That Tech Pod
Welcome to That Tech Pod, a podcast co-hosted by Laura Milstein, Gabi Schulte and Kevin Albert. Each Tuesday, That Tech Pod will feature in depth discussions about data privacy, cybersecurity, eDiscovery, and tech innovations with heavy hitters in the industry. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode! Visit thattechpod.com for more information.
That Tech Pod
What Happens If We Find Aliens Tomorrow? with SkyMapper CEO Dr. Franck Marchis
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This week on That Tech Pod, we look up. We're joined by Dr. Franck Marchis, CEO and co-founder of SkyMapper, co-founder of Unistellar, Director of Citizen Science at the SETI Institute, and one of the world's leading planetary astronomers. From discovering triple-asteroid systems to helping build the next generation of citizen science, Franck has spent his career making space exploration more accessible to everyone.
In this episode, we dive into the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, what astronomers actually do at SETI, and whether AI is changing the way we explore the universe. Franck shares his thoughts on whether intelligent alien life is likely to exist, what would happen if humanity received a credible signal from another civilization, and whether we're more likely to find microbes in our own solar system before discovering an advanced civilization light-years away. We also discuss how astronomy is no longer reserved for professional observatories. Thanks to advances in smart telescopes, AI, and global collaboration, everyday enthusiasts can now make meaningful contributions to scientific discovery. Franck explains how SkyMapper is building a worldwide network of connected telescopes and all-sky cameras designed to continuously monitor the skies and create trusted, verifiable observations for researchers and citizen scientists alike.
Finally, we explore SkySphere, SkyMapper's new intelligent all-sky camera that captures a continuous 180-degree view of the sky using on-device AI to detect meteors, satellites, drones, aircraft, and other phenomena in real time. We talk about how the project could reshape both amateur astronomy and scientific research, and how listeners can get involved through its successful Kickstarter campaign.
Learn more about SkyMapper and check out the SkySphere Kickstarter. You can also learn more about Franck’s work with the SETI Institute.
Dr. Franck Marchis is the CEO and co-founder of SkyMapper, co-founder of Unistellar, and the Director of Citizen Science at the SETI Institute. A planetary astronomer by training, his research spans exoplanets, asteroid systems, and high-resolution imaging. He is widely known for co-discovering multiple triple-asteroid systems and for pioneering technologies and programs that bring astronomical discovery to the public. Through his efforts at SkyMapper and his work at SETI, Franck is helping build a global community of citizen scientists empowered to explore and understand the universe.
Hey Kevin.
SPEAKER_01Hey Lar.
SPEAKER_02Before we get into today's episode, I just want to know like, how do you feel about like Earth?
SPEAKER_01I know that's a r random question, but like I'm pro the Earth. What do you mean?
SPEAKER_02Okay, you know how like when you're a kid, you are like, Oh, I want to go see the stars, and you get like a telescope, and you're like, is that uh Orion's belt? And then you grow up and you're like, Oh, it's cloudy out here, and things change, but it's still like it's crazy how big it is. Like you look up and you're like, and remember when like Pluto was a planet and then Pluto was not a planet? Is Pluto a planet now?
SPEAKER_01No, it's still not a planet.
SPEAKER_02It's crazy. And then it was like, Oh, we can land on Mars, but like, do you really want to? Oh, we're gonna land on the moon. We did that. Like, it's just it's crazy. How do you feel about the sky? How do you feel about like outside? Like, what is up there? That's what I'm trying to ask.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I'm pro the sky, also.
SPEAKER_02Pro the sky. No, no. I'm just saying, are you an interested type of person?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm into space. I I I feel like again, obviously, we I don't think there are aliens right around us, but is there a possibility that there are alien life forms out there? For sure. I mean, I feel like there's so much in space, how could there not be something out there? Do I feel like there's a government conspiracy that we have aliens have landed on our planet? And then I have no idea. I would say probably not, because I feel like if aliens were real, I feel like Trump would have blurred it out in a meeting by now. But I feel like there's gotta be a possibility that there's something out there for sure.
SPEAKER_02Oh, totally. So today's guest is really unique. It's a tech innovation type guest. Not even type, like it is a we are talking to a guy who is just like I think it's gonna be an awesome episode. We'll find out. But the reason we're bringing this guy on, Kevin, is I picked him. And I think you're gonna really either love this episode or hate it. I think you're gonna love it. But I feel like this is one of those episodes that you're like, this could be super cool because it's such a unique tech innovation. Like we're talking about observing like meteors and satellites and drones and aircrafts, like you can't just walk outside and be like, here's my telescope. I mean, I guess you I don't know. I haven't looked at a telescope in years, but I don't think you're actually seeing those things or knowing what they are. And I'm really intrigued by this. What do you think before we actually bring on our guest and before everyone's like, what are they talking about? Like, are you like a astronomy skeptic, or are you like, this is gonna be super cool? Like they're initial things.
SPEAKER_01I'm definitely into it. I mean, I feel like I like watching space movies. I don't have a telescope, but I did when I was a kid, and I thought it was really neat to kind of look out. Now I gotta assume the technology is even better. It's probably really cool. Uh I do think it's neat that you can, with a powerful enough telescope, you can like see where we landed on the moon and you can see the you know the flag and and all that. Like that kind of stuff is still out there, and I think that's pretty amazing. So I'm excited. I think this will be a fun one.
SPEAKER_02Awesome. Me too. Well, let's get right into it. Shall we?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sounds great. Every night satellites cross overhead. Meteors burn through the atmosphere. Drones fly through air to airspace. And most of the time nobody is watching. That's about to go. The sky sphere is built for astronomers, educators, researchers, and anyone who has ever looked up and wondered what just crossed the sky.
SPEAKER_01And I'm Kevin Albert.
SPEAKER_02And each week we bring on heavy hitters from the industry to help us break down topics like e-discovery, cybersecurity, data privacy, and tech innovations. And as mentioned, today is definitely tech innovations. Kevin, who have we brought on to help us talk about this?
SPEAKER_01Today we are talking to Dr. Frank Martius. He is the CEO and co-founder of Sky Mapper, co-founder of Unistellar, and the director of citizen science at the SETI Institute. A planetary astronomer by training, his research spans exoplanets, asteroid systems, and high-resolution imaging. He is widely known for co-discovering multiple triple asteroid systems and for pioneering technologies and programs that bring astronomical discovery to the public. Through his efforts at Sky Mapper and his work at SETI, Frank is helping build a community of scientists empowered to explore and understand the universe. Frank, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_03Hi Kevin, how are you? Good.
SPEAKER_02Just Kevin. What about me, Fanny?
SPEAKER_03I'm sorry, yes, I'm sorry. It's so hurtful.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I personally begged you to come on the show, and it's just hey Kevin. This is people love Kevin. Everyone loves Kevin, and I get it, he's definitely the better one out of the two of us, but I'm like, I'm still here. Well, I'm I'm happy that you're here.
SPEAKER_03I'm ready now. I'm ready.
SPEAKER_02No, it's too late. You've been on this. We're gonna keep going. So, Frank, you're French, right? Where where in France are you originally from?
SPEAKER_03I'm from Toulouse, the southwest of France, where where they built uh Airbus and where most of the aerospace companies of Europe are located.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna guess that. I looked at you and I was like, yep, that's exactly where you're from with this background. It was it it was obvious. Like I it was palpable, I could feel it. Well, what you're doing is awesome. It's super unique, and I love a tech innovation episode. It's kind of my favorite thing is when we find something that is unique and cool and different, to be like, How did you get to this? How why are we here? What is going on? So, for our listeners who haven't met you before, and maybe they're not even from France, which would be horrible. Like, why are come on, people? But in a real way, like for the listeners that don't know who you are, they don't know what Sky Mapper is. Can you tell them, you know, who are you? What is Sky Mapper? And what really inspired you to dedicate your career to exploring the universe?
SPEAKER_03Okay, so we have one hour, and that's the duration of the podcast.
SPEAKER_02No, I we need at least six hours for this, but you you got about three minutes. Go.
SPEAKER_03So go in three minutes. Well, I'm an astronomer. I uh basically built uh instruments on eight ten-meter class telescopes in Hawaii, in Chile, and so on. In 2017, I created my first company called Unistellar because I wanted to uh bring astronomy to people by building a simple, easy-to-use telescopes and powerful. And then in 2024, I decided to bring intelligence to astronomy and to all space observ uh all sky observation with with uh SkyMapper. So the goal of SkyMapper is to build basically the infrastructure like the pipes, the connection, the protocols. So you can plug an instrument that observes the sky onto our platform and you share your sky with the people and the companies. So you can basically make your sky available, so a telescope can observe satellite for a company, or observe uh pretty galaxies for uh someone on the other side of the planet, or maybe being used during um star parties in uh in Australia when it's night in in the United States, for instance.
SPEAKER_01So, I mean astronomy has traditionally required expensive equipment and years of training. How has technology changed who gets to participate today?
SPEAKER_03So, what we did with my first company, Unistellar, is to show that now with a small telescope, like typically 11 centimeter aperture, 10 kilograms, 5 kilograms, something you can carry in your backpack, basically. You can observe galaxy, nebulae, grommets, you can make scientific discovery as well, and uh and you can also observe satellites. So, in fact, the cost of astronomy has decreased significantly thanks to technology, to the new CMOS detector, which are very sensitive computer onboard telescopes that can do processing and data analysis. So now for only typically $2,000 or less, you can have a powerful telescope equivalent to what I used to do to use in my doing my PhD in the 90s. And at the time you were I was using a one to two-meter glass telescope.
SPEAKER_02Man, I gotta get a telescope. I haven't looked at a telescope in years. I used to go out there and be like, is that Orion's belt? And I found you and was like, I'm doing everything wrong. I need to re-reevaluate the myself. The universe is a big scary place, but like a big exciting place. So I love all of this. But I want to talk about something that is SETI, S-E-T-I. I don't know how you say it, but it stands for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. So what an acronym. Like how do you say it? SETI, or do you say STI? SETI? SETI, SETI. Yes, SETI. Yeah. Okay. Kevin's like, obviously SETI. Okay, my B, whatever. But it's a collection of these scientific initiatives that are aimed at detecting signs of activity or intelligent life beyond Earth, which is crazy to think about. I mean, at one point we were like, oh, we landed on the moon, and then it's like, who wants to live in Mars? And it's like Pluto's not even a planet. All these crazy things, which Kevin and I were talking about before the episode started. And now I'm like, what are we doing here? So what does searching for extraterrestrial intelligence actually look like on a day-to-day basis? Is it as exciting as people imagine? Like, are you like, oh, look, an alien? Like, like tell me about it.
SPEAKER_03Well, it's not that exciting then than oh, look, an alien. Uh, what we spend a lot of our time doing as everybody is sitting in meetings and uh and discussing with colleagues around the world in building the best instrument to detect those technosignatures. I'm a lucky astronomer because I spend a lot of my time building instruments and installing them. So that means I go out of g out of my office. I travel around the world. I was in Puerto Rico recently, I went to Armenia, I visit a lot of different countries to bring instruments, telescopes, or some of the instruments that we use to uh detect these techno signatures. So it's a lot of meetings slash buildings slash traveling, and and now what we are really trying to do is to create instruments which are autonomous. The last thing we want is to have a human being involved in maintaining the instrument. So we are building those instruments like the sky sphere, for instance, which are fully automatic. We install them, you plug them, and that's all. They're running and they're taking data and they're making analyses. And if something happens in the sky, they will warn you.
SPEAKER_01I mean, obviously, I think everybody wants to know based on everything you've seen, do you believe that intelligent alien life exists somewhere in the universe?
SPEAKER_03As a human being, I do believe that there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Simply because if that was not the case, it would be a waste of space and time. Considering the size of the universe, three trillion galaxies. In average, there is 100 billion stars in each galaxy. In our galaxy, we know there is at least 300 million stars that could be a planet that could be potentially habitable, meaning with liquid water the same size as Earth. So it's very likely there is life elsewhere. Intelligent life, maybe less likely, but the universe is so huge that it's quite possible that there is intelligent life elsewhere. But as a as a scientist, I need to show that, to prove it. And that's what basically motivates me every morning to do all this work.
SPEAKER_02I like that. I don't even know if there's intelligent life on Earth half the time. We have a lot of questions behind that. Here's my thing. If we think about like Hollywood and how it's shaped a lot of people's expectations about aliens. I mean, do you remember Drew Barrymore when she was like three or five? I don't know how old she was, and she was like in E.T. like E.T. phone home, and we have this image of these aliens. Ugh, good times. But there's these all these things of like, is it our friend? Did how are they gonna zap us up in the night? And then there's like these do you have you ever seen the show where it was like, oh, I forget it, but it came back and it was mostly about like unsolved murders and crimes. But they had an episode about all these people who claimed that people were just disappearing, that alien forms had come and like zapped people up. They saw the light, they saw the spaceship, and people were taken. Maybe someone returned, I don't know. But it was like a whole thing, and I want to believe it all. Like, I'm like, absolutely, it was aliens they got you, and this is the situation. Some people even say that there are aliens living on, like, like they've taken over, they have those things, it's like pods. I don't know. It's all these crazy theories, and you don't know what's real, you don't know what's going on, but I know that you actually know. So, what's one movie that gets surprisingly close to the science and one that gets like completely wrong? Like if you watch it and you're like, that one makes no sense, and one where you're like, it's actually, yeah, that one, that one could be real.
SPEAKER_03Encontour the third type, if I remember the title properly, it's a very cool movie because it shows how the first contact could happen and how aliens can be very different to us, so we will not be able to communicate directly with them. So in this case, I think they use music to basically have some kind of interaction. We know that if you look at Earth, intelligence on Earth exists, we're not the only species. Wells and dolphins and chimpanzee and vendor are intelligent, and we cannot communicate with them because they're very different intelligence. So in space, probably the intelligence will be extra radically different. So which one is completely wrong? There's so many of them. V We're probably too young to remember this series, but I do. I was traumatized by V. Just briefly for the young audience. A bunch of aliens come to us, they look very human, humanoid, like typically very humanoid, but in fact they're lizard and they come here to eat us. So why this is completely wrong, but and to steal our water. If you are master fast travel across the galaxy, you have access to hundred million planets with resources, water and probably other kinds of biosphere and so on. Why will you come all the way here to eat human and steal our water? Or you can just go somewhere, somewhere where there is nobody, and it's much easier. So that's the reason I don't believe that ETA or aliens could be a threat for us. If they have master faster than light propulsion, they can travel anywhere in the galaxy and even beyond, and they can always find resources for their for their civilization. So they need not interfere with us.
SPEAKER_02This this makes sense. I just have to just jump in real quick though. Like, if you were an alien, like what kind of music do you think they would be responding most to? Because you're saying responding, and Kevin and I talk about this a lot because he loves like heavy metal, it's just past. And I like basically everything but heavy metal. Do you think the aliens would relate more to Kevin?
SPEAKER_03Do you think they're like you already? No, it's not gonna be heavy metal, definitely not.
SPEAKER_02Thank God.
SPEAKER_03They will be listening to probably some kind of advanced techno music and uh very interesting sound combination.
SPEAKER_02Hell yeah, absolutely same page. Yeah, Kevin, you're safe, they'll be scared of you.
SPEAKER_01That's fair. But I mean, if we were to detect a credible signal from another civilization today, what would happen next? Is there actually a plan for what we would do?
SPEAKER_03Yes, and we published it last week. So the question is apropos. Last week, CETI and the permanent committee of CETI of the International Astronautical Association publish uh the new protocol. So the new protocol is basically a description of what we should do if one group detects a signal that could be a techno signature. So there is a lot of I'm summary, I'm gonna summarize it for you, but first this will stay in the scientific community, there will be confirmation of the signal from other instruments, then the data will be made available to the scientific community, they will reach a consensus on the location, the source, the location, and the type of the signal. And when the consensus has been reached, there will be an announcement made by the president, the emperor of the country that discovered the signal and the United Nations at the same time. And then the data will be made available to the public so everybody can have access to this data, to this observation and make their own data analysis. We are not going to hide anything, first of all, because it will be impossible, to be honest. There will be always one scientist that will tell his partner, his wife, or his friends that they discover something and tell them not to say anything to anybody. And of course, after literally two days, everybody in the world will know it. Nobody will keep that secret. It's such it will be such a big discovery that we will not be able to keep that secret. So there will be an announcement made very quickly.
SPEAKER_01What do you think we'll discover first? Is it going to be microbial life somewhere in our solar system or evidence of like an intelligent civilization somewhere beyond it?
SPEAKER_03Five years ago, I said that in 10 to 15 years we find the proof of existence of life elsewhere. And I think I'm still staying, I'm still keeping this 10-15. It's going to happen, and in fact, it may have already happened. We may have already discovered some proof that uh Mars had life in the past when he had a liquid uh large ocean. Uh, we pro we have found a lot of very strong uh indication of activity, uh biological activity on in the geyser of Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. There is this new exoplanet called K218B. Everybody knows this one. It's been uh observed by JWST, and there is some suggestion that we have a signature of a biological, potentially biological molecule. So I think it's coming. There is a lot of pieces now that show that we are on the verge of discovering that life exists elsewhere. Elsewhere, it's gonna be probably first microbiological life. Intelligent life, it's gonna take a while. We just started. We started CETI 40 years ago. I was not, I did not start SETI, I was at John CETI 15 years ago. Frank Drake did the first experiment in the 60s to give you an idea. Now we only started listening to up to a million stars. There is, as I mentioned, 200 uh 200 billion stars in our galaxy. So we just started the the search.
SPEAKER_02You know those things where you can like buy a star that you can't that's uh that's uh no you can't like you're just literally paying someone to lie to you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you just pay for that.
SPEAKER_01I mean you get a certificate and stuff, right?
SPEAKER_02Cool, I'll give you a certificate.
SPEAKER_03You can buy a star from me, and I will give you a certificate.
SPEAKER_02Kevin, I will give you a star for free when you buy some air from my yard and you own the air in my yard.
SPEAKER_01So I I want the air rights, right? I want everything above your house.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, absolutely. And the certificate, it you know what? Pay for the upgraded version. We'll send you a framed one. That'd be awesome. But Frank, I want to talk a bit about what you guys are doing with Sky Sphere. I mean, that's super cool. You're basically saying, hey, real-time sky monitoring powered by intelligent cameras and continuous, trusted observational data. Like, I'm I'm thrown by this. I've never heard of something that's just like, hey, monitor the sky. Immediately, I was like, Google Earth, but for the sky, like I'm I want to know more about it. And I feel like AI seems to be transforming every industry. So I kind of want to know from your perspective, how is it changing astronomy, both in research and in the tools people are using to explore the night sky? How did you take that to make Sky Sphere? Like, tell us about it.
SPEAKER_03The Sky Sphere idea is to uh build a network, a mesh network of in a resilient network and mesh that can basically observe the sky above your house if you buy one of them. We're doing Kickstarter now, so this is the right time. And you um if you when you plug it, you will basically get notification when something flies above your house, a drone, an airplane, birds, whatever you want, uh what you like and what you want to know. And you will also be able to be part of as a part of the network to access to other other network, other stations around. So see the sky in other parts of the world, for instance. What is important here is that we embedded into this system some intelligence. So the system will detect automatically while acquiring data when there is something interesting. We are teaching Rana to the stations to recognize a drone, uh, an airplane, a bird, a meteor by night, etc. So AI is changing the way we're doing science because it allows us to acquire a lot of observations and to basically let this numerical algorithm to take decisions and to record what is very what is interesting, what we know about, but also what we don't know about. And that's the important part. By recording continuously the sky around Earth, we will discover things that were not expected. In the atmosphere, there is a lot of different interaction. We have seen uh this we have discovered recently stuff like sprites. You can Google it. It took a while to understand what they were. There was the slides appearing before an earthquake as well. Those are natural phenomena that are very rare but appear from time to time. And we got recording quite late. But now we are with these stations, we are going to have basically a set of data with an explanation, and we have a large very small set of data for which we see things, but we don't know what they could be. And the main point here is that this data are recording on-chain, meaning that we will know that they're real observations, we know the source, and we will also know that nobody alters them, nobody modify them. And that's key here because we really don't want to start claiming that we have discovered a new phenomena in the sky without being sure that this observation is a real observation. So that's one of the reasons we are using AI. And the second part of this network is that it will also acquire observation on chain, and some AI will use them to train themselves, specifically, for instance, for observation of satellites with telescopes. We can imagine that a lot uh after a while, when those AJI will be smart enough, they will basically be doing the space situational awareness on Earth, so monitor continuously the sky using our network. And the main point here is that the data we are going to give to these AIs will be real observations. I see a future into which maybe I'm paranoid, but yeah, I think it will happen. Some people will start using AI to create fake data, fake observations, fake in astronomy and also in space situational awareness, bringing a lot of noise and poor data into the system, so making those AI less and less efficient. So here we are trying to find a way to counterbalance that by having data providing on-chain for which we know the origin and we should have not been altered, and we can trust that.
SPEAKER_01I mean, we're seeing sort of a modern-day space race led by private companies instead of governments. Who do you think is best positioned to make the next like truly historic breakthrough? And what do you think that will be?
SPEAKER_03I don't think it will be one company. I think it will be a multiple of them coming together. There is a lot of new space startups which are doing remarkable jobs right now. Launching private space stations, for instance, it's coming. And this will be a radical change because it will finally give the opportunity to a lot of people to go to space and to see Earth from uh from above. Having this overview effect that has changed significantly the way you see our own existence on this planet. So I think this is gonna be the beginning. And then having also resources in space, produced in space, will also increase the quality of life on our planet. Maybe I'm very optimistic here, but if we start mining in space, if we start getting minerals in space and energy in space, it's gonna be better for our own biosphere on this planet because it will basically reduce pollution and the impact we have on the environment as UNB. I'm a true believer of having an industry in space and growing this industry in space because of that.
SPEAKER_02This is so wonderful. Like I'm I'm like, I gotta go sit outside and look up at the stars tonight. It'll probably be cloudy. The moment I want to, it'll just be like one of those days you see nothing. You're in California, so I think do you have better views of the stars in California than I do in the South?
SPEAKER_03I I live in San Francisco, it's the worst place for astronomy.
SPEAKER_02Okay, good. Good, I want to hear that.
SPEAKER_03And that's the reason we created this Sky Mapper network. I'm so done seeing the not seeing uh be able to observe by night. Now I can and now I connect on my network.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I can just take control of any telescope on this planet. We have like 70 telescopes connected now.
SPEAKER_02So I don't have to move to Montana to see some nice stars now. For the people so for the people that that missed the Kickstarter, that they missed the bucket and it went live and they didn't get a chance to buy it. When can people actually buy this?
SPEAKER_03We are going to continue the Kickstarter. We are going to have this after Kickstarter campaign.
SPEAKER_02It would be like an indie, like an Indigo Go or what was that?
SPEAKER_03No, it would be Kickstarter now a lot of that too. So it would be possible to still continue to play after the Kickstarter.
SPEAKER_02Cool. I love this. So that way you give people an extra opportunity to still get on this.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's exciting.
SPEAKER_03We we're doing this because we we want to grow the network, as I mentioned. So the production we have identified for this for this uh sky sphere is significant, meaning we can manufacture easily 1,000 of them in six months. So we are going to continue the Kickstarter until we are reached this maximum, I believe.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's awesome. For for someone that's listening who's never even owned a telescope or looked seriously at the night sky, maybe they're just like weird. They go outside and they don't, they've never looked up, they've just never thought, should I look up? What is the easiest way to get started and actually contribute to the science of it? Is it like, hey, right now go by the sky sphere? Is it get the sky sphere, but also maybe get a telescope? Is it like just look up people? What would you recommend to somebody who's just never even thought about it?
SPEAKER_03So the first thing people should get is a binocular. I think binoculars has kind of the easiest path to uh to astronomy because you hold them in your hands.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03They can we have new smart binoculars made by Unistellar, which allow you to even you use an app and you say, I want to see this star or this comet. You click and then you take a binocular, it's called Envision, and you can basically get an indication of where to go and when the binocular knows that you are in the right area, you will will tell you to stop. So this will be kind of a view of a comet.
SPEAKER_02And wait, Frank, and uh, I haven't called you Dr. Frank all episode, so I'll just say it now. Dr. Frank, let me jump in here. Do you all sell those?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, this is my first company, Unistep.
SPEAKER_02That's so you're still I I didn't know if your first company was still you were still doing it because I I know that your first company was how you got into this and how you started it. And I'm still doing it. So you're okay. So how many companies do you currently have right now?
SPEAKER_03A lot, but uh the one the most active is Uniste Allowance Game.
SPEAKER_02Okay, that is so cool. Okay, you're gonna have to give us a if you're listening to this, by the time you're hearing this, we will make sure that we have gotten all the links to all these companies and they will be included in the mail out. So if you're like me and you're like, What? I need to buy these, we'll get the links for you.
SPEAKER_03Okay, thank you. And yeah, and then after the next step is to get a telescope. You can get uh there is a lot of different types of telescopes now. That is but get a digital telescope, a smart telescope that you can control with a phone, find itself the target similarly to the to the binocular. But this one it's a powerful object. The telescope allows you to see things that you cannot see with you with uh with a binocular, so you can see galaxy, nebulae, even in cities. Or you can also try the telescopes by going to our sky sky mapper uh network. With our sky mapper network, you will have access to a hundred telescopes and a thousand pretty soon. So you can start doing astronomy using those this network to start with. And if you if you want to have a telescope, you can just go buy one later on. So try first, and then you then you see if you uh really want you hooked and you really want your own telescope. Then you connect it to the SkyMapper platform.
SPEAKER_01I like it. Frank, this has been a fascinating conversation. Thanks for joining us today. I really appreciate the time you've given us.
SPEAKER_03Thank you very much to both of you, and uh see you soon again.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Absolutely. I'll see you in the sky. Kevin, I loved this episode. What did you think? Did you love it?
SPEAKER_01Same, I loved it.
SPEAKER_02I I loved it. I mean, I I feel like this guy spent his entire career discovering asteroids, like just building telescopes. Who who do we know that has done these things? Like for sure.
SPEAKER_01And I love the citizen science aspect of it, like the community and like you know, this is a whole bunch of just nerds just getting together and just geeking out over science. I find it awesome.
SPEAKER_02I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I'm super into something that's gonna like clear through the clouds. I'm gonna see the sky. I think what they're doing is super cool. I want to buy all of their gadgets and all of the stuff because I'm I'm a tech innovation nerd. He and he's so he's so different because you know, most people they dream about reaching the stars, right? They're like, one day, Timmy and I will be up there, we'll buy our own star or whatever, right? And Frank, he looked at that and he said, Why stop there? Let's map them, let's go. So I think it was great. I I wish I didn't end the episode on see you in the sky, because I I think he may have thought it was a death threat. Because like I after I said it, I was like, I was kind of like, see you when we're dead. But no, all in all, like from my side of things, great, great. I mean, 10 out of 10. I I love a tech innovation episode. But but Kevin, any specific tech takeaways from you that that you want to talk about?
SPEAKER_01I mean, for me, I think the quest for finding intelligent life is fascinating. Whether we find this tomorrow or 100 years from now, it's clear that like we're going to find something at some point, right? The universe is too big and too complicated for there not to be something. And so I think it's cool that people are looking and people are doing this. And I think these things are neat, right? Because you have obviously there's a ton of stuff that's flying around just normally, right? You have planes, you have drones, you have satellites and stuff. But maybe one day they will actually find an alien life form or some sort of spacecraft or something flying over them. We don't know what it is.
SPEAKER_02I bet they have.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I bet like I don't think if they have, I don't think we we would know.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I like that he's like, we're gonna tell you, right? Like that piece of it was good because I was worried that like they're not gonna tell us, right? Like Area 51 and all this, there's so much secrecy around that. Like, I like that these guys have a plan to be like, no, no, no, no, here it is. Here's my buddy Alf.
SPEAKER_02I'm with you on that. And you know what I wish that I had asked? Here's my buddy Alf. You know what I wish I asked him? And for everybody who's like listening right now, tell me if you're thinking the same thing. Do y'all know about the scientists that would like disappear? Apparently, there's like all these scientists that like then all of a sudden they disappear. I'm like, don't let it be Frank. Like the moment he's like, we're about to tell him, it's like, and then we never saw Dr. Frank again. God, I don't know. If you have this fear, or if you don't, but if you're interested in anything regarding the space or tech innovation or anything we talk about, or if you just want to tell us if you think that Pluto is, you know, mad about being demoted, we'd love to hear from you. Reach out to us at contact at thattechpod.com. If you haven't seen the mail out with the the ways to get a hold of Frank and his cool products, go back and check it out or shoot us an email, we'll get you connected so you can become a space guru as well. We'd love to hear from you, as I mentioned, but we'd really love to be your friends on social media. So if you have LinkedIn, head over to LinkedIn.com slash that tech pod. Give us a follow. Let's be friends. If you haven't yet, go to our website, www.thtechpod.com, enter your email to subscribe, make the right decisions, get some gear, feel good, feel right. You know, it's it's the it's the way to live. We might also be on other social medias. I don't know. Help us find out. Kevin, is there anything else our listeners can do?
SPEAKER_01Yep, go to every earpods, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartMedia, or what have you, and leave us a review, leave us a rating, let us know how we're doing. All that stuff helps us with the algorithms and gets us out there more, which is much appreciated. Thanks everybody.
SPEAKER_02Thanks everyone.