Translating the trends and deciphering the headlines, this is Roundtable.
I'm Niu Honglin.
From rockets to roses, from satellites to space factories.
In our previous episode, we've established that China's commercial space industry is moving from ambition to application.
Here is a useful way to think about the future of it.
Commercial space is not just selling lunches.
It's selling optionality.
Optionality for industries to test ideas that are impossible on earth.
Optionality for companies to shorten r d cycles.
Optionality for countries to build new growth engines when traditional industries slow down.
And that's where things get interesting.
So today, let's see why the next chapter is not only written by astronauts alone, but by farmers engineers, scientists and policymakers who may never leave Earth yet are already shaping humanity's future beyond it.
For today's show, I'm joined by Fei Fei and Steve Hatherly.
Now pull up a chair and join the conversation.
Once space becomes affordable, it becomes useful.
And once it becomes useful, everyone wants a piece of it.
So who is actually benefiting and who's paying the price?
This would be the second part of our space, especially commercial space related industry topic, and let's break this down into three layers how different industries are using space, what's holding the sector back a little bit and how policy can try to catch up so that the industry can develop better.
So, starting with some cross-cultural or cross-industry application,
We know that the commercial space industry is still something new, not only in China, but around the world.
It's still something that are developing and also exploring a little bit how to do it.
But I am very glad to see that many different industries, many different sectors are already taking advantage of it and trying to see what can come out from the space, starting with the agriculture industry.
So I'm curious to know how does the agriculture industry, experiment and also, just you know, find new possible seeds, new possible species in space?
Well, the research and development that's been done in space historically has been for survival in space.
But when we're talking about commercialization, it's for survival on Earth.
And what I mean by that is we're facing kind of a perfect storm with our planet right now.
We've got climate change, we've got resource scarcity and we have a still growing global population.
You know, a lot of countries are dealing with an aging population, but globally, the world's population is projected to continue growing for the next 50 or 60 years.
They actually estimate that it will peak out at about 10.3 billion by the mid-2080s.
So we still have quite a ways to go until we get there.
Asking about, you know, space seeds and things like that and what's going on agriculturally in space.
I'll talk about one very specific example.
When we're Talking about agriculture in space and what scientists are doing there, it's like hitting a fast forward button to create new plant species.
So on Earth, for example, if you want to get a new trait from a tomato, for example, that's maybe more drought resistant, so that you can grow it in arid environments.
Well, breeders of that tomato might have to cross-breed plants for many generations over many years.
Many generations of plants, not many generations of people.
But it'll still take years, and they'll hope for a lucky change.
If they're lucky, they can find it.
But when you apply cosmic radiation to that tomato's plant's seeds, you kind of zap it.
And then what that radiation does is it creates these tiny, random kind of typos in the plant's DNA code all at the same time.
Imagine shuffling a deck of cards at really high speeds, and it quickly creates a thousand different versions of the plant.
So, back on Earth scientists, they can quickly look through this big deck of cards to find that one rare card.
That rare card would be that one plant that, by pure chance, now has a useful new trait like being able to grow in arid environments, or growing faster or being more nutritious, because the typo, or the damage caused by the radiation, is created very quickly.
The mutations or the variations in the plant seeds.
We are already enjoying this nationwide and worldwide.
China has conducted space breeding since the 1980s using the recoverable satellites and spacecraft, only that at that time it's still the national program.
Now we're looking at possibilities of having that expand to commercial sectors as well.
And when we were having a business trip in Xizang, Yu Shun himself hugged a huge space pumpkin.
It was huge.
It was very much fun.
But it also shows how popular and how common these space-induced mutated kind of species are.
It's really kind of fascinating and the simple analogy would be like sending a Seed to a boot camp in space.
It's a high-stress environment For the plant and some will come out with these random, useful new skills.
Those would be the mutations in the plant, the new skills of the plan, and then, by watching them struggle and adapt in that difficult environment, the scientists can learn the deep secrets that exist and about strength and resilience within the seeds, and those can be put to use back here on planet Earth.
And these types of secrets that I said.
These are things that the plant could be capable of, that scientists here doing research on Earth might never know about.
And I think they are also, for example, working on some sort of plants, for example, for potatoes.
We know that currently we're only eating a part of the plant potatoes.
But I think they are working in space to see if the mutations can help us eat the whole plant.
And that can also solve the food insecurity and hunger problems in many, many countries in the world.
So when I think about the movie, you know, Growing Potatoes on Mars, It's actually not really that sci-fi, has science behind it.
Well, yeah.
And I mean, these are the drivers, right?
Addressing climate change and our scarcity of our resources and our global food security and the extreme environment of space.
It acts as a perfect testing ground for the resilience of of the seeds and the plants to find agricultural solutions to problems.
And what they find in space is beneficial to us here on Earth.
We now have soilless farming, which is hydroponics or aeroponics, as that's referred to.
It was done for water and space efficiency on spacecraft.
But these systems are now the foundation of very profitable urban vertical farming.
Yeah. industries, and they produce food with very minimal water and land.
I learned that we know microgravity would change the patterns of cell division, root orientation and water transport in plants.
It would help isolate key pathways governing flowering, stress resistance, and nutrient allocation.
And, like Steve said, that have been used in space rice and other kind of experiments which can inform breeding and cultivation strategies on earth.
So not.
That is why not only are we trying to induce some kind of mutation in the species in the seeds,
In 2022.
China has also completed the first full life cycle rice cultivation experiment on the Tiangong space station.
That is, to see how would microgravity would affect the entire growing process of the food, the plant.
We've talked on Roundtable before about how AI is having an influence in greenhouses as well.
And those environments are very tightly controlled in terms of temperature and humidity and light.
And these are the things that they do and are necessary to do on space stations.
In order to get the plants to grow.
And the research that they've done there and the discoveries that they've made there have directly led to these types of advanced, energy efficient greenhouse systems that we have now here on Earth.
And these are amazing because they boost the yield, the amount of fruits and vegetables that we can get per crop.
And it also reduces the amount of resources that are used in commercial operations to the amount of water and soil or fertilizer and things like that.
Yes.
And besides agriculture, we also see other sectors trying to squeeze themselves in to a satellite so they can be sent up there to do certain experiments.
But it also has something to do with biology.
That would be pharmaceutical industry and medicine related industry, because we know that these companies are very interested as well in microgravity experiments and especially for protein-related process experiments, as well as drug screening.
So what's the logic behind that?
Yeah, so for protein crystallization, this is really kind of cool to learn about.
So the problem here on Earth is that gravity causes convection and that means that the The movement of fluids, and it also causes sedimentation, which means things sinking.
So when you're trying to grow a perfect, microscopic crystal of a protein, which is like taking a 3D atomic level photo of it to design a drug that perfectly fits it, the key that will unlock the puzzle, so to speak.
The forces create flaws and the crystals get messy and it's like looking at a blurry photograph.
But the solution in microgravity is where they can find almost perfection.
Because, with gravity mostly absent in that environment, the proteins float and they assemble slowly and evenly.
And this is allowing them to form larger, more perfectly ordered crystals.
And the commercial payoff of this is a clearer well to use the photo analogy again, it's a clearer picture of the protein.
And we're talking about things.
We're not talking about developing headache medicine here.
We're talking about things looking for cures for cancer or Alzheimer's.
And having that better picture or the clearer photo of the protein.
It means that scientists can design a drug molecule that fits like a key to that puzzle or to that lock with really incredible precision.
And this really, really speeds up the creation of more effective and targeted medicines.
And you know that it also reminds me of, for example, in other manufacturing that also follow a very similar theories is, for example, in the producing of chips, in semiconductor manufacturing.
That's what also a lot of the researchers and factories have been struggling about is to get those crystals in a perfect condition.
And we know that, for example, to making chips, we need very high level of purity of silicon.
And the best manufacturers in the world are able to get like 99.999% of the purity.
But that's like the ceiling of the industry.
That's all they can do on Earth.
But with a similar macrogravity environment.
They now can also arrange their crystals like what Steve mentioned, with protein crystals.
So they can now looking at possibilities of 100 of pure silicon and making more cheaper, better chips for semiconductors.
So I think that environment is giving scientists this perfect lab that they can just test whatever that they have in mind.
And also when it comes to semiconductor, another issue with that is about containment.
You know, on Earth, when you are trying to get that level of purity, it's very difficult to get zero oxygen leaked into your lab or anything leaked into your lab.
But in a macrogravity environment, that containment issue almost doesn't exist.
So they are able to get very advanced materials done very fast, very efficiently.
Not only their chips will perform better, but they can use less energy.
We know manufacturing consume a lot of energy on Earth, but when putting up on space it actually reduces the demands for energy as well.
So it's basically like a perfect place for a space factory, for semiconductors at least.
Yeah, the logics are quite similar here between these two seemingly not related industry.
I'm also thinking about the full circle of our segment that is finding the logic behind it, yes.
And we know that is also part of the reason that China has began protein crystallization experiments in space early in the Shenzhou program.
And, like Fifi said, the pharmaceutical industry find the protein crystals grown in microgravity often become larger, more uniform and less defective and enabling to make sure that the process of finding the right protein for things are definitely shortened, which would be more effective and it can shorten also drug development timeline.
Another really cool thing is the difference of looking at a lab dish versus how they can do it in space.
So when scientists here on Earth growing cells in a lab, they grow in a flat like a petri dish right, which is a 2d layer, and that's a really poor representation of how complex 3d tissues and organs like tumors or brain matter, how they work in our, in our own bodies.
We are not 2d beings, so testing drugs on the flat cells in earthly labs it can often lead to misleading results.
But when you do this, when they do this in a microgravity environment, there's no gravity pulling down on the cells.
That means that the cells can freely assemble into these complex 3d structures and these are like miniature, simplified versions of organs, like a tiny brain or a tiny tumor or something like that.
And here in China we know that well.
I think, when it comes to space programs and space experiments and space developing strategies, different countries are different.
For example, we know the United States.
Their model is mainly driven primarily by ISS National Lab Projects with big pharmaceutical companies providing or giving or offering the kind of experiment they would like to do, they would like to conduct in these uh national national space labs.
But china here is still uh working on a dual approach of national space station plus commercial return capsules kind of model.
The idea is that the national host long-term, complicated experiments while the commercial capsules provide short-cycle, high-frequency and small-batch drug and materials experiments with simple return, and that would gradually cultivate the department demand.
And also doing these kind of relatively less costly kind of projects would also make sure that the each step of any company, if you want to tap the water of the commercial space area, you won't be looking at a huge risk financially and also, i think um, for that reminds me like, for example, if we're talking about the the use of space environment in agriculture, in plants, on national level, we definitely need to develop things that matter to our food security, like rice, like wheat.
But, for example, on that Li Hong satellite that we talked about yesterday, they are testing with Chinese roses.
I mean they now can look into more niche, sometimes not really making sense right now to the market.
Quote unquote, not that necessary.
Yeah, but it's still fun.
Yeah, it's much fun.
And you never know what you'll get in the end.
So it's experimenting out there, testing every possible options and to see what results you may get.
You know, surprisingly.
Yes.
Yesterday we talked or mentioned a little bit about data center being built in space, on the moon, probably one day on Mars and even more deep in the universe, mysterious space.
So why is everybody talking about data centers in space?
What are the advantages?
Well, first of all, data centers on Earth are also having its troubles, first of all, in the use of energy itself.
Imagine, for Microsoft need to build a nuclear power plant for one data center, and they are using, also consuming a lot of water, which is already a very important source for many livelihoods on the earth.
And now so, when looking at um data centers in space that can really solve all the problems, all the issues that we have on earth, for example when it comes to energy, if we place these data centers in a place that remain on the boundary of the night and day.
Can use the sun?
They can use the sun 24-7.
Well, on the Earth, it's only like 25% of the time that they can tap into the solar energy.
And also when it comes to the cooling, which is why they consume so much water in the earthly data centers.
It's to cool the equipment because they run 24 seven and they generate a lot of heat.
But when we put them on the space they have this natural cold environment roughly minus 270 degrees Celsius in space.
So you don't really need to worry about cooling.
And also when it comes to a lot of the radiators in the space.
These data centers can basically dump their heat into that vacuum environment.
So they need zero water for cooling at the same time.
Resources is an issue for data centers on Earth.
Also space.
They take up a lot of space.
Yes.
No, they do.
And they're in the space.
Well, they take up a lot of area.
Yes, yes, yes.
And you know it's going to become an issue of where to put these things, because people in residential areas don't necessarily want these things near their homes.
Well, to be fair, China has set a data center in deep sea area, like underwater, so that it does not take as much space.
But I think the logic is there.
Do not take much space and also take advantage of the cold environment.
And I think there is also a data center proposed by Chinese research institutes.
It's a 16 satellite space data center and it is perfectly designed like Fei-Fei has just described.
It can have a 24-7 solar energy to power it.
And also it's exploiting the minus 270 degree cosmic background for passive cooling.
And that can dramatically reduce the cooling energy for data centers, and providing this scalable energy and thermal solution for power hungry AI computing.
So we are looking at that happening.
Hopefully it'll happen.
It can solve both The energy problem and also the space problem.
It felt like it was minus 270 degrees in Beijing yesterday.
We could have built a data center in our parking lot.
It would have worked perfectly.
The only problem or question that I have is that this is a 16-satellite data center.
Do we need that many satellites?
Well, I think by scale, this data center is also not a big one.
If we're talking about big data centers that have a lot of computing power, possibly we're going to need hundreds of satellites.
Hundreds of satellites?
Yes, and that can lead to another problem in the future is you know there is only limited space in space.
You know, in the orbit,
So if we are launching, for example, 100 satellites for this data center, another 100 for another one, You know there will be collision sometimes happening and also very crowded.
So how to tackle that would be a major problem internationally, I would say.
Space debris you're talking about.
Yeah.
Having to clean it up.
Yes.
And besides, when it comes to data center, people are also being very smart and strategic about data multiple satellites, because one is a data center on Earth.
You can't really move different units around that easily.
But networking multiple satellites in orbit is possible.
And that means you can distribute the space compute platform to different layers.
It's kind of like a distributed space compute platform can offload certain ai interface tasks to orbit reducing raw remote sensing or communication data downlink volume and coordinating with ground data centers in a division of labor that, like in the orbit something can be storage and when you want to send back the information it can be in a closer area to Earth so that it's easier and also relatively less energy consuming.
And also when it comes to moving the data between, at least not only between the data, the satellites themselves in orbit, but also between the space and ground on Earth.
It's also faster because of the vacuum environment we've been talking about so frequently in this episode.
It can be 30% faster than through the normal fiber glass on Earth that we are using currently.
And also that makes me think You know right now, if we go into space, basically meaning we are not able to use our phone because there will be no coverage.
No teenagers in space.
No playing on your mobile games in space.
But maybe with data centers installed in the future in space, it may be easier for at least ordinary travelers, or at least astronauts themselves, to make calls to get connected with each other and also to Earth.
But you mentioned something very important already earlier about the fact that even if it's in space, it's not enough space in space.
We are looking at too many possible satellites.
We are looking at preserving important space for rockets who are sending up the satellites.
And also we're looking at space debris.
So these would be the relatively speaking superficial or surface level kind of problems we meet when it comes to the development of space industry or commercial space industry.
But besides that, are we looking at some other relatively, let's say bottlenecks, cost, reliability, regulation, talent, anything that's worth our attention?
Well, first of all, the financial burnout is definitely one of the major thing.
I think, even though we are talking about in right now, it seems like a lot of these technologies are so reachable.
It's still quite expensive if we compare, for example, farming in traditional methods while using a space-related technology.
So for a lot, especially in commercial space industry.
A lot of the companies would have spent billions of dollars in their research and development for years before they see any revenues in profit.
You can imagine how many companies are able to do that, can sustain that kind of operation.
So that would be a big question for many companies and many startups, especially in the beginning phase.
And I think that really demands not only government support but also better market strategies out there.
And also, when it comes to reusability, I think we also touched on that yesterday.
It still faces a lot of difficulties, even though we're talking about several successful cases in China recently that we are able to reuse some of our rockets.
It doesn't mean it's 100% successful.
The research has been looking at different phase of the launch and recycle of those rockets.
There is still some, you know, hurdles in the way, some problems that they need to fix.
So a lot of the pictures that we are painting right now is pretty much not really happening on a large scale and not reachable to a lot of people out there at the moment.
I mean, we're talking about moving a lot of our agricultural research and even manufacturing in space from this planet.
It's going to be expensive.
It's going to be time consuming.
There are going to be plenty of quote unquote failures along the way.
But I mean, I think that's just part of the process.
And then it'll take a long time for things to come down in terms of prices and time constraints, but it won't probably happen in the future.
Yes.
And even for only for agriculture, only for the mutated type of seeds were already seen almost everywhere.
You still have to know that there's the launch missions being organized by the state.
And also research institutes would have to screen the traits per provincial platforms would have to handle the variety certification and demonstration.
And local governments and companies have to connect seeds with orders and poverty alleviation programs projects.
And these are things that are happening.
And that space breeding in China.
It already forms this research and approval and then promotion and then to the industry kind of chain.
But even that, even that being said, we are still looking at different types of possibilities, which means different possible of little loopholes, little problems that we need to address with policies.
And luckily we already have the action plan for promoting the high quality and safe development of commercial space.
Flight, which is a policy paper for 2025 and 2027.
It was released and it has fully integrated a systematic kind of commercial space action plan into the overall national space strategy.
So with that we are very much looking forward to see more and more companies and more and more industries taking advantage of commercial space industry so that a lot of optionality or possibility can happen in the future of the development of our society.
