The Next Space Supply Chain

In this episode of At the Boundary, retired U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mark Fedor joins GNSI’s Dr. Tad Schnaufer for a wide-ranging conversation on how space is rapidly emerging as a critical domain for national security, commercial innovation, and operational risk.

What does a retired Coast Guard Rear Admiral know about space? As it turns out, quite a lot. Fedor is currently Executive Vice President with a veteran-owned company (Operator Solutions), which specializes in rescue, recovery, and operational support services for outer space missions.

Drawing on his decades of maritime leadership and his current work supporting commercial space missions, Fedor explains why the growing launch volume is creating new demands for astronaut rescue, space vehicle recovery, and hazard response. The discussion explores space debris, private astronauts, space tourism, and the rise of space-based manufacturing and orbital supply chains with potential military and commercial applications. Fedor also draws compelling parallels between governing the maritime commons and the need for international norms in space.

As commercial activity accelerates and regulation struggles to keep pace, the episode highlights the strategic, legal, and human challenges shaping the future of space operations—and why preparedness on Earth remains essential.

Episode Links:

Operator Solutions
St. Petersburg Conference on World Affairs "Space: International Collaboration and Competition" (Feb 10-11, 2026)

GNSI on X
GNSI on Linkedin
GNSI on YouTube

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Transcript

Episode 115 (Retired U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mark Fedor)

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Space debris, international regulations, space-based supply chains, astronaut rescue, space vehicle recovery, St Petersburg conference, space collaboration, space competition, NASA launches, private astronauts, space tourism, space manufacturing, space logistics, space junk, national security.

SPEAKERS

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor, Tad Schnaufer, Jim Cardoso

Jim Cardoso  00:00

hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of at the boundary, the podcast from the global and national security Institute at the University of South Florida. I'm Jim Cardoso, Senior Director for GNSI, and your host for at the boundary. We're back up to full 2026, speed here on the podcast, and today we're going to catch up with retired US Coast Guard Rear Admiral Mark Fedor, who sat down with GNSI strategy and research manager, Dr Tad schnaufer to discuss well space they touched down on a number of topics and yes pun definitely intended, including the challenge of space debris, the need for international regulations and the potential for space based supply chains to enhance national security and commercial space routes, and yes, you heard me right. We're talking to a recently retired Coast Guard senior officer about space. That's because, since he retired, Rear Admiral Fedor has been working with a veteran owned organization called operator solutions, which provides specialized support services leveraging military and space flight expertise to government and commercial clients for complex operational missions, including astronaut rescue, space vehicle recovery and civil search and rescue. By the way, today's discussion is a terrific lead up to an upcoming event. We're excited to be a part of the St Petersburg conference on world affairs. It's scheduled for February 10 to the 11th at the St Pete campus of USF, with the theme space international collaboration and competition. Former astronaut and St Pete resident Nicole Stott will be the keynote speaker. We'll tell you more about the conference after we listen in on the conversation between Rear Admiral Fedor and tat schnaufer.

Tad Schnaufer  02:07

Well, Mark, welcome to the podcast. Hey, Tad, it is great to be here, and again, it's an honor for me to be associated with the University of South Florida and the global and national security Institute. Well, we appreciate having you on board, and we wanted to, you know, begin the discussion. You know, from your past experience, you know, you're a real Rear Admiral and the US Coast Guard, and then now you're working on stuff related to space operations. So how did you go from the maritime to the, you know, the Twilight aspects of

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  02:35

operations, a great question. And yeah, I consider myself a knuckle dragging cutter menu. I drove ships for a living in the Coast Guard, and now I'm kind of looking up into space. But believe it or not, even while I was still in uniform, the Coast Guard is tied into the space industry, because there is a maritime nexus there where they're launching the rockets from. Obviously, Cape Canaveral is a big location. There's some activity in California, but as we consider the risks there and the potential search and rescue implications, the Coast Guard has been involved for a long time in this business, and in fact, my junior officer tour on my first ship, I stood watch on a ship about 200 miles off the coast of Cape Canaveral when we were launching space shuttles in the early 90s, that was my first access to it and really learning just just about it and what the Coast Guard's role is. And when I retired, I realized that, hey there, the Coast Guard was really stretched thin with a lot of our missions, and how much could we commit to these space missions as it increased, the number of launches increased over time. And that's when I came across operator solutions, and saw what they were doing and their readiness to kind of fill some of those voids in this space and rescue mission for the space industry. And it just naturally, I naturally gravitated towards it. Wanted to learn more about it, and then once I met those folks, the folks at operator solutions are all military veterans, either Air Force or Coast Guard. We speak the same language, and they are committed to the search and rescue mission. It's not just it's not just search and rescue. Isn't just what they do, it's really who they are. And I'm glad to be a part of that. And that's

Tad Schnaufer  04:21

interesting, because as you think back, as we think back through the space program, when astronauts return from space, they typically land in water. And so was it the Coast Guard recovering some of those individuals in the past, and then now, with more launches, it's just become more demand on that maritime recovery. Yes.

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  04:37

So in the past, it's usually because they usually landed pretty far offshore. It could be in the deep Pacific. A lot of times it was the Navy that was meeting them to do the recovery. The Coast Guard was always on the front end of the launch, in case there was some type of need for the astronauts to abort, then we could be there, and we would be the ones that would go to that rescue site. And. And to recover them. But usually for the final recovery after the mission was over, that was usually fell to the Navy's hands,

Tad Schnaufer  05:06

right and now with, you know, increased space access, with the private industry, obviously, as well as with governments, we're seeing a lot more activity going up and down, but there's also a lot of things coming back from space, landing in the water, and that's where this recovery operations kind of come in. It might not be humans. It might be something else right

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  05:25

now, exactly. So just just to give you some context to the number of launches that have increased over the last few years. So it went from 72 to 93 to last year was a record of 109 launches. Wow, space launches, and now they're anticipating. This industry is anticipating, in 2026 having 135 launches, so that that's significant. It's just more and more activity. The operator solutions folks have been standing the watch for all four of the private astronaut launches. So so the Coast Guard really, still kind of is committed to the NASA based launches and but then all these other private launches with civilians essentially going up into space, that's the void that operator solutions is kind of filling there as these private citizens go up, and you're only going to see more and More of that, whether it's for tourism, space tourism, or industry. And you mentioned things you know being happening up in space. I think this is a fascinating area. There's a there's a couple of companies that are in this space. I'll highlight one called Space Forge. And essentially what they are advertising they can do, and they've proven it is you can launch materials up into space, and you can create things there that you just can't create on earth. And the reason for that is up in space. You know, you're operating in a vacuum. It's weightlessness, and you have zero temperature, so you're able to do some things there in terms of eliminating contamination in that vacuum, you get more uniform mixing of alloys when you're trying to create materials, and in zero attempts, you're able to cure things faster without cryogenic capabilities than you ever could on Earth. So when you think about the next generation of telecommunications, of quantum computing, all the chips that go along with that, even pharmaceuticals. You know, the possibilities are really endless at this point, and so that's what this company, space Forge is doing. But as you manufacture that up in space, it has to come back down, and they have a means to do that safely and effectively. But who is going to be out there clearing the range for these private companies to do that? You know, the US Coast Guard has lots of other missions. They're not out there. They're concerned about a safe waterway, but they're not going to be able to do to have ships just waiting to clear that area. That's where a company like operator solutions can do that. Another company that I think is a fascinating idea, is creating an inventory in space. There's a there's a company called Sierra space. So you think about, how does Amazon do business on land? Right? They have a bunch of distribution centers, and they build so many of them close to major centers that you get your product. If you're a prime member, you get it within a day. Well, Sierra space is thinking about inventories up in space, wow, it's probably not going to deliver your next hoodie or something like that. But from a national defense perspective, what they're advertising is they can deliver a product within 90 minutes of notification, within 100 yards, that's a football field, 100 yards of your location. So you think about a group of Marines on a remote island out in the Pacific who may need some type of equipment. Well, if you build that inventory in space, these folks can deliver it down there with that level of accuracy, war fighting perspective. But it has certainly other commercial applications as well.

Tad Schnaufer  09:02

Well, obviously, probably be pretty expensive, so they need to have some money involved. But initially, you know, both these concepts you noted, whether you're mixing alloys in space or constructing things in space because the environment favors it, or these kind of, I guess, you know, floating warehouses up in the, you know, outer space. What does actually look like? Would those be large kind of International Space Station, like, I guess, vehicles that are orbiting the Earth, or would even go all the way out to the moon or something, which is really the next land mass you could, you know, anchor some things to, right?

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  09:35

I think it's more in that low Earth orbit environment where you can do these things quickly. And, you know, I think in terms of Sierra space, they talk about, you know, multi ton capability of keeping up space and being able to deliver it, have it up there for years at a time, even. So, you know, some of this, you know, there's going to be testing, but they have proven the initial concept. And as this builds out, you can see, certainly from a national security perspective. Perspective, why you would be interested in that? But then, even from a commercial perspective, you can think of shipping companies, if they have a ship breakdown in the middle of Pacific, how would you ever get a part to them? Well, now maybe you can get something from space. And again, it's all about scales of efficiency. You know how you build this out? And the cost is going to be just astronomical. At first, you would think, but they're working to bring that back down,

Tad Schnaufer  10:25

right well. And one of the other things to consider too is this idea of, you know, space junk, where that lower earth orbits becoming pretty cluttered as it is, and as you noted with the increases of launches, you just have so much stuff going into that Earth orbit. You have a lot more opportunities for unfortunately, for crashes or mistakes?

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  10:44

Yeah, I think, I think that's always a concern, and that's really another reason Space Force came into existence to ensure that that things are up there, they don't interfere with the national security level, satellites and communications equipment that is up there. I think one of the things you see these companies talking about is, you know, you launch it up there, and it's not permanently up there, you can bring it back down, refurbish it, and then relaunch it again. So that's some of those scales of efficiency that could be brought to bear over time.

Tad Schnaufer  11:14

Well, it'd be pretty fascinating to see things just launching in from space and parachuting to maybe an isolated unit or an isolated group of individuals, you know, whether, if it's a, you know, ship crash, or something like that,

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  11:25

yeah, yeah, no, exactly. And it's, it's just a different framework. And another thing where my maritime connection, you know, I think about it in terms of, you know, what's happening in space is, you know, the maritime space, it is such a large, relatively ungoverned space. When you get out of people's territorial seas, exclusive economic zones, there's a lot of ocean that is just international waters. And so, you know, the international community has kind of created some frameworks for how to do business, you know, and we work nation to nation to do that up in space. We really haven't defined that space yet, how the international community is going to work together. A lot of folks, especially in the academic community, kind of look at what we've done in the maritime domain and say, Hey, maybe we should apply some of those same concepts to space. You know, what can a military ship on the water do? How do you kind of translate that to, like, military asset up in space, you know? And I think it's fascinating to see the parallels between the two, right?

Tad Schnaufer  12:28

Because there was some earlier during the Cold War, particularly, you know, treaties and agreements on not to militarize space. But we're seeing some of those. I guess, norms start to loosen. And even as we look at such things like the golden dome, which is that, you know, missile defense system, or, I guess, complex for the United States, you need to have assets in space. Yeah, I think

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  12:50

it is, it is absolutely critical to have some of those up in space, whether it's for communications, for Domain Awareness, all those things you know, certainly the military, not just the US military, but I'm sure our great power competitors rely on the same type of thing. And so there's certainly a thought in the national security community that, hey, if there's a next great power conflict, it can very well start in space with someone trying to disable the other person's capabilities up there, and then it goes kinetic, terrestrial or aviation, or more traditional means, from there well, and it's

Tad Schnaufer  13:25

going to be a pretty clouded space, in the sense of, you have a lot of commercial assets up there from different countries, from different nationalities, and then now you're dealing with a lot of, you know, kind of legal issues, as well as, how do you actually get after, you know, again, if You're competing with another nation?

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  13:41

Yeah, no, it's exactly right, and it can take the form of economic warfare first, before it even gets to the nation state level. But you know, another, another very interesting aspect of this is, you know, some remote, remote parts of the world that didn't have communications, even you look at Ukraine when they were when Russia invaded them, they relied on a commercial entity with starlight to enable some of their communications. And that that's a whole new dimension. Obviously, your private industry has helped nation states develop capabilities, but when it's the essentially the company itself that is directly providing that that capability to another nation state that's different, right? And that is a unique leap in what that company is capable to do. And it was absolutely essential, you know, for Ukraine, but that's happening in other parts of the world as well, where we never had reliable communications, whether it's remote parts of the ocean. Now you do, you know, if you subscribe to Starlink, yeah,

Tad Schnaufer  14:46

that's one of the interesting factors, as you talked about, you know, academia, academia and theories on this is now you're having industry actors that have more, if not the same, but more capabilities, that state actors in space, they just have more. Assets, they have more capability, and so they can provide a leading edge, whether you're talking about military or maybe even economic pushes. So you're seeing these individuals have increasing influence because of space and the technologies they have there. Yeah, now

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  15:12

there's no doubt, and I'm glad you know. I think the you know, the current administration is really putting an emphasis on how can the government partner more with commercial industry to be on the cutting edge of some of these technologies and leverage those things for national security purposes, while you know that company can focus on both supporting national security but also looking at some of these commercial endeavors as well, so they can kind of diversify their business lines, but, but it's an absolutely essential relationship between, you know, the federal government and the commercial industry. And then you see that, not just in space, but you see it in terms of maritime, shipbuilding, lots of other areas where the country has kind of, you know, taking some things for granted and realizing, hey, we need to build up these capabilities, we need to build up our own manufacturing capabilities and not be so reliant on another nation. And there's balances to everything. If you try to build too much here, it could become a lot more expensive, and consumers don't like that. So who, who do you partner with internationally? It's all about balance. It's all about trade offs, and that's what college the practitioners are for. That's, that's their job, right? Yeah, well,

Tad Schnaufer  16:24

and that's, you know, something we've worked on here at GNSI, for example, is that maritime piece when it comes to shipbuilding, how most of the ships now for the Navy are built overseas, and how do you bring that industrial capacity back home as we look to compete in the maritime space? But how do we do it, in this case, for outer space? How do we maintain our space edge?

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  16:42

Right? Right now, that's exactly right. And you're seeing, you know, I've been very interested in some of the partnerships we've achieved in the maritime domain, where we're allowing a foreign shipbuilder, in terms of icebreakers for the Coast Guard to be designed and built by a foreign nation, and then that design will be brought back to the US and built here. So can that same type of thing, you know, happen in space, you know, can we work with with like minded countries who have equities in space, who may be ahead on a certain design, and then work together to do that? That's That's an interesting concept,

Tad Schnaufer  17:16

well, and as we look at what's driving the demand, is it that state demand, particularly military and I guess maybe large shipping companies, that's driving this idea of maybe delivering certain capabilities from space, you know, not, not the missile piece, or any of that piece, but the actual supplies.

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  17:32

Yeah, I think, you know, if anything, If we learned anything from covid, right? It was the first thing that really suffered was the supply chain. The supply chain, we realized how fragile those supply chains were. Who you are dealing with, they could be a competitor there if they wanted to constrict your supply chain. So I think a lot of larger companies are looking at this and say, hey, well, hey, maybe it's not so far fetched to have that inventory in space and have another avenue of a supply chain that you can work with to deliver the materials that you need when you need them. And again, that's why I mentioned that Sierra space, that capability they're trying to bring at an efficient and economic level where you could really rely on that supply chain, in addition to that large container ship that might have to come over from, from the Pacific into Los Angeles, Long Beach, or any other US port.

Tad Schnaufer  18:26

And obviously this would be farther down the road. But what about actual, I guess, astronauts being able to move around, you know, more quickly, going up to space, and then almost kind of hovering, waiting to be deployed in other spaces. Is that? You think that's a possibility? Yeah, I think, I think

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  18:41

this is, you know, what's what's very interesting in terms of space travel, is how much will be done by by NASA and actual astronauts, and how much is going to be done in the commercial side with private astronauts. And I think you're going to see more and more of that, and where the government is. And again, this comes to trade off, right? The more regulation you put on space travel, the less innovation you might have. But there has to be a balance there between and so, you know, right now, the FAA has regulated, put some regulations in terms of the launches and the recoveries, but, but not necessarily on the well being of the civilians that might be going up into space. And so again, that's where operator solutions comes in to kind of help these civilian companies continue to innovate, to take some well reasoned risk, but know that, hey, there is a search and rescue contingency there that they can rely on for their civilian astronauts. Again, I want to separate, you know, from the difference between the NASA, those government astronauts that might go up, you know, the Coast Guard, the Navy, the Air Force, is all going to be involved there, but I'm talking about private astronauts that may go up for commercial enterprises or just. For innovation to go test these things. Who is going to provide that search and rescue? And that's again, operator solutions, I would define as they bring turnkey aviation solutions that can operate the assets and the people can operate in the most austere environments to meet these 21st century challenges. And they're very unique in that space, and they bring tremendous capability to meet those challenges.

Tad Schnaufer  20:27

And as we look forward between the government and private industry getting more involved in space travel generally, whether it's shipping stuff or people into space and bringing them back, you know, we have seen these space tourist launches where they just go up for a little bit and come straight back down. Straight back down. How often are these search and rescue or recovery operations, whether if it's the Coast Guard or otherwise, how often are they needed now, compared to maybe in the past? Is technology being able to limit that to only emergencies, or is that more all the time?

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  20:56

Yeah, so there should be again for NASA launches. There is a whole regimen involving, you know, the Air Force, the Navy, the Coast Guard, to ensure that there's proper safety protocols and search and rescue capabilities that are there. However, as you see more private astronauts going up, and there's been four that operator Solutions has been involved in, and so as they I see that increasing, you mentioned, kind of like a space tourism type of situation, where people go up, stay up there for maybe a half hour, an hour, and then come back down there is, there's risk there. There's inherent risk. And doing that going up where you might have to abort that mission, and then who is going to be out there doing that and providing that search and rescue capability. Again, the Coast Guard and the Navy and the Air Force are committed to the NASA side, but on that civilian side, that's where an operator solutions can come in and provide some of that risk mitigation for the blue origins of the world, the SpaceX of the world, United Launch alliances who are going to be moving into that more private astronaut space.

Tad Schnaufer  22:04

And are we seeing mostly that private astronaut space is that mainly in the United States? Are we seeing other companies being able to do that at a you know, relatively relative with relative ease, as we've seen with Blue Origin or SpaceX.

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  22:16

That's a good I have not seen that much of it internationally. I think we are further on the cutting edge of innovation. You know, innovation on the edge in terms of getting civilians up in space. But you certainly look at some of our great power competitors. I mean, they they put their astronauts up there. So I would think there's they might not differentiate as much between government and commercial entities as we do so, it might be hard to differentiate who's a civilian and who's a government person, whereas we kind of draw that line and make more of a distinction. But I think other countries have the capability to do the same thing.

Tad Schnaufer  22:52

And what do you think you know, as we as we see this continuing to advance, what's the time horizon for these possible you know, whether we're talking about supply warehouses or logistical supply chains in space or just increased travel. Is this? Is it a couple years? Are we talking really decades?

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  23:07

I think you're talking a couple years. Wow. You know, as I mentioned in the beginning, you know, they're estimating 135 launches from from the from the Cape Canaveral area, in 2026 that number will only keep going up. And as part of that, there will be more people going up into space. So I don't see it as decades away. I see it as happening over the next few years. Wow.

Tad Schnaufer  23:30

And then again, the demand is really coming from, you know, the private sector. And just in time, in terms of time, like, people want things faster, and then the remote access of where these supplies might go?

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  23:42

Yeah, no, that's exactly right. So you're going to see more and more reasons to put things up in the space, whether it's the inventories, whether it's the creation of new materials up there. So who is going to be ready to kind of support that launch as it's going up, and then who's going to be able to help clear the area when that material comes back down at some point in time, and and you know where operator solutions comes in. So it's not they are trained to do, you know, the recovery, the traditional search and rescue as we think about it, but they're also hazardous materials trained so they know how to deal with these, these high end, high risk situations, and again, in an austere environment, and they can perform that mission repeatedly. And so they maintain a fleet of fixed wing aircraft, of rotary wing aircraft to do that mission. And they can deal in those hazard and hazardous environments that, like we talked about, you might be launching some things into space that are inherently dangerous or volatile, and who is going to be able to deal with that if that came back down quickly, if the mission had to be aborted, and that's where an operator solutions can fill the gap.

Tad Schnaufer  24:56

What's interesting about the dangerous things possibly going as. Space, as we've seen, talk of the Russians or even the Chinese using a nuclear reactor in space to power their, you know, their International Space Stations, or their, you know, their representative of the of such. So that would be pretty dangerous for those type of things to re enter the Earth's atmosphere and come back down. So how do we deal with those types of hazards and any other, anything else that's coming down from space that could be a potential hazard, yeah,

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  25:23

yeah, that's, you know, again, I remember when, when the Russians talked about that, that really created quite a buzz, both in the academic community the national security community about doing that. You know, as this moves forward, I think you're going to see countries start taking those next steps. And it's really on, you know, is the international community strong enough to maybe put some of those, those policy guidelines, in place, like we did in the maritime environment, and apply those to space? We'll see the international community, you know, it's going on in Davos this week, and there's going to be lots of talk about, is there such a thing as international community any longer, or are we talking more spheres of influence, and who are in those spheres of influence, and how do we address these global challenges? You know, are we doing it individually, or are we going to do it in a collective system that remains to be seen.

Tad Schnaufer  26:18

I mean, as you've seen operations so far with the space piece are you has, what's the regulations? You know, you mentioned that there's some. But is that just national level? It's just that, you know, from the United States, is there anything else barring or inhibiting or, I guess, also guiding these operations legally?

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  26:36

You know, within the United States, it's really the FAA that has the authority to regulate the launches and the RE entries there. They kind of own that piece, and again, that there are government policies for NASA astronauts going up there. It's really on this commercial side that has remained relatively unregulated, other than the launch and the recovery by FAA, what the people are doing up there, their safety, their recovery, that that has been relatively unregulated. And again, that goes back to that debate about, you know, how much do you want to regulate it? Do you strangle innovation if you do that? Or where are we on a safety side? You know, similar arguments being made about artificial intelligence. Sure, how much regulation do you put on there? And do you stifle innovation? Because another country, including our competitors, might not put the same level of regulation on there, or be have much more of a risk tolerance than we might have, and does that put us at a strategic disadvantage? Those are great questions, and that's something we're going to have to address as a nation. Address as a nation.

Tad Schnaufer  27:43

Yeah, because it reminds me of the big debate after that capsule that was going down to the Titanic collapsed right and they had gone either against regulation or guidelines, they took a risk, and obviously, unfortunately, it had tragic events, but that's where you know, the questions rise. Are regulations needed on these new experimental Technologies. In this case, that was deep, you know, C deep maritime. But what about deep space? Or space in general?

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  28:07

Yeah, yeah. I think it's a great analogy to use and and part of it is, you know, so the companies have become so sophisticated, and they're very capable, but, you know, we've seen instances in the past, where, you know, you always have to deal with risk. And you know, again, I take that back to my senior, you know, military days, where I spent a lot of time just dealing with risk. How do you mitigate that? And so, you know, you think back to, you know, the Columbia and the Challenger disasters, you know that. And we did things, we thought we had it right, but there's some risk there. Think about the Exxon Valdez, where we were running huge tankers around in single hole ships never thought we'd have a huge leak there. We did Deepwater Horizon. British Petroleum never thought the blowout preventer would blow out for that long and not be able to be stopped. I mean, sometimes Murphy's Law trumps the greatest technology in the world. And so we better have a level of risk mitigation, or at least response, that we could bring to the table. And again, there's space there for companies like operator solutions to help these companies as they're innovating at the edge. Hey, we can help you mitigate the risk there, but it's on those private companies. Unless you know the Congress does pass high end regulations to say you must do this. Right now, they

Tad Schnaufer  29:31

really haven't done that yet, right? And we don't see any really debate on it right now in the legal

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  29:36

sphere, correct? No, not, not at all. Not at all. I think the only debates where it's happening is some of these, these academic kind of conversations of what should be done. You know, should space be governed, similar to the maritime domain? You know, does that require the international community to come together all those types of, types of instances, but you know, in the interim, you know, these commercial entities are going. To continue to innovate. They're going to continue to take risks, and they are, and I don't want to diminish what they're doing. They're doing amazing work. I mean, it's, it's hard for us, you know, people our age, to see how much is happening now in space and how many launches. Our kids are probably getting used to it now, but it's an entirely different world that's only going to increase, you know, the amount of space activity over the next few years. So we, I think, as a community of practitioners, as as risk managers, you know, we need to think about that side as well, in an appropriate level where you're not strangling innovation. That's the balance we have to try to strike.

Tad Schnaufer  30:39

It'll be interesting, because, unfortunately, just like the Titanic, that capsule, I guess, collapse it's it will take, unfortunately, if it does come that, hopefully it does not, typically, it's a disaster that drives and becomes an impetus for change, if, if that comes to be, hopefully not.

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  30:56

Yeah, no, that's right, unfortunately, and that that's very, I think, common among human nature is, you know, take those safety precautions or mitigate risk until something really bad happens. And again, that's where I think, you know, an operator solutions can kind of say, hey, we can help you think through this and give you that level of assurance that, hey, we can provide that search and rescue framework for you to mitigate that risk a little bit.

Tad Schnaufer  31:26

So as we look forward on continued space activity, what's probably the most interesting thing you think we will see in space in the next few years, maybe even the next decade, something you know, beyond what we've talked about here, what's, what's something that's, you know, theoretical, maybe, but plausible?

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  31:40

Yeah, well, that's a great question, I think, you know, certainly on the national security side of things you know, what are satellites really capable of doing? Are they more capable of just communicating or, you know, identifying things you know, are they going to be able to deliver that material to the war fighter right where they are, are they able to interact with each other going forward? I mean, it really opens up a whole new war fighting domain, you know, in terms of, you know, the military, we think of domains as air, you know, sea, undersea, you know, surface. We've learned about cyber as a domain, but space is truly a domain. And again, I think a future conflict could start there before it even starts on land or anywhere else.

Tad Schnaufer  32:34

Well, excellent. And as we look forward, anything else from space that we should keep an eye out for, as we look at industry going up there, as we look at governments possibly going expansion, you know, the SpaceX stuff, about going to Mars, is there any of those type of things we should really take a look at, I think

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  32:52

the the nexus between the government, you know, we talked about the regulation and the innovation on the commercial side of things, I think there's going to be so many advantages, commercial advantages, to operating up in space, that eventually the costs will come down. And then how do you manage that? From, from you know, that regulatory perspective to keep things safe, it's as simple as, you know, just just a concept of we have, especially in the Florida area, so many boaters that are out there on a nice day, how do you manage that? If you might have things landing near there from space to keep to keep everyone's face, to do that waterways management. I know the US Coast Guard is looking at that, and they're concerned about that going forward. But again, you know, maybe there's a role for private sector companies to help manage some of that at sea, so that the Coast Guard and other agencies can concentrate on national security level level issues. But it's a fascinating time. I think there's tremendous opportunity, but with opportunity, there's always a level of risk, and again, that's what kind of reasonable people have to address is, how much risk are we willing to accept? How much do we need to mitigate?

Tad Schnaufer  34:05

Well, thank you so much. Mark is excellent conversation today.

Rear Admiral (ret) Mark J. Fedor  34:09

No, I enjoyed it that I really did, and look forward to the next opportunity.

Jim Cardoso  34:16

Special, thanks to our guest today, retired US Coast Guard, Rear Admiral Mark Fedor, who is now Executive Vice President of operator solutions, a veteran owned company that specializes in rescue, recovery and operational support services for outer space missions. Special thanks also to our own Dr Tad schnaufer for doing the interview today. As I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, today's interview is a terrific lead up to the St Petersburg conference on world affairs. This year's conference is titled space international collaboration and competition. GNSI is partnering with the St Petersburg World Affairs Council to plan and execute this conference now in its 13th year, you heard Rear Admiral. Read or talk about expected areas of strategic competition in the near future, and the conference is going to dig a lot deeper into those areas of concern. Some of the confirmed speakers include James Green, the former NASA Chief Scientist, Chris Stott, founder and CEO of Lone Star data holdings, Tom Kelly, CEO and co founder of Ivana senior muskalenka from the Florida high tech corridor, and a number of notable academic voices in the field as well Joseph silk from the Sorbonne, namrana Goswami from Johns Hopkins, Martin Elvis from Harvard and Jack burns from the University of Colorado Space Policy Institute. The keynote speaker will be veteran NASA astronaut and St Pete resident, Nicole Stott. She is not only an astronaut, but also an aquanaut, engineer, artist, mom and author her book back to Earth, what life in space taught me about our home planet and our mission to protect it imparts essential lessons in problem solving, survival and crisis response. A veteran NASA astronaut, she made two space flights holding 104 days on the space shuttle and the International Space Station. She was the first person to operate the ISS robotic arm to capture a free flying cargo vehicle, and the first person to paint a watercolor in space. Nicole's keynote address will be on the evening of February 10, and the rest of the conference is the next day on the USF St Pete campus. You'll find a link for ticket information in the show notes. Nicole Stott will also be our guest next week on the podcast, along with her husband Chris Stott, he's the founder and CEO of Lone Star data holdings focused on creating off Earth data centers on the moon. The two of them will sit down with us for a conversation about our shared Spaceship Earth, the future of space exploration and other topics that's next week on at the boundary. We hope you'll join us for that. If you don't want to miss that episode or any other episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. We know you have virtually unlimited choices when it comes to choosing a podcast. We're always grateful when our listeners elect to spend a few minutes with us. You can find GNSI on YouTube, LinkedIn, NX. Be sure to follow like and subscribe. Tell your friends and colleagues as well. We also have a monthly newsletter. You really ought to sign up to keep up with everything we're doing. All this is on our website, usf.edu/gnsi,

Jim Cardoso  37:38

that's going to wrap up this episode of at the boundary. Each new episode will feature global and national security issues we found to be insightful, intriguing, maybe controversial, but overall, just worth talking about. I'm Jim Cardoso, and we'll see you at the boundary. You.