 We'll get started. Sorry we're starting late. We want to welcome our two alums today to talk about space and future careers in space and kind of it as growing potential especially if you're an IR major. Both Katie and Lauren were in our EPIC class as well as involved in, Catherine was involved in allies so we're excited to have them here today. And first I'm going to ask you guys to introduce yourselves. Kind of give your bio how you got to where you are and then we'll go from there. Okay so who wants to go first? Lauren all you. Okay I'll start. So hi. Yeah very excited to be here. Thank you so much Heather for inviting us to present. It's a particular honor I think to come back and present to IGL alumni, current students too maybe? Okay awesome yeah because being part of the IGL was so impactful for me when I was in school and it seems like it was just yesterday but it wasn't. But yeah so as Heather mentioned I was in EPIC 2009-2010 which is where I actually met Katie and graduated from Tufts in 2012 with a major in international relations and a concentration in international security. And so when I graduated kind of from there my kind of dream job was to join the Foreign Service so I went through the Foreign Service officer test a few times actually over the course of a few years that's starting sort of in my senior year. Obviously that's not what I'm doing now but I knew that you know even if that was what I was going to do it was a long process and I kind of needed to find a job in the meantime. And actually it was through another one of my EPIC classmates Jenny Dan Fenwick that I heard about this fellowship new sector alliance for the summer and I figured okay well I need something to do for the summer. I applied to that fellowship and I ended up actually working at Boston Public Schools in their district administration and I worked there for five years in community engagement. And so I like to joke that you know it was kind of like if you've seen the first episode of Parks and Rec where all the people are in a classroom like yelling at the you know city officials like that was kind of my living for five years was organizing community meetings and on you know controversial subject subjects in the district and getting feedback. And it was super interesting for five years not necessarily where I saw myself going when I graduated but I quickly realized that it was very dynamic very interesting and there was some things that were relevant to an international relations major. The politics are certainly interesting and certainly important and so there were definitely some parallels between some of the things that I think I learned and that job. But after five years there I kind of figured I learned everything that I was going to learn and started to look for something new and different. And so I built this five years of experience and education and was kind of feeling anxious to try something new. And that's when I actually heard from Katie about a position for this company called DreamUp as partnerships and outreach manager and DreamUp at the time was pretty new. I still feel like we're very new but a very small startup with the goal of getting students excited about STEM, so science and technology, engineering and math through space. And they basically had already said all these experiments at the International Space Station and we're giving students the opportunity to do this direct research on the space station and I thought that was really cool. And so I kind of just applied and joined and that's where I am. But I'll say the two jobs that I've really had in my career have been thanks to friends of mine from my upper class and I think that's really something special. And I'll get into more details I think as we get into it but that's kind of the brief overview. Great, great. Thanks. Katie? Yeah, so kind of echoing that thread I never anticipated that I would work in the aerospace industry. In fact, I, when I applied to Tufts, thought I wanted to be Secretary of Defense, which is, you know, that's a cool one can have I suppose. So I had spent, you know, all of the time trying to get into Tufts because I wanted to study IR and I wanted to be Secretary of Defense. And then I did one of the Tufts fellowships at the Pentagon, which I thought was my dream job. I was so excited about that fellowship. I got there and realized, uh-oh, this whole thing I've been planning this entire time is not what I thought it was. And had really kind of crisis of confidence thinking, you know, I've spent so much time building up to this, thinking I knew what I wanted to do, being kind of a type A person having a plan, only to get here and realize the plan wasn't what I wanted. So that was a really interesting moment. My senior year of Tufts coming back from the fellowship and realizing, okay, what do I actually want to do? So I guess I say all of that background because I am absolutely thrilled with where I'm at right now in my life. I have such an incredible career. I feel really passionate about what I do. And I never expected that when I was a senior at Tufts. So if anyone is in that moment in time having a crisis in confidence, it's totally normal. And anyone who says otherwise is probably faking it till they make it. So, you know, don't let anyone intimidate you into thinking that your plan isn't good enough or you don't have a plan. Everyone's trying to figure it out as they go. So anyway, how did I get into space? So the one piece of my fellowship I really enjoyed was negotiation. So I worked at the International Negotiations Office for the Department, the Under Secretary of Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics. So this is the wing of the Pentagon that tries to buy things that supports, you know, various defense policy efforts. So the negotiation piece I loved. So I was able to channel that into a position in management consulting and spent a lot of time really trying to hone negotiation skills by teaching different clients how to be better negotiators and helping them with some negotiation challenges. So I do think that management consulting experience was really helpful because it taught me very quickly about a lot of different types of industries, which allowed me to figure out, okay, here are the things I really do like and here are the things I don't because it was such a dynamic role we worked with so many different clients. So I was doing that living in Boston when another IGL alum and good friend of mine, Rebecca Dewey, reached out and she had been working at a small startup in San Francisco. And she said, hey, you know, we're this space company. We think we need a chief negotiator. And I kind of laughed because, you know, I was 24, 25 at the time. And the chief negotiator sounded a like a title I was not at all qualified for and be like kind of a made up Silicon Valley title. But they were going to fly me to San Francisco to meet with these people. So it's like, you know, it'll be a free trip. I'll eat some sushi. I'll hang out with Becca. It'll be a good time. So I went really fell in love with the team was like, wow, these people are a little bit crazy. But you know, my kind of crazy they're people who are trying to do really hard things with in a way that's never been done before with not a lot of money. So maybe I should try to figure this out for a while. And I'm young. So I don't want to take a big risk. So move to San Francisco and join the team that is called Spire, the company is called Spire Global, and really found love with the aerospace industry. And what I found in the aerospace industry is that like Lauren mentioned, everything that I had been building to at Tufts and was learning about was so directly applicable, because the aerospace industry is so international. So you have to work in various levels of regulations. Our team were the top engineers from all over the world, you know, we probably had 25 people represented on a team of 25 countries represented on a team of 46 people. So it was just a very global mindset from day one, and having the flexibility and experience and being comfortable with, you know, working with people who have different mindsets, different cultural expectations, I think was really something that I took for granted that I now realize I shouldn't have but Tufts very much taught me that. And from Spire, I really found my niche was working in ground communications, which means, you know, we have all of these antennas that exist in all of these countries all over the world. And for me, it's a very international process as well, because all of a sudden I'm managing and working with a team of people that are based in 23 different countries. So I've really found my niche here in the aerospace industry. And I feel like, you know, Lauren and I were chatting with Heather about aerospace. And I think there are a lot of times at Tufts where, you know, if I put myself back into the my shoes when I was a freshman, I would have never told you that I was qualified to work in the aerospace industry. You know, I'm not an engineer. I didn't take any more math aside from like, I think I took Calc one and didn't take Calc two, I don't even remember, frankly. And yet Lauren and I are both, you know, and I guess I can humble brag about about Lauren. We're very successful in our careers, not, you know, even though we would have said like, oh, we're not qualified for this. So I guess one of the big take homes, I hope that, you know, folks who are listening in on the webinar today is don't negotiate with yourself, don't write yourself out of something if you are excited about it. There are so many ways that you can contribute to a program. So even if it isn't a technical domain, not everyone on that team needs to be an engineer because there still need to be people who have good management skills with good project management skills, who have just, you know, generally good problem solving skills, good communication skills. So all of those pieces are so necessary in a space program, it, you know, you don't have to be the one that's turning wrenches on building the satellite, because it takes a whole lot more people to make a program actually fly. Great. Thank you. And then I think, if you guys could each talk more about your specific jobs now, then what you do and kind of also that kind of global aspect to them. So Lauren, do you want to go? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So I think I so it's kind of hard to describe what I do because and you know, in a day to day kind of role, because when I joined dream up, I was basically the second employee. And now I'm basically one of 1.5 full time employees. And I'll, I'll caveat that with I work hand in hand with a sister company. And so we get to utilize a lot of the resources and support from them. But technically, my company is quite small. So what that means is my day to day is almost everything there is to running a business. I was hired. Not almost everything, but a lot of things. But I was hired as partnership and outreach partnerships and our reach manager. So my big part of my job still is going out to conferences, presenting to people. Obviously, that's not really happening right now. So doing presentations like this. I'll say, you know, kind of going back to what Katie was saying, just last week, I was presenting to some high school students via zoom. But they're all local in DC. And I was talking to them about the possibilities in the space industry and showing them actually just a picture of mission control at Johnson Space Center and showing them the different roles that even sit in mission control and how there's even a comms person at, you know, the public affairs officer that sits there and coordinates communications. And that's probably not an engineer. So I get to kind of do things like that. But then kind of the bulk of my day to day, I would say is actually program and product development. So when I started in this role, we kind of had this thing going where we were helping send student experiments to the space station. And so my kind of piece of that role is really the customer facing key. So I'm working with customers and that's customers both in the US. So that might be everything from a teacher at a school or a school administrator to a space agency. So so we have kind of all these different levels of people that are working with us to send experiments, student experiments to the space station. So I'm, I'm helping them kind of through that process. And so kind of bringing them from start to finish of signing a contract to what does it take to get to the space station and where I kind of pass them off to an engineering team that leads them through the specifics of that. So we had that going. But then I started working actually to develop a couple of products that allow the space station to be more accessible to the to students. And so what that meant was building programs and products that students could interact with on earth without having to build their own physical thing and send it to the space station as what we call a payload. So instead of building their own physical thing, they're either interacting with a kit and getting to compare their results of their kit with the experiment that we already sent to the space station for them or you have a coding program that we're about to really formally announce very shortly. So I've gotten to do a lot of kind of figuring out okay, I literally have no experience and I've never built a product I've never built a kit for students. So I have to figure out what that takes and then figure out how to market it and figure out how to get get it into the hands of people. So it's a lot of that negotiating with vendors and customers and on a lot of calls a lot of the time. And those vendors and customers are also around the world. I mean, I have source products from, you know, China from the UAE. And actually, I'll mention to going to your question Heather about what my work internationally looks like my boss is actually in the UAE. So my boss is in Abu Dhabi. And he is there because that's where actually a lot of our business is. So one of our main customers right now is the United United Arab Emirates Space Agency. And so we work with them, we've worked with them on a number of things, but the main project for us has been a student experiment competition that we helped host in the UAE, or university students across the country were competing. And eventually, two student teams were chosen and they're flying their own experiments to the station. And so we've kind of worked hand in hand with the UAE Space Agency through this process of getting them to the space station. And they are determined to come to the United States in the fall to come see their experiment launch, despite the circumstance that we're in. So very excited for that to happen. But I'll say kind of going back to this thread of what does this have to how did I get from international relations to here, I think I kind of it dawned on me in the last maybe year, how much this job has allowed me to do those things that I thought I was going to be able to do when I was applying for the Foreign Service and, you know, eight, eight or nine years ago. Because I thought that was the way that I was going to get to, you know, work with with folks in governments, you know, work on this kind of international level negotiating deals, whatever that might look like. And I kind of realized that I ended up here in this strange, almost roundabout way. And I'm actually doing what I wanted to do the whole time, which I'm very happy about. And I, and, you know, in the case of the UAE Space Agency, too, they're running these programs because they're trying to develop the STEM sector in their country. Because they realize that this is where the future is. And so they are trying to inspire the youth and the UAE Emirati youth to pursue STEM so that they have, you know, careers and a whole industry that they can go into in the next couple of decades. And so I get to be part of that process. And that's super exciting. So I think that probably answers maybe most of the questions you asked a little bit roundabout, but No, that's great. Great. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Katie. Yeah. So, you know, I already mentioned case that so we are essentially space internet. So if anyone has ever watched like a SpaceX launch, and there's there's footage that shows the rocket at various stages, and you can kind of see the curvature of the earth. All of that data, you know, is being collected by a camera that's on the rocket. But then there's a radio that's sending that data back to earth. And we're the people with the big antennas were collecting that data, and then pushing it back through the terrestrial internet. So we operate antennas all over the world. We work with 96% of the satellites that were launched in the last year on the case that network. So what I really love about our work is that we're, we really span the full space industry. So we get to work with so many different missions, and we get to be a piece of the success of each mission. So I think that's really very fulfilling for me personally is to you know, anytime there's a big mission, you know, there were probably hundreds of people that were involved in making that a success, and to get to be a really small piece of pushing that, you know, technology forward or pushing the science forward is really, you know, really exciting. So you know, with this recent SpaceX launch, so that you know, the first time a commercial company has sent astronauts into orbit. That's amazing. Like that's a really cool thing to get to be a part of and you know, for me to tell my nephew who's six to be like, Hey, like this is happening in the world. And he just thinks it's normal, which I think is fantastic. But to be get to be part of an industry that is really on the cutting edge is very exciting, you know, and going to a rocket launch, I think Lauren can probably say is it's very exciting, like you just kind of channel this like five year old energy where you're like, wow, can feel it in your bones, like the launch is so powerful that it's hard not to be overcome by the experience. So there are a lot of pieces about the industry that are really exciting. And I think the piece that is the thread back to international relations is because the industry is so new, there is all of the policy in precedent is being set now in our lifetimes. So there have been a couple of interesting news pieces this summer. There is one in particular that Time Magazine released that talks about why do we have a space force. So I studied security studies under the IR major. I don't know if that still exists, but it was very much more of a defense type of focus. And that's what I had said to you guys was, you know, that was my passion. That's what I thought I wanted to do. I am regularly in conversations being requested from my opinion about, you know, how should we set up policy? How do we think about the militarization of space? How do we protect space assets? Why is space force important? And I think one piece of advice that I would share that I learned at the IGL is in our Epic class, there is a mantra of respect everyone, be in awe of no one. And, you know, that may be one of the single most important pieces of advice, and that was from Sherman actually, that I've ever heard because it allows me as a 29 year old woman, you know, who's trying to run a branch of a company to go into meetings with two, three star generals and not be intimidated. And I think I learned that from the IGL. So I always kind of say that to myself to psych myself up going into these meetings of it takes lots of different perspectives to solve a problem. And if you go into a problem space, you know, being intimidated by someone, you're not going to be helpful to them. So it's not about me, it's about what is the problem we're trying to solve here. And I think all of those fundamental pieces of wisdom I really picked up at the IGL, which has allowed me to be successful. In a domain I never thought was possible, but you know, similar to Laura and I feel like we're we're both doing exactly what we wanted to do, we just didn't know that it existed to do it in this way. You know, I think the jobs I knew about it Tufts were Foreign Service Officer, getting my PhD and trying to teach and be an academic, doing the NGO route, or going to work, you know, at the Pentagon, those were the four jobs that I thought were possible. And it's really funny to me now, because none of those jobs seem appealing to me. In fact, like, I know people have done those jobs, and I'm like, more power to you, people do need to do those jobs. It's important work, but it would not be a good fit for me. And somehow I've figured out a way to do all the things I wanted to do in a way that it's really fast moving, which government is not. So that was the piece I hated about the Pentagon is you could spend 40 years of your life and not accomplish anything. You know, goodness, like Lauren and I are in industry right now, where this year already things have been done that are possible now. The people would have said were impossible five years ago. So I think that's deeply motivating to me. Great. And Kate, can you talk a little bit about kind of like what your day to day is like? Yeah, sorry, Heather. So I spent a lot of time on the phone these days. I used to spend a lot of time traveling. So I run our US office for a company that's headquartered in Norway. So I do travel internationally quite a lot typically. So, you know, be in Norway about once every month or every other month, there are big international space conferences. So, you know, let's see, last year, I was in Bremen, I was supposed to speak in South Africa. So that's a piece that I think is really fulfilling to me as someone who likes to be out and about in the world is the industry is very global. So travel was typically a big part of my life now it's a lot of phone calls and video conferences. I kind of spend my day in two general functions. So one piece is managing an internal company. So they're, you know, are really brilliant people who are on my team, trying to make sure that they have the support that they need, that if they're blocked on something that I can help get them the resources and support they need. And then the other half is working with our missions that we support. So today, let's see, I've already been on the phone with the company that is going to send cargo, but then hopefully people as well to the ISS, so a different company than the one we already talked about. We're building a lunar network. So we're supporting the Artemis mission. So the human landing systems and the clips, the commercial lunar payload services. So, you know, I am thinking my husband thinks it's a little bizarre because I'll sit at the kitchen table now as that is home office. And he'll like walk through to grab a snack. And I'm like, just very, you know, excitedly talking about like when we go to the moon. And he's like, what do you even do? What is your day job? Like you talk about going to the moon as if that's a normal thing people do. So yeah, it's about half working with kind of an internal team and half working with missions that are trying to do really amazing, amazing things. And can you just explain Artemis? Just so Artemis. Yeah. Okay. So I know it's very familiar I know it's sorry. And it's so quickly how you get into jargon, you know, I used to like be able to name all the cities in Afghanistan, because that was our epic class. And of course, I probably can't do that. But so Artemis is the kind of US NASA space program goal of trying to have humans be boots on the ground or land on the moon in 2024. So it's a big program to try to kind of take what we learned in the Apollo era and what we've learned since and now apply it to the next generation of lunar settlements. But the idea now is that rather than going to the moon and then bringing things back for experiments or doing experiments there, can we actually start to settle on the moon? And we see that as kind of a stepping stone toward being able to inhabit potentially another planet. So this is kind of also in the same trajectory of development toward can we send humans to live on Mars, which, you know, that's a big goal to say out loud and seems like something that's in a sci fi movie. But Lauren and I are actively working with people every day who are who believe that's going to happen in our lifetime. And it's only a matter of when and how and who. Great. Great. Thank you. And Lauren, can you talk a little bit about, you know, one of the things for both of you actually, like the international cooperation piece, that's part of kind of the space program or the International Space Station, how you have to kind of engage cooperatively and then where you see competition potentially coming into them. Interesting. Also, you know, I think back to it was actually one of my colleagues from our sister company now who talked about this when I had my interview, and she actually when she was an undergrad majored in space and international relations, somehow a major minor. And the reason that she was so drawn to working in the space agency was because of the International Space Station and what a feat of international cooperation it is. I mean, I'm not sure there's many other examples that we can name right now of how Russia, the United States, and then Canada, the European Space Agency, the Japanese Space Agency, please don't tell me I'm forgetting one, are all cooperating day to day to make this massive thing happen. And they've been doing that for 20 years. There has been a space station above us in orbit with six humans on it that come from all those countries. And more, there was an Emirati Emirati astronaut or space flight participant, depending on who you ask on the space station just a few months ago. And so there's daily, I mean, I don't have a lot of insight into, you know, the co-op, the negotiations that happen between the space agencies. But I know that's a daily job. And there's actually a woman at NASA who is in charge of those corporations. And she's actually a Tufts alum as well. And maybe Katie, you know her name, but there's folks that are in that capacity. For me, kind of being in the private industry, it's really fascinating because the sister company that I work with day to day, they're called NanoRacks. And they were the first company to commercialize the space station. So what that meant was they were the first company to allow commercial access to the space station. So when they actually kind of put their hardware in the space station, which allowed researchers to kind of plug their experiments into that rack, they actually then had foreign governments coming to them saying, Hey, you guys can get me to the space station. Like, we've been trying to do this through NASA and never were able to. And they said, Yeah, we can. And then that foreign government was going to NASA being like, Is this legit? And NASA was like, Yeah, it is. And so that's actually the path through which a lot of foreign nations are, you know, researchers from other countries have gotten to the space station. And NanoRacks is actually really proud to say that they were the first company to have a Chinese payload on the space station. Which again, I'm not sure how many other realms you can think of where we have Chinese researchers next to American researchers side by side in one place. I think, you know, so I think there's just amazing things happening. And we're all kind of in this, like he said, very global world. And we're, and I get to be in this role of being a commercial company kind of outside of government that is just looking to help get kids excited about space. So when I'm looking at building our programs or building our reach, you know, that's that's the goal. So that's what brings me into talking to folks, you know, in the UAE, like I mentioned, or the United States, you know, and there's really no, no difference there. And we're all kind of working on this same path of, you know, how do we how do we reach more kids? The competition question. So where is their competition? Actually, you know, maybe the best example of where there's competition in the space world is really in what I see is in the various efforts to advance spaceflight. So I think just in the last month, we've seen China, the Emirates and the US send a rover to Mars. And so there's still this kind of like underlying space race happening, especially as developing or more recently developed nations, I should say, are advancing their space capabilities. It's kind of like this new shiny thing for a lot of countries, I think. And I say that in a good way. But, you know, countries are eager to prove their technical capabilities. And a really fun way to do that is to, you know, advance space exploration. So there's certainly kind of competition in that aspect. For me, where I work, I mean, we're excited about it all. I'm excited about, I think, you know, rising tide lifts all boats in this way. I mean, I'm eager to promote stamina and space no matter where it is. So even that competition is a good thing from my perspective. Yeah, it's a big question. So I think I probably sit in a little bit of a different section of the industry than Lauren since we are working with the Defense Department on missions. Competition is very real in the space industry right now in terms of there is a militarization of space. So China, just again, recently this summer has tested another anti-satellite missile capability. Missiles may be a bit of a loaded word, but an anti-satellite capability. And I think people on Earth, most people don't think about how much they rely on space-based platforms. So one example is the GPS satellite. So if you've ever used Google Maps, you're relying on GPS. So if those GPS satellites are shot down or more unfortunately exploded into lots of pieces that can cause issues for other satellites, you know, all of a sudden all of these tools that are built on GPS are no longer working. A lot of the communications platforms for deployed troops in various places in the world rely on a satellite communication link. A lot of our weather models. So we at KSAT support a mission called JPSS, which is a weather mission for NOAA. And, you know, we were told by one of the senior leaders at NOAA, you know, if we lose 5% of the data packets. So, you know, if we're only 95% to get in the link, which is, you know, it's a pretty high threshold actually, that weather data completely skews the model. And all of a sudden now NOAA is evacuating the wrong piece of coastline, which every mile of coastline that you evacuate for a hurricane is a million dollars of taxpayer money to evacuate it and how many thousands of people may live in that mile of coastline So it's just so incredibly important that that data comes down and we get all of it accurately. So those are the types of kind of, you know, platforms that we don't necessarily realize are space based platforms. So if you think about all of that impact, all of a sudden you have these really big fat juicy space targets that now all of these nations are showing that they can actually start to attack. And for the first time in history, we're starting to say, oh, we need to be really careful because if we lose these assets, we're going to be in a world of hurt. So that's why Space Force was created to try to make sure that we have a defensive capability in space to make sure that we are protecting our infrastructure. You know, there are all sorts of also like downstream things that are that sound a little crazy until you start to look at the numbers of how, you know, how possible they would be. So solar weather is a big area of research in our industry as well, because if there are really strong solar storms, that can take out the power electrical grid, which the current estimate is that if we had a strong solar storm, which is very possible, it would take us four years to rebuild our power grid. So imagine, you know, how chaotic it is right now to live life in our homes in a time of coronavirus. Imagine if you are now stuck in a world without electricity for four years, like, you know, there's no such thing as a zoom meeting. We're not talking to you about space anymore. We're not using our cell phones like we don't have air conditioning or heat. So maybe we're trying to relocate. So there are all sorts of kind of these big impacts that these space platforms are really, you know, helping us understand. And all of a sudden we also now have to think about how do we keep them safe. So definitely it is a competitive landscape right now. And that is, I think, a little scary for a lot of people who are trying to figure out how do you stay one step ahead to be protecting things that in the past we thought maybe we're just safe because they were in a place that was really hard to get to. One of the questions is what do you see for the future of space-related laws and regulation in the future? Katie, I feel like you should take that. Geez, that's a good one. So I work a lot with international law already because we operate two ground stations. One, we operate in Antarctica. So actually, I think the sweater I'm wearing says Troll Station Antarctica on the back because we have, we are the only commercial company that operates in Antarctica. So that's international territory. So we have to follow international law. We also operate at Svalbard, which is an archipelago that is at 80 degrees north. So it's almost the North Pole. And international law is really interesting because international law is really just someone signed a treaty in this case back in 1918, I believe it was, that said, you know, here are the things that we agree to. But of course, in 1918, space wasn't a real thing. There weren't space-based platforms. There weren't rockets. There weren't missiles. So all of a sudden, you have a really old document that you're trying to interpret with technology that was never foreseen. I mean, this is some of the challenges that we have in the U.S. domestic political system as well. You have old documents that didn't ever anticipate the type of problems that they'd need to address. So that's already hard on earth. And then you extrapolate that to the moon, which currently there's no real law about the moon except for there was a moon treaty that was signed, I believe, in the 70s, and you may know that better than I do. Okay, I think it was 1972. And so these countries signed on to the moon treaty and basically said, we're trying to understand, like, can anyone own the moon? Like, can you go there and put your flag on it? Do you then own it? And if we had space mining capability, could you then take resources back to earth and then you'd have like an ownership claim on them? All of that is still being figured out. And quite frankly, there's kind of a race right now because the regulators are trying to keep up as companies are trying to push the bounds of what's possible. So there are now multiple space mining companies, some of them have unfortunately gone bankrupt and have been reformed and are back under a new name. But there are very much our companies that are trying to commercialize space resources. And all of those conversations happen in multiple jurisdictions. So we have conversations in the US and the US sets policy. But like one example of this is six years ago, the US was trying to protect the domestic launch capability. So it was very protectionistic about saying we want US rockets to be the best rockets in the world. So if you're a US company, you have to use a US rocket. And the way they controlled that is they said, if you have a space object, you can't export it. So they would not allow export licenses. So this is the Department of Commerce that controls this. So companies like Spire, we decided, look, that's totally crazy. US rockets are really expensive. We can't afford one as a startup. So we're going to start manufacturing our satellites in the UK. So we went and built the whole factory in Glasgow to build our satellites so that we could launch with the PSLV, which was an Indian rocket that was much more affordable for us at the time. Because we made that move, the US government was like, ah, crap. They kind of called our bluff. So then they started allowing people to export US spacecraft to India so you could launch on the PSLV, which just effectively changed the monopoly that ULA had on the launch market. That also kind of was impacted by a company called SpaceX coming along and being very successful, which also brought prices down. And now all of a sudden we have a totally different law because companies were trying to make decisions to be able to figure out what was going to work best for them and trying to find arbitrage opportunities. And that's only in the last six years. So there's a ton of regulation that's changing right now around spectrum management. That's a whole other topic that I'm deeply interested in because I'm very nerdy about things at the international level. So there's a UN body called the ITU that I get very involved in. But it is very much the Wild Wild West where everyone is trying to figure out how things are progressing. Regulators are desperately trying to keep up. And frankly, they're often two, three, four years behind just because the industry is moving so quickly. So another question is about if you're thinking about going into this field or you majored in IR and you're looking at either security or something along those lines, where would you look and how would you start? What are the different options? And I guess one of those other things is because some of the students are, everybody's not from the US who's on. What's happening in other countries that could be interesting? Yeah, I think it's hard for me to say where to start just because from my own experience it's been almost by happenstance. But in a way where I think I I knew what always attracted me and just kind of kept seeking that thing. But I'll say, I mean, take a look at all the different small space startups that are coming about and see what kind of jobs they're they're posting. I mean, there's there's a ton and they're not just here in the United States. I mean, I work with companies. I've mentioned the UAE a dozen times at this point, but also in the Emirates, you know, across Asia, South America. I mean, there's space companies in every continent, even in Antarctica. But so I would say, yeah, just keep an eye. I would look at there's there's a conference actually right now happening small sat, the small satellite conference, which typically is a bigger conference in the industry for small satellites. And there I would actually, if you're curious right now, take a look at their website and see what companies are exhibiting. And go take a look at their websites and see what's out there. And I imagine I think small sat is rather US focused. No, not super US focused. I don't typically. But yeah, so some of those companies that are on there might not be US based either. And I will say it is there is a little bit of a challenge working in the space agency or working in the space industry for a US based company. And that a lot of companies do only hire US citizens due to some of the regulations like ita and things. They just it's hard to hire non US citizens. So it is a challenge, but there's other players in the world. So yeah, I would I think you know, keep an eye out for the International Astronautical Congress. That's another that's one of the largest conferences in the world. And that one is the one where all space agencies basically from every country come. So space agencies from New Zealand South Africa, Germany, you know, every major space agency is there. And so every company that's interested in getting business from those space agencies is also there. So that's where you're going to be able to see a lot of these kind of dynamic and growing companies. So shameless plug, we are hiring a case set right now. And it is an entry level role. So this is a role that we're looking for someone who would be willing to work with missions. And, you know, as a hiring manager, the things that I'm looking for. So hopefully this is helpful context for some of you who are looking at applying for jobs in the near future. I don't need you to know everything. I need you to be excited about what we do and have the same mission. And that's not that you should try to fake that, right? That's about what Lauren is saying is, you know, listen to your gut and figure out, OK, move toward the things that excite you, move away from the things that don't. So there are pieces of management consulting that I said I really enjoyed. And then I got a lot out of it, but it was not culturally the right fit for me. I am now working with very nerdy people who are incredibly motivated about these really big picture questions, which for me is the exact, you know, home for me. I'm not someone who's motivated by how much money can we make in the next fiscal year. So the world of consulting that speaks a lot in, you know, revenues and money and a lot of power struggle dynamics. That wasn't a good fit for me. So I learned a lot from it, but I moved away from that culture back into, you know, an environment of people who think big picture thoughts. And that's why I think I studied defense in the first place is it's all about, you know, these big geopolitical struggles of like, how do civilizations and empires grow and change? And how do they interact with each other? And space is doing all of that right now. So move toward things that excite you. I put three links in the chat bar. So Lauren mentioned three really good resources or two really good resources. The third one I added was Space News. That is like a big news source for all of us in the industry. Just go on Space News and Google things, right? Like use their little search bar. If you're from India, oh my gosh, ISRO, the Indian Space Research Organization, is doing so much right now. They're in a huge growth period. The UAE is in a huge growth period. JAXA in Japan does so much right now. I ran into actually one of my friends from Allies who is at the U.S. Air Force Academy, showed up at SmallSat last year, and he is now running the Rwandan Space Program. You know, he's a team of one person, so he's like the special advisor for the Space Program. And, you know, I would never have been looking for him then, you know, in that context, because I think of him as, you know, he was a visiting student at the Air Force Academy. He was going to go to Air Force things. And all of a sudden, he shows up in Logan, Utah, which is the middle of northern Utah. And it was like, Catherine. And I'm like, Joseph, you know, the serendipity of the world. That's, I guess, another Sherman word. But, you know, just keep moving toward things that you find exciting. Reach out to me on LinkedIn, right? Tell me about yourself. Tell me what you care about. What I don't like is when someone reaches out and is like, hi. And you're like, hi. Like, I'm sure you're a really nice person, but there's nothing to engage with there. So, like, when you do reach out to people, there's a reason you reached out to them. So, you know, everyone likes to hear that they're interesting and that their work is exciting. So if you find it interesting and exciting, you should say to them, like, oh, my gosh, Lauren, I really loved when you were talking about, you know, the Mars rovers that launched this summer. I had no idea that UAE was launching a Mars rover. I'd love to hear more about that. Do you have 10 minutes to chat? Like, that's the perfect intro, because Lauren's like, OK, I know how much time is going to be expected of me and I have a subject that I actually feel qualified to talk about. All of a sudden, that's a lot easier to say yes to than just, like, hi, can we connect sometime? And you're like, well, like, next Wednesday, like, next year? Like, what do you need from me? So be really specific and why you reach out to people, because there's a reason you want to reach out, right? Like, no one wants to talk to people that they're not, but they don't find interesting. So tell someone why you find them interesting. Yeah, I'm actually going to add two things, too. One is about when I walked into my interview, I literally was Googling NASA on the flight to, to DC to, for my interview. I was like, do we have a space station? Like, do we launch rockets? I really knew nothing about space. And still, like, sometimes, you know, I know very little because that's not actually my job. I was hired to do educational partnerships and I was hired because of my experience for five years doing educational partnerships, you know, and I walked in the space company where they're like, we know space, we don't need more people who know space. We need people who know this other thing. So I guess that goes into, you know, prepare with what you love. The other thing I'll say, too, is, yeah, I recently had a gal reach out to me, cold email, and that happens occasionally, but the thing that was really successful about that interaction, I guess I'll say, is she reached out, said, hi, I'm graduating. I'm super passionate about what you do and exactly what you do. I love space. I love education. You guys do this really cool thing. Here's all the things that I did as an undergrad that are relevant and like, here's why I'm really excited about what you do. And I also met your boss when he came to my university. And so it was like this perfect, you know, email in that way of saying like, hi, you know, here, I love what you do and here's how it fits with my interests rather than I think some of the other things where it's like, hi, I'm really special and here's all the things about me. And you're like, OK, cool, thanks. So, you know, I think that that is a very good approach to use and it's been successful when people reach out to me as well. Great, great. And then we do have a question about Epic in the IGL and asking about your experiences with Epic and IGL and the impact it had on your college and career path. Is this a question from you, Heather? I'm just kidding. I'm not supposed to attend to you, that's fine. Lauren, do you want to start? Sure, yeah, I mean, I'll say again, I literally, sorry, I live on a main street and so ambulances like to come down. So perfect timing for an ambulance to come by. But anyway, so, yeah, I literally every job that I've had, like I mentioned, is because of a friend of mine in Epic. The internship that I had, actually that I was still in right out of college was because of Epic. So, you know, and I've leaned on my Epic classmates multiple times, I think, you know, a couple of years ago when I was trying to figure out how to develop the STEM kit, I messaged our WhatsApp group, which is still active. And said, Hey, does anybody know anything about manufacturing a toy or a kid's product or literally anything in that world? And ended up getting connected through a friend of mine, Matt, through a professor he had at MIT, who actually has built some kids products and kind of had that, you know, you have to have a conversation to figure out how do I actually do this? So for me, it's been Epic has been a resource that I've leaned on as an alumni for, yeah, advice and career opportunities. I will say, too, the other thing for me that I found most important, I mean, Katie and I were in this intensive Epic course where we learned everything about South Asia. It felt like, you know, as I'm sure you've you've experienced and in your IGL programs, but I can't say that I remember everything that I ever learned about South Asia. I'd be embarrassed, actually, if you started to ask me much about South Asia at this point. But what I'll say, what I did learn was how to engage with experts, how to converse with experts, how to be well read and on a topic and kind of understand the nuances of a topic and frankly, also how to have the confidence to do that. I think that confidence thing is something that I actually really learned that year when I participated in Epic. And that's something that's that's carried me throughout. Yeah, I'll echo all of that. I think there's an adage that people sometimes say that it's not what you know, it's who you know. And I really don't think that's quite it, it's close. I think it's surround yourself with people who speak to you, who inspire you, who motivate you. And those are the type of people who through selection bias are people who are trying to walk a path that's similar to yours. So it's not about content, right? It's not that like Lauren and I both could, you know, could once tell you and find where Peshawar is on a map. It's not that like, you know, I can recognize like obscure British politicians who had, you know, influential Afghan policies. Like none of that matters. That's not what's important about our relationship. It's that we both selected to work really hard to commit ourselves to trying to do something that sounded really impossible. You know, as an 18 year old, we'd have like stacks of reading that were like this big and then we'd all be like, ah, craziness. And then we tried anyway, right? And I think that's the type of motivation that allows you to be successful really in any domain and any career is the willingness to try hard things and the willingness to, like Lauren said, talk to people because people at the end of the day, regardless of who they are, what their title is, they're all people, right? So like, you know, someone who's an expert in one domain doesn't know anything about something else. And that's something I find uniquely interesting about the space industry is that it's such a big industry with lots of different subsystems, right? There are people who are really good at launching things off the surface of the earth. There are people who are really good at making helicopters that fly with very little like, you know, air resistance on Mars. There are people like me who like negotiate with people who care about how radio spectrum gets allocated. So it takes all different types of people. No one's an expert in everything. In fact, everyone's probably just, you know, trying in their domain and they need everyone else. So I think that's really what the IGL taught me is don't be intimidated by anyone. If you care and you're willing to work hard and try hard things, you're gonna be part of the solution. So I think that's really what it comes down to. So really surround yourself with people who motivate you because that really is how people find each other and find the right career fits. So it wasn't necessarily that, you know, to fill in the kind of other backstory of how I ended up in the space industry. Rebecca only ended up at this company, not cause she was trying to work in the space industry, but because she was really excited about something that was really like hard tech. So she could have just as easily ended up in the semiconductor industry. So, you know, don't think that your path is gonna be linear. Lauren and I are both, I think, really good examples of like, you know, keep chasing the path. My path, I think, if I had been really tight bay about it and said like, I'm going to work in the Pentagon, I decided when I was 15 that I was gonna do that, I think I'd be deeply unhappy right now. So give yourself the flexibility to keep chasing things that you love, even if you think that's not what you thought you should love. Great. And I guess one of the last things I was thinking about is you think about kind of the geopolitics around space and the different entry levels in terms of policies, like what you see in terms of who's working on different policies, you know, like Katie, you said you were engaged in kind of, you know, this, you see the competition, right? So who's working on those policies, you know, and where can, where could people maybe position themselves and Lauren in terms of like education or seeing like these international agencies developing, like what do you see as potentials? You know, just potential positions. I think I'm trying to think of, you know, in terms of you ended up with satellites and you ended up in education, but what else is out there kind of if you're interested in space and kind of what's happening, whoever wants to go. So also Ben, I will say that I have a bias against working in government. So my bias is I like to move fast, I like to be decisive. Government is not typically set up with those types of operating principles. So for me, industry is a better fit space. I think the space industry in general right now is front running industry or industry is front running government, which means the government is trying to keep up. So what has happened with a lot of the policy is, you know, there'll be an existing policy. The industry will say, this doesn't work. The government agency will have an NPRM, which is a national proposed rulemaking, where they'll, they'll say, we're not experts in this and they'll say to industry, tell us what you think would be helpful. And then all of the various companies submit their kind of position and their statements. So I do a lot of work with our legal team in DC to help explain what we're trying to do and what types of policies would be helpful. So I would say my strong, strong recommendation is if you're interested in this domain, start on the industry side. So get involved with a company, try to help their mission be successful. You'll learn a whole lot that way. And then you'll be able to be connected already into those regulatory bodies, into those government bodies, that you'll be a lot more effective in that role. You know, if you decide to jump there in four or five years, then if you start there, because then you're kind of already in your vacuum, you don't actually see the problem set as clearly, and you won't have as much access to people who understand the solution set. So my strong recommendation is start on an industry side because you can move so much more quickly and learn so much more quickly to figure out where you actually want to navigate yourself toward. Great, and that's something that gives you a lot more different perspectives in terms of seeing the big picture. Yeah, you also get paid really well, which is the thing that no one ever talks about when you're 22, right? Like Tufts is not a cheap experience. And you kind of get to the other side and you're like, oh my gosh, I have a degree that cost 200K. And now I need to monetize my lifestyle. And industry actually compensates you really well, which like, I don't know, Lauren and I talked about this a little bit yesterday when we were just kind of chatting and catching up. We had so many friends who like, the NGO lifestyle I think is really glamorized at Tufts, at least it was when we were there. But it's amazing for me to get to go do all the things that I love to do and feel like I have really tangible impact in the world. And then someone wants to pay me a six figure salary. I was like, I'd probably do this even if you didn't pay me. But like, hey, that's amazing that now I can go buy a nice road bike too. So I think that's like a piece of it that really doesn't get talked about a lot in the undergraduate sense, but truly like having the ability to not have to make a choice between your passion and having a sustainable lifestyle is something that I think, you know, don't take for granted. So the industry side actually compensates you really well in this industry as well. It depends where you are. But I mean, I'll kind of say too, I mean, I spent five years at Boston public schools and working on policy changes for the district. And there was things that I started working on basically day one that actually for me the tipping point, literal tipping point was when I was sitting in a meeting talking about a policy that basically started day one and in another meeting another week and it really wasn't going anywhere. And I was like, I cannot sit in one more of these meetings where basically now I'm the only one who like is carrying this policy and it's just not going anywhere. I was like, I can't do that anymore. I can't spend another five years doing this. You know, and I never saw myself in the private sector actually. Like I was, I think very typical in how I imagine my future, you know, I thought I would be in the NGO world. And I think that's still a very admirable path. And you know, a lot of my friends from Tufts have done that. But again, you know, I've gotten to kind of do some of the same things where I'm actually developing educational programs in a way, but I'm coming at it from the private sector. And so that's really cool. And you know, working for such a tiny kind of spin-off company, I get to do everything. So in my previous job in government, I was doing community engagement and it was a pretty fluid role in a lot of ways. And I had a lot of ownership over my work in many ways, but now it's like, I am fully responsible for a lot of things. And if they work, it's my, you know, I get to be proud of that. If they fail, I have to be accountable for that. So, you know, that's exciting and a little scary. Yeah, so it's kind of ironic to say, you know, go check out what private industry is doing when I actually had to spend five years of government work to get here. But I think it is worth a shot. And I mean, the space industry in general is growing. I feel like there's a company for almost every niche out there. I mean, there's companies that are looking to develop private space stations. There's private space stations. There's companies that are working on lunar missions. There's- Your parent company has like space cookies, right? Yeah. Yeah, there's a company about me. Yeah, my- Yeah, our sister company, Nanerox, is working with a company called Zero G Kitchen, which yeah, literally developed a space oven that they put on the space station. And they got a big partnership with Double Tree and, you know, got to send a Double Tree cookie to space. And then they made an educational program with Scholastic. I mean, literally like, there's so many interesting niche angles in space right now because there's this excitement about space. So yeah, just take a look at what's out there. No, we're coming up to two o'clock, but I have two quick questions. One is grad school, no grad school. Oh, I'm so glad you asked. This is a soapbox issue for me. Because both of you are women in what might have been perceived as a more male dominated industry. So how does that all work? Go ahead. Okay, I'll jump in on the grad school one. I got, again, a really good piece of advice from my, so I was actually a double major at Tufts. So I had an IR in Econ and my Econ major advisor at the end of Tufts. And I told you guys I had this crisis of confidence. I thought I was gonna do this job. And then I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Maybe I'll go to grad school. And my advisor, who is a PhD academic, right? I mean, this is her whole life said, that'd be a terrible idea. I was like, wait, what? And she was saying, you know, she's like the really, really bright people, don't go get their masters and PhDs, not in social sciences. She's like really bright people, figure out how to take those ideas and apply them to actually make change in the world. So she's like, you will never find a smarter group of people than in your undergraduate experience because the really excited motivated people go off and do something. And the people who have the idea that you just expressed, which was, I don't know what to do. I need five years. I need to stall. Those are the people who go to grad school. And I thought that was really kind of harsh feedback at the time, like, you know, she just took my idea and was like, that's a terrible idea. And it's really been true. I feel like there are so many motivated people who took something and ran with it. And I feel like in my personal experience, and you know, I'm gonna regret saying this if someone watches this video, friends of mine that went to grad school is cause they didn't know what to do. Like they were just wasting time. I think that's different if you have a very specific research project, right? If you say, this is my passion, I can only do it in this academic setting. That's different. Most people I talk to who are like, should I go to grad school? It's because they don't have a better plan. And then I would say, don't go take on more debt. That's crazy. Go try things, right? Try something for three months. Try something for six months. Go volunteer in that organization. You know, hell, if you took all of the money that it would take to go get an MBA and you threw a really kick ass party every Wednesday night and just invited people, you'd have a really impressive network at the end of it. And you can probably do it for half the cost of an MBA. So I think it's totally crazy when people are like, oh, I'm gonna get an MBA because I need a network. It's like, you know, interesting people aren't getting MBAs. Interesting people probably wanna go to your interesting party. Wouldn't that be a better use of the money? So that's my really strong advocacy. I don't go to grad school unless you have a very specific research ambition that you can only study within the context of academia. Yeah, I think one of my best friends and she was an engineer at Tufts, but she was one of my best friends at Tufts. She was one of the kind of people that was like, I'm gonna graduate and I'm gonna go into grad school. And so she went right from graduating at 22 to a PhD program with basically no break. And she was miserable. She absolutely hated it and thought it was her absolute passion. She, and for her, her dream was to work at the Broad Institute and work on genetics research and things that I don't understand. And she thought this was the pathway that she was gonna take to get there. Surprise, after she dropped out, she got a job at the Broad Institute and is doing what she loves. And has taken a couple of grad courses here and there but didn't really need it. I think for me personally, grad school still, I'm 30 years old and it's still kind of in the back of my mind sometimes. I'm still like, is there a way? And I think I've had a dozen different ideas but have never felt like it made financial sense to take on going to grad school to do something if it wasn't gonna advance my career in any way. So I just haven't found a way that for me, I think it makes sense financially. And for what I'm doing, I mean, you don't really need it. So it's okay. Yeah, and I think Heather, your second question was experiences about being a woman in this industry. And I think it is really interesting because I went from education where we struggled to hire men. We were like, we need to hire men which is not the problem you usually have. In hiring, usually it's the opposite, right? To working in a, yeah, a pretty male dominated industry. I still get to work in this kind of, and to be fully candid, I think a little bit of a touchy-feely soft side of it which tends to be a little bit more woman dominated. And I think, you know, with my colleagues, I get to work with a lot of really smart women engineers and in my sister company in Nannerx and we talk about the experience a lot of, you know, where women are in the company and what they're doing. So it's a constant conversation. The space industry, yeah, definitely isn't perfect but I will say because in so many ways it's very new, there's a lot of new roles that women kind of tend to find themselves in, you know, and it's interesting. Even in the countries abroad that I work with, I work with a lot of women in government roles in other countries because I think in somewhere so new there's not as many kind of established roles so women can kind of find themselves in them in a really interesting way. So I think, you know, there's an opportunity for women to kind of take this path that's never been taken before by anyone. Yeah, I think I have noticed, so I am often the only female in the room and I am often probably 20 years younger than most people. And I really think that's an advantage in many ways. So if you walk into a room of people and it's a bunch of older white males who are all wearing bad suits from 20 years ago, they all look the same to me but also maybe to each other. So if you're the person who stands out that is a good thing because people always remember me because I'm the only young white female in the room. And so I think that actually has been very helpful. I think some of this is about mindset, right? So there's some privilege in being able to adopt a mindset which is find the silver lining. You know, there certainly are microaggressions. So I was on a call last week with someone from a big defense prime and they were trying to understand how we're gonna set up the mission support. So I was on the phone trying to explain various things to them and we get to the end of the call and you know, one of these guys who's been in the industry for a long time probably who's like, you know what? That was surprisingly helpful. You're just incredibly surprisingly competent. That's like, you know, thank you. I am the CEO of this company. So I appreciate that you think I'm good at my job. I do try pretty hard. And you just kind of have to laugh about it because, you know, great, I was helpful. Glad that we got the problem solved, we move on. So I think as long as you don't let those like microaggressions get too much in your way and you learn to laugh about it, I think that's good. I think I can take that position of privilege of that mindset because there actually is a very strong support group for women in industry. So for the first time in my life, I completely understand the concept of an old boys club or being able to like network through back channels because there are so many influential women in this industry who are so invested in helping each other that regardless of the problem that I have, I call up a friend who happens to be another woman in this industry who is, you know, very supportive to me in what I'm trying to do. He'll give me the, you know, unadulterated truth of the backstory. So I do think that that's kind of an interesting thing of being a minority group is that the support systems within our group are incredibly strong and people will just go to bat for you every time you need. So there is, I think, a very silver lining aspect in being different. Frankly, I don't think it ever gets in my way and most of the time I see it as a superpower because, you know, people remember me and then they'll come talk to me and that's the way that people get things done is by being willing to work with each other. So being memorable is a good thing. Great. Well, thank you guys so much for spending the time with us. This has been great. And I think really interesting for all of us in terms of kind of pulling back the curtain a little bit on the industry that's not talked about as much, you know, in terms of the insider stuff, especially the private part of it, you know, and understanding. So thank you. And we'll see you soon. Thanks so much, Heather. Yeah, thank you. And get in touch if you have any other questions I can help answer. Great. Thank you. Bye. Bye.