Manufacturing the Future in Space: Semiconductors, Sovereignty, and Ridiculously Audacious Goals | Josh Western

What's the value of a ridiculously audacious goal if you never reach it? Josh Western, CEO of Space Forge, argues the question misses the point - because the innovations accelerated along the journey often matter more than the destination itself.

Space Forge manufactures advanced semiconductor substrates in microgravity conditions, returns them via reusable satellites, then grows them terrestrially using a ‘sourdough starter’ approach. It's technically audacious, operationally complex, and solves a critical problem: producing higher-purity compound semiconductors for AI, EVs, 5G, and energy infrastructure without Earth's gravitational constraints.

Josh reveals why Space Forge could be five different startups (in-space manufacturing, reentry vehicles, heat shields, landing software, crystal growth), but integration creates the real multiplier. He explains the regulatory nightmare of manufacturing in international waters, why payload economics now matter more than launch costs, and how recruiting for passion beats technical pedigree when no one has ‘10 years experience making semiconductors in space.’

His North Star: making space manufacturing so ubiquitous and boring that people don't realise the chip in their kettle came from orbit. Until then, every innovation along the journey - from sovereign supply chain contributions to regulatory frameworks - creates substantial value independent of the ultimate goal.

Essential listening for Deep Tech founders navigating vertical integration, novel regulatory challenges, and the tension between moonshot ambitions and incremental

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Podcast Production: Beauxhaus

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Just-in-Time Manufacturing in Microelectronics
• 0:50 Welcome to the Lab to Market Leadership Podcast
• 1:24 The Value of Audacious Goals: A Look Back at the Apollo Program
• 4:41 Interview with Josh Western: Space Forge's Ambitious Vision
• 7:31 The Challenges and Innovations in Space Manufacturing
• 9:53 The Importance of Semiconductors and Global Supply Chain
• 18:53 Vertical Integration and Resource Management at Space Forge
• 26:21 The Science Behind Microgravity Manufacturing
• 32:47 The Sourdough Analogy: Space Forge's Production Process
• 35:17 Challenges in Space Manufacturing and Regulation
• 37:54 Creating Value and Future Goals
• 40:50 Focus on Semiconductors: The Critical Technology
• 44:44 Cost Efficiency and Investment in Space Forge
• 48:27 Recruitment Philosophy and Team Building
• 1:01:09 The Importance of Passion and Enjoyment in Work
• 1:02:56 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Josh Western: 0:00

Because so much of the microelectronics industry and the industries that sit above that automotive, telco, whatever, depend on just in time manufacturing principles. So at no point does anybody want to be set on a huge pile of stock that they aren't able to shift. And so we have to work to those principles in order to do it. So eventually, the way that I'd like to see it is basically we have Amazon, Amazon warehousesque places globally where our satellites land and get delivered, and then it just goes out from there. And you know, within 24 hours is with the customer type thing, because that's the way that the business model works, because that's the way manufacturing already works. Nobody who currently manufactures a product here on Earth will change the way they operate to include something from space, you have to take the thing that comes from space and make it fit the way in which we currently do things to have it adopted.

Chris Reichhelm: 0:50

Welcome to the Lab to Market Leadership podcast. Too many advanced science and engineering companies fail to deliver their innovations from the lab to the market. We are on a mission to change that. My name is Chris Reichhelm, and I'm the founder and CEO of Deep Tech leaders. Each week we speak with some of the world's leading entrepreneurs, investors, corporates, and policy makers about what it takes to succeed on the lab to market journey. Join us. We're talking today about ridiculously audacious goals and the value created in pursuit of those goals. And to illustrate this, I want to go back in time and up in space. In 1961, President Kennedy announces to the world. America will land a man on the moon and return him home safely by the end of the decade, eight years later, this happens. And to prove it's not a one-off NASA and their Apollo program, they repeat this exercise multiple times over the course of the next three years. It was and remains for many the greatest technological feat in humanity's history. But beyond demonstrating to the world that America had won the space race, what was the value created in this exercise? Was it all geopolitics or was there something else? To my mind, perhaps, not surprisingly, the value created by so-called winning or being perceived to win the space race. Was dwarfed by comparison with the value that emerged from innovations that were either defined or accelerated'cause of the Apollo program. And in fact, I would go further. I would say that the world of technology and science that we inhabit today was in part birthed by the Apollo program. Innovations like microchips, not defined, but accelerated thanks to the Apollo program. Innovations in software, particularly validation and testing project management. Innovations like telemetry, like uh, remote health monitoring systems like advanced materials, novel alloys, composites like complex medical imaging technologies like solar energy technologies, battery technologies, water purification systems, freeze dried food. All of these were, again, not just defined or in some cases not defined at all, but they were accelerated in pursuit of this ridiculously audacious goal. Deep tech companies, deep tech ventures, are moonshot in their very nature. They're reaching for very audacious goals, and there is a tremendous amount of value, hopefully in realization of those goals, in realizing artificial general intelligence in realizing things like fault tolerant quantum computing to be sure. But I would argue that there is also just as much value potentially in the pursuit of that goal, which is not the same as reaching the goal itself. To help me chew on this some more. I am, uh, I'm delighted to be joined by Josh Western, who is the co-founder and CEO of a company called Space Forge. Space Forge is one of the UK's leading space companies, and as you'd expect, they have a ridiculously audacious goal of making advanced materials in space, more particularly making advanced materials and microgravity conditions, and then returning those advanced materials by satellite that also functions as a mini factory. I am, uh, I'm really interested in getting into this with Josh into, and, and in seeing in particular how he sees the journey of value creation, uh, within Space Forge. Uh, as ever, this is gonna be a great conversation. I hope you enjoy. Let's get into it. Josh Western, thank you so much for joining me.

Josh Western: 5:41

Chris appreciate it. Really good to be here.

Chris Reichhelm: 5:45

Manufacturing advanced materials in microgravity conditions, i.e. space is amongst the more audacious propositions that I've come across in all my years in, uh, in deep tech. What, what led you and your co-founder to believe that actually manufacturing these materials in space was the way forward?

Josh Western: 6:19

In both cases, I think I'm probably starting with a history lesson. Um, the, the advent of making things in space is not new. We have been successfully doing microgravity research and development around materials, both organic and inorganic since the 1960s. At the same time, we've been returning things from space successfully as human civilization since the late 1950s. Um, and in, in mine and Andy's own, uh, time as to, as to why we do this. Uh, one, we had to do something that mattered. Uh, and second, we were really bored. We were in a, we were two very small cogs in a very large machine. Um, and there wasn't, there wasn't the passion. I mean, you're absolutely right to say that Space Forge is audacious. My view would probably be as pretty much as audacious as you can get. Uh, and, and every now and again, I do remind myself I could have started a much easier company, uh, but then I probably would've been as many times as bored as many times as that would've been easier as well. Um, when it comes to what we do with the in space manufacturing of semiconductors, that as a technology has, has existed since 1973, we are stood on the shoulders of giants when it comes to knowing this is possible. It's just that the semiconductor industry has reached a point of maturity for materials that aren't silicon, that the demand curve and the signal and the need globally for these materials have now arrived. So the one thing I can always say with certainty is that I might be too early, I might be at the right time, but I'm definitely not too late to be able to do this. Mm-hmm.

Chris Reichhelm: 8:12

Mm. And so in, in setting, in setting Space Forge up, was this primarily led by the market? You know, the development of these materials, as I understand it, you're making substrates for semiconductors. Was that a market led thing? And that is recognizing that silicon, you know, the life of silicon may be reaching its final destination. Or was it, how much was it a function of this is ridiculously audacious, we should do it, and if we don't get it right with, let's say, substrates for semiconductors, we'll find something else. And how much was it actually responding to that semiconductor and industrial need?

Josh Western: 8:58

Uh, so it, it, at least for us, has always been about semiconductors. So when we started in the garage, uh, on the outskirts of the city, we started with a 3D printer, a vacuum pump, uh, and some very crude electronics to attempt to make a, uh, basically a reactor where you grow these semiconductor crystals. What we very quickly found out in the early stages of our journey, uh, were two things. One, any available in-space infrastructure that could actually host us to be able to do this was wildly expensive. Second, uh, if we weren't to go and use something on the market, anybody we approached to help build it for us thought we were crazy, and so were unwilling to do it. Um, which quite frankly is fair enough. Uh, but that's what led to a, a much larger creation around what Space Forge does because we had to build our own architecture to facilitate this being possible. When we started back in 2018, nobody cared about semiconductors apart from the people who were in the industry. Um, it's only through, you know, kind of the onset of COVID war in Ukraine, um, the release of Chip war, but people have actually really begun to understand. Just how important these things are. Literally, every sector globally, in every country depends on them. Um, and at the same time, how fragile the entire global supply chain that makes this entire industry up is, you know, irrespective, even if you set aside the geopolitics of Taiwan and, and everything else, there is no one up tree that excels at every aspect of semiconductor production. There are nations, groups of nations which lead in certain parts. Of course, Taiwan leads in, uh, the manufacturing of the, of the wafers. Uh, the UK has an enormous opportunity around IP with historically speaking companies like a, but it also has really good industry around compounds. The US, of course, has an incredibly dominant microelectronics business with respect to the packaging and the design considerations when it comes to the products that you do that with, which have of course resulted in companies like Nvidia and Apple. But that is all at a time whereby it's less that the road for silicon is ending, silicon is a manufacturing marvel. Like it, you're literally taking the right type of sand and it's, it's enabling us right now to have this conversation. Uh, what is impressive about silicon is how much money goes into producing something so cheaply. So, you know, latest fab or whatever is 20 billion, but it's trying to produce components that cost less than a penny. It's, it's actually quite remarkable how much effort it takes to make silicon economics make sense. The challenge is that the demand for where silicon plays has now massively increased. So, for example, you know, the people are loving to talk right now about artificial intelligence and data centers and its energy consumption and its potential water use and, and everything else. The real bottleneck is not the availability of that compute. The bottleneck is how much power it takes to drive that compute. If you can improve the outcome of the energy that goes into that data center, that then drives the large language models or out compute, whatever it is that you are working with, then you are able to redress the balance between the energy consumption and the useful output. The challenge is energy consumes a lot of power in terms of getting it from the grid into something useful. That's where something like a compound helps. So what we do as Space Forge is we underpin the infrastructure infrastructure that effectively makes pretty much all of our lives easier.

Chris Reichhelm: 12:53

And you underpin it how exactly? By creating a more efficient substrate?

Josh Western: 13:01

Pretty much. So all semiconductors start as an inorganic crystal structure as. Um, so silicon is one material, it's silica, but you also have compounds that conductors gallium nitride and silicon carbide are probably two of the most well adopted. Yeah, you find silicone carbide in electric vehicles. You find gallium nitride in things like 5G powers. And by their very nature, they're different materials smushed together into a crystal fault. Um, the performance of that system where that compound semiconductor substrate is eventually deployed in the form of a chip starts its dependency on how good a crystal structure you have. If you can improve how pure or how good that crystal structure is, you can improve the end system outcome of wherever that chip gets deployed. So in many ways, what we do is the material science that enables us to have a pure chip that enables us to either have higher performance, consume less energy, uh, worry less about heat and so forth. We don't prescribe to our customers how they deploy our materials. We just offer them the opportunity to have a better outcome.

Chris Reichhelm: 14:13

Yes, yes. Understood. Understood. But the, the, the Space Forge, the, you know, the, the, the materials themselves are definitely not your only innovation. Um, you know, you are obviously creating these novel, far more efficient substrates, which can impact the entire value chain and the entire system. Um, in a, in a what sounds like a fairly significant way, but you're also, as part of that, it sounds like you've got to create these many manufacturing facilities, uh, that are, from what I can understand also, satellites, you need them to be returnable too. Um. And, and just from the bit of research that we've done, you know, so you've got these reusable orbital micro factories, if you will, but then you've also got this return and, and, and recovery stack, uh, with, uh, what I understand the pri wind deployable, which is the reusable heat shield, and you've got your predictive reentry and landing software and, and a number of other innovations too. So it doesn't appear that the materials are the only bet you're making. It appears that you're also creating innovation in other areas that are related to, to delivering on your end goal. Is that, is that fair?

Josh Western: 15:49

Sort of. So what we're doing at Space Forge has all been done before, irrespective of what technology piece you choose, uh, effectively. At no point in history have all of them been brought together, at least in a, in a, in a commercial sense. Um, so we are certainly new in that form. Uh, the, the list you read out there betrays the fact that basically space four two, so choses could be about five different startups and each one of them could be successful. But the real multiplier comes from when you, when you have those technologies come together. Um, and the challenge is that if you only did one aspect of it is that the other four can't be as successful. So as, as an example, you know, we are by no means the only reentry vehicle on the market. We are by no means the only in-space manufacturer on the market. The challenge is that if you have only the vehicle or you have only the payload, is that very rarely do the, do the opportunities actually align with respect to does that vehicle that you're reentering have a gentle enough reentry to allow you to bring your product max safely? Does it have enough power, uh, for you to actually do your production process? Similarly, the vehicle has to say, well, perhaps that process takes too long and I need to be up and down in two weeks to make my business model work. So I can't sustain something that works or needs to be up in space for three months, six months, or, or whatever it is. So it's only by having a view across the whole stack, which we were forced to have, because nobody wants to build it at the start, has allowed us to actually carve our own wedge when it comes to having a position within this market. Um, what I would say is, despite the like historical connotations that all of our various and technologies have, the, the key for us at the moment from Space Forge is we are certainly unique from a European standpoint, uh, and the. Again, the way in which politics is caught up both in the space arena and in the semiconductor arena, to understand the importance and to understand the need to not be reliant, uh, on potential other partners or other nations for access to these things. Whether or not that's your semiconductor supply chain, whether or not that's getting to and from space, we are seeing a, almost like a renaissance with respect to the considerations that are now given to these two streams from a European and from a British perspective, in driving the need to have these as strategic industries that can actually be relied upon and then go on to underpin all of the industrial bases, pretty much for all of the other technologies. You can't have an automotive industry today without having a semiconductor industry as a result. Absolutely.

Chris Reichhelm: 18:37

Absolutely. Absolutely. There are a whole bunch of interesting things you just said there. Um, the, um, I guess let me tack into. The first one, all of these different domains, all of these different disciplines. I mean, that is an enormous, I suppose, is that kind of the verticalization of, of what you're doing. And you've seen this in other big deep tech organizations, if you wanna call it deep. Uh, uh, Tesla, a big deep tech organization. They've verticalized, they don't rely on much of supply chain. They tried to do everything themselves. They've created their own production line and a lot of their own materials and obviously their own software and batteries and all of that kind of stuff. Although the battery technology, uh, uh, comes from a variety of different sources. But, um, it sounds like you're doing something similar, so you couldn't find the partners quite so you've decided to do it yourself. What kind of, for a startup that is ultimately limited by resources, both in terms of capital and talent and so on. How do you, how do you manage that? Because each one of these things, as you said, you know, you know there are probably about five different startups there. You're bundling 'em all together. I totally get why you would do that. How do you prioritize that? How is it addressing that challenge? How is it, um, you know, that's, you, you know, that's one hell of a mouthful. How do you handle that?

Josh Western: 20:04

Uh, so we came up with an expression actually at the start of this year, which was prima payload year. So payload first, you know that, that by the na, by the virtue, that's the priority of it.

Chris Reichhelm: 20:15

That's the priority. Virtue

Josh Western: 20:16

payload. Yeah. Well, so by the virtue of its name itself, right? Payload, that's where the payday is. You know, and there are lots of space companies out there that basically forget that. Uh, and you know, they just want to build the coolest satellite, not necessarily what is the, what is the part of that satellite that is actually generating the revenue, creating the profit, um, you know, genuinely, and you can follow the cycle around creating the employment that allows those jobs to exist in the first place. If you, if you as a company can't support your payload, the rest of the architecture basically becomes invalid because the payload is what drives the market that we exist and operate in as Space Forge. Um, you know, there, there would be no point in having any reentry vehicle on the market unless we have something that was actually worth bringing back. Um, and so each time we went through this, we came back to this and we are very fortunate at Space Forge that again. You know, we, we timed the wave right with respect both semiconductors and our focus on the technology and, and the heritage and the expertise around the team that we had already built. But when it comes to the resourcing aspect, as much as there are those different technologies, a huge amount of them rely on the same skill set. So I would say broadly 50% of our company are material scientists and the other 50% are spacecraft engineers. The difference between spacecraft engineering and other engineering are two things. One, it has to survive a much more challenging environment than most other things that you engineer. And second, the funny suit that you have to wear while you're building it. That's pretty much it. So you have the ability to bring engineers from all sorts of disciplines and all sorts of other verticals, aerospace, automotive, wherever, to work on a technology that they believe in. All of that can be coupled with the fact that when it comes to how and earth to balance that resourcing engineers are woefully underpaid in the uk, even compared to our European counterparts, let alone compared to some of the US markets and, and so we're almost playing some kind of arbitrage with basically space salaries and semiconductor salaries with respect to operating in the uk, which always allows our money to go so much further. Otherwise would do. We were based elsewhere.

Chris Reichhelm: 22:29

Yeah. Arriving at that, uh, prima payload or payload, prima philosophy, was that immediate? Did you, was that always the priority? Was that something you arrived at by trial and error?

Josh Western: 22:48

Uh, I wouldn't say trial and error, uh, but it was a development process. Mm-hmm. So we, we have always seen ourselves as traveling to also both the reentry architecture and the semiconductor architecture, broadly speaking, they have to advance roughly at the same pace, because if you have one without the other, then the whole cycle can't close. Mm-hmm. The, uh, challenge, or let's say the challenge more, what we realized within these iterations of the development cycle was that each point, actually it was the semiconductor process, was then driving the reentry architecture that was required. Not the reentry architecture could drive the payload.

Chris Reichhelm: 23:29

Okay. That's interesting. So you, your reentry strategy, if you will, and the designs for reentry were kind of guided by the material development, not the other way around?

Josh Western: 23:45

Absolutely. So it comes back to this whole thing around you have to serve the payload. So that has certain power considerations, gas handling requirements, mats and so forth. So there's no, there's no, there's no point in developing a reentry architecture that can't serve whatever it is that you are trying to produce, whatever it is that you're trying to return home. So it was a natural emergence through our development cycles that as the payload developed, we then had to look again at the reentry architecture as to best be able to handle what it was we were developing. From an interface manufacturing standpoint.

Chris Reichhelm: 24:27

Yep. These, these, if you don't mind me asking, these kind of micro factories you've got inside of these satellites are, are they, um, how sophisticated are they? You mentioned about the growing of the crystals early on in order for, um, uh, in development of the substrates. Are they almost like, uh, almost like little greenhouse factories for the development of the, of the crystal? Or are they more sophisticated in than that involving lots of different moving parts and so on?

Josh Western: 25:03

So, uh, this is where if you don't have an appreciation for how semiconductors are produced, you think they're really sophisticated. Um, so people think of miniature factories, you know, we've had a few, we've had a few people even ask us, well, how do we get an astronaut out there inside of that kind of space? Um, absolutely not the case. The. The best way to think about it is it's basically a chemistry set. Hmm. Uh, you know, and it's not even a, it's not a particularly sophisticated chemistry set when it comes to the process that you are undertaking. What is sophisticated is being able to basically ruggedize all of that technology to make it appropriate such that it can survive operating in the space environment. But as you touched upon, I get that the, the actual process is, it's a growth process. So you are, you are, you are doing chemistry, you're mixing the molecules together and you're basically eating it up to let it, to let a chem, uh, a chemical process take place. Yes. And once, once you've finished with that reactor process, you have the finished product that you need, and then you begin on your reentry journey. So what being in space does is it basically provides us with an enormous running headstart for the industrial processes we are looking to undertake compared to if you were trying to undertake them here on earth.

Chris Reichhelm: 26:21

What are the competitive advantages of the material that you can achieve by developing it in microgravity versus here on earth?

Josh Western: 26:33

So primarily it comes down to the crystal structure, the crystal structure. Um, you want the highest purity crystal you can achieve. And when I'm talking about the purity of that crystal, I'm talking about it from two different, uh, perspectives. The first one of those is that you need the crystal to be as uniform as possible. So the, an excellent example of this is like diamond compared to, uh, I don't know, by other forms of carbon. Let's go for, let's go for coal or something like that. Um, one has three bonds and is black and awful and all sorts of other things. Uh, but it's a useful fuel source. The other one has four bonds. And due to some very clever marketing back in the 1920s, it's now perceived to be of great and rare value. Um, the, uh, and it's down to the purity of that structure and how well that bonding has taken place. So in on earth, you can create those bond structures in all sorts of crystals reliably and repeatedly. The challenge is that when it comes to something like a compound semiconductor, that growth process is very slow. And so what happens is gravity starts to have a profound effect on that growth process, that it basically just rotates one of the bond structures. And as it rotates, one of the bombs you have like a tiny little canyon appear, and you can see this under like an electron microscope. And then as, as one of those canyons appear, more of the crystals, uh, the bonds start to rotate and more of the canyons start to appear. So what happens is that basically the further away you get from the, from the initial position of growth, the worse the crystal becomes in part, microgravity prevents that from taking place because it, it basically reduces a probabilistic outcome that one of those rotations can occur by virtue of the fact you have a much lower gravity environment. The second perspective as to why this is important is where things that aren't the crystal you are looking to grow, start a period. So on earth, a semiconductor, uh, fabs and foundries and so forth, we create as, as high a vacuum environment as we can to ensure that basically this crystal can't be contaminated by other molecules. So you might be worried about oxygen, you might be worried about nitrogen. You, you'll just effectively be worried about the air that we are breathing could potentially contaminate something that has under been undertaken in that semiconductor process in space. You have pretty much the same sort of pumping speed with respect to keeping that vacuum maintained as you do on earth. The difference between the two vacuums is the distance between the presence of molecules, which could contaminate that process. So for example, you're worried about nitrogen interfering with whatever process it is you're undertaking. In a semiconductor fab on the ground, you can get that presence of nitrogen down to 10, to the minus 11 in space. At above 500 kilometers altitude, you would find nitrogen at 10 to the minus 22. So you go from being sort of, you know, meters apart, tens of meters apart to kilometers, hundreds of kilometers even potentially thousands of kilometers apart from the next time that you would potentially hit a nitrogen molecule. Those two things give you a pure base from which to undertake the rest of the semiconductor manufacturing process. All of which is done once we return on the ground. The only keystone piece that is worth undertaking in space is that of the initial crystal formation.

Chris Reichhelm: 30:18

I get it. I totally get that. I get that. I get that. What are the, and so then I'm guessing it's about getting the costs down of the launch and obviously the microfactory setup, it doesn't sound from the sound of it, like there's, uh, a great deal of expense going into that beyond the spacecraft itself, but you don't have a lot of moving parts in there to actually develop the crystal. Then is it all about the economics of the launch and return?

Josh Western: 30:51

Uh, not necessarily. Okay. So it u it used to be, okay, so when we started back in 2018, average price per kilo, the launch, it's about 35, 30 $8,000 a kilogram. It's now about two, maybe $5,000 a kilogram. So the claps. The claps,

Chris Reichhelm: 31:11

okay. So that has calmed down a lot.

Josh Western: 31:15

Yeah. Uh, in fact, it's actually ticking up the other way because there are so few people currently able to provide launch. But all of that aside, there's obviously been a significant reduction in the price per kilogram. Um, you know, it's, it's if you get down to $500 a kilogram, which is what Starship is proposing to do, uh, under SpaceX, um, then, you know, humans could very realistically start paying to launch themselves. The, the aspect which now needs the most work is actually energy pricing. So space is currently our most expensive part, as you would expect. You know, there's a whole bunch of engineering, there's a whole part, bunch of development, regulation and so forth to get through. Plus the, you know, it's, uh, albeit has some down price. It's still, you know, still, uh, it's still pretty punchy to get something into space and to get something back. But what happens is, is what you cheated that first return with that high purity, greater crystal. My next challenge is the expense of running the terrestrial reactors that can take that crystal and continue growing it.

Chris Reichhelm: 32:19

Okay. That All right. So it's not complete when it returns. You've got to go and uh, and continue its development here on Earth.

Josh Western: 32:30

So it is complete if we want it to be complete, is the way that I would, it depends

Chris Reichhelm: 32:35

on the, it depends on the application it's going into

Josh Western: 32:38

or it depends on the application. So what we do is basically like, uh, what we bring back from space we call mother. So it's a bit like making a sourdough starter. We all making a sourdough look. We make the starter in space on the ground, you put it into crudely another oven, you add more ingredients and you bake it into a loaf still of supreme quality. You then take some slices from that and then some of those go on to become the next mother while the others go on into very high grade infrastructure applications. So the balance we are trying to now strike as Space Forge is how many generations do we want to produce against the kind of emerging cost base of keeping a, a semiconductor company running and against basically the, the viability of supply. What you don't want to do is commoditize your supply too early, but you also don't want to leave it too restrictive that prevents you from entering exerted markets. So we're trying to work out how many times do we go round this, this sourdough loop terrely to be the sweet spot.

Chris Reichhelm: 33:40

Yeah, that's, that's fascinating. The, and I think the analogy is wonderful with the sourdough. That's, that's very relatable. The, it, it sound, well, it sounds simpler than I thought it would be, I guess before our conversation today, but there's still a number of different. I'm guessing there are still a lot of different novel processes and technologies that you've had to develop in order to realize this. How much have you been able to port from other platforms or other industries existing stuff to kind of decrease the development time and increase your cha and, and accelerate the overall development of the business?

Josh Western: 34:30

The, uh, I mean, we've been able to pull a huge deal, uh, but all of the development and a core piece of our IP has been in being able to bring that technology across and then prepare it for space. It's in, it's in the preparation activities you have to undertake to qualify something ready for a launch and ready for a reentry, which is the, it is the big undertaking what we do at Space Forge. It's still the same chemical process that we undertake on the ground to produce. Semiconductors. It's just the virtue of the environment in which we're operating in that enables that I would actually argue the real novelty of what we do has actually come from the regulation aspects. So that's the thing that keeps me up at night the most. So, uh, to, to, to provide you with a, a very live example, we designed a developed platform here in the uk. We then don't have much in the way of launch operators currently active in Europe, so we have to send it to America for launch. It gets launched from America and it goes into effectively international waters because you are in space. And space right now is basically treated like the sea. Um, you then have the challenge that we are basically one of the only things that comes back from space, more valuable than when it left. So we break all of the insurance models for space insurers. They're used to something that diminishes with in, in value over time. We then, uh, due to the regulatory environment, cannot return straight to the uk 'cause we, we have to demonstrate our technology elsewhere before they allow us to land in, in congested at Sea spaces the uk, which completely fair enough. Uh, but that means I land, uh, to Portugal where we have an office in the Azores. So I land in the Atlantic. I then have the challenge that I didn't manufacture my product in Portugal, nor did I technically manufacture it in America and nor did I technically manufacture it in the UK. So at any stage where I land, I could be potentially charged, import, and customs for having landed there in the first place.

Chris Reichhelm: 36:45

Wow, okay.

Josh Western: 36:49

Wow. So I have to figure out how can I basically use the Freeport network. To get my products around into the different territories and the different customers I have. Or I run a hub and spoke model and I land it in the jurisdiction of the customers I'm serving.

Chris Reichhelm: 37:06

And how cooperative are various customs officials being with you on this?

Josh Western: 37:11

Uh, it's been a mixed bag. Some very happy, uh, to help me. Others. The response was, uh, what was it? There was, uh, one chap and he just went, I don't get paid enough to figure this out.

Chris Reichhelm: 37:24

I'm sure. Wow. That's, that is something the, um, the, so, you know, but that's, but you referred to that as the novelty actually. Yeah. And that there are a lot of novel processes involved anyway, but you've cut, you know, you've cut and pasted a lot from various other industries, and then you've specified them, if you will. Yep. To serve your needs. Um, the, where do you see at the top of this show, we started talking about value and the value that's created along the journey. Do you see the value for you guys all consisting in delivery of the end goal? And what does that end goal look like, by the way? Or is there still a great deal of value that you can create in pursuit of that goal?

Josh Western: 38:26

So there, there is already an enormous amount of value. So as, as a company, we already produce semiconductor substrates. We are already shipping those to customers to terre. The value in that is that we are one of the few providers able to contribute to a sovereign and resilient supply chain across Europe. So there are so few players that do the stage of production that we do. We're able to interface with a huge amount of supply chains in some really critical applications. Um, so, you know, like telecommunications, like building out more resilience for automotive, like data centers and so forth amongst all the other, you know, very obvious defense and aerospace applications that these sorts of technologies have. Um, I would then say the, uh, utility for having platforms capable of reentering back to earth has not been lost on a whole host of other users. Whether or not they are other interface manufacturing companies, whether or not they are, uh, researchers in other verticals, whether or not they are the space agencies themselves that would have use for such a technology, um, and so forth. So we have seen all of those emerge. What I would say though, when it comes to the end value point is that I don't really think we have one. So I, I've always stated that I have a goal that right now, you know, when you're opening up your laptop or whatever, and it says Intel inside, I want to see it one day say, Space Forge inside. The, the end point for me is that if what I do becomes boring, then I have succeeded. If what if making semiconductors in space is considered par of the course that we have succeeded? You know, if somebody switches on that kettle and they don't even realize that there is a chip somewhere in the grid that was produced in space, and that's the reason why, it costs them less to have a cup of tea these days, then I've succeeded until that point is realized. Then I don't, I, I won't ever consider us having achieved the full end value of what we do. Um, very crudely, before I have described this as I want to build Apple, but from space, but I actually think that does a disservice. To how ubiquitous and abundant we want this technology to be one day.

Chris Reichhelm: 40:50

Would you go, would you extend beyond semiconductors or semiconductor substrates?

Josh Western: 40:57

Uh, in short, no. Um, so we will facilitate other people to use our platform for other technologies. If they wanna do pharmaceuticals, alloys, whatever it is, I'm more than happy to become a partner for them. But to me, semiconductors are the most critical technology of this century and likely the next century as well. You know, in the 19th century it was called in the 20th century, it was oil. It has become, abundantly clear. As early as we are into the 21st century, how much of it is going to rely on semiconductors and microelectronics? So I don't think there is a more important technology that we were working on, especially coupled with space and the next challenge of this is that there's basically no limitation to semiconductor materials that we could explore. Uh, so the technology approach, basically the chemistry set we send up into space, uh, could work across 14 different material classes, of which broadly about five or six of those are semiconductors. But within that, you then have basically an infinite combination of different semiconductor possibilities, some of which are already here on the ground. And we are already using, again, gallium nitride, silicon carbide and others that we basically theorize would make an excellent compound semiconductor. But due to the constraint of earth, haven't been able to produce it in any meaningful quantity. And that's where, again, the next stage of space water comes in. And the, the, the reason why I I hold this view is that many. People who operate in the sub-sector that is in space manufacturing will say, yes, of course they're going to move into different materials. Well, each type of different material requires basically a whole other company and a whole other batch of expertise. You know, making a drug is very different to making a semiconductor. Making a semiconductor is very different to making a glass fiber object. If you look at the way that manufacturing works on earth in like two cases globally, that happens to be a company that makes drugs and happens to make a semiconductor. And that's broadly due to some like m and a activity that occurred like 50, 60 years ago, not for any real strategic reason. Um, and so I think it is much better to be focused on one particular area or one particular use case and work to best serving. That customer. So as an example, if we are just producing our semiconductors and we return them and we, we stack them up and we just wait for water, that is a terrible way to run a semiconductor business. You need two things. One, you need your capacity orders from one side so that you know where your orders are going. Once you produce the crystal, the second time is you have to deliver to deliver that crystal when your customer needs it. Because so much of the microelectronics industry and the industries that sit above that automotive, telco, whatever, depend on just in time manufacturing principles. So at no point does anybody want to be set on a huge pile of stock that they aren't able to shift. And so we have to work to those principles in order to do it. So eventually the way that I'd like to see it is basically we have Amazon warehousesque places globally where our satellites land and get delivered, and then it just goes out from there. And, you know, within 24 hours, as with the customer type thing because that's the way that the business model works, because that's the way manufacturing already works. Nobody who currently manufactures a product here on Earth will change the way they operate to include something from space, you have to take the thing that comes from space and make it fit the way in which we currently do things to have it adopted.

Chris Reichhelm: 44:40

It is, uh, it's a very clear, inspiring ambition. I can, um, but tell me, it also sounds very expensive and investors have, uh, uh, have pressures. So how, one, do you have a sense of how much it's gonna cost to deliver on this? And are there compromises along that journey for you? And if so, where?

Josh Western: 45:13

So I would probably link back to some of the earlier things that I said that. You do get a level of cost effectiveness in the UK that you don't get elsewhere? Um, the total capital requirements for something like we do is far less compared to other ambitions within both the semiconductor ecosystem and the space ecosystem. You know, average cost of developing or rocket is about half a billion, don't need anything like that. Average cost of building a brand new fab is like 20 billion, don't need anything at all like that. And that's again, down to the virtue of the environment that we operate in because we go to space, there's a whole bunch of fab and foundry architecture that we don't need because we just need to get to space and we need to get to a fairly nominal orbit. We don't need anything particularly exotic about the launch opportunity. We can take the ride shares and the, and basically the buses as they come along. The, the areas in which we focus as Space Forge are around, of course, the tool development and, and the reentry develop. Again, everything else that we already do or leverage already exists. So when it comes to the investment appetite, uh, I would say, and I'm speaking on my investors' behalf here, uh, they have been pleased with how prudent we've been in what to try to do things just for the sake of doing them because we could, um, at the same time, while maximizing, putting in the investor's cash into the two areas which yield not only the most value, but also the most benefit, and basically also the most ancillary benefits that even if we should not succeed, we have basically made the world a better place for having attempted it.

Chris Reichhelm: 47:00

Yeah,

Josh Western: 47:01

yeah.

Chris Reichhelm: 47:03

It's, uh, I find the economics on this surprising, but I totally hear what you're saying because if you're piggybacking, you know, you're not building rockets, you're not, uh. Driving launches, you're piggybacking on SpaceX and, and, uh, and, and you're utilizing existing infrastructure. Um, and you're focusing on the tooling as you say, and on, on the other elements that you've outlined. And so I can see how that is far more, um, cost efficient, I guess, to develop this. Then it would be on earth. It, it's, I think when most people think about semiconductors and space, um, you know, immediately they're thinking in the billions, not the millions, but, um, but the economics have changed because of how far things have developed and also because I suppose to an extent the stage that you're working on, which is that very early stage and the supplying of that substrate, uh, obviously for a variety of applications, and there will be tweaks involved, but, but you are providing the, you know, the starting material if you want. It's, you know, you know, back to the bread. The sourdough, uh, analogy, you're providing the starter. Exactly. And so that is not the same as obviously running a fab or, or anything remotely close to that. Yes. Um, let's, let's talk a little bit about how you importing the skills, talent, and experience you need in order to build something like this out, because it is, it is fairly innovative. It certainly sounds very innovative. Um, do you, you know, I'd love to get your recruitment philosophy on this. Are, you know, are you looking at really bright, high potential, lots of energy engineers and sci and, and material scientists who haven't necessarily done anything like this before or done much like this before, but have the room for growth? A lot of startups go down that line. Are you looking to compliment them with more experienced hires, people who've been around and understand different platforms and different, and different technologies and materials and so on? Uh, are you going for just the latter? How does it work for you guys? How do you see that kind of, you know, the execution of your agenda with talent and the requirements you need?

Josh Western: 49:29

Oh, so it's, it's a, it's a blend of the two.

Chris Reichhelm: 49:32

Yep.

Josh Western: 49:32

Um, when we started Space Forge, I was 26. Uh, and I consider my naivety at that age when I thought I was mature to have been probably the superpower, the propelled Space Forge for the first few years. The, uh, I would say that we have only gotten as far as we have because we have always been so willing to, to listen to the advice of oth others that we've worked with. Um. So we do also have, uh, you know, a lot of people, you know, really getting toward the end of their career, but such that they've joined Space Forge so they can share as much of their knowledge as possible before, before they do retire. And the way in which I crystallized that most is that I'm now 33, and I don't really know any 33 year olds running a multinational space and semiconductor business with a satellite in space. And so the experience of which I've been afforded into a condensed total seven year, really five year period, as has been more than some people employ in an entire 40 year career. And that is also born out broadly in our recruitment process. So you, you touched on it yourself. There aren't really any, anybody, nobody's really done this before. And so I can't go onto the market and say hello. Do you have 10 years experience in making semiconductors in space? Because even, even we don't have that. And we, we basically started it. So the, uh, you have to look elsewhere for the experience, but you also have to look for the drive that makes somebody want to work on something as audacious as this. Um, so I always know that it's probably not going to be a fit when I'm in the interview process and somebody asks me about job security and I'm like, look, I cannot, I could never promise anybody job security, but I could also never promise somebody job security in the way that I would argue if you're a FTSE 100 engineering firm or something like that, you also should not be promising people the job security 'cause you simply don't know what's going to happen. So the only thing which I promise. A team member when they join is that they won't ever be bored. And even where we've had people, you know, who've been with us four or five years, grown up, mature, put a satellite in the face, and moved on, the one thing they say to me is like, Josh, you were right. I was never bored. And the the opportunity that comes with that is we, we've become a rising tide that's lifted all boats because when people have left, the one thing that they can say is about the experience that they gained. Um, you know, we've had, we've had our, our apprentice was hands-on with our satellite. Some of our interns, uh, last summer, were hands on with our satellite. Very few people on an internship were able to come back off of it, say, oh yeah, I, I've got to work on something that's now in space. Um, so there are all of these philosophies which have emerged through this process. But broadly speaking, we hire for passion and we hire for drive. And I, I know that there are endless amounts of companies that will also say that they do the same thing. I think the thing that sets us apart in Space Forge is not seeing age as a discrimination factor when it comes to either recognizing that drive and passion or recognizing that experience. I think I saw a quote somewhere, it's probably on LinkedIn or something like that, but it said, um, you know, do you actually have 10 years experience or do you have 10 years of experience doing the same thing every year for 10 years? But did you actually grow

Chris Reichhelm: 53:28

one year of experience 10 times? Yeah,

Josh Western: 53:30

exactly. Yeah. And uh, the way in which I think that is best crystallized is the Apollo program itself. So the average working age of an engineer on Apollo, I think Apollo 11, it might be in the entire program, was 26, the same age when we started space launch. Uh, and roughly I am the average age in the company at any given moment. Because of the amount of people that joined us early on and have grown up with us equally, where we've hired an abundance of long-term excellent experience at the other side. Broadly, I've, I've tracked that now. I think if you look at the space industry in general in the uk, I think the average working agent is like 58. Um, uh, I'm not, I can't remember what it is for the semiconductor industry, but I know it's not far off. Both, both of them have these perceived enormous skill crunches. So the challenge is not, it's not for a lack of people studying engineering. It's not for a lack of people studying chemistry. It's knowing that the roles exist in the first place, like semiconductors are cool, space is cool. They are not hard propositions to sell and make sound interesting because you're working on such fundamental technologies that underpin pretty much everything we do.

Chris Reichhelm: 54:48

Yeah.

Josh Western: 54:49

So I, I appreciate that was a really long view into my recruitment philosophy.

Chris Reichhelm: 54:54

Don't, don't, don't apologize it. I was talking to, uh, founder, CEO the other day and he said that when it comes to hiring, they too have the policy for the most part. And they have, they've been around since around the sa same time, 2017, 18. And he said he finds hiring the toughest part of his job. He said, because I'm making, he said, I'm making the decision largely based on the way I feel when I'm around them. Do they excite me? Do I come away from that, uh, engagement, feeling like they could do it? Uh, he said, I understand the structured questions to ask and the, you know, these different assessments and so on, but. I can't get behind them. The only thing I can kind of get behind to determine whether they're gonna be a fit is how excited I am to work with them. And that's, and he said, and I appreciate, that's probably not something you're gonna find in a, in a, you know, the golden rules of hiring. But that's how I've operated. And so far we've gotten to the point, and they're a very well known deep tech company in Europe. And they've, you know, and they've had a lot of, you know, they've accomplished a lot of milestones. They're doing well. They've raised a lot of money in all of, so, so it's clearly worked. It's clearly worked to an extent. Do you see it in a similar way or, yes. The hiring process and in particular, that kind of assessment of this, this thing called potential or energy or drive and motivation and recognizing that, you know, that people are different and they have different ways of communicating these, these energies, these features, if you will. But do you see that in a kind of similar way? So I'm,

Josh Western: 56:53

I'm not an engineer by background, and I have found that one of the hardest parts of my job has been getting an engineer to trust their instincts. Uh, and that that is true for hiring as much as it is any other aspect of their job. Um, it's something I rely on a lot when it comes to this hiring process, uh, when it comes to trying to navigate the regulation, the politics of what we do, the customer engagements. Uh, and I appreciate that comes to me more easily than it does others in my team. But what comes

Chris Reichhelm: 57:29

to you more easily? The intuition?

Josh Western: 57:32

Uh, I, I wouldn't call it intuition. Uh, I, I mean, I would just call it my gut. Um, uh, but I think that is also a, that's also a demonstration. Of the different skill sets required in industries like these, you know, the perception is often that unless I'm an engineer, there is not a role for me within semiconductors, within space, there is an abundance of jobs out there for people who don't come from these sectors or don't have the technical background to fill because there, there are, the way I would put it is that, uh, I once heard the joke in the space industry that only 10% of us are ever allowed out to play. Uh, and it, it's true, it's true. Um, I, I, I work with some incredible people, but they would, they would run a mile if I asked them to sit in front of a government or sit in front of a camera to talk about what it is that we do. And if they were willing to do it, they would talk about it in such a and astonishingly deep knowledge of how proud they are of the technology that the audience would be lost. So one of the things I bring is trusting my gut when it comes to making some of these decisions. Mm

Chris Reichhelm: 58:55

mm And, and to make those decisions, you know, to trust it. I suppose you've got to, sorry, I'm just kind of riffing here a little bit, but I suppose you've got to believe 100% in what you're doing. You've gotta be 150% focused. Uh, as well. You have to know kind of exactly where things are at and what's at play and, you know, it's gotta completely consume you. And you've got to, and, and, and then I think when you're evaluating it, when you're evaluating talent from that perspective, uh, and you are then operating from your gut. Gut and intuition for me feel like the same thing. Maybe they're not quite, but for me they feel more or less it's that voice, it's that urge. It's almost like an urge. It's a compulsion. I have to, I have to do this, I have to do this, or I have to work with her, or I have to, I have to hire him, whatever. But, um, but the intent, but there's something, you know, I wonder if there's a relationship between that intention that I'm so committed to this, I'm so committed to seeing this Right. And then making that decision then to, in order to have a chance clearly of getting it right. Does that make any sense?

Josh Western: 1:00:19

Yes. Um, I think, I think the way I would describe it is no, I've been building Space Forge longer than I've ever worked anywhere else, so it's gone to the stage now where I just don't know anything else. Yeah. In many ways I've got so much experience. I, I would probably never have to worry about getting a job ever again in many other ways. I'm so deeply unemployable. For having been able to create and build something for so long that I've got no doubt that I would really struggle to fit back into a corporate. And that comes with its own set of responsibilities, its own set of challenges, but also its own type of fun. Um, and it's less, it's less even about the, the drives and the, the passion. You know, every, every startup has bad times and that's where the companies are really forged. But it's also like you're actually having fun. You actually enjoying it. You, you like, and most of all, you have to enjoy what you are working on.'cause I've worked with many people in many other jobs where they were not enjoying it and they were bloody miserable. And the single best piece of advice I was ever given was never choose a job based on its pension, because you don't know if you're gonna see it. Um, and it was, it was one of those pieces of advice that made me start space fortune in the first place because I was like, again, I have to do something that matters. I have to do something I'm actually going to enjoy, and I, I have to do something that, for having tried it, ideally the world would be better, at least in the attempt, if not the success. And so if you're not, if you're not enjoying it, don't, don't do it. Go fight something else. Yeah. There's, there's more, there's more to all of this than, well, than just getting through doggedly the bad bits.

Chris Reichhelm: 1:02:12

Absolutely. And that's where startups excel. And in fact, that's probably where they're completely unparalleled because the multidisciplinary nature of what you're learning and how you're learning, it's hitting you on every single level. Yeah. It never stops. And then you feel that and it's yours or it's partly yours and you know, and it's everyone else's. And so it bonds that team together in a common mission and. Especially in deep tech, you're naturally doing something audacious. You're going for, you know, you can be inspired by the goal. You're not making accounting software, you know, no disrespect to the accountants or to accounting software, but you're doing something that clearly is gonna, um, is going to impact things one way or the other. Um, Josh, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you. This has been marvelous. I have thoroughly enjoyed our discussion. I've learned a lot and you've, uh, I think, uh, you know, what you guys are doing at Space Forge is, uh, is hugely attractive and we will watch with interest.

Josh Western: 1:03:14

Excellent. Thanks so much for having me.

Chris Reichhelm: 1:03:16

You've been listening to the Lab to Market Leadership Podcast, brought to you by Deep Tech Leaders. This podcast has been produced by Beauxhaus. You can find out more about us on LinkedIn, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.