0:01:43.440,0:01:49.360 Hello everyone, I'm Marc Ventresca, a faculty member at the Saïd Business School, on faculty at Oxford 0:01:49.360,0:01:54.320 and also Wolfson College. I'm very pleased to welcome you to the first of several sessions 0:01:55.200,0:02:01.200 that bring together faculty and expert executive, commercial, public sector 0:02:02.080,0:02:06.000 colleagues to really think about and debate a core set of issues 0:02:06.640,0:02:10.960 around the emerging space technology, space governance, space 0:02:10.960,0:02:17.120 sector issues. We're very happy to start today with a session on space technologies and governance 0:02:17.760,0:02:23.680 and I'll be introducing the lead faculty for that in just a moment. These five 0:02:23.680,0:02:29.200 sessions over the next few months - I hope you'll join us for - they represent both a commitment 0:02:29.200,0:02:35.120 by a number of colleagues at Oxford and many alumni, and others in the wider world who recognise 0:02:35.120,0:02:41.520 that the emerging issues of space, well beyond discovery and exploration in the traditional model, 0:02:41.520,0:02:48.800 to really engage questions of entrepreneurial activity exploration, and also making use of space 0:02:48.800,0:02:54.560 in new ways, they represent an effort to bring together colleagues to speak to these issues, to 0:02:54.560,0:03:01.360 offer insights, to pose questions for you, and to inform us very generally about this exciting and 0:03:01.360,0:03:07.680 important area of activity. We will be thinking about questions of technologies, governance, but 0:03:07.680,0:03:12.800 also the changing skill sets, the nature of knowledge around space, commercial efforts, 0:03:13.360,0:03:20.080 questions of commons governance: how do we as a society, as a group of people across many countries, 0:03:20.080,0:03:27.920 begin to imagine the stable use of space, the stewarding of space over decades and longer. 0:03:27.920,0:03:32.720 So the series is an effort both to recognise the exciting commercial opportunities that 0:03:32.720,0:03:38.640 many people are involved in - literally thousands of ventures around the world - and also to underscore 0:03:38.640,0:03:43.440 the longer term questions of stewardship and opportunity when we think about space. 0:03:44.000,0:03:49.120 I'd like to introduce now, Professor Lucas Kello a faculty member at Oxford in the Department of 0:03:49.120,0:03:54.240 Political Science and International Relations, who will be the the moderator for this very 0:03:54.240,0:03:59.840 first panel on smart space technologies and governance, Lucas, over to you please. 0:04:03.120,0:04:07.200 Generous introduction, and I want to echo Mark in welcoming our panelists, 0:04:11.280,0:04:17.360 he's at Oxford University, so good morning afternoon or evening to everyone, whatever the case 0:04:18.000,0:04:23.120 might be where you are. Today's discussion - like the seminar series more broadly - 0:04:23.120,0:04:29.280 will explore the notion of smart space. This is a notion which we are developing in Oxford and 0:04:29.280,0:04:35.120 which addresses the dichotomy between so-called 'old space', which is represented by government 0:04:35.120,0:04:41.200 agencies and actors, and 'new space', denoting the growing and diverse universe of private sector 0:04:41.200,0:04:46.720 players. In some regards the separation of these two terms - which is quite common in thinking 0:04:46.720,0:04:52.880 about the space industry - makes sense. After all, the two sides encompass very different kinds 0:04:52.880,0:04:59.760 of actors with divergent interests, motivations, goals, resources and capacities; 0:05:00.480,0:05:06.720 but the distinction is also artificial because increasingly the national space agencies rely 0:05:06.720,0:05:12.880 on private actors such as Spacex to assist in, or even perform, basic functions traditionally 0:05:12.880,0:05:19.280 reserved for the agencies, such as human transport into space; while at the same time the 0:05:19.280,0:05:25.840 private sector is greatly affected by government regulations and laws in its scope of activities. 0:05:26.560,0:05:32.000 The notion of smart space, therefore, prompts us to consider the growing synthesis 0:05:32.000,0:05:38.960 between these two worlds of old space and new space. It asks us to consider important questions 0:05:38.960,0:05:45.120 in the direction of more effective cooperation: namely what is the role of the private sector in 0:05:45.120,0:05:51.440 developing and integrating new technologies into space systems that are traditionally dominated by 0:05:51.440,0:05:57.920 state actors? What are the main obstacles to closer cooperation between private industry and national 0:05:57.920,0:06:04.240 space agencies? And what regulatory and governance reforms could facilitate such cooperation? 0:06:05.120,0:06:10.480 To discuss these and related questions, we've assembled today a stellar group of speakers - 0:06:10.480,0:06:17.520 stellar in more than one way, I should add. We have with us today, Sumara Thompson-King, 0:06:18.080,0:06:24.240 who was selected as the general counsel at NASA in June 2014; she serves as the chief 0:06:24.240,0:06:29.600 legal officer for the agency, and oversees its team of attorneys responsible for all aspects of 0:06:29.600,0:06:35.120 NASA's legal affairs around the world; previously she served as the deputy general counsel 0:06:35.120,0:06:40.560 responsible for oversight of substantive legal advice and assistance provided by NASA's associate 0:06:40.560,0:06:46.880 general counsels to the centres, she also served as the agency's suspension and department official. 0:06:46.880,0:06:52.320 She began her career in 1986 when she joined the office of chief counsel at NASA's Goddard Space 0:06:52.320,0:06:57.840 Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, so clearly she brings with us a fantastic and wonderful range 0:06:57.840,0:07:05.600 of experiences and knowledge. We also have with us Luke Piaget, who is the CEO and co-founder of Clear 0:07:05.600,0:07:11.440 Space. Clear Space is a spin-off from the EPFL Space Center, focusing on developing technologies 0:07:11.440,0:07:17.200 and services to remove unresponsive or derelict satellites from space; the company works on the 0:07:17.200,0:07:23.440 Clean Space One Mission to demonstrate the set of technologies necessary for these operations. We 0:07:23.440,0:07:29.040 also have Sebastian Moranta, who is the coordinator of studies at the European Space Policy Institute 0:07:29.040,0:07:34.480 in Vienna, an independent and public think tank providing decision makers with an informed view 0:07:34.480,0:07:40.640 on short to long-term issues relevant to the European Space Policy; and prior to supervising 0:07:40.640,0:07:45.200 the research activities of the institute he was a senior associate at PricewaterHouseCoopers 0:07:45.200,0:07:51.520 Advisory, where he managed multiple studies for the European Commission. So before turning 0:07:51.520,0:07:58.000 to the speakers, I want to say a brief procedural word. Each panelist will deliver comments 0:07:58.000,0:08:04.400 in two rounds. Round one will address general problems and issues involving smart space, and 0:08:04.400,0:08:10.240 in round two, I've asked the speakers to provide more specific examples of problems or successes in 0:08:10.240,0:08:15.680 overcoming them. After the two rounds of comments we will open the discussion for participation 0:08:15.680,0:08:22.800 by the audience via the various social media channels that are available to you. Time is short 0:08:22.800,0:08:30.000 so let me now turn, please, to Sumara. Samara, take it away. Thank you, good morning, and I welcome this 0:08:30.000,0:08:35.920 great opportunity. I have to start off reminding folks how NASA got started; we started with the 0:08:35.920,0:08:44.720 passage of The Space Act in 1958 and, as Lucas has commented, that was the establishment of 0:08:44.720,0:08:53.440 a government agency to direct space exploration. It took some time for that statute to be amended 0:08:53.440,0:09:00.800 and that's authorising us to conduct peaceful space activities that would include commercial 0:09:00.800,0:09:10.000 activities and the specific language that was added to the Space Act of 1958. NASA is now 0:09:10.000,0:09:17.760 required to seek and encourage to the maximum extent possible the fullest commercial use of 0:09:17.760,0:09:25.600 space. So we were given clear direction, clear authority to support commercial space, 0:09:25.600,0:09:30.960 but it's taken us some time to figure out exactly how to do that and how to work with 0:09:30.960,0:09:38.400 the commercial sector, so one of the things that we are thinking about and discussing in our agency 0:09:38.400,0:09:45.520 is the Outer Space Treaty, and more specifically section 6 of the Outer Space Treaty. 0:09:46.320,0:09:54.400 That particular treaty notes that activities of non-government entities in outer space shall 0:09:54.400,0:10:03.040 require authorisation and continuing supervision by the state concerned. Now you know, as the 0:10:03.040,0:10:09.120 lawyer in me, what does all of that mean? And we parse every word; what is authorisation? 0:10:09.680,0:10:16.640 What is continuing supervision by the state? And in the United States we are looking at, 0:10:16.640,0:10:24.000 and we have had discussions, there have been directions given by different administrations 0:10:24.000,0:10:30.400 about how we accomplish this - we are still having those conversations - but what the private sector 0:10:30.400,0:10:37.200 has communicated to us is they would like to have certainty so that they can, 0:10:37.200,0:10:44.720 to the fullest extent possible, develop viable sustainable commercial programmes, so 0:10:44.720,0:10:50.880 this is something that's a challenge for us within the United States to figure out which 0:10:50.880,0:10:58.960 agency, which entity is going to be responsible for the authorisation and continuing supervision. 0:10:59.840,0:11:06.160 And this is particularly important since NASA has also authority under a statute 0:11:06.160,0:11:12.320 passed in 2015, which is the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act; many of you have 0:11:12.320,0:11:21.120 probably heard about that because it allows non-US entities to engage in commercial both exploration 0:11:21.120,0:11:27.600 and exploitation of space resources. Now that caused in some cases a little bit of concern 0:11:27.600,0:11:32.720 because people have wondered if that was in conflict with the 0:11:33.520,0:11:39.760 Outer Space Treaty language, and very clearly the statute says that we are not going to violate the 0:11:39.760,0:11:47.520 Outer Space Treaty, so those are key issues we're talking about. Other topics that I think 0:11:47.520,0:11:52.720 we are going to need to resolve as we move forward with supporting commercial space activities 0:11:52.720,0:11:59.520 are what I call CCD - which is we've got to deal with issues of conjunction, communication issues, 0:11:59.520,0:12:05.920 and debris issues. What's conjunction? Basically, conjunction is when you have satellites or 0:12:05.920,0:12:12.160 any type of entities in orbit, we don't want them to come close to each other, that could interfere 0:12:12.160,0:12:17.200 with each of their operations, we've got to establish norms, we've got to talk about how 0:12:17.200,0:12:23.920 we're going to address conjunction issues. Another issue is communication spectrum issues, who gets 0:12:23.920,0:12:31.200 to use what area of spectrum for communication for commercial satellites, for military satellites and 0:12:31.200,0:12:36.400 for government agencies in their exploration activities: those are things we have to work 0:12:36.400,0:12:44.320 out. And then the last is debris; we all know that there is a lot of debris floating around in low 0:12:44.320,0:12:50.160 earth orbit which interferes with - frankly - our operation of the International Space Station 0:12:51.760,0:12:56.880 satellites. So these are things that we are going to have to work on, these are things 0:12:56.880,0:13:01.920 that we have had conversations about and have dealt with individually, 0:13:01.920,0:13:06.000 but we need to address these so that we can reduce those barriers to 0:13:06.000,0:13:10.640 cooperation between government agencies and private entities. Thank you, Lucas. 0:13:13.600,0:13:17.120 So thank you, Samara for those comments, I think 0:13:17.120,0:13:20.880 what comes across quite clearly and interestingly from your comments is that 0:13:21.760,0:13:27.760 although the state performs an important role in authorising and supervising private sector 0:13:27.760,0:13:32.960 involvement, it clearly doesn't see itself as an obstructor for such involvement, indeed 0:13:32.960,0:13:37.360 it plays an important role in facilitating, so thank you very much for that perspective. 0:13:37.360,0:13:44.080 From someone who served so prominently in a state agency, next I want to turn, please, to Luc. 0:13:46.080,0:13:51.840 Thank you very much, it's a pleasure to be here with you today, so 0:13:52.640,0:13:57.680 I'm Luc Piguet, I'm the CEO and one of the co-founders of Clear Space. At Clear Space, 0:13:57.680,0:14:02.400 we've been working now for several years on the development of technologies to remove space 0:14:02.400,0:14:09.920 debris, actually the the team working behind Clear Space has been working on the problems since 2010, 0:14:09.920,0:14:17.280 but the company has been founded in early 2018. Once we'd seen the 0:14:17.280,0:14:22.640 rapid evolution of the commercial operations in space we felt that we had to go 0:14:22.640,0:14:31.120 faster and build up a use case that could be sustainable for in-orbit servicing. 0:14:31.120,0:14:36.480 What is a little unusual with Clear Space today is that we have been developing relatively 0:14:36.480,0:14:43.760 rapidly, and we participated and were selected in a tendering process by the European Space Agency 0:14:43.760,0:14:51.680 to lead one of the first autonomous debris removal missions in history, and it's a little unusual as 0:14:51.680,0:14:56.720 a setup, mostly because ESA actually selected the startup to lead the mission in this case. 0:14:57.520,0:15:04.240 For us the collaboration between public and private institutions at the heart of what we do. 0:15:05.040,0:15:11.760 We have been starting working early with ESA, we are every week in relationships and 0:15:11.760,0:15:18.080 in collaboration, in meetings and reviews and co-engineering processes together 0:15:18.080,0:15:24.560 with ESA and had a lot to to do in terms of collaboration also with member states to ESA, 0:15:24.560,0:15:30.320 mostly because in the case of European Space Agency the funding comes from the member states, 0:15:30.320,0:15:36.000 which means that you cannot just win a tender, you also have to convince member states to finance 0:15:36.000,0:15:40.720 the specific mission you're going to do; so we have been very much engaged in collaboration 0:15:41.440,0:15:47.200 with at the same time the agency and and the participating states to our mission. 0:15:48.000,0:15:53.840 What we see is in our perspective, really, the role for the public institution 0:15:54.720,0:16:02.160 is to build in some aspects momentum behind specific technologies or, moving forward, 0:16:02.800,0:16:07.040 developments that can make a substantial difference tomorrow. 0:16:07.040,0:16:11.600 The problem we were facing when we were founding, in Clear Space - and at the beginning of the years 0:16:11.600,0:16:17.280 we've been working on the problem - was that most of the investors or sources of funds would tell us 0:16:18.560,0:16:24.400 where is your market? Who is going to pay for removing space debris? Where is the 0:16:24.400,0:16:30.560 obligation? Nobody's obliged to do it so nobody's going to ever pay for that; and on the other hand 0:16:30.560,0:16:35.040 the policy makers could not implement any policy because there was no demonstration that 0:16:35.040,0:16:40.560 this is actually feasible or there was no service on the market to actually serve a specific policy, 0:16:41.200,0:16:48.320 and in the case of the Clear Space One Mission under the Arrows Program it essentially pushed 0:16:48.320,0:16:55.200 forward an agenda and the approach ESA took was to say, okay let's let the industry decide 0:16:55.200,0:17:02.320 what the mission is going to be. So ESA essentially published a list of 20 objects that are in orbit 0:17:02.320,0:17:06.960 and that should be removed or could be removed and asked the industry to say, okay what do you 0:17:06.960,0:17:11.520 propose to do? Which object? Which mission? There's only a few requirements: the first one is that it 0:17:11.520,0:17:19.120 should be removed by 2025, and we'd like to see a business model for this specific mission. And we 0:17:19.120,0:17:27.680 participated in this exercise. What we can see today is that it's an extremely enriching exercise 0:17:27.680,0:17:33.280 to work between a team, which is essentially a startup culture where we think about moving fast, 0:17:35.920,0:17:40.720 approaching the problem from a very commercial perspective and in collaboration with the team at 0:17:40.720,0:17:47.040 ESA which has fantastic engineers and where we can have debates which are not always easy but bring 0:17:47.040,0:17:52.800 a lot of value into this exercise. So the other thing that we brought into the exercise is the 0:17:52.800,0:18:00.160 way we collaborate to an industrial team; in this specific mission, we have ESA contracting a startup 0:18:00.160,0:18:05.600 which has very large prime in its supply chain, for example, part of our industrial team we have 0:18:05.600,0:18:13.760 companies like Airbus, like OHB, Ruag Space, Deimos, and others which are substantially larger than 0:18:13.760,0:18:20.560 the Clear Space team, and this is really working because we are in a co-engineering approach 0:18:20.560,0:18:25.280 with those different actors and could build up a relationship with the different actors in our 0:18:25.280,0:18:31.840 industrial team where everybody is engaged for the end result of the mission which is unusual 0:18:31.840,0:18:35.280 in the approach. There's a lot of challenges, obviously, to overcome to make that happen 0:18:35.920,0:18:42.320 but we think that it's really fantastic to be able to collaborate on with ESA on a mission like 0:18:42.320,0:18:47.840 this with the support from a different national delegation in particular in the UK from UKSA. 0:18:51.520,0:18:57.280 So thank you, Luc, for those comments from someone who is working in a private sector capacity, 0:18:57.280,0:19:03.680 closely with government agencies, in a role that is, I think, quite fascinating: it involves 0:19:03.680,0:19:08.640 market formation, in other words involvement in an industry for which they might not even really be 0:19:08.640,0:19:15.440 clear business yet and so it's interesting to hear your more specific 0:19:15.440,0:19:20.640 comments about your experience in the next round. Next I want to turn, please, to Sebastien. 0:19:22.640,0:19:28.240 Thank you, Lucas, good afternoon, maybe good morning to those who are a bit further away. 0:19:28.240,0:19:33.760 First of all, of course, thank you to Saïd Business School for inviting me to this 0:19:33.760,0:19:40.160 very interesting event: interesting because I think that really this perspective of smart space 0:19:40.160,0:19:46.400 is really the right one and addressing the the right questions. I think there is really no 0:19:46.400,0:19:52.480 better way to start this series than attacking the question of governance because governance 0:19:52.480,0:19:58.480 is really the starting point here. I don't want to echo too much what Sumara and Luc 0:19:58.480,0:20:05.360 mentioned earlier but I think it's very important to recall really the 0:20:05.360,0:20:10.800 instrumental role of public agencies, public space agencies. Here, we're speaking about about NASA and 0:20:10.800,0:20:18.480 ESA of course in the emergence of new space and in the exploration of new approaches to public 0:20:18.480,0:20:27.600 programmes. So really new space, smart space is really not something that is spontaneous, it really came 0:20:27.600,0:20:35.200 as a result of determined public strategies and ambitious innovative approaches to public programmes; 0:20:35.200,0:20:40.080 I think it's really important to mention this first ingredient. The second ingredient, I guess, for 0:20:40.080,0:20:46.880 new space is favourable macroeconomic conditions for entrepreneurship and and private investment. 0:20:47.440,0:20:54.240 I think it's important also to recall that we were lucky enough to be able to really 0:20:54.240,0:20:59.920 leverage these incredibly favourable microeconomic conditions over the last years; 0:20:59.920,0:21:06.080 and maybe not to to steal away the credit from people like Luca, the third ingredient 0:21:06.080,0:21:11.680 is really companies and entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs with absolutely outstanding business 0:21:11.680,0:21:21.520 and technical acumen, and maybe a pinch of good fortune to see all 0:21:21.520,0:21:28.880 this happening. But as we look at the future, I guess that it's important to recall that 0:21:28.880,0:21:34.640 the public sector will maintain a central role in the development of smart space, of new space. 0:21:34.640,0:21:42.480 First of all, as an initiator, really exploring new ways to conduct public programmes, new ways 0:21:42.480,0:21:48.400 to engage with the private sector, and I think there are a few very interesting developments 0:21:48.400,0:21:55.440 recently in Europe that we'll be able to tackle and discuss about a bit later. Second, as a catalyst, 0:21:55.440,0:22:02.400 to support the emergence and the development the scale-up of of the different space ventures, 0:22:03.040,0:22:11.600 for example as a customer for space-based solutions or working on regulations 0:22:11.600,0:22:17.280 and really facilitating the development of commercial activities in the space sector. 0:22:18.240,0:22:24.160 The third role that I think the public sector will have is the one of a driver, 0:22:24.160,0:22:30.560 not to say a safe net but let's report that space is and will remain a strategic sector 0:22:31.440,0:22:39.360 and questions of strategic autonomy, of sovereignty and industrial policies still remain 0:22:39.360,0:22:46.080 very important drivers of public policies in the sector shaping the way forward. 0:22:46.880,0:22:54.560 Now as we progress on the path of new space and as we see this transformation of the space 0:22:54.560,0:23:01.680 sector unfolding, there are, of course, new questions that arise and that we need to tackle 0:23:02.320,0:23:08.400 as a group of public and private stakeholders, who was mentioned already before. Of course, there 0:23:08.400,0:23:13.600 is the question of safety and sustainability closely related to the to the concept of space 0:23:13.600,0:23:19.600 traffic management which is now very much under the spotlight, both in the US and in Europe, so 0:23:19.600,0:23:26.480 there are new challenges that are related to a more intense, a more global, a more diverse space 0:23:26.480,0:23:34.720 activity and what we're challenged to do is really to find a compromise on necessary 0:23:35.680,0:23:43.200 solutions to tackle these issues that do not hinder the positive developments that we 0:23:43.200,0:23:50.320 have seen unfold recently. Now in this frame, what will be the role of private actors? My personal 0:23:51.120,0:23:54.400 conviction is that it should be prominent, it should be really a 0:23:55.120,0:24:01.920 prominent role both with regards to corporate responsibility, of course, as 0:24:02.560,0:24:09.520 as Luc is here today also to provide solutions to tackle these issues and I think it's very 0:24:09.520,0:24:16.960 important that we take into account that, anyway, the solution has to come as as the 0:24:16.960,0:24:23.840 result of a dialogue between public and private actors and at international level as well. So 0:24:24.480,0:24:30.720 just to conclude these introductory remarks, I would like just to to highlight that first, 0:24:30.720,0:24:36.080 of course, governance is really the starting point of what we're seeing developing 0:24:36.080,0:24:43.840 in the space section and that the future of new space, of smart space will even though it is 0:24:43.840,0:24:50.880 very much commercially driven will be very much dependent also on successful public strategies. 0:24:51.760,0:24:57.920 Thank you, thank you Luc for emphasising that despite the growing role of companies 0:24:57.920,0:25:04.560 and entrepreneurs the public sector will indeed maintain its crucial role in supporting, shaping 0:25:04.560,0:25:09.440 and catalysing space ventures, and I think there's great prudence in what you're saying and that 0:25:09.440,0:25:15.600 it has to be a starting assumption of smart space that these government agencies aren't going to 0:25:15.600,0:25:21.120 disappear, and of course we don't imply that it will disappear so then again the emphasis being 0:25:21.120,0:25:28.240 on how to facilitate that cooperation between the two sides, so thank you to our three speakers 0:25:28.240,0:25:32.480 for this first round of comments, and we will now turn to the second round of comments 0:25:32.480,0:25:38.720 which will be more specific and empirically grounded. Turning first again to Sumara. 0:25:40.640,0:25:49.120 So how do we facilitate this collaboration? And NASA started this back in 2004 and I happened 0:25:49.120,0:25:55.040 to be one of the attorneys who worked with the engineers and others at NASA as we planned 0:25:55.040,0:26:01.760 the commercial orbital transportation service services initiative. Now what was that? Well, 0:26:01.760,0:26:07.680 you will recall that the space shuttle programme ended, we had to find a more cost effective 0:26:07.680,0:26:15.280 way of transporting astronauts and cargo from Earth to the International Space Station, 0:26:15.280,0:26:19.920 so once the shuttle programme ended we were relying on the Russian vehicles 0:26:19.920,0:26:26.320 for transportation services and at that time the administrator of NASA 0:26:26.320,0:26:33.040 encouraged us to look at a way of using commercial space, encouraging the development of our market 0:26:33.040,0:26:38.960 because you will recall at that time there was no market, and that's something that 0:26:38.960,0:26:45.360 both of my colleagues and I have discussed. So we were challenged to 0:26:45.360,0:26:51.200 think about that language in the Space Act, saying to the maximum extent possible 0:26:51.200,0:26:57.120 encourage commercial activities in space, the commercial activity that we chose to focus on 0:26:57.120,0:27:04.400 is providing transportation services from Earth to the International Space Station, focusing first 0:27:04.400,0:27:10.160 on cargo that needed to be delivered to the International Space Station and then crew and 0:27:10.160,0:27:16.400 you have seen that evolve over time. Many people, I have to remind them that SpaceX did not exist 0:27:16.400,0:27:25.840 in 2004 so we were really being very innovative in our role of helping to foster the development of a 0:27:25.840,0:27:32.720 of a market, of a capability so that NASA could be one of many customers and so we're very proud of 0:27:32.720,0:27:39.440 that initiative. You've seen the results of that achievement, which is the SpaceX vehicle 0:27:40.000,0:27:47.840 that is taking cargo and crew to the International Space Station, 0:27:48.960,0:27:55.120 another thing that following that what we've been really working on is establishing partnerships, 0:27:55.120,0:28:02.960 offices because everything we do in the government can't be done just by our agency, we want 0:28:02.960,0:28:08.960 partnerships with the private sector. So over the years we have developed what we call partnership 0:28:08.960,0:28:16.000 opportunities and at various NASA locations across the country we have partnership offices, 0:28:16.000,0:28:23.200 and the goal of these offices is to facilitate collaboration, look for ways of bringing 0:28:23.200,0:28:30.000 together the private sector in partnership with NASA as we bring different capabilities, different 0:28:30.000,0:28:37.920 resources to address particular issues developing technology that we need for our 0:28:37.920,0:28:44.400 space exploration, particularly as we're getting ready to return to the Moon and then go on to Mars. 0:28:44.400,0:28:51.600 As part of our Artemis programme, one of the things, one of the success stories that 0:28:51.600,0:28:57.840 we are very proud of is our relationship with SpaceX where we also did something innovative, 0:28:58.640,0:29:06.960 which was to talk with SpaceX, have negotiations with them, to obtain a license where we would be 0:29:06.960,0:29:13.440 able to share their proprietary information. We know how important proprietary information is to 0:29:13.440,0:29:21.840 companies as they are developing their commercial enterprise, so SpaceX agreed to provide to NASA 0:29:22.480,0:29:29.520 a license for its parachute asymmetry device, and this is the parachutes that are on the 0:29:29.520,0:29:37.920 vehicles that land to bring them safely back to back to earth and we talked 0:29:37.920,0:29:45.440 with SpaceX about using that technology and the significant part of that conversation was not 0:29:45.440,0:29:52.320 just for NASA to use that technology and be able to share that proprietary information 0:29:52.320,0:30:00.240 within the agency, but to be able to enter into sub licenses and give that technology to other 0:30:00.240,0:30:06.240 contractors to use, and as a matter of fact we recently entered into a group, an agreement 0:30:06.240,0:30:12.080 with Blue Origin so that they are able to use SpaceX technology that required a great deal of 0:30:12.080,0:30:16.880 cooperation, a great deal of coordination, but those are the type of partnerships 0:30:16.880,0:30:23.600 and forward thinking activities that we're engaged in to support commercial activities. 0:30:26.640,0:30:33.760 Thank you, Sumara. Who would have imagined in 1958 when the Space Act was passed that the 0:30:33.760,0:30:39.440 United States Government would be relying on a private company to send both cargo and crew 0:30:39.440,0:30:44.000 to an international space station? I think this is an extraordinary development and 0:30:44.000,0:30:51.040 speaks volumes to the possibilities of what we call smart space and there's no doubt that 0:30:51.040,0:30:56.560 many students and hours at business schools and political science departments around the world 0:30:56.560,0:31:03.040 are writing - or will soon be writing - case studies of this experience so thank you and now, 0:31:03.040,0:31:10.640 Luc. So it's truly impressive what has been done with SpaceX and I have to say 0:31:10.640,0:31:14.800 we look at it from the other side of the of the pond and we're really impressed by everything 0:31:14.800,0:31:19.840 that has been done over the past few years so I think it's fantastic as an experiment. 0:31:20.560,0:31:27.040 Maybe what I can share about our experience which is much shorter as a company 0:31:27.680,0:31:34.880 is the value and challenges of a collaboration with an agency. I think we 0:31:34.880,0:31:40.560 established before how important the agencies are in the development of space technology and how 0:31:40.560,0:31:46.880 central the role of the agency is; the challenges we faced at the beginning were mostly cultural 0:31:46.880,0:31:54.240 challenges. On one hand, for us, when we work on the project the fact that we collaborate together 0:31:54.240,0:31:59.520 with the European Space Agency today, we hopefully with other space agencies in future 0:31:59.520,0:32:05.920 missions, places. That's in the situation where, on one hand, there's this confidence contract 0:32:05.920,0:32:11.440 where he's engaged, he said okay, fine, we support Clear Space to do this mission, 0:32:11.440,0:32:17.120 they selected us and then they supported us through the process, but also it's a challenge 0:32:17.120,0:32:22.240 for us because they set the standard and they're behind us on a regular basis to make 0:32:22.240,0:32:28.400 sure that we get to the right level of quality as well in terms of the work that we do, what 0:32:28.400,0:32:34.560 we implement and how we actually execute on it; and what I can see is that obviously at the beginning 0:32:34.560,0:32:40.480 there's more friction, there's a very different cultures between a culture that 0:32:40.480,0:32:46.800 you find inside of a space agency or a culture that you find inside of a startup. It took 0:32:46.800,0:32:53.120 some time to get aligned but then at the same time it forced us also to integrate new 0:32:53.120,0:32:58.400 models on new ways of doing things, or ways of doing things that we wouldn't have considered 0:32:58.400,0:33:06.000 from the start, and I think this has been an extremely enriching exercise for us. 0:33:08.080,0:33:14.640 The other respect for us that is interesting in this collaboration is that 0:33:15.360,0:33:21.440 the agency typically has standard ways of doing a mission and the startup has a completely 0:33:21.440,0:33:27.040 blank sheet of paper at the very beginning where we can essentially write whatever we think is 0:33:27.040,0:33:33.600 right and introduce experience or methods or new ways of doing things that would be much more 0:33:33.600,0:33:39.040 difficult to put in place into larger organisations where everything is already structured, where 0:33:39.040,0:33:44.480 all the processes are already in place, which gives us a lot of freedom to rethink some of the 0:33:44.480,0:33:50.080 dimensions of the mission, the way we're going to do to try to correspond to the standards that have 0:33:50.080,0:33:56.000 to be achieved but then still think is there a way to do that that could be cheaper, more effective, 0:33:56.000,0:34:02.080 faster or that can bring us to the same results with an essentially lower cost of 0:34:02.080,0:34:09.600 execution. So for us this this is really a few of the experiences we had so far. Talking 0:34:09.600,0:34:15.680 about success story on our end is a little early, I mean we still have to fly our mission, we went 0:34:15.680,0:34:21.840 through a lot of different phases and milestones with European space agencies from the moment we 0:34:21.840,0:34:28.000 started writing proposals to now where we essentially had to go through a first phase of 0:34:28.000,0:34:34.400 the project, sign the main contract and then go through the different reviews and milestones 0:34:35.040,0:34:40.320 but there's still a long way to go. We are at the beginning of our adventure in this 0:34:40.320,0:34:48.880 exercise but we're very hopeful of how this is going to evolve over the coming years. I think you 0:34:48.880,0:34:54.080 raised a very important point here with some broad implications about the cultural challenges which 0:34:54.080,0:35:00.000 as you might expect will exist and indeed endure between these two very different sectors - the 0:35:00.000,0:35:04.320 public sector and the private sector - and indeed it's the essence of a free market economy and 0:35:04.320,0:35:10.240 society that those differences do endure and manifest themselves and so there's both, I think, 0:35:10.240,0:35:16.640 opportunity and tension involved in those relationships as a result of these ineradicable 0:35:16.640,0:35:21.680 cultural challenges, the obstacles of which can nevertheless be addressed and I 0:35:21.680,0:35:27.440 think that the experience and example of your company provides some insights and 0:35:27.440,0:35:33.200 lessons in that direction. Next and finally, please, I would like to turn to Sebastien. 0:35:35.920,0:35:43.920 Just so to follow up on what we can mention, and to address two other recent developments 0:35:43.920,0:35:50.960 in Europe that I think are very interesting, as the case of Clear Spaces there were 0:35:50.960,0:35:57.440 there were two major developments very recently, so it is the the same situation or we 0:35:57.440,0:36:03.040 are very early in the developments but I think they will bring very interesting lessons on the 0:36:03.040,0:36:08.880 way forward in this smart space. The first one is the acquisition of OneWeb by the UK 0:36:08.880,0:36:16.240 Government in a partnership with Bharti Global, and the second one is the EU project announced to be 0:36:16.240,0:36:23.920 confirmed, of course, of a multi-orbit connectivity system to provide both security communication 0:36:23.920,0:36:30.080 services, as well as to bridge the digital divide in Europe and provide telecommunication 0:36:30.080,0:36:38.400 services to all EU citizens. Of course these two developments happen in very different contexts 0:36:39.440,0:36:44.240 and have very different objectives; however I think there are interesting commonalities 0:36:44.240,0:36:50.720 that we can see. The first one is that strategic autonomy and sovereignty are 0:36:50.720,0:36:56.560 important motivations for these two projects and both projects have a 0:36:56.560,0:37:03.840 very important industrial space, industrial policy implications; and the second very 0:37:03.840,0:37:08.960 interesting commonality is the fact that, to be successful, these two projects will need to build 0:37:08.960,0:37:16.480 on a close partnership between public and private sectors. There is, I believe, 0:37:16.480,0:37:21.840 a strong financial incentive, I think this is something that is important to recall, 0:37:23.040,0:37:29.360 I believe, that it was also a motivation for the cuts programme of NASA to find new ways to be more 0:37:29.360,0:37:36.560 cost effective so there is a stronger financial incentive because space programmes are very much 0:37:36.560,0:37:43.520 resource intensive, and it is sometimes difficult for both parties, either public 0:37:43.520,0:37:50.480 or private sector, to justify alone the full investment, and there is of course an interest, 0:37:50.480,0:37:56.400 a shared interest in sharing costs and sharing risk to the best part. 0:37:57.120,0:38:05.360 There is obviously also a strategic driver, and here I'm going to share a personal 0:38:05.360,0:38:10.400 thought on why we're seeing these developments related to participation in Europe. I think 0:38:10.400,0:38:15.840 there was really a change of paradigm in the perception of risk, these 0:38:15.840,0:38:24.240 projects clearly have an inherent business risk - of course - but I think that 0:38:24.240,0:38:29.840 there was really a change in the perception of this risk and that Europe is now not only seeing 0:38:29.840,0:38:37.360 the business risk but also the strategic risk to be left out of what could potentially become 0:38:37.360,0:38:45.120 a really growth engine for the future of the space section. Now to be successful, because 0:38:45.120,0:38:52.480 it's not a given, the main challenge here - to echo the topic of today's session - 0:38:52.480,0:39:00.640 is really to find a smart governance for both. It's not always easy to find 0:39:00.640,0:39:06.480 complementarity and alignment between public and commercial objectives, and this is something that 0:39:07.200,0:39:15.120 will be hard not to track, in particular as there is a strong security dimension to these projects 0:39:15.120,0:39:20.880 so this will be clearly an important challenge. The second challenge is that it's not always easy 0:39:20.880,0:39:28.240 either to find appropriate arrangements: public rules are not always suitable 0:39:28.240,0:39:32.080 for the private sector so we will 0:39:32.080,0:39:38.160 also need to find an appropriate governance for these projects to be successful. Now with 0:39:38.160,0:39:43.840 regards to really specifically the EU project, I think there is an additional layer of difficulty 0:39:44.480,0:39:52.640 which is the fact that there is, we need to balance also the national and European 0:39:52.640,0:40:00.400 dimension, so this is something also that we need to tackle, so to wrap up I think we are very 0:40:00.400,0:40:06.400 still very early in this development so we need to see how they will unfold, they will 0:40:06.400,0:40:12.560 really likely bring many lessons, some very good ones and some less good ones 0:40:13.440,0:40:20.400 most probably, and it also shows that smart space is really only at the beginning, 0:40:20.400,0:40:27.280 and it will bring new questions as we progress on these developments in the future. 0:40:30.320,0:40:36.480 Thank you Sebastien. I think what comes out quite clearly from your comments is the need in pursuing 0:40:36.480,0:40:43.680 smart space objectives and frameworks to align, and where tensions exist reconcile, 0:40:43.680,0:40:50.960 the financial incentives pursued by private sector actors and then the strategic drivers which matter 0:40:50.960,0:40:57.600 so much to the governments involved, and I think you rightly pointed out the notion of strategic 0:40:57.600,0:41:03.040 autonomy which has been gaining adherence throughout much of the European Commission 0:41:03.040,0:41:08.800 and in many of the member states, and I think, point again for the necessity of such a smooth 0:41:08.800,0:41:14.400 and perhaps, to an extent, managed synthesis, right, which I think speaks to 0:41:14.400,0:41:19.840 the underlying complexities of this notion of a smart space, because you're not dealing only 0:41:20.400,0:41:25.760 with the interests and the motivations of one sector or the other, you're actually dealing 0:41:25.760,0:41:31.280 with some sort of a fusion between them, which again invokes sorts of cultural challenges and 0:41:31.280,0:41:37.440 complexities that look already raised as well. So thank you very much to our panelists 0:41:37.440,0:41:42.960 for those prepared two rounds of comments. And so in the time that remains I'd like to 0:41:42.960,0:41:50.720 open the discussion to our audience, and I will start by posing a question from Frank 0:41:50.720,0:41:57.440 White which is the following: does the Outer Space Treaty need to be amended to take into 0:41:57.440,0:42:02.560 account developments since 1967? Now I'll leave it to the speakers whether they want to 0:42:02.560,0:42:09.040 start with 1967 or earlier or later, but let me address this question, first, to Sumara. 0:42:12.320,0:42:17.440 I'm not sure that the Outer Space Treaty needs to be amended because remember if you look at the 0:42:17.440,0:42:24.320 actual title of the treaty it says principles, so it gives us a framework of what we need 0:42:24.320,0:42:32.800 to do and so operating within that framework there are new things that are occurring, 0:42:32.800,0:42:38.240 and I think each government organisation, the private sector, we need to work together 0:42:38.240,0:42:43.120 to develop norms, to implement those principles that are stated in the Outer 0:42:43.120,0:42:48.400 Space Treaty, so I don't think it's a requirement that we need to add something to 0:42:48.400,0:42:54.800 the Outer Space Treaty but let's figure out a way to implement those principles and that's 0:42:54.800,0:43:02.240 going to take a lot of work. We have started to do it, that's why I mentioned the commercial 0:43:02.240,0:43:09.680 space launch act that we put in place in in the US government but now we've got to figure 0:43:09.680,0:43:16.960 out which agency, which entity is going to be responsible for that authorisation and continuing 0:43:16.960,0:43:22.800 supervision. That's not inconsistent with what's in the Outer Space Treaty, we just got to implement it. 0:43:25.120,0:43:30.480 Thank you, Sumara. What about Luc? Any thoughts from a private sector perspective on this question? 0:43:31.200,0:43:35.840 So I'm not an attorney but I would agree on the fact that I don't think that there's 0:43:35.840,0:43:42.320 a change needed there. If I would think about where change is needed or where something could be 0:43:42.320,0:43:50.000 improved is more, in my perspective, when it comes to collaboration across regions. 0:43:50.000,0:43:56.640 What we see - for example - in the startup environment we're very open to collaborate with 0:43:56.640,0:44:01.840 American companies and we are very open to the idea that we could actually build something 0:44:01.840,0:44:10.240 together with a startup in the US or with, using technologies or across a region and what we 0:44:10.240,0:44:16.640 see today is the biggest challenges to make that happen are related to export limitations, 0:44:16.640,0:44:22.960 and I think, typically, if I would look at the future, how can we develop a more striving space 0:44:22.960,0:44:30.080 economy? And I think one of the subjects that should be addressed is collaboration across 0:44:30.080,0:44:33.920 region and how this can be actually done in a more effective way. I know it's a 0:44:33.920,0:44:39.440 difficult problem to solve but definitely something we think should be looked into. 0:44:41.680,0:44:45.680 Thank you Luc, and Sebastien, any thoughts on the Outer Space Treaty? 0:44:47.040,0:44:53.520 I shared the point of view of Sumara and Luc, I don't think that the Outer 0:44:53.520,0:44:58.560 Space Treaty really hinders any development that we are seeing unfolding at the moment. 0:44:59.120,0:45:05.920 I would also be very careful about reopening some kind of Pandora's Box 0:45:05.920,0:45:11.680 and not really imagining what could come out of it if we were to revise 0:45:13.680,0:45:17.840 these treaties, so I think this is something we need to really consider as a foundation. 0:45:18.480,0:45:27.680 Now it does not prevent the fact that there are new topics emerging that are only partially 0:45:27.680,0:45:34.800 from a very high level touched upon by the treaties, and where we could need further 0:45:35.360,0:45:41.440 further details in guidelines on the way forward at the international level. Of course, 0:45:41.440,0:45:48.320 the topic of space safety and sustainability is one where there is really an indivisible 0:45:51.360,0:45:57.520 responsibility between the different actors, and I really strongly believe that we will not 0:45:57.520,0:46:05.040 come up with a fully effective solution if we do not also build on international agreements 0:46:05.040,0:46:08.480 on the way we should behave in space. 0:46:11.120,0:46:15.840 So I'm not an attorney or a legal scholar either, but I am a scholar of international relations, 0:46:15.840,0:46:22.000 and I know from experiences in other domains and also in this one the difficulties that 0:46:22.000,0:46:27.440 are unavoidably invoked when you are dealing with an intergovernmental treaty structure that 0:46:27.440,0:46:32.800 involves, in this case, more than 100 signatories and so by opening up that treaty framework 0:46:33.520,0:46:38.480 for redesign and redevelopment you are necessarily invoking 0:46:38.480,0:46:45.280 some potentially pronounced differences of view and interest across, especially some of the large 0:46:45.280,0:46:49.680 players, governmental players in the international system, and I think one has to be 0:46:49.680,0:46:55.840 mindful of those difficulties in any consideration of treaty reform in this or in other areas. 0:46:57.680,0:47:08.400 And next I want to pose the question that is sent to us by Shikhant Morris which is the following: 0:47:09.200,0:47:16.400 do commercial space activities not open up space to exploitation at scale like here on Earth? So I 0:47:16.400,0:47:22.480 interpret that question to mean are we not inviting problems of sustainability 0:47:23.120,0:47:30.240 by commercialising the industry? Luc, let's turn the question to you first 0:47:30.800,0:47:33.920 because I know you work in the area of sustainability and space debris. 0:47:35.520,0:47:42.800 Well our perspective is relatively simple: we think that whatever progress is made is really achieved 0:47:42.800,0:47:49.120 only if we can make it sustainable, right. This means that the progress what we're doing in terms 0:47:49.120,0:47:55.200 of commercial exploitation of space is a good thing, I mean if we can bring internet across 0:47:55.840,0:48:01.520 all the regions of the world, provide coverage or access to education to many regions which are 0:48:01.520,0:48:10.320 today underserved, even in developed countries, this is a fantastic progress. Now 0:48:10.320,0:48:15.440 in anything we do we should think through how do we make it sustainable, and generally 0:48:15.440,0:48:21.600 the technologies we develop that we put into the market we just reap the first benefits 0:48:21.600,0:48:27.040 but don't think how do we close the loop and re-establish the the balance? It's not really 0:48:27.040,0:48:35.040 progress because at some point we'll have to move backwards, and the challenge is not so 0:48:35.040,0:48:41.760 much the progress itself: I think the challenge is that often the progress is not thought far enough, 0:48:41.760,0:48:48.240 thinking okay how do we build a progress that lasts for 50, for 200, for a thousand years, 0:48:48.240,0:48:52.160 how do we do that? And I think this is really the question that has to be answered here. 0:48:54.560,0:49:00.160 Thank you, what about the perspective of Sumara on this question, please? 0:49:01.520,0:49:10.000 So I was thinking about the word exploitation when we think of commercial activities 0:49:10.000,0:49:15.200 engagement of those commercial activities, and it's something NASA has thought about, we've 0:49:15.200,0:49:20.640 been very careful with the statutes that I've mentioned that have been passed. 0:49:20.640,0:49:29.680 We want to encourage commercial activities, we see the benefit of having technology 0:49:29.680,0:49:37.040 advance: it's a benefit to businesses, it's a benefit to human beings. That's not necessarily 0:49:37.040,0:49:43.920 exploitation, it is using those resources, it's sharing what we've learned and we have to think 0:49:43.920,0:49:49.360 about how we're going to do that to make that access available to a broader group. 0:49:50.160,0:49:54.240 Now we've talked about whether we should amend the Outer Space Treaty. 0:49:54.960,0:50:01.360 We recognise that when that treaty was initially signed there were countries, organisations that 0:50:01.360,0:50:07.840 didn't exist that now exist, we have emerging capabilities, so as we think about how we are 0:50:07.840,0:50:13.360 going to engage in commercial activities and create sustainable programmes like Luc mentioned, 0:50:13.360,0:50:19.600 we have to think about how we can be more inclusive and bring others in. That's not exploitation, I 0:50:19.600,0:50:25.920 look at that as being inclusive, how are we collaborating so we can further technology, 0:50:25.920,0:50:31.920 further businesses, further commercial enterprise for the benefit of humankind here on Earth? 0:50:34.400,0:50:38.160 Thank you Sumara, and what about Sebastien? Is there 0:50:38.160,0:50:43.760 a European perspective on this question of exploitation and sustainability of space? 0:50:45.760,0:50:50.560 Yes, of course it's an issue for all space nations, 0:50:50.560,0:50:58.000 so I agree with what we said before it's not a bad thing to see the intensification and 0:50:58.000,0:51:04.160 globalisation, diversification of space activities, this is something we need really to embrace. Now of 0:51:04.160,0:51:09.520 course, just like any other economic sector there is the question of sustainability. When it comes to 0:51:09.520,0:51:14.560 space, there is an additional layer which is that the question of sustainability actually brings 0:51:14.560,0:51:22.400 concrete safety issues in orbit that we need to to to be careful about. Now I 0:51:22.400,0:51:28.880 think that Europe is has been in this field a really an important actor and is ready to 0:51:28.880,0:51:35.840 play a very active role in supporting the emergence of of the principles on 0:51:38.000,0:51:44.880 behaviour in space, and I'm quite sure that we will see this topic further in the 0:51:44.880,0:51:51.600 in the coming years with Europe playing an active role in it, that that's clear. Now, as 0:51:51.600,0:51:57.440 I was mentioning, I think something we need to be careful about is that we need to really take into 0:51:57.440,0:52:03.440 account this compromise, that it's not only about public actors and about 0:52:03.440,0:52:09.920 countries and governments in space, it's also about commercial actors and the private sector, 0:52:09.920,0:52:15.360 and we need to really find a balance between safety sustainability - which is something 0:52:15.360,0:52:21.280 that should be promoted and should be safeguarded - but also commercial development so we need to to 0:52:21.280,0:52:28.160 really bring all actors on board; I think this is really a topic that has to be where everyone 0:52:30.240,0:52:31.840 should be given a voice. 0:52:35.040,0:52:39.360 Thank you Sebastien for those comments; now for what will likely be 0:52:39.360,0:52:46.160 the last question I want to fuse two of the questions that I see posted here. One is from Yarissa 0:52:46.720,0:52:53.440 Matos Soto who asks about other other ecosystems internationally that are better 0:52:53.440,0:53:00.320 suited for space focused startups, which also I think blends nicely into the question 0:53:00.320,0:53:07.920 posed by Charles Perera about what sorts of challenges policymakers face during the 0:53:07.920,0:53:13.840 implementation of new regulations to support space startups. So then both the challenges 0:53:14.480,0:53:22.320 to the activities and aspirations of space startups but also the possible solutions that 0:53:22.320,0:53:27.600 agencies and regulations can provide in face of those challenges? Luc, why don't we 0:53:27.600,0:53:31.760 start with you because, after all, you are representing a successful startup. 0:53:33.920,0:53:41.120 So I think there's a few dimensions you need to have a chance of success as a startup in 0:53:41.120,0:53:48.320 space. The first one is there is a need, obviously, for an agency that is forward-thinking, in general 0:53:48.320,0:53:56.160 the opportunity to make a first mission is absolutely critical and very often the 0:53:56.160,0:54:01.760 the collaboration, that's our perspective, the collaboration with an agency makes a huge 0:54:01.760,0:54:08.080 difference because it makes it possible to test your technology in orbit. I can take an 0:54:08.080,0:54:14.800 example, for example, a startup like Orbit Fab in the U.S that could test its refuelling mechanism 0:54:14.800,0:54:21.840 on ISS and having those kind of programmes would give the possibility to actually bring you to 0:54:21.840,0:54:28.560 the capacity to actually fly your system in orbit and demonstrate in orbit is critical. The 0:54:28.560,0:54:34.160 other dimension is obviously having funds and investors that are ready to invest into startups, 0:54:34.720,0:54:40.480 and in that sense the US is a little better served than Europe. Today, I think there's a change, 0:54:40.480,0:54:47.280 we're catching up in Europe and I hope we will continue to do so in 0:54:47.280,0:54:53.360 that sense, there's a higher probability to find investors supporting a space startup in the US; 0:54:54.160,0:54:59.840 and then for the talent today, everything is very international. I mean in our case we had to 0:54:59.840,0:55:06.160 find our talents where they were so we're lucky because we have a very attractive mission and 0:55:06.160,0:55:10.800 it's also a noble cause which means, in general, engineers like to contribute to something like 0:55:10.800,0:55:16.080 this which which makes it possible when we had to scout people everywhere so we started in 0:55:16.080,0:55:21.920 Europe with Germany, and we went to the US, we went everywhere and just found the talents we needed 0:55:21.920,0:55:27.040 wherever they were, and sometimes you end up having people in different regions and that's the case 0:55:27.040,0:55:32.160 for us. We have a big bulk of our talents that are right now in Switzerland but we have people 0:55:32.160,0:55:37.840 in Germany and France, in the UK, which will - depending on the the needs and the growth and what 0:55:37.840,0:55:43.520 we have to do - will grow in the US. We have also talents so you really have to go get them wherever 0:55:43.520,0:55:49.840 they are, and today with the means we have to communicate in any way, everybody's working from 0:55:49.840,0:55:57.680 home mostly over the past year it's made really easy, and actually we went last year from seven 0:55:57.680,0:56:03.200 employees in the company to 35 at the end of the year, completely doing all our interview over 0:56:03.200,0:56:11.280 Microsoft Teams and Zoom and many of our employees we didn't see before that first day and even a few 0:56:11.280,0:56:15.440 months after that first day we didn't see them. So sometimes you suddenly meet one of the guys 0:56:15.440,0:56:19.760 you've been working with for three months in the office and you look at them and -- you're tall! Right, 0:56:19.760,0:56:27.120 you never never realised because you just never see them. So I think there's a lot of 0:56:27.120,0:56:33.520 places where there are great talents and you should not limit where you go look for them. 0:56:36.000,0:56:41.040 Now that just brings me one more thing - if you don't mind - it brings up another challenge and 0:56:41.040,0:56:46.480 that's why before I was mentioning it is a challenge because having talent in the US when 0:56:46.480,0:56:51.840 you develop something, what we want to do is not European, we want to do something global, 0:56:51.840,0:56:58.160 we want to address a global problem and one of the difficulties is how do we handle talents 0:56:58.160,0:57:04.400 in export limitation environment? And that's that's definitely one of the show stoppers 0:57:04.400,0:57:09.440 or a big break on what can be done in terms of innovations with startups, because we're all 0:57:09.440,0:57:14.480 about collaborations but then the questions; what can you do? What can't you do? Where are the 0:57:14.480,0:57:20.240 limitations? Maybe we've seen some fantastic talents from around, we cannot work with them 0:57:20.240,0:57:27.760 but they're amazing, and so there's a lot of loss of talents in those limitations so I just 0:57:27.760,0:57:33.040 wanted to bring that in rapidly because I think looking at what is a challenge for smart 0:57:33.040,0:57:40.320 space this is what definitely. So thank you, Luc, and now Sumara, your country - the United States - 0:57:40.320,0:57:45.920 was invoked at least twice in this comments, so what can you make of these challenges 0:57:45.920,0:57:50.160 to face by startups? And briefly please, as we have just two minutes left and I also want to 0:57:50.160,0:57:56.160 give Luc an opportunity to chime in. So just say two things that I wrote down are challenges 0:57:56.160,0:58:01.760 from a government perspective, change in leadership, change in administrations. We have elections every 0:58:01.760,0:58:06.960 four years when a new president comes in, a new administration, we have new policies, that's a 0:58:06.960,0:58:14.480 challenge for us to have continuity in our programmes, and also our budget for the programmes 0:58:14.480,0:58:20.800 that we need and how we can support startups like the COTS programme where we were supporting 0:58:21.680,0:58:27.840 back then. SpaceX was a startup so budget dollars are very important, and one of the things 0:58:27.840,0:58:35.840 that we recognise is a problem, is a challenge for any business is getting that financial support, 0:58:36.400,0:58:42.480 getting investors; how do you demonstrate that there is a market so that people will invest in it? 0:58:42.480,0:58:47.520 And that's something that that we fully recognise, and we've had discussions about, so I'll stop there. 0:58:49.360,0:58:56.560 Thank you and, finally Sebastien. Thank you. So really final remarks on my side; so with regards 0:58:56.560,0:59:02.080 to the different ecosystems I think now we need to acknowledge that new space is global. Of course 0:59:02.080,0:59:07.440 much of the spotlight has been put on the US, from the European perspective of course we see it also 0:59:07.440,0:59:15.200 happening in Europe, we had a record high private investment in 2020 - 500 million euros invested - but 0:59:15.200,0:59:20.080 what we see is really the thing emerging is dynamic emerging everywhere in the world, in 0:59:20.080,0:59:27.040 China and Japan, in India, everyone is interested in exploring this. I would say with regards to 0:59:27.040,0:59:33.440 the role of public sector to further support the emergence and the development, 0:59:33.440,0:59:40.240 four things: giving room to innovation in public programmes, the second one is work on regulations to 0:59:40.240,0:59:46.000 make sure that they are not hindering interesting professional development, the third one is support 0:59:46.000,0:59:51.520 to access to finance - and here there is a major role to be played by the public sector - and last, 0:59:51.520,0:59:59.040 public markets. I guess it's very important to note that the main customer will remain for a while 1:00:03.360,1:00:07.280 Thank you Sebastien. Now this brings us to the very end of our time. 1:00:07.280,1:00:13.200 Let me just say by way of closing very briefly that it's clear from our discussion today 1:00:14.000,1:00:22.560 that smart space entails both challenges, tensions, and also opportunities. Tensions because, 1:00:22.560,1:00:29.200 as I know very well as an international relations scholar, governments relinquish their competencies 1:00:29.920,1:00:35.520 only very reluctantly and reluctantly - not just in face of other potentially competing 1:00:35.520,1:00:40.560 state actors - but also and perhaps especially in relation to private sector actors whose 1:00:40.560,1:00:46.480 motives and names may not be perfectly or neatly aligned with those of the government players. 1:00:46.480,1:00:52.640 Opportunities, though at the same time precisely because of the growing need for 1:00:53.280,1:01:01.040 an effective and appropriate synthesis of the actors and capacities within both old space and 1:01:01.040,1:01:08.720 new space, and so clearly smart space is a realm of activity that is promising, it's challenging 1:01:09.440,1:01:16.720 it's global - as Sebastien mentioned - and also necessarily given our times it's also 1:01:16.720,1:01:24.960 virtual. I want to thank all of our our three panelists - Sumara, Luc and Sebastien - for joining 1:01:24.960,1:01:30.800 us today, sharing your thoughts, your knowledge, your experiences, and also I want to thank everyone who 1:01:30.800,1:01:36.160 has joined us from various parts of the world in what has been this inaugural session of 1:01:36.160,1:01:42.160 the Smart Space, a seminar series here at Oxford. We look forward to welcoming you again to what 1:01:42.160,1:01:51.840 no doubt will be a continuation of stimulating discussions in this sector, thank you very much. 1:02:24.880,1:02:25.380