Space Defense

Welcome to the unDavos Summit - A community-organized series of interactive panels, talks, and networking taking place in Davos, Switzerland - and online - in parallel to the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting 20-24 Jan 2025. Our mission is threefold: 

• Democratizing Davos: We open the doors to diverse voices and ideas, breaking down traditional barriers to participation.  
• Humanizing Davos: We foster genuine, relationship-driven connections that go beyond transactional networking.  
• Bringing Action to Davos: We turn meaningful discussions into tangible, real-world solutions.

In this thought-provoking panel titled "Space Defense," we delve into the critical advancements and pressing challenges surrounding space as a pivotal domain for global security. Join us as we explore the latest technologies, policies, and collaborative efforts that are instrumental in fortifying our interests in outer space. Gain insights from experts as they discuss satellite protection, threat mitigation, and the international cooperation needed to uphold the peaceful use of space in our increasingly interconnected world.

Our esteemed speaker, Halvor Bakke-Veiby, Co-Founder of Riften Labs and a visionary rocket engineer, will share his unique insights from his experience in space debris cleanup and decentralized financial systems. Halvor's work at Solstorm and his innovative ventures such as Cauldron and Moria MUSD exemplify the pioneering spirit needed to navigate the complexities of space exploration.

Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to engage with cutting-edge discussions that are shaping the future of space defense and exploration! 

For unDavos 2026 Sponsorship & Partnerships:  
Exclusive collaboration opportunities: Contact Mark here: https://bit.ly/417TrB9

Or catch the full youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWNQcYfg0IY
Browse all podcast episodes here: https://undavos.buzzsprout.com/

Join the Conversation:  
Love this content? Like, comment, and share. 

Homepage: http://www.undavos.com  
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/undavos/  
X.com: https://x.com/un_davos  
Podcast: https://undavos.buzzsprout.com/  

And join our global community and let’s spark the change together! 

Transcript

(00:01) [Music] drop out drop out of University and and tell your colleagues from the rocket lab to do it also so I did and we created the soul storm we bootstrapped The Firm we uh obviously took money from investors and also from our government however we needed some more kind of training we needed to get out there we went to Russia a couple years ago we witnessed the signing of the international lunar research agreement are anybody here familiar with this yeah so right now it's kind of a Renaissance for space we are seeing a
(00:50) new space race whereas the it's kind of emis constellation with a US front running it and then it's China Russia and this new Coalition which which they kind of cemented into history in Russia in in 2021 so when I was there um mainly Russia and China some other smaller actors also they agreed to build a permanent settlement robotic and human on the moon to do research and also uh to uh kind of colonize the moon um so the technology we developed in soulstorm its main purpose is to remove assets from space either prior or
(01:38) after and uh working tightly with the Norwegian DOD we figured that uh they had a great interest in this technology to remove assets from space so we started working with them and also with our American colleagues so um mypace Journey has been uh very exciting and it uh it's not over but uh our firm got acquired this fall and uh I've had the chance to have some great conversations with uh with several of you here about uh other stuff crypto and stable coins I kind of ventured into this uh into this industry after after
(02:20) we uh sold the firm but I continue to work with uh obviously our partners and and with uh the uh pretty big uh and strong space industry in Norway thing about space industry is that it's incredibly expensive right here in Europe we have Aran space we have Airbus and we have huge firms with thousands sometimes tens of thousands of employees working as cogs in a big big machinery often on government kind of governmental directions and uh and uh answering to to uh government actors but this is changing it the start of this change was
(03:10) in the early 2000s when NASA initiated the uh cut program and said that we will no longer just build Rockets build spaceships and do everything ourselves we will set the direction strategy and goals and it's up to the Private Industry to create the hard work and uh and uh kind of take us there this decision spawned SpaceX it spawned blue origin spawned rocket plane Global it also uh brought Chuck laow into the um kind of Greater new space the early days of new space and uh from 12 on I will be joined by uh the great Matia spot uh
(03:54) super talented investor also space entrepreneur for many many years we will talk more about this so um the title of uh this talk is space defense right so what is space defense and and why do we need space defense when talking about this I often uh cut it into two there's two main categories it's defense for your assets for adversary Nations uh attacking your assets and it's planetary defense planetary defense it's defense against harsh solar winds and uh also uh other Earthly uh objects like deep space objects comets traveling
(04:38) into Earth we have a for planter defense we have a we have a pretty good kind of uh view Over the Horizon we know that uh Earth will not be hit by any major comets in the foreseeable hundred years so this is a a smaller issue for for the International Community however National Space defense it's a very prevailing uh issue especially right now much like vessels in the ocean and in the air space assets are Target for adversary Nations uh hacking them disrupting them this is an increasing problem uh there's a very good reason
(05:25) why Mr Trump during his uh early days created the uh the uh space force actually and many people laughed actually when he created the space force because it's like who are we going to wage war with in uh in lowth orbit well um I can say that almost all national security space assets from the United States government are under uh continuous actually reconnaissance and uh and uh planned uh adversary moves from from its uh enemies this not talked about that much and it's kind of one of the deeper levers in the in the space uh
(06:08) industry discussion but this is very very real actually so in space defense one of the one of the main um kind of attack vectors it's the onboard Computing system and um as landbased hacking operations the kind of main goal is to for for adversary actors it's to get into the computer and do such a small change that it's not even recognized by the owner of the spaceship or by the satellite um this kind of a a trick taken from the lasarus Playbook actually so um for my sake uh Norway has a very very strong military industrial complex
(07:00) it has a it has a strong um space industry in in European context but obviously the great actor here is the United States most business in Norway in the space industry is done by military industrial actors also kind of twinning and acting as also space component deliverers the biggest one it's kbur we in Kat and kbur defense and Aeros spaces many of my colleagues from from our rocket lab they have started there and and they do amazing work many of you might know they acquired Nano avionics uh two years ago which was a
(07:39) great great uh step in Norway's goal to become a leading space nation in uh in Europe um but I can maybe hear from from you guys in in uh which which countries kind of you come from because surprisingly many nations have actually sent assets to space both in the defense sector and in the defense uh kind of U missions but also in in the private or also governmental and uh just civil U missions so where are you from Sir yeah for defense and uh for a civilian usage great great stuff what about you so I'm Fernanda from
(08:33) Ecuador uh yeah I work at ab42 so a marketplace where we provide satellite data and rone data to other companies Great Stuff great stuff what about you hi my name is Laura Beal I'm a professor of a forite and we are also doing some stuff in direction of tag and space good class from Germany um well I am involved in various things defense take good stuff good stuff yeah take a couple more um Barry from forus um based in London uh actually in the the web three space and sorry for arriving right at the end of your
(09:15) session wor is I'm uh Leonard from Munich and new to that topic and really interested so uh not involved in that topic yet but maybe in the future great so alsoo from Germany and I funded an NGO with which we're doing entrepreneurship education and supporting young people in Africa to start their own Ventures great great stuff especially in sustainability good stuff okay we'll uh we'll take some more uh uh later uh yeah you said you work in in dual use and uh and uh Mr musy have said this many times that um the uh space
(09:55) private space industry and the military industrial complex it's goes like this it's because when you create uh Advanced systems transportation systems and uh kind of uh this underlying architecture of moving stuff from one place to the other uh you inevitably uh enable people to use it for for National Security and and also for U for military purposes and this is this is actually a good thing um so hi um so this is a good thing I mean for for Norway's part Norway have been kind of um known as a peacekeeping nation and uh
(10:39) Norway is that but one of Norway's biggest export is actually Advanced weapon systems we have the namps uh systems and uh also uh many of you know rhin metal they also uh put up shop in Norway they're a German firm but but they put up shop in Norway recently and uh also Namo it's a big actor in Norway my uh my kind of uh the guy who learned me rocket science there was uh Dr Ono vanar uh one of the greatest rocket scientists to all uh to ever live in Norway and he lived uh and worked at namu in Roos think about defense and and dual
(11:22) use technology and and what I've been been seeing in the private sector is that often big firms are best tackled to do these big space missions and create huge architectures and huge Rockets however in the defense industry we kind of see this where firms that are uh they have great Revenue already they know what they're doing and they have a good customer segment and loyal customers it's often uh respective DOD departments and and governmental agencies are their customers they have uh actually not this same drive as fully private firms um
(12:08) there is a good reason why Arian space uh takes longer time than than fully privatized uh firms to create rockets and many of you probably also saw uh two weeks ago blue origin they uh they publicized pictures of the new Glenn rocket a huge beautiful rocket who also uh be a important contributor in uh National Space defense missions for uh for America and also for its Alli Nations Norway also actually uh and this goes also of course for the uh new SpaceX Rockets [Music]