 Ted Rawlsson here folks. Friday afternoon, downtown Hong Kong Studio, so think back away, kind of in the neighborhood of the Capitol, I think, judging by the intro we just saw. And this show, of course, as we always brag about, is known by the people that bring gone, more so than the host. And the first time around on this show is Senator Will Esperal, Senator from District 19, North Coast. And you're on here for the first time, and we hope this is a harbinger of things in the future. And Senator Esperal is overseer, manager, agitator, and promoter of aerospace interests in Hawaii. All of the above. All the, and more. And so we just had the Aerospace Summit in Hawaii last week, which was a quite nice gathering. And that was actually managed by Jim Crisapuli, who is by Skype, is joining us. And this show knows no geographical boundaries. So Jim may be in Kailua, but he's on the show in the studio as if he were here. That's why it's called Think Tech Hawaii. Well, exactly. Jim could be on the moon for all we know, and still be on the show. Well, that is O.J. Simpson behind him, so it might be. And of course we did talk about that, a lot about the moon, and about return of the moon, and activities to Mars, as well as UAS or UABs last week at Aerospace Summit. So Jim and I can talk forever about the summit, but if we could get from you, Senator, your ideas on information you need would be useful to you as you gain a perception of what the big picture of aerospace in Hawaii is and where it wants to go and how it wants to get there. What would you offer to us in terms of that view of where the future is and how we might see getting there? Well, certainly. Thank you, Ted, for inviting me today. We're always looking at ways that we can diversify Hawaii's economy. So number one, diversification. Yes, definitely. And opportunities not only for our adults, but more importantly for our children and our youth, especially those... I mean, we're over the hill. We're past the point where we matter. But the kids and the upcoming kids... Well, I'd say we're on the hill. Not quite over, but we're... Well, some of us may be over, so... But what we're talking about is STEM, science, technology, engineering and mathematics and jobs and ways that we can get our residents involved in these areas. And aerospace has been an area that many of us have been working on for many years. And Jim, with the Office of Aerospace Development, has been the main instigator and person making certain that we're moving forward. We recently passed legislation regarding unmanned aerial systems and the hiring of a UAS coordinator, site coordinator, and then the creation of an unmanned aerial systems test site advisory board because, as you know, Hawaii is one of six nationally chosen test site regions by the FAA. And we're partnering with Oregon and Alaska. And this is a great opportunity for us in aerospace and more importantly in the UAS field and industry to become a leader not only for the nation but the world. This is a very tangible aspect. It's immediate right in front of us. Yes, yes. We have a small UAS drone in front of us here. Many people have used and seen these recreationally but there's so many other applications in the commercial area in business within government, within our military. And as I said, with being an FAA test site, I'm hoping that we could create a UAS industry and maybe go so far as software applications and manufacturing and exporting because these are small as you can see. It's not a 1,000-pound, 2,000-pound car. And if we could establish and build a Hawaii brand, we could certainly be competitive in my opinion. That's fantastic. And a lot of people that I deal with are thinking the same way because what we see here, this, for example, is a piece of military gear. Actually, it's a squad-level army system for determining physician and what's around you for a squad. And it's based on today's technology. What we really need to do, I think, in this world of the test site you're referring to, is find out where the next levels of technology are and where the rules and limitations are that that technology bumps into so the FAA can figure out how to certify things that are out beyond today's limits, which is a superb opportunity for Hawaii to get in there. And the other point I wanted to make is the systems we have today are, you know, they have a shelf life of two years in this game, but every month new technology comes up and replaces the old. And it's a very complicated and fast-moving industry at this point in time. So for Hawaii to stand on top of this is actually a really great idea and maybe the island thinking, which we all know very well, actually can help promote that because everybody kind of works together and pulls the sled in the same direction. Right. And when you look at the governmental applications, the commercial applications, certainly Hawaii can benefit in the fishing industry, fisheries, in agriculture, emergency preparedness, emergency response. With our tourists, we could use them along our shorelines to look for sharks, for example, and or I even saw one that had a safety ring on it, you know, a life-saving ring that could actually fly out 500 yards much faster than a lifeguard on a paddle board and thus save lives and save tourists. So there's just so many things we can do with it, you know, whether it's the weather, land surveying. I know some people have expressed concern about privacy, but let me assure them we already have privacy laws and laws about people snooping or taking pictures of you illegally, whether cameras on a drone, in a closet, on your shoe. We have these laws and if people break these laws, you know, they will be dealt with accordingly. You know, that's a great idea that you just inspired by what you just said. I think that the drone community that you met last week, those 15 or 20 people who were assembled and helped try to think through what the response was to the summit challenge, working with you, we could put together a standard operating procedure. Here's how you work these things within complete legality and complete transparency on civil rights and the protections that are necessary and sort of an agreed upon document that the government, representing the legislature and the private industry, could agree on. And the film office and everybody else, nobody else in the country has that. This could be done right here. It could be done quickly and then anybody who is performing accordingly and behaving accordingly is okay. And it's pretty easy for the HPD and others to identify the outliers who then need some corrective action. And of course, if we put it online, then everyone will have access to it. And you have no reason not to have it, right? Exactly, and you have no reason to claim ignorance, really, right? Yeah. So certainly we do have to take the lead on many of these areas and there's no reason why I don't think that anything will get in our way. And I know you're a strong advocate and what you're doing is fantastic and we need the private sector needs to drive this. Let me make that clear. That's great. Not the government, the private sector. In fact, the private sector should drive a lot of this stuff but in partnership with the government in the proper way. So why don't we start with... That's a great way to start. And then we could expand that to say, okay, here's the behavior of patterns and things we have to behave accordingly. And here's where the Hawaii business wraps around that and begin getting the two of them together and generate that for you. So you see the picture of where this is all going. There's probably 20 companies, 30 companies in Hawaii that are either making, using, selling, servicing, modifying drones today. And HECO, for example, in its public knowledge, HECO has a drone division, so to speak, that's using this drone and others to police the power lines. And some of the construction companies are using them. And UH Department of Agriculture is using them. So there's no end of where this can expand and I think it's really incumbent upon the private industry who's in the middle of this to self-manage to a certain extent but share that view with you so you can see where it's going. And then together we can figure out what rules, laws, or bills are required to make it all push forward in the right direction. Right. And let me also make it clear that because we are in the infancy of this industry, there's going to be a lot of trial and error. Hopefully though, every step will move us forward. And government does not have all the answers. I received the correspondence recently from a drone user. They were working, trying to work with the film office in Hawaii. And the process was slow and sometimes there were delays because even those government workers in the film office were not too sure about the rules and the regulations. So what you were saying about that manual and that structure for everybody to be able to utilize and look at will certainly be valuable for everybody. I think that's number one on the hit parade. Get that done. We can start that work tomorrow and then make that an output of the summit. And I think we should do that. Definitely. So let's turn for a moment to Jim, sitting by eagerly wanting to join the conversation from far away across the Kuala Lumpur. Jim, we had the summit and this was one subject area. UAS, but there were other things in there to think about as well, all part of the aerospace future of Hawaii. Sure. Yeah, we had a number of discussions during the summit, very productive panel discussions, focusing on space transportation, looking at Hawaii-based space launch operations that could support academic and industrial research, satellite communications, Earth-based surveillance and space tourism. You chaired a panel, Ted, on the pioneering developments in applications of unmanned aerial systems and agriculture, weather forecasting, disaster management, and other civilian and commercial applications. We also had a panel on planetary sustainability in the space economy, looking at innovative technologies to support both Earth-based applications and exploration and resource utilization on other planetary bodies. Some of the same technologies that can be applied in space can also be applied on our home planet to improve our qualities of life and Hawaii can take a leadership role there. We also talked about aerospace education and training, expanding and diversifying opportunities to train Hawaii residents for search certifications and careers in this industry. And we talked about multinational and public-private partnerships, enabling multi-agency collaboration to help advance humankind's exploration, development, and ultimately utilization of the space frontier. Now, as I'm sure both of you and some of your watchers are aware of Hawaii's strategic mid-Pacific location, Moon Mars-like terrain, resident expertise, covering a broad range of aerospace-related technologies, and long-standing ties with space-faring nations throughout the Asia-Pacific region clearly afford strategic assets and capabilities that can be leveraged to realize humankind's full potential in space. And in doing so, enable our state to engage as both a major contributor to and beneficiary of the global space enterprise. Of course, Hawaii is no newcomer to aerospace and for the past half-century has played a seminal role in developing our national aerospace programs, beginning with astronaut training for the Apollo lunar missions and development of world-class observatories on the big island. But over the past four decades, the University of Hawaii, the U.S. military, and numerous companies statewide have also engaged in a variety of nationally funded programs in planetary geosciences, satellite communications, space-based remote sensing and environmental monitoring of deep space surveillance and other areas utilizing aerospace-related technologies. And the opportunities forthcoming in the industry are just huge, many of which could hold substantial economic, scientific, educational, and commercial promise for residents in our state statewide. During the summit, we talked about a number of possibilities here and opportunities moving forward, looking at aerospace as an important driver for an innovation economy, providing multiple opportunities for enhanced STEM education and bringing substantial diversity to both local scientific research, technology transfer, and commercial development in many fields. Jim, let me just suggest that we need to take a break here for a moment, and we'll come back to this after the break, but I think the really important thing is to illustrate all of that in some way that the public can understand it and grasp onto it, and it has immediate value and application to people on all the islands and all the villages on all the islands and towns and cities, and has actions that we can start conducting forward on the day after the summit's over. That's what I like. So we'll come back and talk about those actions right after this first break. Hello, I'm Marianne Sasaki. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii, where some of the most interesting conversations in Honolulu go on. I have a show on Wednesdays from one to two called Life in the Law, where we discuss legal issues, politics, governmental topics, and a whole host of issues. I hope you'll join me. Aloha, how are you doing? Welcome to Ibaachi Talk. I'm here at Gordo the Tech Star on Think Tech Hawaii, and I'm here with my good old buddy, Andrew the Security Guy. Hey, everybody, how are you doing? Aloha. Thanks for watching. Good to have Andrew here in the house. Please join us every Friday from one to 130 and follow us up on YouTube. And remember, as we say at the end of every show, how are you doing? Aloha, I'm Kirsten Baumgart-Turner, and I'm fortunate to be able to host Sustainable Hawaii at ThinkTechHawaii.com. I hope you'll join in with us every Tuesday from 12 noon to 1 p.m. to see the interesting people we have to share with you their information. Aloha. We're back, folks. The second half of our show, where the drone leads. Today, the drone is leading way beyond droneism into the world of space and return of the moon and Mars and sustainability of business here in Hawaii. On the show here in the studio, Senator Willa Sparrow, District 19, and far, far away, as the probe flies, is Jim Crucifulli over there in Kailua joining us by Skype. And we were just talking about the need to take the wonderful ideas that exist in a colloquium event, such as a seminar that Jim just ran, the aerospace summit, and convert them into doable ideas, doable things that have identifiable value to the people and have immediate or short-term return as well as long-term return. We've got to have them both. And I'll say this. You mentioned a little bit about the history and Jim did as well. I used to work at the Douglas Aircraft Company, which became part of Boeing and had long history in aviation, of course. At the DC-3, which was Douglas' signature airplane of all DC-1 and the two, and then the three was the dominant one that carried passenger traffic and still carries it, is one out of a hundred on the airport. Interestingly enough, the chief pilot, which had a lot to do with airplane design back in the 30s, was from Hawaiian Airlines. Douglas decided they wanted to have a austere environment, a severe environment to have that kind of piloting knowledge, so they grabbed a guy from Hawaiian Airlines island to island in a salt-laden air environment with a lot of wind and non-improved runways and this sort of thing was a great place to have that kind of... to develop that kind of knowledge useful to design the DC-3 correctly, so it would serve that community. And that has led to an airplane that's still going after... I can't even do the math, probably 80 years now. Anyway, and in fact, Dick Colver was, or Colver was the name of that guy who was hired from Hawaiian to go to work at Douglas. And in Douglas, in what used to be the Douglas Aircraft Company in Long Beach, there's a big industrial park now and there's four main roads through it. Each road is named after a significant contributor to the future of the company. One of them is named after Dick Colver, who was the Hawaiian Airlines pilot hired by Douglas. So anyway, an aviation was back to about 1910 here when the first military aviation demonstrations came over. Aviation's got a long history here in Hawaii, so... And I think that's also true with the space program. Well, aviation is part of our lifeblood as well. Yeah, without it, we don't go anywhere. Aviation and shipping, obviously, the transportation areas. So Jim, going back to the conversation at the end of the first session here, how do we take those ideas and translate them into executable tasks for the purpose of gaining the public understanding, community involvement, and at the same time, draw in the companies who we need to invest in pushing forward? Well, we came up with a number of recommendations from the Aerospace Summit, and I just wanted to briefly summarize those and mention some very specific applications where we can move forward. One of the points that was driven home over and over in all the panels was Aerospace can be an important driver in developing this innovation economy that many people have been talking about. It's a growth industry that won't be exported once it matures in Hawaii. I've seen a lot of other technology companies prep in the tech parks, but then they leave because they can't achieve economies of scale. But Aerospace flourishes here because of where we are and what we have, the strategic location, unique geographical assets, and so forth. Hawaii also has expanded considerable effort establishing key working relationships throughout the global Aerospace community. We can build on those. Our Aerospace sector requires only modest upfront investments to leverage substantial returns, and NASA, along with other space agencies, universities, and Aerospace corporations worldwide, have recognized Hawaii's intrinsic advantages in Aerospace and want to partner with us. You just said an important point. Let me just interrupt for a moment. You talked about high return on investment, a little bit of investment with a lot of return. And so we need to do something to make that happen. And Senator, what's your thoughts on that? Well, Jim is exactly right, and there are private companies that want to come here in two areas, space tourism and small satellite launches. We are working with the FAA right now to get a space port license for Hawaii. Hopefully we can secure that by the end of the year. That's pretty cool. A Hawaii space port. Yes, exactly. And this is going to be a new niche market. It will enhance and complement tourism. And with space tourism, people will be able to fly into lower Earth orbit. And this is not a vertical launch via a rocket, but these are next generation space planes. And this first space port license that Jim and I and others have been working on is at the Kona Airport on the Big Island. And companies, as I had already said, are already testing. Virgin Galactic is one of those companies that are way out in front, but there are others that have expressed an interest. And then when you look at the small satellite launch industry as well, Hawaii has a location that no other place has in the world because we're right in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and we can do equatorial launches. And it makes it easy for companies that want to go towards the equator and then you also have polar launches. And the University of Hawaii has already been building small satellite launches. And they had a launch recently out of Kauai Barking Sands. And it wasn't as successful as they would like, but there's still a desire to continue. Well, if you learn something from it, it's successful. That's true. Exactly. You know, sometimes setbacks push you forward even more. Which is, pardon me, one of the things that the FAA unmanned air systems test range is all about. Push things till they fail. Because when you find the failure, that's the edge of what works. And now you know what you have to get over to get the next step. Right. And this small satellite launch industry can bring maybe anywhere from 10 to 15 million dollars per launch. And we're talking about countries that could use these launches, international corporations, of course American corporations, government as well. And so there's many opportunities. And hopefully Hawaii will be the leader in both of these fields. That's really interesting. And I was just thinking about that when I was reading some of the material recently. Electric propulsion is beginning to get onto satellites instead of chemical propulsion. We launch a big communication satellite or something. More than half of the volume, the weight of that satellite, is propulsion material, fuel and the rocket engines. If you can get rid of that and go with ionic propulsion from electricity, which comes from the solar panels, there's no weight for that. So the satellite drops down half in weight. You can get two satellites on the same launch if you have electric propulsion. Sooner or later, that'll work its way down to the smaller satellite. So the world of small satellite launch is going to expand. And also satellites can operate in pairs and they can operate in networks so you don't need necessarily the large mass satellites. So there's a lot of opportunity here. So this is really interesting. How do we create that first launch? How do we get that? Whether it's the service launch or actually the space launch itself, what steps do we have to take to get to that point? Discussions are ongoing right now. Jim is actively involved in both of them. And as far as the small satellite launch, we need to get some funding for environmental assessment and to see the impact of this industry. Or the non-impact, as the case may be. Exactly, in Hawaii or the big island, wherever it may be. That's the same thing we did with the space tourism application when we applied with the FAA. We had to do an environmental study. And that will certainly go a long way in showing what we're hoping to be no negative impact. And opening the door for entrepreneurs and government to collaborate and work together to build an industry based on science, technology, engineering and mathematics. What you're saying is as soon as we can advertise that the EIS is in place, the doors open. And now we can entertain real discussions about real systems, build out operations and do some test runs and get going. Right, exactly. Anything to add on that, Jim? Well, yeah, it won't exactly be any EIS. We're just trying to finish an environmental assessment. And from all indications right now, it looks like it's going to result in the finding of no significant impact or FONZ, which will allow us to apply for a commercial space port license. Once we have our license and once these space plane operators who operate their space planes get their license, then we can start commercial space launch operations from Hawaii. I'd like to make a very fundamental point here. That is the aerospace industry is not only an industry in and of itself, but it supports the two main economic drivers for the state, the visitor industry through space tourism and the military through our applications of UAS technologies and commercial space launch. So it's a very complimentary, very resonance that's going to build over the years and really provide Hawaii with tremendous opportunities to launch, so to speak, literally and figuratively, new programs to space. A launch of the space launch program. Let me add to what you just both said because this struck me that as we see it here on the table with this unmanned earth system here, this is full of a lot of miniaturized pieces of equipment. There's like 15 different operational functions. There's GPS on there, there's glass noses, there's command and control, there's radio communication, there's video downlink, there's a flight management system and an autopilot and power controllers all in here. The satellites use the same basic systems. They don't have air dealing with them, they have other. But miniaturization in the sensors and the processors and the power sources is common to both this business and the small satellite business. There's a pretty cool tie there. And the other tie I wanted to mention is that you mentioned tourism, Jim, and Senator, you mentioned that several times. There is happening starting on Tuesday out in Kualoa on this island, the world drone racing championships. Drone racing sounds like Sandy Beach at 2 o'clock in the morning, drag racing, but no, it's not that at all. It is multi-sensor cognition taking 2D input in a screen and goggles and converting it to a 3D mind representation. It is obstacle avoidance. It is the same thing drones need. It is detect and avoid, or sense and avoid to get around obstacles the fastest way you can get there with a lot of performance margin so you can handle the winds, handle the turbulence, handle the vertical terrain. There's an incredible amount of technology transfer from that business of drone racing to drones themselves also into tourism because we haven't yet even talked about that. I'd like to get some people, maybe you and others as well from the tourism ministry out to see this event in Kualoa and get ideas of how big it can expand in terms of adding to our tourism. It's sort of part of the equitourism and part of maybe a STEM tourism that we haven't even talked about. So that'll be this weekend starting on Tuesday out at Kualoa, public's welcome. It'll be a KITV interview with Dr. Scott Resland of Berkeley who's running that tonight on KITV. And with that, we've covered a lot of ground here in a short time. We need to have you again, sir. Senator Willis-Barrell, thanks so much for coming on and you've given us some great tips. I like the tip you gave us last week. We, the legislature, did our part. Now it's up to you guys to do your part. I'm going to put that on a t-shirt and give it to all of our team and they can go out and do that. And Jim Crisifulli is sitting back in Kailua. Thanks for coming on again, Jim. And we've got a long way to go. We've got a good start. Okay. And thanks very much, folks. We'll see you all next Friday.