We’re just now learning about the scope of China’s use of balloons to spy on other countries. Congressional republicans flip on the Defense budget, now questioning the spending. SpaceX test fires the most powerful rocket in history as DARPA and NASA plan a new, nuclear-powered rocket. Microsoft and Google escalate their search war adding AI capabilities. And I ponder my future career.
Weekly News Round Up
Military
Army Futures Command shifts focus to 2040 (DefenseNews)
US Air Force shoots down Chinese spy balloon with F-22 (WaPo)
Navy launches balloon recovery operation (NavyTimes)
China’s spy balloons have been flying for years (AP)
US declassifies balloon intelligence (WaPo)
Army general taunts China (AP)
Congress questions the future of Defense budget (T&P)
Outgoing Army CIO seeks more oversight power for his successor (C4ISRNet)
Navy seeks to build an “integrated combat system” (DefenseNews)
Air Force ships search teams, rescue dogs, and 85 tons of relief aid to Turkey (Military.com)
New report highlights Arms Control Assc’s concerns on emerging tech (BD)
North Korea may have new intercontinental ballistic missiles (AJZ)
China now has more ICBMs launchers than the US (DefenseNews)
Poland to buy $10B in long-range artillery from US (DefenseNews)
Marine Corps creates new innovation unit (MarineCorpsTimes)
Space Force unmanned space plane returns to earth after 908 days (Weather.com)
Space
SpaceX test fires 31 of 33 engines on Starship—most powerful ever rocket (NYT)
Space Force tracking Russian debris after secretive satellite breaks apart (CNET)
Firefly plans its first Space Force mission for May (SpaceNews)
SpaceX blocks Ukraine army from using Starlink (CNN)
Maxar wins $192M contract from NGA to share satellite imagery with allies (C4ISRNet)
Space media brand TDGA raised a $20M seed round at a $100M valuation led by New Media Holding (PRN)
Voyager Space, a startup building a private space station, raised $80.2M in funding from NewSpace Capital, Midway Venture Partners, and Industrious Ventures (TC)
Orbital Sidekick, a space hyperspectrl data monitoring company, closed a $10M investment from Energy Innovation Capital (TC)
Nuclear Power & Weapons
No damage reported at Turkey’s Akkuyu reactor from earthquake (WNN)
NASA teams up with DARPA to develop a nuclear-thermal rocket (WaPo)
More universities to experiment with micro reactors (VOA)
Europeans fighting over whether nuclear-produced hydrogen is “clean” (RT)
Japan to extend nuclear reactor lives beyond 60 years (KyodoNews)
Israel-based NT-Tao, a platform for nuclear fusion renewable energy power generation, raised $22 million led by Delek U.S. and NextGear Ventures. (VentureBeat)
Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and other cool tech
Microsoft loads Bing and Edge with OpenAI (RT)
Google will enhance search results with “Bard” AI in response to Microsoft (RT)
FTC will not appeal federal court decision in its fight to stop Meta Platforms' reported ~$400M acquisition of VR content maker Within Unlimited (RT)
Retail investors flock to small AI firms (RT)
Google buys 10% stake in AI startup Anthropic for $300M (FT)
Light Field Lab, developers of the SolidLight holographic display platform, raised a $50M Series B led by NCSOFT (PRN)
Zeitview, a startup using drones to capture air / ground data, raised a $55M round led by Valor Equity Partners (TC)
Fabric8Labs, an electrochemical additive manufacturing company, raised a $50M Series B led by NEA (PRN)
Rembrand, an AI startup embedding photo-realistic products into digital videos, raised an $8M seed round led by Greycroft and UTA.VC (PRN)
AI startup Cohere is in talks to raise hundreds of millions at a $6B+ valuation (RT)
How to power a rocket engine
If you’ve ever wondered how rockets fly, we’ve got you covered. Tim Dodd of the Everyday Astronaut has an incredible YouTube video on this topic—well, at least on how chemical rocket engines work.
He covers everything from the most simple designs (e.g., a tank of hydrogen under pressures with a valve and a nozzle - think of sitting on a chair and using a fire extinguisher to push you), to full flow staged combustion engines that pre-heat both the fuel and oxidizer before recombining them in a combustion chamber.
Some engine designs can get so complicated that it takes an advanced degree in rocket science to understand. Still, Tim breaks these down and makes them completely understandable for anybody.
What’s not covered in the video? Solid propellant rockets (like the solid rocket boosters that we used on the space shuttle program), nuclear thermal rockets (like the one that DARPA and NASA are working on), nuclear electric systems, ion thrusters (used in GPS satellites and SpaceX’s Starlink), and other non-chemical systems.
Still, the video is great, entertaining, and interesting. Check it out.
National AI Task Force Final Report
The National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Task Force released its final report, a roadmap for standing up a national research infrastructure that would broaden access to the resources essential to AI research and development, about two weeks ago.
AI research is expensive and difficult to access for researchers, unless they’re at one of the largest companies or best financed research institutions / schools. The report’s roadmap seeks to change that by providing researchers and students with expanded access to computational resources, high-quality data, tools, and support, to trigger greater innovation and advancing AI that serves the public good.
The task force which was co-chaired by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science Foundation. This final report builds on their work and included 11 public meetings and two formal requests for information to gather public input over the past ~18 months.
XR to alter emotional states
Daniel Faggella absolutely has been killing it with his AI in Business Podcast lately. His limited series on Thursdays on Human Reward Systems has been phenomenal, and this is the second time I’ve highlighted one of the episodes (out of three episodes).
This week, Daniel hosted Dr. Srini Pillay—Chief Medical Officer, Chief Learning Officer, and Co-founder of Reulay Inc—to discuss the capacity for virtual and augmented reality technologies to alter emotional states in users. Their conversation is closely related to “flow” science and goes far beyond just feeling happy while playing a video game. Well worth the listen to trigger thoughts about the future of gaming, performance science, work and rewards, and other topics.
The future of me
This week, I submitted my paperwork formally requesting to retire from the Army next year. My retirement will end my 24 year military career. To say that I have many thoughts and emotions swirling around this event is an understatement.
Someday, I undoubtedly will write about my past and present — events and stories and people and locales in my career that brought me to where I am.
But to quote Oscar Wilde:
I like men who have a future and women who have a past.
So, I spend much of my time thinking about my future and what it might entail and with what I will replace my military career.
I see two closely related paths, both of which call to me. Within a single day I feel called more to one and then the other. I don’t know on which I will ultimately embark. I don’t know which will ultimately allow me to best provide for my family and to have a positive impact.
On one hand I want to build and create.
On the other, I want to help others build and scale businesses through VC investment.
On the former, I have previously started a business, made many failures with it, and learned much.
On the latter, I have been privileged to work with the incredible investors at Lightspeed Venture Partners and made many friends among both investors and founders—learning as much as I can in such a short time about how to be successful in VC.
Neither career is “easy” or traditional. They are fast, risky, and require determination and hard work.
What I do know is that I want one of these. I want to either build something incredible that creates good in this world or help others that are doing that.
While I continue to think about this, I welcome input and opinions from anyone and everyone. I will also continue to maintain and cultivate my relationships with founders and investors and do what I can to source incredible opportunities.
For now, though,
Keep building!
Andrew