 Good morning. My name is Jose Ocasio Christian. I'm the chairman of the board of the Cales Foundation and I'm thrilled and I'm excited to have a great discussion here in the next 10 or 15 minutes with Mr. Kevin O'Connell, the founder and CEO of a space economy rising LLC. Also, as many of you know, he is the former director of the Office of Space Commerce in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Kevin, welcome. Really excited to have this conversation with you. Please give us a introduce yourself to the audience that may not know you as well and a background in the space sector. Thanks, Jose. Hello, everyone. Again, I'm Kevin O'Connell. I'm the former director of the Office of Space Commerce at the U.S. Department of Commerce. In that role, I served as the executive branch advocate on behalf of the space commercialization and the U.S. space industry and I was very proud to do that. My career in the space sector dates back almost four decades when I started to look at the emerging markets for commercial remote sensing, satellite imagery, and I've written a number of articles and op-eds over the years on that topic, including my co-edited volume, commercial observation satellites at the leading edge of global transparency that we wrote in 2000 and that looked at the emerging markets for satellite imagery, but also some of the links to security and relations with other sectors of the economy. Kevin, thank you for that response. And what I want to do is drive into some of the questions to help our audience understand better about how you're seeing this space economy and commercialization. From your viewpoint, what are the drivers of the space economy? And how do we move from what you and I both know is a government-driven sector to a more diversified commercially focused sector? Thank you. Great question. Governments are still very, very important in setting national priorities and stretching the boundaries of scientific exploration and actually being a customer of commercial space services. But the real driver of the space economy is imagination and entrepreneurship. This is a key driver. From my time in commerce, American entrepreneurship is broad, deep, and dynamic, and we see entrepreneurs emerging in different areas. Those that want to do commercial functions that exist already in a better way because they have a different technology or they have a business model that's different, people that want to invent new capabilities for space exploration or for creating exciting new services on Earth. We're also starting to see a whole new wave of entrepreneurship in areas related to what I'll call the infrastructure space, whether it be certain technical enablers of space or those that want to train, feed, and house the next generation of spacefaring travelers. And those will be some government people, but they'll also increasingly be just private citizens as well. Very exciting aspect of it. Other factors of course in the space economy, private finance and insurance are key enablers in this area. This is an area which has become much more diversified in recent years. Finance has become much more savvy about what makes a commercial space business successful and how to invest it in many, many different ways, but also the wide range of talent that is needed. Talent is very, very important in the space economy. We know for sure that we're going to need as much technical talent as we can for the hard science and engineering pieces of the space economy, but we also know we're going to need artists. We're going to need business people. We're going to need economists and 100 other fields in order to take full advantage of the space economy. Again, either in terms of exploration or in terms of creating new services here on Earth. Now, Jose, you asked an important question. How do we make sure that this is moving from one sector to another? As people on this discussion actually probably already know, over 80% of what is counted as the global space economy today, roughly $400 billion, is actually commercial in nature. But I think this is an area where our nations need to collectively explore what does the term commercialization mean. But the reality is that commercial activities are growing quite substantially and they're also diversifying. And we're seeing a lot of dimensions of this and we'll talk about it more as we go on. A lot of dimensions that are bringing capabilities to market faster and in a more diverse way. Tremendous amount of imagination out there about things that can be done in and from space. Kevin, I want to thank you for that. And I want to summarize a lot of what you said here. The first part is when you're looking at commercialization, there's that commercialization with the functions of government that you just discussed. And then there are new, I wouldn't say new, they are growing effects of the consumerism as a result of the commercial market. And commercialization takes on both. So, but neither of those can be successful without the right workforce development. And as you know, we don't have, you know, if we don't have enough people from the jobs to filling the jobs, it becomes really difficult. And it has to become a global play, because not one country has it all. They are people around the world that can help with it. So with that in mind, what do you see as the role of market and commercial competition growing in that space economy you and I just described? Well, sure, let me let me go back though to a point you just made a minute ago before I answer the question. You know, I think everyone here recognizes that that our populations, our people don't always recognize how much they're using space in the course of the day, whether it be for checking the weather, whether it be for navigation purposes, or even some of the more sophisticated services that we see going on. And that's the paradox of space. On the one hand, you know, making much, much more use of it than ever before. And that trend is going to continue. But at the same time, not explicitly understanding how important space is. And we'll come to that a little later when we talk about things like space safety. In terms of market competition from the American perspective, this is very, very important. There are a number of ideas. There are many ideas about space exploration and the creation of new services here on Earth. And the best ones typically survive based on competition, you know, who can do something better, who can do something more efficiently, and who can meet customer needs more efficiently and more effectively. You know, what we are witnessing in the global market is the application of commercial efficiencies and business practices to traditional government space acquisition models. And what's that that is having the result of is bringing capabilities to market a lot faster and a lot cheaper and in many ways creating much more diversity. And that's based on competition. People who can actually understand how they have to be the most efficient in the market in order to provide a service at the best possible price and with the greatest possible value to the customer. Very important to mention. Kevin, thank you. I like to transition from that point that you just made into a discussion about your personal perspectives of Chinese companies. Because obviously in your previous job, the global competition for assets and consumerism and all these things that you just presented. Obviously, it was your job to look at China to look at other countries around the world and how they perform or not performing and how that brings to our interests, either impacts them positively or it challenged our interests. So, but, but I'm asking you a personal question at this time. From your personal perspective, how does Chinese companies, you feel can fully participate in the space economy. And what do you think that relationship would be now having participated with the government for a number of years for many years, not just in space commerce or one of the rules as well. We're sure. So let's start with the Chinese government. Obviously, the Chinese government has demonstrated a very serious commitment to space activities, including activities that are often described as commercialization. And, you know, again, in my experience talking on a limited basis with Chinese officials, we have a very different understanding of what the phrase commercialization means, the role of the government, the role of private sector, the role of private finance and others that we've already talked about. And that's something that's definitely worth exploring in a dialogue like the one we're part of here today. US companies will, of course, be both competitors and potential partners in the market. Our business models are very, very different. Typically, US companies partner where there's both a technical and a business value associated with it. In other words, as we would like to say, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and where their partners bring in world-class technology and established or recognized business practices. And so those business practices include things like open contracting, transparent contracting and finance, intellectual property protection, very, very important in this area. And, you know, other issues that I would describe under the category of what constitutes fair competition, those early discussions are the basis for potentially US companies partnering in the market. It's taking me a second and I'm here and I'm going to leave that there to recording because that was a lot and I want to capture it because I want to capture it for the audience. The first one that you brought up is language and the definition of commercialization. And what I'm seeing from the other discussions, obviously we're prepared for this, but it's those definitions that clarify the perceptions of how we're going to get to clear business practices. And that includes everything from partnerships, from what is fair competition for those matters. And I think it's really interesting that while most folks, as you and I know, most folks around the world and news media will focus on the technology growth, in the technology and the advancements of policy, you know, the advancement of dialogue to to Dennis, between the businesses or in forums that can do that is so empirical. So so I'm glad we broke that up because what I want to do is break through our last question. And it wraps a lot of this discussion we just had. What now that you've spoken a little bit about all of this, how do you see this US China dialogue dialogue has changed related to commercialization. I shared some of it, trying to capture your words, but I think in your own words is better. And then of course, you having your familiarity with government, you the role of track to diplomatic discussions, not just one but the many in how that works to support commercial growth. So it's a great question. Obviously, the larger strategic relationship between our two nations will shape the discussion about space and the space economy. There's there's no doubt about that. And so it will it will set the context for the types of issues we discuss the depth of the conversation, etc. I believe that the track to is potentially very important for us to explore these concepts of commercialization. And again, the role of the government in commercialization, you know how how the government sustains it over time or not. Again, in the United States, we you and I would go into our garage and say, let's create a company and we may rely on government funding or we may not rely on government funding. And you know, at that point, we could have a completely different business as a parallel path to one that necessity by necessity involves the government as a funder. Obviously, in the governance sense, there's, you know, there's a different story there. I think there are basis for commercialization discussions in the track to dialogue, and even some first step conversations about issues like space safety, for example, something that I spent a lot of time on during my two and a half years of the process. So slow steps, early steps don't mean no steps, but obviously there are some discussions that we believe are worth having within a track to dialogue and I'm happy to be part of that discussion here today. Kevin, you summarized it perfectly and I want to thank you for for the sharing and the comments. Is there anything we missed that you care to share as we assigned off on this dialogue. Well, we see that the future of space is overwhelmingly commercial. And so we think this dialogue is very, very important. Governments are going to continue to play a very important role as well. But the imagination and the entrepreneurship, the creation of these new services that I've discussed is largely and overwhelmingly coming out of the private sector. And I don't see anything that's actually going to change that trend for the next couple of decades. Very exciting times ahead. Kevin, I want to thank you for your time and your service to the US in a variety of roles. And now in your private sector roles. Best of luck on what you're going to be doing in the future. And we hope to see where this conversation goes. So thank you so much. Thank you, Jose. And again, thank you to the careless foundation and to secure world foundation for inviting me to this discussion. Thank you.