October 2, 2025 • 18 mins
In this episode of Hello Future, host Kevin Cirilli sits down with Luke Fischer, CEO of SkyFi and decorated Army veteran, to explore how satellite imagery is transforming national security, environmental protection, and commercial industries. Fischer explains how satellites are being used to detect threats from foreign adversaries, forecast wildfires, and improve agricultural productivity. The conversation also addresses the urgent need to defend U.S. satellites against rising space threats and underscores why American leadership in space technology is critical for economic growth, innovation, and the next era of space exploration—from the Moon to Mars and beyond. With satellite imagery becoming more accessible than ever, Fischer reveals how individuals, businesses, and governments can harness this powerful technology to shape the future.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
The top Space Force general delivered a stark warning, as
reported by SpaceNews dot com. General Chance Saltzman, he is
the Chief of Space Operations of the US Space Force,
spoke earlier in September and said that America's ability to
track threats in space is dangerously outdated for an era
(00:31):
where adversaries can launch surprise attacks on US satellites. Hello Future,
it's me keV. This is a dispatch from the Digital Frontier.
The year is twenty twenty five. The planet is Earth.
My name is Kevin Surrilli, and my guest today is
someone who knows all about satellite imagery, not just from
(00:55):
a national security perspective, but also just from an everyday
perspective of why you should care about satellite imagery. His
name is Luke Fisher. He is the co founder and
CEO of Skyfi. This is an industry leading Earth observation
marketplace company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Now. Before he went
(01:15):
and started Skyfi, he was the entrepreneur in residence at
Shield Capital. He is also a highly decorated US Army
Special Operations aviation veteran with experience leading teams in demanding environments.
He went to Xavier University, got his masters from the
US Naval Command and Staff College, and I believe along
(01:39):
the way he worked at Uber. Am I making that up, Luke,
Now I did? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, So I, at my tail end of my career
also went to the Stanford Business School to get a
Master's of management there, and then I worked for Uber.
I was head of flight operations for Uber, which most
people are like, what do you mean flight Uber? And yeah,
So I was in the electric aviation division there, and
then I went to an electric aviation company called Joby.
So all things electric aviation.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Drying cars.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
You're talking about flying cars.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Flying cars? Yes, okay, then I want to hire an
elevation up up to space.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
So I met you earlier this year in Colorado at
Space Symposium, which essentially is like the woodstock of space nerds.
I say, and you're there and your company. You're explaining
it to your company, and essentially you are the Netflix
of satellite imagery for businesses. When I heard that, I thought, Okay,
(02:36):
why do I care about that? And I want to
first take it for how you got the idea for
this company When you were in the military, you relied
on satellite imagery in order for threat assessment. So you
would look at the satellite images and these pictures and
everyone who's listening can see in their mind satellite imagery.
You know, it's a little more elevated than Google maps,
(02:58):
but for lack of a better word, just the satellite
images and that would help you assess risk. But you
identified a problem, which was what.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, So I was an aviator in the army, you know,
I spent a lot of time overseas, Iraq, all over
the Middle East, and as an aviator, what we do
is plan operations and the big part of that is
where we're going to land, where are we going to
do these missions?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
So we would rely on this.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Very very high fidelity satellite imagery to determine the risk
of like is there a house, there, is the rock there,
what's the distance to the target?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
All that stuff. So that was the very early days.
I was not thinking about starting a company there. I
was still you know, in the military.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And then fast forward a handful of years, moved to Austin, Texas,
and I met my co founder, Bill Perkins, who's made
his money in the hedge fund world, very successful trader
was trying to buy satellite imagery and had this idea that, hey,
it is so painful to get satellite imagery on the
commercial side, Let's start a company.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Let's start it call it sky Fine. And we met
at that time, so this is now.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Late twenty twenty one, and we started the company, and
then I started got, you know, the balls rolling about like, hey,
there's tremendous military applications using commercial satellite imagery because to
your early quote to start the episode, like Salzman said,
there's this like huge threat in space. And what really
is saying is like, it's so easy to launch satellites.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Now, how can you track it?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
It's this new threat environment, but also tremendous opportunity from
a commercial side to make money off it and do
good for the Earth and you know, explore hidden cities
and all that other good stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So yeah, there's this. It's it's all about timing.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
And right now we're in the perfect time thanks to
what Elon Musk can do.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Is there's just literally more satellites going up every day.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
So there's more than ten thousand satellites folks that are
operating just around our planet. More than ten thousand satellit
which actually is not a lot in my humble opinion,
but if you look at it as a line chart,
it's practically vertical in terms of great and so specifically
(04:58):
from satellite imagery. Why should the average person care about
satellite imagery? What are some of the use cases that
help us navigate the future that you're really on the
front lines of. You you mentioned exploring hidden cities, but
NASA just put out a release a couple of weeks
ago about the satellite imagery from the California wildfires, and
(05:21):
you can literally see the burn lines in Los Angeles
of where the fire was going and where it was headed.
Just specifically with wildfires, and we'll talk about some of
the other stuff. What role does satellite imagery play in
saving lives and predicting, you know, leveraging artificial intelligence predicting
the path of a wildfire.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, I'll talk about wildfires in a second. But why
should people care? The real answer is, for the first
time ever, anyone can get a look at what's going
on on our planet. You don't have to rely on
a third party. You know, you don't have to have
your own satellites. Whether you're a teenager in high school
or a historian or a military professional, you have access
(06:02):
to the world and where I think that's really powerful
is you know, space doesn't have boundaries, you know, so
this brings us together as humans, so we can explore
what's going on in Earth, you know, for both the
military context, the commercial and everywhere in between. And with
wildfires it's one of the heavier use cases. So with
the imagery, yes, you can take an image and see
(06:23):
you know, the smoke and damage from areas. But more
importantly with the technology we have at skyfive, through this
vast network of partners we have, you can do the
predictive analysis. You can get the acreage burned, you can
say what's a threat in the future based on the
vegetation management, So it's not only what's going on when
a fire happens, but historically what has happened, how much
(06:45):
is burning? Then, more importantly in the future are you
at risk for this? And that is where you save
lives and that is where you look at, you know,
the trends and analysis over time. And now with the
advent of AI, you can ask and query the Earth
more so than ever. And now that's power and it's
information literally in people's fingertips to solve the problems themselves
(07:06):
and get the answers themselves.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
See. I like that because I think a lot of
people times when they think of satellites, they just think, oh,
satellite helps me get on the Internet, or a satellite
helps me do GPS. It does, I mean, it does
does do all those things. We're seeing it how the
Ukrainians are bravely holding off the Russians as a result
of their ability to stay online through things like Starlink
and whatnot. But it also helps the environment, I would argue, so.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Huge for the environment. On you know, vegetation analysis.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
You know, I'm here in Austin and you know there's
there was droughts going over the years, and you can
see the historical patterns of you know, where the water was,
where the vegetation was. You know, how do you can
predict that in the future. And on the saving live
side all over you can get better agriculture results, you
know for farmers, massive farmers, these massive feed lots and
everything you know, and that all helps. And now it's
(07:54):
it's literally like happening in the last couple of years.
So we're just on.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Like the early day of all this.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And you know, also what I like to talk about
is like people use satellites every day. They don't realize
like Uber, like the geospatial network that powers Uber when
you're getting your food delivered, it's all based on you know,
geospatial technology.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
I love Uber Eats, by the way. That's probably the
most difficult part for me is I love that pizza
and the Chinese food I get delivered. I had to
delete the app actually because midnight snacks. It's no longer
just going into your fridge. You can just go into
the future and get whatever you want. And then they
have those I think it's the AI images of like
(08:34):
you know, peaking your hunger, but specifically explain to folks
how satellites are used for the geospatial on Uber Eats
or on other apps as well.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, so a lot of it is, you know, you
are you know with your phone. Let's say you want
to ride, You're you know, yeah, live.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Out in Austin. You want to get downtown.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
You're you're saying, hey, Uber, here I am, and from
their network, they're looking at your phone proximity to other drivers.
You need that spatial analysis where you're pinging the network
to optimize for the best driver to get you know,
you kevin to your destination as fast as possible. So
it's not you know, it's not the you know, imagery technology,
but it's GPS, you know, which is one of the
(09:14):
foundational technologies that the defense industry created, and it came
into the commercial world, like most defense technology, got much
much bigger. So using those that positioning capability to determine
humans and you know, at a massive, massive scale, you know,
millions or millions of rides across the across the globe
all because of space and it would not occur without it,
(09:36):
all right.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
So we we've got all We've got more than ten
thousand satellites in space. Luke Fisher, co founder and CEO
of Skyfi, is my guest today on Hello Future. Are
we protecting these satellites and not just I don't want
to necessarily talk about from adversaries here on planet Earth,
but are we protecting them from space weather? Are we
protecting them from the sunstorms, the solar flares, debris particles,
(10:01):
whether they're parts of asteroids or meteors or whatnot or
space joke? Are we protecting them enough because we're relying
on them, I mean, especially Americans, we're so so reliant.
Even if we don't think that we are relying on them,
we're relying on them. So are we protecting them?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Luke the keys.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
We're learning a lot of lessons, you know, from the
early days when you have these you know, solar flares,
you know, solar storms, geostorms, you.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Know you can you can track it.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
They've killed a bunch of satellites, you know bunch meaning
you know, handfuls. But let's say you're a commercial satellite
company and you've got eight satellites and it knocks out
a third of your fleet and it takes down the
life of them from.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Four years to eighteen months.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Now that's where you know the hard lessons come because
you have to harden them. And you know, some of
the stuff is very new technology, especially on the camera
side and the sensing side, where you're you're getting very
very expensive hardware up there, and if it's not protected
and shielded, you know they're going to fall out.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
So are we absolutely we are.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Are we learning lessons on the new technology, I think
as fast as we can.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
But that's the key.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Like these things are built robust, they're tested in labs,
and the more satellites we have the more lessons we're learning,
so we're definitely protecting them. But again, you know there's yeah,
I know, over the last year, some companies that we
work with, you know, last three or four satellites and
it just it just.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Happens, all right, So how are we going to find
lost worlds? Are satellites going to be able to help
us find Atlantis or other hidden treasures hidden worlds on
planet Earth?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yes, and they already have, like over the years, in
late and then late twenty tens, I think it's around
twenty eighteen. You know, scientists were using satellite based lightar
to look at structures they've identified.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
What's satellite based lightar so.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Laser like you're looking at mapping, mapping a given area,
and there's some of these very new technology coming out
where they they found these Mayan structures in Guatemala and
I just remember that because I was reading the article.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
So it alreay is happening.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Very few satellites, So just thinking about like you get
hundreds of those satellites and you continuously map in the Earth,
and even to think in twenty eighteen, we are still
finding new civilizations, still structures, So how much do we
not know, and that's just above the surface, you know,
and you can get some some satellite can penetrate the
ground a little bit, but not you know, like tens
or hundreds of feet. But you're still so much unexplored,
(12:23):
and again because of space with those structures, have ever
been found without satellites? Probably not because they're in very,
very remote locations.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
So you can be an explorer now from your basement.
You can be. You no longer have to be, you know,
the explorer who's going to see those ancient civilizations. If
you have access to a satellite, you you're saying you can,
you can leverage that satellite imagery in order to discover
these hidden worlds.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Or just more information on the current world.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Like you know, you can pull up right now while
we're talking in order a satellite image of area fifty
one and then Russia's equivalent of Area fifty one.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Spaces the wild wild West, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
So the information is out there and it's coming firsthand,
you know, delivered to you from space.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
So there's more than ten thousand satellites zoom and zipping
around planet Earth. There's only about ten or so on
planet Mars. Okay, so walk me into the future two
decades from now, three decades from now. You've got folks
who are saying that our next jobs for the for
gen Z are going to be in outer space, but
specifically for Mars. People, when we think about colonizing Mars,
(13:31):
when we think about mining the Moon or mining asteroids,
satellite imagery is really the cartographers of the sixteen hundreds
or the fifteen hundreds. Just try to put it in
perspective for us who are trying to figure out. Okay,
people think, okay, like I'm a huge believer. I want
to go to Mars. I think you ministry colonize Mars.
But I don't just want to drop myself on the planet.
(13:53):
I want to know where the good land is, or
where the good parts of Mars are, in order to
set up up the robust business models that we're going
to need. Did oh, by the way, for the moon?
Didto for the asteroid series, which is worth a ton
of money. But that's another episode. But from your perspective
as the CEO of a satellite imagery company, how are
(14:14):
you thinking of Mars specifically and other objects in our
solar system as ways to expand over the next several decades?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, over the next several decades, I think about supplying
demand to your point. You know, our satellites now are
these modern day explorers where they're going out ahead of us,
just like you know all the exploration that occurred on
ships over the you know, hundreds and hundreds of years
to the founding of America. Because of that, that's what
satellites are now. But obviously it's much longer distances, no
(14:42):
humans with it, and we have to know like it's
these early you know, it's the reconnaissance, is what it is.
Like You're looking at Mars, You're determined, you know, where
can we land, where's their water, where's the future bases
to launch from? And I think it's only going to increase,
and it's really exciting to think about. You know, as
that netw work expands, you know, it's just inevitable that
will be able to essentially live stream views from Mars
(15:05):
while sitting in your kitchen eating breakfasts in the morning
from Earth.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
But that is huge implication. So that is implications both
from a financial markets perspective of protecting infrastructure and has
implications in terms of rare Mars minerals, not just rare
Earth minerals. What are some of the implications, like what
are some of the case use studies of why that
matters to be able to have visibility on Mars and
(15:30):
other objects and other places in the Solar system.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah, so for you know, Mars and even the Moon.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
You know a lot of the new technology that comes
out this thing called hyper spectral imagery where you can
get from spectral hyper spectral imagery, so the human eye
see certain colors. Well, with hyper spectral hyper it's more
so you're seeing more bands through a satellite.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Ela Musk talks about this where you.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Can detect gold and basically anything. Think of it like
a barcode reader from so you can use that and
they're up there. Now, Well that goes to Mars, that
goes to the Moon, that goes to asteroids. So these
early explorers and reconnaissance, you know, satellites can determine what's
the chemical composition of that asteroid? Is it worth it
to mine it? Is the same thing on the Moon.
(16:16):
What are the ice signatures on Mars? There's heavy deposits
is like one huge crater in the south pole of
the Moon which everyone is going towards. You're using those
satellites to determine that, and we're also using it to
see who's already there. You know, is China already there?
Are they already positioning moon bases? That same thing's going
to happen in Mars. Overall, I think it's for the
betterment of humanity, Like the more we know about the
(16:38):
world we live in, not just the Earth world, but
you know, the universe. You know, the more have advancements
in science and exploration and you know, future stepping stones.
Because I think it's inevitable too, Like, you know, we
will colonize Mars. Elon Musk is anywhere near successful as
he thinks he's going to be.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
I think it's inevitable.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
The last couple of minutes here with Lake Fisher. I mean,
it's almost like we need new red lines though, because
let's say we colonize Mars, or let's say we establish
a stronger presence on the Moon, and then someone takes
out some of our satellites, or you know, God forbid,
here in America, someone takes out satellites that you know,
reak savoc. We are so relying on them and our adversaries,
(17:17):
whether they're countries, whether they're terrorists and they're taking out
our satellites. They can really cause some headaches. To put
it mildly, how do you think of protecting and securing
the satellites?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I think the first thing is the awareness, like you
have to know what's up there, you know, and like
Salisman said, the tracking of new technologies that are launched,
you know, across the globe. You have to have that
awareness and the traffic avoidance. Not only awareness, but what
are you going to do about if it's on a
collision course and you have an adversary that doesn't really care.
So you know, there are very sophisticated technologies, both government
(17:51):
and commercial allow us to track the space domain awareness industry,
and that is only increasing in complexity because like to
your too, you know, one satellite has a catastrophic destruction
that that debris field can take out constellations then it
because it just doesn't go away, So there's the how
do you track it? But then in the evitable how
(18:13):
do you you know, clean up a mess? So all
these are are still being explored and what is good
as there's a lot of commercial companies trying to solve it.
The military is putting a bunch of money to it,
and then you know, from the international relationship side, there
has to be treaties and organizations that you bring everyone
together because it's not just your territory, it's the world's territory.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
You know, it's not just the United States or China,
it's you know, everyone depends.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
On this amazing Luke Fisher, CEO, a co founder of Skyfie,
thanks so much for showing up to meet the future
and coming on Hello Future. Appreciate it awesome.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I have a great tomorrow Today
The top Space Force general delivered a stark warning, as
reported by SpaceNews dot com. General Chance Saltzman, he is
the Chief of Space Operations of the US Space Force,
spoke earlier in September and said that America's ability to
track threats in space is dangerously outdated for an era
(00:31):
where adversaries can launch surprise attacks on US satellites. Hello Future,
it's me keV. This is a dispatch from the Digital Frontier.
The year is twenty twenty five. The planet is Earth.
My name is Kevin Surrilli, and my guest today is
someone who knows all about satellite imagery, not just from
(00:55):
a national security perspective, but also just from an everyday
perspective of why you should care about satellite imagery. His
name is Luke Fisher. He is the co founder and
CEO of Skyfi. This is an industry leading Earth observation
marketplace company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Now. Before he went
(01:15):
and started Skyfi, he was the entrepreneur in residence at
Shield Capital. He is also a highly decorated US Army
Special Operations aviation veteran with experience leading teams in demanding environments.
He went to Xavier University, got his masters from the
US Naval Command and Staff College, and I believe along
(01:39):
the way he worked at Uber. Am I making that up, Luke,
Now I did? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah, So I, at my tail end of my career
also went to the Stanford Business School to get a
Master's of management there, and then I worked for Uber.
I was head of flight operations for Uber, which most
people are like, what do you mean flight Uber? And yeah,
So I was in the electric aviation division there, and
then I went to an electric aviation company called Joby.
So all things electric aviation.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Drying cars.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
You're talking about flying cars.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Flying cars? Yes, okay, then I want to hire an
elevation up up to space.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
So I met you earlier this year in Colorado at
Space Symposium, which essentially is like the woodstock of space nerds.
I say, and you're there and your company. You're explaining
it to your company, and essentially you are the Netflix
of satellite imagery for businesses. When I heard that, I thought, Okay,
(02:36):
why do I care about that? And I want to
first take it for how you got the idea for
this company When you were in the military, you relied
on satellite imagery in order for threat assessment. So you
would look at the satellite images and these pictures and
everyone who's listening can see in their mind satellite imagery.
You know, it's a little more elevated than Google maps,
(02:58):
but for lack of a better word, just the satellite
images and that would help you assess risk. But you
identified a problem, which was what.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, So I was an aviator in the army, you know,
I spent a lot of time overseas, Iraq, all over
the Middle East, and as an aviator, what we do
is plan operations and the big part of that is
where we're going to land, where are we going to
do these missions?
Speaker 3 (03:17):
So we would rely on this.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Very very high fidelity satellite imagery to determine the risk
of like is there a house, there, is the rock there,
what's the distance to the target?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
All that stuff. So that was the very early days.
I was not thinking about starting a company there. I
was still you know, in the military.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And then fast forward a handful of years, moved to Austin, Texas,
and I met my co founder, Bill Perkins, who's made
his money in the hedge fund world, very successful trader
was trying to buy satellite imagery and had this idea that, hey,
it is so painful to get satellite imagery on the
commercial side, Let's start a company.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Let's start it call it sky Fine. And we met
at that time, so this is now.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Late twenty twenty one, and we started the company, and
then I started got, you know, the balls rolling about like, hey,
there's tremendous military applications using commercial satellite imagery because to
your early quote to start the episode, like Salzman said,
there's this like huge threat in space. And what really
is saying is like, it's so easy to launch satellites.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Now, how can you track it?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
It's this new threat environment, but also tremendous opportunity from
a commercial side to make money off it and do
good for the Earth and you know, explore hidden cities
and all that other good stuff.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So yeah, there's this. It's it's all about timing.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
And right now we're in the perfect time thanks to
what Elon Musk can do.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Is there's just literally more satellites going up every day.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
So there's more than ten thousand satellites folks that are
operating just around our planet. More than ten thousand satellit
which actually is not a lot in my humble opinion,
but if you look at it as a line chart,
it's practically vertical in terms of great and so specifically
(04:58):
from satellite imagery. Why should the average person care about
satellite imagery? What are some of the use cases that
help us navigate the future that you're really on the
front lines of. You you mentioned exploring hidden cities, but
NASA just put out a release a couple of weeks
ago about the satellite imagery from the California wildfires, and
(05:21):
you can literally see the burn lines in Los Angeles
of where the fire was going and where it was headed.
Just specifically with wildfires, and we'll talk about some of
the other stuff. What role does satellite imagery play in
saving lives and predicting, you know, leveraging artificial intelligence predicting
the path of a wildfire.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, I'll talk about wildfires in a second. But why
should people care? The real answer is, for the first
time ever, anyone can get a look at what's going
on on our planet. You don't have to rely on
a third party. You know, you don't have to have
your own satellites. Whether you're a teenager in high school
or a historian or a military professional, you have access
(06:02):
to the world and where I think that's really powerful
is you know, space doesn't have boundaries, you know, so
this brings us together as humans, so we can explore
what's going on in Earth, you know, for both the
military context, the commercial and everywhere in between. And with
wildfires it's one of the heavier use cases. So with
the imagery, yes, you can take an image and see
(06:23):
you know, the smoke and damage from areas. But more
importantly with the technology we have at skyfive, through this
vast network of partners we have, you can do the
predictive analysis. You can get the acreage burned, you can
say what's a threat in the future based on the
vegetation management, So it's not only what's going on when
a fire happens, but historically what has happened, how much
(06:45):
is burning? Then, more importantly in the future are you
at risk for this? And that is where you save
lives and that is where you look at, you know,
the trends and analysis over time. And now with the
advent of AI, you can ask and query the Earth
more so than ever. And now that's power and it's
information literally in people's fingertips to solve the problems themselves
(07:06):
and get the answers themselves.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
See. I like that because I think a lot of
people times when they think of satellites, they just think, oh,
satellite helps me get on the Internet, or a satellite
helps me do GPS. It does, I mean, it does
does do all those things. We're seeing it how the
Ukrainians are bravely holding off the Russians as a result
of their ability to stay online through things like Starlink
and whatnot. But it also helps the environment, I would argue, so.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Huge for the environment. On you know, vegetation analysis.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
You know, I'm here in Austin and you know there's
there was droughts going over the years, and you can
see the historical patterns of you know, where the water was,
where the vegetation was. You know, how do you can
predict that in the future. And on the saving live
side all over you can get better agriculture results, you
know for farmers, massive farmers, these massive feed lots and
everything you know, and that all helps. And now it's
(07:54):
it's literally like happening in the last couple of years.
So we're just on.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Like the early day of all this.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And you know, also what I like to talk about
is like people use satellites every day. They don't realize
like Uber, like the geospatial network that powers Uber when
you're getting your food delivered, it's all based on you know,
geospatial technology.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
I love Uber Eats, by the way. That's probably the
most difficult part for me is I love that pizza
and the Chinese food I get delivered. I had to
delete the app actually because midnight snacks. It's no longer
just going into your fridge. You can just go into
the future and get whatever you want. And then they
have those I think it's the AI images of like
(08:34):
you know, peaking your hunger, but specifically explain to folks
how satellites are used for the geospatial on Uber Eats
or on other apps as well.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah, so a lot of it is, you know, you
are you know with your phone. Let's say you want
to ride, You're you know, yeah, live.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Out in Austin. You want to get downtown.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
You're you're saying, hey, Uber, here I am, and from
their network, they're looking at your phone proximity to other drivers.
You need that spatial analysis where you're pinging the network
to optimize for the best driver to get you know,
you kevin to your destination as fast as possible. So
it's not you know, it's not the you know, imagery technology,
but it's GPS, you know, which is one of the
(09:14):
foundational technologies that the defense industry created, and it came
into the commercial world, like most defense technology, got much
much bigger. So using those that positioning capability to determine
humans and you know, at a massive, massive scale, you know,
millions or millions of rides across the across the globe
all because of space and it would not occur without it,
(09:36):
all right.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
So we we've got all We've got more than ten
thousand satellites in space. Luke Fisher, co founder and CEO
of Skyfi, is my guest today on Hello Future. Are
we protecting these satellites and not just I don't want
to necessarily talk about from adversaries here on planet Earth,
but are we protecting them from space weather? Are we
protecting them from the sunstorms, the solar flares, debris particles,
(10:01):
whether they're parts of asteroids or meteors or whatnot or
space joke? Are we protecting them enough because we're relying
on them, I mean, especially Americans, we're so so reliant.
Even if we don't think that we are relying on them,
we're relying on them. So are we protecting them?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Luke the keys.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
We're learning a lot of lessons, you know, from the
early days when you have these you know, solar flares,
you know, solar storms, geostorms, you.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Know you can you can track it.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
They've killed a bunch of satellites, you know bunch meaning
you know, handfuls. But let's say you're a commercial satellite
company and you've got eight satellites and it knocks out
a third of your fleet and it takes down the
life of them from.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Four years to eighteen months.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Now that's where you know the hard lessons come because
you have to harden them. And you know, some of
the stuff is very new technology, especially on the camera
side and the sensing side, where you're you're getting very
very expensive hardware up there, and if it's not protected
and shielded, you know they're going to fall out.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
So are we absolutely we are.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Are we learning lessons on the new technology, I think
as fast as we can.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
But that's the key.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Like these things are built robust, they're tested in labs,
and the more satellites we have the more lessons we're learning,
so we're definitely protecting them. But again, you know there's yeah,
I know, over the last year, some companies that we
work with, you know, last three or four satellites and
it just it just.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Happens, all right, So how are we going to find
lost worlds? Are satellites going to be able to help
us find Atlantis or other hidden treasures hidden worlds on
planet Earth?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yes, and they already have, like over the years, in
late and then late twenty tens, I think it's around
twenty eighteen. You know, scientists were using satellite based lightar
to look at structures they've identified.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
What's satellite based lightar so.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Laser like you're looking at mapping, mapping a given area,
and there's some of these very new technology coming out
where they they found these Mayan structures in Guatemala and
I just remember that because I was reading the article.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
So it alreay is happening.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Very few satellites, So just thinking about like you get
hundreds of those satellites and you continuously map in the Earth,
and even to think in twenty eighteen, we are still
finding new civilizations, still structures, So how much do we
not know, and that's just above the surface, you know,
and you can get some some satellite can penetrate the
ground a little bit, but not you know, like tens
or hundreds of feet. But you're still so much unexplored,
(12:23):
and again because of space with those structures, have ever
been found without satellites? Probably not because they're in very,
very remote locations.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
So you can be an explorer now from your basement.
You can be. You no longer have to be, you know,
the explorer who's going to see those ancient civilizations. If
you have access to a satellite, you you're saying you can,
you can leverage that satellite imagery in order to discover
these hidden worlds.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Or just more information on the current world.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Like you know, you can pull up right now while
we're talking in order a satellite image of area fifty
one and then Russia's equivalent of Area fifty one.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Spaces the wild wild West, you know.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
So the information is out there and it's coming firsthand,
you know, delivered to you from space.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
So there's more than ten thousand satellites zoom and zipping
around planet Earth. There's only about ten or so on
planet Mars. Okay, so walk me into the future two
decades from now, three decades from now. You've got folks
who are saying that our next jobs for the for
gen Z are going to be in outer space, but
specifically for Mars. People, when we think about colonizing Mars,
(13:31):
when we think about mining the Moon or mining asteroids,
satellite imagery is really the cartographers of the sixteen hundreds
or the fifteen hundreds. Just try to put it in
perspective for us who are trying to figure out. Okay,
people think, okay, like I'm a huge believer. I want
to go to Mars. I think you ministry colonize Mars.
But I don't just want to drop myself on the planet.
(13:53):
I want to know where the good land is, or
where the good parts of Mars are, in order to
set up up the robust business models that we're going
to need. Did oh, by the way, for the moon?
Didto for the asteroid series, which is worth a ton
of money. But that's another episode. But from your perspective
as the CEO of a satellite imagery company, how are
(14:14):
you thinking of Mars specifically and other objects in our
solar system as ways to expand over the next several decades?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, over the next several decades, I think about supplying
demand to your point. You know, our satellites now are
these modern day explorers where they're going out ahead of us,
just like you know all the exploration that occurred on
ships over the you know, hundreds and hundreds of years
to the founding of America. Because of that, that's what
satellites are now. But obviously it's much longer distances, no
(14:42):
humans with it, and we have to know like it's
these early you know, it's the reconnaissance, is what it is.
Like You're looking at Mars, You're determined, you know, where
can we land, where's their water, where's the future bases
to launch from? And I think it's only going to increase,
and it's really exciting to think about. You know, as
that netw work expands, you know, it's just inevitable that
will be able to essentially live stream views from Mars
(15:05):
while sitting in your kitchen eating breakfasts in the morning
from Earth.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
But that is huge implication. So that is implications both
from a financial markets perspective of protecting infrastructure and has
implications in terms of rare Mars minerals, not just rare
Earth minerals. What are some of the implications, like what
are some of the case use studies of why that
matters to be able to have visibility on Mars and
(15:30):
other objects and other places in the Solar system.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah, so for you know, Mars and even the Moon.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
You know a lot of the new technology that comes
out this thing called hyper spectral imagery where you can
get from spectral hyper spectral imagery, so the human eye
see certain colors. Well, with hyper spectral hyper it's more
so you're seeing more bands through a satellite.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Ela Musk talks about this where you.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Can detect gold and basically anything. Think of it like
a barcode reader from so you can use that and
they're up there. Now, Well that goes to Mars, that
goes to the Moon, that goes to asteroids. So these
early explorers and reconnaissance, you know, satellites can determine what's
the chemical composition of that asteroid? Is it worth it
to mine it? Is the same thing on the Moon.
(16:16):
What are the ice signatures on Mars? There's heavy deposits
is like one huge crater in the south pole of
the Moon which everyone is going towards. You're using those
satellites to determine that, and we're also using it to
see who's already there. You know, is China already there?
Are they already positioning moon bases? That same thing's going
to happen in Mars. Overall, I think it's for the
betterment of humanity, Like the more we know about the
(16:38):
world we live in, not just the Earth world, but
you know, the universe. You know, the more have advancements
in science and exploration and you know, future stepping stones.
Because I think it's inevitable too, Like, you know, we
will colonize Mars. Elon Musk is anywhere near successful as
he thinks he's going to be.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
I think it's inevitable.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
The last couple of minutes here with Lake Fisher. I mean,
it's almost like we need new red lines though, because
let's say we colonize Mars, or let's say we establish
a stronger presence on the Moon, and then someone takes
out some of our satellites, or you know, God forbid,
here in America, someone takes out satellites that you know,
reak savoc. We are so relying on them and our adversaries,
(17:17):
whether they're countries, whether they're terrorists and they're taking out
our satellites. They can really cause some headaches. To put
it mildly, how do you think of protecting and securing
the satellites?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
I think the first thing is the awareness, like you
have to know what's up there, you know, and like
Salisman said, the tracking of new technologies that are launched,
you know, across the globe. You have to have that
awareness and the traffic avoidance. Not only awareness, but what
are you going to do about if it's on a
collision course and you have an adversary that doesn't really care.
So you know, there are very sophisticated technologies, both government
(17:51):
and commercial allow us to track the space domain awareness industry,
and that is only increasing in complexity because like to
your too, you know, one satellite has a catastrophic destruction
that that debris field can take out constellations then it
because it just doesn't go away, So there's the how
do you track it? But then in the evitable how
(18:13):
do you you know, clean up a mess? So all
these are are still being explored and what is good
as there's a lot of commercial companies trying to solve it.
The military is putting a bunch of money to it,
and then you know, from the international relationship side, there
has to be treaties and organizations that you bring everyone
together because it's not just your territory, it's the world's territory.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
You know, it's not just the United States or China,
it's you know, everyone depends.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
On this amazing Luke Fisher, CEO, a co founder of Skyfie,
thanks so much for showing up to meet the future
and coming on Hello Future. Appreciate it awesome.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I have a great tomorrow Today
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