Valley of Depth

By Payload | Ignition | TectonicBusiness Investing

Valley of Depth episodes

March 25Autonomy at the Edge, with Scott Sanders (CGO of Forterra)
Scott Sanders has seen the defense tech industry from just about every angle. As a Marine officer, he watched promising capability stall somewhere between a program office and the field. As an early employee at Anduril, he helped build one of the companies that bet it could do better.
Now, as Chief Growth Officer at Forterra, he's making that same bet on autonomous ground systems, a market that's been promised for years and is only now being put to the test. In this episode of Valley of Depth, we press Scott on what's actually working, what isn't, and where the hype is running ahead of the hardware.

We get into:
Why the gap between a cool tech demo and a real defense business is wider than most founders think

What investors still fundamentally misunderstand about defense timelines and business model risk

Why most defense startups won't become primes and what the ones that do have in common

How Forterra is approaching autonomy, mesh networking, and distributed operations at the tactical edge

What it looks like to actually get capability to operators, not just into a program of record

The procurement dysfunction that everyone in the room knows about and almost no one fixes

• Chapters •
00:00 – Intro
00:50 – Sun Valley
03:14 – Scott’s time in the Philippines
09:04 – Why Scott joined Anduril
14:01 – Working with the government: then vs now
17:34 – What investors should look for in defense tech
20:27 – Forterra in 2022 vs 2026
25:12 – Forterra’s products today
26:39 – Autonomy-as-a-service model
30:13 – Hardware and software
32:36 – Commercial end users
33:52 – Why acquire mesh networking from goTenna?
37:27 – Current programs and contracts
40:55 – Fully autonomous systems in contested environments
44:30 – Hiring in a competitive defense tech industry
47:25 – How many SVDG companies could become primes?
47:52 – Exciting technologies for investors
51:46 – Forterra in 7–8 years
53:34 – What Scott does for fun

• Show notes •
Forterra’s website — https://www.forterra.com/
Forterra’ socials — https://x.com/ForterraDrive=
Mo's socials — https://x.com/itsmoislam
Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace
Ignition’s socials — https://twitter.com/ignitionnuclear /
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ignition-nuclear/
Tectonic’s socials — https://twitter.com/tectonicdefense / https://www.linkedin.com/company/tectonicdefense/
Valley of Depth archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/

• About us •
Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.
Payload: www.payloadspace.com

Tectonic: www.tectonicdefense.com

Ignition: www.ignition-news.com
57 min
March 20The Early Innings, with Mark Boggett (CEO of Seraphim)
In this episode of Valley of Depth, we sit down with Mark Boggett, CEO of Seraphim Space, to break down one of the biggest questions in the industry right now: are we still early in the space economy, or has the easy money already been made?
Mark has built one of the first dedicated space-focused venture firms, before the category became institutional. We discuss how the market has evolved from uncertain capital availability to a more mature ecosystem where large-scale funding is now expected and why that shift is unlocking a new phase of growth.
We cover:
Why the space economy is still in its early innings of value creation

How capital availability has transformed space investing over the last decade

Seraphim’s strategy and why they avoid launch, space travel, and lunar markets

The rise of European defense demand and the emergence of “neo-primes”

How space companies are becoming real, profitable businesses

Where the market may be overbuilt vs. underinvested

Why vertically integrated constellations remain the core opportunity

What the next phase of the space economy looks like

• Chapters •
00:00 – Intro
00:38 – What current moment are we in in the space economy?
01:33 – Mark's history with the space industry and the changes he's seen
02:50 – What prompted Mark to start taking bets on the space industry?
07:52 – Early pushback in space investing
10:27 – How do you convince investors to invest in space companies if the biggest company (SpaceX) is still not public?
13:27 – Seraphim's strategy for their funds
21:23 – Seraphim's competitive moat
24:52 – Where does Seraphim go from a founder's focused approach to a more guided one?
30:31 – IC EYE
36:34 – Space investment trends that Mark sees in Europe
41:54 – US vs Europe future investments
45:50 – Understanding American vs European aerospace company valuations
47:56 – Where are we currently overbuilt?
54:34 – Why doesn't Seraphim invest in the Moon and Mars and will this change?
01:00:00 – What Mark does for fun

• Show notes •
Seraphim’s website — https://seraphim.vc/
Seraphim’s socials — https://x.com/seraphim_space
Mo's socials — https://x.com/itsmoislam
Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace
Ignition’s socials — https://twitter.com/ignitionnuclear /
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ignition-nuclear/
Tectonic’s socials — https://twitter.com/tectonicdefense / https://www.linkedin.com/company/tectonicdefense/
Valley of Depth archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/

• About us •
Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.
Payload: www.payloadspace.com

Tectonic: www.tectonicdefense.com

Ignition: www.ignition-news.com
1 hr 2 min
February 25Networks in Motion, with Brian Barritt (CTO of Aalyria)
In this episode of Valley of Depth, we dive into Aalyria’s newly announced $100 million raise at a $1.3 billion valuation with cofounder and CTO Brian Barritt and unpack why investors are betting big on the future of networks that don’t sit still.
Aalyria is building two core technologies born inside Google: Spacetime, a software orchestration layer designed to manage networks in motion, and Tightbeam, a laser communications system delivering fiber-like speeds through the atmosphere. Together, they aim to solve one of the hardest infrastructure challenges in aerospace and defense: how to coordinate satellites, aircraft, drones, ships, and ground systems into a seamless “network of networks.”
The conversation spans laser physics, diffraction challenges in space-to-ground links, feeder link bottlenecks in mega-constellations, and why routing data across moving infrastructure is fundamentally different than routing across fixed networks.
We cover:
Why Aalyria’s $100M raise signals a shift from R&D to deployment

What “network in motion” really means and why it’s so hard

How laser communications can reach 100 gigabits per second through atmosphere

The technical challenge of Earth-to-space vs. space-to-Earth optical links

Why interoperability has been a 40-year ambition inside the DoD

How open APIs could become the connective tissue for JADC2 and beyond

What resilience and roaming look like in hybrid satellite architectures

Why optical ground stations require orchestration software to scale

• Chapters •
00:00 - Intro
00:59 – The history of Aalyria
02:47 – Aalyria's Spacetime
06:09 – Building the connective software stack that links all of Aalyria's technology together
07:12 – The non-geostationary network problem
11:12 – The rebirth of Loon Technology
14:50 – How Tightbeam ties in to Aalyria
17:21 – 100gb/s through the atmosphere
19:42 – Brian's mandate as CTO when Aalyria forms
20:37 – State of Tightbeam at formation of Aalyria
22:17 – Why can't other companies do what Spacetime does yet?
26:05 – The significance of having different architectures with different source codes talk to each
other without modification
28:21 – How Aalyria integrates a new customer's network
31:05 – What is a long distance for Tightbeam and customer reaction to demos
32:48 – Who has Aalyria surprised the most with their demos?
34:28 – What has prevented the government from making a network of networks?
39:14 – Why wouldn't a space version of the Tightbeam terminal not work?
42:01 – How Aalyria is thinking about customer adopting Tightbeam
45:15 – Aalyria in the defense industry
47:05 – Aalyria's commercial aspects
48:30 – Aalyria's latest investment round
51:39 – Next milestones
53:00 – What keeps Brian up at night?
54:00 – Longterm vision for Aalyria
56:16 – What does Brian do for fun?

• Show notes •
Aalyria’s website — https://www.aalyria.com/
Mo's socials — https://x.com/itsmoislam
Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace
Ignition’s socials — https://twitter.com/ignitionnuclear /
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ignition-nuclear/
Tectonic’s socials — https://twitter.com/tectonicdefense / https://www.linkedin.com/company/tectonicdefense/
Valley of Depth archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/

• About us •
Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.
Payload: www.payloadspace.com

Tectonic: www.tectonicdefense.com

Ignition: www.ignition-news.com
59 min
February 11Thermal Breakthrough, with David Tearse (CEO of Karman Industries)
In this episode of Valley of Depth, we sit down with David Tearse, co-founder and CEO of Karman Industries, to explore a piece of the AI boom that rarely gets attention: thermal infrastructure.
As hyperscale data centers grow into multi-gigawatt “AI factories,” the limiting factor is no longer just chips or capital — it’s how efficiently we can move and reject heat. David explains how Karman’s Heat Processing Unit (HPU) reimagines cooling from first principles, bringing aerospace-grade turbomachinery and modern power electronics to a decidedly unglamorous but critical layer of the AI stack.
The conversation moves from the physics of heat to the politics of data centers, and ultimately to why thermal efficiency may become a quiet national security advantage.
We discuss:
Why thermal management—not chips—may be the next bottleneck in the AI stack
How Karman’s HPU replaces traditional chillers and dry coolers outside the data center
How much additional compute Karman can unlock from the same power input
Why CO₂ refrigerant de-risks data center builds from a regulatory standpoint
How Karman thinks about reliability, uptime, and “aerospace-style” engineering
Why data centers are becoming a national security issue
Where Karman could expand beyond data centers—nuclear, geothermal, and beyond
…and much more.
• Chapters •
00:00 – Intro
00:51 – Elara Nova ad
01:21 – Karman Industries mascot
02:28 – How would David describe himself?
05:01 – The original insight that became Karman Industries
06:31 – What do people underestimate about thermal management?
07:26 – The story behind the name
08:21 – How David and co-founder CJ Karla ended up working together
11:15 – Why is now the right time to be solving thermal management?
15:13 – Where does the heat go today?
16:31 – Energy usage for compute vs cooling
17:32 – Energy Savings with Karman's heat processing units (HPUs)
18:05 – Why C02?
20:48 – Replacing vs integration
21:37 – Regulatory side
24:42 – Karman's customer pipeline
26:33 – Reliability
28:59 – Engineering challenges
30:39 – What comes next for Karman
31:55 – Is thermal management a national security issue?
33:21 – David's thoughts on rerouting heat
36:23 – HPUs in space
37:58 – The company culture that allows for building relaiable solutions quickly
44:35 – Milestones for Karman in the next couple of years
47:00 – What does David do for fun?

• Show notes •
Karman’s website —https://www.karmanindustries.com/
David’s socials — https://x.com/7earse
Mo's socials — https://x.com/itsmoislam
Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace
Ignition’s socials — https://twitter.com/ignitionnuclear /
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ignition-nuclear/
Tectonic’s socials — https://twitter.com/tectonicdefense / https://www.linkedin.com/company/tectonicdefense/
Valley of Depth archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/

• About us •
Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.
Payload: www.payloadspace.com
Tectonic: www.tectonicdefense.com
Ignition: www.ignition-news.com
49 min
February 04SpaceX Road to IPO, with Jack Kuhr (Research Director of Payload Pro)
In this episode of Valley of Depth, we sit down with Jack Kuhr, Payload Pro’s Research Director, to unpack what SpaceX has become on the eve of what could be the largest IPO in history. What began as a launch company has evolved into a vertically integrated platform spanning launch, satellites, global connectivity, and potentially AI and compute in space.This is the first in a series of conversations where we’ll regularly update our audience on the latest developments shaping SpaceX and its impact on the broader space economy.
We discuss:
How Starlink has overtaken launch as SpaceX’s primary growth engine
Why Starlink’s constraints are more likely terminals, regulation, and physics—not satellites
How international markets are powering the next phase of Starlink’s expansion
Why aviation and maritime are the most underappreciated Starlink verticals
Whether Starlink “Lite” can meaningfully take share from traditional ISPs
How Starship and Starlink V3 could upend Falcon 9 economics
Why the SpaceX–xAI merger points to a fully integrated space, connectivity, and AI stack
• Chapters •
00:00 - Intro
01:09 - Jack's role at Payload and what is it
04:06 - Jack's revenue model for SpaceX
08:06 - Launch and Starlink
09:23 - Is SpaceX privatizing launch or is there less demand?
12:07 - Starlink's current revenue runway trajectory
14:31 - 2026 projects and potential growth pains
16:41 - Starlink constraints
19:00 - US vs international customers
19:53 - Starlink terminal sales
21:10 - What is currently under appreciated about Starlink's verticals?
22:52 - Starlink Light
24:34 - Competition from GEO broadband providers
33:07 - Starship
34:45 - When will Starlink launch their first commercial, non Starlink payloads
38:22 - Is SpaceX serious about space based data centers?
42:06 - SpaceX x Tesla x xAI

• Show notes •
Payload Pro’s website — https://pro.payloadspace.com/
Jack’s socials — https://x.com/JackKuhr
Mo's socials — https://x.com/itsmoislam
Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace
Ignition’s socials — https://twitter.com/ignitionnuclear /
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ignition-nuclear/
Tectonic’s socials — https://twitter.com/tectonicdefense / https://www.linkedin.com/company/tectonicdefense/
Valley of Depth archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/

• About us •
Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.
Payload: www.payloadspace.com
Tectonic: www.tectonicdefense.com
Ignition: www.ignition-news.com
48 min
January 28Future of Signal Intelligence (LIVE @ NYSE), with John Serafini (CEO of Hawkeye 360)
We’re excited to launch a very special edition of Valley of Depth, recorded live from the historic vault deep beneath the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Going forward, we’ll be returning to the NYSE each month to host a series of conversations from the heart of global capital markets with the leaders building the next generation of critical infrastructure.
In this installment, we sit down with John Serafini, CEO of Hawkeye 360, a company quietly reshaping how governments see and understand the world. While many space companies focus on imagery or communications, Hawkeye 360 is doing something different: listening. By mapping radio-frequency emissions from orbit, the company is turning invisible signals into actionable intelligence, revealing patterns of human behavior that imagery alone can’t capture.
We discuss:
How space-based RF mapping changes what “global transparency” actually means
Why signals intelligence is uniquely tied to human activity and intent
How Hawkeye’s multi-satellite architecture enables precise geolocation at scale
What it takes to detect dark vessels, GPS jamming, and spoofing in near real time
Why RF data, software, and proprietary signal libraries form a durable competitive moat
How commercial SIGINT is becoming core infrastructure for governments globally
• Chapters •
00:00 - Intro
00:58 - What makes Hawkeye 360's satellites so special?
02:45 - Why is having RF capability important today
04:51 - What were the limitations of RF satellites before now?
06:38 - Why are there so few companies in the RF space?
08:35 - What Hawkeye is able to detect
13:46 - Satellites in a trio formation
17:21 - Fingerprinting points of interest
18:14 - What can Hawkeye 360 track?
21:33 - GPS jamming and spoofing
22:19 - How John got into this business
24:37 - Market size for RF capability
28:00 - Data licenses
30:56 - Next steps for Hawkeye's revisit rate
32:33 - China's capabilities
33:17 - Why did Hawkeye 360 acquire Innovative Signal Analysis (ISA)?
34:28 - Buy vs build
36:43 - John's stance on datacenters in space
37:55 - Investor confidence around Hawkeye
39:50 - The impact of SpaceX going public
42:02 - Is 2026 the year Hawkeye goes public?
44:59 - Will countries start building RF shields?
45:39 - Ultimate goal of Hawkeye
• Show notes •
Hawkeye’s website — https://www.he360.com/
Hawkeye’s socials — https://x.com/hawkeye360
Mo's socials — https://x.com/itsmoislam
Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace
Ignition’s socials — https://twitter.com/ignitionnuclear /
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ignition-nuclear/
Tectonic’s socials — https://twitter.com/tectonicdefense / https://www.linkedin.com/company/tectonicdefense/
Valley of Depth archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/
• About us •
Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.
Payload: www.payloadspace.com
Tectonic: www.tectonicdefense.com
Ignition: www.ignition-news.com
48 min
January 21Data Center Debate, with Philip Johnston (CEO of Starcloud)
As constraints on energy, water, and permitting collide with exploding demand for AI and compute, a once-fringe idea is moving rapidly toward the center of the conversation: putting data centers in space. Starcloud believes orbital infrastructure isn’t science fiction—it’s a necessary extension of the global compute stack if scaling is going to continue at anything close to its current pace.
Founded by Philip Johnston, Starcloud is building space-based compute systems designed to compete on cost, performance, and scale with terrestrial data centers. The company has already flown a data center–grade GPU in orbit and is now working toward larger, commercially viable systems that could reshape where and how AI is powered.

We discuss:
How energy and permitting constraints are reshaping the future of compute
Why space-based data centers may be economically inevitable, not optional
What Starcloud proved by running an H100 GPU in orbit
How launch costs, watts-per-kilogram, and chip longevity define the real economics
The national security implications of who controls future compute capacity

• Chapters •
00:00 - Intro
00:50 - The issue with data centers
02:20 - Explosion of the data center debates
04:58 - Philip's 5GW data center rendering and early conceptions of data centers in space at YC
08:16 - Proving people wrong
11:17 - The team at Starcloud today
12:29 - Competing against SpaceX's data center
14:42 - Sam Altman's beef with Starlink
16:52 - Economics of Orbital vs Terrestrial Data Centers by Andrew McCallip
21:33 - Where are we putting these things?
23:50 - Latency in space
25:59 - Political side of building data centers
28:36 - Starcloud 1
30:16 - Space based processors
30:51 - Shakespeare in space
32:00 - Hardening an Nvidia H100 against radiation and making chips in space economical
34:43 - Cooling systems in space
36:01 - How Starcloud is thinking about replacing failed GPUs
38:46 - The mission for Starcloud 2
40:05 - Competitors outside of SpaceX
40:49 - Getting to economical launch costs
44:35 - Will the next great wars be over water and power for data centers?
46:25 - What keeps Philip up at night?
47:11 - What keeps Mo up at night?

• Show notes •
Starcloud’s website — https://www.starcloud.com/
Philip’s socials — https://x.com/PhilipJohnston
Mo's socials — https://x.com/itsmoislam
Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace
Ignition’s socials — https://twitter.com/ignitionnuclear /
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ignition-nuclear/
Tectonic’s socials — https://twitter.com/tectonicdefense / https://www.linkedin.com/company/tectonicdefense/
Valley of Depth archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/

• About us •
Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.
Payload: www.payloadspace.com
Tectonic: www.tectonicdefense.com
Ignition: www.ignition-news.com
50 min
January 14Sovereignty in Orbit, with Hamdullah Mohib (CEO of Orbitworks)
As more nations realize that space is no longer just a scientific domain but a foundation of economic power and national security, a new question is emerging: who will actually build the infrastructure that underpins it? Orbitworks believes the answer lies in sovereign capability: designed locally, manufactured locally, and operated with speed and control.
Founded by Hamdullah Mohib, a former national security advisor and diplomat who spent years operating at the highest levels of geopolitics, Orbitworks sits at an unusual intersection of statecraft and space manufacturing. Based in Abu Dhabi, the company is building one of the region’s first commercial satellite manufacturing facilities and developing Altair, a native constellation designed to move beyond raw imagery and toward information-driven services for both sovereign and commercial customers.
We discuss:
How Orbitworks is building a commercial satellite industry from scratch in the UAE
The strategic logic behind flexible architectures over fixed hardware
How the Middle East is positioning itself as a serious node in the global space economy
What it takes to build talent, supply chains, and culture in a brand-new space ecosystem

• Chapters •
00:00 - Intro
00:59 - Hamdullah's journey from government and geopolitics to space
05:11 - What is Orbitworks?
06:25 - Partnerships with Orbitworks
08:43 - A joint venture
09:40 - Partnering with Loft Orbital
17:09 - Differences that founders experience in the Middle East
21:26 - Altair constellation
23:29 - Dual use commercial and government
26:34 - Building a facility in KEZAD
33:02 - Cultivating and nurturing talent
34:30 - How the Middle East is thinking about space
40:21 - Priorities of sovereign wealth funds
42:33 - Lessons in leadership
47:08 - Fundraising plans/goals
48:47 - Hamdullah's vision for space in the Middle East
50:46 - What excites Hamdullah the most about the space industry?

• Show notes •
Orbitwork’s website —https://www.orbitworks.space/
Mo's socials — https://twitter.com/itsmoislam
Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace
Ignition’s socials — https://twitter.com/ignitionnuclear /
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ignition-nuclear/
Tectonic’s socials — https://twitter.com/tectonicdefense / https://www.linkedin.com/company/tectonicdefense/
Valley of Depth archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/

• About us •
Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.
Payload: www.payloadspace.com
Ignition: www.ignition-news.com
Tectonic: www.tectonicdefense.com
57 min
January 08Grid From Above, with Marc Berte (CEO of Overview Energy)
We're back to kick off 2026!
While the world debates how to power the next era of compute, data centers, and industrial growth, Overview Energy is betting the answer is above us. The company is building infrastructure to beam power from space directly to Earth's grid.
Founded by Marc Berte, a nuclear and aerospace engineer who spent his career at the intersection of lasers, spacecraft, and high-energy systems, Overview is developing a constellation of satellites in geosynchronous orbit that absorb sunlight, convert it to near-infrared laser light, and transmit it to existing utility-scale solar projects on the ground. No new receivers required. By using wide-beam, passively safe transmission and off-the-shelf ground infrastructure, Overview aims to deliver dispatchable, redirectable power anywhere on the planet, turning space solar from science fiction into grid-scale reality.
We discuss:
Why space solar energy is finally viable after decades of false starts
How Overview's architecture avoids the in-space assembly problem entirely
How the economics work: matching cost curves to high-price markets first
Why GEO matters more than LEO for grid-scale power delivery
The role of launch cost as the critical external variable
Why space solar could be the demand flywheel that drives launch costs down for everyone
• Chapters •
00:00 - Intro
00:48 - The main problem Overview Energy is solving and why now
04:34 - Why didn’t Marc pursue nuclear fusion/fission?
05:34 - Incubated in Vast
06:32 - State of the art today?
09:58 - Acquisition and beaming down of solar energy and its efficiency
12:23 - Safety, regulatory, and precision constraints
14:54 - Competitive positioning in space solar power
16:20 - Economics of orbital energy vs terrestrial renewables
19:25 - How much more should someone be paying for orbital energy
23:46 - Who will be their first customers?
25:39 - What does the infrastructure look like?
27:39 - Biggest bottleneck for orbital energy
29:34 - Are current launch costs at the level needed for Overview Energy to kick off?
30:27 - Commercial traction
31:46 - Testing and evaluating these systems with the DoD and NASA
33:38 - Early demonstrations and proof points
35:21 - Overview Energy’s space-based demonstration
36:22 - Chinese competition
38:30 - How much more investment is needed to achieve the first gigawatt of power from space?
40:42 - Can terrestrial renewables meet power demands without space-based energy
43:41 - Grid of the future with orbital power in the picture
44:50 - The technical unknowns of orbital energy
48:24 - Powering other space assets
49:46 - What Marc is building when he’s not working at Overview Energy

• Show notes •
Overview Energy’s website — https://www.overviewenergy.com/
Mo's socials — https://twitter.com/itsmoislam
Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace
Ignition’s socials — https://twitter.com/ignitionnuclear /
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ignition-nuclear/
Tectonic’s socials — https://twitter.com/tectonicdefense / https://www.linkedin.com/company/tectonicdefense/
Valley of Depth archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/
• About us •
Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.
Payload: www.payloadspace.com
Ignition: www.ignition-news.com
Tectonic: www.tectonicdefense.com
52 min
December 19, 2025The Maneuver Gap, with Kerry Wisnosky (CEO of Quantum Space)
Kerry Wisnosky believes the future of space power will be decided by maneuverability. As satellites remain largely static, Quantum Space is building the infrastructure to move, persist, and operate across orbits, from LEO to cislunar space.
The company is developing Ranger, a six-metric-ton, high-delta-V spacecraft designed to operate for up to 15 years, host and deploy payloads, maneuver freely between orbits, and function as a refueling node. By combining chemical and electric propulsion into a single multimode system, Quantum aims to deliver both high-impulse mobility and long-duration efficiency—turning spacecraft from disposable assets into persistent infrastructure.
Inside the episode:
Why space remains a static domain and why maneuverability is the next decisive advantage
How Ranger reframes satellites from disposable assets into long-lived infrastructure
The strategic importance of fuel in orbit and why refueling changes mission economics
Why multimode propulsion is the “holy grail” for mobility across orbits
How life extension in GEO becomes the first commercial wedge
What zone defense in space could mean for missile defense architectures
Why Quantum was early to the market and why demand is finally catching up

• Chapters •
00:00 – Intro
00:45 – From Millennium to Quantum Space
02:56 – Key products at Millennium
03:57 – Evolution of Quantum's vision over the years
06:34 – Ranger
13:41 – 15 years of operational life
16:22 – Acquiring Phase Four
22:25 – Orbital mobility
23:37 – Ranger doubling as a fuel depot
25:51 – Target customers for Ranger
30:52 – Interceptors in space for Golden Dome
33:52 – Quantum Space's competitive edge
35:27 – Are other maneuverability companies viewing the problem the wrong way?
37:18 – Quantum Space's launches
39:24 – What does success look like for Quantum's first Ranger mission?
40:21 – Scaling and manufacturing
43:53 – Why should talent work at Quantum?
45:14 – Quantum Space in 5 years
47:35 – What did Kerry not expect while building Quantum?
48:49 – When is Quantum's next launch?

• Show notes •
Quantum Space’s website — https://www.quantumspace.us/
Mo's socials — https://twitter.com/itsmoislam
Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace
Ignition’s socials — https://twitter.com/ignitionnuclear /
https://www.linkedin.com/company/ignition-nuclear/
Tectonic’s socials — https://twitter.com/tectonicdefense / https://www.linkedin.com/company/tectonicdefense/
Valley of Depth archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/

• About us •
Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.
Payload: www.payloadspace.com
Ignition: www.ignition-news.com
Tectonic: www.tectonicdefense.com
51 min

About Valley of Depth

From the publisher's feed

Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), and Tectonic…