Thinking On Paper

We're reading Space to Grow by Matthew Wienzierl and Brenan Rosseau and looking at the space investment boom through Virgin Orbit, Astra, Planet, SPAC redemptions, failed rockets, and the danger of valuing space companies on fantasy revenue projections.

It then moves from speculation to coordination: the stag hunt problem in space, NASA’s changing role, Artemis, SLS, Starship, Blue Origin, lunar landers, moon water, and whether the next space economy needs NASA to become a trust builder rather than only a builder of rockets.
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Thinking on Paper is a technology podcast about AI, computing, science, and the systems shaping the future.

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Chapters

(00:00) What is a SPAC? 

(01:30) Why space SPACs failed 

(03:20) Virgin Orbit & Astra

(06:00) SPACs vs Crypto

(08:30) The Stag Hunt

(11:00) NASA Artemis

(13:00) Starship

(17:00) SpaceX & Blue Origin

(20:00) The Moon Race vs China 

(22:00) Can NASA survive

Infleqtion CEO Matt Kinsella joins Thinking on Paper to explain neutral atom quantum computing, quantum clocks, and why the future of computing may depend on synchronisation as much as raw processing power.

The conversation moves from GPS spoofing and UK submarine navigation to Nvidia’s hybrid quantum AI stack, quantum sensing, edge computing, quantum error correction, and the growing race to build commercially useful quantum systems.Please enjoy the show.

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Thinking on Paper is a technology podcast about AI, Space, quantum computing, science, and the systems shaping the future. 

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Timestamps:

(00:00) Trailer

(01:50) GPS

(04:48) What is a quantum clock?

(07:18) How atoms keep time with laser precision

(08:14) Room temperature quantum

(12:38) The Rydberg state

(14:03) Quantum clock on a UK submarine

(17:06) Quantum in space

(18:48) Hybrid quantum-classical workflows

(23:18) Software layers

(25:32) Drug discovery

(29:03) The bridge between classical and quantum

(31:54) Quantum Clocks & Quantum Computers

(33:48) Nvidia

(35:42) Quality or Quantity of Qubits 

(38:00) Quantum mechanics and free will

Love it.

Thanks. 

Nvidia is treating quantum computing as the next stage of accelerated computing, not as a separate machine sitting apart from AI supercomputers.

Sam Stanwyck from Nvidia and Pranav Gokhale from Infleqtion explain how NVQLink connects QPUs and GPUs with low-latency, high-bandwidth communication, allowing quantum computers, GPU supercomputers, CPUs, CUDA-Q, and AI software to work inside the same computational workflow.

The conversation moves from logical qubits, quantum error correction, material science, battery design, and Hamiltonian simulation to quantum sensors in space, NASA, gravity mapping, edge GPUs, and why the first useful quantum systems may arrive as hybrid quantum-classical supercomputers.

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Chapters

(00:00) Trailer
(01:20) Why Nvidia
(02:52) NVQ-Link
(09:29) Quantum computer vs the GPU
(12:33) AI helping quantum
(16:56) Building a space elevator
(20:09) The quantum algorithm zoo
(22:04) From noisy qubits to logical qubits
(24:00) How much energy does a quantum computer use?
(27:05) The no-cloning theorem
(27:20) The biggest unanswered question in quantum computing
(30:47) A $20M NASA program
(33:32) What do we want humans to be?

There are about 100 kilograms of helium-3 on planet Earth. The current US reserve is 29 kilograms. Global production runs around 20 kilograms per year. And early estimates put quantum computing demand alone at 300 to 400 kilograms per year. The math doesn't work, which is why people are starting to look at moon mining.

On this episode of Thinking on Paper, we talk with Glen Martin, CEO of the Extraterrestrial Mining Company, about why helium-3 is suddenly one of the most strategically important isotopes on the planet, and why the Moon, with an estimated 1.1 million tons sitting in its lunar regolith, is where the next mining rush is heading.

Martin walks us through what helium-3 actually is, how it gets to the Moon (carried on solar winds and trapped in titanium oxide because the Moon has no magnetosphere to deflect it), and why moon mining looks more like beach combing than the giant-drill image most people picture.

Along the way: why dilution refrigerators for IBM, Google, and Microsoft's quantum computers are already running short on supply, why fusion is the killer app and how two helium-3 atoms fuse without creating radioactive waste, the rise of quantum hybrid data centers as the bridge to fusion deployment, and how a single square kilometer of lunar surface could yield 33 kilograms of helium-3 and remain effectively invisible from Earth.

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Timestamps

(00:00) Trailer

(02:45) What is Helium-3, and why are we mining the Moon?

(05:29) Why there’s almost no Helium-3 on Earth, and a million tons on the Moon

(09:01) How Helium-3 could be harvested from lunar dust

(10:33) Fusion without fallout: the clean-energy promise of Helium-3

(13:01) Space-based solar power and fusion: two paths to future energy.

(17:56) How private companies plan to finance Moon mining

(21:52) The new space race: U.S., China, and the competition for lunar fuel

(25:03) Can treaties prevent conflict over Moon resources?

(27:37) AI, autonomy, and the machines that will mine the Moon

(29:31) NASA’s commercial lunar payloads and the rise of space infrastructure

(31:08) What lunar regolith tells us about Helium-3 reserves

(33:35) The trillion-dollar question: who profits from space resources?

(36:17) Curiosity, wonder, and the future of human exploration

(40:01) Technology, morality, and the choice to be good

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Email: [email protected]--

Carissa Véliz is associate professor at the Oxford Institute for Ethics in AI and author of Privacy Is Power. She joins us to speak about the risks of sharing data, why Big Tech knows more about you than you do, and how you can protect yourself. And Democracy.

Carissa explains what privacy actually is (a right, a duty, and a piece of social infrastructure all at once), why your music taste reveals your politics, your location reveals your religion, and how books are the ultimate technology.

From personal data shaping the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, why Signal beats WhatsApp and UK politicians using ChatGPT to write Ai policy to analog technology and open mindedness, this episode is very very special.

Please enjoy the show.

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TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Trailer

(02:26) What Is Privacy

(05:31) Is Democracy At Risk?

(08:34) Government & Big Tech

(10:39) How To Decouple Big Tech & Government

(12:33) Privacy & The Common Human Experience

(16:02) Tools To Protect Your Privacy

(17:18) Cookie Clutter

(19:30) ChatGPT Writes Policy

(20:05) Radical Open Mindedness

(21:52) AI Alignment

(22:56) AI Ethics

(28:09) How To Erase Your Data

(29:27) What Should Humanity Be?

A hotel on the Moon sounds like science fiction, but Skyler Chan argues it is really a test case for lunar habitats and off-world surface habitation.

His company Gru wants to prove two basic things first: inflatable structures can hold pressure and temperature on the lunar surface, and lunar regolith can be turned into Moon bricks for radiation protection, landing pads, roads, warehouses, habitats, and eventually lunar bases.

The conversation follows the economics of getting payloads to the Moon, ISRU, SpaceX, Bigelow-style inflatable modules, the 2029 test mission, the 2032 hotel target, and whether building on the Moon is the first step toward humans living on Mars.

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Chapters

(00:00) Trailer

(02:19) Building a Hotel

(06:06) The Logistics

(06:47) Economic Considerations

(10:03) Merging Technologies

(10:59) First Mission

(13:15) Changing Perceptions

(16:25) The Human Spirit

(19:40) Responsibility

Philip Johnston is the CEO of Starcloud and launched an Nvidia H100 chip in space and gave a TED talk about it. As you do if you're responsible for building the infrastructure for space-based data centers. 

Elon Musk was not the first. He follows in the footsteps of Mr Johnston. And so, rather than Mr SpaceX, our first technology reaction video is this TED talk from San Francisco.   

We watched it for the first time. Live. On TV. 

This is not theoretical. It's also not up to date. Philip filmed this in October 2025. Starcloud have already launched the Nvidia H100 on a Falcon 9 up into space. 

It's happening disruptors and curious minds. It's happening. 

Philip predicts most data centers will be in space within 10 years. 

We agree. 

Please enjoy the show.

Cheers, 

Mark & Jeremy.

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Other ways to connect with us:

• ⁠Listen to every podcast⁠

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Philip Metzger spent 30 years working at NASA. He's knows a lot about the physical, economic, and political problems of building space stations and starting lunar economies.

From rocket exhaust blasting moon dust across the lunar surface, NASA’s role as an anchor customer, lunar mining, asteroid mining and helium-3, to landing pads, microgravity manufacturing, and the economics of moving AI data centers into space.. we get a crash course in the economics of space.

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Take your Thinking Further. 

Stephen Hawking Center: https://sciences.ucf.edu/physics/microgravity/lab/

Philip X: https://x.com/drphiltill

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Other ways to connect with us:

• ⁠Listen to every podcast⁠

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Email: [email protected]

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TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Introduction

(01:26) NASA's Role

(06:45) Rocket Exhaust on Lunar Soil

(14:39) Geopolitical Challenges

(23:39) Democratizing Space

(33:45) Emergent Forces

(34:08) Exploring Microgravity

(38:39) Rapid Fire

(44:02) The Future of Humans and Technology

Drone delivery is not about filling the sky with quadcopters, Etienne Louvet argues.

It is about rebuilding light-cargo logistics for places where vans, ferries, roads, and traditional delivery networks struggle: islands, remote communities, rural routes, hospitals, offshore platforms, and hard-to-reach homes.

The conversation explains how Iona Drones is building fixed-wing VTOL aircraft for autonomous last-mile delivery, carrying parcels under 20 kg over long distances while navigating BVLOS flight rules, aviation regulation, weather, privacy, detect-and-avoid software, manufacturing, and the economics of making drone logistics cheaper than sending a vehicle for one parcel.

Enjoy.
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Other ways to connect with us:

• ⁠Listen to every podcast⁠

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• Follow us on ⁠X⁠

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• Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠

• Read our ⁠Substack⁠

• Email: [email protected]

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TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Intro 

(01:50) How much weight can drones carry

(02:29) What counts as light cargo 

(06:51) How drone regulations actually work 

(13:04) Self-assessment and risk management 

(14:12) Getting municipalities to say yes 

(16:38) Weather problems 

(19:48) Where Iona Drones is now 

(20:58) Maximizing payload capacity 

(21:58) Drone design choices 

(23:27) BVLOS

(26:08) Drones and privacy

(30:45) Drones in existing logistics 

(35:02) Where autonomous delivery is headed 

(39:30) Technology and human progress

Can you use AI to think better or think more critically? Philosopher Pia Lauritzen says no. The second we give up to the shortcut use AI, we are letting go of the very basic condition that forces us to think.

When we ask if machines can think, the first question should be: why do humans think? Why do we think?

For Pia, it is fairly simple. We think because we know there is something we do not know. We have a problem. There is a gap. A gap between what I know and what I want to know. 

So I have to start thinking. That is why I ask these questions and that is why I put up with this pain in my head of trying to figure something out that I do not know.

The machine does not have that problem. It does not know that it does not know. 

It is like an animal. 

It does not know that it does not know. 

Of course it is a matter of how you understand thinking. But if you consult the old thinkers and not just the engineers and technologists, then you will have a really hard time finding anyone who would say that a machine could ever think. 

And if it cannot think itself, why should it be able to help us think? We are the only ones who know how to do that.

This is the core problem. AI feels helpful. It removes the discomfort of not knowing where to start. It fills the blank sheet. But that discomfort is not a bug. 

That discomfort is the feature. That discomfort is what thinking is.

And it is at this point that I am reminded of the scene in Con Air. Define irony.

Please enjoy the show.

Cheers, 

Mark & Jeremy.

PS: Subscribe so other curious minds like you can find our channel.

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Other ways to connect with us:

• ⁠Listen to every podcast⁠

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• Follow us on ⁠X⁠

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• Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠

• Read our ⁠Substack⁠

Email: [email protected]