Shield Space - Defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
In this episode, we talk with Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain.
We discuss advanced orbital warfare, the need for manoeuvre and options, space-based force projection, the potential threats from debris and high-altitude nuclear effects, and the challenge of keeping orbital environments usable.
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Production, Design & Artwork: HIATUS ↗ The Defence Design & Communications Agency
Find Out More: https://www.shieldspace.co.uk
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00:00:01 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Hi, welcome to the Future Frontiers podcast from millilux.io.
00:00:05 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
In this episode, we talk with Graham Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain.
00:00:13 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
We discuss advanced orbital warfare, the need for manoeuvre and options, space-based force protection, potential threats from debris and high-altitude nuclear effects, and the challenge of keeping orbital environments usable.
00:00:38 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Hey Graham, thank you so much for joining us on the Future Frontiers podcast.
00:00:43 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I realise it's probably like a really busy day for you.
00:00:46 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So to kick us off, please could you give us a really concise one minute introduction to yourself?
00:00:50 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Yeah, thanks, mate.
00:00:51 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Thank you for having me.
00:00:52 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Yeah, Graham Rishey, the CEO, co-founder of Shared Space.
00:00:56 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
My background is almost entirely in defence.
00:00:59 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I spent just over 20 years doing all manner of things from high value target operations in Iraq and Afghan to counter UAS, leading the counter UAS, which I think is a story in itself over in Iraq and Syria.
00:01:14 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And then moving on to UK Space Command towards the end of my career and doing all things innovation, capability development and fundamentally looking at what future threats look like in space.
00:01:26 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, brilliant Steph.
00:01:28 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Well mate, we thank you again for inviting us to the launch event earlier this year.
00:01:33 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
We had an absolute blast at the UK Space Centre and I didn't realise your story actually is really quite detailed and nuanced and interesting.
00:01:43 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So we look forward to pulling that out more in the podcast.
00:01:47 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I guess to kind of roll on to a kind of our first question, I'm interested to get your take on kind of Europe's rearming efforts right now, like how do you see it kind of playing out from your perspective?
00:01:58 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Yeah, it's a really interesting one.
00:01:59 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I mean, if we look at Germany specifically, we're looking to go into Germany quite soon.
00:02:04 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And obviously, everybody's looking at them because they dropped 35 billion.
00:02:09 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so they're very much a target.
00:02:12 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I think there's
00:02:16 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
probably as a one line summary, there's a very big difference between dropping a load of money and actually building the ecosystem, the industry required to deliver on that money.
00:02:26 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so I think one of the subtleties that I'm starting to understand about rearmament is there's also very much a nervousness coming out of the vast majority of Germans.
00:02:38 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
For so many years, they've been told, we don't do war, we don't rearm.
00:02:44 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And I think that's also something that needs to be considered that for a lot of average Germans on the street, they don't quite understand.
00:02:55 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
they don't understand like maybe people that are in defence or coming out of defence understand the imperative of why they're rearming in the 1st place.
00:03:04 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
So I think that's just one subtlety.
00:03:07 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I think the other one is the pace at which they're trying to move at.
00:03:12 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And I think
00:03:14 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
there's sort of tipping scales where obviously over in Germany across more broadly mainland Europe and kind of the thinking that we've been doing in the UK where we haven't probably got the same amount of budget but we're certainly at the more sort of doctrinally and cognitive end of warfare much more advanced.
00:03:34 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
So I think for me the opportunities really not should we rearm but how do we create
00:03:43 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
a future force that's fundamentally different than the one that we had before.
00:03:49 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so I think people should stop saying it through the lens of let's just do more of the same or how do we do more of the same or but differently.
00:03:58 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
how do we create the force that we actually need to win the next fight rather than just more tanks?
00:04:05 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, for sure.
00:04:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah.
00:04:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And quite a few guests we've had on the podcast so far have kind of inferred
00:04:12 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
the move towards this kind of grey zone warfare where it's obviously below the threshold of conventional warfare where you don't see soldiers rolling over kind of national borders or armour or stuff like that, but you're still getting kind of really subtle sabotage attacks and the stuff that goes, like proxy agents carrying out attacks on behalf of
00:04:34 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
state actors and stuff.
00:04:35 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So I'm kind of I'm kind of really keen to dive into that kind of a bit more.
00:04:39 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And I think that probably will come out, obviously, as we hear more about Shield Space and kind of like how its genesis.
00:04:45 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
But I mean, great time to jump on to kind of what is Shield Space and how did it come to be?
00:04:52 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Yeah, again, really good question.
00:04:54 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Love to.
00:04:56 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Nisha, you mentioned the Grey Zone Warfare piece.
00:04:58 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I wanted to kind of unpick that, but we'll maybe come back to it.
00:05:02 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I think
00:05:03 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Yeah.
00:05:03 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Where did Shield Space come from?
00:05:05 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Well, it was really where Dan and I, my co-founder of C2O, met on the Advanced Orbital Warfare course.
00:05:15 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And basically, I realized pretty, it was quite heavy physics, I realized pretty quickly that I was going to fail this course if I didn't find the smartest man in the room and coffee his homework.
00:05:29 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
So that's exactly what I did.
00:05:31 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
It's a bit of a long-standing joke.
00:05:34 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
But he really was just absolutely phenomenal.
00:05:37 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
the kind of guy, I think he got his PhD in his mid-20s and he's just phenomenally smart.
00:05:43 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And yeah, so obviously I'd just come out of counter-UAS at that time and very keenly watching what was going on in Ukraine.
00:05:54 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
and looking at the fundamentals that was reshaping the low air space out there.
00:05:58 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And for the most part that revolves around robotics, autonomy, on edge compute, just a transformation really of technology that was just happening on a week by week and even daily basis.
00:06:12 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And I remember quite vividly actually just sat next to Dan saying,
00:06:17 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
How long do you think it's going to be before this migrates into space?
00:06:20 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
How long, based on the dynamics that we're seeing, low cost access to launch, which is coming down, I know that's changed a little bit somewhat since.
00:06:29 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
But again, robotics, autonomy, machine vision, apart from data, you know, the difference between the drone and satellite isn't huge.
00:06:39 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so a lot of those same
00:06:43 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
that same thinking could be migrated fairly quickly.
00:06:46 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
A lot of the same technology and thinking could be migrated into space relatively low cost.
00:06:52 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so that's really where Shieldspace was born.
00:06:55 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And that was, when did we set up the company?
00:06:59 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
About 18 months ago.
00:07:01 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Within six months, we went straight, knowing full well that it was going to be capital intensive, went straight to VC and raised just under 2 million pounds within six months.
00:07:12 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
We've just finished raising again another 1.25 million to grow into Germany and meet that demand signal.
00:07:19 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And yeah, we booked up our first launch, which is the broadsword mission that we mentioned at the launch.
00:07:27 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And that's fundamentally to send an 8U and a 3U, roughly a microwave and half that again, into Leo and conduct autonomous RPA, rendezvous proximity operations, which is
00:07:42 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Just when you think about the pace that we've managed to move at, a space company that actually gets up into orbit and starts delivering on things in a two-year time frame is actually quite phenomenal.
00:07:59 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Real quick, if you want to hear when new episodes and articles are released, be sure to sign up to our newsletter at the Mililux website or find a link in the show notes below.
00:08:07 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Otherwise, back to the episode.
00:08:11 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, 100%.
00:08:12 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I'm also kind of, I'm still in awe, somebody from kind of like our background has ended up on the Advanced Orbital Warfare course.
00:08:20 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I mean, mate, that sounds pretty epic, just the name of the course alone.
00:08:26 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So, it sounds intimidating and epic in the same kind of sentence.
00:08:32 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, that's.
00:08:34 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I mean, it's not where I thought I was going to be, put it that way, 20 years ago.
00:08:41 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
running about like a little lunatic.
00:08:45 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I didn't think that's where we were going to be.
00:08:47 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I think what really changed it for me was during the count of the US, obviously I come through that sort of boots on the ground, Iraq, Afghan, where we had air superiority, you can pretty much go anywhere, do anything, and nobody was really going to challenge you apart from obviously the connected two-way fight.
00:09:07 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Great.
00:09:07 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Then
00:09:09 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I went away, I think it was around 2021, 22 maybe, and got pushed out to Iraq and by PJSQ and pretty much told to, in probably, how that conversation went down, go and figure it out.
00:09:30 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so I, got embedded into a two-star USHQ with the rest of the guys and
00:09:40 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I remember just watching this incident unfold and in this US ops room that didn't exist.
00:09:50 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
It's quite funny.
00:09:51 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
That's another story entirely.
00:09:54 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
But just watching warfare unfold on like, you know, people quite literally dying by the press of a button and seeing this resident infantry company
00:10:07 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
literally next door just sat on their Bergens and kind of having a very visceral sort of image of, do you know what, warfare has changed.
00:10:17 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
It's changed a lot.
00:10:18 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And this is obviously pre-Russia Ukraine.
00:10:20 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And just having this realisation.
00:10:23 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And then it was quite funny actually, well not funny, but this red phone goes in the ops room and this guy from, you know, what I understand is the intelligence was coming from North Yorkshire, you know, Flying Dales.
00:10:35 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
to tell us you've got about 2 1/2 minutes before you get flatbacked by missiles that have been launched from Tehran.
00:10:42 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And in that moment, you know, the colonel that was in charge of the option was like, right, everybody evacuate, you, and you, including me, we're going to stay and take the hit.
00:10:56 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And just kind of thinking, hold on.
00:11:01 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
But not, what it's like.
00:11:03 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
People are thinking, your life flashes before you.
00:11:06 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
It doesn't.
00:11:07 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And you're just kind of thinking, how have I ended up here?
00:11:09 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
How does this happen?
00:11:10 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And you're supposed to commission and your life gets better, right?
00:11:16 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
It just doesn't.
00:11:17 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And I say, yeah, I then ended up thinking, well, how
00:11:25 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
How has that happened?
00:11:26 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
How is space?
00:11:28 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
How is like, well, I know it's not space, but how are the early warning radars essentially connecting all these JOAs together?
00:11:36 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And really, I wanted to get a better understanding of how space actually achieved the high ground, how we connected the dots between JOAs, how we did command and control, and how we essentially got to multi-domain operations, because that's really where we're headed, right?
00:11:51 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
That's where the modern forces are going.
00:11:53 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
That's how
00:11:55 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Epic Fury was enabled.
00:11:57 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
That's how we were able to prosecute, or the US was able to prosecute so many targets so quickly.
00:12:01 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And it's all enabled through space.
00:12:05 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah.
00:12:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
No, 100%.
00:12:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I mean, I mean, you obviously, you were in essence kind of like an early adopter of the way that warfare was moving pre-Ukraine, wasn't it?
00:12:15 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Because obviously, I left the Marines just as Russia invaded Crimea back in 2015-ish.
00:12:22 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And it was, and there was chatter around the bazaars that, something's happening, something we need to be taking notice of is happening.
00:12:30 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
This is not the war on terror anymore.
00:12:32 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
This is something different is happening.
00:12:34 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
The battle space is changing.
00:12:35 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And obviously now with the 2022 invasion, what we saw was the near real time observation of forces building up in the Belarusian
00:12:45 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
border areas was actually more, it was more public than I think it'd ever been, hadn't it?
00:12:50 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And I think for anyone that was kind of thinking that, warfare hadn't changed, then it was a public demonstration of how warfare has moved to the ultimate high ground, which is space, isn't it?
00:13:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Because whoever can see, telegraphing your movements,
00:13:10 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
has got time to make a decision and carry out something to prevent you from going over that board or from carrying out other kind of effects.
00:13:20 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So I think it's like you probably don't kind of like give yourself much of A chuck-up, but ultimately it's like a real first mover advantage in that you've kind of seen that space is going to become a contested environment if it isn't already, which I know there's some reports out there saying that there is
00:13:39 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
thing is becoming a contested environment.
00:13:41 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Actually, let's kind of jump into that a bit more.
00:13:44 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Have you seen any kind of evidence of contested areas in space, contested geostationary orbits or things like that?
00:13:55 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, I realise this question might come as a surprise, but.
00:13:59 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I think a lot of that answer does sit within a bucket somewhere.
00:14:05 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
But I think the simple answer based on all the open source information that we can talk about is absolutely there.
00:14:12 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And yes.
00:14:15 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I think the challenge that we've got is so what?
00:14:20 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so if you use probably the most prolific recent example,
00:14:25 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
of what was going on with iSize X 35, 36, and you start to scratch the surface of why.
00:14:32 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And I always try and link it back to, well, how does that affect me on the ground, like boots on the ground?
00:14:38 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Because you speak to the vast majority of land personnel or maritime, and you say, well, how does space affect you?
00:14:48 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
The vast majority of people will say, well, Satcom, obviously, it allows us to communicate, great.
00:14:54 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
ISR, helps us with targeting, fantastic.
00:14:57 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Synthetic capture radar included in that.
00:15:00 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And then space domain awareness, yeah, GPS, GNSS, you know, like all those traditional functions of space.
00:15:05 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And that for the vast majority of people in the military right now will go, yeah, okay, I understand that.
00:15:12 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Now, I think as we get to multi-domain operations, it gets so much more complex and so much more nuanced because
00:15:19 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
If you think of it like a chessboard and going back to that ISI X-35 example, providing SAR imagery to Ukrainian forces, now Russia's essentially either denying or degrading your ability to collect that intelligence, or they're forcing you to shift, maneuver, disrupt, or even deny entirely your access to that information.
00:15:44 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Now, what's the sort of the 2nd and 3rd order effect of that is that
00:15:48 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
you've no longer got access to that intelligence when you need it, which either means your tempo slows on the ground or you don't carry out the mission because you haven't got enough intelligence to know accurately where you're going and how you're going to get there.
00:16:02 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so I think that is the importance of space.
00:16:06 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
That's the importance of space assets.
00:16:09 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And as we head towards conflict or crisis, having access to that and control of those assets at the time of our choosing is what's really, really important.
00:16:18 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Now, that's only possible if you've got an ability to prevent or deny an adversary freedom of movement within that domain, regardless of what domain you're in.
00:16:34 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So we're always interested to hear from organisations that want to contribute their thoughts to our articles.
00:16:39 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
If this is you, send it to the e-mail newsletter to stay up to date on what we're working on.
00:16:43 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
There's a link in the show notes.
00:16:44 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Otherwise, back to the episode.
00:16:49 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, 100%.
00:16:50 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And I guess I think we've probably seen it play out in real time, haven't we, with the SpaceX, SpaceX, Starlink, access and then kind of cut off with Ukraine.
00:17:01 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And that's kind of like what, the last six months I think we've seen it kind of used really extensively for supporting, giving Ukraine that kind of upper hand in the conflict and that awareness.
00:17:15 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Yeah, I completely agree and a really good example.
00:17:18 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And I think this is where that sort of dual use case starts to present itself because I've long been an advocate for dual use is dead.
00:17:30 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
It seems to upset a lot of people, but I don't feel like you can sit on the fence.
00:17:34 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I don't feel like you can be
00:17:39 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
a commercial civilian company one day and then a defense company the next.
00:17:43 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Russia just simply do not care.
00:17:45 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
If you're taking part supporting enabling military operations, well, guess what, you're a target.
00:17:50 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And I think all these civilian companies that think that they can pick and choose, it's just
00:18:00 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Yes, I fully agree that technology can be dual use, of course it can.
00:18:03 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
But the intent in which that technology is used is fundamentally the most important piece.
00:18:10 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And as you mentioned, like Elon found out with the use of Starlink, you have to make a choice and sit on that side.
00:18:21 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, for sure.
00:18:22 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah.
00:18:23 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And what I'd kind of add to the conversation as well is that in the last week or so, we're hearing kind of like the Nordic
00:18:30 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Nordic North Europe region.
00:18:32 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
We've seen two or three sabotage attacks on military drone companies, just to kind of reinforce your point.
00:18:43 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
It's, happening whether we want to kind of like admit it or not.
00:18:46 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
So again, really good point, the grey zone.
00:18:50 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Again, why space is such a favorable domain to operate in is because of attribution.
00:18:55 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I can, much like cyber, I can carry out an activity and if it can't be attributed to me, then guess what?
00:19:02 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I've got away with it.
00:19:03 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And that's why space is
00:19:07 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
a fundamentally an opportunistic domain to be attacking at this moment in time.
00:19:17 Speaker 3
Yeah, great stuff.
00:19:18 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Well, I mean, it gets me on to my next question.
00:19:22 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So just to help kind of the audience and kind of understand and it, what problems does Shield Space solve in defence and security?
00:19:31 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Just so it's kind of a bit clear for people.
00:19:34 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
So I think overall we give the military options.
00:19:40 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
We're trying to build options and we're not trying to do it all by ourselves, which I think is a really unique aspect to what we're trying to build and deliver.
00:19:51 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
What I'll do, I think, is outline how we think about the technology and then how we think about the employment of the technology, which I think is the bit that generally gets lost.
00:20:01 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
But
00:20:02 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
If we think about any future fight, much like what we saw with Russia, Ukraine and drones, the first thing that happens is the ground control station will get denied or degraded, disrupted, because why would you go through all the effort to try and hit something in orbit when you could just destroy the ground control station?
00:20:21 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
You know, I'd just send a missile, wipe that out, or I'll send an SF unit to just go and kill everyone inside.
00:20:29 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Or, whatever options you've got to actually is always going to be an easier option, or send a offensive cyber capability to.
00:20:43 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
attack it or attack the power source.
00:20:47 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
The next level up from that really is, well, okay, how do I deny the link to the satellite itself?
00:20:54 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so that's generally limited.
00:20:57 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
You know, you can only do so much depending on geographies and power displacement.
00:21:03 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
So, you know, that's kind of that is limited to where you can put your forces and how you can actually reach it in itself.
00:21:12 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
But jamming is relatively simple to do.
00:21:15 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
The next stage up from that, and probably the hardest, is denying, disrupting, degrading, destroying the satellite itself.
00:21:24 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
So the capability that's offering you all those functions that we just spoke about, like ISR, SDA, SATCOM, and really it's kind of thought about in terms of a spectrum of effects going from low end denial of jamming,
00:21:42 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
all the way over to the right hand arc where you're talking about like Hanes, high altitude nuclear effects and or kinetic weapons like direct energy weapon systems and things like that of that matter.
00:21:57 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
When we're on this right hand spectrum, it's a bit like the nuclear option.
00:22:01 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
You know, nobody really, I think including, well, maybe not including Russia, but certainly not China.
00:22:07 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I think everyone wants to get into this debris making
00:22:10 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
position because it just will fundamentally ruin orbits for 100 thousands of years.
00:22:16 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so nobody really wants to go towards this option in my opinion.
00:22:23 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Yeah.
00:22:23 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
sorry.
00:22:24 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
The question was what effects do we bring?
00:22:26 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
The first mission is then to do autonomous RPA.
00:22:30 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
We kind of believe, or we do believe that the future of space and the future of
00:22:37 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
of both the Iceland market, the commercial market and the military market will be defined by autonomy.
00:22:43 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so the first principle within that is, well, how do you gather the data required to train your models and algorithms?
00:22:49 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And you'll know a lot of these answers because they've already been well fought out of Ukraine.
00:22:54 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
The commodity becomes the data and the data that you gather to train your models and algorithms for the use cases that you want to use them for.
00:23:02 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
The next component to that is, well, how do you bring
00:23:06 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
all these CubeSats and satellites to bear in either swarms to deliver an effect onto your target in offensive orbital warfare.
00:23:17 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And a lot of that is the thinking that we're currently doing.
00:23:20 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
A lot of that is the thinking around the effectors that we want to put on our satellites and the effects that we want to deliver in a space to space engagement.
00:23:34 Speaker 3
Yeah, fascinating.
00:23:35 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So I mean, I mean, there's loads to unpick there because I realise that there's probably a lot.
00:23:41 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I realise some people will probably find it hard to comprehend, just kind of like what that might look like in space.
00:23:52 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And I know we've seen some of the demos you had at the launch earlier this year, so we can definitely kind of like dive in and help unpick that and also get you back on for a podcast, I think probably in the next in the next 6 to 12 months or in the near future as well.
00:24:09 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
But I was going to ask kind of what the, so with that in mind, what are the key milestones over the next kind of 12 to 24 months then?
00:24:15 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
You've obviously launched on Broadsword, which was brought on one mission
00:24:21 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
already.
00:24:22 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Have you got any of those lined up for the near future?
00:24:25 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Is there kind of the next kind of milestones coming up?
00:24:29 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
There certainly is, yeah.
00:24:30 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I think obviously we just passed one that's not obvious, but we passed critical design review, which is a major aspect to the build of our mission and the mission integration of all of it.
00:24:47 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And that takes us around to around two around six or seven.
00:24:50 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
The next milestone beyond that is obviously the broadsword mission going up on Transporter 21.
00:24:56 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
That's run by June, July next year.
00:24:58 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
There is potential actually to come forward onto Transporter 20, depending on what goes on.
00:25:05 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
So fingers crossed we might go earlier.
00:25:09 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
So that's really what the line in the sand that the team are working towards.
00:25:14 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
There's other obviously
00:25:16 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
aspects to what we're doing in terms of growing the business and setting up a business unit out in Germany that takes up a lot of my time at this moment in time, interviewing and such.
00:25:30 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And I think beyond that, very quickly we reach our series A, which is consuming a bit of bandwidth at the moment, with the senior leadership team trying to unpick what that looks like,
00:25:46 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
and a lot of the strategic decisions that go with that.
00:25:50 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I think the next step for us is a mission that we call Spear, and it's the next stepping stone that takes us the intermediary really between Broadsword and getting to this concept that we call space-based carrier strike.
00:26:03 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Space-based carrier strike pretty much takes itself from the maritime domain and allows us to project force
00:26:12 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
over the high season.
00:26:13 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
You should know lots about this really from your background.
00:26:16 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I've got to say.
00:26:19 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
The way that we kind of think about it is if you think of a carrier like a super carrier and then you've got mother ships on board the super carrier and then you've got your little frigates that come out the back end of that, we kind of see it as a
00:26:37 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
a capability that we could provide to NATO that allows NATO to meaningfully contribute to orbital warfare in the same sort of contract that they do in every other domain, whether it be air or maritime.
00:26:50 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so we feel like that's a really exciting concept and that's fundamentally what we're building towards and what all these stepping stones, these technology developments are taking us closer to.
00:27:04 Speaker 3
Yeah.
00:27:05 Speaker 3
Yeah, fascinating.
00:27:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I mean, there's an interesting conundrum there because obviously you think obviously space, it's the air warfare terminology thinking would apply best to it.
00:27:16 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
But obviously hearing things like space-based carrier strike, you know, obviously maritime concepts.
00:27:23 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Kind of like doing a bit of internal review myself thinking, I wonder if we're thinking of space the wrong way as well.
00:27:28 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Is space a just a different type of kind of maritime domain?
00:27:33 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Because obviously you don't you have to have certain principles and ways of working in the maritime domain, which quite possibly applied more to the space domain than maybe the kind of the air, because obviously it's a much different kettle of fish.
00:27:52 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I think I've tried to steal a little bit, I guess, from all my experiences, really.
00:27:58 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Another one is like the four structures that we employ.
00:28:01 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And this is what I mean by optionality, because spaces previously, I think, been always thought about in a fixed construct, i.e., you've only got the capabilities that you've got to fight the fight with what you've actually got in space.
00:28:18 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Now we're trying to redevelop that or rethink that thinking through maneuverability, right?
00:28:25 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Or maybe not being fixed to a certain orbit, having the ability to maneuver between orbits by using a space-based carrier strike bus.
00:28:35 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so it starts to fundamentally change the way that you think about it.
00:28:38 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
changes the optionality.
00:28:40 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Technology is changing that.
00:28:41 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Having the ability to refuel a satellite in itself or fix a satellite or add a payload to it after the fact, all, by the way, very technically hard things to do.
00:28:52 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
But we're not a million miles away from achieving it.
00:28:55 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Now, once you achieve those innovations,
00:29:00 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
It changes the way, it changes the domain and it changes the way that you think.
00:29:04 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And the doctrine that you, much like what Ukraine has done in that conflict, is that it doesn't have to be the way.
00:29:17 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
If you ask the vast majority of people, how is air power employed pre-Russia Ukraine, hardly anyone would tell you that you'd be able to redefine it using low cost drones, right?
00:29:28 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And
00:29:28 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
The same thing, I personally think the same thing is true about the space domain.
00:29:33 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
The vast majority, when Dan and I were talking about CubeSat's space command, you get laughed out of the room.
00:29:41 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
They'll be like, you know what?
00:29:44 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
CubeSat isn't going to redefine how we think about space.
00:29:48 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Well, what about 40 working in swarms to do protect and defend?
00:29:54 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
the maths fundamentally changes and I'm really looking forward to proving that example.
00:30:03 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, no, for sure.
00:30:04 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I mean, we've been tracking on some new innovations coming out in nuclear fusion, which actually are kind of suggesting that this could be used for kind of like, almost like fuel sources whilst in space.
00:30:17 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So they keep, I think the battery company we've been following are suggesting that even in like the low,
00:30:23 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
the low temperatures of space, you could still use nuclear fusion, which is the joining together of atoms rather than splitting them apart in nuclear fission, to create kind of fuel cells out in space, which then mean you can, I guess, theoretically, you could move between geostationary orbits, and that's where the swarm concept all of a sudden comes alive because it's just solving a physics problem of
00:30:48 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
how do we then get these things moving in different directions in space?
00:30:53 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Exactly that.
00:30:54 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And with it, your tactics, your operations, strategically everything changes, right?
00:31:02 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And I think the force that wins will be on top of those innovations.
00:31:10 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Yeah, as long as we can
00:31:13 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
keep speed with the way technology is moving and continue to adopt it and understand how we're going to employ it in our force structures now is going to be the victor really.
00:31:26 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And in this example, I think China are miles ahead of us.
00:31:33 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
They're just the bell curve is just incredibly steep in comparison.
00:31:40 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
So we've got a lot of work to do.
00:31:44 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, for sure.
00:31:44 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
and kind of their control of critical rare earth minerals is something which I think we're the whole defence is like waking up to now from a supply chain, the strategic supply chain kind of perspective as well.
00:31:57 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
But I realise kind of time's kind of getting on in the afternoon for you.
00:32:00 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So I'm going to jump on to my penultimate question, if that's okay.
00:32:03 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And that's really kind of as a defence startup.
00:32:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Kind of what the main problems and opportunities you've experienced on your journey so far that maybe others can learn from?
00:32:13 Speaker 3
Do you mind sharing?
00:32:14 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Yeah, of course.
00:32:15 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
So I think the key one is focus.
00:32:19 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
you probably experienced this as well, but there's just so much noise, and the minute that anyone hears that you've raised any money, you just get you just get absolutely hounded.
00:32:34 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
So I think being it's just really important to understand or
00:32:42 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
filter out all the noise and identify the things that are really going to move the needle for you and push you forward.
00:32:49 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And I think for me, that's what I've really been trying to focus on is everybody wants my time, but who actually should be getting it and just getting more comfortable with saying no.
00:33:03 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
But likewise, I think the opportunities are
00:33:11 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
This is an entirely new domain doing something, I say a new domain, space control or auto warfare is an entirely new feature of this domain.
00:33:22 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so it brings with it its own opportunities because we're not trying to technically knock out any incumbents.
00:33:28 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
We are literally redefining that space.
00:33:35 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so I think that's a huge opportunity in itself, which is
00:33:40 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Which can be challenging at times, especially when you're trying to educate people as well as build a business and build a product and all the rest of it.
00:33:52 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
You're trying to take them on a journey of what your vision looks like and hope they agree.
00:34:00 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah, sure.
00:34:01 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
There's a good metaphor that a friend of an only friend of mine kind of came up with, which was
00:34:05 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
which is like trying to build the bicycle whilst riding it downhill at speed.
00:34:09 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
we like people find rocks and I was like, it's such a good, rich metaphor.
00:34:13 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
I was like going to find at some point to use that in a conversation.
00:34:16 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So, yeah, bags are listening.
00:34:21 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I think the rocks is a good addition.
00:34:23 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I think for me it feels like broken glass, but yeah, I love that.
00:34:31 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Brilliant stuff.
00:34:32 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Well, let me jump on to the final question.
00:34:33 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
That's
00:34:35 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Just kind of understanding what the future of space and shield space look like, I guess, in the kind of like the medium, medium, long term, how do you guys see yourselves kind of moving to help defend that domain?
00:34:48 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Yeah, so I think the future of orbital warfare is really going to be defined by smaller, cheaper, more autonomous systems.
00:34:56 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I think space in general is going to go that way.
00:34:59 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I don't think
00:35:03 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I don't think we'll be able to continue at that rate without a level of autonomy.
00:35:10 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And obviously, like we've discussed, gathering the data required to achieve those missions.
00:35:17 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so, yeah, how do we, I guess, grow into that?
00:35:24 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
It is very much along the roadmap that I've laid out in terms of Broadsword being our first mission.
00:35:32 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
emission that we call Spear being our next one.
00:35:35 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
It might not be called that.
00:35:37 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
We're currently thinking about the requirements for that.
00:35:41 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Can't go into too much detail.
00:35:44 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And partnerships, I think, is probably the great good news story.
00:35:50 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Over the next couple of months, you'll hear about partnerships.
00:35:54 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Again, I can't name them, but with some great people, you would have saw a partnership with Clear Space, which was
00:36:01 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
a really cool career highlight for me, especially with Rob and having a previous relationship with him coming out of UK Space Command as well.
00:36:11 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And then, yeah, I think what we're trying to do, and you'll see this in the next few announcements, is really to hear the UK space SMEs to deliver a globally relevant orbital warfare space control product.
00:36:29 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
that can really rival some of the things that are coming out of the US right now.
00:36:34 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Because Europe, whether it likes it or not, needs to figure out how it's going to stand on its own 2 feet.
00:36:40 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And I think that's both a threat and an opportunity.
00:36:45 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
But I'm really, really excited by it.
00:36:47 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I'm really excited by the challenge.
00:36:49 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I'm really excited to try and pull everybody along with me as we head towards that vision.
00:36:57 Speaker 3
Yeah, for sure.
00:36:58 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And I can definitely see that Europe kind of waking up to this kind of idea of sovereign data, sovereign space and satellite systems of its own.
00:37:08 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So you kind of give that longer term resilience is conversations we've definitely heard and had on the podcast over the last 12 months, six months or so.
00:37:18 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
yeah, it's good to hear that more people kind of echoing that sentiment as well is that, you know, people
00:37:25 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
countries having their own access to the data rather than have kind of relying on other, other strategic partnerships for that to happen.
00:37:33 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Yeah, again, it's a really interesting topic.
00:37:36 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I'm going to dinner in the next few days.
00:37:39 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
That's all geared around sovereign AI.
00:37:42 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And I remember sitting there a couple of weeks ago thinking, well, what does sovereign anything actually mean?
00:37:49 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
You know, everyone talks about sovereignty quite a lot.
00:37:52 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
But I think it happens over a spectrum of contest.
00:37:57 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And for me, sovereignty is all about access and control in a time of contest.
00:38:04 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And obviously that changes, I think, depending on where along you are on that spectrum.
00:38:11 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And then as you quite rightly mentioned there, I think a lot of people, especially with the adoption of AI, are starting to think,
00:38:18 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
more deeply about access to data or access to anything and what are the fundamentals that support whatever capability you're building in space that looks like access to launch, which is another, that's another podcast entirely.
00:38:36 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
But really, if we want to make sure we've got sovereign anything in space, that's kind of, you know, number one building block if we can't control that.
00:38:47 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Elon's definitely closing the taps on that, then what have you got?
00:38:52 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Or you haven't really got a lot, you haven't got access to space, you're not putting anything out there.
00:38:57 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And so, yeah, it's a lot to unpack.
00:39:02 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I probably urge a lot of people that are in the
00:39:07 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
in the domain right now to scratch a little bit deeper with their thinking and rather than the sort of surface thinking that we seem to be plagued by.
00:39:18 Speaker 3
Yeah, for sure.
00:39:19 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Yeah.
00:39:19 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And I think ultimately there's more people coming alive to this idea that if you don't have at least a footprint in space, then at some point you're going to have your ground command control, intelligence, situational awareness, all those things we've kind of taken for granted over the last
00:39:35 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
how many decades, it's going to start to evaporate on a quick scale.
00:39:39 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
And before it, then you're kind of left for this massive vulnerability where, you're kind of essentially your ground forces are in the dark because you don't have that protected space between you and a, you know, and a satellite or the satellite itself.
00:39:52 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Exactly that.
00:39:53 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
I mean, I wouldn't go as far as to say you lose the war, but
00:39:56 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
What I would say is you are slower, blinder, more confused without access to space.
00:40:02 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
much the same as air or control of the air, right?
00:40:06 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And we figured that out pretty quickly in the World Wars is that without that, you lose your freedoms.
00:40:14 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
You lose your freedoms to operate.
00:40:16 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And by having access to space and having control of space, it allows us to have that freedom of maneuver to operate and deliver the capabilities and effects that we see fit.
00:40:26 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
And, a large part of what Shield Space is doing is an extension of that, is giving our commanders, giving our militaries the capabilities required to protect and defend their high-value assets so that they're available in a time of their choosing.
00:40:44 Speaker 3
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
00:40:46 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
Well, Graham, I've been chatting for almost an hour now.
00:40:49 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
So I'm going to say thank you very much for joining us on the podcast again and leave you to go on with your afternoon because I realise you must have a ton of emails and things that have been waiting on your attention for this last hour.
00:41:01 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
No, Chris, really appreciate it.
00:41:03 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Really appreciate you having me on and give me the chance to talk about what we're doing.
00:41:08 Graeme Ritchie, founder of Shield Space, a company developing defensive capabilities for an increasingly contested space domain
Thank you so much.
00:41:09 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
It's really great chatting to Graham.
00:41:10 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Communications Specialist and Brand Designer at HIATUS _, The Defence Design and Communications Agency
If you want to find out more about the working on, check out the show notes below and we'll see you next time.

