Weekly Update
28 January - 2 February 2023
A US Air Force General predicts war with China, even as China is caught red-handed spying on the USA. The New Space industry continues to secure funding. Russia violates the START treaty by refusing nuclear weapons inspections. And, it’s been 20 years since the Space Shuttle Columbia tragically disintegrated during reentry.
Read: NASA Spinoff 2023
Think: DoD Small Business Strategy
Weekly News Round Up
Military
Air Force General predicts war with China in 2025 (AirForceTimes)
China deploys spy balloon over USA (WaPo)
Russia’s Wagner Group may be targeting US veterans for recruitment (T&P)
Ukraine to spend $540M on drones this year (DefenseNews)
US to give Ukraine longer-range weapons (RT)
US may have deployed its new Hellfire “missile full of swords” for first time (T&P)
Air Force official concerned about planned Chinese-owned corn mill in ND (NYT)
US securing access to Philippine bases (WaPo)
Marine Corps opens base on Guam (MarineTimes)
Congressional GOPers push for stricter rules on “dual-use” tech to China (DefenseNews)
TikTok CEO to appear before Congress (Forbes)
China is developing XR system for soldiers - like the IVAS (T&P)
New commanders tapped to lead Navy in Middle East and Pacific (USNI)
Space
Capella Space creates subsidiery to focus on federal government needs for synthetic aperture radar data (C4ISRNet)
Remembering the Columbia Shuttle disaster, 20 years ago (CBS)
LeoLabs expanding coverage of satellite-monitoring stations throughout Indo-Pacific region (BD)
SETI applies machine learning to find previously dismissed signals (Axios)
Helicopter on Mars completes its 41st flight (NASA)
Mars rover deposits 10th sample for future recovery (NASA)
The Exploration Company raised $44M to develop space station transport (SpaceNews)
Atomos raises $16M to toe satellites between orbits (TC)
Virgin Orbit raises $10M as stopgap after space launch failure (SpaceNews)
Orbital Sidekick raises $10M in advance of launching its seventh satellite (SpaceNews)
Nuclear Power & Weapons
Russia refusing nuclear inspections required under START treaty (RT)
Contract signed for first small, modular reactor in N. America (WNN)
Rolls Royce designing nuclear propulsion systems for in-space use (Space)
Capsule filled with radioactive Cesium recovered in Australia (BBC)
Defense Innovation Board Meeting
The Defense Innovation Board is an advisory board that provides specific, actionable recommendations to senior leaders in the Department of Defense on innovative means to address future challenges.
Established in 2016, the board consists of leaders from across the national security innovation base to provide diverse insight on DoD’s biggest challenges. The DIB has previously weighed in on key focus areas for the Department, including AI, software, data, digital modernization, and human capital. The DIB parent board produces recommendations on these topics through the use of its subcommittees.
Current members include:
Chairman Mike Bloomberg
Dr. Gilda Barabino, President of Olin College of Engineering
Mac Thornberry, Director at CAE USA
Sue Gordon, Director at CACI International
Adm. (R) Michael Mullen, Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Dr. Will Roper, Former Asst Sec of the Air Force, Distinguished Professor at Georgia Tech, and Senior Advisor at McKinsey
Reid Hoffman, Partner at Greylock and LinkedIn Founder
Ryan Swann, Chief Data Analytics Officer at Vanguard
Charles Phillips, Co-founder at Managing Partner of Recognize
This particular meeting focused on updates about the DoD’s new Office of Strategic Capital and the services’ innovation organizations. Lt Gen Clint Hinote of the US Air Force outlined challenges that the Department must overcome to accelerate change or risk losing to adversaries.
Click the picture to watch the video of the DIB public meeting
NASA Spinoff 2023
NASA produces an annual guide about technologies that it has developed or helped developed that have broader uses than just within the administration.
Since 1976, NASA has documented and featured more than 2,000 technologies in its annual guide.
And that guide is absolutely beautiful.
Some of this year’s featured technologies include:
Underwater robotics
Ventilators for COVID relief
Data and modeling sciences for agriculture
Novel food-sources
Power and batteries
Data visualization and mapping
Search and rescue / disaster relief
And more!
Take a look at this very well done publication, available here.
NASA’s Spinoff 2023 Cover
Big Ideas 2023: Small, modular reactors
Andreessen Horowitz (one of the largest VC firms) produces a weekly podcast. The a16z Podcast ran a two-part series on “big ideas” and predictions for 2023, with various partners from across the firm. American Dynamism team partner, Michelle Volz, joined to discuss small, modular reactors (SMRs).
Michelle’s big idea was that we would see advances in the regulatory frameworks and policies surrounding SMRs allowing for proliferation of the technology. I think she is absolutely right!
SMRs are part of the next generation in fission energy, allowing them to be built and deployed as a resilient, clean, and safe part of our energy infrastructure. Fission energy remains one of the safest and cleanest forms of energy available to us, at this time, and we neglect including it in our energy independence and surety plans at our own peril. And, while already relatively safe, the development of Tri-structural Isotopic (TRISO) fuel has further increased the safety through encapsulating the radioactive components inside of inert materials at a much smaller level.
A rough overview of how SMRs work
SMRs provide smaller and scalable amounts of power and will be an important part of our energy resilience.
In fact, even the military is developing an SMR under the Project Pele program. Let’s also not forget that this week saw the contract signed for the first SMR in N. America (as mentioned in the news roll-up)!
Listen to the podcast here, or whereever you get your pods.
DoD Small Business Strategy
The Defense Department has released its Small Business Strategy, which seeks to achieve three key, strategic objectives:
Implement a unified management approach for small business programs and activities
Ensure the department’s small business activities align with national security priorities
Strengthen the department’s engagement and support of small businesses
Small businesses remain the backbone of our dynamic economy in America. I’ve discussed this during my Wednesday editions of the newsletter over the past few weeks. Unfortunately, there’s been a decline in the percentage of new businesses relative to the total number of businesses in America since the end of the Cold War. One of the sectors hit the hardest by this trend has been in defense, as we have witnessed the accelerated consolidation of massive conglomerates that dominate acquisition / procurement activities (for example, Lockheed Martin captured ~$35B of the defense budget in FY2022).
The Defense Department has done much in recent years to build programs that allow smaller businesses to compete for funding. However, the scope and scale of these programs remains limited and startups and small businesses still face massive hurdles when trying to transition from these small business programs to enduring contracts and programs of record (PoR).
While the strategy outlines some specific “ways and means” to achieve the strategic objectives, it still neglects to direct greater amount of set-asides that will allow the smaller businesses to be more competitive in securing enduring contracts / PoRs. It’s critical for the department as small businesses tend to be far more innovative and make larger leaps in technological capabilities than the entrenched defense primes.
Regardless, the strategy remains an important step and worthy of praise and consideration.
That’s a wrap for this week. If you’ve found this helpful or useful, please feel free to share it with others. Also, please send feedback if you think it should be tweaked.
Keep building!
Andrew