This week we are talking about space debris. My guest is Luc Piguet, co-founder and CEO of Swiss space company ClearSpace. They are building a spacecraft that can remove debris – it looks really cool, sort of like a giant spider, check it out. They already have a big ESA contract for the first mission. Space debris is a problem to take seriously and Luc is one of the best people in the World to explain it.

0:00 Intro

1:40 Elevator pitch

2:57 Space debris scale and the Kessler syndrome

7:52 Legislation and non-tech challenges

18:23 Space's prisoners dilemma/tragedy of the commons

22:44 Clearspace origins

29:42 Mission and Hardware

42:55 Multiple deorbiting and the steady state operation of the company

50:07 Revenue model

55:48 Vision for Clearspace

58:25 Sci-Fi