year of launch" and cover issues surrounding the U.S. and global launch market.