Data Centers in Space, 5 Years Away?

Space is only going up. We're ramping up. Primarily for defense purposes. There will be a war in space is highly likely at this stage. And people are preparing for it because America cannot afford to lose a war in space. So, whoever wins energy and intelligent in space, I think wins. We're the world's first company to enable super conduction technologies for space and to commercialize them. So, you don't have to use rockets anymore. You can just use solar energy. You can throw things around the solar system fully with you know, with mass drivers. 80% of the work is to crack how to enable super conducting electromagnets for space. How to operate them, how to energize them, how to discharge them. So, we've done all of this for Supertorque. We decided to move to LA and work from there. Why? The moon currently belongs to nobody, but I think very soon it will belong to somebody.

Let's go and do it and see what happens.

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All right. Max, thank you for joining us. Where are you calling in from? Looks very sunny.

Thanks for having me, guys. Good to see you again. I'm calling from Los Angeles.

Terrific. Terrific. Great. Cuz you moved there with a company, right? Tell us tell us what's been happening since the last last time we talked.

Yeah, I've been here since January. Zen Zen is still based in New Zealand as a company and most all engineers are still there.

But we're looking at establishing a presence here in in Los Angeles by the end of the year. Cool.

That's amazing. How are you finding LA? Cuz I know there's there's quite a lot of defense aerospace, that whole that whole town, right? Has it sort of went above and beyond that way away from entertainment. How are you finding this?

It's like entrepreneur paradise. If you If you're in deep tech, if you're in defense and space, Los Angeles in particular around El Segundo, this is like the the epicenter of, you know, of that scene on Earth.

Interesting. Why is that? Is that because there's a lot of like defense primes, or what is kind of the What's What's causing the gravity of the ecosystem?

I think maybe the primes was of the original driver, and then you know, then there was SpaceX at Hawthorne, and then there were a lot of other so new space companies around that area like Impulse Space. You know, there's there's there's there's there's a lot here now. So, there's a lot of private space companies here now, and I think that's what's driving like the the next wave of early stage companies in space, in aerospace, and defense. There's a lot of There's a lot of great talent here. And VCs as well.

That makes sense. That makes sense. So, so SpaceX, that's the main one. So, speaking of SpaceX, they just had an IPO. You're a space You're running a space company. What would you think What would you think I guess about what SpaceX is doing first of all, but also valuation, how they're valued by the market?

I read somewhere Mark that 11,000 SpaceX staff bought into the bought into the IPO. That's apparently more than 50% of their of their employees bought into the IPO.

Wow.

So, that that's very bullish. I personally am also I'm in general very bullish on the future, in particular on the future of the space industry. So, I I I can see, you know, I can see I can share the enthusiasm in general.

Well, more specifically, I guess since we talked a year ago, I mean you had some ideas about where things would go, how things would develop. Let's go into the specifics, right? Like SpaceX is now you know, putting up a lot of satellites, Starlink. A lot of other companies are getting into the into the space, no pun intended. Where do you think we are in in the broader like market cycle for space specifically? Both in terms of technology, but also I guess the market itself.

Space is only going up. It's ramping up and primarily for defense purposes, energy. You know, so energy and compute is are strongly tied to space, and ultimately energy is what determines, you know, who has more power. Uh and you know, energy is abundant in space. That's why we see SpaceX and other companies pursue, you know, energy you know, energy use cases in space. In particular, intelligence is something that, you know, the energy converted to intelligence is what allows us to you know, a nation or group to to sort of dominate and have even more power. So, I think SpaceX is doing the right things here, leading, you know, leading ways on orbit and fields and on orbit computing, you know, and utilizing all the energy directly, for that use case. And there's also a lot of push, in particular in in the United States, for you know, for for for defense in space.

So, defense use cases in space So, essentially, there will be a war in space. Or there may be a war in space. It's highly likely at this stage. These are These are the the attitudes that I that that are, you know, prevalent here in the United States. And people are preparing for it because, you know, America cannot afford to lose a war in space. So, two There's two threats, I guess. One is energy and computing space, and one is defense use cases. Let's start with the first one. Talking about Yeah, I mean, Elon wants to put data centers into space. You know, that's been part of the S1, and it's quite actively talking about it. And I guess Sam Altman, a few months ago, said that that's like a science fiction vision. It's not going to happen in the next decade or two. Where are you on that? How far away are we from having data data centers and computing space?

I'm not an expert on data centers in particular, but when we think from first principles, when's the the energy is abundant in space. It is virtual virtually unlimited. And when we think about, you know, what Zen is building, you know, we're building an electromagnetic layer of technologies to convert that energy into useful work in space, whether it's spacecraft movement or protection of things in space or assembly or whatnot. So, you know, SpaceX is fundamentally is is operating on on this you know, on the same fundamental sort of belief as energy is abundant in space, and the most the most the most impactful weapon ultimately is intel is is intelligence. So, whoever wins energy and intelligent in space, I think wins, you know, wins or at least you know, de-risks their their own civilization from from potential, you know, disaster. I think this is what SpaceX is doing.

Yeah, and do you think this is like I mean, they've already I think they already sent GPUs up, right, to test whether they can kind of live in in the environment of space, and there's companies like Star Cloud working on this. But do we think or do you think it's like 3 to 5 years away or is this something that has a few more hurdles than people might think?

SpaceX moves very fast. Star Cloud had had a a a GPU on orbit. I think either this year I think it was this year, maybe end of last year. Uh and they raised a good round on on a huge valuation. And SpaceX I see have already rolled out the design for the AI one satellite. Massive, you know, massive spacecraft with massive solar you know, with a lot of power on those vehicles and huge radiators. So, I think they'll move fast.

And you already kind of alluded a bit to it, but what's what's Zenus's role in that world?

Yeah, yeah, we're closely tied to it. It's all about energy and and how effectively we we use energy to to build a industrialized space essentially. That this is this is the this is the race. Yeah, and and Zenus Zenus is building an electric electronic platform for space. We're we're we're the world's first We're the space superconducting company. We're the world's first company to enable superconducting technologies for space and to commercialize them. And essentially, we're building a layer of enabling technologies that that we think are the most effective way to control to convert the abundant energy of space into useful work in space so that we don't have to depend on finite resources of Earth.

How exactly does that work, Max?

We have We're looking at three fundamental sort of directions there, Mark. Number one is spacecraft mobility, satellite mobility. So, we we use our magnets to to, you know so that so we can control spacecraft in orbit in Earth orbit so we can you know make sure that they don't tumble violently and they point the right way. And we also use the same products to then extend it to interaction between satellites when they come really close to each other they can interact with each other magnetic fields and we call that line of products a super talker. So, that that we have flown two of them so far and we have just become in June this month actually the world's first company to successfully operate a superconducting product in space. So, that's that's our super talker.

We then have another line of the second pillar there or the second sort of line of work that we do is electromagnetic launch systems in space. So, it's the idea of accelerating objects payloads in space with the use of magnets in particular superconducting magnets and and the third and more distant pillar is radiation protected habitats for long-term presence in space for humans.

Right. And maybe to showcase that you recently won two big contracts I believe, right? One with the German government or German agency and one with Japan. Maybe you can talk a little bit about those as kind of examples of the work you do.

Uh of course. So, we have a contract with Sprint. Some people say it's a German version of DARPA. Don't hold me accountable if if that's not if that Yeah, if that's not exactly the case don't hold me accountable to what that's what I heard. And it's it's a great contract. It's for essentially [clears throat] demonstrating that autonomous operations between satellites are feasible with the use of magnetic fields. So, this this is exactly what super talker enables and you know we we have a layer of of of autonomous decision making. You just on board. And that we combine with with our models you know to essentially to to make sure the spacecraft can can can cooperate in orbit. That's that's our contract with Sprint. Another contract we have is with Mitsubishi Electric. They're actually one of our investors down in the cap table.

It's an aerospace giant from Japan and their contract is for a a simulation of super talker as a piece of hardware so that so that they can you know use it internally But, when missions essentially, to see which mission is best suited for this first satellite.

Right. These are long-term contracts, right? So, I think last time we spoke a year ago, you said this one line, you can you get to test your technology every 7 years in space. So, that's kind of one of the one of the challenges of building what you build. Do these contracts accelerate these timelines? And yeah, well, I guess you'll learn a lot from these.

Yeah, so this year we're going to ship two more Super Talkers. Two more Super Talkers to to our partners. One of them is already announced. We're shipping it in July, on July 7th or July 1st. That week, the first week of July, we're shipping it to an American company called Orbital Space Systems. The mission is called Almighty Magnet. Here's why I'm wearing this t-shirt. It's called Almighty Magnet.

Cool.

And it will be once in space, it will become the the world's most most powerful magnet ever flown in space.

It's an extra.

It will be launched this year. That's the plan.

And so, okay, so and that will basically, yeah, I guess you'll come back and you'll you will have learned a lot from this mission. So, do you think this this kind of cycle where where you said 7 years, this is kind of accelerating now with I guess more money going into the space, governments putting more of these contracts up? Do you think there's going to be more iteration in in the space industry?

Yeah, Hendrik, I think America, in particular, is is is putting a lot of mass into orbit. And that's ultimately what wins a space race. Yeah, so, you know, America has 10x the amount of mass that they're putting into orbit since 2016. For comparison, Russia remained the same. So, Russia plateaued to America's 10x. Yeah, and so therefore, the more mass we're going to orbit, the it is primarily space segment mass to orbit. But, you know, the rest of the industry has opportunity to either ride on the same rockets or just, you know, buy a Falcon 9 or or Starship. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, gas bills.

Yeah. And last time you said that like getting to space and rocketry is basically a commoditized solved problem now and the real challenge is what's happening in space, moving things around, radiation, assembly. That's kind of, you know, I guess that only has become more true in the last 12 months, right? So, rocketry is really not a challenge. And I guess as an you know, we are we are in New Zealand as you know, and that's where you originated. That's where I'm from. Rocket Lab is the big rocket company out of New Zealand. How do you think about the I I don't know if you've seen the market cap recently, but they've become very, very valuable. Do you think they're also going to work more in on in-space stuff or do they do you think they're just overvalued?

I don't think they are overvalued. I think Peter Beck is is you know, Peter Beck is a great engineer. Um and uh you know, obviously they're building the Neutron rocket behind schedule, but uh well, I think they're going to get it done and uh when they get it done, I'm sure they'll have a lot of great business and uh yeah, I'm not following them too closely, but yeah, they're they're building a constellation or at least a or a flat format spacecraft as well and I think maybe they will deploy their own constellation. Ultimately in space, a few things make money in space and and constellations of of of com- communication satellites is one of the is one of the things that make money like Starlink or Starshield. Yeah, so I think it wouldn't be surprising if Rocket Lab came out with something something similar, but I don't think they've announced anything as far as I know.

Is that you think the the most like is that kind of what you believe to be currently the most lucrative way to make money in space is to deploy constellations of what satellites that provide internet or any kind of satellites?

Yeah, Starlink makes I'm speaking sort of from from memory from scrolling the news feed, something in the order of like 5 to 6 billion for SpaceX per year. Yeah, so might be wrong, but it's somewhere somewhere near that number. And uh before that, you know, companies that made money in space were like geostationary communication satellites that made money in space. So, it's mostly coms at this stage.

Interesting. How do you think that progression goes? So, what what is the next kind of phases and I mean like if you if you think about the internet evolution of the internet, right? Initially, people the companies that got really valuable were the companies that laid the piper, that the infrastructure companies, right? And then it was like these foundational sort of like companies like Yahoo, like Google, like Microsoft that started building parts of the internet as we know today. And then as as the internet kind of evolved, there was different phases to it. Um different different enabling technologies that had different types of unicorns and companies come out of them.

How do you think about space if you if you were sort of marinating Do do you see different different stages where different types of companies are valuable and there's kind of value to be accrued at different stages in um life cycle?

Yeah, Mark. I think I think the space industry is now established as an industry. So, if I were to compare it to like, you know, there was a first wave of internet companies that then mostly collapsed. And then the second wave came in and like this one Facebook came along and and and so on. And then they and they stayed for good. And I think the space industry had the same first wave. There were a lot of companies that went public. Most of them collapsed. And now we're seeing a second wave of companies being funded in the space industry. And I think this is now is going to stay. And it's going to expand beyond uh obviously the traditional communications to Well, I mean, Starlink, you know, obviously Starlink pioneered the the new way of communicating from from lower earth orbit.

We're going to have I think there's a big opportunity in defense in space, you know, because uh Russia and China are, you know, quite active in space. And they they're launching their own constellations. And I'm sure they're launching their own like offensive and defensive technologies to space. So, everybody particularly in America, there is a room for a defense prime in space. And yeah, uh I think I think data centers in space will will will work. It will work as well as a business.

Tell me more about defense. And I guess, you know, back in whatever the '70s or '80s, Ronald Reagan had this idea of Star Wars, right? Using

And at least

satellites and lasers to intercept ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles, right? Is that sort of how you envision it or do you envision it like literally like satellites fighting each other? and if so, what does that look like? Does it look like the Star Wars that we see in in the movies or is it something different? How exactly do you see that evolving? What does that look like?

I think being able to to intercept a missile with a laser is like a dream from space. Because here's what you want to do. You want to be able to to to intercept rockets so that the cost to intercept is lower than the rocket so that they cannot be overwhelmed financially as a nation, which is what is currently happening in like Russia-Ukraine war, you know. So you don't you want you want the cost to intercept to be very very low. And laser would if you think from first principles probably is a good solution, but then there are problems. I'm not an expert in laser, but there are problems there with the fact that you know it has to be super massive, you know, the vehicle has to be super massive. It's really hard to build a vehicle like this in space. The pointing requirements are insane.

You have to point super precisely and you have to track the target that is a few hundred kilometers away from you. The target is rotating. It may be reflective. There are a lot of challenges there, you know, with directed energy weapons. So maybe not and maybe not lasers for space-based missile interception just yet, but I think KKVs, kinetic kill vehicles, probably is is the solution we'll see. And essentially, you know, you shoot you shoot an object you accelerate an object from space towards a missile and you and you hit and you hit the missile. You know, and it just falls falls falls apart. So that's a very simple, you know, very simple approach, but you want to make sure that that solution is is affordable.

So if you have to like carry rockets to space, you have to carry a lot of fuel and like engines, valves, all that mass and you need to carry only like one shot per satellite, then again it's becoming very expensive. It may cost like 20-25 million dollars to intercept like let's say the five million dollar, you know, missile. That that's not good. So you you want to be able to you know, you want it to be very affordable.

But now let's say let's let's take a step back, right? Like like on on land it's like okay, if you have a war, you want to take over some some piece of territory, you want to take over maybe some people. In space, what would be like the first principle kind of causes of a conflict? What are you trying to take over somebody's satellite, somebody's data center? What What actually would prompt somebody to try to like What is it that you're trying to disable like a Starlink constellation to prevent, you know, your your enemies from having communication? What What sort of How do you see that?

From my understanding, it's it's their ability to see from space you want to take out, you know. So, currently there are private companies that are For example, you know, aiding Ukraine in the war with Russia, and you know, they they have an ability to see, you know, through through the clouds day and night what's happening and and where. So, therefore they can act on that intelligence. And I'm sure it's a great deal of trouble, you know, for for Russia to have that, you know, capability on the side of Ukraine. Another capability, of course, is communications like Starlink, you know, Yeah, so I think those two, the comms comms and ability to see, they're they're they're they're the things you want to take out in the war, you know, first. So, so you need to therefore be able to defend those those assets in space somehow.

I see. I see. Now, does economics actually work in the favor of the of of the offensive capability, right? Because I assume putting up something in the space is very expensive. So, putting up a ton of missiles or a ton of offensive capability, if you've ever done and seen it like a Starlink constellation, for example, is it actually worth your time to put up a ton of offensive capability when at the end of the day the redundancy will actually not really cause the you know, cause your opponent to to lose any communication or visibility?

Yeah, with with Starlink, I don't know, Mark. I I I don't have a good answer for you. You know what I mean? I I agree with you that if financially it doesn't make sense, then then it's not a threat, you know, but

I mean, you can already see that Starlink plays a role in the Ukraine war, right?

Yes.

Where they shut off the access for Russians to use it.

Mhm.

That's probably already for if they had the capability to attack that nation, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And there were there were there was an example of a few Russian satellites in orbit approaching a a private spacecraft made by ISA, a European company. I'm not sure what happened to it, but they got really close to it, you know. I'm not sure if they're spying on it or trying to take it out, but you know, you know, ISA is not Starlink. It doesn't have like tens of thousands of vehicles in space. So, each vehicle is much more valuable therefore, you know.

Yeah. Interesting. And I guess back to this question of what would actually look like, right? What you're seeing on the ground, as you mentioned, like in western Ukraine or in Iran, kind of shooting drones. What you get is like you get these very cheap offensive capabilities, right? And it's it's you have to I mean, it's like you either build interceptors or build some kind of new capability like lasers or use very expensive like Patriot missile systems, right? You you're actually very familiar with one of these interceptor companies, right? Thermopile or something.

Yeah.

Do you think that's kind of the same trajectory that space offensive capabilities in space will also develop? Is like you'll first kind of like Yeah, well, how do you see that trajectory developing?

I think what Ukraine demonstrated to the world in general is that the approach of of of of creating, you know, more affordable high volume interceptors is very effective. Cuz then you can just like economically drain the the opponent. And I think that is a very smart approach for space as well. I think the solution in space needs to be aligned with that with that logic as well. It needs to be very affordable. Makes sense.

In terms of In terms of what you're building, right? How does your your products help enable the uh customers with like So, my understanding is currently whenever you launch a satellite, a a lot of the satellites use fuel. And when that fuel runs out, they can't reposition. They eventually get phased out, right? They become sort of just just large chunks of metal that that float through space. Not very useful. Was that Is that right? And you're sort of building almost like a perpetual motion machine inside of the satellites that allow them to continue to operate?

Yeah. Yeah, the machine is very finite. It's not very like it's not infinite like perpetual motion machine. Simply because hardware has real limits, you know, in in in space. But essentially what we're doing, Mark, is we are making systems more reliable. So, you know, we're working with with customers that for whom reliability is is very important where emissions where failure is not an option and where it's not a high volume, you know, a solution like Starlink is, for example, which I think presumes a certain failure rate, you know, by design. So, this is not this approach works in lower Earth orbits for communications, but for other scenarios, you know, that one this approach does not work. And we work with with customers that go slightly higher than Starlink. So, Starlink is at like 4 to 5 to 600 km altitudes.

We're working with customers that go thousands of kilometers away from Earth, maybe like 8,000 km. In those orbits, first of all, normally you cannot use you cannot use the technology you can use in lower Earth orbit like you cannot stabilize a spacecraft with simple torque rods like you can in lower Earth orbit. So, they would not be able to carry the two the torque rods are too weak to be able to interact with the magnetic field of Earth at that altitude. And they they're very limited in that sense. So, they feel normally carry fuel with the like a fuel and they carry thrusters and then they sort of use thrusters to every now and then reset the position of their satellite. But, you know, that's that's a massive system. It costs quite a bit and its reliability is not great there.

So, we create a much more reliable fully solid state solution that works and just use the solar solar energy and in position satellite with respect to radiation.

Interesting. What types of satellites What What's the difference in the satellites that are in lower Earth orbit versus the ones that are at a much higher different applications, use cases?

Yeah, different use cases. Ultimately, they're different types of maybe like observation, you know, like they're maybe observing different things for different customers, you know, on different time frames. So, in lower Earth orbit you normally list for a few years, maybe up to 5 years, maybe up to 7 in low earth orbit. In medium earth orbit, you want to live there for 10-20 years. So, and also in the medium earth orbit, radiation is so much worse than it is in low earth orbit, and you have to you have to build for this, you know? And and you have to build for this, you know, with certain that it will last at least that long because as I said, failure is not an option, you know? Yeah, and and you know, for those for those customers in those in those use cases.

Right. And then and then beyond that, is there a step beyond medium earth orbit?

There is beyond. Yes, of course there's beyond, and there are private companies going beyond like Astranis is a private American company. They go all the way to geostationary orbit. Yeah, so so businesses are active in MEO and GEO and of course in LEO. So, throughout the whole range of orbits, there are new businesses that are active building various various sort of constellations, various use cases.

Mhm. Interesting. And so, is it is it just that you can observe different things or what what else what are there other differences and how can you sort of I guess get the most kind of economic benefit from being in different orbits? What what what is each one sort of like optimized for, I guess?

Well, in geostationary orbit, you can have a satellite that is seeing always seeing half the earth exactly, and is always above a certain point above the ground. You know, you can therefore see some benefits to it. You know, you can imagine some missions where it would benefit from always having a satellite above that point. Whereas in low earth orbit, you have missions that are orbiting earth, let's say every 90 minutes, and they see almost entirety of earth, you know, after several hours except for the polar regions. Yeah, so it's just a different different slightly different problems that require slightly different solutions, but they end up with like vastly different architectures.

Got it. And does you know, I remember before you had the superconducting material that that became superconducting at the very very low temperature, right? And you mentioned you also now have solar solar power. You get your own solar power that you add to the satellites or the satellites have come with their own solar power and just use that?

Yeah, for us, we just plug into the regular the regular solar power that a satellite carries. there's no need for anything additional. There's no need for radiators or extra solar panels. And we have a a power bank, so to speak, within our within our box, and we tap into this power bank every now and then as we need it, and then we recharge it recharge it, you know, it actually stays charged essentially.

Yeah. And if [clears throat] I if I understand correctly, like the way you explained it to me at least was there's material that becomes superconducting very low temperatures. Space has low temperatures. So, you sort of borrow some of that cooling ability to supercool your your material that allows superconductivity, which allows them to create magnetic field, which then can apply force to the satellite against in in in with respect to to the Earth and Earth's magnetic field.

Yes.

Is that is that sort of the right summary?

Yeah, that's the right summary of our first product. Uh so, the first product is designed to interact with the magnetic field of Earth. You know, uh we're looking at other products like electromagnetic launch products, for example, or platform. You know, in that instance, there is no need to interact with the field of Earth. In that instance, we you know, we create uh essentially an ex an exploration tunnel. You know, some people call it a mass driver from from, you know, from the from the from the old literature. You create a create a number of magnets in series, and you create a magnetic wave that accelerates a payload you know, for whatever reason, whether you want to send it to the moon or or elsewhere.

So, I see. Would that be something that you would have on Earth or that also be in space?

That would be in space. It'll be either in space or or on the surface of of the moon. Essentially essentially, you know, think think of an electromagnetic transportation system in space. So, you don't have to use rockets anymore. You can just use solar energy, and you can you can you can throw things around the solar system fully with, you know, with mass drivers.

Interesting. And what what has why why is that not a thing yet? I guess what what are the tradeoffs what was what was preventing that from being a thing right now?

We're just getting there. So, I think the one of the mass drivers that makes sense, uh you know, for commercial use cases is a lunar mass driver. So, when we when you know, NASA is and America in general is uh very active with lunar exploration now. So, when we land on the moon, we are going to manufacture things on the moon and we're going to launch them from the moon into space. So, we won't have to you know, we won't have to use rockets on the moon. And likewise, if we have a mass driver, uh you know, between Earth and moon, we can we can we can ship things from the moon back to Earth. You let's say let's say we mine something on the moon like a some sort of you know, a precious cargo on the moon that has a high you know, high cost per kilogram like it's measured in the millions of dollars. We can very affordably ship it back to Earth. We don't have to use complex rockets anymore.

So, you invest once into like this electromagnetic launch system and you can use it for tens of years.

But Max, is that I mean, why why don't we already have that here on Earth? Like why why haven't people developed that?

Right. On Earth, the Earth is uh quite heavy and it's it's it's it's difficult to escape Earth's gravity with a system like this. It is I believe I believe it's possible. I believe we can close to it. But essentially, here's the catch, Mark. Earth Earth is quite heavy and it has an atmosphere. So, you you need to accelerate something to, you know, over 12 km per second as you let go of it, you know. That but then it immediately hits the atmosphere and it starts, you know, it you know, has to go through a lot of G forces like tens of thousands of Gs and then it has to has to hit the atmosphere and it starts, you know, you know, heating up the atmosphere like faces plasma and it it slows down and it's just it's just not a great thing to do on Earth. I think we can probably overcome this. I'm speculating we can probably overcome this, but for very dumb payloads.

Like if you want to launch dumb mass from Earth, not like anything complex or something really really simple. If you want to like launch a risky like a risky like tanks, you know, to space from Earth. You could probably do that with a mass driver from Earth. Yeah, but rockets, as I said, the last time was a solved problem as far as at least science of them goes and and with you know, as humanity invested a lot a lot of energy into into making rockets reliable and they're very liable now. And uh I think we're going to rely on rockets for for for a successful launch for a long run.

Interesting. I see. So, mass driver only works for or you don't have a lot of like forces pulling you back.

Not much mass and no atmosphere. Yeah.

Interesting. So, wait. So, you guys are working on a mass driver.

We're working in general on a electromagnetic launch paradigm. Yeah. So, I think we're still working on a few things. Maybe towards the end of this year we'll we'll speak publicly about about the product that we have in mind.

And are there any other I mean, like what whenever you have like maglev trains, is that the same concept?

Mhm. Uses magnetism in general, but uh yeah. Sort of, yeah. Similar.

What's the difference?

Comparable. Well, I'm thinking I'm thinking of uh mostly a superconducting mass driver in particular. Yeah. It's made of uh superconducting coils. So, there's no rail. And there's no levitation mode. But I think for general public it's a you know, it's a similar sort of sort of idea. It's frictionless magnetic magnetic, you know, acceleration.

Mhm. Very interesting. Next, maybe a broader question. How do you determine what products to build? This is a fairly relatively small and upcoming and new industry, right? Relatively speaking. Do you go talk to customers? Or how do you determine what is the product that you that you should be building? How do you determine what's the right way the product should look?

Market and mix. The best entrepreneur advice from the best entrepreneurs is to is to build from the customer end. So, you know, from the user experience backwards. Not from technology and then I decide a home for it. That is one of the worst things to do. So, we we did a combination of these two things at Zeno. We we first uh thought from first principles, you know, sort of from first principles on behalf of the customer, so to speak, right? Okay, if a customer goes to space, you know, what is going to be limiting them? And that's, you know, and that's, you know, that's that's essentially a terrestrial resource and and ultimately inability to achieve stability at and scale if there's no way to use a space-based energy directly. And then we So that was the thesis pre pre seed round for Zeta.

And then we we interacted with with customers quite a lot, spoke to them about this particular product that we are currently in the market Supertorque, whether it would make sense to them or not, and well, prepared to to pay a price or not, and you know, and why, and so on. We actually even commissioned an independent third party to do analysis for us in addition to what we're doing at the time, you know, to make sure that we have multiple takes on it, and that we're not buying our own [ __ ] Yeah, so that was That's how we came up with the Supertorque. And Supertorque also happens to be one of the most straightforward uh use cases of a superconducting platform in space. So you would you It's a lot harder to make an electromagnetic launch system for space than to make a Supertorque. Well, maybe not a lot.

In absolute terms, I would say I would say boldly that I would say sort of 80% of the work is to is 80% of the of of the work is to is to crack how to how to enable superconducting electron magnets for space. How to operate them, how to energize them, how to discharge them, how to, you know, not quench them or quench them, and so on. So we've done all of this for Supertorque. And now we just need to scale, you know, if you're looking at launch platforms in space, it's about scaling what we know about Supertorque. Scaling the amount of energy by a lot, and the mass and size is scaled a lot as well.

And just double clicking on this contract with you with that you have with German DARPA, you're a you're a hardware company, right? But is it fair to say if I understand this contract correctly that you're essentially building kind of like a self-driving software for for satellites?

Yes, that is correct. It's Yeah, it's software for autonomous decision-making when satellites are are in close proximity to each other. So they can interact with each other towards a a pre-agreed goal with the use of magnetic fields.

Right. So so you have the software layer, which is the decision-making layer that autonomously decides what to do, and then you have the hardware to kind of execute on actually point clouds.

Yeah, it is like a a full you know, it's like a an autopilot for for sentiments, I suppose.

Using using language.

And at this point what's the bigger challenge? Is it the hardware or is it the software part?

At this stage, yeah, the hardware was a harder challenge. It was a much harder challenge. Now with the onset of modern modern AI the the the algorithms are, you know, a lot a lot more solvable than before. Like people people have thought long and hard about these algorithms and it was really hard to solve before, but now it is it's solvable.

So the the development over the last 12 24 months on AI have that has that accelerated your progress on this on the algorithm side?

Yes, a lot.

And is that because you can use, let's say, cloud code or any of the other tools to to work on the algorithm directly?

Yeah, we combine a a you know, an a you know, we combine a traditional solution you know, with traditional mathematical models with a layer of a of AI that that sits on top of it and and you know, sort of decides, you know, in real time what actions to take based on the based on the based on the original model.

And I guess we we've been I guess maybe surprised all of us have been a little bit surprised by the speed of the progress on the AI side, right? When these new models come out, we always kind of a little bit blown away, right? How do you see that kind of accelerate over the next 3 years? Do you think we're going to be on this exponential curve from now on or do we see kind of step changes now, but it's going to flatten out a little bit and how is going to affect your work?

That's a tough one for me. I hope I hope we keep growing. I think it's been amazingly impactful. For us, for Zeno, for me it's been very impactful. So I hope we keep growing and I hope you know, I I hope we get as close to AGI as possible as soon as possible.

Yeah, I mean there's some people that said we already reached it, right?

No, I well, the way I I AGI is that it's a system that that is that is capable of improving itself, you know, meaningfully. And I don't think we have that just yet, right?

Yeah, so it's kind of sci-fi.

I think I I would say we are at the at the age of AI, that's for sure.

Yeah. And last time you said we talked a little bit about space exploration and putting humans on Mars, which is the declared goal of SpaceX. And I think you said something like you don't want to put humans on Mars, you don't want to go to Mars yourself, but you want to have intelligence kind of self-replicating in space.

Yes.

For space exploration.

Yeah. Yeah, I I'm I'm I think it would be miserable to be on Mars. I just enjoy Earth so much. And you know, we are so optimized for this environment, all of us. So, I think we could probably do with living slightly off Earth, you know, a short a short commute away from Earth, like in lower Earth orbit. We could have, you know, habitats, so work and and and mid-term mid-duration sort of life. I think Mars is quite far. But I think Mars could be could be colonized with machines or self-replicating machines. And I saw a video came out recently. I think Elon is is is thinking of Optimus as one of these machines. So, you know, Optimus that that they build. You know, apparently he's you know, he's thinking of it being a self-replicating machine. Could be the case.

So, so why go to space then if we don't want to go as humans? Like why why do we need to do Mars exploration? Is it mostly scientific? Is it resources? Like what what do you think is going to be the main driver?

Yeah. I it's it's it's information acquisition and and generation of information ultimately. So, that's why I am not too hung up on humans you know, doing this with our own bodies, but machines doing it and and also acquiring information at a much greater rate than humans and also acquiring data and and converting the data into information, you know, fast in orbit or or sort of lower Earth orbit but in space. And and sort of helping us to understand the universe via those conclusions. Yeah.

When you say self-replicating machines, how can you kind of picture that? So, you you mentioned Do you think yeah, it's it's going to be kind of factories on Mars building Optimus that then again builds rockets that go further? Like how how do you think about that?

Yeah. Well, I saw Optimus only a few days ago. Yeah, maybe it is Optimus. I mean, Optimus is a humanoid robot. So, it's like, you know, humanoid humanoid robots making humanoid robots. But yeah, I'm not sure exactly what the solution will be, but I think that's the direction that will that will that will end up going in. Self-replicating, self-sustaining machines and intelligence in space that will that will ultimately conquer the solar system and that will that will make the resources of the solar system available for humans. And I think humans will continue to to increase our authority over Earth. I think our authority over Earth is still very low. We can't even control the most basic basic things about the Earth, like climate for example. You know, we can't even control climate meaningfully.

Yeah, we'll continue to increase our authority over Earth and expand our civilization from Earth radially. I don't you know, so that's why I'm more of a proponent of sort of O'Neill a version of the future, you know, where we have sort of habitats in Earth orbit where we live or maybe even on the moon. That's also close. It's like a days of a trip rather than months.

Mhm. Max, I'm curious how your vision of the future and us kind of expanding civilization living in space part of part of the time or maybe all the time for for some of us fits into where we see demographics trending right now all over the world, which is literally across the board. No matter if it's a rich country or poor country, the birth rate is falling. And you know, the demographers are projecting that by the end of the century we'll sort of have close to like half, you know, where what we have eight eight billion people now will be like sort of like four to five billion people. And and for countries like China and India where that rate is even is even lower, it'll be even worse, right? Um how do you how do you think about that? Will there be anyone to even go to space?

Yeah, for sure. My children. I've got kids. Yeah, I think well I think we're likely to pick up the rate again. You know. I I don't think I don't think it's like a the doom of humanity, you know, that we're dropping the birth rates. I think we'll pick up the rates and uh you know, I'm seeing the eight seven eight doing number once again and and go far beyond that.

Huh, I understand.

Yeah, I think it's a temporary dip.

Yeah, bring bring it back down to to Earth here. Talk more about Zenno, your company. You You You started as a New Zealand company. And New Zealand obviously has quite a lot of really interesting space and aerospace companies. And then you You decided to move to LA and and work work from there. Why?

Yeah, Los Angeles is is You know, I've been very stubborn, Mark, for for a very long time that I will never move to America and you know, well Zenno will never have a presence in America. Yeah, but uh Yeah, so you know, I was Yeah, essentially you know, but America America is supercharged. I mean America is absolutely supercharged. America is known for for for committing fully, you know, and putting a lot of a lot a lot of insane work into a vision that that the country wants to achieve, you know. And that's what they've done with uh with with space in the last uh few years. And uh I think America is the best place for a space company on our planet.

Got it. But your customers are in Europe and Japan, right? Your customers are worldwide. What did you see being based in the US that you couldn't do in New Zealand?

There's a lot of great talent here and uh you know, there's there's there's a lot of business here. There's a lot of you know, government government's spending money on the space industry here. And uh you know, if if you're a foreign company, you are right in you know, you are right in not going to participate in what America is building, you know. Yeah, so Europe I think is ramping up as well. Japan is also ramping up very significantly. You know, from the government's sort of from the government standpoint, they're investing a lot of money into the space industry. But so far America is ahead ahead ahead of everyone else. And uh New Zealand you know, we I I don't see too much investment in the in the in the private space companies in New Zealand.

Interesting. And what is it that when governments are investing, when you're saying governments like Japan, US, Europe are investing in space, supporting the space industry, what is it that they see that is that is so important? And I guess what why why didn't they do that earlier? What what what is it that they're like chasing? Is it are they trying to recreate their own Starlink and have independent you know, satellite constellation that can that can protect them and not be in you know, dependent on Elon or or or or is it just resources? There's a lot of resources and they want to mine the resources? Cuz cuz I think we know there's been like to Henrik's previous point, there's been a lot of and to your point, right? There's been a lot of interest in space for probably over 100 years.

Mhm.

So what is what is currently driving the interest?

I think the biggest driver market national security. Um you know, national security yeah, if you don't have your own Starlink if you don't have your own you know, constellation to to run it over the earth, you're very vulnerable as a nation. And uh you know, we see we see historical partnerships around the world break down. Uh you know, and nations realizing that they they require perhaps either new partners or their own capabilities or not. So I think that's that's the major driver. And then there is a a secondary driver, you know, that is primarily American driven to the moon. Although other nations are also very interested and also going towards it.

That's also what the crypto bros are trying to do. To the

To the moon. Yes, to the moon. Yeah.

True, true, true.

They they they find you there. They they got there first.

J- J- J- JFK was one of the early ones, right? He was the pioneer.

Yeah, true, true, true. He's He's the first crypto bro. The the first diamond hands. Yeah, so I think the moon, I'm not sure if moon is national security or or or whether it's mostly commercial sort of resource drilling uh you know, purposes. Maybe the latter for the moon.

Huh, I see. I see.

Maybe one one question on that the space used to be one of the last areas and I still probably still is the last areas where all the nations would collaborate, right? Even like during even during Cold War in a way Russia and the US would have you know communications around the technology. And I guess going to Mars for example is such a huge resource challenge, right? It's almost impossible to do this without like global cooperation, right? And at the same time now you see people putting up their own you know satellites potentially launching their own communications constellations. Where do you hope this is going to go? Do you think there's going to be more kind of global collaboration around these things or do you think that yeah, because of the fragmentation that we see right now, space will be fragmented too, and that will kind of hold us back a little bit?

Yeah, I think the age of like little government to government cooperation in space is over. I think it's private companies now that are funded partly by the governments, partly by their own financial activities that will push forward from here, including Mars. Relative to SpaceLife announced I think last week that they're funding their own private mission to Mars. It's a private company. You know, there you go. So, yeah, I think there will be no more collaboration like this.

Alex, do you do you do you ever think about the broader implications of like say this company that funds its own mission to Mars, gets to Mars. I mean, it's sort of like a repeat of you know, the colonists and the

Yeah.

couple hundred years ago where like you you you come upon this land, it's virgin land, and then you just you maybe maybe you colonize it for the mother country, but eventually as we've seen those things all become their own countries, right?

Mhm.

With their own kind of like set of rules and governance. How do you think about that?

You know, the moon currently belongs to nobody, but I think very soon they'll belong to somebody. That's what I think about it. So, I think I think I'll I'll ultimately they're like highly valuable assets, and they're going to belong to somebody. You know, or somebody would want them to belong to them.

Yeah. Although we do still we we still have Antarctica as a We still have the the you know, we're sort of a whole continent on Earth that is like like belongs to nobody. You know, essentially it's you know, no man's land that is sort of regulated by international laws. But, I'm not sure how long that will last for either.

Well, but that's partially right. This applies to Antarctica and space. It's all very nice and good to say this is the orbit of international law and belongs to somebody because you can't really access it or you can't really live there, right? But, once that changes and all of a sudden it's like, "Hey, free land with resources. Maybe I want to take it and maybe I don't care about international law, right?"

Yeah, totally. Yeah, but we're going to see what's going to happen with the moon. Maybe we'll see it. Maybe we'll see it divided and and and you know, owned in our lifetimes by nations.

Yeah. Yeah. How do you as a New Zealand company do you find that you have an advantage to winning contracts both in the US and internationally? Because I guess as a US company there's certain restrictions on on what you can do internationally given that your technology is dual dual use, right? Do do you find that it's easier to be a New Zealand company or no difference?

It is as far as having contracts, let's say in Europe or Japan, you have to compete with European or Japanese companies there. And same in America. So, as far as those three markets go, you are at a disadvantage compared to their you know, domestic companies, of course. But, you perhaps maybe have some more advantage when you competing in Europe in a relationship with American companies cuz they normally they have, let's say, high tariffs restrictions domestically you know, so American companies are not in no position to to sort of, you know, compete for any business in any other business.

Yeah.

But, in general, in general, the advantage that New Zealand provides is that it is super easy to start a company in New Zealand. There is capital available in New Zealand. There are great engineers available in New Zealand. There's a culture of of building great things in New Zealand on a on a shoestring budget. Uh you know, these are the things that I think enable companies in New Zealand, including aerospace companies. This this is like major great things that New Zealand offers to the world. Of course, if if you're in the launch business, like you know, if you fly something in air or to space, then it's not advantage that New Zealand provides for Rocket Lab and Dawn Aerospace, for example. But, for a pure in space player like Zeno is, you know, I don't really see There's no really advantage where you launch it from either from New Zealand or from the States or from Europe.

You launch to space, you know.

Makes sense. Makes sense.

And and you know, you you touched on this a little bit, right? In a world where geopolitical alliances are fraying, the US is stepping back from the commitments it has with Europe, maybe others. And in your opinion, right, what does that Is that Is that something that that is that is that is useful and helpful for you as a company? And and you mentioned you don't think there's going to be a lot more kind of collaboration in space anymore, right? Do you think that like so I guess first question is is that good for you as a company? And and second, is that good for the space industry in general? Like for us as humanity moving moving this industry forward and creating stuff in space, building stuff in space. Is it good to have that level of competition?

You know, this lack of collaboration resulted in huge amounts of effort being put into into into making things work in space and a huge urgency. And it wasn't there before. So, if you ask me, I am I am those two things are welcome. Capital and urgency any day. Cuz that pushes it pushes everything forward. So, that's that's what that's why that's the that's one of the reasons I'm in the United States.

That makes sense. That makes sense. Cool. Well, maybe like one one sort of last last question like an honor. I don't know how to If you have anything, but for a lot of folks who build in space, they usually read a lot of sci-fi when they were little or younger to get ideas, right? That those ideas inspired them to to build what they're building now. Did you read any What What did you Did you read anything when you were little like when you were younger? Like did you get inspired with this Asimov Foundation series, others? Like What What What What What were those stories that that excited you? What do you think like what is your kind of vision for what what humanity's future could look like?

Mark, thank you. I did I I am I am still catching up on all of like space, you know, sci-fi books, but I read a lot of uh you know, a lot of adventure books, the exploration of the Pacific and the exploration of the Americas, you know, uh sort of from that period. So, yeah, it still it still inspires me a lot, you know, exploring something that is unknown and pushing beyond what is known to us.

And also pushing beyond the clear, perhaps even a reason for why, you know, you asked me uh many times and Hendrik today is it the why we're doing this, you know, and there are some examples for why we're going to space, you know, some are quite bulletproof logical uh logical today already, but ultimately it's it's the it's the human nature to just go and explore the unknown and to see what it brings, you know, and and there's no place like this on Earth anymore to go to the unknown and see what it brings. The last time we did this on Earth we discovered America, you know, it was not bad, you know. Uh so, like we got the whole continent, you know, great nation came out of it and this time we're going to space and we're discovering what's out there and as we go out there we realize why it is useful. So, the process itself I think is very valuable.

The process itself keeps us uh you know, we we work hard, we think hard, we we collaborate where necessary as we go out, uh you know, beyond what we know and and good things happen. And ultimately we understand more of of this world, we understand more of the Earth, we understand more of the space and and ourselves, which to me is it has been one of the, you you know, biggest drivers for since for going out to space.

Yeah, well, super exciting um and thanks for this positivity at the end of our chat. And yeah, we're super excited to see where Zenon goes. Uh can we just do a very quick uh rapid-fire a few like three, four questions

do it.

quick answers.

Let's do it, yes.

Yeah, please.

Awesome. So, what do you think is the most overrated idea in space right now?

I nothing comes to mind. I wish I had something that I'm really bored with this. I you know, I don't hesitate. I don't know. I mean, NASA admin just said we're going to build nuclear reactors in space and we're going to build antimatter propulsion. So, what else can I say? Like, you know, we're we're doing the craziest things now in space. So, I don't think anything is overrated. I don't think it's overrated if anything underrated. You just thought nothing's underrated, yes.

Yeah. Let's imagine Anthropic or OpenAI go public this year. By 2030, which company would be the most valuable one? SpaceX, Anthropic, or OpenAI?

Man, this is not my area of expertise. Elon said that the China will win the the AI race on Earth and that Google will win the AI race in the United States and that SpaceX will win the AI race in space. So, I'm just going to stick with him on you know, he's the most reputable guy now on that.

Yeah, that's probably a good analogy. Do you think we're going to see humans on Mars during your lifetime or our lifetime?

Man, how many years left? Like, maybe. Maybe. I'm going to say yes.

Awesome. And one one company that you're excited about that's not yours at the moment.

Man, I'm a simple guy. I'm just going to I'm just going to pump for SpaceX. I'm excited for SpaceX. Look, they've got so much resource and and uh so much experience. So, and I'm I'm right next door to them. So, I see a lot of their guys all the time. And uh it's certainly going to be entertaining. You know, whatever comes out of it will definitely be entertaining. The scale is huge. The ambition is massive, you know, and they're fully committed.

Yeah. And I think part of Elon's mission is also to entertain.

Yeah. All good.

Great. Now, this was awesome. Thanks, Max, for catching up.

Yeah, yeah. Thanks.

super excited to see what happens in the next 12 months.

All right. Thank you guys very much for the chat.

See you. Speak soon. Bye.

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