Competing with China at the Tech Frontier: Space, Quantum, Data, and Supply Chains

Well, first of all, Kyle, it's the final frontier.

So that's why it's important.

We actually did a hearing last year on the space issue.

And there are a bunch of things that sort of remain sort of front of mind for me.

One of the things, and I don't think everybody, maybe in Washington folks think about this, but when you leave Washington, not a lot of people think about this.

Space is a warfighting domain.

That's the first sort of takeaway that I think is becoming more acute.

We just saw the Russian satellite cozy up next to the commercial satellite that's assisting the Ukrainians.

And that sort of proves to you that it is, in fact, a warfighting domain.

And that's going to become more acute and more real as we think about a possible Taiwan contingency in the coming years.

That's the first thing.

In terms of exploration, I mean, one of the things that is really real right now, just because of the Artemis program, is that NASA is trying to go back to the moon.

And whoever gets there first establishes a base there first.

When I say first, I mean the first time again.

Right.

is really going to change the dynamics of what happens on the moon.

Where are mining rights? Who's making those decisions? Where's the source of water? What's the way that we're going to be able to maintain life up there from an energy perspective, from a food perspective? One of the things that happens in space, it's this interesting area of convergence for a lot of the technologies that we all know about, but haven't really deployed in space.

think about the convergence of space and bio, right? How are we gonna grow potatoes on Mars? How are we gonna grow potatoes on the moon? I use that as an example only because we've all seen Matt Damon on Mars growing potatoes, which I'm never sure actually happened.

So the convergence of those issues are gonna be interesting.

I mean, everyone thinks about solar panels on the moon.

I always think about nuclear reactors.

I think about maybe the first place we deploy an SMR is actually not in Oregon or Wyoming or wherever Terraform is building, and maybe it's actually on the moon.

What are safety requirements on the moon? And how do you think about those issues? And then one of the other things that we didn't really talk about much last year, but is sort of an underlying issue for us is the Outer Space Treaty.

This thing's been around for a long time, and it's got a lot of rules in it.

It doesn't have a lot of an enforcement.