>>Okay, welcome back everyone. This is the Cube's coverage here in Las Vegas. Back at events re Mars, Amazon re Mars. I'm your host, John fur with the cube. Mars stands for machine learning, automation, robotics, and space. It's great event brings together a lot of the industrial space machine learning and all the new changes in scaling up from going on the moon to, you know, doing great machine learning. And we've got two great guests here with kinda called lunar outpost, Justin Sears, CEO, Lauren, man. He's the co-founder and chief strategy officer lunar outpost. They're right next to us, watching their booth. Love the name, gentlemen. Welcome to the cube. >>Yeah. Thanks for having us, John. >>All right. So lunar outpost, I get the clues here. Tell us what you guys do. Start with that. >>Absolutely. So lunar outpost, we're a company based outta Colorado that has two missions headed to the moon over the course of the next 24 months. We're currently operating on Mars, which forest will tell you a little bit more about here in a second. And we're really pushing out towards expanding the infrastructure on the lunar surface. And then we're gonna utilize that to provide sustainable access to other planetary bodies. >>All right, far as teeing it up for you. Go, how cool is this? We don't, we wanna use every minute. What's the lunar surface look like? What's the infrastructure roads. You gonna pave it down. You what's going on. Well, >>Where we're going. No one has ever been. So, um, our first mission is going to Shackleton connecting Ridge on the south pole, the moon, and that's ripe to add infrastructure such as landing pads and other things. But our first Rover will be primarily driving across the surface, uh, exploring, uh, what the material looks like, prospecting for resources and testing new technologies. >>And you have a lot of technology involved. You're getting data in, you're just doing surveillance. What's the tech involved there. >>Yeah. So the primary technology that we're demonstrating is a 4g network for NOK. Um, we're providing them mobility services, which is basically like the old Verizon commercial. Can you hear me now? Uh, where the Rover drives farther and farther away from the Lander to test their signal strength, and then we're gonna have some other payloads ride sharing along with us for the ride >>Reminds me the old days of wifi. We used to call it war drive and you go around and try to find someone's wifi hotspot <laugh> inside the thing, but no, this is kind of cool. It brings up the whole thing. Now on lunar outpost, how big is the company? What's how what's to some of the stats heres some of the stats. >>Absolutely. So lunar outpost, 58 people, uh, growing quite quickly on track to double. So any of you watching, you want a job, please apply <laugh>. But with lunar outpost, uh, very similar to how launch companies provide people access to different parts of space. Lunar outpost provides people access to different spots on planetary bodies, whether it's the moon, Mars or beyond. So that's really where we're starting. >>So it's kinda like a managed service for all kinds of space utilities. If you kind of think about it, you're gonna provide services. Yeah, >>Absolutely. Yeah. It, it's definitely starting there and, and we're pushing towards building that infrastructure and that long term vision of utilizing space resources. But I can talk about that a little bit more here in a sec. >>Let's get into that. Let's talk about Mars first. You guys said what's going on with >>Mars. Absolutely. >>Yeah. So right now, uh, lunar outpost is part of the science team for, uh, Moxi, which is an instrument on the perseverance Rover. Yeah. Moxi is the first demonstration of space resource utilization on another planet. And what space resource utilization is basically taking resources on another planet, turning them into something useful. What Moxi does is it takes the CO2 from the atmosphere of Mars and atmosphere of Mars is mostly CO2 and it uses a process called solid oxide electrolysis to basically strip oxygen off of that CO2 to produce oh two and carbon monoxide. >>So it's what you need to self sustain on the surface. >>Exactly. It's not just sustaining, um, the astronauts, but also for producing oxygen for propellant. So it'll actually produce, um, it's a, it's a technology that'll produce a propellant for return rockets, um, to come back for Mars. So >>This is the real wildcard and all this, this, this exploration is how fast can the discoveries invent the new science to provide the life and the habitat on the surface. And that seems to be the real focus in the, in the conversations I heard on the keynote as well, get the infrastructure up so you can kinda land and, and we'll pull back and forth. Um, where are we on progress? You guys have the peg from one zero to 10, 10 being we're going, my grandmother's going, everyone's going to zero. Nothing's moving. >>We're making pretty rapid >>Progress. A three six, >>You know, I'll, I'll put it on an eight, John an >>Eight, I'll put it on >>Eight. This is why the mission force was just talking about that's launching within the next 12 months. This is no longer 10 years out. This is no longer 20 years away, 12 months. And then we have mission two shortly after, and that's just the beginning. We have over a dozen Landers that are headed to line surface this decade alone and heavy lift Landers and launchers, uh, start going to the moon and coming back by 2025. >>So, and you guys are from Colorado. You mentioned before you came on camera, right with the swap offices. So you got some space in Colorado, then the rovers to move around. You get, you get weird looks when people drive by and see the space gear. >>Oh yeah, definitely. So we have, um, you know, we have our facility in golden and our Nevada Colorado, and we'll take the vehicles out for strolls and you'll see construction workers, building stuff, and looking over and saying, what's >>Good place to work too. So you're, you're hiring great. You're doubling on the business model side. I can see a lot of demand. It's cheaper to launch stuff now in space. Is there becoming any rules of engagement relative to space? I don't wanna say verified, but like, you know, yet somehow get to the point where, I mean, I could launch a satellite, I could launch something for a couple hundred grand that might interfere with something legitimate. Do you see that on the radar because you guys are having ease of use so smaller, faster, cheaper to get out there. Now you gotta refine the infrastructure, get the services going. Is there threats from just random launches? >>It's a, it's a really interesting question. I mean, current state of the art people who have put rovers on other planetary bodies, you're talking like $3 billion, uh, for the March perseverance Rover. So historically there hasn't been that threat, but when you start talking about lowering the cost and the access to some of these different locations, I do think we'll get to the point where there might be folks that interfere with large scale operations. And that's something that's not very well defined in international law and something you won't really probably get any of the major space powers to agree to. So it's gonna be up to commercial companies to operate responsibly so we can make that space sustainable. And if there is a bad actor, I think it they'll weed themselves out over time. >>Yeah. It's gonna be of self govern, I think in the short term. Good point. Yeah. What about the technology? Where are we in the technology? What are some of the big, uh, challenges that we're overcoming now and what's that next 20 M stare in terms of the next milestone? Yeah, a tech perspective. >>Yeah. So the big technology technological hurdle that has been identified by many is the ability to survive the LUN night. Um, it gets exceptionally cold, uh, when the sun on the moon and that happens every 14 days for another, for, you know, for 14 days. So these long, cold lunar nights, uh, can destroy circuit boards and batteries and different components. So lunar outpost has invested in developing thermal technologies to overcome this, um, both in our offices, in the United States, but we also have opened a new office in, uh, Luxembourg in Europe. That's focusing specifically on thermal technologies to survive the lunar night, not just for rovers, but all sorts of space assets. >>Yeah. Huge. That's a hardware, you know, five, nine kind of like meantime between failure conversation, right. >><laugh> and it's, it gets fun, right? Because you talk five nines and it's such like, uh, you know, ingrained part of the aerospace community. But what we're pitching is we can send a dozen rovers for the cost of one of these historical rovers. So even if 25% of 'em fail, you still have eight rovers for the cost of one of the old rovers. And that's just the, economy's a scale. >>I saw James Hamilton here walking around. He's one of the legendary Amazonians who built out the data center. You might come by the cube. That's just like what they did with servers. Hey, if one breaks throw it away. Yeah. Why buy the big mainframe? Yeah. That's the new model. All right. So now about, uh, space space, that's a not space space, but like room to move around when you start getting some of these habitats going, um, how does space factor into the size of the location? Um, cuz you got the, to live there, solve some of the thermal problems. How do I live on space? I gotta have, you know, how many people gonna be there? What's your forecast? You think from a mission standpoint where there'll be dozens of people or is it still gonna be small teams? >>Yeah. >>Uh, what's that look like? >>I mean you >>Can guess it's okay. >>I mean, my vision's thousands of people. Yep. Uh, living and working in space because it's gonna be, especially the moon I think is a destination that's gonna grow, uh, for tourism. There's an insane drive from people to go visit a new destination. And the moon is one of the most unique experiences you could imagine. Yep. Um, in the near term for Artis, we're gonna start by supporting the Artis astronauts, which are gonna be small crews of astronauts. Um, you know, two to six in the near term. >>And to answer your question, uh, you know, in a different way, the habitat that we're actually gonna build, it's gonna take dozens of these robotic systems to build and maintain over time. And when we're actually talking, timelines, force talks, thousands of people living and working in space, I think that's gonna happen within the next 10 to 15 years. The first few folks are gonna be on the moon by 2025. And we're pushing towards having dozens of people living and working in space and by 2030. >>Yeah. I think it's an awesome goal. And I think it's doable question I'll have for you is the role of software in all this. I had a conversation with, uh, space nerd and we were talking and, and I said open sources everywhere now in the software. Yeah. How do you repair in space? Does you know, you don't want to have a firmware be down. So send down backhoe back to the United States. The us, wait a minute, it's the planet. I gotta go back to earth. Yeah. To get apart. So how does break fix work in space? How, how do you guys see that problem? >>So this one's actually quite fun. I mean, currently we don't have astronauts that can pick up a or change a tire. Uh, so you have to make robots that are really reliable, right. That can continuously operate for years at a time. But when you're talking about long-term repairs, there's some really cool ideas and concepts about standardization of some of these parts, you know, just like Lu knots on your car, right? Yeah. If everyone has the same Lu knots on their wheel, great. Now I can go change it out. I can switch off different parts that are available on the line surface. So I think we're moving towards, uh, that in the long >>Term you guys got a great company. Love the mission. Final question for both of you is I noticed that there's a huge community development around Mars, living on Mars, living on the moon. I mean, there's not a chat group that clubhouse app used, used to be around just kind of dying. But now it's when the Twitter spaces Reddit, you name it, there's a fanatical fan base that loves to talk about an engineer and kind of a collective intelligence, not, may not be official engineering, but they just love to talk about it. So there's a huge fan base for space. How does someone get involved if they really want to dive in and then how do you nurture that audience? How does that, is it developing? What's your take on this whole movement? It's it's beyond just being interested. It's it's become, I won't say cult-like but it's been, there's very, a lot of people in young people interested in space. >>Yeah. >>Yeah. There's, there's a whole, lots of places to get involved. There's, you know, societies, right? Like the Mar society there's technical committees, um, there's, you know, even potentially learning about these, you know, taking a space, resources master program and getting into the field and, and joining the company. So, um, we really, uh, thrive on that energy from the community and it really helps press us forward. And we hope to, uh, have a way to take everyone with us on the mission. And so stay tuned, follow our website. We'll be announcing some of that stuff soon. >>Awesome. And just one last, uh, quick pitch for you, John, I'll leave you with one thought. There are two things that space has an infinite amount of the first is power and the second is resources. And if we can find a way to access either of those, we can fundamentally change the way humanity operates. Yeah. So when you're talking about living on Mars long term, we're gonna need to access the resource from Mars. And then long term, once we get the transportation infrastructure in place, we can start bringing those resources back here to earth. So of course there are gonna be those people that sign up for that first mission out to Mars with SpaceX. But, uh, we'd love for folks to join on with us at lunar outpost and be a part of that kind of next leap accessing those resources. >>I love the mission, as always said, once in the cube, everything in star Trek will be invented someday. <laugh>, we're almost there except for the, the, uh, the transporter room. We don't have that done yet, but almost soon be there. All right. Well, thanks for coming. I, I really appreciate Justin for us for sharing. Great story. Final minute. Give a plug for the company. What are you guys looking for? You said hiring. Yep. Anything else you'd like to share? Put a plug in for lunar outpost. >>Absolutely. So we're hiring across the board, aerospace engineering, robotics engineering, sales marketing. Doesn't really matter. Uh, we're doubling as a company currently around 58 people, as we said, and we're looking for the top people that want to make an impact in aerospace. This is truly a unique moment. First time we've ever had continuous reliable operations. First time NASA is pushing really hard on the public private partnerships for commercial companies like ours to go out and create this sustainable presence on the moon. So whether you wanna work with us, our partner with us, we'd be excited to talk to you and, uh, yeah. Please contact us at info. Lunar outpost.com. >>We'll certainly follow up. Thanks for coming. I love the mission we're behind you and everyone else is too. You can see the energy it's gonna happen. It's the cube coverage from re Mars new actions happening in space on the ground, in the, on the moon you name it's happening right here in Vegas. I'm John furrier. Thanks for watching.

>>We're here live in Las Vegas with a cubes coverage of Amazon re Mars. It's a reinvent re Mars reinforced. The big three shows called the res. This is Mars machine learning, automation, robotic and space. It's a program about the future it and the future innovation around industrial cloud scale climate change the moon, a lot of great topics, really connecting all the dots together here in Las Vegas with Amazon re Mars I'm John ER, host of the cube. Our first guest is Howard Hughes program manager, necess Ryan program. Howard is involved with all the action and space and the moon project, which we'll get into Howard. Thanks for coming on the cube. >>Well, Hey, thanks for having me here this morning. Appreciate you guys inviting me here. >>So this show is not obvious to the normal tech observer, the insiders in, in the industry. It's the confluence of a lot of things coming together. It's gonna be obvious very soon because the stuff they're showing here is pretty impressive. It's motivating, it's positive and it's a force for change in good. All of it coming together, space, machine learning, robotics, industrial, you have one of the coolest areas, the space what's going on with your Orion program. You guys got the big moon project statement to >>Explain. Well, let me tell you, I'll start with Orion. Orion is our next human space craft. That's gonna take humans beyond low earth orbit and we're part of the broader Artis campaign. So Artis is our plan, our NASA plan to return the first person of color, first woman, back to the moon. And we're very excited to do that. We have several missions that I could talk to you about starting with in a very few months, Artis one. So Artis one is going to fly on the space launch system, which is gonna be the biggest rocket we call the mega rocket has been built since the Saturn five on top of the SLS is the Ryan spacecraft and that Ryan spacecraft houses four crew members for up to 21 days in deep space. And we'll have an unru test in a few months launch on the S SLS. And Orion's gonna go around the moon for up to 40 days on Aus two, we will have the first test of the humans on board Orion. So four people will fly on Aus two. We will also circle the moon for about 10 to 12 days. And then our third mission will be our landing. >>So the moon is back in play, obviously it's close to the earth. So it's a short flight, relatively speaking the Mars a little bit further out. I'll see everyone as know what's going on in Mars. A lot of people are interested in Mars. Moon's closer. Yes, but there's also new things going on around discovery. Can you share the big story around why the moon what's? Why is the moon so important and why is everyone so excited about it? >>Yeah. You, you know, you know, coming to this conference and talking about sustainability, you know, I mean it is exploration is I think ingrained in our DNA, but it's more than just exploration is about, you know, projecting human presence beyond our earth. And these are the stepping stones. You know, we talk about Amazon talked about day one, and I think about, we are on those very early days where we're building the infrastructure Ryans of transportation infrastructure, and we're gonna build infrastructure on the moon to learn how to live on a surface and how to utilize the assets. And then that's very important because you know, it's very expensive to carry fuel, to carry water and all the necessities that you need to survive as a human being and outer space. If you can generate that on the surface or on the planet you go to, and this is a perfect way to do it because it's very in your backyard, as I told you earlier. So for future mission, when you want to go to Mars, you're nine months out, you really wanna make sure you have the technologies and you're able to utilize those technologies robustly and in a sustainable way. >>Yeah, we were talking before you came on, came camera camping in your backyard is a good practice round. Before you go out into the, to the wilderness, this is kind of what's going on here, but there's also the discovery angle. I mean, I just see so much science going on there. So if you can get to the moon, get a base camp there, get set up, then things could come out of that. What are some of the things that you guys are talking about that you see as possible exploration upside? >>Yeah. Well, several things. One is power generation recently. We just released some contracts that from vision power, so long, sustainable power capability is very, very important. You know, the other technologies that you need utilize is regenerative, you know, air, water, things that are, you need for that, but then there's a science aspect of it, which is, you know, we're going to the south pole where we think there's a lot of water potentially, or, or available water that we can extract and utilize that to generate fuel. So liquid hydrogen liquid oxygen is one of the areas that are very interesting. And of course, lunar minerals are very exciting, very interesting to bring and, and, and be able to mine potentially in the future, depending on what is there. >>Well, a lot of cool stuff happening. What's your take on this show here, obviously NASA's reputation as innovators and deep technologists, you know, big moonshot missions, pun intended here. You got a lot of other explorations. What's this show bring together, share your perspective because I think the story here to me is you got walkout retail, like the Amazon technology, you got Watson dynamics, the dog, everyone loves that's walking on. Then you got supply chain, robotics, machine learning, and space. It all points to one thing, innovation around industrial. I think what, what, what's your, what's your, what's your take? >>You know, I think one of the things is, is, you know, normally we are innovating in a, in our aerospace industry. You know, I think there's so much to learn from innovation across all these areas you described and trying to pull some of that into the spacecraft. You know, when, when you're a human being sitting in spacecraft is more than just flying the spacecraft. You know, you have interaction with displays, you have a lot of technologies that you normally would want to interact with on the ground that you could apply in space to help you and make your tasks easier. And I think those are things that are really important as we look across, you know, the whole entire innovative infrastructure that I see here in this show, how can we extract some that and apply it in the space program? I think there is a very significant leveraging that you could do off of that. >>What are some of the look at what's going on in donors? What are some of the cool people who aren't following the day to day? Anything? >>Well, well, certainly, you know, the Artman's mission Artis campaign is one of the, the, the coolest things I could think of. That's why I came into, you know, I think wrapping around that where we are not only just going to a destination, but we're exploring, and we're trying to establish a very clear, long term presence that will allow us to engage. What I think is the next step, which is science, you know, and science and the, and the things that can, can come out of that in terms of scientific discoveries. And I think the cool, coolest thing would be, Hey, could we take the things that we are in the labs and the innovation relative to power generation, relative to energy development of energy technologies, robotics, to utilize, to help explore the surface. And of course the science that comes out of just naturally, when you go somewhere, you don't know what to expect. And I think that's what the exciting thing. And for NASA, we're putting a program, an infrastructure around that. I think that's really exciting. Of course, the other parts of NASA is science. Yeah. And so the partnering those two pieces together to accomplish a very important mission for everybody on planet earth is, is really important. >>And also it's a curiosity. People are being curious about what's going on now in space, cuz the costs are down and you got universities here and you got the, of robotics and industrial. This is gonna provide a, a new ground for education, younger, younger generation coming up. What would you share to teachers and potential students, people who wanna learn what's different about now than the old generation and what's the same, what what's the same and what's new. What's how does someone get their arms around this, their mind around it? Where can they jump in? This is gonna open up the aperture for, for, for talent. I mean with all the technology, it's not one dimensional. >>Yeah. I think what is still true is core sciences, math, you know, engineering, the hard science, chemistry, biology. I mean, I think those are really also very important, but what we're we're getting today is the amount of collaboration we're able to do against organically. And I think the innovation that's driven by a lot of this collaboration where you have these tools and your ability to engage and then you're able to, to get, I would say the best out of people in lots of different areas. And that's what I think one of the things we're learning at NASA is, you know, we have a broad spectrum of people that come to work for us and we're pulling that. And now we're coming to these kinds of things where we're kind getting even more innovation ideas and partnerships so that we are not just off on our own thinking about the problem we're branching out and allowing a lot of other people to help us solve the problems that >>We need. You know, I've noticed with space force too. I had the same kind of conversations around those with those guys as well. Collaboration and public private partnerships are huge. You've seen a lot more kind of cross pollination of funding, col technology software. I mean, how do you do break, fix and space at software, right? So you gotta have, I mean, it's gotta work. So you got security challenges. Yeah. This is a new frontier. It is the cybersecurity, the usability, the operationalizing for humans, not just, you know, put atypical, you know, scientists and, and, and astronauts who are, you know, in peak shape, we're talking about humans. Yeah. What's the big problem to solve? Is it security? Is it, what, what would you say the big challenges >>Are? Yeah. You know, I think information and access to information and how we interact with information is probably our biggest challenge because we have very limited space in terms of not only mass, but just volume. Yeah. You know, you want to reserve the space for the people and they, they need to, you know, you want maximize your space that you're having in spacecraft. And so I think having access to information, being able to, to utilize information and quickly access systems so you can solve problems cuz you don't know when you're in deep space, you're several months out to Mars, what problems you might encounter and what kind of systems and access to information you need to help you solve the problems. You know, both, both, both from a just unplanned kind of contingencies or even planned contingencies where you wanna make sure you have that information to do it. So information is gonna be very vital as we go out into deep >>Space and the infrastructure's changed. How has the infrastructure changed in terms of support services? I mean see, in the United States, just the growth of a aerospace you mentioned earlier is, is just phenomenal. You've got smaller, faster, cheaper equipment density, it solved the technology. Where's there gonna be the, the big game changing move movement. Where do you see it go? Is it AIST three? It kind of kicks in AIST ones, obviously the first one unmanned one. But where do in your mind, do you see key milestones that are gonna be super important to >>Watch? I think, I think, I think, you know, we've already, you know, pushed the boundaries of what we, we are, you know, in terms of applying our aerospace technologies for AIST one and certainly two, we've got those in, in work already. And so we've got that those vehicles already in work and built yeah. One already at the, at the Kennedy space center ready for launch, but starting with three because you have a lot more interaction, you gotta take the crew down with a Lander, a human landing system. You gotta build rovers. You've gotta build a, a capability which they could explore. So starting with three and then four we're building the gateway gateways orbiting platform around the moon. So for all future missions after Rist three, we're gonna take Aion to the gateway. The crew gets into the orbiting platform. They get on a human landing system and they go down. >>So all that interaction, all that infrastructure and all the support equipment you need, not only in the orbit of the moon, but also down the ground is gonna drive a lot of innovation. You're gonna have to realize, oh, Hey, I needed this. Now I need to figure out how to get something there. You know? And, and how much of the robotics and how much AI you need will be very interesting because you'll need these assistance to help you do your daily routine or lessen your daily routine. So you can focus on the science and you can focus on doing the advancing those technologies that you're gonna >>Need. And you gotta have the infrastructure. It's like a road. Yeah. You know, you wanna go pop down to the moon, you just pop down, it's already built. It's ready for you. Yep. Come back up. So just ease of use from a deployment standpoint is, >>And, and the infrastructure, the things that you're gonna need, you know, what is a have gonna look like? What are you gonna need in a habitat? You know, are, are you gonna be able to have the power that you're gonna have? How many station power stations are you gonna need? Right. So all these things are gonna be really, things are gonna be driven by what you need to do the mission. And that drives, I think a lot of innovation, you know, it's very much like the end goal. What are you trying to solve? And then you go, okay, here's what I need to solve to build things, to solve that >>Problem. There's so many things involved in the mission. I can imagine. Safety's huge. Number one, gotta be up safe. Yep. Space is dangerous game. Yes. Yeah. It's not pleasant there. Not for the faint of heart. As you say, >>It's not for the faint >>Heart. That's correct. What's the big safety concerns obviously besides blowing up and oxygen and water and the basic needs. >>I think, I think, you know, I think you, you said it very well, you know, it is not for the faint of heart. We try to minimize risk. You know, asset is one of the big, you're sitting under 8.8 million pounds of thrust on the launch vehicle. So it is going very fast and you're flying and you, and, and it's it's light cuz we got solid rocket motors too as well. Once they're lit. They're lit. Yeah. So we have a escape system on Orion that allows a crew to be safe. And of course we build in redundancy. That's the other thing I think that will drive innovation. You know, you build redundancy in the system, but you also think about the kind of issues that you would run into potentially from a safety perspective, you know, how you gonna get outta situation if you get hit by a meteor, right? Right. You, you, you are going through the band, Ellen belt, you have radiation. So you know, some of these things that are harsh on your vehicle and on, on the human side of this shop too. And so when you have to do these things, you have to think about what are you gonna protect for and how do you go protect for that? And we have to find innovations for >>That. Yeah. And it's also gonna be a really exciting air for engineering work. And you mentioned the data, data's huge simulations, running scenarios. This is where the AI comes in. And that seems to me where the dots connect from me when you start thinking about how to have, how to run those simulations, to identify what's possible. >>I think that's a great point, you know, because we have all this computing capability and because we can run simulations and because we can collect data, we have terabytes of data, but it's very challenging for humans to analyze at that level. So AI is one of the things we're looking at, which is trying to systematically have a process by which data is called through so that the engineering mind is only looking at the things and focus on things that are problematic. So we repeat tests, every flight, you don't have to look at all the terabytes of data of each test. You have a computer AI do that. And you allow yourself to look at just the pieces that don't look right, have anomalies in the data. Then you're going to do that digging, right. That's where the power of those kinds of technologies can really help us because we have that capability to do a lot of computing. >>And I think that's why this show to me is important because it, it, it shows for the first time, at least from my coverage of the industry where technology's not the bottleneck anymore, it's human mind. And we wanna live in a peaceful world with climate. We wanna have the earth around for a while. So climate change was a huge topic yesterday and how the force for good, what could come outta the moon shots is to, is to help for earth. >>Yeah. >>Yeah. Better understanding there all good. What's your take on the show. If you had to summarize this show, re Mars from the NASA perspective. So you, the essence space, what's the what's going on here? What's the big, big story. >>Yeah. For, for me, I think it's eyeopening in terms of how much innovation is happening across a spectrum of areas. And I look at various things like bossy, scientific robots that the dog that's walking around. I mean to think, you know, people are applying it in different ways and then those applications in a lot of ways are very similar to what we need for exploration going forward. And how do you apply some of these technologies to the space program and how do we leverage that? How do we leverage that innovation and how we take the innovations already happening organically for other reasons and how would those help us solve those problems that we're gonna encounter going forward as we try to live on another planet? >>Well, congratulations on a great assignment. You got a great job. I do super fun. I love being an observer and I love space. Love how at the innovations there. And plus space space is cool. I mean, how many millions of live views do you see? Everyone's stopping work to watch SpaceX land and NASA do their work. It's just, it's bringing back the tech vibe. You know what I'm saying? It's just, it's just, things are going you a good tailwind. Yeah. >>Congratulations. Thank you very much. >>Appreciate it on the, okay. This cube coverage. I'm John fur. You're here for the cube here. Live in Las Vegas back at reinvent reinforce re Mars, the reser coverage here at re Mars. We'll be back with more coverage after this short break.

(bright upbeat music) >> Hi, everyone, welcome back to theCUBE's Unstoppable Domains Partner Showcase. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. This segment in this session is about expansion into Asia Pacific and Europe for Unstoppable Domains. It's a hot startup in the Web3 area, really creating a new innovation around NFTs, crypto, single sign-on, and digital identity, giving users the power like they should. We've got two great guests, Sajjad Rehman, Head of Europe, and Nilkanth, known as Nil, Iyer, head of Asia. Sajjad, Nil, welcome to this CUBE, and let's talk about the expansion. It's not really an expansion, the global economy is global, but showcase here about Unstoppables going to Europe. Thanks for coming on. >> Thanks for inviting us. >> Thanks John, for inviting us. >> So we're living in a global world, obviously, crypto, blockchain, decentralized applications. You're starting to see mainstream adoption, which means the shift is happening. There are more apps coming, and it means more infrastructure, and things got to get easier, right? So, reduce the steps it takes to do stuff, makes the wallets better, give people more secure access and control of their data. This is what Unstoppable is all about. You guys are in the middle of it, you're on this wave. What is the potential of Web3 with Unstoppable, and in general, in Asia and in Europe? >> I can go first. So, now, let's look at the Asia market. I mean, typically, we see the US market, the Europe markets, for typical Web 2.0 software and infrastructure is definitely the larger markets, with US typically accounting for about 60%, and Europe about 20 to 30%, and Asia has always been small. But we see in this whole world of blockchain, crypto, Web 3.0, Asia already has about 160 million users. They have more than 35 local exchanges. And if you really look at the number of countries, in terms of the rate of adoption, many of the Asian countries, which probably you'd have never even heard of, like Vietnam, actually topping the list, right? One of the reasons that this is happening, again, if you go through the Asian Development Bank's latest report, you have these Gen Zs and millennials, of that's 50% of the Asian population. And if you really look at 50% of the Asian population, that's 1.1 billion people out of the total, 1.8 billion Gen Z and millennials that you have have in the world. And these folks are digitally native, they're people, in fact, the Gen Zs are mobile first, and millennials, many of us, like myself, at least, are people who are digital, and 20% of the world's economy is currently digital, and the rest, 40 to 50%, which is going to happen in the Web 3.0 world, and that's going to be driven by millennials and Gen Zs. I think that's why this whole space is so exciting, because it's being driven by the users, by the new generation. I mean, that's my broad thought on this whole thing. >> Before we get get this started, I want to just comment, Asia, also, in other areas where mobile first came, you had the younger demographics absolutely driving the change, because they're like, "Well, I don't want the old way." They go right from scratch at the beginning, they're using the technologies. That has propelled the crypto world. I mean, that is absolutely true. Everyone's kind of seeing that. And that's now influencing some of these developer nations, like say, in Europe, for instance, and even North America, I think Europe's more advanced than North America, in my opinion, but we'll get to that. Oh, so potential in Europe. Sajjad, take us through your thoughts on... As head of Europe, for our audience. >> Absolutely, so, Nil's right. I think Asia is way ahead in terms of Gen Z user adopting crypto, Europe is actually a distant second, but it's surprising to note that Europe actually has the highest transactional activity in crypto over the last year and a half. And if you dig a bit deeper, I'd say, arguably, for Europe, I think the opportunity in Web3 is perhaps the largest. And then perhaps it can mean the most for Europe. Europe, for the last decade, has been trailing behind Asia and North America, when it comes to birthing unicorns, and I think Web3 can provide a StepChain opportunity. This belief, for me, stems from the fact that Europe's policy, right, like, for example, GDPR, is focused on enabling your data ownership. And I think I recently read a very good paper out of Stanford, by Patrick Henson. He speaks about Web3 being the best part, here, for Europe enabling patient sovereignty. So what that means is users control the data, they're paying to enter it, and they harness the value from it. And on one hand, while Europe is enabling that regulation, that's entered in that code, Web3 actually brings it into action. So I think with more enablement, better regulation, and we'll see more hubs, like the Crypto Valley in Switzerland pop up, that will bring, I think, I'd rather be careful, better to say, not over-regulation, the right regulation. We can expect more in prop capital, more builder talent, that then drives more adoption. So I think the prospects for Europe in terms of usage, as well as builders, are quite bright. >> Yeah, and I think, also, you guys are in areas where the cultural shift is so dramatic. You mentioned Asia, the demographics, even the entrepreneurial culture in Europe right now is booming. You look at all the venture-backed startups, and the young generation building companies! And again, cloud computing is a big part of that, obviously. But look at, compared to the United States, you go back 15 years ago, Europe was way behind, on the startup scene. Now it's booming and pumping on all cylinders. And it kind of points at this cultural shift. It's almost like a generational... It's like the digital hippies changing the world. The Web3, it's kind of, "I don't want to be Web2, Web2 is so old, I don't want to do that." And then it's all because it's changing, right? And there are things inadequate with Web2, on the naming system. Also the arbitrage around fake information, bots, users being manipulated, and also merchandised and monetized through these portals. Okay, that's kind of ending. So talk about the dynamic of Web2, 3, at those areas. You've got users and you've got companies, who build applications. They're going to shift and be forced, in our opinion, and I want to get your reaction to that. Do you think applications are going to have to be Web3, or users will reject them? >> Yeah, I think that I'll jump in and add to there in Nil's part. I think the Web3 is built on three principles, right? They're decentralization, ownership, and composability. And I think these are not binary. So if I look further on in the future, I don't see a future where you have just Web3. I think there's going to be coexistence or cooperation between Web2 companies, Web3, building bridges. I think there's going to be... There's a sliding scale to decentralization, versus centralization. Similarly, ownership. And I think users will find what works best for them in different contexts. I think what Unstoppable is doing is essentially providing the identity system for Web3, and that's way more powerful when it comes to being built on blockchains, than with the naming system we had for Web2, right? The identity system can serve the purpose of taking a user's personal identifier, password, blockchain, domain name, and attaching all kinds of attributes that define who you are, both in the physical and digital world, and filling out information that you can transact on the basis of. And I think the users would, as we go to a no-code and low-code future, right, where in Web2, more of the users were essentially consumers, or readers of the internet. And in Web3, with more low-code and no-code technology platforms taking shape and getting proliferation, you would see more users being actually writers, publishers, and developers on the internet. And they would value owning their data, and to harness the most amount of value from it. So I think that's the power concept, and I think that's the future I see, where Web3 will dominate. Nil, what do you think? >> Well, I think you put it very, very nicely, Sajjad. I think you covered most of the points, I think. But I'm seeing a lot of different things that are happening at the ground. I think a lot of the governments, a lot of the Web 2.0 players, the traditional banks, these guys are not sitting quiet on the blockchain space. There are a lot of pilots happening in the blockchain space, right? I mean, I can give you real life examples. I mean, one of the biggest examples is in my home state of Maharashtra, where Mumbai is. They actually partnered with Polygon (MATIC), right? Actually built a private blockchain-based capability to kind of deliver your COVID vaccination certificates with the QR code, right? And that's the only way they could deliver that kind of volumes in that short a time, with the kind of user control, the user control the user has on the data. That could only be possible because of blockchain. Of course, it's still private, because it's healthcare data, they still want to keep it, something that's not fully on a blockchain. But that is something. Similarly, there is a consortium of about nine banks who have actually trying to work on making things like remittances or trade finance much, much easier. I mean, remittances through a traditional, Web 2.0 world is very, very costly. And especially in the Asian countries, a lot of people from Southeast Asia work across the world and send back money home. It's a very costly and a time-taking affair. So they have actually partnered and built a blockchain-based capability, again, in a pilot stage, to kind of reduce the transaction costs. For example, if you just look at the trade finance days where there are 14 million traders, who do 2.4, 5 trillion dollars, of transaction, they were able to actually reduce the time that it takes from eight to nine days, to about two to three days. And so, to add on to what you're saying, I think these two worlds are going to meet, and meet very soon. And when they meet, what they need is a single digital identity, a human-readable way of being able to send and receive and do commerce. I think that's where I see Unstoppable Domains, very nicely positioned to be able to integrate these two worlds, so that's my thought on all the logistics. >> That was a great point. I was going to get into which industries, and kind of what areas, you see in your geographies. But it's a good point about saving time. I like how you brought that up, because in these new waves, you either got to reduce the steps it takes to do something, or save time, make it easy. And this is the successful formula, in anything, whether it's an app or UI or whatever, but what specifically are they doing in your areas? And what about Unstoppable are they attracted to? Is it because of the identity? Is it because of the apps? Is it because of the single sign-on? What is the reason that they're leaning in, and unpacking this further into their pilots? >> Sajjad, do you want to take that? >> Yeah, absolutely, man. >> Because. >> Yeah, I'm happy. Please jump in if you want. So I think, and let me clarify the question, John, you're talking about Web2 companies, looking to partner in software, or potential partnerships, right? >> Yeah, what are they seeing, and what are they seeing as the value that these pilots we heard from Nilkanth around the financial industry? And obviously, gaming's one, it's obvious. Huge: financial, healthcare, I mean, these are obviously verticals that are going to be heavily impacted in a positive way. What are they seeing as value? What's getting them motivated to do these pilots? Why are they jumping in, with both feet, if you will, on these projects? Is it because it's saving money, is it time, or both, is it ease of use, is it the user's expectations? Trying to tease out how you guys see that evolving. >> Yeah, yeah, I think... This is still, the space is, the movement is going very fast, but I think the space is still young. And right now, a lot of these companies are seeing the potential that Web3 offers. And I think the key, key dimensions, right, composability, decentralization, and ownership. So I think the key thing I'm seeing in EU is these Web2 companies seeing the momentum and looking to harness that by enabling bridges to Web3. One of the key trends in Europe has been Fintech, I think over the last five to six years, we have the Revolut, N26, e-TOTAL creating platforms, new banks and super finance, super apps rising to the forefront. And they are all enabling, or also connecting a bridge with Web3 in some shape and form, either enabling creating of crypto, some are launching their own native wallets, and these are, essentially, ways that they can, one, attract users. So the Gen Z who are looking for more friction in finance, to get them on board, but also to look to enable more adoption by their own users, who are not using these services that potentially create new revenue streams, and create allocation of capital that they could not access, to have access to otherwise. So I think that's one trend I'm seeing over here. I think the other key trend is, in Europe, at least, has been games. And again, dead links or damaged, web creators would call the metaverse. So a lot of game companies are looking to step into Game Fire, which is, again, a completely different business model to what traditional game companies used to use. Similarly, metaverse is where again, ownership creates a different business model and they see that users and gamers of the future would want to engage with that, versus just being monetized on the basis of subscription or ads. And I think that's something that they're becoming aware of, and moving quickly in the space, launching their own metaverses, or game by applications. Or creating interoperability with these decentralized applications. >> You know, I wanted to get into this point, but I was going to ask about the community empowerment piece of this equation, 'cause digital identity is about the user's identity, which implies they're part of a community. Web3 is very community-centric. But you mentioned gaming, I mean, people who have been watching the gaming world, like ourselves, know that communities and marketplaces have been very active for years, many years, over 15 years. Community, games, currency, in-game activity, has been out there, right, but siloed within the games themselves. So now, it seems that that paradigm's coming in and empowering all communities. Is this something that you guys see and agree with? And if so, what's different about that? How are communities being empowered? I guess that's the question. >> Yeah, I can maybe take that, Sajjad. So, I mean, I must have heard of Axie Infinity, I mean, 40% of their user base is in Vietnam. And the average earning that a person makes in a month, out of playing this game, is more than the national, daily or minimum wage that is there, right? So that's the kind of potential. Actually, going back, as a combination of actually answering your earlier question, and I think over and above what Sajjad said, what's very unique in Asia is we still have a lot of unbanked people, right? So if you really look at the total unbanked population of the world, it's 1.6 billion, and 24% of that is in Asia, so almost 375 million people are in Asia. So these are people who do not have access to finance or credit. So the whole idea is, how do we get these people on to a banking system, onto peer-to-peer lending, or peer-to-peer finance kind of capabilities. I think, again, Unstoppable Domains kind of helps in that, right? If you just look at the pure Web 3.0 world, and the complex, technical way in which money or other crypto is transferred from one wallet to the other, it's very difficult for an unbanked person who probably cannot even do basic communication, cannot read and write, to actually be able to do it. But something that's very human-readable, something that's very easy for him to understand, something that's visual, something that he can see on his mobile. With 2G network, we are not talking of... The world is talking about 5G, but there are parts of Asia, which are still using 2G and 2.5G kind of network, right? So I think that's one key use case. I think the banks are trying to solve because for them, this is a whole new customer segment. And, sorry, I actually went back a little bit, to your earlier question, but coming to this whole community-building, right? So on March 8th, we're launching something called this Women of Web3, or, oh, that is WoW3, right? This is basically to, again, empower. So if you, again, look at Asia, women need a lot of training, they need a lot of enablement, for them to be able to leverage the power of Web 3.0. I can talk about India, of course, being from India. A lot of the women do not... They do all the small businesses, but the money is taken by middlemen, or taken by their husbands. With Web 3.0, fundamentally, the money comes to them, because that's what they use to educate their children. And it's the same thing in a lot of other Southeast Asian countries as well. I think it's very important to build those communities, communities of women entrepreneurs. I think this is a big opportunity to really get the section of society, which probably will take 10 more years, if we go through the normal Web1 to Web 2.0 progression, where the power is with corporations, and not with the individuals. >> And that's a great announcement, by the way, you mentioned the $10 million worth of domains being issued out for... This is democratization, it's what it's all about. Again, this is a new revolution. I mean, this is a new thing. So great stuff, more education, more learning. And going to get the banks up and running, get those people banking, 'cause once they're banking, they get wallets, right? So they need the wallets. So let's get to the real meat here. You guys are in the territory, Europe and Asia, where there's a lot of wallets. There's a lot of exchanges, 'cause that's... They're not in the United States. There's a few of them there, but most of them outside the United States. And you've got a lot of dApps developing, decentralized applications, okay? So you got all this coming together in your territory. What's the strategy, how you going to attack that? You got the wallets, you got the exchanges, and you got D applications. DApps. >> Yeah, I'm happy to (indistinct). So I think, and just quickly there, I think one point is, and Nil really expressed it beautifully, is finding inclusion. That is something that has inspired me, how Web3 can make the internet more inclusive. That inspired my move here. Yeah, I think, for us, I think we are at the base start when it comes to Europe, right? And the key focus, in terms of our approach in Europe would be that, we want to do two things. One, we want to increase the utility of these domain names. And the second thing is, we will invite proliferation with our partners. So when I speak about utility, I think utility is when you have a universal identifier, which is a domain name, and then you have these attributes around it, right? What then defines your identity. So in the context, in Europe, we would look to find partners to help us enrich that identity around the domain name. And that adds value for users, in terms of acquiring these domains and new clients. And on the other end, when it comes to proliferation, I think it's about working with all those crypto, and crypto and Web3, Web3 participants as well as Web3-adjacent companies, brands, and services, who can help us educate current and future, and upcoming Web3 users about the utility of domain names, and help us onboard them to the decentralized internet. So I think that's going to be the general focus. I think the key is that, as, oh, and hopefully, we'll be having one, overarching regulation, EU, that allowed us to do this at a vision level. But I would say I think it's going to be tackling it country by country, identifying countries where there's deeper penetration for Web3, and then making sure that we are partnered with local, trusted partners that are already developing for local communities there. So, yeah, that's my view and Nil, I believe those are wants in, for Asia. >> Oh, I think, yeah, so again, in Asia, one is you have a significant part of humanity living in Asia, right? So obviously, all the other challenges and the opportunities that we talk about, I think the first area of focus would be educating the people on the massive opportunity that they have, and if you're able to get them in early, I think it's great for them as well, right? Because by the time governments, regulations, large banking, financial companies move, but if you can get the larger population into this whole space, it's good for them, so they are first movers in that space. I think we are doing a lot of things on this, worldwide. I think we've done more than 100 past podcasts, just educating people on what is Web 3.0, what are NFT domains? What is DeFi, and so on and so forth. I think it would need some bit of localization, customization, in Asia, given that India itself has about 22 languages. And then there are the other countries which, each of them with their own local languages and syntax, semantics and all those things, right? So I think that that is very important, to be able to disseminate the knowledge, although it's global, but I think to get the grassroot people to understand the opportunity, I think it would need some amount of work there. I think also building communities, I think, John, you talked about communities, so did Sajjad talk about communities. I think it's very important to build communities, because communities create ideation. It talks about... People share their challenges, so that people don't repeat the same mistakes. So I think it's very important to build communities based on interest. I think we all know in the technology world, you can build communities around Elegram, Telegram, Discord, Twitter spaces, and all those things. But, again, when you're talking of financial inclusion, you're talking of a different kind of community-building. I think that that would be important. And then of course I will kind of, primarily from a company perspective, I think getting the 35 odd exchanges in Asia, the wallets to partner with us. Just as an example, MATIC. They had, until September of last year, about 3,500 apps. In just one quarter, it doubled to 7,000 dApps on their platform. But that is the pace, or the speed of innovation that we are seeing on this whole 3.0 space. I think it's very important to get those key partners, Who are developing those dApps. See the power of single sign-on, having a human-readable, digital identity, being able to seamlessly transfer all your assets, digital assets, across multiple cryptos, across multiple NFT marketplaces, and so on and so forth. >> Yeah, and I think the whole community thing, too, is also you seeing the communities being part of, certainly in the entertainment area, and the artistry, creator world, the users are art of the community, they own it, too. So it goes both ways, but this brings up the marketplace, too, as well, because you guys have the opportunity to have trust built into the software layer, right? So now you can keep the reputation data. You can be anonymous, but it's trustworthy, versus bots, which we all know bots can be killed and then started again with... And no one knows what the tagalong has been around. So the whole inadequacy of Web2, which is just growing pains, right? This is what it evolution looks like, next abstraction layer. So I love that vibe. How advanced do you think that thinking is, where people are saying, Hey, we need this abstraction layer. We need this digital identity. We need to start expanding our applications so that the users can move across these and break down those silos where the data is, 'cause that's... This is like the nerd problem, right? It's the data silos that are holding it back. What's your guys' reaction to that? The killing the silos and making it horizontally scalable? >> Yeah, I think it's a nerd problem. It is a problem of people who understand technology. It's a problem of a lot of the people in the business who want to compete effectively against those giants, which are holding all the data. So I think those are the people who will innovate and move. Again, coming back to financial inclusion, coming back to the unbanked, those guys just want to do their business. They want to live their daily life. I think that's not where you'll see... You will see innovation in a different form, but they're not going to disrupt the disrupters. I think that would be the people, Fintechs, I think they would be the first to move on to something like that. I mean, that's my humble opinion. >> Sajjad, you heard. >> Yeah, I think- >> Go ahead. >> I mean, absolutely. I think, I mean, I touched on creators, right? So, like I said earlier, right, we are heading to a future where more people will be creators on the internet. Whether you're publishing, writing something, you're creating video content, and that means that they have data they own, but that's their data, they bring it to the internet. That's more powerful, more useful, and they should be able to transact on that basis. So I think people are recognizing that, and they will increasingly look to do so. And as they do that, they would want these systems that enable them to hold permission to their data. They will want to be able to control what their permission and what they want to provide, dApp. And at the end of the day, these applications have to work backwards from customers, and the customer's looking for that. That's where... That's what they will build. >> The users want freedom. They want to be able to be connected, and not be restricted. They want to freely move around the global internet and do whatever they want with the friends and apps that they want to consume, and not feel arbitraged. They don't want to feel like they're kind of nailed into a walled garden and stuck there and having to come back. It's the new normal. >> They don't want to be the product, right, so. >> They don't want to be the product. Gentlemen, great to have you on, great conversation. We're going to continue this later. Certainly want to keep the updates coming. You guys are in a very hot area in Europe and Asia Pacific. That's where a lot of the action is happening. We see the entrepreneurial activity, the business transformation, certainly with the new paradigm shift, and this big wave that's coming. It's here, it's mainstream. Thanks for coming on and sharing your insights. Appreciate it. >> Thanks, John. >> Thanks, John, Thanks for the opportunity, have a good day. >> Okay, okay, great conversation. All the action's moving and happening real fast. This is theCUBE Unstoppable Domains Partner Showcase. I'm John Furrier, your host. Thanks for watching. (contemplative music)

(upbeat music) >> From around the globe. It's theCUBE with digital coverage of IBM Think 2021 brought to you by IBM. >> Welcome to theCUBE's coverage of IBM Think, The Digital Experience. I'm Lisa Martin. I've got two guests with me here today. Ryan Dennings joins us, Manager of ECM Solutions at Auto-Owners Insurance Company, Ryan, welcome to the program. >> Thank you. And Michelle Christensen is here as well, VP of Enterprise Report Management Practice at enChoice, Michelle, it's good to have you on the program. >> Thank you. Thank you. So let's, Ryan let's go ahead and start with you. You guys are a customer of enChoice and IBM, talk to us a little bit about Auto-Owners Company. I know this is a fortune 500. This was founded in 1916. You've got about nearly 3 million policy holders but give us an overview of Auto-Owners Insurance. >> Sure. So Auto-Owners Insurance is an insurance company that's headquartered in Lansing, Michigan. We write insurance in 26 States throughout the United States. Despite our name being Auto-Owners Insurance, which is how we started, we write all personal lines, commercial lines, and also have a life insurance company. >> So comprehensive and that across those nearly 3 million policy holders. Michelle, tell us a little bit about enChoice. I know this, you guys are an IBM Gold Business Partner but this is enChoice's first time on the Cube, so give us a background. >> Sure, sure, great. So enChoice are an IBM Gold Business Partner. We have had 28 years success with IBM as a business partner. Our headquarters are in areas of Austin, Texas, and Tempe, Arizona, as well as Shelton, Connecticut. We cover all of North America and we are a hundred percent focused on the IBM Digital Business Automation Space. We have about 500 customers now that we've helped through the years and we continue to be a leading support provider as well as an implementation partner with all the IBM Solutions. >> And talk to me a little bit Michelle about how it is that you work with with Auto-Owners. >> So we assisted Auto-Owners recently in their digital transformations journey and they were dealing with an antiquated product and wanted to get moving forward, you know provide a better customer satisfaction experience for their client's agents, and so we partnered with them and with IBM and bringing them a content manager on-demand solution as well as navigator and several other products within the IBM Digital Business Automation Portfolio. >> Excellent, Ryan Oh, sorry Michelle, go ahead. >> Nope. That's that's fine. All right, Ryan, tell us a little bit about Auto-Owners, your relationship with IBM and enChoice and how is it helping you to address some of the challenges in the market today? >> Sure. So Auto-Owners has a long-term relationship with IBM originally starting back years ago as a mainframe customer and then, you know more recently helping us with different modern technology initiatives. They were instrumental in the nineties when we redid our initial web offerings, and then more recently they've been helping us with our Digital Business Automation which has helped us to mature our content offering at Owners. >> So you have had a long standing relationship with IBM, Ryan, and then you mentioned the nineties at a time when we didn't have to wear masks on our faces. (laughing) So a couple of decades it goes back, yeah? >> Yes. For sure. Yes. Even further than that, that, you know back into the seventies from the mainframe side of things. >> The seventies, another good time. (laughing) All right. So Michelle, talk to me a little bit about what enChoice is doing with IBM Solutions to help Auto-Owners from a digital transformation perspective is as I said this is a company that was founded in 1916, and I always love to hear how history companies like that are actually working with technology companies to facilitate that transformation. It's a lot harder than it sounds. >> Well, that's correct. Yes. As I mentioned, we're focused on helping customers develop their strategy, their digital strategy and creating those transformative solutions. So we're helping organizations like Auto-Owners with their journey, by first realizing their existing digital state, what challenges they might have and what needs they might need, and then we break that down or we deconstruct those technical and processizations and finally we re-invent their strategic offering with modern capabilities. So we're focused on technologies like RPA, machine learning, artificial intelligence, they're more efficient, scalable, and secure, so any way we can bring those technologies into the equation we go for it. So this offers us, our clients smarter and more intuitive interfaces creating basically a better user experience, and a better user experience then becomes disruptive to their competition. So they gain a better place in the market space. >> Ryan talked to us about that process as much as you were involved in it. I liked that Michelle said, you know we kind of look at the environment, we deconstruct it and then we re-invent it. Talk to me about how IBM and enChoice has helped Auto-Owners to do that so that your digital infrastructure is much more modern, and I presume much more resilient when there are market dynamics like we're living in now. >> Yeah, for sure. So, you know, we've, we've gone through a couple of transformation journeys at Auto-Owners with IBM. When I started the team about seven years ago we originally started using file NATS and data cap, and case manager, and content aggregator as our first movement from a traditional platform that we had for content management into a more modern platform, and that helped us a lot to improve our business process, improve how we capture content and bring it into the system and make it actionable. More recently, we've been working with Michelle and the enChoice team on our migration to a content management on-demand platform, and that's really going to be transformative in terms of how we're able to present content and documents and bills to our agents and customers, to be able to transform that content and show it in ways that are important for our customers to be able to see it, to engage with Auto-Owners in a, in a digital era. >> So Ryan, just a couple of questions on that, is that is that a facilitation of like the digitization of processes that had some paper involved cause you guys have about 48,000 agents, so a lot of folks, a lot of content, tell me a little bit more about how that like content manager on-demand, for example and what you're doing with ECF, how has that really revolutionizing and driving part of that digital transformation? >> Sure. So, you know, there's two parts to that in terms of that content management on-demand journey. One is the technology portion of it, but IBM's provided, and that suite of software gives us some functionality that we haven't had in the past. Specifically, some functionality around searching and searchability of our content that will make it easier for people to find the content that they're looking for, ability to implement records management policies and other things that help us manage that content more effectively, as well as some different options to be able to present the content to our customers and agents in a in a better and more modern way and enChoice's role in that has really been to guide us on that journey to help us make the right choices along the way on the project and help us get to a successful implementation and production. >> Excellent. Michelle, talk to me about Hybrid Cloud AI Data a big theme of IBM Think this year. How is enChoice using Hybrid Cloud and AI? You mentioned some of the other ways but kind of break into that a little bit more about how you're helping customers like Auto-Owners and others really take advantage of those modern technologies. >> Well, sure, sure. So of course with the Cloud Pak offerings that IBM has come forward with and where we focus in the Cloud Pak for automation, several of those offerings are some of them are built specifically to survive or to to be hosted in a hybrid environment, and as we're working with Auto-Owners transforming their platforms going forward for example, they just invested in, in a, a I just lost the word here. They just invested in a, a new platform, mainframe platform where they're going to be leveraging the red hats, and from there they'll drive forward into containerization. So Ryan mentioned some of the ways that we'll be presenting the content for his agents and his customers in a particular that entire viewing platform itself can be moved to a containerization state. So, so it's going to be a lot easier for him to transition into that and to maintain it and to manage it. And of course, just that whole, the ease of function around it will be a lot easier. So we are in our area as an IBM business partner, we work with these solutions to try to stay ahead of the game, to try to be able to assist our customers to understand what makes sense, when is it time to move into those. It's great to take advantage of the new stuff but nobody wants to be, you know, the bleeding game. We want to be the leading game. And so that's some of the areas we focus with our clients to really stay tight with the labs, tight with IBM and understanding their strategies and convey those and educate our customers on those. >> Excellent leading edge. Ryan, talk to me a little bit. I love this a bank, sorry an insurance company from the early 1900's moving into the using container technology. I love stories like that. Talk to me a little bit about Hybrid Cloud AI and how those technologies are going to be facilitators of the continuation of the digital transformation, and probably enabling more opportunities for your agents to meet more needs from from your policy holders. >> Yeah, for sure. So first and foremost, we were a Red Hat OpenShift customer before IBM acquired them and we were doing microservices development and things like that on the platform, and then we were super excited about IBM's digital business automation strategy to move to a Cloud Pak and have that available for software products to run on OpenShift. At the end of last year, we updated our licensing so that we can move in that direction, and we're starting to deploy digital business automation products on our OpenShift platform which is super exciting for me. It's going to make for faster upgrades, more scalability, just a lot of ease of use things for my team to make their jobs easier but also easier for us to adapt new upgrades and software offerings from IBM. There's also a number of products that are in the containerized or OpenShift only offering as they're initially coming out, whether it's mobile capture or automated document processing to name a couple. And those are both things that we're looking at Auto-Owners to continue to mature in this space and be able to offer more functionality to our associates, our customers, and our agents to continue to grow the business. >> Very forward-thinking, awesome Ryan. Thanks for sharing with us what Auto-Owners Insurance is doing, how you're being successful and how you've done so much transformation already. I want to throw the last question to Michelle. Take us out Michelle with what's next from enChoice's perspective in terms of your digital transformation. >> Well, we have been a hundred percent focused on helping all of our customers develop their digital strategy and and creating their own transformative solutions. So as we continue to work with our clients, take them through the journey, as I mentioned before, we try to encourage them not to focus on the, the technology itself, but really to focus on creating their exceptional customer experience when driving their digital strategy. And we see ourselves as, you know helping transform our client's experience such that you know customer experience becomes what enChoice does best. So we see not only our own organization going through the transformation, but making sure that we're taking our clients with us and with 500 clients we're, we're really busy. So that's always good. >> That is good. It sounds like the last year has been very fruitful for you, and I love that you mentioned customer experience, Michelle. I think that is so important and as well as employee experience, but having a good customer experience, especially these days. Table-stakes. I thank you both so much for sharing what you guys are doing with IBM Solutions, the transformation that both of your companies are on and we look forward to hearing what's to come. Thank you both for your time. >> Thank you. >> Thank you for Ryan Dennings and Michelle Christiansen. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE's coverage of IBM Think The Digital Experience. (upbeat music)

>>from around the globe. It's the Q with digital coverage of exa scale day made possible by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Welcome, everyone to the Cube celebration of Exa Scale Day. Shaheen Khan is here. He's the founding partner, an analyst at Orion X And, among other things, he is the co host of Radio free HPC Shaheen. Welcome. Thanks for coming on. >>Thanks for being here, Dave. Great to be here. How are you >>doing? Well, thanks. Crazy with doing these things, Cove in remote interviews. I wish we were face to face at us at a supercomputer show, but, hey, this thing is working. We can still have great conversations. And And I love talking to analysts like you because you bring an independent perspective. You're very wide observation space. So So let me, Like many analysts, you probably have sort of a mental model or a market model that you look at. So maybe talk about your your work, how you look at the market, and we could get into some of the mega trends that you see >>very well. Very well. Let me just quickly set the scene. We fundamentally track the megatrends of the Information Age And, of course, because we're in the information age, digital transformation falls out of that. And the megatrends that drive that in our mind is Ayotte, because that's the fountain of data five G. Because that's how it's gonna get communicated ai and HBC because that's how we're gonna make sense of it Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies because that's how it's gonna get transacted on. That's how value is going to get transferred from the place took place and then finally, quantum computing, because that exemplifies how things are gonna get accelerated. >>So let me ask you So I spent a lot of time, but I D. C and I had the pleasure of of the High Performance computing group reported into me. I wasn't an HPC analyst, but over time you listen to those guys, you learning. And as I recall, it was HPC was everywhere, and it sounds like we're still seeing that trend where, whether it was, you know, the Internet itself were certainly big data, you know, coming into play. Uh, you know, defense, obviously. But is your background mawr HPC or so that these other technologies that you're talking about it sounds like it's your high performance computing expert market watcher. And then you see it permeating into all these trends. Is that a fair statement? >>That's a fair statement. I did grow up in HPC. My first job out of school was working for an IBM fellow doing payroll processing in the old days on and and And it went from there, I worked for Cray Research. I worked for floating point systems, so I grew up in HPC. But then, over time, uh, we had experiences outside of HPC. So for a number of years, I had to go do commercial enterprise computing and learn about transaction processing and business intelligence and, you know, data warehousing and things like that, and then e commerce and then Web technology. So over time it's sort of expanded. But HPC is a like a bug. You get it and you can't get rid of because it's just so inspiring. So supercomputing has always been my home, so to say >>well and so the reason I ask is I wanted to touch on a little history of the industry is there was kind of a renaissance in many, many years ago, and you had all these startups you had Kendall Square Research Danny Hillis thinking machines. You had convex trying to make many supercomputers. And it was just this This is, you know, tons of money flowing in and and then, you know, things kind of consolidate a little bit and, uh, things got very, very specialized. And then with the big data craze, you know, we've seen HPC really at the heart of all that. So what's your take on on the ebb and flow of the HPC business and how it's evolved? >>Well, HBC was always trying to make sense of the world, was trying to make sense of nature. And of course, as much as we do know about nature, there's a lot we don't know about nature and problems in nature are you can classify those problems into basically linear and nonlinear problems. The linear ones are easy. They've already been solved. The nonlinear wants. Some of them are easy. Many of them are hard, the nonlinear, hard, chaotic. All of those problems are the ones that you really need to solve. The closer you get. So HBC was basically marching along trying to solve these things. It had a whole process, you know, with the scientific method going way back to Galileo, the experimentation that was part of it. And then between theory, you got to look at the experiment and the data. You kind of theorize things. And then you experimented to prove the theories and then simulation and using the computers to validate some things eventually became a third pillar of off science. On you had theory, experiment and simulation. So all of that was going on until the rest of the world, thanks to digitization, started needing some of those same techniques. Why? Because you've got too much data. Simply, there's too much data to ship to the cloud. There's too much data to, uh, make sense of without math and science. So now enterprise computing problems are starting to look like scientific problems. Enterprise data centers are starting to look like national lab data centers, and there is that sort of a convergence that has been taking place gradually, really over the past 34 decades. And it's starting to look really, really now >>interesting, I want I want to ask you about. I was like to talk to analysts about, you know, competition. The competitive landscape is the competition in HPC. Is it between vendors or countries? >>Well, this is a very interesting thing you're saying, because our other thesis is that we are moving a little bit beyond geopolitics to techno politics. And there are now, uh, imperatives at the political level that are driving some of these decisions. Obviously, five G is very visible as as as a piece of technology that is now in the middle of political discussions. Covert 19 as you mentioned itself, is a challenge that is a global challenge that needs to be solved at that level. Ai, who has access to how much data and what sort of algorithms. And it turns out as we all know that for a I, you need a lot more data than you thought. You do so suddenly. Data superiority is more important perhaps than even. It can lead to information superiority. So, yeah, that's really all happening. But the actors, of course, continue to be the vendors that are the embodiment of the algorithms and the data and the systems and infrastructure that feed the applications. So to say >>so let's get into some of these mega trends, and maybe I'll ask you some Colombo questions and weaken geek out a little bit. Let's start with a you know, again, it was one of this when I started the industry. It's all it was a i expert systems. It was all the rage. And then we should have had this long ai winter, even though, you know, the technology never went away. But But there were at least two things that happened. You had all this data on then the cost of computing. You know, declines came down so so rapidly over the years. So now a eyes back, we're seeing all kinds of applications getting infused into virtually every part of our lives. People trying to advertise to us, etcetera. Eso So talk about the intersection of AI and HPC. What are you seeing there? >>Yeah, definitely. Like you said, I has a long history. I mean, you know, it came out of MIT Media Lab and the AI Lab that they had back then and it was really, as you mentioned, all focused on expert systems. It was about logical processing. It was a lot of if then else. And then it morphed into search. How do I search for the right answer, you know, needle in the haystack. But then, at some point, it became computational. Neural nets are not a new idea. I remember you know, we had we had a We had a researcher in our lab who was doing neural networks, you know, years ago. And he was just saying how he was running out of computational power and we couldn't. We were wondering, you know what? What's taking all this difficult, You know, time. And it turns out that it is computational. So when deep neural nets showed up about a decade ago, arm or it finally started working and it was a confluence of a few things. Thalib rhythms were there, the data sets were there, and the technology was there in the form of GPS and accelerators that finally made distractible. So you really could say, as in I do say that a I was kind of languishing for decades before HPC Technologies reignited it. And when you look at deep learning, which is really the only part of a I that has been prominent and has made all this stuff work, it's all HPC. It's all matrix algebra. It's all signal processing algorithms. are computational. The infrastructure is similar to H B. C. The skill set that you need is the skill set of HPC. I see a lot of interest in HBC talent right now in part motivated by a I >>mhm awesome. Thank you on. Then I wanna talk about Blockchain and I can't talk about Blockchain without talking about crypto you've written. You've written about that? I think, you know, obviously supercomputers play a role. I think you had written that 50 of the top crypto supercomputers actually reside in in China A lot of times the vendor community doesn't like to talk about crypto because you know that you know the fraud and everything else. But it's one of the more interesting use cases is actually the primary use case for Blockchain even though Blockchain has so much other potential. But what do you see in Blockchain? The potential of that technology And maybe we can work in a little crypto talk as well. >>Yeah, I think 11 simple way to think of Blockchain is in terms off so called permission and permission less the permission block chains or when everybody kind of knows everybody and you don't really get to participate without people knowing who you are and as a result, have some basis to trust your behavior and your transactions. So things are a lot calmer. It's a lot easier. You don't really need all the supercomputing activity. Whereas for AI the assertion was that intelligence is computer herbal. And with some of these exa scale technologies, we're trying to, you know, we're getting to that point for permission. Less Blockchain. The assertion is that trust is computer ble and, it turns out for trust to be computer ble. It's really computational intensive because you want to provide an incentive based such that good actors are rewarded and back actors. Bad actors are punished, and it is worth their while to actually put all their effort towards good behavior. And that's really what you see, embodied in like a Bitcoin system where the chain has been safe over the many years. It's been no attacks, no breeches. Now people have lost money because they forgot the password or some other. You know, custody of the accounts have not been trustable, but the chain itself has managed to produce that, So that's an example of computational intensity yielding trust. So that suddenly becomes really interesting intelligence trust. What else is computer ble that we could do if we if we had enough power? >>Well, that's really interesting the way you described it, essentially the the confluence of crypto graphics software engineering and, uh, game theory, Really? Where the bad actors air Incentive Thio mined Bitcoin versus rip people off because it's because because there are lives better eso eso so that so So Okay, so make it make the connection. I mean, you sort of did. But But I want to better understand the connection between, you know, supercomputing and HPC and Blockchain. We know we get a crypto for sure, like in mind a Bitcoin which gets harder and harder and harder. Um and you mentioned there's other things that we can potentially compute on trust. Like what? What else? What do you thinking there? >>Well, I think that, you know, the next big thing that we are really seeing is in communication. And it turns out, as I was saying earlier, that these highly computational intensive algorithms and models show up in all sorts of places like, you know, in five g communication, there's something called the memo multi and multi out and to optimally manage that traffic such that you know exactly what beam it's going to and worth Antenna is coming from that turns out to be a non trivial, you know, partial differential equation. So next thing you know, you've got HPC in there as and he didn't expect it because there's so much data to be sent, you really have to do some data reduction and data processing almost at the point of inception, if not at the point of aggregation. So that has led to edge computing and edge data centers. And that, too, is now. People want some level of computational capability at that place like you're building a microcontroller, which traditionally would just be a, you know, small, low power, low cost thing. And people want victor instructions. There. People want matrix algebra there because it makes sense to process the data before you have to ship it. So HPCs cropping up really everywhere. And then finally, when you're trying to accelerate things that obviously GP use have been a great example of that mixed signal technologies air coming to do analog and digital at the same time, quantum technologies coming so you could do the you know, the usual analysts to buy to where you have analog, digital, classical quantum and then see which, you know, with what lies where all of that is coming. And all of that is essentially resting on HBC. >>That's interesting. I didn't realize that HBC had that position in five G with multi and multi out. That's great example and then I o t. I want to ask you about that because there's a lot of discussion about real time influencing AI influencing at the edge on you're seeing sort of new computing architectures, potentially emerging, uh, video. The acquisition of arm Perhaps, you know, amore efficient way, maybe a lower cost way of doing specialized computing at the edge it, But it sounds like you're envisioning, actually, supercomputing at the edge. Of course, we've talked to Dr Mark Fernandez about space born computers. That's like the ultimate edge you got. You have supercomputers hanging on the ceiling of the International space station, but But how far away are we from this sort of edge? Maybe not. Space is an extreme example, but you think factories and windmills and all kinds of edge examples where supercomputing is is playing a local role. >>Well, I think initially you're going to see it on base stations, Antenna towers, where you're aggregating data from a large number of endpoints and sensors that are gathering the data, maybe do some level of local processing and then ship it to the local antenna because it's no more than 100 m away sort of a thing. But there is enough there that that thing can now do the processing and do some level of learning and decide what data to ship back to the cloud and what data to get rid of and what data to just hold. Or now those edge data centers sitting on top of an antenna. They could have a half a dozen GPS in them. They're pretty powerful things. They could have, you know, one they could have to, but but it could be depending on what you do. A good a good case study. There is like surveillance cameras. You don't really need to ship every image back to the cloud. And if you ever need it, the guy who needs it is gonna be on the scene, not back at the cloud. So there is really no sense in sending it, Not certainly not every frame. So maybe you can do some processing and send an image every five seconds or every 10 seconds, and that way you can have a record of it. But you've reduced your bandwidth by orders of magnitude. So things like that are happening. And toe make sense of all of that is to recognize when things changed. Did somebody come into the scene or is it just you know that you know, they became night, So that's sort of a decision. Cannot be automated and fundamentally what is making it happen? It may not be supercomputing exa scale class, but it's definitely HPCs, definitely numerically oriented technologies. >>Shane, what do you see happening in chip architectures? Because, you see, you know the classical intel they're trying to put as much function on the real estate as possible. We've seen the emergence of alternative processors, particularly, uh, GP use. But even if f b g A s, I mentioned the arm acquisition, so you're seeing these alternative processors really gain momentum and you're seeing data processing units emerge and kind of interesting trends going on there. What do you see? And what's the relationship to HPC? >>Well, I think a few things are going on there. Of course, one is, uh, essentially the end of Moore's law, where you cannot make the cycle time be any faster, so you have to do architectural adjustments. And then if you have a killer app that lends itself to large volume, you can build silicon. That is especially good for that now. Graphics and gaming was an example of that, and people said, Oh my God, I've got all these cores in there. Why can't I use it for computation? So everybody got busy making it 64 bit capable and some grass capability, And then people say, Oh, I know I can use that for a I And you know, now you move it to a I say, Well, I don't really need 64 but maybe I can do it in 32 or 16. So now you do it for that, and then tens, of course, come about. And so there's that sort of a progression of architecture, er trumping, basically cycle time. That's one thing. The second thing is scale out and decentralization and distributed computing. And that means that the inter communication and intra communication among all these notes now becomes an issue big enough issue that maybe it makes sense to go to a DPU. Maybe it makes sense to go do some level of, you know, edge data centers like we were talking about on then. The third thing, really is that in many of these cases you have data streaming. What is really coming from I o t, especially an edge, is that data is streaming and when data streaming suddenly new architectures like F B G. A s become really interesting and and and hold promise. So I do see, I do see FPG's becoming more prominent just for that reason, but then finally got a program all of these things on. That's really a difficulty, because what happens now is that you need to get three different ecosystems together mobile programming, embedded programming and cloud programming. And those are really three different developer types. You can't hire somebody who's good at all three. I mean, maybe you can, but not many. So all of that is challenges that are driving this this this this industry, >>you kind of referred to this distributed network and a lot of people you know, they refer to this. The next generation cloud is this hyper distributed system. When you include the edge and multiple clouds that etcetera space, maybe that's too extreme. But to your point, at least I inferred there's a There's an issue of Leighton. See, there's the speed of light s So what? What? What is the implication then for HBC? Does that mean I have tow Have all the data in one place? Can I move the compute to the data architecturally, What are you seeing there? >>Well, you fundamentally want to optimize when to move data and when to move, Compute. Right. So is it better to move data to compute? Or is it better to bring compute to data and under what conditions? And the dancer is gonna be different for different use cases. It's like, really, is it worth my while to make the trip, get my processing done and then come back? Or should I just developed processing capability right here? Moving data is really expensive and relatively speaking. It has become even more expensive, while the price of everything has dropped down its price has dropped less than than than like processing. So it is now starting to make sense to do a lot of local processing because processing is cheap and moving data is expensive Deep Use an example of that, Uh, you know, we call this in C two processing like, you know, let's not move data. If you don't have to accept that we live in the age of big data, so data is huge and wants to be moved. And that optimization, I think, is part of what you're what you're referring to. >>Yeah, So a couple examples might be autonomous vehicles. You gotta have to make decisions in real time. You can't send data back to the cloud flip side of that is we talk about space borne computers. You're collecting all this data You can at some point. You know, maybe it's a year or two after the lived out its purpose. You ship that data back and a bunch of disk drives or flash drives, and then load it up into some kind of HPC system and then have at it and then you doom or modeling and learn from that data corpus, right? I mean those air, >>right? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, you know, driverless vehicles is a great example, because it is obviously coming fast and furious, no pun intended. And also, it dovetails nicely with the smart city, which dovetails nicely with I o. T. Because it is in an urban area. Mostly, you can afford to have a lot of antenna, so you can give it the five g density that you want. And it requires the Layton sees. There's a notion of how about if my fleet could communicate with each other. What if the car in front of me could let me know what it sees, That sort of a thing. So, you know, vehicle fleets is going to be in a non opportunity. All of that can bring all of what we talked about. 21 place. >>Well, that's interesting. Okay, so yeah, the fleets talking to each other. So kind of a Byzantine fault. Tolerance. That problem that you talk about that z kind of cool. I wanna I wanna sort of clothes on quantum. It's hard to get your head around. Sometimes You see the demonstrations of quantum. It's not a one or zero. It could be both. And you go, What? How did come that being so? And And of course, there it's not stable. Uh, looks like it's quite a ways off, but the potential is enormous. It's of course, it's scary because we think all of our, you know, passwords are already, you know, not secure. And every password we know it's gonna get broken. But give us the give us the quantum 101 And let's talk about what the implications. >>All right, very well. So first off, we don't need to worry about our passwords quite yet. That that that's that's still ways off. It is true that analgesic DM came up that showed how quantum computers can fact arise numbers relatively fast and prime factory ization is at the core of a lot of cryptology algorithms. So if you can fact arise, you know, if you get you know, number 21 you say, Well, that's three times seven, and those three, you know, three and seven or prime numbers. Uh, that's an example of a problem that has been solved with quantum computing, but if you have an actual number, would like, you know, 2000 digits in it. That's really harder to do. It's impossible to do for existing computers and even for quantum computers. Ways off, however. So as you mentioned, cubits can be somewhere between zero and one, and you're trying to create cubits Now there are many different ways of building cubits. You can do trapped ions, trapped ion trapped atoms, photons, uh, sometimes with super cool, sometimes not super cool. But fundamentally, you're trying to get these quantum level elements or particles into a superimposed entanglement state. And there are different ways of doing that, which is why quantum computers out there are pursuing a lot of different ways. The whole somebody said it's really nice that quantum computing is simultaneously overhyped and underestimated on. And that is that is true because there's a lot of effort that is like ways off. On the other hand, it is so exciting that you don't want to miss out if it's going to get somewhere. So it is rapidly progressing, and it has now morphed into three different segments. Quantum computing, quantum communication and quantum sensing. Quantum sensing is when you can measure really precise my new things because when you perturb them the quantum effects can allow you to measure them. Quantum communication is working its way, especially in financial services, initially with quantum key distribution, where the key to your cryptography is sent in a quantum way. And the data sent a traditional way that our efforts to do quantum Internet, where you actually have a quantum photon going down the fiber optic lines and Brookhaven National Labs just now demonstrated a couple of weeks ago going pretty much across the, you know, Long Island and, like 87 miles or something. So it's really coming, and and fundamentally, it's going to be brand new algorithms. >>So these examples that you're giving these air all in the lab right there lab projects are actually >>some of them are in the lab projects. Some of them are out there. Of course, even traditional WiFi has benefited from quantum computing or quantum analysis and, you know, algorithms. But some of them are really like quantum key distribution. If you're a bank in New York City, you very well could go to a company and by quantum key distribution services and ship it across the you know, the waters to New Jersey on that is happening right now. Some researchers in China and Austria showed a quantum connection from, like somewhere in China, to Vienna, even as far away as that. When you then put the satellite and the nano satellites and you know, the bent pipe networks that are being talked about out there, that brings another flavor to it. So, yes, some of it is like real. Some of it is still kind of in the last. >>How about I said I would end the quantum? I just e wanna ask you mentioned earlier that sort of the geopolitical battles that are going on, who's who are the ones to watch in the Who? The horses on the track, obviously United States, China, Japan. Still pretty prominent. How is that shaping up in your >>view? Well, without a doubt, it's the US is to lose because it's got the density and the breadth and depth of all the technologies across the board. On the other hand, information age is a new eyes. Their revolution information revolution is is not trivial. And when revolutions happen, unpredictable things happen, so you gotta get it right and and one of the things that these technologies enforce one of these. These revolutions enforce is not just kind of technological and social and governance, but also culture, right? The example I give is that if you're a farmer, it takes you maybe a couple of seasons before you realize that you better get up at the crack of dawn and you better do it in this particular season. You're gonna starve six months later. So you do that to three years in a row. A culture has now been enforced on you because that's how it needs. And then when you go to industrialization, you realize that Gosh, I need these factories. And then, you know I need workers. And then next thing you know, you got 9 to 5 jobs and you didn't have that before. You don't have a command and control system. You had it in military, but not in business. And and some of those cultural shifts take place on and change. So I think the winner is going to be whoever shows the most agility in terms off cultural norms and governance and and and pursuit of actual knowledge and not being distracted by what you think. But what actually happens and Gosh, I think these exa scale technologies can make the difference. >>Shaheen Khan. Great cast. Thank you so much for joining us to celebrate the extra scale day, which is, uh, on 10. 18 on dso. Really? Appreciate your insights. >>Likewise. Thank you so much. >>All right. Thank you for watching. Keep it right there. We'll be back with our next guest right here in the Cube. We're celebrating Exa scale day right back.

(radio calls) >> Announcer: From around the globe, its theCUBE covering Space & Cybersecurity Symposium 2020, hosted by Cal poly. Hello, welcome back to theCUBE virtual coverage with Cal Poly for the Space and Cybersecurity Symposium, a day four and the wrap up session, keynote session with the Lieutenant Governor of California, Eleni Kounalakis. She's here to deliver her keynote speech on the topic of California's role in supporting America's Cybersecurity future. Eleni, take it away. >> Thank you, John, for the introduction. I am Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis. It is an honor to be part of Cal Poly Space and Cybersecurity Symposium. As I speak kind of Pierre with the governor's office of business and economic development is available on the chat, too ready to answer any questions you might have. California and indeed the world are facing significant challenges right now. Every day we are faced with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the economic downturn that is ensued. We have flattened the curve in California and are moving in the right direction but it is clear that we're not out of the woods yet. It is also impossible right now to escape the reality of climate change from the fire sparked by exceptionally rare, dry lightening events to extreme heat waves threatening public health and putting a strain on our electricity grid. We see that climate change is here now. And of course we've been recently confronted with a series of brutal examples of institutionalized racism that have created an awakening among people of all walks of life and compelled us into the streets to march and protest. In the context of all this, we cannot forget that we continue to be faced with other less visible but still very serious challenges. Cybersecurity threats are one of these. We have seen cities, companies and individuals paralyzed by attacks costing time and money and creating an atmosphere of uncertainty and insecurity. Our state agencies, local governments, police departments, utilities, news outlets and private companies from all industries are target. The threats around cybersecurity are serious but not unlike all the challenges we face in California. We have the tools and fortitude to address them. That is why this symposium is so important. Thank you, Cal Poly and all the participants for being here and for the important contributions you bring to this conference. I'd like to also say a few words about California's role in America's future in space. California has been at the forefront of the aerospace industry for more than a century through all the major innovations in aerospace from wooden aircraft, to World War II Bombers, to rockets and Mars rovers. California has played a pivotal role. Today, California is the number one state in total defense spending, defense contract spending and total number of personnel. It is estimated the Aerospace and Defense Industry, provides $168 billion in economic impact to our state. And America's best trained and most experienced aerospace and technology workforce lives here in California. The fact that the aerospace and defense sector, has had a strong history in California is no accident. California has always had strong innovation ecosystem and robust infrastructure that puts many sectors in a position to thrive. Of course, a big part of that infrastructure is a skilled workforce. And at the foundation of a skilled workforce is education. California has the strongest system of public higher education in the world. We're home to 10 university of California campuses, 23 California State university campuses and 116 California Community Colleges. All told nearly 3 million students are enrolled in public higher education. We also have world renowned private universities including the California Institute of Technology and Stanford University numbers one and three in the country for aerospace engineering. California also has four national laboratories and several NASA facilities. California possesses a strong spirit of innovation, risk taking and entrepreneurship. Half of all venture capital funding in the United States, goes to companies here in California. Lastly, but certainly no less critical to our success, California is a diverse state. 27% of all Californians are foreign born, 27% more than one in four of our population of 40 million people are immigrants from another country, Europe central and South America, India, Asia, everywhere. Our rich cultural diversity is our strength and helps drive our economy. As I look to the future of industries like cybersecurity and the growing commercial space industry, I know our state will need to work with those industries to make sure we continue to train our workforce for the demands of an evolving industry. The office of the lieutenant governor has a unique perspective on higher education and workforce development. I'm on the UC Board of Regents, the CSU Board of Trustees. And as of about two weeks ago, the Community Colleges Board of Governors. The office of the lieutenant governor is now the only office that is a member of every governing board, overseeing our public higher education system. Earlier in the symposium, we heard a rich discussion with Undersecretary Stewart Knox from the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency about what the state is doing to meet the needs of space and cybersecurity industries. As he mentioned, there are over 37,000 job vacancies in cybersecurity in our state. We need to address that gap. To do so, I see an important role for public private partnerships. We need input from industry and curriculum development. Some companies like Lockheed Martin, have very productive partnerships with universities and community colleges that train students with skills they need to enter aerospace and cyber industries. That type of collaboration will be key. We also need help from the industry to make sure students know that fields like cybersecurity even exist. People's early career interests are so often shaped by the jobs that members of their family have or what they see in popular culture. With such a young and evolving field like cybersecurity, many students are unaware of the job opportunities. I know for my visits to university campuses that students are hungry for STEM career paths where they see opportunities for good paying jobs. When I spoke with students at UC Merced, many of them were first generation college students who went through community college system before enrolling in a UC and they gravitated to STEM majors. With so many job opportunities available to STEM students, cybersecurity ought to be one that they are aware of and consider. Since this symposium is being hosted by Cal Poly, I wanted to highlight the tremendous work they're doing as leaders in the space and cybersecurity industry. Cal Poly California Cybersecurity Institute, does incredible work bringing together academia, industry and government training the next generation of cyber experts and researching emerging cybersecurity issues. As we heard from the President of Cal Poly, Jeff Armstrong the university is in the perfect location to contribute to a thriving space industry. It's close to Vandenberg Air Force Base and UC Santa Barbara and could be home to the future permanent headquarters of US Space Command. The state is also committed to supporting this space industry in the Central Coast. In July, the State of California, Cal poly US-based force and the others signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a commercial space port at Vandenberg Air Force Base and to develop a master plan to grow the commercial space industry in the region. Governor Newsom has made a commitment to lift up all regions of the state. And this strategy will position the Central Coast to be a global leader in the future of the space industry. I'd like to leave you with a few final thoughts, with everything we're facing. Fires, climate change, pandemic. It is easy to feel overwhelmed but I remain optimistic because I know that the people of the State of California are resilient, persistent, and determined to address our challenges and show a path toward a better future for ourselves and our families. The growth of the space industry and the economic development potential of projects like the Spaceport at Vandenberg Air Force Base, our great example of what we can look forward to. The potential for the commercial space industry to become a $3 trillion industry by mid century, as many experts predict is another. There are so many opportunities, new companies are going to emerge doing things we never could have dreamed of today. As Lieutenant General John Thompson said in the first session, the next few years of space and cyber innovation are not going to be a pony ride at the state fair, they're going to be a rodeo. We should all saddle up. Thank you. >> Okay, thank you very much, Eleni. I really appreciate it. Thank you for your participation and all your support to you and your staff. You guys doing a lot of work, a lot going on in California but cybersecurity and space as it comes together, California's playing a pivotal role in leading the world and the community. Thank you very much for your time. >> Okay, this session is going to continue with Bill Britton. Who's the vice president of technology and CIO at Cal Poly but more importantly, he's the director of the cyber institute located at Cal Poly. It's a global organization looking at the intersection of space and cybersecurity. Bill, let's wrap this up. Eleni had a great talk, talking about the future of cybersecurity in America and its future. The role California is playing, Cal Poly is right in the Central Coast. You're in the epicenter of it. We've had a great lineup here. Thanks for coming on. Let's put a capstone on this event. >> Thank you, John. But most importantly, thanks for being a great partner helping us get this to move forward and really changing the dynamic of this conversation. What an amazing time we're at, we had quite an unusual group but it's really kind of the focus and we've moved a lot of space around ourselves. And we've gone from Lieutenant General Thompson and the discussion of the opposition and space force and what things are going on in the future, the importance of cyber in space. And then we went on and moved on to the operations. And we had a private company who builds, we had the DOD, Department Of Defense and their context and NASA and theirs. And then we talked about public private partnerships from President Armstrong, Mr. Bhangu Mahad from the DOD and Mr. Steve Jacques from the National Security Space Association. It's been an amazing conference for one thing, I've heard repeatedly over and over and over, the reference to digital, the reference to cloud, the reference to the need for cybersecurity to be involved and really how important that is to start earlier than just at the employment level. To really go down into the system, the K through 12 and start there. And what an amazing time to be able to start there because we're returning to space in a larger capacity and it's now all around us. And the lieutenant governor really highlighted for us that California is intimately involved and we have to find a way to get our students involved at that same level. >> I want to ask you about this inflection point that was a big theme of this conference and symposium. It was throughout the interviews and throughout the conversations, both on the chat and also kind of on Twitter as well in the social web. Is that this new generation, it wasn't just space and government DOD, all the normal stuff you see, you saw JPL, the Hewlett Foundation, the Defense Innovation Unit, Amazon Web Services, NASA. Then you saw entrepreneurs come in, who were doing some stuff. And so you had this confluence of community. Of course, Cal Poly had participated in space. You guys does some great job, but it's not just the physical face-to-face show up, gets to hear some academic papers. This was a virtual event. We had over 300 organizations attend, different organizations around the world. Being a virtual event you had more range to get more people. This isn't digital. This symposium isn't about Central California anymore. It's global. >> No, it really has gone. >> What really happened to that? >> It's really kind of interesting because at first all of this was word of mouth for this symposium to take place. And it just started growing and growing and the more that we talk to organizations for support, the more we found how interconnected they were on an international scale. So much so that we've decided to take our cyber competition next year and take it globally as well. So if in fact as Major General Shaw said, this is about a multinational support force. Maybe it's time our students started interacting on that level to start with and not have to grow into it as they get older, but do it now and around space and around cybersecurity and around that digital environment and really kind of reduce the digital dividing space. >> Yeah, General Thompson mentioned this, 80 countries with programs. This is like the Olympics for space and we want to have these competitions. So I got great vision and I love that vision, but I know you have the number... Not number, the scores and from the competition this year that happened earlier in the week. Could you share the results of that challenge? >> Yeah, absolutely. We had 83 teams participate this year in the California Cyber Innovation Challenge. And again, it was based around a spacecraft scenario where a spacecraft, a commercial spacecraft was hacked and returned to earth. And the students had to do the forensics on the payload. And then they had to do downstream network analysis, using things like Wireshark and autopsy and other systems. It was a really tough competition. The students had to work hard and we had middle school and high school students participate. We had an intermediate league, new schools who had never done it before or even some who didn't even have STEM programs but were just signing up to really get involved in the experience. And we had our ultimate division which was those who had competed in several times before. And the winner of that competition was North Hollywood. They've been the winning team for four years in a row. Now it's a phenomenal program, they have their hats off to them for competing and winning again. Now what's really cool is not only did they have to show their technical prowess in the game but they also have to then brief and out-brief what they've learned to a panel of judges. And these are not pushovers. These are experts in the field of cybersecurity in space. We even had a couple of goons participating from DefCon and the teams present their findings. So not only are we talking technical, we're talking about presentation skills. The ability to speak and understand. And let me tell you, after reading all of their texts to each other over the weekend adds a whole new language they're using to interact with each other. It's amazing. And they are so more advanced and ready to understand space problems and virtual problems than we are. We have to challenge them even more. >> Well, it sounds like North Hollywood got the franchise. It's likethe Patriots, the Lakers, they've got a dynasty developing down there in North Hollywood. >> Well, what happens when there's a dynasty you have to look for other talent. So next year we're going global and we're going to have multiple states involved in the challenge and we're going to go international. So if North Hollywood pulls it off again next year, it's going to be because they've met the best in the world than defeated >> Okay, the gauntlet has been thrown down, got to take down North Hollywood from winning again next year. We'll be following that. Bill, great to get those results on the cyber challenge we'll keep track and we'll put a plug for it on our site. So we got to get some press on that. My question to you is now as we're going digital, other theme was that they want to hire digital natives into the space force. Okay, the DOD is looking at new skills. This was a big theme throughout the conference not just the commercial partnerships with government which I believe they had kind of put more research and personally, that's my personal opinion. They should be putting in way more research into academic and these environments to get more creative. But the skill sets was a big theme. What's your thoughts on how you saw some of the highlight moments there around skill sets? >> John, it's really interesting 'cause what we've noticed is in the past, everybody thinks skill sets for the engineering students. And it's way beyond that. It's all the students, it's all of them understanding what we call cyber cognizance. Understanding how cybersecurity works whatever career field they choose to be in. Space, there is no facet of supporting space that doesn't need that cyber cognizance. If you're in the back room doing the operations, you're doing the billing, you're doing the contracting. Those are still avenues by which cybersecurity attacks can be successful and disrupt your space mission. The fact that it's international, the connectivities, all of those things means that everyone in that system digitally has to be aware of what's going on around them. That's a whole new thought process. It's a whole new way of addressing a problem and dealing with space. And again it's virtual to everyone. >> That's awesome. Bill, great to have you on. Thank you for including theCUBE virtual, our CUBE event software platform that we're rolling out. We've been using it for the event and thank you for your partnership in this co-creation opening up your community, your symposium to the world, and we're so glad to be part of it. I want to thank you and Dustin and the team and the President of Cal Poly for including us. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, John. It's been an amazing partnership. We look forward to it in the future. >> Okay, that's it. That concludes the Space and Cybersecurity Symposium 2020. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE, your host with Cal Poly, who put on an amazing virtual presentation, brought all the guests together. And again, shout out to Bill Britton and Dustin DeBrum who did a great job as well as the President of Cal poly who endorsed and let them do it all. Great event. See you soon. (flash light sound)

>>from around the globe. It's the Cube covering space and cybersecurity. Symposium 2020 hosted by Cal Poly >>Oven. Welcome back to the Space and Cyber Security Symposium. 2020 I'm John for your host with the Cuban silicon angle, along with Cal Poly, representing a great session here on industry success in developing space and cybersecurity. Resource is Got a great lineup. Brigadier General Steve Hotel, whose are also known as Bucky, is Call Sign director of Space Portfolio Defense Innovation Unit. Preston Miller, chief information security officer at JPL, NASA and Major General retired Clint Crozier, director of aerospace and satellite solutions at Amazon Web services, also known as a W s. Gentlemen, thank you for for joining me today. So the purpose of this session is to spend the next hour talking about the future of workforce talent. Um, skills needed and we're gonna dig into it. And Spaces is an exciting intersection of so many awesome disciplines. It's not just get a degree, go into a track ladder up and get promoted. Do those things. It's much different now. Love to get your perspectives, each of you will have an opening statement and we will start with the Brigadier General Steve Hotel. Right? >>Thank you very much. The Defense Innovation Unit was created in 2015 by then Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. To accomplish three things. One is to accelerate the adoption of commercial technology into the Department of Defense so that we can transform and keep our most relevant capabilities relevant. And also to build what we call now called the national Security Innovation Base, which is inclusive all the traditional defense companies, plus the commercial companies that may not necessarily work with focus exclusively on defense but could contribute to our national security and interesting ways. Um, this is such an exciting time Azul here from our other speakers about space on and I can't, uh I'm really excited to be here today to be able to share a little bit of our insight on the subject. >>Thank you very much. Precedent. Miller, Chief information security officer, Jet Propulsion Lab, NASA, Your opening statement. >>Hey, thank you for having me. I would like to start off by providing just a little bit of context of what brings us. Brings us together to talk about this exciting topic for space workforce. Had we've seen In recent years there's been there's been a trend towards expanding our space exploration and the space systems that offer the great things that we see in today's world like GPS. Um, but a lot of that has come with some Asian infrastructure and technology, and what we're seeing as we go towards our next generation expects of inspiration is that we now want to ensure that were secured on all levels. And there's an acknowledgement that our space systems are just a susceptible to cyber attacks as our terrestrial assistance. We've seen a recent space, uh, policy Directive five come out from our administration, that that details exactly how we should be looking at the cyber principle for our space systems, and we want to prevent. We want to prevent a few things as a result of that of these principles. Spoofing and jamming of our space systems are not authorized commands being sent to those space systems, lots of positive control of our space vehicles on lots of mission data. We also acknowledge that there's a couple of frameworks we wanna adopt across the board of our space systems levers and things like our nice miss cybersecurity frameworks. eso what has been a challenge in the past adopted somebody Cyber principles in space systems, where there simply has been a skill gap in a knowledge gap. We hire our space engineers to do a few things. Very well designed space systems, the ploy space systems and engineer space systems, often cybersecurity is seen as a after thought and certainly hasn't been a line item and in any budget for our spaces in racing. Uh, in the past in recent years, the dynamic started to change. We're now now integrating cyber principles at the onset of development of these life cycle of space. Systems were also taking a hard look of how we train the next generation of engineers to be both adequate. Space engineers, space system engineers and a cyber engineers, as a result to Mrs success on DWI, also are taking a hard look at What do we mean when we talk about holistic risk management for our space assistance, Traditionally risk management and missing insurance for space systems? I've really revolved around quality control, but now, in recent years we've started to adopt principles that takes cyber risk into account, So this is a really exciting topic for me. It's something that I'm fortunate to work with and live with every day. I'm really excited to get into this discussion with my other panel members. Thank you. >>You Preston. Great insight there. Looking forward. Thio chatting further. Um, Clint Closure with a W. S now heading up. A director of aerospace and satellite Solutions, formerly Major General, Your opening statement. >>Thanks, John. I really appreciate that introduction and really appreciate the opportunity to be here in the Space and Cybersecurity Symposium. And thanks to Cal Poly for putting it together, you know, I can't help, but as I think to Cal Poly there on the central California coast, San Luis Obispo, California I can't help but to think back in this park quickly. I spent two years of my life as a launch squadron commander at Vandenberg Air Force Base, about an hour south of Cal Poly launching rockets, putting satellites in orbit for the national intelligence community and so some really fond memories of the Central California coast. I couldn't agree more with the theme of our symposium this week. The space and cyber security we've all come to know over the last decade. How critical spaces to the world, whether it's for national security intelligence, whether it's whether communications, maritime, agriculture, development or a whole host of other things, economic and financial transactions. But I would make the case that I think most of your listeners would agree we won't have space without cybersecurity. In other words, if we can't guaranteed cybersecurity, all those benefits that we get from space may not be there. Preston in a moment ago that all the threats that have come across in the terrestrial world, whether it be hacking or malware or ransomware or are simple network attacks, we're seeing all those migrate to space to. And so it's a really important issue that we have to pay attention to. I also want to applaud Cow Pauling. They've got some really important initiatives. The conference here, in our particular panel, is about developing the next generation of space and cyber workers, and and Cal Poly has two important programs. One is the digital transformation hub, and the other is space data solutions, both of which, I'm happy to say, are in partnership with a W. S. But these were important programs where Cal Poly looks to try to develop the next generation of space and cyber leaders. And I would encourage you if you're interested in that toe. Look up the program because that could be very valuable is well, I'm relatively new to the AWS team and I'm really happy Thio team, as John you said recently retired from the U. S. Air Force and standing up the U. S. Space force. But the reason that I mentioned that as the director of the aerospace and satellite team is again it's in perfect harmony with the theme today. You know, we've recognized that space is critically important and that cyber security is critically important and that's been a W s vision as well. In fact, a W s understands how important the space domain is and coupled with the fact that AWS is well known that at a W s security is job zero and stolen a couple of those to fax A. W. S was looking to put together a team the aerospace and satellite team that focus solely and exclusively every single day on technical innovation in space and more security for the space domain through the cloud and our offerings there. So we're really excited to reimagine agree, envision what space networks and architectures could look like when they're born on the cloud. So that's important. You know, talk about workforce here in just a moment, but but I'll give you just a quick sneak. We at AWS have also recognized the gap in the projected workforce, as Preston mentioned, Um, depending on the projection that you look at, you know, most projections tell us that the demand for highly trained cyber cyber security cloud practitioners in the future outweighs what we think is going to be the supply. And so a ws has leaned into that in a number of ways that we're gonna talk about the next segment. I know. But with our workforce transformation, where we've tried to train free of charge not just a W s workers but more importantly, our customers workers. It s a W s we obsessed over the customer. And so we've provided free training toe over 7000 people this year alone toe bring their cloud security and cyber security skills up to where they will be able to fully leverage into the new workforce. So we're really happy about that too? I'm glad Preston raised SPD five space policy Directive five. I think it's gonna have a fundamental impact on the space and cyber industry. Uh, now full disclosure with that said, You know, I'm kind of a big fan of space policy directives, ESPN, Or was the space policy directive that directed to stand up of the U. S. Space Force and I spent the last 18 months of my life as the lead planner and architect for standing up the U. S. Space force. But with that said, I think when we look back a decade from now, we're going to see that s p d five will have as much of an impact in a positive way as I think SPD for on the stand up of the space Force have already done so. So I'll leave it there, but really look forward to the dialogue and discussion. >>Thank you, gentlemen. Clint, I just wanna say thank you for all your hard work and the team and the people who were involved in standing up Space force. Um, it is totally new. It's a game changer. It's modern, is needed. And there's benefits on potential challenges and opportunities that are gonna be there, so thank you very much for doing that. I personally am excited. I know a lot of people are excited for what the space force is today and what it could become. Thank you very much. >>Yeah, Thanks. >>Okay, So >>with >>that, let me give just jump in because, you know, as you're talking about space force and cybersecurity and you spend your time at Vanderburgh launching stuff into space, that's very technical. Is operation okay? I mean, it's complex in and of itself, but if you think about like, what's going on beyond in space is a lot of commercial aspect. So I'm thinking, you know, launching stuff into space on one side of my brain and the other side of brain, I'm thinking like air travel. You know, all the logistics and the rules of the road and air traffic control and all the communications and all the technology and policy and, you >>know, landing. >>So, Major General Clint, what's your take on this? Because this is not easy. It's not just one thing that speaks to the diversity of workforce needs. What's your reaction to that? >>Yeah. I mean, your observation is right on. We're seeing a real boom in the space and aerospace industry. For all the good reasons we talked about, we're recognizing all the value space from again economic prosperity to exploration to being ableto, you know, improve agriculture and in weather and all those sorts of things that we understand from space. So what I'm really excited about is we're seeing this this blossom of space companies that we sort of referred to his new space. You know, it used to be that really only large governments like the United States and a handful of others could operate in the space domain today and largely infused because of the technological innovation that have come with Cyber and Cyrus Space and even the cloud we're seeing more and more companies, capabilities, countries, all that have the ability, you know. Even a well funded university today can put a cube sat in orbit, and Cal Poly is working on some of those too, by the way, and so it's really expanded the number of people that benefits the activity in space and again, that's why it's so critically important because we become more and more reliant and we will become more and more reliant on those capabilities that we have to protect him. It's fundamental that we do. So, >>Bucky, I want you to weigh in on this because actually, you you've flown. Uh, I got a call sign which I love interviewing people. Anyone who's a call sign is cool in my book. So, Bucky, I want you to react to that because that's outside of the technology, you know, flying in space. There's >>no >>rule. I mean, is there like a rules? I mean, what's the rules of the road? I mean, state of the right. I mean, what I mean, what what's going? What's gonna have toe happen? Okay, just logistically. >>Well, this is very important because, uh and I've I've had access thio information space derived information for most of my flying career. But the amount of information that we need operate effectively in the 21st century is much greater than Thanet has been in the past. Let me describe the environment s so you can appreciate a little bit more what our challenges are. Where, from a space perspective, we're going to see a new exponential increase in the number of systems that could be satellites. Uh, users and applications, right? And so eso we're going we're growing rapidly into an environment where it's no longer practical to just simply evolved or operate on a perimeter security model. We and with this and as I was brought up previously, we're gonna try to bring in MAWR commercial capabilities. There is a tremendous benefit with increasing the diversity of sources of information. We use it right now. The military relies very heavily on commercial SAT com. We have our military capabilities, but the commercial capabilities give us capacity that we need and we can. We can vary that over time. The same will be true for remote sensing for other broadband communications capabilities on doing other interesting effects. Also, in the modern era, we doom or operations with our friends and allies, our regional partners all around the world, in order to really improve our interoperability and have rapid exchange of information, commercial information, sources and capabilities provides the best means of doing that. So that so that the imperative is very important and what all this describes if you want to put one word on it. ISS, we're involving into ah hybrid space architectures where it's gonna be imperative that we protect the integrity of information and the cyber security of the network for the things most important to us from a national security standpoint. But we have to have the rules that that allows us to freely exchange information rapidly and in a way that that we can guarantee that the right users are getting the right information at the right. >>We're gonna come back to that on the skill set and opportunities for people driving. That's just looking. There's so much opportunity. Preston, I want you to react to this. I interviewed General Keith Alexander last year. He formerly ran Cyber Command. Um, now he's building Cyber Security Technologies, and his whole thesis is you have to share. So the question is, how do you share and lock stuff down at the same time when you have ah, multi sided marketplace in space? You know, suppliers, users, systems. This is a huge security challenge. What's your reaction to this? Because we're intersecting all these things space and cybersecurity. It's just not easy. What's your reaction? >>Absolutely, Absolutely. And what I would say in response to that first would be that security really needs to be baked into the onset of how we develop and implement and deploy our space systems. Um, there's there's always going to be the need to collect and share data across multiple entities, particularly when we're changing scientific data with our mission partners. Eso with that necessitates that we have a security view from the onset, right? We have a system spaces, and they're designed to share information across the world. How do we make sure that those, uh, those other those communication channels so secure, free from interception free from disruption? So they're really done? That necessitates of our space leaders in our cyber leaders to be joining the hip about how to secure our space systems, and the communications there in Clinton brought up a really good point of. And then I'm gonna elaborate on a little bit, just toe invite a little bit more context and talk about some the complexities and challenges we face with this advent of new space and and all of our great commercial partners coming into therefore way, that's going to present a very significant supply chain risk management problems that we have to get our hands around as well. But we have these manufacturers developing these highly specialized components for the space instruments, Um, that as it stands right now, it's very little oversight And how those things air produced, manufactured, put into the space systems communication channels that they use ports protocols that they use to communicate. And that's gonna be a significant challenge for us to get get our hands around. So again, cybersecurity being brought in. And the very onset of these development thes thes decisions in these life cycles was certainly put us in a best better position to secure that data in our in our space missions. >>Yeah, E just pick up on that. You don't mind? Preston made such a really good point there. But you have to bake security in up front, and you know there's a challenge and there's an opportunity, you know, with a lot of our systems today. It was built in a pre cyber security environment, especially our government systems that were built, you know, in many cases 10 years ago, 15 years ago are still on orbit today, and we're thankful that they are. But as we look at this new environment and we understand the threats, if we bake cybersecurity in upfront weaken balance that open application versus the risk a long as we do it up front. And you know, that's one of the reasons that our company developed what we call govcloud, which is a secure cloud, that we use thio to manage data that our customers who want to do work with the federal government or other governments or the national security apparatus. They can operate in that space with the built in and baked in cybersecurity protocols. We have a secret region that both can handle secret and top secret information for the same reasons. But when you bake security into the upfront applications, that really allows you to balance that risk between making it available and accessible in sort of an open architecture way. But being sure that it's protected through things like ITAR certifications and fed ramp, uh, another ice T certifications that we have in place. So that's just a really important point. >>Let's stay high level for a man. You mentioned a little bit of those those govcloud, which made me think about you know, the tactical edge in the military analogy, but also with space similar theater. It's just another theater and you want to stand stuff up. Whether it's communications and have facilities, you gotta do it rapidly, and you gotta do it in a very agile, secure, I high availability secure way. So it's not the old waterfall planning. You gotta be fast is different. Cloud does things different? How do you talk to the young people out there, whether it's apparent with with kids in elementary and middle school to high school, college grad level or someone in the workforce? Because there are no previous jobs, that kind of map to the needs out there because you're talking about new skills, you could be an archaeologist and be the best cyber security guru on the planet. You don't have to have that. There's no degree for what, what we're talking about here. This >>is >>the big confusion around education. I mean, you gotta you like math and you could code you can Anything who wants to comment on that? Because I think this >>is the core issue. I'll say there are more and more programs growing around that educational need, and I could talk about a few things we're doing to, but I just wanna make an observation about what you just said about the need. And how do you get kids involved and interested? Interestingly, I think it's already happening, right. The good news. We're already developing that affinity. My four year old granddaughter can walk over, pick up my iPad, turn it on. Somehow she knows my account information, gets into my account, pulls up in application, starts playing a game. All before I really even realized she had my iPad. I mean, when when kids grow up on the cloud and in technology, it creates that natural proficiency. I think what we have to do is take that natural interest and give them the skill set the tools and capabilities that go with it so that we're managing, you know, the the interest with the technical skills. >>And also, like a fast I mean, just the the hackers are getting educated. Justus fast. Steve. I mean e mean Bucky. What do you do here? You CIt's the classic. Just keep chasing skills. I mean, there are new skills. What are some of those skills? >>Why would I amplify eloquent? Just said, First of all, the, uh, you know, cyber is one of those technology areas where commercial side not not the government is really kind of leading away and does a significant amount of research and development. Ah, billions of dollars are spent every year Thio to evolve new capabilities. And a lot of those companies are, you know, operated and and in some cases, led by folks in their early twenties. So the S O. This is definitely an era and a generation that is really poised in position. Well, uh, Thio take on this challenge. There's some unique aspects to space. Once we deploy a system, uh, it will be able to give me hard to service it, and we're developing capabilities now so that we could go up and and do system upgrades. But that's not a normal thing in space that just because the the technical means isn't there yet. So having software to find capabilities, I's gonna be really paramount being able to dio unique things. The cloud is huge. The cloud is centric to this or architectural, and it's kind of funny because d o d we joke because we just discovered the cloud, you know, a couple years ago. But the club has been around for a while and, uh, and it's going to give us scalability on and the growth potential for doing amazing things with a big Data Analytics. But as Preston said, it's all for not if if we can't trust the data that we receive. And so one of the concepts for future architectures is to evolve into a zero trust model where we trust nothing. We verify and authenticate everyone. And, uh, and that's that's probably a good, uh, point of departure as we look forward into our cybersecurity for space systems into the future. >>Block everyone. Preston. Your reaction to all this gaps, skills, What's needed. I mean it Z everyone's trying to squint through this >>absolutely. And I wanna want to shift gears a little bit and talk about the space agencies and organizations that are responsible for deploying these spaces into submission. So what is gonna take in this new era on, and what do we need from the workforce to be responsive to the challenges that we're seeing? First thing that comes to mind is creating a culture of security throughout aerospace right and ensuring that Azzawi mentioned before security isn't an afterthought. It's sort of baked into our models that we deploy and our rhetoric as well, right? And because again we hire our spaces in years to do it very highly. Specialized thing for a highly specialized, uh, it's topic. Our effort, if we start to incorporate rhetorically the importance of cybersecurity two missing success and missing assurance that's going to lend itself toe having more, more prepared on more capable system engineers that will be able to respond to the threats accordingly. Traditionally, what we see in organizational models it's that there's a cyber security team that's responsible for the for the whole kit kaboodle across the entire infrastructure, from enterprise systems to specialize, specialize, space systems and then a small pocket of spaces, years that that that are really there to perform their tasks on space systems. We really need to bridge that gap. We need to think about cybersecurity holistically, the skills that are necessary for your enterprise. I t security teams need to be the same skills that we need to look for for our system engineers on the flight side. So organizationally we need we need to address that issue and approach it, um todo responsive to the challenges we see our our space systems, >>new space, new culture, new skills. One of the things I want to bring up is looking for success formulas. You know, one of the things we've been seeing in the past 10 years of doing the Cube, which is, you know, we've been called the ESPN of Tech is that there's been kind of like a game ification. I want to. I don't wanna say sports because sports is different, but you're seeing robotics clubs pop up in some schools. It's like a varsity sport you're seeing, you know, twitch and you've got gamers out there, so you're seeing fun built into it. I think Cal Poly's got some challenges going on there, and then scholarships air behind it. So it's almost as if, you know, rather than going to a private sports training to get that scholarship, that never happens. There's so many more scholarship opportunities for are not scholarship, but just job opportunities and even scholarships we've covered as part of this conference. Uh, it's a whole new world of culture. It's much different than when I grew up, which was you know, you got math, science and English. You did >>it >>and you went into your track. Anyone want to comment on this new culture? Because I do believe that there is some new patterns emerging and some best practices anyone share any? >>Yeah, I do, because as you talked about robotics clubs and that sort of things, but those were great and I'm glad those air happening. And that's generating the interest, right? The whole gaming culture generating interest Robotic generates a lot of interest. Space right has captured the American in the world attention as well, with some recent NASA activities and all for the right reasons. But it's again, it's about taking that interested in providing the right skills along the way. So I'll tell you a couple of things. We're doing it a w s that we found success with. The first one is a program called A W s Academy. And this is where we have developed a cloud, uh, program a cloud certification. This is ah, cloud curriculum, if you will, and it's free and it's ready to teach. Our experts have developed this and we're ready to report it to a two year and four year colleges that they can use is part of the curriculum free of charge. And so we're seeing some real value there. And in fact, the governor's in Utah and Arizona recently adopted this program for their two year schools statewide again, where it's already to teach curriculum built by some of the best experts in the industry s so that we can try to get that skills to the people that are interested. We have another program called A W s educate, and this is for students to. But the idea behind this is we have 12 cracks and you can get up to 50 hours of free training that lead to A W s certification, that sort of thing. And then what's really interesting about that is all of our partners around the world that have tied into this program we manage what we call it ws educate Job board. And so if you have completed this educate program now, you can go to that job board and be linked directly with companies that want people with those skills we just helped you get. And it's a perfect match in a perfect marriage there. That one other piece real quickly that we're proud of is the aws Uh restart program. And that's where people who are unemployed, underemployed or transitioning can can go online. Self paced. We have over 500 courses they can take to try to develop those initial skills and get into the industry. And that's been very popular, too, So that those air a couple of things we're really trying to lean into >>anyone else want to react. Thio that question patterns success, best practices, new culture. >>I'd like Thio. The the wonderful thing about what you just touched on is problem solving, right, And there's some very, very good methodologies that are being taught in the universities and through programs like Hacking for Defense, which is sponsored by the National Security Innovation Network, a component of the I you where I work but the But whether you're using a lien methodologies or design school principals or any other method, the thing that's wonderful right now and not just, uh, where I work at the U. The Space force is doing this is well, but we're putting the problem out there for innovators to tackle, And so, rather than be prescriptive of the solutions that we want to procure, we want we want the best minds at all levels to be able to work on the problem. Uh, look at how they can leverage other commercial solutions infrastructure partnerships, uh, Thio to come up with a solution that we can that we can rapidly employ and scale. And if it's a dual use solution or whether it's, uh, civil military or or commercial, uh, in any of the other government solutions. Uh, that's really the best win for for the nation, because that commercial capability again allows us to scale globally and share those best practices with all of our friends and allies. People who share our values >>win win to this commercial. There's a business model potential financial benefits as well. Societal impact Preston. I want to come to you, JPL, NASA. I mean, you work in one of the most awesome places and you know, to me, you know, if you said to me, Hey, John, come working JP like I'm not smart enough to go there like I mean, like, it's a pretty It's intimidating, it might seem >>share folks out there, >>they can get there. I mean, it's you can get there if you have the right skills. I mean I'm just making that up. But, I mean, it is known to be super smart And is it attainable? So share your thoughts on this new culture because you could get the skills to get there. What's your take on all this >>s a bucket. Just missing something that really resonated with me, right? It's do it your love office. So if you put on the front engineer, the first thing you're gonna try to do is pick it apart. Be innovative, be creative and ways to solve that issue. And it has been really encouraging to me to see the ground welcome support an engagement that we've seen across our system. Engineers in space. I love space partners. A tackling the problem of cyber. Now that they know the West at risk on some of these cyber security threats that that they're facing with our space systems, they definitely want to be involved. They want to take the lead. They want to figure things out. They wanna be innovative and creative in that problem solving eso jpl We're doing a few things. Thio Raise the awareness Onda create a culture of security. Andi also create cyber advocates, cybersecurity advocates across our space engineers. We host events like hacked the lad, for example, and forgive me. Take a pause to think about the worst case scenarios that could that could result from that. But it certainly invites a culture of creative problem solving. Um, this is something that that kids really enjoy that are system engineers really enjoyed being a part off. Um, it's something that's new refreshing to them. Eso we were doing things like hosting a monthly cybersecurity advocacy group. When we talk about some of the cyber landscape of our space systems and invite our engineers into the conversation, we do outweighs programs specifically designed to to capture, um, our young folks, uh, young engineers to deceive. They would be interested and show them what this type of security has to offer by ways of data Analytic, since the engineering and those have been really, really successful identifying and bringing in new talent to address the skill gaps. >>Steve, I want to ask you about the d. O. D. You mentioned some of the commercial things. How are you guys engaging the commercial to solve the space issue? Because, um, the normalization in the economy with GPS just seeing spaces impacts everybody's lives. We we know that, um, it's been talked about. And and there's many, many examples. How are you guys the D o. D. From a security standpoint and or just from an advancement innovation standpoint, engaging with commercials, commercial entities and commercial folks? >>Well, I'll throw. I'll throw a, uh, I'll throw ah, compliment to Clint because he did such an outstanding job. The space forces already oriented, uh, towards ah, commercial where it's appropriate and extending the arms. Leveraging the half works on the Space Enterprise Consortium and other tools that allow for the entrepreneurs in the space force Thio work with their counterparts in a commercial community. And you see this with the, uh, you know, leveraging space X away to, uh, small companies who are doing extraordinary things to help build space situational awareness and, uh, s So it's it's the people who make this all happen. And what we do at at the D. O. D level, uh, work at the Office of Secretary defense level is we wanna make sure that they have the right tools to be able to do that in a way that allows these commercial companies to work with in this case of a space force or with cyber command and ways that doesn't redefine that. The nature of the company we want we want We want commercial companies to have, ah, great experience working with d o d. And we want d o d toe have the similar experience working, working with a commercial community, and and we actually work interagency projects to So you're going to see, uh, General Raymond, uh, hey, just recently signed an agreement with the NASA Esa, you're gonna see interagency collaborations on space that will include commercial capabilities as well. So when we speak as one government were not. You know, we're one voice, and that's gonna be tremendous, because if you're a commercial company on you can you can develop a capability that solves problems across the entire space enterprise on the government side. How great is that, Right. That's a scaling. Your solution, gentlemen. Let >>me pick you back on that, if you don't mind. I'm really excited about that. I mentioned new space, and Bucky talked about that too. You know, I've been flying satellites for 30 years, and there was a time where you know the U. S. Government national security. We wouldn't let anybody else look at him. Touch him. Plug into, um, anything else, right. And that probably worked at the time. >>But >>the world has changed. And more >>importantly, >>um, there is commercial technology and capability available today, and there's no way the U. S government or national security that national Intel community can afford economically >>to >>fund all that investment solely anymore. We don't have the manpower to do it anymore. So we have this perfect marriage of a burgeoning industry that has capabilities and it has re sources. And it has trained manpower. And we are seeing whether it's US Space Force, whether it's the intelligence community, whether it's NASA, we're seeing that opened up to commercial providers more than I've ever seen in my career. And I can tell you the customers I work with every day in a W s. We're building an entire ecosystem now that they understand how they can plug in and participate in that, and we're just seeing growth. But more importantly, we're seeing advanced capability at cheaper cost because of that hybrid model. So that really is exciting. >>Preston. You know you mentioned earlier supply chain. I don't think I think you didn't use the word supply chain. Maybe you did. But you know about the components. Um, you start opening things up and and your what you said baking it in to the beginning, which is well known. Uh, premise. It's complicated. So take me through again, Like how this all gonna work securely because And what's needed for skill sets because, you know, you're gonna open. You got open source software, which again, that's open. We live in a free society in the United States of America, so we can't lock everything down. You got components that are gonna be built anywhere all around the world from vendors that aren't just a certified >>or maybe >>certified. Um, it's pretty crazy. So just weigh in on this key point because I think Clint has it right. And but that's gonna be solved. What's your view on this? >>Absolutely. And I think it really, really start a top, right? And if you look back, you know, across, um in this country, particularly, you take the financial industry, for example, when when that was a burgeoning industry, what had to happen to ensure that across the board. Um, you know, your your finances were protected these way. Implemented regulations from the top, right? Yeah. And same thing with our health care industry. We implemented regulations, and I believe that's the same approach we're gonna need to take with our space systems in our space >>industry >>without being too directive or prescriptive. Instance she ating a core set of principles across the board for our manufacturers of space instruments for deployment and development of space systems on for how space data and scientific data is passed back and forth. Eso really? We're gonna need to take this. Ah, holistic approach. Thio, how we address this issue with cyber security is not gonna be easy. It's gonna be very challenging, but we need to set the guard rails for exactly what goes into our space systems, how they operate and how they communicate. >>Alright, so let's tie this back to the theme, um, Steve and Clint, because this is all about workforce gaps, opportunities. Um, Steve, you mentioned software defined. You can't do break fix in space. You can't just send a technician up in the space to fix a component. You gotta be software defined. We're talking about holistic approach, about commercial talk about business model technology with software and policy. We need people to think through, like you know. What the hell are you gonna do here, right? Do you just noticed road at the side of the road to drive on? There's no rules of engagement. So what I'm seeing is certainly software Check. If you wanna have a job for the next millennial software policy who solves two problems, what does freedom looked like in space Congestion Contention and then, obviously, business model. Can you guys comment on these three areas? Do you agree? And what specific person might be studying in grad school or undergraduate or in high school saying, Hey, I'm not a techie, but they can contribute your thoughts. I'll >>start off with, uh, speak on on behalf of the government today. I would just say that as policy goes, we need to definitely make sure that we're looking towards the future. Ah, lot of our policy was established in the past under different conditions, and, uh, and if there's anything that you cannot say today is that space is the same as it was even 10 years ago. So the so It's really important that our policy evolves and recognizes that that technology is going to enable not just a new ways of doing things, but also force us to maybe change or or get rid of obsolete policies that will inhibit our ability to innovate and grow and maintain peace with with a rapid, evolving threat. The for the for the audience today, Uh, you know, you want some job assurance, cybersecurity and space it's gonna be It's gonna be an unbelievable, uh, next, uh, few decades and I couldn't think of a more exciting for people to get into because, you know, spaces Ah, harsh environment. We're gonna have a hard time just dud being able differentiate, you know, anomalies that occur just because of the environment versus something that's being hacked. And so JPL has been doing this for years on they have Cem Cem great approaches, but but this is this is gonna be important if you put humans on the moon and you're going to sustain them there. Those life support systems are gonna be using, you know, state of the art computer technology, and which means, is also vulnerable. And so eso the consequences of us not being prepared? Uh, not just from our national security standpoint, but from our space exploration and our commercial, uh, economic growth in space over the long term all gonna be hinged on this cyber security environment. >>Clint, your thoughts on this too ill to get. >>Yeah. So I certainly agree with Bucky. But you said something a moment ago that Bucky was talking about as well. But that's the idea that you know in space, you can't just reach out and touch the satellite and do maintenance on the satellite the way you can't a car or a tank or a plane or a ship or something like that. And that is true. However, right, comma, I want to point out. You know, the satellite servicing industry is starting to develop where they're looking at robotic techniques in Cape abilities to go up in services satellite on orbit. And that's very promising off course. You got to think through the security policy that goes with that, of course. But the other thing that's really exciting is with artificial intelligence and machine learning and edge computing and database analytics and all those things that right on the cloud. You may not even need to send a robotic vehicle to a satellite, right? If you can upload and download software defined, fill in the blank right, maybe even fundamentally changing the mission package or the persona, if you will, of the satellite or the spacecraft. And that's really exciting to, ah, lot >>of >>security policy that you've gotta work through. But again, the cloud just opens up so many opportunities to continue to push the boundaries. You know, on the AWS team, the aerospace and satellite team, which is, you know, the new team that I'm leading. Now our motto is to the stars through the cloud. And there are just so many exciting opportunities right for for all those capabilities that I just mentioned to the stars through the cloud >>President, your thoughts on this? >>Yes, eso won >>a >>little bit of time talking about some of the business model implications and some of the challenges that exists there. Um, in my experience, we're still working through a bit of a language barrier of how we define risk management for our space systems. Traditionally traditionally risk management models is it is very clear what poses a risk to a flight mission. Our space mission, our space system. Um, and we're still finding ways to communicate cyber risk in the same terms that are system engineers are space engineers have traditionally understood. Um, this is a bit of a qualitative versus quantitative, a language barrier. But however adopting a risk management model that includes cybersecurity, a za way to express wish risk to miss the success, I think I think it would be a very good thing is something that that we have been focused on the J. P o as we Aziz, we look at the 34 years beyond. How do >>we >>risk that gap and not only skills but communication of cyber risk and the way that our space engineers and our project engineers and a space system managers understand >>Clinton, like Thio talk about space Force because this is the most popular new thing. It's only a couple of nine months in roughly not even a year, uh, already changing involving based on some of the reporting we've done even here at this symposium and on the Internet. Um, you know, when I was growing up, you know, I wasn't there when JFK said, you know, we're gonna get to the moon. I was born in the sixties, so, you know, when I was graduating my degree, you know, Draper Labs, Lincoln Lab, JPL, their pipeline and people wasn't like a surge of job openings. Um, so this kind of this new space new space race, you know, Kennedy also said that Torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans. So in a way that's happening right now with space force. A new generation is here is a digital generation. It's multi disciplinary generation. Could you take a minute and share, uh, for for our audience? And here at this symposium, um, the mission of Space Force and where you see it going because this truly is different. And I think anyone who's young e I mean, you know, if this was happening when I was in college would be like dropping everything. I'm in there, I think, cause there's so many areas thio jump into, um, it's >>intellectually challenging. >>It's intoxicating in some level. So can you share your thoughts? >>Yeah. Happy to do that. Of course. I I need to remind everybody that as a week ago I'm formally retired. So I'm not an official spokesman for US forces. But with that, you know, it said I did spend the last 18 months planning for it, designing and standing it up. And I'll tell you what's really exciting is you know, the commander of, uh, US Base Force General J. Raymond, who's the right leader at the right time. No question in my >>mind. But >>he said, I want to stand up the Space Force as the first fully digital service in the United States. Right? So he is trying >>to bake >>cloud baked cybersecurity, baked digital transformational processes and everything we did. And that was a guidance he gave us every day, every day. When we rolled in. He said, Remember, guys, I don't wanna be the same. I don't wanna be stale. I want new thinking, new capabilities and I want it all to be digital on. That's one of the reasons When we brought the first wave of people into the space force, we brought in space operations, right. People like me that flew satellites and launch rockets, we brought in cyber space experts, and we brought in intelligence experts. Those were the first three waves of people because of that, you know, perfect synergy between space and cyber and intel all wrapped in >>it. >>And so that was really, really smart. The other thing I'll say just about, you know, Kennedy's work. We're going to get to the moon. So here we are. Now we're going back to the Moon Project Artemus that NASA is working next man first woman on the moon by 2024 is the plan and >>then >>with designs to put a permanent presence on the moon and then lean off to march. So there was a lot to get excited about. I will tell you, as we were taking applications and looking at rounding out filling out the village in the U. S. Space Force, we were overwhelmed with the number of people that wanted, and that was a really, really good things. So they're off to a good start, and they're just gonna accomplishment major things. I know for sure. >>Preston, your thoughts on this new generation people out there were like I could get into this. This is a path. What's your what's your opinion on this? And what's your >>E could, uh, you so bold as to say >>that >>I feel like I'm a part of that new generation eso I grew up very much into space. Uh, looking at, um, listen to my, uh, folks I looked up to like Carl Sagan. Like like Neil Tyson. DeGrasse on did really feeling affinity for what What this country has done is for is a space program are focused on space exploration on bond. Through that, I got into our security, as it means from the military. And I just because I feel so fortunate that I could merge both of those worlds because of because of the generational, um, tailoring that we do thio promote space exploration and also the advent of cybersecurity expertise that is needed in this country. I feel like that. We are We are seeing a conversions of this too. I see a lot of young people really getting into space exploration. I see a lot of young people as well. Um uh, gravitating toward cybersecurity as a as a course of study. And to see those two worlds colliding and converse is something that's very near and dear to me. And again, I I feel like I'm a byproduct of that conversion, which is which, Really, Bothwell for space security in the future, >>we'll your great leader and inspiration. Certainly. Senior person as well. Congratulations, Steve. You know, young people motivational. I mean, get going. Get off the sidelines. Jump in Water is fine, Right? Come on in. What's your view on motivating the young workforce out there and anyone thinking about applying their skills on bringing something to the table? >>Well, look at the options today. You have civil space President represents you have military space. Uh, you have commercial space on and even, you know, in academia, the research, the potential as a as an aspiring cyber professional. All of you should be thinking about when we when we When? When we first invented the orbit, which eventually became the Internet, Uh, on Lee, we were, uh if all we had the insight to think Well, geez, you know whether the security implications 2030 years from now of this thing scaling on growing and I think was really good about today's era. Especially as Clint said, because we were building this space infrastructure with a cyber professionals at ground zero on dso the So the opportunity there is to look out into the future and say we're not just trying to secure independent her systems today and assure the free for all of of information for commerce. You know, the GPS signal, Uh, is Justus much in need of protection as anything else tied to our economy, But the would have fantastic mission. And you could do that. Uh, here on the ground. You could do it, uh, at a great companies like Amazon Web services. But you can also one of these states. Perhaps we go and be part of that contingency that goes and does the, uh, the se's oh job that that president has on the moon or on Mars and, uh, space will space will get boring within a generation or two because they'll just be seen as one continuum of everything we have here on Earth. And, uh, and that would be after our time. But in the meantime, is a very exciting place to be. And I know if I was in in my twenties, I wanna be, uh, jumping in with both feet into it. >>Yeah, great stuff. I mean, I think space is gonna be around for a long long time. It's super exciting and cybersecurity making it secure. And there's so many areas defeating on. Gentlemen, thank you very much for your awesome insight. Great panel. Um, great inspiration. Every one of you guys. Thank you very much for for sharing for the space and cybersecurity symposium. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. >>Thanks, John. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, >>I'm >>John for your host for the Space and Cybersecurity Symposium. Thanks for watching.

from around the globe it's thecube covering space and cyber security symposium 2020 hosted by cal poly hello and welcome to thecube's coverage we're here hosting with cal poly an amazing event space in the intersection of cyber security this session is defending satellite and space infrastructure from cyber threats got two great guests we've got major general john shaw combined four space component commander u.s space command and vandenberg air force base in california and roland cuello who's the ceo of maverick space systems gentlemen thank you for spending the time to come on to this session for the cal poly space and cyber security symposium appreciate it absolutely um guys defending satellites and space infrastructure is the new domain obviously it's a war warfighting domain it's also the future of the world and this is an important topic because we rely on space now for our everyday life and it's becoming more and more critical everyone knows how their phones work and gps just small examples of all the impacts i'd like to discuss with this hour this topic with you guys so if we can have you guys do an opening statement general if you can start with your opening statement we'll take it from there thanks john and greetings from vandenberg air force base we are just down the road from cal poly here on the central coast of california and uh very proud to be part of this uh effort and part of the partnership that we have with with cal poly on a number of fronts um i should uh so in in my job here i actually uh have two hats that i wear and it's i think worth talking briefly about those to set the context for our discussion you know we had two major organizational events within our department of defense with regard to space last year in 2019 and probably the one that made the most headlines was the stand-up of the united states space force that happened uh december 20th last year and again momentous the first new branch in our military since 1947 uh and uh it is a it's just over nine months old now as we're making this recording uh and already we're seeing a lot of change uh with regard to how we're approaching uh organizing training and equipping on a service side or space capabilities and so i uh in that with regard to the space force the hat i wear there is commander of space operations command that was what was once 14th air force when we were still part of the air force here at vandenberg and in that role i'm responsible for the operational capabilities that we bring to the joint warfighter and to the world from a space perspective didn't make quite as many headlines but another major change that happened last year was the uh the reincarnation i guess i would say of united states space command and that is a combatant command it's how our department of defense organizes to actually conduct warfighting operations um most people are more familiar perhaps with uh central command centcom or northern command northcom or even strategic command stratcom well now we have a space com we actually had one from 1985 until 2002 and then stood it down in the wake of the 9 11 attacks and a reorganization of homeland security but we've now stood up a separate command again operationally to conduct joint space operations and in that organization i wear a hat as a component commander and that's the combined force-based component command uh working with other all the additional capabilities that other services bring as well as our allies that combined in that title means that uh i under certain circumstances i would lead an allied effort uh in space operations and so it's actually a terrific job to have here on the central coast of california uh both working the uh how we bring space capabilities to the fight on the space force side and then how we actually operate those capabilities it's a point of joint in support of joint warfighters around the world um and and national security interests so that's the context now what el i i also should mention you kind of alluded to john you're beginning that we're kind of in a change situation than we were a number of years ago and that space we now see space as a warfighting domain for most of my career going back a little ways most of my my focus in my jobs was making sure i could bring space capabilities to those that needed them bringing gps to that special operations uh soldier on the ground somewhere in the world bringing satellite communications for our nuclear command and control bringing those capabilities for other uses but i didn't have to worry in most of my career about actually defending those space capabilities themselves well now we do we've actually gone to a point where we're are being threatened in space we now are treating it more like any other domain normalizing in that regard as a warfighting domain and so we're going through some relatively emergent efforts to protect and defend our capabilities in space to to design our capabilities to be defended and perhaps most of all to train our people for this new mission set so it's a very exciting time and i know we'll get into it but you can't get very far into talking about all these space capabilities and how we want to protect and defend them and how we're going to continue their ability to deliver to warfighters around the globe without talking about cyber because they fit together very closely so anyway thanks for the chance to be here today and i look forward to the discussion general thank you so much for that opening statement and i would just say that not only is it historic with the space force it's super exciting because it opens up so much more challenges and opportunities for to do more and to do things differently so i appreciate that statement roland your opening statement your your job is to put stuff in space faster cheaper smaller better your opening statement please um yes um thank you john um and yes you know to um general shaw's point you know with with the space domain and the need to protect it now um is incredibly important and i hope that we are more of a help um than a thorn in your side um in terms of you know building satellites smaller faster cheaper um you know and um definitely looking forward to this discussion and you know figuring out ways where um the entire space domain can work together you know from industry to to us government even to the academic environment as well so first would like to say and preface this by saying i am not a cyber security expert um we you know we build satellites um and uh we launch them into orbit um but we are by no means you know cyber security experts and that's why um you know we like to partner with organizations like the california cyber security institute because they help us you know navigate these requirements um so um so i'm the ceo of um of maverick space systems we are a small aerospace business in san luis obispo california and we provide small satellite hardware and service solutions to a wide range of customers all the way from the academic environment to the us government and everything in between we support customers through an entire you know program life cycle from mission architecture and formulation all the way to getting these customer satellites in orbit and so what we try to do is um provide hardware and services that basically make it easier for customers to get their satellites into orbit and to operate so whether it be reducing mass or volume um creating greater launch opportunities or providing um the infrastructure and the technology um to help those innovations you know mature in orbit you know that's you know that's what we do our team has experienced over the last 20 years working with small satellites and definitely fortunate to be part of the team that invented the cubesat standard by cal poly and stanford uh back in 2000 and so you know we are in you know vandenberg's backyard um we came from cal poly san luis obispo um and you know our um our hearts are fond you know of this area and working with the local community um a lot of that success um that we have had is directly attributable um to the experiences that we learned as students um working on satellite programs from our professors and mentors um you know that's you know all you know thanks to cal poly so just wanted to tell a quick story so you know back in 2000 just imagine a small group of undergraduate students you know myself included with the daunting task of launching multiple satellites from five different countries on a russian launch vehicle um you know many of us were only 18 or 19 not even at the legal age to drink yet um but as you know essentially teenagers we're managing million dollar budgets um and we're coordinating groups um from around the world um and we knew that we knew what we needed to accomplish um yet we didn't really know um what we were doing when we first started um the university was extremely supportive um and you know that's the cal poly learn by doing philosophy um i remember you know the first time we had a meeting with our university chief legal counsel and we were discussing the need to to register with the state department for itar nobody really knew what itar was back then um and you know discussing this with the chief legal counsel um you know she was asking what is itar um and we essentially had to explain you know this is um launching satellites as part of the um the u.s munitions list and essentially we have a similar situation you know exporting munitions um you know we are in similar categories um you know as you know as weapons um and so you know after that initial shock um everybody jumped in you know both feet forward um the university um you know our head legal counsel professors mentors and the students um you know knew we needed to tackle this problem um because you know the the need was there um to launch these small satellites and um you know the the reason you know this is important to capture the entire spectrum of users of the community um is that the technology and the you know innovation of the small satellite industry occurs at all levels you know so we have academia commercial national governments we even have high schools and middle schools getting involved and you know building satellite hardware um and the thing is you know the the importance of cyber security is incredibly important because it touches all of these programs and it touches you know people um at a very young age um and so you know we hope to have a conversation today um to figure out you know how do we um create an environment where we allow these programs to thrive but we also you know protect and you know keep their data safe as well thank you very much roland appreciate that uh story too as well thanks for your opening statement gentlemen i mean i love this topic because defending the assets in space is is as obvious um you look at it but there's a bigger picture going on in our world right now and generally you kind of pointed out the historic nature of space force and how it's changing already operationally training skills tools all that stuff is revolving you know in the tech world that i live in you know change the world is a topic they use that's thrown around a lot you can change the world a lot of young people we have just other panels on this where we're talking about how to motivate young people changing the world is what it's all about with technology for the better evolution is just an extension of another domain in this case space is just an extension of other domains similar things are happening but it's different there's a huge opportunity to change the world so it's faster there's an expanded commercial landscape out there certainly government space systems are moving and changing how do we address the importance of cyber security in space general we'll start with you because this is real it's exciting if you're a young person there's touch points of things to jump into tech building hardware to changing laws and and everything in between is an opportunity and it's exciting and it's truly a chance to change the world how does the commercial government space systems teams address the importance of cyber security so john i think it starts with with the realization that as i like to say that cyber and space are bffs uh there's nothing that we do on the cutting edge of space that isn't heavy reliant heavily reliant on the cutting edge of cyber and frankly there's probably nothing on the cutting edge of cyber that doesn't have a space application and when you realize that you see how how closely those are intertwined as we need to move forward at at speed it becomes fundamental to to the to answering your question let me give a couple examples we one of the biggest challenges i have on a daily basis is understanding what's going on in the space domain those on the on the on the surface of the planet talk about tyranny of distance across the oceans across large land masses and i talk about the tyranny of volume and you know right now we're looking out as far as the lunar sphere there's activity that's extending out to the out there we expect nasa to be conducting uh perhaps uh human operations in the lunar environment in the next few years so it extends out that far when you do the math that's a huge volume how do you do that how do you understand what's happening in real time in within that volume it is a big data problem by the very definition of that that kind of effort to that kind of challenge and to do it successfully in the years ahead it's going to require many many sensors and the fusion of data of all kinds to present a picture and then analytics and predictive analytics that are going to deliver an idea of what's going on in the space arena and that's just if people are not up to mischief once you have threats introduced into that environment it is even more challenging so i'd say it's a big data problem that we'll be enjoying uh tackling in the years ahead a second example is you know we if i if i had to if we had to take a vote of what were the most uh amazing robots that have ever been designed by humans i think that spacecraft would have to be up there on the list whether it's the nasa spacecraft that explore other planets or the ones that we or gps satellites that that amazingly uh provide a wonderful service to the entire globe uh and beyond they are amazing technological machines that's not going to stop i mean all the work that roland talked about at the at the even even that we're doing it at the kind of the microsoft level is is putting cutting-edge technology into smaller packages you can to get some sort of capability out of that as we expand our activities further and further into space for national security purposes or for exploration or commercial or civil the the cutting edge technologies of uh artificial intelligence uh and machine to machine engagements and machine learning are going to be part of that design work moving forward um and then there's the threat piece as we try to as we operate these these capabilities how these constellations grow that's going to be done via networks and as i've already pointed out space is a warfighting domain that means those networks will come under attack we expect that they will and that may happen early on in a conflict it may happen during peace time in the same way that we see cyber attacks all the time everywhere in many sectors of of activity and so by painting that picture you kind of get you we start to see how it's intertwined at the very very base most basic level the cutting edge of cyber and cutting edge of space with that then comes the need to any cutting edge cyber security capability that we have is naturally going to be needed as we develop space capabilities and we're going to have to bake that in from the very beginning we haven't done that in the past as well as we should but moving forward from this point on it will be an essential ingredient that we work into all of our new capability roland we're talking about now critical infrastructure we're talking about new capabilities being addressed really fast so it's kind of chaotic now there's threats so it's not as easy as just having capabilities because you've got to deal with the threats the general just pointed out but now you've got critical infrastructure which then will enable other things down down the line how do you protect it how do we address this how do you see this being addressed from a security standpoint because you know malware these techniques can be mapped in as extended into into space and takeovers wartime peacetime these things are all going to be under threat that's pretty well understood i think people kind of get that how do we address it what's your what's your take yeah you know absolutely and you know i couldn't agree more with general shaw you know with cyber security and space being so intertwined um and you know i think with fast and rapid innovation um comes you know the opportunity for threats especially um if you have bad actors um that you know want to cause harm and so you know as a technology innovator and you're pushing the bounds um you kind of have a common goal of um you know doing the best you can um and you know pushing the technology balance making it smaller faster cheaper um but a lot of times what entrepreneurs and you know small businesses and supply chains um are doing and don't realize it is a lot of these components are dual use right i mean you could have a very benign commercial application but then a small you know modification to it and turn it into a military application and if you do have these bad actors they can exploit that and so you know i think the the big thing is um creating a organization that is you know non-biased that just wants to kind of level the playing field for everybody to create a set standard for cyber security in space i think you know one group that would be perfect for that you know is um cci um you know they understand both the cybersecurity side of things and they also have you know at cal poly um you know the the small satellite group um and you know just having kind of a a clearinghouse or um an agency where um can provide information that is free um you know you don't need a membership for and to be able to kind of collect that but also you know reach out to the entire value chain you know for a mission and um making them aware um of you know what potential capabilities are and then how it might um be you know potentially used as a weapon um and you know keeping them informed because i think you know the the vast majority of people in the space industry just want to do the right thing and so how do we get that information free flowing to you know to the us government so that they can take that information create assessments and be able to not necessarily um stop threats from occurring presently but identify them long before that they would ever even happen um yeah that's you know general i want to i want to follow up on that real quick before we go to the next talk track critical infrastructure um you mentioned you know across the oceans long distance volume you know when you look at the physical world you know you had you know power grids here united states you had geography you had perimeters uh the notion of a perimeter and the moat this is and then you had digital comes in then you have we saw software open up and essentially take down this idea of a perimeter and from a defense standpoint and that everything changed and we had to fortify those critical assets uh in the u.s space increases the same problem statement significantly because it's you can't just have a perimeter you can't have a moat it's open it's everywhere like what digital's done and that's why we've seen a slurge of cyber in the past two decades attacks with software so this isn't going to go away you need the critical infrastructure you're putting it up there you're formulating it and you've got to protect it how do you view that because it's going to be an ongoing problem statement what's the current thinking yeah i i think my sense is a mindset that you can build a a firewall or a defense or some other uh system that isn't dynamic in his own right is probably not heading in the right direction i think cyber security in the future whether it's for our space systems or for other critical infrastructure is going to be a dynamic fight that happens at a machine-to-machine um a speed and dynamic um i don't think it's too far off where we will have uh machines writing their own code in real time to fight off attacks that are coming at them and by the way the offense will probably be doing the same kind of thing and so i i guess i would not want to think that the answer is something that you just build it and you leave it alone and it's good enough it's probably going to be a constantly evolving capability constantly reacting to new threats and staying ahead of those threats that's the kind of use case just to kind of you know as you were kind of anecdotal example is the exciting new software opportunities for computer science majors i mean i tell my young kids and everyone man it's more exciting now i wish i was 18 again it's so so exciting with ai bro i want to get your thoughts we were joking on another panel with the dod around space and the importance of it obviously and we're going to have that here and then we had a joke it's like oh software's defined everything it says software's everything ai and and i said well here in the united states companies had data centers and they went to the cloud and they said you can't do break fix it's hard to do break fix in space you can't just send a tech up i get that today but soon maybe robotics the general mentions robotics technologies and referencing some of the accomplishments fixing things is almost impossible in space but maybe form factors might get better certainly software will play a role what's your thoughts on that that landscape yeah absolutely you know for for software in orbit um you know there's there's a push for you know software-defined radios um to basically go from hardware to software um and you know that's that that's a critical link um if you can infiltrate that and a small satellite has propulsion on board you could you know take control of that satellite and cause a lot of havoc and so you know creating standards and you know that kind of um initial threshold of security um you know for let's say you know these radios you know communications and making that um available um to the entire supply chain to the satellite builders um and operators you know is incredibly key and you know that's again one of the initiatives that um that cci is um is tackling right now as well general i want to get your thoughts on best practices around cyber security um state of the art today uh and then some guiding principles and kind of how the if you shoot the trajectory forward what what might happen uh around um supply chain there's been many stories where oh we outsourced the chips and there's a little chip sitting in a thing and it's built by someone else in china and the software is written from someone in europe and the united states assembles it it gets shipped and it's it's corrupt and it has some cyber crime making i'm oversimplifying the the statement but this is what when you have space systems that involve intellectual property uh from multiple partners whether it's from software to creation and then deployment you get supply chain tiers what are some of the best practices that you see involving that don't stunt the innovation but continues to innovate but people can operate safely what's your thoughts yeah so on supply chain i think i think the symposium here is going to get to hear from lieutenant general jt thompson uh from space missile system center down in los angeles and and uh he's a he's just down the road from us there uh on the coast um and his team is is the one that we look to really focus on as he acquires and develop again bake in cyber security from the beginning and knowing where the components are coming from and and properly assessing those as you as you put together your space systems is a key uh piece of what his team is focused on so i expect we'll hear him talk about that when it talks to i think she asked the question a little more deeply about how do the best practices in terms of how we now develop moving forward well another way that we don't do it right is if we take a long time to build something and then you know general general jt thompson's folks take a while to build something and then they hand it over to to to me and my team to operate and then they go hands-free and and then and then that's you know that's what i have for for years to operate until the next thing comes along that's a little old school what we're going to have to do moving forward with our space capabilities and with the cyber piece baked in is continually developing new capability sets as we go we actually have partnership between general thompson's team and mine here at vandenberg on our ops floor or our combined space operations center that are actually working in real time together better tools that we can use to understand what's going on the space environment to better command and control our capabilities anywhere from military satellite communications to space domain awareness sensors and such and so and we're developing those capabilities in real time it's a dev and and with the security pieces so devsecops is we're practicing that in in real time i think that is probably the standard today that we're trying to live up to as we continue to evolve but it has to be done again in close partnership all the time it's not a sequential industrial age process while i'm on the subject of partnerships so general thompson's and team and mine have good partnerships it's part partnerships across the board are going to be another way that we are successful and that uh it means with with academia in some of the relationships that we have here with cal poly it's with the commercial sector in ways that we haven't done before the old style business was to work with just a few large um companies that had a lot of space experience well we need we need a lot of kinds of different experience and technologies now in order to really field good space capabilities and i expect we'll see more and more non-traditional companies being part of and and organizations being part of that partnership that will work going forward i mentioned at the beginning that um uh allies are important to us so everything that uh that role and i've been talking about i think you have to extrapolate out to allied partnerships right it doesn't help me uh as a combined force component commander which is again one of my jobs it doesn't help me if the united states capabilities are cyber secure but i'm trying to integrate them with capabilities from an ally that are not cyber secure so that partnership has to be dynamic and continually evolving together so again close partnering continually developing together from the acquisition to the operational sectors with as many um different sectors of our economy uh as possible are the ingredients to success general i'd love to just follow up real quick i was having just a quick reminder for a conversation i had with last year with general keith alexander who was does a lot of cyber security work and he was talking about the need to share faster and the new school is you got to share faster and to get the data you mentioned observability earlier you need to see what everything's out there he's a real passionate person around getting the data getting it fast and having trusted partners so that's not it's kind of evolving as i mean sharing is a well-known practice but with cyber it's sensitive data potentially so there's a trust relationship there's now a new ecosystem that's new for uh government how do you view all that and your thoughts on that trend of the sharing piece of it on cyber so it's i don't know if it's necessarily new but it's at a scale that we've never seen before and by the way it's vastly more complicated and complex when you overlay from a national security perspective classification of data and information at various levels and then that is again complicated by the fact you have different sharing relationships with different actors whether it's commercial academic or allies so it gets very very uh a complex web very quickly um so that's part of the challenge we're working through how can we how can we effectively share information at multiple classification levels with multiple partners in an optimal fashion it is certainly not optimal today it's it's very difficult even with maybe one industry partner for me to be able to talk about data at an unclassified level and then various other levels of classification to have the traditional networks in place to do that i could see a solution in the future where our cyber security is good enough that maybe i only really need one network and the information that is allowed to flow to the players within the right security environment um to uh to make that all happen as quickly as possible so you've actually uh john you've hit on yet another big challenge that we have is um is evolving our networks to properly share with the right people at the right uh clearance levels as at speed of war which is what we're going to need yeah and i wanted to call that out because this is an opportunity again this discussion here at cal poly and around the world is for new capabilities and new people to solve the problems and um it's again it's super exciting if you you know you're geeking out on this it's if you have a tech degree or you're interested in changing the world there's so many new things that could be applied right now roland will get your thoughts on this because one of the things in the tech trends we're seeing this is a massive shift all the theaters of the tech industry are are changing rapidly at the same time okay and it affects policy law but also deep tech the startup communities are super important in all this too we can't forget them obviously the big trusted players that are partnering certainly on these initiatives but your story about being in the dorm room now you got the boardroom and now you got everything in between you have startups out there that want to and can contribute and you know what's an itar i mean i got all these acronym certifications is there a community motion to bring startups in in a safe way but also give them a ability to contribute because you look at open source that proved everyone wrong on software that's happening now with this now open network concept the general is kind of alluding to which is it's a changing landscape your thoughts i know you're passionate about this yeah absolutely you know and i think um you know as general shaw mentioned you know we need to get information out there faster more timely and to the right people um and involving not only just stakeholders in the us but um internationally as well you know and as entrepreneurs um you know we have this very lofty vision or goal uh to change the world and um oftentimes um you know entrepreneurs including myself you know we put our heads down and we just run as fast as we can and we don't necessarily always kind of take a breath and take a step back and kind of look at what we're doing and how it's touching um you know other folks and in terms of a community i don't know of any formal community out there it's mostly ad hoc and you know these ad hoc communities are folks who let's say have you know was was a student working on a satellite um you know in college and they love that entrepreneurial spirit and so they said well i'm gonna start my own company and so you know a lot of the these ad hoc networks are just from relationships um that are that have been built over the last two decades um you know from from colleagues that you know at the university um i do think formalizing this and creating um kind of a you know clearinghouse to to handle all of this is incredibly important yeah um yeah there's gonna be a lot of entrepreneurial activity no doubt i mean just i mean there's too many things to work on and not enough time so i mean this brings up the question though while we're on this topic um you got the remote work with covid everyone's working remotely we're doing this remote um interview rather than being on stage works changing how people work and engage certainly physical will come back but if you looked at historically the space industry and the talent you know they're all clustered around the bases and there's always been these areas where you're you're a space person you're kind of working there and there's jobs there and if you were cyber you were 10 in other areas over the past decade there's been a cross-pollination of talent and location as you see the intersection of space general start with you you know first of all central coast is a great place to live i know that's where you guys live but you can start to bring together these two cultures sometimes they're you know not the same maybe they're getting better we know they're being integrated so general can you just share your thoughts because this is uh one of those topics that everyone's talking about but no one's actually kind of addressed directly um yeah john i i think so i think i want to answer this by talking about where i think the space force is going because i think if there was ever an opportunity or inflection point in our department of defense to sort of change culture and and try to bring in non-traditional kinds of thinking and and really kind of change uh maybe uh some of the ways that the department of defense has does things that are probably archaic space force is an inflection point for that uh general raymond our our chief of space operations has said publicly for a while now he wants the us space force to be the first truly digital service and uh you know what we what we mean by that is you know we want the folks that are in the space force to be the ones that are the first adopters or the early adopters of of technology um to be the ones most fluent in the cutting edge technological developments on space and cyber and and other um other sectors of the of of the of the economy that are technologically focused uh and i think there's some can that can generate some excitement i think and it means that we probably end up recruiting people into the space force that are not from the traditional recruiting areas that the rest of the department of defense looks to and i think it allows us to bring in a diversity of thought and diversity of perspective and a new kind of motivation um into the service that i think is frankly is is really exciting so if you put together everything i mentioned about how space and cyber are going to be best friends forever and i think there's always been an excitement in them you know from the very beginning in the american psyche about space you start to put all these ingredients together and i think you see where i'm going with this that really changed that cultural uh mindset that you were describing it's an exciting time for sure and again changing the world and this is what you're seeing today people do want to change world they want a modern world that's changing roy look at your thoughts on this i was having an interview a few years back with a tech entrepreneur um techie and we were joking we were just kind of riffing and we and i said everything that's on star trek will be invented and we're almost there actually if you think about it except for the transporter room you got video you got communicators so you know not to bring in the star trek reference with space force this is digital and you start thinking about some of the important trends it's going to be up and down the stack from hardware to software to user experience everything your thoughts and reaction yeah abs absolutely and so you know what we're seeing is um timeline timelines shrinking dramatically um because of the barrier to entry for you know um new entrants and you know even your existing aerospace companies is incredibly low right so if you take um previously where you had a technology on the ground and you wanted it in orbit it would take years because you would test it on the ground you would verify that it can operate in space in a space environment and then you would go ahead and launch it and you know we're talking tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars to do that now um we've cut that down from years to months when you have a prototype on the ground and you want to get it launched you don't necessarily care if it fails on orbit the first time because you're getting valuable data back and so you know we're seeing technology being developed you know for the first time on the ground and in orbit in a matter of a few months um and the whole kind of process um you know that that we're doing as a small business is you know trying to enable that and so allowing these entrepreneurs and small small companies to to get their technology in orbit at a price that is sometimes even cheaper than you know testing on the ground you know this is a great point i think this is really an important point to call out because we mentioned partnerships earlier the economics and the business model of space is doable i mean you do a mission study you get paid for that you have technology you can get stuff up up quickly and there's a cost structure there and again the alternative was waterfall planning years and millions now the form factors are different now again there may be different payloads involved but you can standardize payloads you got robotic arms all this is all available this brings up the congestion problem this is going to be on the top of mind the generals of course but you got the proliferation okay of these constellation systems you have more and more tech vectors i mean essentially that's malware i mean that's a probe you throw something up in space that could cause some interference maybe a takeover general this is the this is the real elephant in the room the threat matrix from new stuff and new configurations so general how does the proliferation of constellation systems change the threat matrix so i i think the uh you know i guess i'm gonna i'm gonna be a little more optimistic john than i think you pitched that i'm actually excited about these uh new mega constellations in leo um i'm excited about the the growing number of actors that are that are going into space for various reasons and why is that it's because we're starting to realize a new economic engine uh for the nation and for human society so the question is so so i think we want that to happen right when uh um when uh we could go to almost any any other domain in history and and and you know there when when air traffic air air travel started to become much much more commonplace with many kinds of uh actors from from private pilots flying their small planes all the way up to large airliners uh you know there there was a problem with congestion there was a problem about um challenges about uh behavior and are we gonna be able to manage this and yes we did and it was for the great benefit of society i could probably look to the maritime domain for similar kinds of things and so this is actually exciting about space we are just going to have to find the ways as a society and it's not just the department of defense it's going to be civil it's going to be international find the mechanisms to encourage this continued investment in the space domain i do think the space force uh will play a role in in providing security in the space environment as we venture further out as as economic opportunities emerge uh wherever they are um in the in the lunar earth lunar system or even within the solar system space force is going to play a role in that but i'm actually really excited about the those possibilities hey by the way i got to say you made me think of this when you talked about star trek and and and space force and our technologies i remember when i was younger watching the the next generation series i thought one of the coolest things because being a musician in my in my spare time i thought one of the coolest things was when um commander riker would walk into his quarters and and say computer play soft jazz and there would just be the computer would just play music you know and this was an age when you know we had we had hard uh um uh media right like how will that that is awesome man i can't wait for the 23rd century when i can do that and where we are today is is so incredible on those lines the things that i can ask alexa or siri to play um well that's the thing everything that's on star trek think about it almost invented i mean you got the computers you got the only thing really is the holograms are starting to come in you got now the transporter room now that's physics we'll work on that right right so there's a there is this uh a balance between physics and imagination but uh we have not exhausted either well um personally everyone that knows me knows i'm a huge star trek fan all the series of course i'm an original purist but at that level but this is about economic incentive as well roland i want to get your thoughts because you know the gloom and doom you got to think about the the bad stuff to make it good if i if i put my glass half full on the table there's economic incentives just like the example of the plane and the air traffic there's there's actors that are more actors that are incented to have a secure system what's your thoughts to general's comments around the optimism and and the potential threat matrix that needs to be managed absolutely so and you know one of the things that we've seen over the years um as you know we build these small satellites is a lot of the technology you know that the general is talking about um you know voice recognition miniaturized chips and sensors um started on the ground and i mean you know you have you know your iphone um that about 15 years ago before the first iphone came out um you know we were building small satellites in the lab and we were looking at cutting-edge state-of-the-art magnetometers and sensors um that we were putting in our satellites back then we didn't know if they were going to work and then um a few years later as these students graduate they go off and they go out to under you know other industries and so um some of the technology that was first kind of put in these cubesats in the early 2000s you know kind of ended up in the first generation iphone smartphones um and so being able to take that technology rapidly you know incorporate that into space and vice versa gives you an incredible economic advantage because um not only are your costs going down um because you know you're mass producing you know these types of terrestrial technologies um but then you can also um you know increase you know revenue and profit um you know by by having you know smaller and cheaper systems general let's talk about that for real quickly it's a good point i want to just shift it into the playbook i mean everyone talks about playbooks for management for tech for startups for success i mean one of the playbooks that's clear from in history is investment in r d around military and or innovation that has a long view spurs innovation commercially i mean just there's a huge many decades of history that shows that hey we got to start thinking about these these challenges and you know next you know it's in an iphone this is history this is not like a one-off and now with space force you get you're driving you're driving the main engine of innovation to be all digital you know we we riff about star trek which is fun but the reality is you're going to be on the front lines of some really new cool mind-blowing things could you share your thoughts on how you sell that people who write the checks or recruit more talent well so i first i totally agree with your thesis that the that you know national security well could probably go back an awful long way hundreds to thousands of years that security matters tend to drive an awful lot of innovation and creativity because um you know i think the the probably the two things that drive drive people the most are probably an opportunity to make money uh but only by beating that out are trying to stay alive um and uh and so i don't think that's going to go away and i do think that space force can play a role um as it pursues uh security uh structures you know within the space domain to further encourage economic investment and to protect our space capabilities for national security purposes are going to be at the cutting edge this isn't the first time um i think we can point back to the origins of the internet really started in the department of defense and with a partnership i should add with academia that's how the internet got started that was the creativity in order to to meet some needs there cryptography has its roots in security but we use it uh in in national security but now we use it in for economic reasons and meant and a host of other kinds of reasons and then space itself right i mean we still look back to uh apollo era as an inspiration for so many things that inspired people to to either begin careers in in technical areas or in space and and so on so i think i think in that same spirit you're absolutely right i guess i'm totally agreeing with your thesis the space force uh will be and a uh will have a positive inspirational influence in that way and we need to to realize that so when we are asking for when we're looking for how we need to meet capability needs we need to spread that net very far look for the most creative solutions and partner early and often with those that that can that can work on those when you're on the new frontier you've got to have a team sport it's a team effort you mentioned the internet just anecdotally i'm old enough to remember this because i remember the days that was going on and said the government if the policy decisions that the u.s made at that time was to let it go a little bit invisible hand they didn't try to commercialize it too fast and but there was some policy work that was done that had a direct effect to the innovation versus take it over and next you know it's out of control so i think you know i think this this just a cross-disciplinary skill set becomes a big thing where you need to have more people involved and that's one of the big themes of this symposium so it's a great point thank you for sharing that roland your thoughts on this because you know you got policy decisions we all want to run faster we want to be more innovative but you got to have some ops view now mostly ops people want things very tight very buttoned up secure the innovators want to go faster it's the yin and yang that's that's the world we live in how's it all balanced in your mind yeah um you know one of the things um that may not be apparently obvious is that you know the us government and department of um of defense is one of the biggest investors in technology in the aerospace sector um you know they're not the traditional venture capitalists but they're the ones that are driving technology innovation because there's funding um you know and when companies see that the us governments is interested in something businesses will will re-vector um you know to provide that capability and in the i would say the more recent years we've had a huge influx of private equity venture capital um coming into the markets to kind of help augment um you know the government investment and i think having a good partnership and a relationship with these private equity venture capitalists and the us government is incredibly important because the two sides you know can can help collaborate and kind of see a common goal but then also too on um you know the other side is you know there's that human element um and as general shaw was saying it's like not you know not only do companies you know obviously want to thrive and do really well some companies just want to stay alive um to see their technology kind of you know grow into what they've always dreamed of and you know oftentimes entrepreneurs um are put in a very difficult position because they have to make payroll they have to you know keep the lights on and so sometimes they'll take investment um from places where they may normally would not have you know from potentially foreign investment that could potentially you know cause issues with you know the you know the us supply chain well my final question is the best i wanted to say for last because i love the idea of human space flight i'd love to be on mars i'm not sure i'll be able to make it someday but how do you guys see the possible impacts of cyber security on expanding human space flight operations i mean general this is your wheelhouse this is urine command putting humans in space and certainly robots will be there because they're easy to go because they're not human but humans in space i mean you're starting to see the momentum the discussion uh people are are scratching that itch what's your take on that how do we see making this more possible well i i think we will see we will see uh commercial space tourism uh in the future i'm not sure how wide and large a scale it will become but we'll we will see that and um part of uh i think the mission of the space force is going to be probably to again do what we're doing today is have really good awareness of what's going on the domain to uh to to to ensure that that is done safely and i think a lot of what we do today will end up in civil organizations to do space traffic management and safety uh in in that uh arena um and uh um it is only a matter of time uh before we see um humans going even beyond the you know nasa has their plan the the artemis program to get back to the moon and the gateway initiative to establish a a space station there and that's going to be an exploration initiative but it is only a matter of time before we have um private citizens or private corporations putting people in space and not only for tourism but for economic activity and so it'll be really exciting to watch it would be really exciting and space force will be a part of it general roland i want to thank you for your valuable time to come on this symposium i really appreciate it final uh comment i'd love to you to spend a minute to share your personal thoughts on the importance of cyber security to space and we'll close it out we'll start with you roland yeah so i think that the biggest thing um i would like to try to get out of this you know from my own personal perspective is um creating that environment that allows um you know the the aerospace supply chain small businesses you know like ourselves be able to meet all the requirements um to protect um and safeguard our data but also um create a way that you know we can still thrive and it won't stifle innovation um you know i'm looking forward um to comments and questions um you know from the audience um to really kind of help um you know you know basically drive to that next step general final thoughts the importance of cyber security to space i'll just i'll go back to how i started i think john and say that space and cyber are forever intertwined they're bffs and whoever has my job 50 years from now or 100 years from now i predict they're going to be saying the exact same thing cyber and space are are intertwined for good we will always need the cutting edge cyber security capabilities that we develop as a nation or as a as a society to protect our space capabilities and our cyber capabilities are going to need space capabilities in the future as well general john shaw thank you very much roland cleo thank you very much for your great insight thank you to cal poly for putting this together i want to shout out to the team over there we couldn't be in person but we're doing a virtual remote event i'm john furrier with thecube and siliconangle here in silicon valley thanks for watching

from around the globe it's thecube covering space and cyber security symposium 2020 hosted by cal poly hello everyone welcome to the space and cyber security symposium 2020 hosted by cal poly where the intersection of space and security are coming together i'm john furrier your host with thecube here in california i want to welcome our featured guest lieutenant general john f thompson with the united states space force approach to cyber security that's the topic of this session and of course he's the commander of the space and missile system center in los angeles air force base also heading up space force general thank you for coming on really appreciate you kicking this off welcome to the symposium hey so uh thank you very much john for that very kind introduction also uh very much thank you to cal poly uh for this opportunity to speak to this audience today also a special shout out to one of the organizers uh dustin brun for all of his work uh helping uh get us uh to this point uh ladies and gentlemen as uh as uh john mentioned uh i'm jt thompson uh i lead the 6 000 men and women of the united states space forces space and missile system center which is headquartered here at los angeles air force base in el segundo if you're not quite sure where that's at it's about a mile and a half from lax this is our main operating location but we do have a number of other operating locations around the country with about 500 people at kirtland air force base in albuquerque new mexico uh and about another 500 people on the front range of the rockies uh between colorado springs and uh and denver plus a smattering of other much smaller operating locations nationwide uh we're responsible for uh acquiring developing and sustaining the united states space force's critical space assets that includes the satellites in the space layer and also on the ground layer our ground segments to operate those satellites and we also are in charge of procuring launch services for the u.s space force and a number of our critical mission partners across the uh department of defense and the intelligence community um just as a couple of examples of some of the things we do if you're unfamiliar with our work we developed and currently sustained the 31 satellite gps constellation that satellite constellation while originally intended to help with global navigation those gps signals have provided trillions of dollars in unanticipated value to the global economy uh over the past three decades i mean gps is everywhere i think everybody realizes that agriculture banking the stock market the airline industry uh separate and distinct navigation systems it's really pervasive across both the capabilities for our department of defense and capabilities for our economy and and individuals billions of individuals across our country and the planet some of the other work we do for instance in the communications sector uh secure communications satellites that we design and build that link america's sons and daughters serving in the military around the world and really enable real-time support and comms for our deployed forces and those of our allies we also acquire uh infrared missile warning satellites uh that monitor the planet for missile launches and provide advanced warning uh to the u.s homeland and to our allies uh in case some of those missile launches are uh nefarious um on a note that's probably a lot closer to home maybe a lot closer to home than many of us want to think about here in the state of california in 2018 smc jumped through a bunch of red tape and bureaucracy uh to partner with the u.s forest service during the two of the largest wildfires in the state's history the camp and woolsey fires in northern california as those fires spread out of control we created processes on the fly to share data from our missile warning satellites those are satellites that are systems that are purpose built to see heat sources from thousands of miles above the planet and we collaborated with the us forest service so that firefighters on the ground uh could track those fires more in real time and better forecast fires and where they were spreading thereby saving lives and and property by identifying hot spots and flare-ups for firefighters that data that we were able to working with our contractors pass to the u.s forest service and authorities here in california was passed in less than an hour as it was collected to get it into the hands of the emergency responders the first responders as quickly as possible and doing that in an hour greatly surpassed what was available from some of the other assets in the airborne and ground-based fire spotters it was really instrumental in fighting those fires and stopping their spread we've continued uh that involvement in recent years using multiple systems to support firefighters across the western u.s this fall as they battled numerous wildfires that unfortunately continue working together with the u.s forest service and with other partners uh we like to make uh we like to think that we made a difference here but there's still a lot more work to go and i think that we should always be asking ourselves uh what else can space data be used for and how can we more rapidly get that space data to uh stakeholders so that they can use it for for purposes of good if you will how else can we protect our nation how else can we protect our friends and allies um i think a major component of the of the discussion that we will have throughout this conference is that the space landscape has changed rapidly and continues to change rapidly um just over the past few years uh john and i were talking before we went live here and 80 nations now have uh space programs 80 nearly 80 space faring nations on the planet um if you just look at one mission area that uh the department of defense is interested in and that's small launch there are currently over a hundred different small launch companies uh within the u.s industrial base vying for commercial dod and civil uh payload capabilities uh mostly to low earth orbit it's it's just truly a remarkable time if you factor in those things like artificial intelligence and machine learning um where we're revolutionary revolutionizing really uh the ways that we generate process and use data i mean it's really remarkable in 2016 so if you think about this four years ago uh nasa estimated that there were 28 terabytes of information transiting their space network each day and that was four years ago um uh obviously we've got a lot of desire to work with a lot of the people in the audience of this congress or in this conference uh we need to work with big thinkers like many of you to answer questions on how best we apply data analytics to extract value and meaning from that data we need new generations of thinkers to help apply cutting edge edge theories of data mining cyber behaviorism and internet of things 2.0 it's just truly a remarkable time uh to be in the space business and the cyber aspects of the states of the space business are truly truly daunting and important to uh to all of us um integrating cyber security into our space systems both commercial and government is a mandate um it's no longer just a nice to have as the us space force and department of the air force leadership has said many times over the past couple of years space is becoming congested and contested and that contested aspect means that we've got to focus on cyber security uh in the same way that the banking industry and cyber commerce focus on uh cyber security day in and day out the value of the data and services provided is really directly tied to the integrity and availability of that data and services from the space layer from the ground control segments associated with it and this value is not just military it's also economic and it's not just american it's also a value for the entire world particularly particularly our allies as we all depend upon space and space systems your neighbors and friends here in california that are employed at the space and missile system center uh work with network defenders we work with our commercial contractors and our systems developers um our international allies and partners to try and build as secure and resilient systems as we can from the ground up that keep the global commons of space free and open for exploration and for commerce um as john and i were talking earlier before we came online there's an aspect of cyber security for space systems especially for some of our legacy systems that's more how do we bolt this on because we fielded those space systems a number of years ago and the the challenges of cyber security in the space domain have grown so we have a part that we have to worry about bolting it on but then we have to worry about building it in as we as we field new systems and build in a flexibility that that realizes that the cyber threat or the cyber security landscape will evolve over time it's not just going to be stagnant there will always be new vulnerabilities and new threat vectors that we always have to look at look uh as secretary barrett who is our secretary of the air force likes to say most americans use space before they have their first cup of coffee in the morning the american way of life really depends on space and as part of the united states space force we work with defense leaders our congress joint and international military teammates and industry to ensure american leadership in space i really thank you for this opportunity to address the audience today john and thanks so much to cal poly for letting me be one of the speakers at this event i really look forward to this for uh several months and so with that i look forward to your questions as we kind of move along here general thank you very much for the awesome uh introductory statement uh for the folks watching on the stream brigadier general carthan is going to be in the chat answering any questions feel free to chat away he's the vice commander of space and missile systems center he'll be available um a couple comments from your keynote before i get to my questions because it just jumped in my head you mentioned the benefits of say space but the fires in california we're living that here that's really real time that's a benefit you also mentioned the ability for more people launching payloads into space and i only imagine moore's law smaller faster cheaper applies to rockets too so i'm imagining you have the benefits of space and you have now more potential objects flying out sanctioned and maybe unsanctioned so you know is it going to be more rules around that i mean this is an interesting question because it's exciting space force but for all the good there is potentially bad out there yeah so i i john i think the uh i think the basics of your question is as space becomes more congested and contested is there a need for more international norms of how satellites fly in space what kind of basic features satellites have to perhaps deorbit themselves what kind of basic protections does do all satellites should all satellites be afforded as part of a peaceful global commons of space i think those are all fantastic questions and i know that u.s and many uh allied policy makers are looking very very hard at those kinds of questions in terms of what are the norms of behavior and how we uh you know how how we field and field is the military term but you know how we uh populate uh using civil or uh commercial terms uh that space layer at different altitudes uh low earth orbit mid mid-earth orbit geosynchronous earth orbit different kinds of orbits uh what the kind of mission areas we accomplish from space that's all things that need to be definitely taken into account as uh as the place gets a little bit not a little bit as the place gets increasingly more popular day in and day out well i'm super excited for space force i know that a new generation of young folks are really interested in it's an emerging changing great space the focus here at this conference is space and cyber security intersection i'd like to get your thoughts on the approach that space force is taking to cyber security and how it impacts our national goals here in the united states yeah yeah so that's a that's a great question john let me let me talk about in two uh two basic ways but number one is and and i know um some people in the audience this might make them a little bit uncomfortable but i have to talk about the threat right um and then relative to that threat i really have to talk about the importance of uh of cyber and specifically cyber security as it relates to that threat um the threats that we face um really represent a new era of warfare and that new era of warfare involves both space and cyber uh we've seen a lot of action in recent months uh from certain countries notably china and russia uh that have threatened what i referred to earlier as the peaceful global commons of space for example uh it through many unclassified sources and media sources everybody should understand that um uh the russians have been testing on orbit uh anti-satellite capabilities it's been very clear if you were following just the week before last the department of defense released its uh 2020 military and security developments involving the people's republic of china um uh and uh it was very clear that china is developing asats electronic jammers directed energy weapons and most relevant to today's discussion offensive cyber uh capabilities there are kinetic threats uh that are very very easy to see but a cyber attack against a critical uh command and control site or against a particular spacecraft could be just as devastating to the system and our war fighters in the case of gps and important to note that that gps system also impacts many civilians who are dependent upon those systems from a first response perspective and emergency services a cyber attack against a ground control site could cause operators to lose control of a spacecraft or an attacker could feed spoofed data to a system to mislead operators so that they send emergency services personnel to the to the wrong address right attacks on spacecraft on orbit whether directly via a network of intrusion or enabled through malware introduced during the systems production uh while we're building the satellite can [ __ ] or corrupt the data denial of service type attacks on our global networks obviously would disrupt our data flow and interfere with ongoing operations and satellite control i mean if gps went down i you know i hesitate to say it this way because we might elicit some screams from the audience but if gps went down a starbucks wouldn't be able to handle your mobile order uber drivers wouldn't be able to find you and domino's certainly certainly wouldn't be able to get there in 30 minutes or less right so with a little bit of tongue-in-cheek there from a military operations perspective it's dead serious um uh we have become accustomed in the commercial world to threats like lance ransomware and malware and those things have unfortunately become commonplace in commercial terrestrial networks and computer systems however what we're seeing is that our adversaries with the increased competition in space these same techniques are being retooled if you will to use against our national security space systems uh day in and day out um as i said during my opening remarks on the importance of cyber the value of these systems is directly tied to their integrity if commanders in the field uh firefighters in california or baristas in in starbucks can't trust the data they see they're receiving then that really harms their decision-making capabilities one of the big trends we've recently seen is the mood move towards proliferated leo uh uh constellations obviously uh spacex's uh starlink uh on the commercial side and on the military side the work that darpa and my organization smc are doing on blackjack and casino as well as some space transport layer constellation work that the space development agency is designing are all really really important types of mesh network systems that will revolutionize how we plan and field warfighting systems and commercial communications and internet providing systems but they're also heavily reliant on cyber security uh we've got to make sure that they are secured to avoid an accident or international damage uh loss of control of these constellations really could be catastrophic from both a mission perspective or from uh you know satellites tumbling out of low earth orbit perspective another trend is introductions in artificial intelligence and machine learning on board spacecraft or at the edge our satellites are really not so much hardware systems with a little software anymore in the commercial sector and in the defense sector they're basically flying boxes full of software right and we need to ensure the data that we're getting out of those flying boxes full of software are helping us base our decisions on accurate data and algorithms govern governing the right actions and that those uh that those systems are impervious to the extent possible uh to nefarious uh modifications so in summation a cyber security is vital element of everything in our national security space goals and i would argue for our national uh goals uh writ large including uh economic and information uh uh dimensions uh the space force leadership at all levels uh from uh some of the brand new second lieutenants that general raymond uh swore into the space force this morning uh ceremonially from the uh air force association's air space and cyberspace conference uh to the various highest levels general raymond uh general d t thompson myself and a number of other senior leaders in this enterprise we've got to make sure that we're all working together to keep cyber security at the forefront of our space systems because it they absolutely depend on it you know you mentioned uh hardware software threats opportunities challenges i want to ask you because you you got me thinking of the minute there around infrastructure i mean we've heard critical infrastructure you know grids here on on earth you're talking about critical infrastructure a redefinition of what critical infrastructure is an extension of what we have so i'd love to get your thoughts about space force's view of that critical infrastructure vis-a-vis the threat vectors because you know the term threat vectors has been kicked around in the cyber space oh yeah threat vectors they're always increasing the surface area well if the surface area is from space it's an unlimited surface area so you got different vectors so you got new critical infrastructure developing real time really fast and you got an expanded threat vector landscape putting that in perspective for the folks that aren't really inside the ropes on these critical issues how would you explain this and how would you talk about those two things well so i tell you um i just like um uh just like uh i'm sure people in the security side or the cyber security side of the business in the banking industry feel they feel like it's uh all possible threat vectors represent a dramatic and protect potentially existential threat to all of the dollars that they have in the banking system to the financial sector on the department of defense side we've got to have sort of the same mindset um that threat vector from to and through space against critical space systems ground segments the launch enterprise or transportation uh to orbit and the various different uh domains within uh within space itself like i mentioned before uh leo mio and geo-based satellites with different orbits all of the different mission areas that are accomplished from space that i mentioned earlier some that i didn't mention like weather tactical or wide band communications uh various new features of space control all of those are things that we have to worry about from a cyber security uh threat perspective and it's a it's a daunting challenge right now right yeah it's awesome and one of the things we've been following on the hardware side here in the on the ground is the supply chain we've seen you know malware being you know really put into really obscure hardware who manufactures it as being outsourced obviously government has restrictions but with the private sector uh you mentioned china and and the us kind of working together across these these peaceful areas but you got to look at the supply chain how does the supply chain the security aspect impact the mission of the u.s space force yeah yeah so so um how about another um just in terms of an example another kind of california-based historical example right um the very first u.s satellite uh explorer one was built by uh the jet propulsion uh laboratory folks uh not far from here in el segundo up in uh up in pasadena um that satellite when it was first built in the late 50s uh weighed a little bit over 30 pounds and i'm sure that each and every part was custom made and definitely made by u.s companies fast forward to today the global supply chain is so tightly coupled and frankly many industries are so specialized almost specialized regionally around the planet we focus every day to guarantee the integrity of every component that we put in our space systems is absolutely critical to the operations of those satellites and we're dependent upon them but it becomes more difficult and more difficult to understand the the heritage if you will of some of the parts that are used the thousands of parts that are used in some of our satellites that are literally school bus sized right the space industry especially uh national security space sector um uh is relatively small compared to other commercial industries and we're moving to towards using more and more parts uh from non-us companies uh cyber security and cyber awareness have to be baked in from the beginning if we're going to be using parts that maybe we don't necessarily um understand 100 percent like an explorer one uh the the lineage of that particular part the environmental difficulties in space are well known the radiation environment the temperature extremes the vacuum those require specialized component and the us military is not the only uh customer in that space in fact we're definitely not the dominant customer uh in space anymore all those factors require us along with our other government partners and many different commercial space organizations to keep a very close eye on our supply chains from a quality perspective a security perspective and availability um there's open source reporting on supply training intrusions from um many different breaches of commercial retailers to the infectious spread of uh you know compromised patches if you will and our adversaries are aware of these techniques as i mentioned earlier with other forms of attack considering our supply chains and development networks really becomes fair game for our adversaries so we have to uh take that threat seriously um between the government and industry sectors here in the u.s we're also working with our industry partners to enact stronger defenses and assess our own vulnerabilities last fall we completed an extensive review of all of our major contracts here at space and missile system center to determine the levels of cyber security requirements we've implemented across our portfolio and it sounds really kind of you know businessy geeky if you will you know hey we looked at our contracts to make sure that we had the right clauses in our contracts to address cyber security as dynamically as we possibly could and so we found ourselves having to add new language to our contracts to require system developers to implement some more advanced uh protective measures in this evolving cyber security environment so that data handling and supply chain perspective uh protections um from contract inception to launch and operations were taken into account uh cyber security really is a key performance parameter for us now it's as important as the the mission performance of the system it's as important as cost it's as important as schedule because if we deliver the perfect system on time and on cost uh it can perform that missile warning or that communications mis mission perfectly but it's not cyber secure if it doesn't have cyber protections built into it or the ability to implement mitigations against cyber uh threats then we've essentially fielded a shoe box in space that doesn't do the k the the war fighter or the nation uh any good um supply chain risk management is a is a major challenge for us uh we're doing a lot to coordinate with our industry partners uh we're all facing it head on uh to try and build secure and trusted components uh that keep our confidence as leaders firefighters and baristas uh as the case may be uh but it is a challenge and we're trying to rise to that challenge you know this so exciting this new area because it really touches everything you know talk about geeking out on on the tech the hardware the systems but also you put your kind of mba hat on you go what's the roi of the extra development and how you how things get built because the always the exciting thing for space geeks is like you're building cool stuff people love it's it's exciting but you still have to build and cyber security has proven that security has to be baked in from the beginning and be thought as a system architecture so you're still building things which means you've got to acquire things you got to acquire parts you got to acquire build software and and sustain it how is security impacting the acquisition and the sustainment of these systems for space yeah from initial development uh through planning for the acquisition design development fielding or production fielding and sustainment it impacts all aspects of of the life cycle john uh we simply especially from the concept of baking in cyber security uh we can't wait until something is built and then try and figure out how to make it cyber secure so we've moved way further uh towards working side by side with our system developers to strengthen cyber security from the very beginning of a system's development cyber security and the resilience associated with it really have to be treated as a key system attribute as i mentioned earlier equivalent with data rates or other metrics of performance we like to talk in uh in the space world about uh mission assurance and mission assurance has always you know sort of taken us as we as we technically geek out right mission assurance has always taken us to the will this system work in space right can it work in a vacuum can it work in you know as it as it uh you know transfers through uh the van allen radiation belt or through the the um the southern hemisphere's electromagnetic anomaly right will it work out in space and now from a resiliency perspective yeah it has to work in space it's got to be functional in space but it's also got to be resistant to these cyber security threats it's it's not just i think uh general dt thompson quoted this term it's not just widget assurance anymore it's mission assurance um uh how does that satellite uh operator that ground control segment operate while under attack so let me break your question a little bit uh just for purposes of discussion into into really two parts uh cyber uh for cyber security for systems that are new and cyber security uh for systems that are in sustainment or kind of old and legacy um obviously there's cyber vulnerabilities that threaten both and we really have to employ different strategies for for defense of of each one for new systems uh we're desperately trying to implement across the department of defense in particular in the space world a kind of a devsecops methodology and practice to delivering software faster and with greater security for our space systems here at smc we have a program called enterprise ground services which is a tool kit basically a collection of tools for common command and control of different satellite systems egs as we call it has an integrated suite for defensive cyber capabilities network operators can use these tools to gain unprecedented insight to data flows and to monitor space network traffic for anomalies or other potential indicators of of bad behavior malicious behavior if you will um uh it's rudimentary at this point but because we're using devsecops and that incremental development approach as we scale it it just becomes more and more capable you know every every product increment that we field here at uh at uh la air force base uh uh we have the united space space forces west coast software factory which we've dubbed kobayashi maru they're using those agile devops uh software development practices uh to deliver uh space awareness software uh to the combined space operations center uh affectionately called the csp that c-spock is just down the road uh from cal poly uh there in san luis obispo at vandenberg air force base they've securely linked the c-spock with other space operation centers around the planet our allies australia canada and the uk uh we're partnering with all of them to enable secure and enhanced combined space operations so lots of new stuff going on as we bake in new development uh capabilities for our our space systems but as i mentioned earlier we've got large constellations on satellite of satellites on orbit right now some of them are well in excess of a decade or more old on orbit and so the design aspects of those satellites are several decades old and so but we still have to worry about them because they're critical to our space capabilities um we've been working with an air force materiel command organization uh called crows which stands for the cyber resiliency office for uh weapon systems to assess all of those legacy platforms from a cyber security perspective and develop defensive strategies and potential hardware and software upgrades to those systems to better enable them to to live through this increasingly cyber security uh concerned era that we currently live in our industry partners have been critical to to both of those different avenues both new systems and legacy systems we're working closely with them to defend and upgrade uh national assets and develop the capabilities to do similar with uh with new national assets coming online the vulnerabilities of our space systems really kind of threaten the way we've done business in the past both militarily and in the case of gps economically the impacts of that cyber security risk are clear in our acquisition and sustainment processes but i've got to tell you it that as the threat vectors change as the vulnerabilities change we've got to be nimble enough agile enough to be able to bounce back and forth we can't just say uh many people in the audience are probably familiar with the rmf or the risk management framework approach to um to reviewing uh the cyber security of a system we can't have program managers and engineers just accomplish an rmf on a system and then hey high five we're all good uh it's a journey not a destination that's cyber security and it's a constant battle rhythm throughout a weapon systems life cycle not just a single event i want to get to this commercial business needs and your needs on the next question but before i go there you mentioned the agile and i see that clearly because when you have accelerated innovation cycles you've got to be faster and we saw this in the computer industry mainframes mini computers and then when you started getting beyond me when the internet hit and pcs came out you saw the big enterprises the banks and and government start to work with startups it used to be a joke in the entrepreneurial circles is that you know there's no way if you're a startup you're ever going to get a contract with a big business enterprise now that used to be for public sector and certainly uh for you guys so as you see startups out there and there's acquisition involved i'm sure would love to love to have a contract with space force there's an roi calculation where if it's in space and you have a sustainment view edit software you might have a new kind of business model that could be attractive to startups could you share your thoughts on the folks who want to be a supplier to you uh whether they're a startup or an existing business that wants to be agile but they might not be that big company we are john that's a fantastic question we are desperately trying to reach out to to those new space advocates to those startups to those um what we sometimes refer to within the department of defense those non-traditional uh defense contractors a couple of things just for uh thinking purposes on some of the things that we're trying to highlight um uh three years ago we created here at uh space and missile system center uh the space enterprise consortium uh to provide a platform uh a contractual vehicle really to enable us to rapidly prototype uh development of space systems and to collaborate uh between the u.s space force uh traditional defense contractors non-traditional vendors like startups and even some academic institutions uh spec as we call it space enterprise consortium uses a specialized contracting tool to get contracts uh awarded quickly many in the audience may be familiar with other transaction agreements and that's what spec is based on and so far in just three years spec has awarded 75 different uh prototyping contracts worth over 800 million dollars with a 36 reduction in time to award and because it's a consortium based competition for um for these kinds of prototyping efforts the barrier to entry for small and non-traditional for startups even for academic institutions to be able to compete for these kinds of prototypings is really lowered right um uh these types of partnerships uh that we've been working through on spec uh have really helped us work with smaller companies who might not have the background or expertise in dealing with the government or in working with cyber security uh for their systems both their developmental systems and the systems that they're designing and trying to build we want to provide ways for companies large and small to partner together and support um uh kind of mutually beneficial uh relationships between all um recently uh at the annual air force association uh conference that i mentioned earlier i moderated a panel with several space industry leaders uh all from big traditional defense contractors by the way and they all stressed the importance of building bridges and partnerships uh between major contractors in the defense industry and new entrants uh and that helps us capture the benefits of speed and agility that come with small companies and startups as well as the expertise and specialized skill sets of some of those uh larger contractors uh that we rely on day in and day out advanced cyber security protections and utilization of secure facilities are just a couple of things that i think we could be prioritizing more so in those collaborations as i mentioned earlier the spec has been very successful in awarding a number of different prototyping contracts and large dollar values and it's just going to get better right there's over 400 members of the space enterprise consortium 80 of them are non-traditional kinds of vendors and we just love working with them another thing that many people in the audience may be familiar with in terms of our outreach to innovators uh if you will and innovators that include uh cyber security experts is our space pitch day events right so we held our first event last november in san francisco uh where we awarded over a two-day period about 46 million dollars to 30 different companies um that had potentially game-changing ideas these were phase two small business innovative research efforts uh that we awarded with cash on the spot uh we're planning on holding our second space pitch day in the spring of 2021. uh we're planning on doing it right here in los angeles uh covent 19 environment permitting um and we think that these are you know fantastic uh uh venues for identifying and working with high-speed startups startups and small businesses who are interested in uh really truly partnering with the us air force it's a as i said before it's a really exciting time to be a part of this business uh and working with the innovation economy uh is something that the department of defense uh really needs to do in that um the innovation that we used to think was ours you know that 80 percent of the industrial-based innovation that came from the department of defense uh the the script has been flipped there and so now more than 70 percent uh particularly in space innovation uh comes from the commercial sector not from uh not from the defense business itself and so um that's a tsunami of uh investment and a tsunami of uh capability and i need to figure out how to get my surfboard out and ride it you know what i mean yeah i mean it's one of those things where the flip the script has been flipped but it's exciting because it's impacting everything are you talking about systems architecture you're talking about software you're talking about a business model you talk about devsecops from a technical perspective but now you have a business model innovation all the theaters of uh are exploding in innovation technical business personnel this brings up the workforce challenge you've got the cyber needs for the u.s space force there's probably a great roi model for new kinds of software development that could be priced into contracts that's a entrepreneurial innovation you got the the business model theater you've got the personnel how does the industry adopt and change you guys are clearly driving this how does the industry adjust to you yeah so um i think a great way to answer that question is to just talk about the kind of people that we're trying to prioritize in the u.s space force from a from an acquisition perspective and in this particular case from a from a cyber security perspective as i mentioned earlier it's the most exciting time to be in space programs uh really since the days of apollo um uh you know just to put it in terms that you know maybe have an impact with the audience uh from 1957 until today approximately 9 000 satellites uh have been launched from the various space faring countries around the planet uh less than two thousand of those nine thousand are still up on orbit and operational and yet in the new space regime um players like spacex have plans to launch you know 12 000 satellites for some of their constellations alone it really is a remarkable time in terms of innovation and fielding of space capabilities and all of those space capabilities whether they're commercial civil or defense are going to require appropriate cyber security uh protections it's just a really exciting time uh to be working in stuff like this and so uh folks like the folks in this audience who have a passion about space and a passion about cyber security are just the kind of people that we want to work with because we need to make sure our systems are are secure and resilient we need folks that have technical and computing expertise engineering skills to be able to design cybersecure systems that can detect and mitigate attacks uh but we also as you alluded to we need people that have that business and um you know business acumen human networking background so that we can launch the startups and work with the non-traditional businesses uh help to bring them on board help to secure both their data and our data and uh and and make sure our processes and systems are are free as much as possible from uh uh from attack um for preparation for for audience members who are young and maybe thinking about getting into this uh trade space um you gotta be smart on digital networking uh you gotta understand basic internet protocols concepts uh programming languages uh database design uh learn what you can from penetration or vulnerability testing and and uh risk assessment i will tell you this and i don't think he will i know he will not mind me telling you this but you've got to be a lifelong learner and so two years ago i'm at home one evening and i get a phone call on my cell phone and it's my boss the commander of air force space command uh general j raymond who is now currently the chief of space operations and he is on temporary duty flying overseas he lands where he's going and he first thing he does when he lands is he calls me and he goes jt um while i was traveling um i noticed that there were e-books available on the commercial airliner i was traveling on and there was an e-book on something called scrumming and agile devsecops and i read it have you read it um and i said no sir but if you tell me what the title of the book is i will read it and so i got to go to my staff meeting um you know the very next week the next time we had a staff meeting and tell everybody in the stab meeting hey if the four star and the three star can read the book about scrumming then i'm pretty sure all of you around this table and all our lieutenants and our captains our gs13s all of our government employees can get smart on uh the scrumming development process and interestingly as another side i had a telephone call with him last year during the holidays where he was trying to take some leave and i said sir what are you up to today are you are you you know making eggnog for the event tonight or whatever and the chief of space operations told me no i'm trying to teach myself python i'm at lesson two and it's not going so well but i'm i'm gonna figure this out and so that kind of thing if the chief of staff or the you know the the the chief of space operations can prioritize scrumming and python language and innovation in his daily schedule then we're definitely looking for other people who can do that and we'll just say lower levels of rank uh throughout our entire space force enterprise um look i i we don't need to need people that can code a satellite from scratch but we need to know we need to have people that have a basic grasp of the programming basics and cyber security requirements and that can turn those things into into meaningful actions obviously in the space domain things like basic physics and orbital mechanics are also important uh space is not an intuitive uh domain so under understanding how things survive uh on orbit is really critical to making the right design and operational decisions and you know i know there's probably a lot because of this conference i know there's a probably a whole lot of high-speed cyber security experts out in the audience and i need those people in the u.s space force the the country is counting on it but i wouldn't discount having people that are just cyber aware or cyber savvy right i have contracting officers and logisticians and program managers and they don't have to be high-end cyber security experts but they have to be aware enough about it to be able to implement cyber security protections um into our space system so the skill set is is really really broad um our adversaries are pouring billions of dollars into uh define designing uh and fielding offensive and destructive space cyber security weapons right they've repeatedly shown really a blatant disregard of safety and international norms for good behavior on orbit and the cyber security aspects of our space systems is really a key battleground going forward so that we can maintain that as i mentioned before peaceful uh global commons of space we really need all hands on deck if you're interested in helping in uniform if you're interested in helping uh not in uniform uh but as a government employee a commercial or civil employee to help us make cyber security more important uh or more cape more able to be developed for our space systems then we'd really love to uh to work with you or have you on the team to build that safe and secure future for our space systems lieutenant general john thompson great insight thank you for sharing all that awesome stories too and motivation for the young next generation the united states space force approach of cyber security really amazing talk thank you for your time final parting question is as you look out and you had your magic wand what's your view for the next few years in terms of things that we could accomplish it's a super exciting time what do you hope for so um um first of all john thanks to you and and thanks to cal poly uh for the invitation and and thanks to everybody for uh for their interest in cyber security especially as it relates to space systems that's here at the conference um uh there's a quote and i'll read it here uh from uh bernard schriever who was the uh the founder if you will uh a legend in uh dod space the founder of the western development division which was a predecessor organization to space and missile systems center general shrever i think captures the essence of what how we see the next couple of years the world has an ample supply of people who can always come up with a dozen good reasons why new ideas will not work and should not be tried but the people who produce progress are breed apart they have the imagination the courage and the persistence to find solutions and so i think if you're hoping that the next few years of space innovation and cyber security innovation are going to be a pony ride at the county fair then perhaps you should look for another line of work because i think the next few years in space and cyber security innovation are going to be more like a rodeo um and a very dynamic rodeo as it goes it is a an awesome privilege to be part of this ecosystem it's really an honor for me to um to be able to play some small role uh in the space ecosystem and trying to improve it uh while i'm trying to improve the chances of uh of the united states of america in a uh in a space war fighting uh uh environment um and so i thank all of you for uh participating today and for this little bit of time that you've allowed me to share with you thank you sir thank you for your leadership and thank you for the for the time for this awesome event space and cyber security symposium 2020 i'm john furrier on behalf of cal poly thanks for watching [Music]

>>From around the globe. It's the queue cover >>Space and cyber security >>Symposium 2020 hosted by Cal poly. >>Hello and welcome to the space and cybersecurity symposium 2020 hosted by Cal poly and the cube I'm chilling for a, your host. We have a great session here. Space, cyber security, the department of defense perspective. We have bond Google hall, director of C four ISR directorate office of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment for the DOD and Chris Henson, technical director space and weapons, cybersecurity solutions for the national security agency. Gentlemen, thank you for taking the time for this awesome session. Thank you, John. Thank you. So we're gonna talk about the perspective of the DOD relative to space cybersecurity, a lot, going on congestion, contention, freedom, evolution innovation. So Paul, I'd like to have you start with your opening statement on how you see the space cybersecurity perspective, Don, thanks for the intro. Really appreciate it. First, let me give my thanks to Cal poly for a convening, the space and cybersecurity symposium this year, you know, and despite the pandemic, the organization and the content delivery spreading impressive, I really foot stomping. >>What can possibly be done with a number of these virtual platforms? This has been awesome. Thanks for the opportunity. I also want to recognize my colleague, Chris Nissen from NSA was actually assigned to our staff that LSD, but he brings both policy and technical perspective in this whole area. So I think you'll, you'll find his commentary, uh, and positions on things very refreshing or for today's seminar. Now space cyber security is a pretty interesting terminology for us all. Uh, cyber security means protecting against cyber threats and it's really more than just computers here on earth, right? Uh, space is the newest war fighting domain, and cybersecurity's perhaps even more of a challenge in this domain that and others. Uh, I'm sure it'll turn journal Thompson and major journals Shaw discuss the criticality of this new dorm space force. It's the newest military service in the earlier sessions and they're at the risk of repeating what they already addressed. >>Let me start by talking about what space means to DOD and what we're doing directly from my vantage point as part of the acquisition and sustainment arm of the Pentagon. Uh, what I want to share with you today is how the current space strategy ties into the national defense strategy and supports the department's operational objectives. As the director of CFRI SAR. I have come to understand how the integration of CFRI Sarcic. Billy is a powerful asset to enhance the lethality of the joint war fighter. Secretary Lord, our boss, the sec, the undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment is diligent in her pursuit to adapt and modernize acquisition processes, to influence the strategy and to focus our efforts domain are to make our objectives a reality. I think first and foremost, we are building a more lethal force. This joint force will project low Valley and custom contested environments and across all domains through an operationally integrated and resiliency for ISR infrastructure. >>We are also called debating our alliances, deepening interoperability, which is very important in a future fight and collab, collaboratively planning with those partner with us in the fight most significantly for our work in acquisition and sustainment, we continue to optimize the department for greater performance and affordability through reform of the acquisition process. Now space is our newest war fighting domain. And while it is indeed unique, it shares many common traits with the others land, air and sea all are important to the defense of the U S in conflict. No doubt about this. They will be contested and they must be defended. One domain will not win future conflicts in a joint operation in a future fight in the future conflict. They must all succeed. I see three areas being key to a DOD strategic success in space, one, developing our whole of government approach in close partnership with the private sector and our allies to prioritizing our investments in resiliency, innovation, and adaptive operations, and third responding rapidly and effectively to leverage emerging technologies and seize opportunities to advance your strengths, partnerships and alliances. >>Let me emphasize that space is increasingly congested and tested and demanded as essential delete Valley operational effectiveness and the security of our nation. Now the commercialization of space offers a broad set of investments in satellite technology, potential opportunities to leverage those investments and pathways to develop cost efficient space architecture, where the department and the nation. It's funny, there's a new race, a race for space. If you will, between commercial companies buying for dominance of space. Now the joint staff within DOD is currently building an operational construct to employ and engage as a unified force, coordinated across all domains. We call it the joint, all domain command and control. It is the framework that is under development to allow us to conduct integrated operations in the future. The objective of Jesse too is to provide the war fighter access to the decision making information while providing mission assurance of the information and resilience of the underlying terrestrial air in space networks that support them operationally. >>six to maintain seamless integration, adaptation, and employment of our capability. To sense signal connect, transmit, process control, direct, and deliver lethal capabilities against the enemy. We gain a strategic advantage through the integration of these capabilities across all the domains, by providing balance bowel space, awareness, horse protection, and weapons controlled and deployment capabilities. Now successfully any ratings, the systems and capabilities will provide our war fighters overwhelming superiority on the battlefield environment, challenged by near peer adversaries, as well as non state actors in space. The character of its employment is changing, driven by increasing demands, not just by DOD, but by the commercial sector as well. You know, more and more, uh, we see greater use of small satellite systems to address a myriad of emerging questions, ubiquitous communications, awareness, sensor diversity, and many more. Uh, as I said before, the commercial world is pioneering high rate production of small satellites in our efforts to deploy hundreds, if not thousands of nodes space X, Darlene constellation is one example. >>Another one is Amazon's Kiper, uh, Kuyper just received FCC approval to deploy like over 3000 of these different notes. While a number of these companies continue to grow. Some have struggled. They some pointed as one web, uh, nevertheless, the appetite remains strong and DOD is taking advantage of these advances to support our missions. We are currently exploring how to better integrate the DOD activities involving small satellites under the small satellite coordinating activity, scholarly call it. We want to ensure collaboration and interoperability to maximize efficiency in acquisition and operation. When we started this activity on over a year and a half ago, we documented over 70 plus separate small, small sat programs within DOD. And now we've developed a very vibrant community of interest surrounding a small satellites. Now, part of the work we have identified nine focus areas for further development. These are common areas to all systems and by continuing to expand on these, our plan is they enable a standard of practice that can be applied across all of the domains. >>This includes lawn services, ground processing distribution, and of course, a topic of interest to the symposium space security and Chris we'll, we'll talk more about that being the Houston expert, uh, in this area. Uh, one challenge that we can definitely start working on today is workforce development. Cybersecurity's unique as it straddles STEM and security and policy, the trade craft is different. And unfortunately I've seen estimates recently, so suggesting a workforce gap in the next several years, much like the STEM fields, uh, during the next session, I am a part of a panel with precedent, Armstrong, Cal poly, and Steve Jake's the founder of the national security space association to address workforce development. But for this panel, I'll look forward to having further dialogue surrounding space, opera security with Chris and John. Thank you, John >>Bob, thank you for that whole thing, Steven. Yes. Workforce gaps. We need the new skill space is here. Thank you very much. Chris Henson, technical director of space and weapons, cybersecurity solutions for the national security agency. Your statement, >>Thank you for having me. Uh, I'm one of several technical leaders in space at the national security agency. And I'm currently on a joint duty assignment at the office of under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. I work under mr. GUMA hot in the C four ISR area, but almost 63 years ago on the 4th of October, 1957, Sputnik was the first artificial satellite launched by the Soviet union in space. History was made in each of you can continue to write future space history in your careers. And just like in 1957, the U S isn't alone in space to include our close partnerships and longterm activities with organizations like the Japanese space agency, the European space agency, and, uh, the Canadian space agency, just to name a few. And when we tackle cybersecurity per space, we have to address, address the idea that the communications command and control, uh, and those mission datas will transverse networks owned and operated by a variety of partners, not only.go.mil.com.edu, et cetera. We need to have all the partners address the cyber effects of those systems because the risk excepted by one is shared by all and sharing cyber best practices, lessons learned, uh, data vulnerabilities, threat data, mitigation, mitigation procedures, all our valuable takeaways, uh, in expanding this space community, improving overall conditions for healthy environment. So thank you for having me, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you and your audience. And I look forward to the discussion questions. Thank you. >>Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Bob. Okay. I mean open innovation, the internet, you see plenty of examples. The theme here is partners, commercial government. It's going to take a lot of people and tech companies and technologies to make space work. So we asked my first question, Bonnie, we'll start with you is what do you see as the DOD his role in addressing cybersecurity in space? Uh, it's real, uh, it's a new frontier. Um, it's not going away. It's only going to get more innovative, more open, more contested. It seems like a lot to do there. So what's your role in addressing cyber security in space? >>I think our role is to be the leader in developing and only is it the strategy, but the, uh, the implementation plan is to ensure a full of cybersecurity. If you look at the national cyber cyber strategy, I think publishing 2018 calls for like-minded countries, industry academia, and civil society. Once you mentioned John, the support technology development, uh, digital safety policy advocacy, and research you here today, and those listening are fulfilling their strategy. When you, when you develop, enable use cyber hygiene products, as examples of capabilities, you're pushing the goal to fruition. When you know, what's on your network patron network backup, you're in encrypt your network, you're hardening and preventing cyber attacks. And we in government academia in the case of Cal poly civil networks and in commercial companies, we all benefit from doing that cyber security. Uh, and I think Chris will, we'll, we'll definitely back me up on this more than passwords encryption or pharma. It's truly a mindset and a culture of enabling missions to succeed in assured in a resilient fashion. >>Chris, you're taking reaction to, to the cybersecurity challenge involved here, >>That's it, it's starting really at the highest level of governments. We have, uh, you know, the, the recent security policy directive five that just came out just a couple of days ago, recognize all the factors of cybersecurity that need to come into play. And probably the most important outcome of that as mr said, is the leadership role and that leadership, uh, blends out very well into partnership. So partnership with industry partnership with academia partnership, with, uh, other people that are exploring space. And those partnerships lend itself very naturally to sharing cybersecurity issues, topics as we come up with best practices as we come up with mitigation strategies. And as we come up with vulnerabilities and share that information, the, uh, we're not going to go alone in space, just like we're probably not going to go alone in many other industries or areas, uh, that the DOD has to be, uh, involved in many spectrums of deploying to space. >>And that deployment involves as Mr. Guzman said, encryption authentication, knowing what's on the network, knowing the, the fabric of that network. And if nothing else, this, uh, this, uh, internet of things and work from home environment that we've, uh, partaken of these last few months has even explored and expanded that notion even more dramatically as we have people dial in from all over the different, uh, locations, well space will be that natural node that, uh, natural, uh, next network and mesh involvement that we'll have to protect and explore on not just from a terrestrial involvement, but all segments of it. Th the comm segment, the space vehicle and the ground portion, >>No bond. We talked about this in our other segment, um, around with the president of Cal poly, but the operating models of the space force and the DOD and getting space. It's a software defined world, right? So cybersecurity is a real big issue. Cause you have an operating model that's requiring software to power, these low hanging satellites. That's just an extension to the network. It's distributed computing, know what this is. If you understand what technology we do in space, it's no different, it's just a different environment. So it's software defined that just lends itself well to hacking. I mean, if I'm a hacker I'm going, Hey, why not just take out a satellite and crash it down or make the GPS do something different? I mean, it's definitely an attack vector. This is a big deal. It's not just like getting credentials that are cashed on a server. You gotta really protect, >>Right? Because in one hand it space will carry not only, uh, uh, you know, for local national security information. Uh, but the, uh, I feel like at the economic wellbeing, the financial state of allowed a lot of countries and institutions, you know, more and more John lb, they'll be using space assets to, uh, uh, to make, uh, make, make all that happen. Right. So, and if you look at the, you talk, you mentioned the attack vectors in space, you know, it's not just the computers in the ground, but if you look at the whole life cycle for satellite systems in space, you know, that the, the, the tasking that you need to do that the command, the controlling of the vehicle, the data that comes down in the ground, even when you launch the, the birds, the satellites, you know, they only need to be protected because they're all somewhat vulnerable to, uh, to hacking, uh, to cyber attacks. Especially as we grow into commercialization space, it's going to be a lot more people out there playing in this world. It's going to be a lot more companies out there. And, you know, it's hard to track, uh, uh, you know, the, the potential of, of, of foreign influences as an example, and therefore the potential of being vulnerable in terms of the cyber threat. >>Gentlemen, I like you guys said to move on to this leadership role, you mentioned that you want to be a leader. I get it. The DOD is department of defense. That's a new frontier to defend war time zone. You mentioned war time opportunity potentially, but how do you guys assist that's term hat to getting done? Because there's public and private space operations happening, um, there's security challenge. What does being a leader mean? And how does the DOD department of defense assist driving the public and private? Do you lead from a project standpoint, you lead from a funding standpoint? Is it architectural? I mean, you're talking about now a new end to end architecture. It's not just cloud it's on premise. It's in devices, it's offloaded with new AI technology and Nicks and devices. It's IOT, it's all, this is all new, this is all new. What does it mean for the DOD to be a leader and how do you assist others to get involved? And what does that mean? >>Yeah, I think, uh, the one hand, you know, DOD used to lead, uh, in terms of, uh, uh, being the only source of funding for a lot of, uh, highly developmental efforts. Uh, we're seeing a different story in space. Again, I keep going back to the commercialization of space. We're seeing a lot more players, right? So in many ways >>Ally's commercial companies are actually legally leading the R and D uh, of a lot of different technologies. So we want to take, we certainly want to take advantage of that. So from a leadership standpoint, I think we, we, Lucia can come in, you know, by partnering a lot more with, with the commercial companies, uh, in 2022, the DOD released the defense, uh, uh, space strategy as an example that highlights the threats, the challenges and opportunities the United States has faced by, by sending a example of how we, how we, uh, how we counter, uh, the threats that are out there, not just the DOD, but, but the disability and the commercial sector as well. Our current conditions are strong, but we want to use four lines of effort to meet our challenges and capitalize on our desire state space, uh, lines of effort include building a comprehensive military badges space, integrating space into a national joint and combined operations. Like I mentioned before, shaping that strategic environment and cooperating with allies, partners, and industry and other U S governmental agencies, departments, and agencies to advance the cost of space to take full advantage of what space can provide us, uh, in DOD, uh, and the nation. Chris has a domain. Now, what's your take on all that? >>That's because again, it's going to take more people, >>More diverse, potentially more security >>Halls. What's your view on it? >>Well, let's, let's look at how innovation and new technologies can help us in these areas. So, uh, and, and mentioned it a couple of topics that you hit on already. One of the areas that we can improve on is certainly in the, uh, the architecture, uh, where we look at a zero trust architecture, one of the NIST standards that's come about where it talks about the authentication, uh, the need to know a granular approach, this idea of being able to protect, not just data, but the resources and how people can get access to those, whether they're coming in through an identification, authentication Prudential, or, uh, other aspects of, uh, the, the idea of not just anybody should be able to have access to data or anybody should have access once they're on the inside of the network. So that zero trust architecture is, is one approach where we can show some leadership and guidance. >>Another area is in, uh, a topic that you touched on as well was in the software area. So some innovations are coming on very rapidly and strong in this artificial intelligence and machine learning. So if we can take this AI and ML and apply it to our software development areas, they can parse so much information very quickly. And, uh, you know, this vast array of code that's going into system nowadays, and then that frees up our human, uh, explicit talent and developers that can then look at other areas and not focus on minor bawling to Beverly fix a vulnerability. Uh, they, they can really use their unique skills and talents to come up with a better process, a better way, and let the artificial intelligence and machine learning, find those common problems, those, those unknown, hidden lines of code that, uh, get put into a software alarm Prairie, and then pull down over and over again from system to system. So I think between, uh, an architecture leadership role and employee innovation are two areas that we can show, uh, some benefits and process improvement to this whole system. >>That's a great point, Chris, and you think about just the architectural computer architecture, you know, S you know, network attached storage is an advantage software defined there. You could have flash all flash arrays for storage. You could have multiple cores on a device and this new architecture, offloads things, and it's a whole new way to gain efficiencies. I mean, you got Intel, you got Nvidia, you've got armed all the processors all built in. Um, so there's definitely been commercial best practices and benefits to a new kind of architecture that takes advantage of these new things. It's just, just efficiencies. Um, but this brings up the whole supply chain conversation. I want to get your thoughts on this, because there is talk about predatory investments and access and tactics to gain supply chain access to space systems, your thoughts. >>Yeah. It's a serious threat and not just for, uh, the U S uh, space. So supply chain, if you will, is the supply chain. And I says, you know, writ large, I think, uh, I think it's a, it's a, it's a threat that's, that's real, we're we're seeing today. I just saw an example recently, uh, involving, uh, our, I think our launch services were, there was a, uh, a foreign, uh, threat that was those trying to get into a true through with predatory investments. Uh, so, uh, it is something that we need to, uh, be aware of it it's happening, uh, and is continuing to happen. Uh, it's an easy way to gain access, to, uh, do our IP. Uh, and, uh, so it's something that we, uh, are serious about in terms of, uh, awareness and, and countering >>Chris, your thoughts. I mean, we've see, I mean, I'm an open source guy. I was seen it when I grew up in the industry in the eighties, open source became a revolution, but with that, it enabled new tactics for, um, state sponsored attacks on it that became a domain in of itself. Um, that's well-documented and people talk about that all the time in cyber. Now you have open innovation with hardware, software connected systems. This is going to bring supply chain nightmare. How do you track it all? Who's got what software and what device, where the chip come from, who made it, this is the potential is everywhere. How do you see the, these tactics, whether it's a VC firm from another country or this, that, and the other thing startup. >>Yeah. So when we see, when we see coal companies being purchased by foreign investors, and, you know, we can get blocked out of those, whether it's in the food industry, or if it's in a microchip, then that microchip could be used in a cell phone or a satellite or an automobile. So all of our industries that have these companies that are being purchased, or a large born investment influx into those, you know, that could be suspect. And we, we have to be very careful with those, uh, and, and do the tracking of those, especially when those, uh, some of those parts of mechanisms are coming from off shore. And then going again, going back to, uh, the space policy directive five, it calls out for better supply chain, resource management, the tracking, the knowing the pedigree and the, the quantitative of ability of knowing where those software libraries came from, where the parts came from and the tracking and delivery of that from an end to end system. >>And typically when we have a really large vendor, they can, they can do that really well. But when we have a subcontractor to a subcontractor, to a subcontractor, their resources may not be such that they can do that. Try tracking in mitigation for counterfeits or fraudulent materials going into our systems. So it's a very difficult challenge, and we want to ensure as best we can that as we ingest those parts, as we ingest those software libraries and technologies into the system, that, uh, before we employ them, we have to do some robust testing. And I don't want to say that the last line of defense, but that certainly is a mechanism for finding out, do the systems perform as they stated, uh, on a test bench or a flat set, whatever the case may be before we actually deploy it. And then we're relying on the output or the data that comes from that, that system that may have some corrupt or suspect parts in it. >>Great point, this federal grant, >>The problem with space systems is kind of, you know, is once you, once you launch the bird or the sunlight, uh, your access to it is, is diminished significantly, right? Unless you, you go up there and take it down. Uh, so, you know, kind of to Chris's point, we need to be able to test all the different parts of insurer that is performing as, as described there ass, I spent as specified, uh, with, with good knowledge that it's, uh, it's, uh, it's trustworthy. Uh, and, uh, so we that all on the ground before we, we take it up to launch it. >>It's funny. You want agility, you want speed and you want security, and you want reliability and risk management all aggressive, and it's a technical problem. It says it's a business model problem. I'd love to get real quick. Before we jump into some of the more workforce and gap issues on the personnel side, have you guys should just take a minute to explain quickly what's the federal view. If you had to kind of summarize the federal view of the DOD and the roll with it wants to take, so all the people out there on the commercial side or students out there who are, you know, wanting to jump in, what is the current modern federal view of space cybersecurity. >>Chris, why don't you take that on I'll follow up. Okay. Uh, I don't know that I can give you the federal view, but I can certainly give you the department of defense. That cybersecurity is extremely important. And as our vendors and our suppliers, uh, take on a very, very large and important role, one area that we're looking at improving on is a cyber certification maturity model, where we, where we look at the vendors and how they implement an employee cyber hygiene. So that guidance in and of itself shows the emphasis of cyber security that when we want to write a contract or a vendor, uh, for, for a purchase, that's going to go into a space system. We'd like to know from a third party audit capability, can that vendor, uh, protect and defend to some extent the amount that that part or piece or software system is going to have a cyber protection already built into it from that vendor, from the ground floor up before it even gets put into a larger system. >>So that shows a level of the CMMC process that we've thought about and, uh, started to employ, uh, beginning in 2021 and will be further built on in, in the out years. How, how important the DOD takes that. And other parts of the government are looking at this, in fact, other nations are looking at the CMMC model. So I think it shows a concern in very many areas, uh, not just in the department of defense that they're going to adopt an approach like this. Uh, so it shows the, the pluses and the benefits of a cybersecurity model that, uh, all can build on boggy reaction. Yeah, I'll just, uh, I'll just add to that, John, you, you, you, you asked earlier about, you know, how do we, uh, track, uh, commercial entities or, or people in the space and cyber security domains? Uh, I can tell you that, uh, at least my view of it, you know, space and cyber security are new, it's exciting, it's challenging a lot technical challenges there. So I think in >>Terms of attracting the right people, personnel to work those areas, uh, I think it's, it's not only intellectually challenging, uh, but it's important for, for the dependency that NASA States, uh, and it's important for, for, for economic security, uh, writ large for, for us as well. So I think, uh, in terms of a workforce and trying to get people interested in, in those domains, uh, I hope that they see the same thing we do in terms of, of the challenges and the opportunities it presents itself in the future. >>Awesome. I love your talk on intro track there falling. You mentioned, uh, the three key areas of DOD sec success, developing a government whole government approach to partnership with the private sector. I think that's critical and the allies prioritizing the right investments on resilience, innovation, adaptive operations, and responding to rapidly to effectively emerging technology. So you can be fast, all think are all things. I all, all those things are relevant. So given that, I want to get your thoughts on the defense space strategy in 2020, the DOD released dispense defense space, strategy, highlighting threats, and challenges and opportunities. How would you summarize those threats and those challenges and opportunities? What are the, what are those things that you're watching in the defense space area? Right. >>Well, I think, I think I saw, as I said before, of course, as well, you know, uh, or, or seeing that a space will be highly contested, uh, because it's a critical element in our, in our war fighting construct, uh, Dwayne, a future conflict, I think we need to, to win space as well. So when you, when you look at our near peer adversaries, there's a lot of efforts, uh, in trying to, to, to take that advantage away from the United States. So, so the threat is real, uh, and I think it's going to continue to evolve and grow. Uh, and the more we use space, both commercial and government, I think you're going to see a lot more when these threads some AFAs itself, uh, in, in forms of cyber, cyber attacks, or even kinetic attacks in some cases as needed. Uh, so yeah, so with the, the, the threat is need growing, uh, space is congested, as we talked about, it will continually be contested in the future as well. So we need to have, uh, like we do now in, in, in all the other domains, a way to defend it. And that's what we're working on with India, with the, how do we pilot with tech, our assets in space, and how do we make sure that the data information that traverses through space assets are trust 40, um, and, uh, and, and, and free of any, uh, uh, interference >>Chris, exciting time. I'm your, if you're in technology, um, this is crossing many lines here, tech society will war time, defense, new areas, new tech. I mean, it's security, it's intoxicating at many levels, because if you think about it, it's not one thing. It's not one thing anymore. It spans a broader spectrum, these opportunities. >>Yeah. And I, and I think that expansion is, is a natural outgrowth from, as our microprocessors and chips and technology continue to shrink smaller and smaller. You know, we, we think of our, our cell phones and our handheld devices and tablets, and so on that have just continued to, uh, get embedded in our everyday society, our everyday way of life. And that's a natural extension when we start applying those to space systems. When we think of smallsats and cube sets and the technology that's, uh, can be repurposed into, uh, a small vehicle and the cost has come down so dramatically that, you know, we, we can afford to get a rapid experiments, rapid, um, exploitations and, and different approaches in space and learn from those and repeat them very quickly and very rapidly. And that applies itself very well to an agile development process, dev sec ops, and this notion of spins and cycles and refreshing and re uh, addressing priorities very quickly so that when we do put a new technology up, that the technology is very lean and cutting edge, and hasn't been years and years in the making, but it's, uh, relevant and new, and the, uh, the cybersecurity and the vulnerabilities of that have to be addressed because of, and allow that DevSecOps process to take place so that we can look at those vulnerabilities and get that new technology and those new, new experiments and demonstrations in space and get lessons learned from them over and over again. >>Well, that brings us to the next big topic I want to spend the remainder of our time on that is workforce this next generation. If I wasn't so old, I would quit my job and I would join medially. It's so much, it's a fun, it's exciting. And it's important. And this is what I think is a key point is that cybersecurity in and of itself has got a big gap of shortage of workers, nevermind, adding space to it. So this is, uh, the intersection of space and cybersecurity. There is a workforce opportunity for this next generation, a young person to person re-skilling, this is a big deal. Bong, you have thoughts on this. It's not just STEM, it's everything. >>Yeah. It's everything, you know, uh, the opportunities would have in space it's significant and tremendous. And I think, uh, if I were young, again, as you pointed out, John, uh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm lucky that I'm in this domain in this world and I started years ago. Uh, but it continues to be exciting, uh, lots of, lots of opportunities, you know, and when you, when you look at, uh, some of the commercial space, uh, systems that are being, being put up, uh, if you look at, I mentioned Starlink before, and, and, uh, Amazon's Kuyper constellation. These guys are talking about couple of thousand satellites in space to provide ubiquitous communications for internet globally and that sort of thing. Uh, and they're not the only ones that are out there producing capability. Uh, we're seeing a lot more commercial imagery products being developed by bike, by companies, both within the U S and, and, uh, foreign foreign elements as well. So I think it's an exciting time to be in space. Certainly lots of opportunities, there's technical challenges, uh, galore in terms of, you know, not only the overcoming the physics of space, but being able to operate, uh, flexibly, uh, in, uh, get the most you can out of the capabilities we have, uh, uh, operating up as high as being cool. I mean, everyone looks at launch. >>She gets millions of views on live streams, the on demand, reruns get millions and millions of views. Um, it's, there's a lot of things there. Um, so Chris, what specifically could you share are things that people would work on? Um, jobs skills, what are some, what's the aperture, what's it look like if you zoom out and look at all the opportunities from a scale standpoint, what's out there, >>We'll talk to the aperture, but I want to give a shout out to our space force. And I mean, their, their job is to train and equip, uh, future space and, uh, that, that space talent. And I think that's going to be a huge plus up, uh, to have, uh, uh, a space force that's dedicated to training equipping, uh, the, an acquisition and a deployment model that, uh, will benefit not just the other services, but all of our national defense and our, uh, you know, our, our strategic way of, uh, how, how this company, country, employees space, uh, altogether. So having, having a space for us, I think, as a, is a huge, uh, a huge issue. And then to get to that aperture aspect of, of what you're, what you're asking and, you know, that addresses a larger workforce. Uh, we need so many different talents in, in this area. >>Uh, we can, we can have, we can employ a variety of people, uh, from technical writers to people who write, uh, write in developed software to those who, uh, are bending metal and actually, uh, working in a hardware environment. And, uh, those that do planning and launch operations and all of those spectrums and issues of jobs, or are directly related to a workforce that can contribute to, to space. And then once that data gets to the ground and employed out to a user, whether it's a data or we're looking at, uh, from a sensor recent, uh, recent events on, uh, shipping lanes, those types of things. So space has such a wide and diverse swath that the aperture's really wide open, uh, for a variety of backgrounds. And, and those that, uh, really just want to take an opportunity, take a, take a technical degree or a degree that, uh, can apply itself to a tough problem, uh, because they certainly exist in space. And we can, we can use that mindset of problem solving, whether you come at it from a hacker mindset, an ethical, a white hat approach to testing and vulnerability exploration, or somebody who knows how to actually, um, make, uh, operations, uh, safer, better, uh, through space situation awareness. So there's a, there's a huge swath of opportunity for us >>Bon talk about the, um, the cyber security enabled environment, the use cases that are possible when you have cybersecurity in play with space systems, um, which is in and of itself, a huge range of jobs, codings supply chain. We just talked about a bunch of them. There's still more connected use cases that go beyond that, that, that are enabled by it. If you think about it, and this is what the students at Cal poly and every other college and university community college, you name it, or watching videos on YouTube, anyone with a brain can jump in. If they, if they see the future, it's an all net new space force is driving awareness, but there's a whole slew of these new use cases that I call space enabled by cybersecurity systems. Your thoughts. >>Absolutely. I, you know, I was, uh, had planned on attending the, uh, uh, the cyber challenge that's Cal poly had planned in June, of course, a pandemic, uh, uh, took care of that plan. But, but I was intrigued by, by the approach that the Cal poly was taking with, with, uh, middle school and high school kids of, of, of, of exposing him to a problem set here. You have a, a satellite that came down from space, uh, and, uh, part of the challenge was to do Porensic analysis on the debris, uh, the remaining pieces of the sound like to figure out what happened. Uh, it had a, uh, a cybersecurity connotation. It was hacked. It was attacked by, by cyber threat nation, took it down. And the beauty of having these kids kind of play with, with the remaining parts of the satellite figure out what happened. >>So I was pretty exciting. I was really looking forward to participating in that, but again, the pandemic kind of blew that up, but I, I look forward to future events like that to, to get our young people intrigued and interested in, uh, in this new field of space. Now, you know, Chris was talking earlier about opportunities, the opportunity that you talk about, you know, while I would like to have people come to the government, right. To help us out. It's not, it's not just focused on government, right? There's not lots of opportunities in commercial space. I, if you will, uh, for, for a lot of talent to, uh, uh, to have, uh, to participate in. So the challenge is a man's government and the commercial sector, John, >>I mean, you get the hardcore, you know, I want to work for the DOD. I want to work for NSA. I want to work for the government. You clearly got people who want to have that kind of mission, but for the folks out there, Chris and bong that are like, I'll do I qualify it? It's like the black box of the DOD. It's like a secret thing. You got any clearance, you've got to get all these certifications. And you've got to take all kinds of tests and background checks. And, um, is it like that? And will that continue? Cause some people might say, Hey, can I even get involved? What do I do? So I know there's some private partnerships going on with companies out there in the private sector. So this is now a new, you guys seem to be partnering and going outside the comfort zone of the old kind of tactical things. What are some of those opportunities that people could get involved that they might not know about >>PR for NSA, there's a variety of workforce, uh, initiatives that, uh, uh, for anybody from a high school work study can take advantage of to, uh, those that would like have to have internships. And those that are in a traditional academic environment, there's, uh, several NSA schools across the country that have a academic and cyber acts, uh, sites of excellence that participate in projects that are shepherded and mentored by those at NSA that can get those tough problems that don't have maybe a classified or super sensitive, uh, nature that that can be worked in and in an academia environment. So, so those are two or three examples of how somebody can break into, uh, the, uh, an intelligence organization and the, and the other agencies have those, uh, opportunities as well across the intelligence community and the, the partnership between and collaborative collaboration between private industry and the agencies and the department of defense just continue to grow over and over again. And even myself being able to take care advantage of a joint duty assignment between my home organization and the Pentagon just shows another venue of somebody that's in one organization can partner and leverage with another organization as well. So I'm an example of, of that partnering that's going on today. >>So there's some innovation, bong, non traditional pathways to find talent. What are out there? What are new, what are these new nontraditional ways >>I was going to add to what Chris was, was mentioning John? Yeah. Even within view and under the purview of our chief information officer, back in 2013, the deputy surfed dirty defense signed the, uh, what we call the DOD cyberspace workforce strategy, uh, into effect. And that included a program called the cyber information technology exchange program. It's an exchange program in which a, uh, you know, private sector employee and worked for the DOD in cyber security positions, uh, span across multiple mission critical areas. So this is one opportunity to learn, uh, you know, in inside the DOD what's happening as a private sector person, if you will, uh, going back to what we talked about, you know, kinda, uh, opportunities, uh, within the government for, for somebody who might be interested, uh, you know, you don't have to be super smart, Bork and space. Uh, there's a lot of like, like Chris pointed out, there's a lot of different areas that we need to have people down within people to do, uh, to conduct the mission space. So you don't have to be mathematician mathematician. You don't have to be an engineer to succeed in this business. I think there's plenty of opportunities for, for any types of, of talent, any type of academic disciplines that, that, that, that they're out there. >>And I think, you know, Chris is shout out to the space force is really worth calling out again, because I think to me, that's a big deal. It's a huge deal. It's going to change the face of our nation and society. So super, super important. And that's going to rise the tide. I think it's gonna create, uh, some activation, uh, for a younger generation, certainly, and kind of new opportunities, new problems to solve new threats to take on and, and move it on. So really super conversation space in cybersecurity, the department of defense perspective, Von and Chris, thank you for taking the time. I'd love you guys just to close out. We'll start with you bong. And then Chris summarize for the folks watching, whether it's a student at Cal poly or other university or someone in industry and government, what is the department of defense perspective for space cybersecurity? >>Chris, won't go and take that on. I started, thank you. Uh, cyber security applies to much more than just the launch and download of mission data or human led exploration and the planning, testing, and experiments in the lab prior to launch require that cyber protection, just as much as any other space link, ground segment, trust rail network, or user data, and any of that loss of intellectual property or proprietary data is an extremely valuable and important, and really warrants, cybersecurity safeguards in any economic espionage or data exfiltration or denied access to that data I E ransomware or some other, uh, attack that can cripple any business or government endeavor. Uh, no matter how small or large, if it's left in our economic backbone, uh, clearly depends on space and GPS is more than just a direction finding our banking needs that a T and timing from P and T or whether it says systems that protect our shipping and airline industry of whether they can navigate and go through a particular storm or not, uh, even fighting forest fires picked up by a remote sensor. >>All those space-based assets, uh, require protection from spoofing date, uh, data denial or total asset loss. An example would be if a satellite sensitive optics were intentionally pointed at the sun and damaged, or if a command, uh, to avoid collision with another space vehicle was delayed or disrupted or a ground termination command. As we just saw just a few days ago at T minus three seconds prior to liftoff, if those all don't go as planned, uh, those losses are real and can be catastrophic. So the threat to space is pervasive real and genuine, and your active work across all those platforms is a necessary and appreciated. And your work in this area is critical, uh, going forward going forward. Uh, thank you for this opportunity to speak with you and, uh, talking on this important topic. >>Thank you, Chris Henson, goodbye. >>Closing remarks. Yeah. Likewise, John, uh, again, uh, as, as Chris said, thank you for, for the opportunity to discuss this very important, uh, around space, cyber security, as well as addressing, uh, at the end there, we were talking about workforce development and the need to have, uh, people, uh, in the mix for four features. We discussed with you. We need to start that recruiting early, uh, as we're doing to address, uh, the STEM gap today, we need to apply the same thing for cybersecurity. We, we absolutely need smart, innovative people to protect both Iraq. Anomic wellbeings a nation as well as our national defense. So this is the right conversation to have at this time, John and I, again, thank you and our Cal poly hose for, or, uh, having a symposium and, and having this opportunity to have this dialogue. Thank you, >>Gentlemen. Thank you for your time and great insights. We couldn't be there in person. We're here virtual for the space and cybersecurity symposium, 2020, the Cal poly I'm Jennifer with Silicon angle and the cube, your host. Thank you for watching.

>>from around the globe. It's the Cube covering >>space and cybersecurity. Symposium 2020 hosted by Cal Poly >>Over On Welcome to this Special virtual conference. The Space and Cybersecurity Symposium 2020 put on by Cal Poly with support from the Cube. I'm John for your host and master of ceremonies. Got a great topic today in this session. Really? The intersection of space and cybersecurity. This topic and this conversation is the cybersecurity workforce development through public and private partnerships. And we've got a great lineup. We have Jeff Armstrong's the president of California Polytechnic State University, also known as Cal Poly Jeffrey. Thanks for jumping on and Bang. Go ahead. The second director of C four s R Division. And he's joining us from the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for the acquisition Sustainment Department of Defense, D O D. And, of course, Steve Jake's executive director, founder, National Security Space Association and managing partner at Bello's. Gentlemen, thank you for joining me for this session. We got an hour conversation. Thanks for coming on. >>Thank you. >>So we got a virtual event here. We've got an hour, have a great conversation and love for you guys do? In opening statement on how you see the development through public and private partnerships around cybersecurity in space, Jeff will start with you. >>Well, thanks very much, John. It's great to be on with all of you. Uh, on behalf Cal Poly Welcome, everyone. Educating the workforce of tomorrow is our mission to Cal Poly. Whether that means traditional undergraduates, master students are increasingly mid career professionals looking toe up, skill or re skill. Our signature pedagogy is learn by doing, which means that our graduates arrive at employers ready Day one with practical skills and experience. We have long thought of ourselves is lucky to be on California's beautiful central Coast. But in recent years, as we have developed closer relationships with Vandenberg Air Force Base, hopefully the future permanent headquarters of the United States Space Command with Vandenberg and other regional partners, we have discovered that our location is even more advantages than we thought. We're just 50 miles away from Vandenberg, a little closer than u C. Santa Barbara, and the base represents the southern border of what we have come to think of as the central coast region. Cal Poly and Vandenberg Air force base have partner to support regional economic development to encourage the development of a commercial spaceport toe advocate for the space Command headquarters coming to Vandenberg and other ventures. These partnerships have been possible because because both parties stand to benefit Vandenberg by securing new streams of revenue, workforce and local supply chain and Cal Poly by helping to grow local jobs for graduates, internship opportunities for students, and research and entrepreneurship opportunities for faculty and staff. Crucially, what's good for Vandenberg Air Force Base and for Cal Poly is also good for the Central Coast and the US, creating new head of household jobs, infrastructure and opportunity. Our goal is that these new jobs bring more diversity and sustainability for the region. This regional economic development has taken on a life of its own, spawning a new nonprofit called Reach, which coordinates development efforts from Vandenberg Air Force Base in the South to camp to Camp Roberts in the North. Another factor that is facilitated our relationship with Vandenberg Air Force Base is that we have some of the same friends. For example, Northrop Grumman has has long been an important defense contractor, an important partner to Cal poly funding scholarships and facilities that have allowed us to stay current with technology in it to attract highly qualified students for whom Cal Poly's costs would otherwise be prohibitive. For almost 20 years north of grimness funded scholarships for Cal Poly students this year, their funding 64 scholarships, some directly in our College of Engineering and most through our Cal Poly Scholars program, Cal Poly Scholars, a support both incoming freshman is transfer students. These air especially important because it allows us to provide additional support and opportunities to a group of students who are mostly first generation, low income and underrepresented and who otherwise might not choose to attend Cal Poly. They also allow us to recruit from partner high schools with large populations of underrepresented minority students, including the Fortune High School in Elk Grove, which we developed a deep and lasting connection. We know that the best work is done by balanced teams that include multiple and diverse perspectives. These scholarships help us achieve that goal, and I'm sure you know Northrop Grumman was recently awarded a very large contract to modernized the U. S. I. C B M Armory with some of the work being done at Vandenberg Air Force Base, thus supporting the local economy and protecting protecting our efforts in space requires partnerships in the digital realm. How Polly is partnered with many private companies, such as AWS. Our partnerships with Amazon Web services has enabled us to train our students with next generation cloud engineering skills, in part through our jointly created digital transformation hub. Another partnership example is among Cal Poly's California Cybersecurity Institute, College of Engineering and the California National Guard. This partnership is focused on preparing a cyber ready workforce by providing faculty and students with a hands on research and learning environment, side by side with military, law enforcement professionals and cyber experts. We also have a long standing partnership with PG and E, most recently focused on workforce development and redevelopment. Many of our graduates do indeed go on to careers in aerospace and defense industry as a rough approximation. More than 4500 Cal Poly graduates list aerospace and defense as their employment sector on linked in, and it's not just our engineers and computer sciences. When I was speaking to our fellow Panelists not too long ago, >>are >>speaking to bang, we learned that Rachel sins, one of our liberal arts arts majors, is working in his office. So shout out to you, Rachel. And then finally, of course, some of our graduates sword extraordinary heights such as Commander Victor Glover, who will be heading to the International space station later this year as I close. All of which is to say that we're deeply committed the workforce, development and redevelopment that we understand the value of public private partnerships and that were eager to find new ways in which to benefit everyone from this further cooperation. So we're committed to the region, the state in the nation and our past efforts in space, cybersecurity and links to our partners at as I indicated, aerospace industry and governmental partners provides a unique position for us to move forward in the interface of space and cybersecurity. Thank you so much, John. >>President, I'm sure thank you very much for the comments and congratulations to Cal Poly for being on the forefront of innovation and really taking a unique progressive. You and wanna tip your hat to you guys over there. Thank you very much for those comments. Appreciate it. Bahng. Department of Defense. Exciting you gotta defend the nation spaces Global. Your opening statement. >>Yes, sir. Thanks, John. Appreciate that day. Thank you, everybody. I'm honored to be this panel along with President Armstrong, Cal Poly in my long longtime friend and colleague Steve Jakes of the National Security Space Association, to discuss a very important topic of cybersecurity workforce development, as President Armstrong alluded to, I'll tell you both of these organizations, Cal Poly and the N S. A have done and continue to do an exceptional job at finding talent, recruiting them in training current and future leaders and technical professionals that we vitally need for our nation's growing space programs. A swell Asare collective National security Earlier today, during Session three high, along with my colleague Chris Hansen discussed space, cyber Security and how the space domain is changing the landscape of future conflicts. I discussed the rapid emergence of commercial space with the proliferations of hundreds, if not thousands, of satellites providing a variety of services, including communications allowing for global Internet connectivity. S one example within the O. D. We continue to look at how we can leverage this opportunity. I'll tell you one of the enabling technologies eyes the use of small satellites, which are inherently cheaper and perhaps more flexible than the traditional bigger systems that we have historically used unemployed for the U. D. Certainly not lost on Me is the fact that Cal Poly Pioneer Cube SATs 2020 some years ago, and they set the standard for the use of these systems today. So they saw the valiant benefit gained way ahead of everybody else, it seems, and Cal Poly's focus on training and education is commendable. I especially impressed by the efforts of another of Steve's I colleague, current CEO Mr Bill Britain, with his high energy push to attract the next generation of innovators. Uh, earlier this year, I had planned on participating in this year's Cyber Innovation Challenge. In June works Cal Poly host California Mill and high school students and challenge them with situations to test their cyber knowledge. I tell you, I wish I had that kind of opportunity when I was a kid. Unfortunately, the pandemic change the plan. Why I truly look forward. Thio feature events such as these Thio participating. Now I want to recognize my good friend Steve Jakes, whom I've known for perhaps too long of a time here over two decades or so, who was in acknowledge space expert and personally, I truly applaud him for having the foresight of years back to form the National Security Space Association to help the entire space enterprise navigate through not only technology but Polly policy issues and challenges and paved the way for operational izing space. Space is our newest horrifying domain. That's not a secret anymore. Uh, and while it is a unique area, it shares a lot of common traits with the other domains such as land, air and sea, obviously all of strategically important to the defense of the United States. In conflict they will need to be. They will all be contested and therefore they all need to be defended. One domain alone will not win future conflicts in a joint operation. We must succeed. All to defending space is critical as critical is defending our other operational domains. Funny space is no longer the sanctuary available only to the government. Increasingly, as I discussed in the previous session, commercial space is taking the lead a lot of different areas, including R and D, A so called new space, so cyber security threat is even more demanding and even more challenging. Three US considers and federal access to and freedom to operate in space vital to advancing security, economic prosperity, prosperity and scientific knowledge of the country. That's making cyberspace an inseparable component. America's financial, social government and political life. We stood up US Space force ah, year ago or so as the newest military service is like the other services. Its mission is to organize, train and equip space forces in order to protect us and allied interest in space and to provide space capabilities to the joint force. Imagine combining that US space force with the U. S. Cyber Command to unify the direction of space and cyberspace operation strengthened U D capabilities and integrate and bolster d o d cyber experience. Now, of course, to enable all of this requires had trained and professional cadre of cyber security experts, combining a good mix of policy as well as high technical skill set much like we're seeing in stem, we need to attract more people to this growing field. Now the D. O. D. Is recognized the importance of the cybersecurity workforce, and we have implemented policies to encourage his growth Back in 2013 the deputy secretary of defense signed the D. O d cyberspace workforce strategy to create a comprehensive, well equipped cyber security team to respond to national security concerns. Now this strategy also created a program that encourages collaboration between the D. O. D and private sector employees. We call this the Cyber Information Technology Exchange program or site up. It's an exchange programs, which is very interesting, in which a private sector employees can naturally work for the D. O. D. In a cyber security position that spans across multiple mission critical areas are important to the d. O. D. A key responsibility of cybersecurity community is military leaders on the related threats and cyber security actions we need to have to defeat these threats. We talk about rapid that position, agile business processes and practices to speed up innovation. Likewise, cybersecurity must keep up with this challenge to cyber security. Needs to be right there with the challenges and changes, and this requires exceptional personnel. We need to attract talent investing the people now to grow a robust cybersecurity, workforce, streets, future. I look forward to the panel discussion, John. Thank you. >>Thank you so much bomb for those comments and you know, new challenges and new opportunities and new possibilities and free freedom Operating space. Critical. Thank you for those comments. Looking forward. Toa chatting further. Steve Jakes, executive director of N. S. S. A Europe opening statement. >>Thank you, John. And echoing bangs thanks to Cal Poly for pulling these this important event together and frankly, for allowing the National Security Space Association be a part of it. Likewise, we on behalf the association delighted and honored Thio be on this panel with President Armstrong along with my friend and colleague Bonneau Glue Mahad Something for you all to know about Bomb. He spent the 1st 20 years of his career in the Air Force doing space programs. He then went into industry for several years and then came back into government to serve. Very few people do that. So bang on behalf of the space community, we thank you for your long life long devotion to service to our nation. We really appreciate that and I also echo a bang shot out to that guy Bill Britain, who has been a long time co conspirator of ours for a long time and you're doing great work there in the cyber program at Cal Poly Bill, keep it up. But professor arms trying to keep a close eye on him. Uh, I would like to offer a little extra context to the great comments made by by President Armstrong and bahng. Uh, in our view, the timing of this conference really could not be any better. Um, we all recently reflected again on that tragic 9 11 surprise attack on our homeland. And it's an appropriate time, we think, to take pause while the percentage of you in the audience here weren't even born or babies then For the most of us, it still feels like yesterday. And moreover, a tragedy like 9 11 has taught us a lot to include to be more vigilant, always keep our collective eyes and ears open to include those quote eyes and ears from space, making sure nothing like this ever happens again. So this conference is a key aspect. Protecting our nation requires we work in a cybersecurity environment at all times. But, you know, the fascinating thing about space systems is we can't see him. No, sir, We see Space launches man there's nothing more invigorating than that. But after launch, they become invisible. So what are they really doing up there? What are they doing to enable our quality of life in the United States and in the world? Well, to illustrate, I'd like to paraphrase elements of an article in Forbes magazine by Bonds and my good friend Chuck Beans. Chuck. It's a space guy, actually had Bonds job a fuse in the Pentagon. He is now chairman and chief strategy officer at York Space Systems, and in his spare time he's chairman of the small satellites. Chuck speaks in words that everyone can understand. So I'd like to give you some of his words out of his article. Uh, they're afraid somewhat. So these are Chuck's words. Let's talk about average Joe and playing Jane. Before heading to the airport for a business trip to New York City, Joe checks the weather forecast informed by Noah's weather satellites to see what pack for the trip. He then calls an uber that space app. Everybody uses it matches riders with drivers via GPS to take into the airport, So Joe has lunch of the airport. Unbeknownst to him, his organic lunch is made with the help of precision farming made possible through optimized irrigation and fertilization, with remote spectral sensing coming from space and GPS on the plane, the pilot navigates around weather, aided by GPS and nose weather satellites. And Joe makes his meeting on time to join his New York colleagues in a video call with a key customer in Singapore made possible by telecommunication satellites. Around to his next meeting, Joe receives notice changing the location of the meeting to another to the other side of town. So he calmly tells Syria to adjust the destination, and his satellite guided Google maps redirects him to the new location. That evening, Joe watches the news broadcast via satellite. The report details a meeting among world leaders discussing the developing crisis in Syria. As it turns out, various forms of quote remotely sensed. Information collected from satellites indicate that yet another band, chemical weapon, may have been used on its own people. Before going to bed, Joe decides to call his parents and congratulate them for their wedding anniversary as they cruise across the Atlantic, made possible again by communications satellites and Joe's parents can enjoy the call without even wondering how it happened the next morning. Back home, Joe's wife, Jane, is involved in a car accident. Her vehicle skids off the road. She's knocked unconscious, but because of her satellite equipped on star system, the crash is detected immediately and first responders show up on the scene. In time, Joe receives the news books. An early trip home sends flowers to his wife as he orders another uber to the airport. Over that 24 hours, Joe and Jane used space system applications for nearly every part of their day. Imagine the consequences if at any point they were somehow denied these services, whether they be by natural causes or a foreign hostility. And each of these satellite applications used in this case were initially developed for military purposes and continue to be, but also have remarkable application on our way of life. Just many people just don't know that. So, ladies and gentlemen, now you know, thanks to chuck beans, well, the United States has a proud heritage being the world's leading space faring nation, dating back to the Eisenhower and Kennedy years. Today we have mature and robust systems operating from space, providing overhead reconnaissance to quote, wash and listen, provide missile warning, communications, positioning, navigation and timing from our GPS system. Much of what you heard in Lieutenant General J. T. Thompson earlier speech. These systems are not only integral to our national security, but also our also to our quality of life is Chuck told us. We simply no longer could live without these systems as a nation and for that matter, as a world. But over the years, adversary like adversaries like China, Russia and other countries have come to realize the value of space systems and are aggressively playing ketchup while also pursuing capabilities that will challenge our systems. As many of you know, in 2000 and seven, China demonstrated it's a set system by actually shooting down is one of its own satellites and has been aggressively developing counter space systems to disrupt hours. So in a heavily congested space environment, our systems are now being contested like never before and will continue to bay well as Bond mentioned, the United States has responded to these changing threats. In addition to adding ways to protect our system, the administration and in Congress recently created the United States Space Force and the operational you United States Space Command, the latter of which you heard President Armstrong and other Californians hope is going to be located. Vandenberg Air Force Base Combined with our intelligence community today, we have focused military and civilian leadership now in space. And that's a very, very good thing. Commence, really. On the industry side, we did create the National Security Space Association devoted solely to supporting the national security Space Enterprise. We're based here in the D C area, but we have arms and legs across the country, and we are loaded with extraordinary talent. In scores of Forman, former government executives, So S s a is joined at the hip with our government customers to serve and to support. We're busy with a multitude of activities underway ranging from a number of thought provoking policy. Papers are recurring space time Webcast supporting Congress's Space Power Caucus and other main serious efforts. Check us out at NSS. A space dot org's One of our strategic priorities in central to today's events is to actively promote and nurture the workforce development. Just like cow calling. We will work with our U. S. Government customers, industry leaders and academia to attract and recruit students to join the space world, whether in government or industry and two assistant mentoring and training as their careers. Progress on that point, we're delighted. Be delighted to be working with Cal Poly as we hopefully will undertake a new pilot program with him very soon. So students stay tuned something I can tell you Space is really cool. While our nation's satellite systems are technical and complex, our nation's government and industry work force is highly diverse, with a combination of engineers, physicists, method and mathematicians, but also with a large non technical expertise as well. Think about how government gets things thes systems designed, manufactured, launching into orbit and operating. They do this via contracts with our aerospace industry, requiring talents across the board from cost estimating cost analysis, budgeting, procurement, legal and many other support. Tasker Integral to the mission. Many thousands of people work in the space workforce tens of billions of dollars every year. This is really cool stuff, no matter what your education background, a great career to be part of. When summary as bang had mentioned Aziz, well, there is a great deal of exciting challenges ahead we will see a new renaissance in space in the years ahead, and in some cases it's already begun. Billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Sir Richard Richard Branson are in the game, stimulating new ideas in business models, other private investors and start up companies. Space companies are now coming in from all angles. The exponential advancement of technology and microelectronics now allows the potential for a plethora of small SAT systems to possibly replace older satellites the size of a Greyhound bus. It's getting better by the day and central to this conference, cybersecurity is paramount to our nation's critical infrastructure in space. So once again, thanks very much, and I look forward to the further conversation. >>Steve, thank you very much. Space is cool. It's relevant. But it's important, as you pointed out, and you're awesome story about how it impacts our life every day. So I really appreciate that great story. I'm glad you took the time Thio share that you forgot the part about the drone coming over in the crime scene and, you know, mapping it out for you. But that would add that to the story later. Great stuff. My first question is let's get into the conversations because I think this is super important. President Armstrong like you to talk about some of the points that was teased out by Bang and Steve. One in particular is the comment around how military research was important in developing all these capabilities, which is impacting all of our lives. Through that story. It was the military research that has enabled a generation and generation of value for consumers. This is kind of this workforce conversation. There are opportunities now with with research and grants, and this is, ah, funding of innovation that it's highly accelerate. It's happening very quickly. Can you comment on how research and the partnerships to get that funding into the universities is critical? >>Yeah, I really appreciate that And appreciate the comments of my colleagues on it really boils down to me to partnerships, public private partnerships. You mentioned Northrop Grumman, but we have partnerships with Lockie Martin, Boeing, Raytheon Space six JPL, also member of organization called Business Higher Education Forum, which brings together university presidents and CEOs of companies. There's been focused on cybersecurity and data science, and I hope that we can spill into cybersecurity in space but those partnerships in the past have really brought a lot forward at Cal Poly Aziz mentioned we've been involved with Cube set. Uh, we've have some secure work and we want to plan to do more of that in the future. Uh, those partnerships are essential not only for getting the r and d done, but also the students, the faculty, whether masters or undergraduate, can be involved with that work. Uh, they get that real life experience, whether it's on campus or virtually now during Covic or at the location with the partner, whether it may be governmental or our industry. Uh, and then they're even better equipped, uh, to hit the ground running. And of course, we'd love to see even more of our students graduate with clearance so that they could do some of that a secure work as well. So these partnerships are absolutely critical, and it's also in the context of trying to bring the best and the brightest and all demographics of California and the US into this field, uh, to really be successful. So these partnerships are essential, and our goal is to grow them just like I know other colleagues and C. S u and the U C are planning to dio, >>you know, just as my age I've seen I grew up in the eighties, in college and during that systems generation and that the generation before me, they really kind of pioneered the space that spawned the computer revolution. I mean, you look at these key inflection points in our lives. They were really funded through these kinds of real deep research. Bond talk about that because, you know, we're living in an age of cloud. And Bezos was mentioned. Elon Musk. Sir Richard Branson. You got new ideas coming in from the outside. You have an accelerated clock now on terms of the innovation cycles, and so you got to react differently. You guys have programs to go outside >>of >>the Defense Department. How important is this? Because the workforce that air in schools and our folks re skilling are out there and you've been on both sides of the table. So share your thoughts. >>No, thanks, John. Thanks for the opportunity responded. And that's what you hit on the notes back in the eighties, R and D in space especially, was dominated by my government funding. Uh, contracts and so on. But things have changed. As Steve pointed out, A lot of these commercial entities funded by billionaires are coming out of the woodwork funding R and D. So they're taking the lead. So what we can do within the deal, the in government is truly take advantage of the work they've done on. Uh, since they're they're, you know, paving the way to new new approaches and new way of doing things. And I think we can We could certainly learn from that. And leverage off of that saves us money from an R and D standpoint while benefiting from from the product that they deliver, you know, within the O D Talking about workforce development Way have prioritized we have policies now to attract and retain talent. We need I I had the folks do some research and and looks like from a cybersecurity workforce standpoint. A recent study done, I think, last year in 2019 found that the cybersecurity workforce gap in the U. S. Is nearing half a million people, even though it is a growing industry. So the pipeline needs to be strengthened off getting people through, you know, starting young and through college, like assess a professor Armstrong indicated, because we're gonna need them to be in place. Uh, you know, in a period of about maybe a decade or so, Uh, on top of that, of course, is the continuing issue we have with the gap with with stamps students, we can't afford not to have expertise in place to support all the things we're doing within the with the not only deal with the but the commercial side as well. Thank you. >>How's the gap? Get? Get filled. I mean, this is the this is again. You got cybersecurity. I mean, with space. It's a whole another kind of surface area, if you will, in early surface area. But it is. It is an I o t. Device if you think about it. But it does have the same challenges. That's kind of current and and progressive with cybersecurity. Where's the gap Get filled, Steve Or President Armstrong? I mean, how do you solve the problem and address this gap in the workforce? What is some solutions and what approaches do we need to put in place? >>Steve, go ahead. I'll follow up. >>Okay. Thanks. I'll let you correct. May, uh, it's a really good question, and it's the way I would. The way I would approach it is to focus on it holistically and to acknowledge it up front. And it comes with our teaching, etcetera across the board and from from an industry perspective, I mean, we see it. We've gotta have secure systems with everything we do and promoting this and getting students at early ages and mentoring them and throwing internships at them. Eyes is so paramount to the whole the whole cycle, and and that's kind of and it really takes focused attention. And we continue to use the word focus from an NSS, a perspective. We know the challenges that are out there. There are such talented people in the workforce on the government side, but not nearly enough of them. And likewise on industry side. We could use Maura's well, but when you get down to it, you know we can connect dots. You know that the the aspect That's a Professor Armstrong talked about earlier toe where you continue to work partnerships as much as you possibly can. We hope to be a part of that. That network at that ecosystem the will of taking common objectives and working together to kind of make these things happen and to bring the power not just of one or two companies, but our our entire membership to help out >>President >>Trump. Yeah, I would. I would also add it again. It's back to partnerships that I talked about earlier. One of our partners is high schools and schools fortune Margaret Fortune, who worked in a couple of, uh, administrations in California across party lines and education. Their fifth graders all visit Cal Poly and visit our learned by doing lab and you, you've got to get students interested in stem at a early age. We also need the partnerships, the scholarships, the financial aid so the students can graduate with minimal to no debt to really hit the ground running. And that's exacerbated and really stress. Now, with this covert induced recession, California supports higher education at a higher rate than most states in the nation. But that is that has dropped this year or reasons. We all understand, uh, due to Kobe, and so our partnerships, our creativity on making sure that we help those that need the most help financially uh, that's really key, because the gaps air huge eyes. My colleagues indicated, you know, half of half a million jobs and you need to look at the the students that are in the pipeline. We've got to enhance that. Uh, it's the in the placement rates are amazing. Once the students get to a place like Cal Poly or some of our other amazing CSU and UC campuses, uh, placement rates are like 94%. >>Many of our >>engineers, they have jobs lined up a year before they graduate. So it's just gonna take key partnerships working together. Uh, and that continued partnership with government, local, of course, our state of CSU on partners like we have here today, both Stephen Bang So partnerships the thing >>e could add, you know, the collaboration with universities one that we, uh, put a lot of emphasis, and it may not be well known fact, but as an example of national security agencies, uh, National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber, the Fast works with over 270 colleges and universities across the United States to educate its 45 future cyber first responders as an example, so that Zatz vibrant and healthy and something that we ought Teoh Teik, banjo >>off. Well, I got the brain trust here on this topic. I want to get your thoughts on this one point. I'd like to define what is a public private partnership because the theme that's coming out of the symposium is the script has been flipped. It's a modern error. Things air accelerated get you got security. So you get all these things kind of happen is a modern approach and you're seeing a digital transformation play out all over the world in business. Andi in the public sector. So >>what is what >>is a modern public private partnership? What does it look like today? Because people are learning differently, Covert has pointed out, which was that we're seeing right now. How people the progressions of knowledge and learning truth. It's all changing. How do you guys view the modern version of public private partnership and some some examples and improve points? Can you can you guys share that? We'll start with the Professor Armstrong. >>Yeah. A zai indicated earlier. We've had on guy could give other examples, but Northup Grumman, uh, they helped us with cyber lab. Many years ago. That is maintained, uh, directly the software, the connection outside its its own unit so that students can learn the hack, they can learn to penetrate defenses, and I know that that has already had some considerations of space. But that's a benefit to both parties. So a good public private partnership has benefits to both entities. Uh, in the common factor for universities with a lot of these partnerships is the is the talent, the talent that is, that is needed, what we've been working on for years of the, you know, that undergraduate or master's or PhD programs. But now it's also spilling into Skilling and re Skilling. As you know, Jobs. Uh, you know, folks were in jobs today that didn't exist two years, three years, five years ago. But it also spills into other aspects that can expand even mawr. We're very fortunate. We have land, there's opportunities. We have one tech part project. We're expanding our tech park. I think we'll see opportunities for that, and it'll it'll be adjusted thio, due to the virtual world that we're all learning more and more about it, which we were in before Cove it. But I also think that that person to person is going to be important. Um, I wanna make sure that I'm driving across the bridge. Or or that that satellites being launched by the engineer that's had at least some in person training, uh, to do that and that experience, especially as a first time freshman coming on a campus, getting that experience expanding and as adult. And we're gonna need those public private partnerships in order to continue to fund those at a level that is at the excellence we need for these stem and engineering fields. >>It's interesting People in technology can work together in these partnerships in a new way. Bank Steve Reaction Thio the modern version of what a public, successful private partnership looks like. >>If I could jump in John, I think, you know, historically, Dodi's has have had, ah, high bar thio, uh, to overcome, if you will, in terms of getting rapid pulling in your company. This is the fault, if you will and not rely heavily in are the usual suspects of vendors and like and I think the deal is done a good job over the last couple of years off trying to reduce the burden on working with us. You know, the Air Force. I think they're pioneering this idea around pitch days where companies come in, do a two hour pitch and immediately notified of a wooden award without having to wait a long time. Thio get feedback on on the quality of the product and so on. So I think we're trying to do our best. Thio strengthen that partnership with companies outside the main group of people that we typically use. >>Steve, any reaction? Comment to add? >>Yeah, I would add a couple of these air. Very excellent thoughts. Uh, it zits about taking a little gamble by coming out of your comfort zone. You know, the world that Bond and Bond lives in and I used to live in in the past has been quite structured. It's really about we know what the threat is. We need to go fix it, will design it says we go make it happen, we'll fly it. Um, life is so much more complicated than that. And so it's it's really to me. I mean, you take you take an example of the pitch days of bond talks about I think I think taking a gamble by attempting to just do a lot of pilot programs, uh, work the trust factor between government folks and the industry folks in academia. Because we are all in this together in a lot of ways, for example. I mean, we just sent the paper to the White House of their requests about, you know, what would we do from a workforce development perspective? And we hope Thio embellish on this over time once the the initiative matures. But we have a piece of it, for example, is the thing we call clear for success getting back Thio Uh, President Armstrong's comments at the collegiate level. You know, high, high, high quality folks are in high demand. So why don't we put together a program they grabbed kids in their their underclass years identifies folks that are interested in doing something like this. Get them scholarships. Um, um, I have a job waiting for them that their contract ID for before they graduate, and when they graduate, they walk with S C I clearance. We believe that could be done so, and that's an example of ways in which the public private partnerships can happen to where you now have a talented kid ready to go on Day one. We think those kind of things can happen. It just gets back down to being focused on specific initiatives, give them giving them a chance and run as many pilot programs as you can like these days. >>That's a great point, E. President. >>I just want to jump in and echo both the bank and Steve's comments. But Steve, that you know your point of, you know, our graduates. We consider them ready Day one. Well, they need to be ready Day one and ready to go secure. We totally support that and and love to follow up offline with you on that. That's that's exciting, uh, and needed very much needed mawr of it. Some of it's happening, but way certainly have been thinking a lot about that and making some plans, >>and that's a great example of good Segway. My next question. This kind of reimagining sees work flows, eyes kind of breaking down the old the old way and bringing in kind of a new way accelerated all kind of new things. There are creative ways to address this workforce issue, and this is the next topic. How can we employ new creative solutions? Because, let's face it, you know, it's not the days of get your engineering degree and and go interview for a job and then get slotted in and get the intern. You know the programs you get you particularly through the system. This is this is multiple disciplines. Cybersecurity points at that. You could be smart and math and have, ah, degree in anthropology and even the best cyber talents on the planet. So this is a new new world. What are some creative approaches that >>you know, we're >>in the workforce >>is quite good, John. One of the things I think that za challenge to us is you know, we got somehow we got me working for with the government, sexy, right? The part of the challenge we have is attracting the right right level of skill sets and personnel. But, you know, we're competing oftentimes with the commercial side, the gaming industry as examples of a big deal. And those are the same talents. We need to support a lot of programs we have in the U. D. So somehow we have to do a better job to Steve's point off, making the work within the U. D within the government something that they would be interested early on. So I tracked him early. I kind of talked about Cal Poly's, uh, challenge program that they were gonna have in June inviting high school kid. We're excited about the whole idea of space and cyber security, and so on those air something. So I think we have to do it. Continue to do what were the course the next several years. >>Awesome. Any other creative approaches that you guys see working or might be on idea, or just a kind of stoked the ideation out their internship. So obviously internships are known, but like there's gotta be new ways. >>I think you can take what Steve was talking about earlier getting students in high school, uh, and aligning them sometimes. Uh, that intern first internship, not just between the freshman sophomore year, but before they inter cal poly per se. And they're they're involved s So I think that's, uh, absolutely key. Getting them involved many other ways. Um, we have an example of of up Skilling a redeveloped work redevelopment here in the Central Coast. PG and e Diablo nuclear plant as going to decommission in around 2020 24. And so we have a ongoing partnership toe work on reposition those employees for for the future. So that's, you know, engineering and beyond. Uh, but think about that just in the manner that you were talking about. So the up skilling and re Skilling uh, on I think that's where you know, we were talking about that Purdue University. Other California universities have been dealing with online programs before cove it and now with co vid uh, so many more faculty or were pushed into that area. There's going to be much more going and talk about workforce development and up Skilling and Re Skilling The amount of training and education of our faculty across the country, uh, in in virtual, uh, and delivery has been huge. So there's always a silver linings in the cloud. >>I want to get your guys thoughts on one final question as we in the in the segment. And we've seen on the commercial side with cloud computing on these highly accelerated environments where you know, SAS business model subscription. That's on the business side. But >>one of The >>things that's clear in this trend is technology, and people work together and technology augments the people components. So I'd love to get your thoughts as we look at the world now we're living in co vid um, Cal Poly. You guys have remote learning Right now. It's a infancy. It's a whole new disruption, if you will, but also an opportunity to enable new ways to collaborate, Right? So if you look at people and technology, can you guys share your view and vision on how communities can be developed? How these digital technologies and people can work together faster to get to the truth or make a discovery higher to build the workforce? These air opportunities? How do you guys view this new digital transformation? >>Well, I think there's there's a huge opportunities and just what we're doing with this symposium. We're filming this on one day, and it's going to stream live, and then the three of us, the four of us, can participate and chat with participants while it's going on. That's amazing. And I appreciate you, John, you bringing that to this this symposium, I think there's more and more that we can do from a Cal poly perspective with our pedagogy. So you know, linked to learn by doing in person will always be important to us. But we see virtual. We see partnerships like this can expand and enhance our ability and minimize the in person time, decrease the time to degree enhanced graduation rate, eliminate opportunity gaps or students that don't have the same advantages. S so I think the technological aspect of this is tremendous. Then on the up Skilling and Re Skilling, where employees air all over, they can be reached virtually then maybe they come to a location or really advanced technology allows them to get hands on virtually, or they come to that location and get it in a hybrid format. Eso I'm I'm very excited about the future and what we can do, and it's gonna be different with every university with every partnership. It's one. Size does not fit all. >>It's so many possibilities. Bond. I could almost imagine a social network that has a verified, you know, secure clearance. I can jump in, have a little cloak of secrecy and collaborate with the d o. D. Possibly in the future. But >>these are the >>kind of kind of crazy ideas that are needed. Are your thoughts on this whole digital transformation cross policy? >>I think technology is gonna be revolutionary here, John. You know, we're focusing lately on what we call digital engineering to quicken the pace off, delivering capability to warfighter. As an example, I think a I machine language all that's gonna have a major play and how we operate in the future. We're embracing five G technologies writing ability Thio zero latency or I o t More automation off the supply chain. That sort of thing, I think, uh, the future ahead of us is is very encouraging. Thing is gonna do a lot for for national defense on certainly the security of the country. >>Steve, your final thoughts. Space systems are systems, and they're connected to other systems that are connected to people. Your thoughts on this digital transformation opportunity >>Such a great question in such a fun, great challenge ahead of us. Um echoing are my colleague's sentiments. I would add to it. You know, a lot of this has I think we should do some focusing on campaigning so that people can feel comfortable to include the Congress to do things a little bit differently. Um, you know, we're not attuned to doing things fast. Uh, but the dramatic You know, the way technology is just going like crazy right now. I think it ties back Thio hoping Thio, convince some of our senior leaders on what I call both sides of the Potomac River that it's worth taking these gamble. We do need to take some of these things very way. And I'm very confident, confident and excited and comfortable. They're just gonna be a great time ahead and all for the better. >>You know, e talk about D. C. Because I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not a political person, but I always say less lawyers, more techies in Congress and Senate. So I was getting job when I say that. Sorry. Presidential. Go ahead. >>Yeah, I know. Just one other point. Uh, and and Steve's alluded to this in bonded as well. I mean, we've got to be less risk averse in these partnerships. That doesn't mean reckless, but we have to be less risk averse. And I would also I have a zoo. You talk about technology. I have to reflect on something that happened in, uh, you both talked a bit about Bill Britton and his impact on Cal Poly and what we're doing. But we were faced a few years ago of replacing a traditional data a data warehouse, data storage data center, and we partner with a W S. And thank goodness we had that in progress on it enhanced our bandwidth on our campus before Cove. It hit on with this partnership with the digital transformation hub. So there is a great example where, uh, we we had that going. That's not something we could have started. Oh, covitz hit. Let's flip that switch. And so we have to be proactive on. We also have thio not be risk averse and do some things differently. Eyes that that is really salvage the experience for for students. Right now, as things are flowing, well, we only have about 12% of our courses in person. Uh, those essential courses, uh, and just grateful for those partnerships that have talked about today. >>Yeah, and it's a shining example of how being agile, continuous operations, these air themes that expand into space and the next workforce needs to be built. Gentlemen, thank you. very much for sharing your insights. I know. Bang, You're gonna go into the defense side of space and your other sessions. Thank you, gentlemen, for your time for great session. Appreciate it. >>Thank you. Thank you. >>Thank you. >>Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. >>I'm John Furry with the Cube here in Palo Alto, California Covering and hosting with Cal Poly The Space and Cybersecurity Symposium 2020. Thanks for watching.

>> Announcer: From around the globe, it's "theCUBE" covering Space and Cybersecurity Symposium 2020 hosted by Cal Poly. >> I want to welcome to theCUBE's coverage, we're here hosting with Cal Poly an amazing event, space and the intersection of cyber security. This session is Defending Satellite and Space Infrastructure from Cyber Threats. We've got two great guests. We've got Major General John Shaw of combined force space component commander, U.S. space command at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and Roland Coelho, who's the CEO of Maverick Space Systems. Gentlemen, thank you for spending the time to come on to this session for the Cal Poly Space and Cybersecurity Symposium. Appreciate it. >> Absolutely. >> Guys defending satellites and space infrastructure is the new domain, obviously it's a war-fighting domain. It's also the future of the world. And this is an important topic because we rely on space now for our everyday life and it's becoming more and more critical. Everyone knows how their phones work and GPS, just small examples of all the impacts. I'd like to discuss with this hour, this topic with you guys. So if we can have you guys do an opening statement. General if you can start with your opening statement, we'll take it from there. >> Thanks John and greetings from Vandenberg Air Force Base. We are just down the road from Cal Poly here on the central coast of California, and very proud to be part of this effort and part of the partnership that we have with Cal Poly on a number of fronts. In my job here, I actually have two hats that I wear and it's I think, worth talking briefly about those to set the context for our discussion. You know, we had two major organizational events within our Department of Defense with regard to space last year in 2019. And probably the one that made the most headlines was the standup of the United States Space Force. That happened December 20th, last year, and again momentous, the first new branch in our military since 1947. And it's just over nine months old now, as we're makin' this recording. And already we're seein' a lot of change with regard to how we are approaching organizing, training, and equipping on a service side for space capabilities. And so, with regard to the Space Force, the hat I wear there is Commander of Space Operations Command. That was what was once 14th Air Force, when we were still part of the Air Force here at Vandenberg. And in that role, I'm responsible for the operational capabilities that we bring to the joint warfighter and to the world from a space perspective. Didn't make quite as many headlines, but another major change that happened last year was the reincarnation, I guess I would say, of United States Space Command. And that is a combatant command. It's how our Department of Defense organizes to actually conduct war-fighting operations. Most people are more familiar perhaps with Central Command, CENTCOM or Northern Command, NORTHCOM, or even Strategic Command, STRATCOM. Well, now we have a SPACECOM. We actually had one from 1985 until 2002, and then stood it down in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and a reorganization of Homeland Security. But we've now stood up a separate command again operationally, to conduct joint space operations. And in that organization, I wear a hat as a component commander, and that's the combined force-based component command working with other, all the additional capabilities that other services bring, as well as our allies. The combined in that title means that under certain circumstances, I would lead in an allied effort in space operations. And so it's actually a terrific job to have here on the central coast of California. Both working how we bring space capabilities to the fight on the Space Force side, and then how we actually operate those capabilities in support of joint warfighters around the world and national security interests. So that's the context. Now what also I should mention and you kind of alluded to John at your beginning, we're kind of in a changed situation than we were a number of years ago, in that we now see space as a war-fighting domain. For most of my career, goin' back a little ways, most of my focus in my jobs was making sure I could bring space capabilities to those that needed them. Bringing GPS to that special operations soldier on the ground somewhere in the world, bringing satellite communications for our nuclear command and control, bringing those capabilities for other uses. But I didn't have to worry in most of my career, about actually defending those space capabilities themselves. Well, now we do. We've actually gone to a point where we're are being threatened in space. We now are treating it more like any other domain, normalizing in that regard as a war-fighting domain. And so we're going through some relatively emergent efforts to protect and defend our capabilities in space, to design our capabilities to be defended, and perhaps most of all, to train our people for this new mission set. So it's a very exciting time, and I know we'll get into it, but you can't get very far into talking about all these space capabilities and how we want to protect and defend them and how we're going to continue their ability to deliver to warfighters around the globe, without talking about cyber, because they fit together very closely. So anyway, thanks for the chance to be here today. And I look forward to the discussion. >> General, thank you so much for that opening statement. And I would just say that not only is it historic with the Space Force, it's super exciting because it opens up so much more challenges and opportunities to do more and to do things differently. So I appreciate that statement. Roland in your opening statement. Your job is to put stuff in space, faster, cheaper, smaller, better, your opening statement, please. >> Yes, thank you, John. And yes, to General Shaw's point with the space domain and the need to protect it now is incredibly important. And I hope that we are more of a help than a thorn in your side in terms of building satellites smaller, faster, cheaper. Definitely looking forward to this discussion and figuring out ways where the entire space domain can work together, from industry to U.S. government, even to the academic environment as well. So first, I would like to say, and preface this by saying, I am not a cybersecurity expert. We build satellites and we launch them into orbit, but we are by no means cybersecurity experts. And that's why we like to partner with organizations like the California Cybersecurity Institute because they help us navigate these requirements. So I'm the CEO of Maverick Space Systems. We are a small aerospace business in San Luis Obispo, California. And we provide small satellite hardware and service solutions to a wide range of customers. All the way from the academic environment to the U.S. government and everything in between. We support customers through an entire program life cycle, from mission architecture and formulation, all the way to getting these customer satellites in orbit. And so what we try to do is provide hardware and services that basically make it easier for customers to get their satellites into orbit and to operate. So whether it be reducing mass or volume, creating greater launch opportunities, or providing the infrastructure and the technology to help those innovations mature in orbit, that's what we do. Our team has experience over the last 20 years, working with small satellites. And I'm definitely fortunate to be part of the team that invented the CubeSat standard by Cal Poly and Stanford back in 2000. And so, we are in VandenBerg's backyard. We came from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and our hearts are fond of this area, and working with the local community. A lot of that success that we have had is directly attributable to the experiences that we learned as students, working on satellite programs from our professors and mentors. And that's all thanks to Cal Poly. So just wanted to tell a quick story. So back in 2000, just imagine a small group of undergraduate students, myself included, with the daunting task of launching multiple satellites from five different countries on a Russian launch vehicle. Many of us were only 18 or 19, not even at the legal age to drink yet, but as essentially teenagers we were managing million-dollar budgets. And we were coordinating groups from around the world. And we knew what we needed to accomplish, yet we didn't really know what we were doing when we first started. The university was extremely supportive and that's the Cal Poly learn-by-doing philosophy. I remember the first time we had a meeting with our university chief legal counsel, and we were discussing the need to register with the State Department for ITAR. Nobody really knew what ITAR was back then. And discussing this with the chief legal counsel, she was asking, "What is ITAR?" And we essentially had to explain, this is, launching satellites is part of the U.S. munitions list. And essentially we had a similar situation exporting munitions. We are in similar categories as weapons. And so, after that initial shock, everybody jumped in both feet forward, the university, our head legal counsel, professors, mentors, and the students knew we needed to tackle this problem because the need was there to launch these small satellites. And the reason this is important to capture the entire spectrum of users of the community, is that the technology and the innovation of the small satellite industry occurs at all levels, so we have academia, commercial, national governments. We even have high schools and middle schools getting involved and building satellite hardware. And the thing is the importance of cybersecurity is incredibly important because it touches all of these programs and it touches people at a very young age. And so, we hope to have a conversation today to figure out how do we create an environment where we allow these programs to thrive, but we also protect and keep their data safe as well. >> Thank you very much Roland. Appreciate that a story too as well. Thanks for your opening statement. Gentlemen, I mean I love this topic because defending the assets in space is obvious, if you look at it. But there's a bigger picture going on in our world right now. And general, you kind of pointed out the historic nature of Space Force and how it's changing already, operationally, training, skills, tools, all that stuff is evolving. You know in the tech world that I live in, change the world is a topic they use, gets thrown around a lot, you can change the world. A lot of young people, and we have other panels on this where we're talkin' about how to motivate young people, changing the world is what it's all about technology, for the better. Evolution is just an extension of another domain. In this case, space is just an extension of other domains, similar things are happening, but it's different. There's huge opportunity to change the world, so it's faster. There's an expanded commercial landscape out there. Certainly government space systems are moving and changing. How do we address the importance of cybersecurity in space? General, we'll start with you because this is real, it's exciting. If you're a young person, there's touch points of things to jump into, tech, building hardware, to changing laws, and everything in between is an opportunity, and it's exciting. And it is truly a chance to change the world. How does the commercial government space systems teams, address the importance of cybersecurity? >> So, John, I think it starts with the realization that as I like to say, that cyber and space are BFFs. There's nothing that we do on the cutting edge of space that isn't heavily reliant on the cutting edge of cyber. And frankly, there's probably nothing on the cutting edge of cyber that doesn't have a space application. And when you realize that and you see how closely those are intertwined as we need to move forward at speed, it becomes fundamental to answering your question. Let me give a couple examples. One of the biggest challenges I have on a daily basis is understanding what's going on in the space domain. Those on the surface of the planet talk about tyranny of distance across the oceans or across large land masses. And I talk about the tyranny of volume. And right now, we're looking out as far as the lunar sphere. There's activity that's extending out there. We expect NASA to be conducting perhaps human operations in the lunar environment in the next few years. So it extends out that far. When you do the math that's a huge volume. How do you do that? How do you understand what's happening in real time within that volume? It is a big data problem by the very definition of that kind of effort and that kind of challenge. And to do it successfully in the years ahead, it's going to require many, many sensors and the fusion of data of all kinds, to present a picture and then analytics and predictive analytics that are going to deliver an idea of what's going on in the space arena. And that's just if people are not up to mischief. Once you have threats introduced into that environment, it is even more challenging. So I'd say it's a big data problem that we'll enjoy tackling in the years ahead. Now, a second example is, if we had to take a vote of what were the most amazing robots that have ever been designed by humans, I think that spacecraft would have to be up there on the list. Whether it's the NASA spacecraft that explore other planets, or GPS satellites that amazingly provide a wonderful service to the entire globe and beyond. They are amazing technological machines. That's not going to stop. I mean, all the work that Roland talked about, even that we're doin' at the kind of the microsat level is putting cutting-edge technology into small a package as you can to get some sort of capability out of that. As we expand our activities further and further into space for national security purposes, or for exploration or commercial or civil, the cutting-edge technologies of artificial intelligence and machine-to-machine engagements and machine learning are going to be part of that design work moving forward. And then there's the threat piece. As we operate these capabilities, as these constellations grow, that's going to be done via networks. And as I've already pointed out space is a war-fighting domain. That means those networks will come under attack. We expect that they will and that may happen early on in a conflict. It may happen during peace time in the same way that we see cyber attacks all the time, everywhere in many sectors of activity. And so by painting that picture, we start to see how it's intertwined at the very, very most basic level, the cutting edge of cyber and cutting edge of space. With that then comes the need to, any cutting edge cybersecurity capability that we have is naturally going to be needed as we develop space capabilities. And we're going to have to bake that in from the very beginning. We haven't done that in the past as well as we should, but moving forward from this point on, it will be an essential ingredient that we work into all of our capability. >> Roland, we're talkin' about now, critical infrastructure. We're talkin' about new capabilities being addressed really fast. So, it's kind of chaotic now there's threats. So it's not as easy as just having capabilities, 'cause you've got to deal with the threats the general just pointed out. But now you've got critical infrastructure, which then will enable other things down the line. How do you protect it? How do we address this? How do you see this being addressed from a security standpoint? Because malware, these techniques can be mapped in, extended into space and takeovers, wartime, peace time, these things are all going to be under threat. That's pretty well understood, and I think people kind of get that. How do we address it? What's your take? >> Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I couldn't agree more with General Shaw, with cybersecurity and space being so intertwined. And, I think with fast and rapid innovation comes the opportunity for threats, especially if you have bad actors that want to cause harm. And so, as a technology innovator and you're pushing the bounds, you kind of have a common goal of doing the best you can, and pushing the technology bounds, making it smaller, faster, cheaper. But a lot of times what entrepreneurs and small businesses and supply chains are doing, and don't realize it, is a lot of these components are dual use. I mean, you could have a very benign commercial application, but then a small modification to it, can turn it into a military application. And if you do have these bad actors, they can exploit that. And so, I think that the big thing is creating a organization that is non-biased, that just wants to kind of level the playing field for everybody to create a set standard for cybersecurity in space. I think one group that would be perfect for that is CCI. They understand both the cybersecurity side of things, and they also have at Cal Poly the small satellite group. And just having kind of a clearing house or an agency where can provide information that is free, you don't need a membership for. And to be able to kind of collect that, but also reach out to the entire value chain for a mission, and making them aware of what potential capabilities are and then how it might be potentially used as a weapon. And keeping them informed, because I think the vast majority of people in the space industry just want to do the right thing. And so, how do we get that information free flowing to the U.S. government so that they can take that information, create assessments, and be able to, not necessarily stop threats from occurring presently, but identify them long before that they would ever even happen. Yeah, that's- >> General, I want to follow up on that real quick before we move to the next top track. Critical infrastructure you mentioned, across the oceans long distance, volume. When you look at the physical world, you had power grids here in the United States, you had geography, you had perimeters, the notion of a perimeter and a moat, and then you had digital comes in. Then you have, we saw software open up, and essentially take down this idea of a perimeter, and from a defense standpoint, and everything changed. And we have to fortify those critical assets in the U.S. Space increases the same problem statement significantly, because you can't just have a perimeter, you can't have a moat, it's open, it's everywhere. Like what digital's done, and that's why we've seen a surge of cyber in the past two decades, attacks with software. So, this isn't going to go away. You need the critical infrastructure, you're putting it up there, you're formulating it, and you got to protect it. How do you view that? Because it's going to be an ongoing problem statement. What's the current thinking? >> Yeah, I think my sense is that a mindset that you can build a firewall, or a defense, or some other system that isn't dynamic in its own right, is probably not headed in the right direction. I think cybersecurity in the future, whether it's for space systems, or for other critical infrastructure is going to be a dynamic fight that happens at a machine-to-machine speed and dynamic. I don't think that it's too far off where we will have machines writing their own code in real time to fight off attacks that are coming at them. And by the way, the offense will probably be doing the same kind of thing. And so, I guess I would not want to think that the answer is something that you just build it and you leave it alone and it's good enough. It's probably going to be a constantly-evolving capability, constantly reacting to new threats and staying ahead of those threats. >> That's the kind of use case, you know as you were, kind of anecdotal example is the exciting new software opportunities for computer science majors. I mean, I tell my young kids and everyone, man it's more exciting now. I wish I was 18 again, it's so exciting with AI. Roland, I want to get your thoughts. We were joking on another panel with the DoD around space and the importance of it obviously, and we're going to have that here. And then we had a joke. It's like, oh software's defined everything. Software's everything, AI. And I said, "Well here in the United States, companies had data centers and then they went to the cloud." And then he said, "You can do break, fix, it's hard to do break, fix in space. You can't just send a tech up." I get that today, but soon maybe robotics. The general mentions robotics technologies, in referencing some of the accomplishments. Fixing things is almost impossible in space. But maybe form factors might get better. Certainly software will play a role. What's your thoughts on that landscape? >> Yeah, absolutely. You know, for software in orbit, there's a push for software-defined radios to basically go from hardware to software. And that's a critical link. If you can infiltrate that and a small satellite has propulsion on board, you could take control of that satellite and cause a lot of havoc. And so, creating standards and that kind of initial threshold of security, for let's say these radios, or communications and making that available to the entire supply chain, to the satellite builders, and operators is incredibly key. And that's again, one of the initiatives that CCI is tackling right now as well. >> General, I want to get your thoughts on best practices around cybersecurity, state-of-the-art today, and then some guiding principles, and kind of how the, if you shoot the trajectory forward, what might happen around supply chain? There's been many stories where, we outsource the chips and there's a little chip sittin' in a thing and it's built by someone else in China, and the software is written from someone in Europe, and the United States assembles it, it gets shipped and it's corrupt, and it has some cyber, I'm making it up, I'm oversimplifying the statement. But this is what when you have space systems that involve intellectual property from multiple partners, whether it's from software to creation and then deployment. You got supply chain tiers. What are some of best practices that you see involving, that don't stunt the innovation, but continues to innovate, but people can operate safely. What's your thoughts? >> Yeah, so on supply chain, I think the symposium here is going to get to hear from General JT Thompson from space and missile system center down in Los Angeles, and he's just down the road from us there on the coast. And his team is the one that we look to to really focus on, as he fires and develops to again bake in cybersecurity from the beginning and knowing where the components are coming from, and properly assessing those as you put together your space systems, is a key piece of what his team is focused on. So I expect, we'll hear him talk about that. When it talks to, I think, so you asked the question a little more deeply about how do the best practices in terms of how we now develop moving forward. Well, another way that we don't do it right, is if we take a long time to build something and then General JT Thompson's folks take a while to build something, and then they hand it over to me, and my team operate and then they go hands free. And then that's what I have for years to operate until the next thing comes along. That's a little old school. What we're going to have to do moving forward with our space capabilities, and with the cyber piece baked in is continually developing new capability sets as we go. We actually have partnership between General Thompson's team and mine here at Vandenberg on our ops floor, or our combined space operation center, that are actually working in real time together, better tools that we can use to understand what's going on in the space environment to better command and control our capabilities anywhere from military satellite communications, to space domain awareness, sensors, and such. And we're developing those capabilities in real time. And with the security pieces. So DevSecOps is we're practicing that in real time. I think that is probably the standard today that we're trying to live up to as we continue to evolve. But it has to be done again, in close partnership all the time. It's not a sequential, industrial-age process. While I'm on the subject of partnerships. So, General Thompson's team and mine have good partnerships. It's partnerships across the board are going to be another way that we are successful. And that it means with academia and some of the relationships that we have here with Cal Poly. It's with the commercial sector in ways that we haven't done before. The old style business was to work with just a few large companies that had a lot of space experience. Well, we need a lot of kinds of different experience and technologies now in order to really field good space capabilities. And I expect we'll see more and more non-traditional companies being part of, and organizations, being part of that partnership that will work goin' forward. I mentioned at the beginning that allies are important to us. So everything that Roland and I have been talking about I think you have to extrapolate out to allied partnerships. It doesn't help me as a combined force component commander, which is again, one of my jobs. It doesn't help me if the United States capabilities are cybersecure, but I'm tryin' to integrate them with capabilities from an ally that are not cybersecure. So that partnership has to be dynamic and continually evolving together. So again, close partnering, continually developing together from the acquisition to the operational sectors, with as many different sectors of our economy as possible, are the ingredients to success. >> General, I'd love to just follow up real quick. I was having just a quick reminder for a conversation I had with last year with General Keith Alexander, who does a lot of cybersecurity work, and he was talking about the need to share faster. And the new school is you got to share faster to get the data, you mentioned observability earlier, you need to see what everything's out there. He's a real passionate person around getting the data, getting it fast and having trusted partners. So that's not, it's kind of evolving as, I mean, sharing's a well known practice, but with cyber it's sensitive data potentially. So there's a trust relationship. There's now a new ecosystem. That's new for government. How do you view all that and your thoughts on that trend of the sharing piece of it on cyber? >> So, I don't know if it's necessarily new, but it's at a scale that we've never seen before. And by the way, it's vastly more complicated and complex when you overlay from a national security perspective, classification of data and information at various levels. And then that is again complicated by the fact you have different sharing relationships with different actors, whether it's commercial, academic, or allies. So it gets very, very complex web very quickly. So that's part of the challenge we're workin' through. How can we effectively share information at multiple classification levels with multiple partners in an optimal fashion? It is certainly not optimal today. It's very difficult, even with maybe one industry partner for me to be able to talk about data at an unclassified level, and then various other levels of classification to have the traditional networks in place to do that. I could see a solution in the future where our cybersecurity is good enough that maybe I only really need one network and the information that is allowed to flow to the players within the right security environment to make that all happen as quickly as possible. So you've actually, John you've hit on yet another big challenge that we have, is evolving our networks to properly share, with the right people, at the right clearance levels at the speed of war, which is what we're going to need. >> Yeah, and I wanted to call that out because this is an opportunity, again, this discussion here at Cal Poly and around the world is for new capabilities and new people to solve the problems. It's again, it's super exciting if you're geeking out on this. If you have a tech degree or you're interested in changin' the world, there's so many new things that could be applied right now. Roland, I want to get your thoughts on this, because one of the things in the tech trends we're seeing, and this is a massive shift, all the theaters of the tech industry are changing rapidly at the same time. And it affects policy law, but also deep tech. The startup communities are super important in all this too. We can't forget them. Obviously, the big trusted players that are partnering certainly on these initiatives, but your story about being in the dorm room. Now you've got the boardroom and now you got everything in between. You have startups out there that want to and can contribute. You know, what's an ITAR? I mean, I got all these acronym certifications. Is there a community motion to bring startups in, in a safe way, but also give them ability to contribute? Because you look at open source, that proved everyone wrong on software. That's happening now with this now open network concept, the general was kind of alluding to. Which is, it's a changing landscape. Your thoughts, I know you're passionate about this. >> Yeah, absolutely. And I think as General Shaw mentioned, we need to get information out there faster, more timely and to the right people, and involving not only just stakeholders in the U.S., but internationally as well. And as entrepreneurs, we have this very lofty vision or goal to change the world. And oftentimes, entrepreneurs, including myself, we put our heads down and we just run as fast as we can. And we don't necessarily always kind of take a breath and take a step back and kind of look at what we're doing and how it's touching other folks. And in terms of a community, I don't know of any formal community out there, it's mostly ad hoc. And, these ad hoc communities are folks who let's say was a student working on a satellite in college. And they loved that entrepreneurial spirit. And so they said, "Well, I'm going to start my own company." And so, a lot of these ad hoc networks are just from relationships that have been built over the last two decades from colleagues at the university. I do think formalizing this and creating kind of a clearing house to handle all of this is incredibly important. >> And there's going to be a lot of entrepreneurial activity, no doubt, I mean there's too many things to work on and not enough time. I mean this brings up the question that I'm going to, while we're on this topic, you got the remote work with COVID, everyone's workin' remotely, we're doin' this remote interview rather than being on stage. Work's changing, how people work and engage. Certainly physical will come back. But if you looked at historically the space industry and the talent, they're all clustered around the bases. And there's always been these areas where you're a space person. You kind of work in there and the job's there. And if you were cyber, you were generally in other areas. Over the past decade, there's been a cross-pollination of talent and location. As you see the intersection of space, general we'll start with you, first of all, central coast is a great place to live. I know that's where you guys live. But you can start to bring together these two cultures. Sometimes they're not the same. Maybe they're getting better. We know they're being integrated. So general, can you just share your thoughts because this is one of those topics that everyone's talkin' about, but no one's actually kind of addressed directly. >> Yeah, John, I think so. I think I want to answer this by talkin' about where I think the Space Force is going. Because I think if there was ever an opportunity or an inflection point in our Department of Defense to sort of change culture and try to bring in non-traditional kinds of thinking and really kind of change maybe some of the ways that the Department of Defense does things that are probably archaic, Space Force is an inflection point for that. General Raymond, our Chief of Space Operations, has said publicly for awhile now, he wants the U.S. Space Force to be the first truly digital service. And what we mean by that is we want the folks that are in the Space Force to be the ones that are the first adopters, the early adopters of technology. To be the ones most fluent in the cutting edge, technologic developments on space and cyber and other sectors of the economy that are technologically focused. And I think there's some, that can generate some excitement, I think. And it means that we'll probably ended up recruiting people into the Space Force that are not from the traditional recruiting areas that the rest of the Department of Defense looks to. And I think it allows us to bring in a diversity of thought and diversity of perspective and a new kind of motivation into the service, that I think is frankly really exciting. So if you put together everything I mentioned about how space and cyber are going to be best friends forever. And I think there's always been an excitement from the very beginning in the American psyche about space. You start to put all these ingredients together, and I think you see where I'm goin' with this. That this is a chance to really change that cultural mindset that you were describing. >> It's an exciting time for sure. And again, changing the world. And this is what you're seeing today. People do want to change the world. They want a modern world that's changing. Roland, I'll get your thoughts on this. I was having an interview a few years back with a technology entrepreneur, a techie, and we were joking, we were just kind of riffing. And I said, "Everything that's on "Star Trek" will be invented." And we're almost there actually, if you think about it, except for the transporter room. You got video, you got communicators. So, not to bring in the "Star Trek" reference with Space Force, this is digital. And you start thinking about some of the important trends, it's going to be up and down the stack, from hardware to software, to user experience, everything. Your thoughts and reaction. >> Yeah, absolutely. And so, what we're seeing is timelines shrinking dramatically because of the barrier to entry for new entrants and even your existing aerospace companies is incredibly low, right? So if you take previously where you had a technology on the ground and you wanted it in orbit, it would take years. Because you would test it on the ground. You would verify that it can operate in a space environment. And then you would go ahead and launch it. And we're talking tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to do that. Now, we've cut that down from years to months. When you have a prototype on the ground and you want to get it launched, you don't necessarily care if it fails on orbit the first time, because you're getting valuable data back. And so, we're seeing technology being developed for the first time on the ground and in orbit in a matter of a few months. And the whole kind of process that we're doing as a small business is trying to enable that. And so, allowing these entrepreneurs and small companies to get their technology in orbit at a price that is sometimes even cheaper than testing on the ground. >> You know this is a great point. I think this is really an important point to call out because we mentioned partnerships earlier, the economics and the business model of space is doable. I mean, you do a mission study. You get paid for that. You have technology that you get stuff up quickly, and there's a cost structure there. And again, the alternative was waterfall planning, years and millions. Now the form factors are doing, now, again, there may be different payloads involved, but you can standardize payloads. You've got robotic arms. This is all available. This brings up the congestion problem. This is going to be on the top of mind of the generals of course, but you've got the proliferation of these constellation systems. You're going to have more and more tech vectors. I mean, essentially that's malware. I mean, that's a probe. You throw something up in space that could cause some interference. Maybe a takeover. General, this is the real elephant in the room, the threat matrix from new stuff and new configurations. So general, how does the proliferation of constellation systems change the threat matrix? >> So I think the, you know I guess I'm going to be a little more optimistic John than I think you pitched that. I'm actually excited about these new mega constellations in LEO. I'm excited about the growing number of actors that are going into space for various reasons. And why is that? It's because we're starting to realize a new economic engine for the nation and for human society. So the question is, so I think we want that to happen. When we could go to almost any other domain in history and when air travel started to become much, much more commonplace with many kinds of actors from private pilots flying their small planes, all the way up to large airliners, there was a problem with congestion. There was a problem about, challenges about behavior, and are we going to be able to manage this? And yes we did. And it was for the great benefit of society. I could probably look to the maritime domain for similar kinds of things. And so this is actually exciting about space. We are just going to have to find the ways as a society, and it's not just the Department of Defense, it's going to be civil, it's going to be international, find the mechanisms to encourage this continued investment in the space domain. I do think that Space Force will play a role in providing security in the space environment, as we venture further out, as economic opportunities emerge, wherever they are in the lunar, Earth, lunar system, or even within the solar system. Space Force is going to play a role in that. But I'm actually really excited about those possibilities. Hey, by the way, I got to say, you made me think of this when you talked about "Star Trek" and Space Force and our technologies, I remember when I was younger watchin' the Next Generation series. I thought one of the coolest things, 'cause bein' a musician in my spare time, I thought one of the coolest things was when Commander Riker would walk into his quarters and say, "Computer play soft jazz." And there would just be, the computer would just play music. And this was an age when we had hard media. Like how will that, that is awesome. Man, I can't wait for the 23rd century when I can do that. And where we are today is so incredible on those lines. The things that I can ask Alexa or Siri to play. >> Well that's the thing, everything that's on "Star Trek," think about it, it's almost invented. I mean, you got the computers, you got, the only thing really is, holograms are startin' to come in, you got, now the transporter room. Now that's physics. We'll work on that. >> So there is this balance between physics and imagination, but we have not exhausted either. >> Well, firstly, everyone that knows me knows I'm a huge "Star Trek" fan, all the series. Of course, I'm an original purist, but at that level. But this is about economic incentive as well. Roland, I want to get your thoughts, 'cause the gloom and doom, we got to think about the bad stuff to make it good. If I put my glass half full on the table, this economic incentives, just like the example of the plane and the air traffic. There's more actors that are incented to have a secure system. What's your thoughts to general's comments around the optimism and the potential threat matrix that needs to be managed. >> Absolutely, so one of the things that we've seen over the years, as we build these small satellites is a lot of that technology that the General's talking about, voice recognition, miniaturized chips, and sensors, started on the ground. And I mean, you have your iPhone, that, about 15 years ago before the first iPhone came out, we were building small satellites in the lab and we were looking at cutting-edge, state-of-the-art magnetometers and sensors that we were putting in our satellites back then. We didn't know if they were going to work. And then a few years later, as these students graduate, they go off and they go out to other industries. And so, some of the technology that was first kind of put in these CubeSats in the early 2000s, kind of ended up in the first generation iPhone, smartphones. And so being able to take that technology, rapidly incorporate that into space and vice versa gives you an incredible economic advantage. Because not only are your costs going down because you're mass producing these types of terrestrial technologies, but then you can also increase revenue and profit by having smaller and cheaper systems. >> General, let's talk about that real quickly, that's a good point, I want to just shift it into the playbook. I mean, everyone talks about playbooks for management, for tech, for startups, for success. I mean, one of the playbooks that's clear from your history is investment in R&D around military and/or innovation that has a long view, spurs innovation, commercially. I mean, just there's a huge, many decades of history that shows that, hey we got to start thinking about these challenges. And next thing you know it's in an iPhone. This is history, this is not like a one off. And now with Space Force you're driving the main engine of innovation to be all digital. You know, we riff about "Star Trek" which is fun, the reality is you're going to be on the front lines of some really new, cool, mind-blowing things. Could you share your thoughts on how you sell that to the people who write the checks or recruit more talent? >> First, I totally agree with your thesis that national security, well, could probably go back an awful long way, hundreds to thousands of years, that security matters tend to drive an awful lot of innovation and creativity. You know I think probably the two things that drive people the most are probably an opportunity to make money, but beating that out are trying to stay alive. And so, I don't think that's going to go away. And I do think that Space Force can play a role as it pursues security structures, within the space domain to further encourage economic investment and to protect our space capabilities for national security purposes, are going to be at the cutting edge. This isn't the first time. I think we can point back to the origins of the internet, really started in the Department of Defense, with a partnership I should add, with academia. That's how the internet got started. That was the creativity in order to meet some needs there. Cryptography has its roots in security, in national security, but now we use it for economic reasons and a host of other kinds of reasons. And then space itself, I mean, we still look back to Apollo era as an inspiration for so many things that inspired people to either begin careers in technical areas or in space and so on. So I think in that same spirit, you're absolutely right. I guess I'm totally agreeing with your thesis. The Space Force will have a positive, inspirational influence in that way. And we need to realize that. So when we are asking for, when we're looking for how we need to meet capability needs, we need to spread that net very far, look for the most creative solutions and partner early and often with those that can work on those. >> When you're on the new frontier, you got to have a team sport, it's a team effort. And you mentioned the internet, just anecdotally I'm old enough to remember this 'cause I remember the days that it was goin' on, is that the policy decisions that the U.S. made at that time was to let it go a little bit invisible hand. They didn't try to commercialize it too fast. But there was some policy work that was done, that had a direct effect to the innovation. Versus take it over, and the next thing you know it's out of control. So I think there's this cross-disciplinary skillset becomes a big thing where you need to have more people involved. And that's one of the big themes of this symposium. So it's a great point. Thank you for sharing that. Roland, your thoughts on this because you got policy decisions. We all want to run faster. We want to be more innovative, but you got to have some ops view. Now, most of the ops view people want things very tight, very buttoned up, secure. The innovators want to go faster. It's the ying and yang. That's the world we live in. How's it all balance in your mind? >> Yeah, one of the things that may not be apparently obvious is that the U.S. government and Department of Defense is one of the biggest investors in technology in the aerospace sector. They're not the traditional venture capitalists, but they're the ones that are driving technology innovation because there's funding. And when companies see that the U.S. government is interested in something, businesses will revector to provide that capability. And, I would say the more recent years, we've had a huge influx of private equity, venture capital coming into the markets to kind of help augment the government investment. And I think having a good partnership and a relationship with these private equity, venture capitalists and the U.S. government is incredibly important because the two sides can help collaborate and kind of see a common goal. But then also too, on the other side there's that human element. And as General Shaw was saying, not only do companies obviously want to thrive and do really well, some companies just want to stay alive to see their technology kind of grow into what they've always dreamed of. And oftentimes entrepreneurs are put in a very difficult position because they have to make payroll, they have to keep the lights on. And so, sometimes they'll take investment from places where they may normally would not have, from potentially foreign investment that could potentially cause issues with the U.S. supply chain. >> Well, my final question is the best I wanted to save for last, because I love the idea of human space flight. I'd love to be on Mars. I'm not sure I'm able to make it someday, but how do you guys see the possible impacts of cybersecurity on expanding human space flight operations? I mean, general, this is your wheelhouse. This is your in command, putting humans in space and certainly robots will be there because they're easy to go 'cause they're not human. But humans in space. I mean, you startin' to see the momentum, the discussion, people are scratchin' that itch. What's your take on that? How do we see makin' this more possible? >> Well, I think we will see commercial space tourism in the future. I'm not sure how wide and large a scale it will become, but we will see that. And part of the, I think the mission of the Space Force is going to be probably to again, do what we're doin' today is have really good awareness of what's going on in the domain to ensure that that is done safely. And I think a lot of what we do today will end up in civil organizations to do space traffic management and safety in that arena. And, it is only a matter of time before we see humans going, even beyond the, NASA has their plan, the Artemis program to get back to the moon and the gateway initiative to establish a space station there. And that's going to be a NASA exploration initiative. But it is only a matter of time before we have private citizens or private corporations putting people in space and not only for tourism, but for economic activity. And so it'll be really exciting to watch. It'll be really exciting and Space Force will be a part of it. >> General, Roland, I want to thank you for your valuable time to come on this symposium. Really appreciate it. Final comment, I'd love you to spend a minute to share your personal thoughts on the importance of cybersecurity to space and we'll close it out. We'll start with you Roland. >> Yeah, so I think the biggest thing I would like to try to get out of this from my own personal perspective is creating that environment that allows the aerospace supply chain, small businesses like ourselves, be able to meet all the requirements to protect and safeguard our data, but also create a way that we can still thrive and it won't stifle innovation. I'm looking forward to comments and questions, from the audience to really kind of help, basically drive to that next step. >> General final thoughts, the importance of cybersecurity to space. >> I'll go back to how I started I think John and say that space and cyber are forever intertwined, they're BFFs. And whoever has my job 50 years from now, or a hundred years from now, I predict they're going to be sayin' the exact same thing. Cyber and space are intertwined for good. We will always need the cutting edge, cybersecurity capabilities that we develop as a nation or as a society to protect our space capabilities. And our cyber capabilities are going to need space capabilities in the future as well. >> General John Shaw, thank you very much. Roland Coelho, thank you very much for your great insight. Thank you to Cal Poly for puttin' this together. I want to shout out to the team over there. We couldn't be in-person, but we're doing a virtual remote event. I'm John Furrier with "theCUBE" and SiliconANGLE here in Silicon Valley, thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> Voiceover: From around the globe, it's theCUBE, covering Space and Cybersecurity Symposium 2020 hosted by Cal Poly. >> Hello everyone? Welcome to the Space and Cybersecurity Symposium 2020 hosted by Cal Poly and theCUBE. I'm John Furrier, your host. We have a great session here. Space cybersecurity, the Department of Defense perspective. We have Bong Gumahad, Director of C4ISR, Directorate Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment for the DOD. And Chris Henson, Technical Director Space and Weapons, Cybersecurity Solutions for the National Security Agency. Gentlemen, thank you for taking the time for this awesome session. >> Thank you, John. >> Thank you. >> So we're going to talk about the perspective of the DOD relative to space cybersecurity. A lot going on, congestion, contention, freedom, evolution, innovation. So Bong, I'd like to have you start with your opening statement on how you see the space cybersecurity perspective. >> John, thanks for the intro, really appreciate it. First, let me give my thanks to Cal Poly for convening the Space and Cybersecurity Symposium this year. And despite the pandemic, the organization and the content delivery is pretty impressive. I really foot stomping what can possibly be done with a number of these virtual platforms. This has been awesome, thanks for the opportunity. I also want to recognize my colleague, Chris Henson from NSA, who is actually assigned to our staff at the OUSD, but he brings both policy and technical perspective in this whole area. So I think you'll find his commentary and positions on things very refreshing for today's seminar. Now space cybersecurity is a pretty interesting terminology for us all. Cybersecurity means protecting against cyber threats. And it's really more than just computers here on earth. Space is the newest war fighting domain and cybersecurity is perhaps even more of a challenge in this domain than others. I'm sure Lieutenant General Thompson and Major John Shaw discuss the criticality of this new Space Force. It's the newest military service in the earlier sessions and they're at the risk of repeating what they already addressed. Let me start by talking about what space means to DOD and what we're doing directly from my advantage point as part of the Acquisition and Sustainment arm of the Pentagon. Well, what I want to share with you today is how the current space strategy ties into the National Defense strategy and supports the department's operational objectives. As the director of C4ISR, I have come to understand how the integration of C4ISR capability is a powerful asset to enhance the lethality of the joint war fighter. Secretary Lord, our boss, the Under Secretary for Acquisition and Sustainment is diligent in her pursuit to adapt and modernize acquisition processes, to influence the strategy and to focus our efforts to make our objectives a reality. I think first and foremost, we are building a more lethal force. This joint force will project lethality in contested environments and across all domains through an operationally integrated and resiliency 4ISR infrastructure. We are also cultivating our alliances, deepening interoperability, which is very important in a future fight and collaboratively planning with those who partner with us in the fight. Most significantly for our work in acquisition and sustainment, we continue to optimize the department for greater performance and affordability through reform of the acquisition process. Now space is our newest fighting domain. And while it is indeed unique, it shares many common traits with the others, land, air and sea. All are important to the defense of the US. In conflict, no doubt about this, they will be contested and they must be defended. One domain will not win future conflicts and in a joint operation in a future fight and the future conflict they must all succeed. I see three areas being key toward DOD strategic success in space. One, developing our whole of government approach in close partnership with the private sector and our allies. Two, prioritizing our investments in resiliency, innovation and adaptive operations. And third, responding rapidly and effectively to leverage emerging technologies and seize opportunities to advance US strengths, partnerships and alliances. Let me emphasize that space is increasingly congested and tested and demanded as essential to lethality operational effectiveness and the security of our nation. Now the commercialization space offers a broad set of investments in satellite technology, potential opportunities to leverage those investments and pathways to develop cost efficient space architecture, for the department and the nation. It's funny, there's a new race, a race for space, if you will, between commercial companies buying for dominance of space. Now the joint staff within DOD is currently building an operational construct to employ and engage as a unified force coordinated across all domains. We call it the Joint All Domain Command and Control, JADC2. It is the framework that is under development to allow us to conduct integrated operations in the future. The objective of JADC2 is to provide the war fighter access to the decision making information while providing mission assurance of the information and resilience of the underlying terrestrial air in space networks that support them. Operationally, JADC2 seeks to maintain seamless integration, adaptation, and employment of our capability to sense signal, connect, transmit, process control, direct, and deliver lethal capabilities against the enemy. We gain a strategic advantage through the integration of these capabilities across all the domains, by providing balance space awareness, horse protection, and weapons controlled and deployment capabilities. Now successfully any ratings in these systems and capabilities will provide our war fighters overwhelming superiority on the battlefield in an environment challenged by near peer adversaries, as well as non state actors. In space, the character of its employment is changing, driven by increasing demands, not just by DOD, but by the commercial sector as well. You know, more and more we see greater use of small satellite systems to address a myriad of emerging questions, ubiquitous communications, awareness, sensory diversity, and many more. As I said before, the commercial world is pioneering high rate production of small satellites in their efforts to deploy hundreds, if not thousands of nodes. SpaceX Starlink Constellation is one example. Another one is Amazon's Kuiper. Kuiper just received FCC approval to deploy like over 3000 of these different nodes. While a number of these companies continue to grow, some have struggled. Case in point is OneWeb. Nevertheless, the appetite remains strong and DOD is taken advantage of these advances to support our missions. We are currently exploring how to better integrate the DOD activities involving small satellites under the small satellite coordinating activity, scholarly call it. We want to ensure collaboration and interoperability to maximize efficiency in acquisition and operation. When we started this activity on over a year and a half ago, we documented over 70 plus separate small sat programs within DOD. And now we've developed a very vibrant community of interest surrounding our small satellites. Now, part of the work we have identified nine focus areas for further development. These are common areas to all systems and by continuing to expand on these, our plan is to enable a standard of practice that can be applied across all of the domains. This includes lawn services, ground processing distribution, and of course, a topic of interest to the symposium space security and Chris will talk more about that, being that he's the expert in this area. One challenge that we can definitely start working on today is workforce development. Cybersecurity is unique as it straddles STEM and security and policy. The trade craft is different. And unfortunately I've seen estimates recently suggesting a workforce gap in the next several years, much like the STEM fields. During the next session, I am a part of a panel with president Armstrong at Cal Poly, and Steve Jacques, the founder of the National Security Space Association to address workforce development. But for this panel, I'll look forward to having this dialogue surrounding space cybersecurity with Chris and John. Thank you, John. >> Bong, thank you for that opening statement and yes, workforce gaps, we need the new skill space is here. Thank you very much. Chris Henson's Technical Director of Space and Weapons, Cybersecurity Solutions for the National Security Agency. Your opening statement. >> Thank you for having me. I'm one of several technical leaders in space at the National Security Agency. And I'm currently on a joint duty assignment at the office of Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment. I work under Mr. Gumahad in the C4ISR area. But almost 63 years ago, on the 4th of October, 1957, Sputnik was the first artificial satellite launched by the Soviet Union and space history was made. And each of you can continue to write future space history in your careers. And just like in 1957, the US isn't alone in space to include our close partnerships and longterm activities with organizations like the Japanese Space Agency, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, just to name a few. And when we tackle cybersecurity per space, we have to address the idea that the communications command and control and those mission datas will transverse networks owned and operated by a variety of partners, not only .go, .mil, .com, .edu, et cetera. We need to have all the partners address the cyber effects of those systems because the risk accepted by one is shared by all. And sharing cyber best practices, lessons learned, data vulnerabilities, threat data mitigation procedures, all our valuable takeaways in expanding the space community, improving overall conditions for healthy environment. So thank you for having me, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you and your audience. And I look forward to the discussion questions, thank you. >> Thank you, Chris, thank you, Bong. Okay, I mean, open innovation, the internet, you see plenty of examples. The theme here is partners, commercial, government. It's going to take a lot of people and tech companies and technologies to make space work. So we asked my first question, Bong, we'll start with you is what do you see as the DOD's role in addressing cybersecurity in space? It's real, it's a new frontier. It's not going away, it's only going to get more innovative, more open, more contested. It seems like a lot to do there. What's your role in addressing cyber security in space? >> I think our role is to be the leader in developing not only is it the strategy, but the implementation plans to ensure a full of cybersecurity. If you look at the National Cyber Strategy, I think published in 2018, calls for like-minded countries, industry academia, and civil society. Once you mentioned John, the support technology development, digital safety policy, advocacy, and research. You here today, and those listening are fulfilling their strategy. When you develop, enable use cyber hygiene products as examples and capabilities, you're pushing the goal to provision. When you know what's on your network, patch network, backup and encrypt your network, you're hardening and preventing cyber attacks. And we in government academia, in the case of Cal Poly, civil networks and in commercial companies, we all benefit from doing that. Cyber security, and I think Chris will definitely back me up on this, more than passwords encryption or firewall. It's truly a mindset and a culture of enabling mission to succeed in assured and in a resilient fashion. >> Chris, you're take and reaction to the cybersecurity challenge involved here. >> It's starting really at the highest level of governments. We have, you know, the recent security policy Directive-5 that just came out just a couple of days ago, recognize all the factors of cybersecurity that need to come into play. And probably the most important outcome of that as Mr. Gumahad said, is the leadership role. And that leadership blends out very well into partnership. So partnership with industry, partnership with academia, partnership with other people that are exploring space. And those partnerships blend itself very naturally to sharing cybersecurity issues, topics, as we come up with best practices, as we come up with mitigation strategies, and as we come up with vulnerabilities and share that information. We're not going to go alone in space, just like we're probably not going to go alone in many other industries or areas. That the DOD has to be involved in many spectrums of deploying to space. And that deployment involves, as Mr. Gumahad said, encryption, authentication, knowing what's on the network, knowing the fabric of that network, and if nothing else, this internet of things and work from home environment that we've partaken of these last few months has even explored and expanded that notion even more dramatically as we have people dial in from all over the different locations. Well, space will be that natural node, that natural next network in measure involvement that we'll have to protect and explore on, not just from a terrestrial involvement, but all segments of it. The calm segment, the space vehicle, and the ground portion. >> You know, Bong, we talked about this in our other segment around with the president of Cal Poly, but the operating models of the Space Force and of the DOD and getting to space. But it's a software defined world, right? So cybersecurity is a real big issue 'cause you have an operating model that's requiring software to power these low hanging satellites. That's just an extension to the network. It's distributed computing, we know what this is. If you understand what technology we do in space, it's no different, it's just a different environment so it's software defined. That just lends itself well to hacking. I mean, if I'm a hacker I'm going, "Hey, why not just take out a satellite and crash it down "or make the GPS do something different?" I mean, it's definitely an attack vector. This is a big deal. It's not just like getting credentials that are cashed on a server, you got to really protect. >> Right, because in one hand it space will carry not only focal national security information, but if you look at the economic wellbeing, the financial state of a lot of countries, institutions, you know, more and more John, they'll be using space assets to make all that happen. So, and if you look at the, you mentioned the attack vectors in space. It's not just the computers in the ground, but if you look at the whole life cycle for satellite systems in space, the tasking that you need to do, the command and controlling of the vehicle, the data that comes down in the ground, even when you launch the birds, the satellites, you know, they all need to be protected because they're all somewhat vulnerable to hacking, to cyber attacks. Especially as we grow into commercialization space, it's going to be a lot more people out there playing in this world. It's going to be a lot more companies out there. And, you know, it's hard to track, the potential of foreign influences as an example, and therefore the potential of being vulnerable in terms of the cyber threat. >> Gentlemen, like you guys said to move on to this leadership role, Bong, you mentioned it. You want to be a leader, I get it, the DOD is Department of Defense, it's a new frontier to defend war time zone, you mentioned war time opportunity potentially. But how do you guys assist that's term hat to getting done? Because there's public and private space operations happening, there's security challenge. What does being a leader mean? And how does the DOD, Department of Defense assist driving the public and private? Do you lead from a project standpoint? Do you lead from a funding standpoint? Is it architectural? I mean, you're talking about now a new end-to-end architecture. It's not just cloud it's on premise, it's in devices, it's offloaded with new AI technology and nix and devices. It's IOT, it's all this and all new. This is all new. What does it mean for the DOD to be a leader and how do you assist others to get involved? And what does that mean? >> Yeah, I think the one hand, you know, DOD used to lead in terms of being the only source of funding for a lot of highly developmental efforts. We're seeing a different story in space. Again, I keep going back to the commercialization of space. We're seeing a lot more players, right? So in many ways allies commercial companies are actually leading the R&D of a lot different technology. So we certainly want to take advantage of that. So from a leadership standpoint, I think leadership can come in, by partnering a lot more with the commercial companies. In 2020, the DOD released the Defense Space Strategy, as an example, that highlights the threats, the challenges and opportunities the United States has faced by setting example of how we counter the threats that are out there, not just the DOD, but the civilian and the commercial sector as well. Our current conditions are strong, but we want to use four lines of effort to meet our challenges and capitalize on our desire to state space. Our lines of effort include building a comprehensive military badges space, integrating space into a national joint and combined operations, like I mentioned before. Shaping that strategic environment and cooperating with allies, partners in industry and other US governmental departments and agencies to advance the cost of space. To take full advantage of what space can provide us in DOD and the nation. >> Chris as a domain now, what's your take on all of this? Because again, it's going to take more people, more diverse, potentially more security hauls. What's your view on this? >> Well, let's look at how innovation and new technologies can help us in these areas. So, and mentioned it a couple of topics that you hit on already. One of the areas that we can improve on is certainly in the architecture. Where we look at a zero trust architecture, one of the NIST standards that's come about. Where it talks about the authentication, the need to know a granular approach, this idea of being able to protect, not just data, but the resources and how people can get access to those, whether they're coming in through an identification, authentication credential, or other aspects of the idea of not just anybody should be able to have access to data or anybody should have access once they're on the inside of the network. So that zero trust architecture is one approach where we can show some leadership and guidance. Another area is in a topic that you touched on as well, was in the software area. So some innovations are coming on very rapidly and strong in this artificial intelligence and machine learning. So if we can take this AI and ML and apply it to our software development areas, they can parse so much information very quickly. And you know, this vast array of software code that's going into system nowadays. And then that frees up our human exquisite talent and developers that can then look at other areas and not focus on minor vulnerability, fix a vulnerability. They can really use their unique skills and talents to come up with a better process, a better way, and let the artificial intelligence and machine learning, find those common problems, those unknown hidden lines of code that get put into a software library and then pull down over and over again from system to system. So I think between an architecture leadership role and employee innovation are two areas that we can show some benefits and process improvement to this whole system. >> That's a great point, Chris, and you think about just the architectural computer architecture network attached storage is an advantage software defined there. You could have flash, all flash arrays for storage. You could have multiple cores on a device. And this new architecture, offloads things, and it's a whole new way to gain efficiencies. I mean, you got Intel, you got Nvidia, you've got armed, all the processors all built in. So there's definitely been commercial best practices and benefits to a new kind of architecture that takes advantage of these new things. It's just efficiencies. But this brings up the whole supply chain conversation. I want to get your thoughts on this because there is talk about predatory investments and access and tactics to gain supply chain access to space systems, your thoughts? >> Yeah, it's a serious threat and not just for the US space supply chain, if you will, is the supply chain you access with large, I think it's a threat that's this real we're seeing today. I just saw an example recently involving, I think our law and services, where there was a foreign threat that was trying to get into a troop through with predatory investments. So it is something that we need to be aware of, it's happening and will continue to happen. It's an easy way to gain access to do our IP. And so it's something that we are serious about in terms of awareness and countering. >> Chris, your thoughts? I mean, I'm an open source guy. We've seen it when I grew up in the industry in the '80s open source became a revolution. But with that, it enabled new tactics for state sponsored attacks and that became a domain in of itself. That's well-documented and people talk about that all the time in cyber. Now you have open innovation with hardware, software connected systems. This is going to bring a supply chain nightmare. How do you track it all? (chuckles) Who's got what software and what device... Where the chip from? Who made it? Just the potential is everywhere. How do you see these tactics? Whether it's a VC firm from another country or this, that, and the other thing, startup, big company-- >> Yeah, so when we see coal companies being purchased by foreign investors, and, you know, we can get blocked out of those, whether it's in the food industry, or if it's in a microchip. Then that microchip could be used in a cell phone or a satellite or an automobile. So all of our are industries that have these companies that are being purchased or a large born investment influx into those, they can be suspect. And we have to be very careful with those and do the tracking of those, especially when those, some of those parts and mechanisms are coming from off shore. And again, going back to the Space Policy Directive-5, it calls out for better supply chain, resource management, the tracking, the knowing the pedigree and the quantitative ability of knowing where those software libraries came from, where the parts came from, and the tracking and delivery of that from an end-to-end system. And typically when we have a really large vendor, they can do that really well. But when we have a subcontractor to a subcontractor, to a subcontractor, their resources may not be such that they can do that tracking in mitigation for counterfeits or fraudulent materials going into our systems. So it's a very difficult challenge, and we want to ensure as best we can that as we ingest those parts, as we ingest those software libraries and technologies into the system, that before we employ them, we have to do some robust testing. And I don't want to say that's the last line of defense, but that certainly is a mechanism for finding out do the systems perform as they stated on a test bench or a flat set, whatever the case may be, before we actually deploy it. And then we're relying on the output or the data that comes from that system that may have some corrupt or suspect parts in it. >> Great point, this federal views-- >> The problem with space systems is kind of, you know, is once you launch the bird or the satellite, your access to it is diminished significantly, right? Unless you go up there and take it down. So, you know, kind of to Chris's point, we need to be able to test all the different parts to ensure that is performing as described there, as specified with good knowledge that it's trustworthy. And so we do that all on the ground before we take it up to launch it. >> It's funny, you want agility, you want speed, and you security, and you want reliability, and risk management. All aggressive, and it's a technical problem, it's a business model problem. Love to get real quick before we jump into some of the more workforce and gap issues on the personnel side, have you guys to just take a minute to explain quickly what's the federal view? If you had to kind of summarize the federal view of the DOD and the role with it wants to take, so all the people out there on the commercial side or students out there who are wanting to jump in, what is the current modern federal view of space cybersecurity? >> Chris, why don't you take that on and I'll follow up. >> Okay, I don't know that I can give you the federal view, but I can certainly give you the Department of Defense that cyber security is extremely important. And as our vendors and our suppliers take on a very, very large and important role, one area that we're looking at improving on is a cyber certification maturity model, where we look at the vendors and how they implement and employee cyber hygiene. So that guidance in and of itself shows the emphasis of cyber security. That when we want to write a contract or a vendor for a purchase that's going to go into a space system, we'd like to know from a third party audit capability, can that vendor protect and defend to some extent the amount that that part or piece or software system is going to have a cyber protection already built into it from that vendor, from the ground floor up, before it even gets put into a larger system. So that shows a level of the CMMC process that we've thought about and started to employ beginning in 2021 and will be further built on in the out years. How important the DOD takes that. And other parts of the government are looking at this. In fact, other nations are looking at the CMMC model. So I think it shows a concern in very many areas, not just in the Department of Defense, that they're going to adopt an approach like this. So it shows the pluses and the benefits of a cybersecurity model that all can build on. >> Bong, your reaction. >> Yeah, I'll just add to that. John, you asked earlier about, you know, how do we track commercial entities or people into the space and cyber security domains? I can tell you that at least my view of it, space and cybersecurity are new. It's exciting, it's challenging, a lot of technical challenges there. So I think in terms of attracting the right people and personnel to work those areas, I think it's not only intellectually challenging, but it's important for the defensing and near States. And it's important for economic security at large for us as well. So I think in terms of a workforce and trying to get people interested in those domains, I hope that they see the same thing we do in terms of the challenges and the opportunities it presents itself in the future. >> Awesome, I loved your talk on intro track there. Bong, you mentioned the three key areas of DOD success, developing a whole government approach to partnership with the private sector. I think that's critical, and the allies. Prioritizing the right investments on resilience, innovation, adaptive operations, and responding to rapidly to effectively emerging technology seem to be fast. I think all those things are relevant. So given that, I want to get your thoughts on the Defense Space Strategy. In 2020, the DOD released dispense Defense Space Strategy, highlighting threats, and challenges and opportunities. How would you summarize those threats and those challenges and opportunities? What are those things that you're watching in the defense space area? >> Right, well, I think as I said before, Chris as well, you know, we're seeing that space will be highly contested because it's a critical element in our war fighting construct. To win our future conflict, I think we need to win space as well. So when you look at our near peer adversaries, there's a lot of efforts in China to take that advantage away from the United States. So the threat is real, and I think it's going to continue to evolve and grow. And the more we use space, for both commercial and government, I think you're going to see a lot more when these threats, some AFAs itself in forms of cyber attacks, or even kinetic attacks in some cases as needed. So, yeah, so the threat is indeed growing, space is congested, as we talked about, it will continually be contested in the future as well. So we need to have, like we do now in all the other domains, a way to defend it. And that's what we're working on within DOD. How do we protect our assets in space, and how do we make sure that the data information that traverses through space assets are trustworthy and free of any interference. >> Chris, exciting time, I'm mean, if you're in technology, this is crossing many lines here, tech, society, war time defense, new areas, new tech. I mean, it's security, it's intoxicating at many levels because if you think about it, it's not one thing. It's not one thing anymore. It spans a broader spectrum, these opportunities. >> Yeah and I think that expansion is a natural outgrowth from, as our microprocessors and chips and technology continue to shrink smaller and smaller. You know, we think of our cell phones and our handheld devices and tablets and so on that have just continued to get embedded in our everyday society, our everyday way of life. And that's a natural extension when we start applying those to space systems, when we think of smallsats and cube sets and the technology that's can be repurposed into a small vehicle, and the cost has come down so dramatically that, you know, we can afford to get rapid experiments, rapid exploitations and different approaches in space and learn from those and repeat them very quickly and very rapidly. And that applies itself very well to an agile development process, DevSecOps, and this notion of spins and cycles and refreshing and re-addressing priorities very quickly so that when we do put a new technology up, that the technology is very lean and cutting edge, and hasn't been years and years in the making, but it's relevant and new. And the cybersecurity and the vulnerabilities of that have to be addressed and allow that DevSecOps process to take place so that we can look at those vulnerabilities and get that new technology and those new experiments and demonstrations in space and get lessons learned from them over and over again. >> Well, that brings us to the next big topic. I want to spend the remainder of our time on, that is workforce, this next generation. If I wasn't so old, I would quit my job and I would join immediately. It's so much fun, it's exciting, and it's important. And this is what I think is a key point is that cybersecurity in and of itself has got a big gap of shortage of workers, nevermind adding space to it. So this is the intersection of space and cybersecurity. There is a workforce opportunity for this next generation, young person to person re-skilling, this is a big deal. Bong, you have thoughts on this? It's not just STEM, it's everything. >> Yeah, it's everything, you know, the opportunities we have in space, it's significant and tremendous. And I think if I were young again, as you pointed out, John, you know, I'm lucky that I'm in this domain in this world and I started years ago, but it continues to be exciting, lots of opportunities, you know. When you look at some of the commercial space systems are being put up, if you look at, I mentioned Starlink before and Amazon's Kuiper Constellation. These guys are talking about couple of thousand satellites in space to provide ubiquitous communications for internet globally, and that sort of thing. And they're not the only ones that are out there producing capability. We're seeing a lot more commercial imagery products being developed by companies, both within the US and foreign elements as well. So I think it's an exciting time to be in space. Certainly lots of opportunities. There's technical challenges galore in terms of not only the overcoming the physics of space, but being able to operate flexibly and get the most you can out of the capabilities we have operating up in space. >> Besides being cool, I mean, everyone looks at launch of space gets millions of views on live streams, the On-Demand reruns get millions and millions of views. There's a lot of things there. So, Chris, what specifically could you share are things that people would work on? Jobs, skills, what's the aperture? What's it look like if you zoom out and look at all the opportunities from a scale standpoint, what's out there? >> I'll talk to the aperture, but I want to give a shout out to our Space Force. And I mean, their job is to train and equip each air space and that space talent. And I think that's going to be a huge plus up to have a Space Force that's dedicated to training, equipping, an acquisition and a deployment model that will benefit not just the other services, but all of our national defense and our strategic way of how this company, country employees space altogether. So having a Space Force, I think, is a huge issue. And then to get to that aperture aspect of what you're asking and that addresses a larger workforce, we need so many different talents in this area. We can employ a variety of people from technical writers, to people who write and develop software to those who bending metal and actually working in a hardware environment. And those that do planning and launch operations and all of those spectrums and issues of jobs, are directly related to a workforce that can contribute to space. And then once that data gets to the ground and employed out to a user, whether it's a weather data, or we're looking at from a sensor, recent events on shipping lanes, those types of things. So space has such a wide and diverse swath that the aperture's really wide open for a variety of backgrounds. And those that really just want to take an opportunity, take a technical degree, or a degree that can apply itself to a tough problem, because they certainly exist in space. And we can use that mindset of problem solving, whether you come at it from a hacker mindset, an ethical, white hat approach to testing and vulnerability exploration. Or somebody who knows how to actually make operations safer, better through space situation awareness. So there's a huge swath of opportunity for us. >> Bong, talk about the cybersecurity enabled environment, the use cases that are possible when you have cybersecurity in play with space systems, which is in and of itself, a huge range of jobs, codings, supply chain, we just talked about a bunch of them. There's still more connected use cases that go beyond that, that are enabled by it, if you think about it. And this is what the students at Cal Poly and every other college and university, community college, you name it, who are watching videos on YouTube. Anyone with a brain can jump in if they see the future. It's all net news. Space Force is driving awareness, but there's a whole slew of these new use cases that I call space enabled by cyber secure systems. Your thoughts? >> Absolutely, I was had planned on attending the Cyber Challenge that's Cal Poly had planned in June. Of course, the pandemic took care of that plan, but I was intrigued by the approach that the Cal Poly was taking with middle school and high school kids of exposing him to a problem set. Here, you have a satellite that came down from space and part of the challenge was to do forensic analysis on the debris, the remaining pieces of the satellite to figure out what happened. It had a cyber cybersecurity connotation. It was hacked, it was attacked by cyber threat nation, took it down. And the beauty of having these kids kind of play with the remaining parts of the satellite, figure out what happened. So it was pretty exciting. I was really looking forward to participating in that, but again, the pandemic kind of blew that up, but I look forward to future events like that, to get our young people intrigued and interested in this new field of space. Now, Chris was talking earlier about opportunities, there're opportunities that you talk about, while I would like to have people come to the government, to help us out, it's not just focused on government. There's lots of opportunities in commercial space, if you will, for a lot of talent to participate in. So the challenge is immense, both government and the commercial sector, John. >> I mean, you get the hardcore, you know, I want to work for the DOD, I want to work for NSA, I want to work for the government. You clearly got people who want to have that kind of mission. But for the folks out there, Chris and Bong that are like, "Do I qualify?" It's like the black box of the DOD, it's like a secret thing, you got to get clearance, you've got to get all these certifications. And you got to take all kinds of tests and background checks. Is it like that, and will that continue? 'Cause some people might say, "Hey, can I even get involved? "What do I do?" So I know there's some private partnerships going on with companies out there in the private sector. So this is now a new, you guys seem to be partnering and going outside the comfort zone of the old kind of tactical things. What are some of those opportunities that people could get involved in that they might not know about? >> For NSA, there's a variety of workforce initiatives that for anybody from a high school work study can take advantage of to those that would like have to have internships. And those that are in a traditional academic environment, there's several NSA schools across the country that have academic and cyber sites of excellence that participate in projects that are shepherded and mentored by those at NSA that can get those tough problems that don't have maybe a classified or super sensitive nature that can be worked in and in an academia environment. So those are two or three examples of how somebody can break into an intelligence organization. And the other agencies have those opportunities as well across the intelligence community. And the partnership between and collaboration between private industry and the agencies and the Department of Defense just continue to grow over and over again. And even myself being able to take advantage of a joint duty assignment between my home organization and the Pentagon, just shows another venue of somebody that's in one organization can partner and leverage with another organization as well. So I'm an example of that partnering that's going on today. >> So there's some innovation. Bong, nontraditional pathways to find talent, what are out there, what are new? What are these new nontraditional ways? >> I was going to add to what Chris was mentioning, John. Even within DOD and under the purview of our chief information officer, back in 2013, the Deputy Secretary Defense signed the, what we call the DOD Cyberspace Workforce Strategy into effect. And that included a program called the Cyber Information Technology Exchange Program. It's an exchange program in which a private sector employee can work for the DOD in cyber security positions span across multiple mission critical areas. So this is one opportunity to learn, inside the DOD what's happening as a private sector person, if you will. Going back to what we talked about, kind of opportunities within the government for somebody who might be interested. You don't have to be super smart, dork in space, there's a lot of, like Chris pointed out, there's a lot of different areas that we need to have people, talented people to conduct the mission in space. So you don't have to be mathematician. You don't have to be an engineer to succeed in this business. I think there's plenty of opportunities for any types of talent, any type of academic disciplines that are out there. >> All right, thank you, and Chris's shout out to the Space Force is really worth calling out again, because I think to me, that's a big deal. It's a huge deal. It's going to change the face of our nation and society. So super, super important. And that's going to rise the tide. I think it's going to create some activation for a younger generation, certainly, and kind of new opportunities, new problems to solve, new threats to take on, and move it on. So really super conversation, space and cybersecurity, the Department of Defense perspective. Bong and Chris, thank you for taking the time. I'd love you guys just to close out. We'll start with you Bong and then Chris. Summarize for the folks watching, whether it's a student at Cal Poly or other university or someone in industry and government, what is the Department of Defense perspective for space cybersecurity? >> Chris, want to go and take that on? >> That's right, thank you. Cybersecurity applies to much more than just the launch and download of mission data or human led exploration. And the planning, testing, and experiments in the lab prior to launch require that cyber protection, just as much as any other space link, ground segment, trust rail network, or user data, and any of that loss of intellectual property or proprietary data is an extremely valuable and important, and really warrants cyber security safeguards. In any economic espionage, your data exfiltration, or denied access to that data, i.e. ransomware or some other attack, that can cripple any business or government endeavor, no matter how small or large, if it's left unprotected. And our economic backbone clearly depends on space. And GPS is more than just a direction finding, banking needs that T and timing from P and T or whether it just systems that protect our shipping and airline industry of whether they can navigate and go through a particular storm or not. Even fighting forest fires picked up by a remote sensor. All those space space assets require protection from spoofing date, data denial, or total asset loss. An example would be if a satellite sensitive optics or intentionally pointed at the sun and damaged, or if a command to avoid collision with another space vehicle was delayed or disrupted or a ground termination command as we just saw just a few days ago at T minus three seconds prior to liftoff, if those all don't go as planned, those losses are real and can be catastrophic. So the threat to space is pervasive, real and genuine, and your active work across all those platforms is necessary and appreciated. And your work in this area is critical going forward. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you and talking on this important topic. Thank you, Chris Henson. Bong Gumahad, closing remarks? >> Yeah, likewise, John, again, as Chris said, thank you for the opportunity to discuss this very important around space cybersecurity, as well as addressing at the end there, we were talking about workforce development and the need to have people in the mix for future. (indistinct) We discussed, we need to start that recruiting early as we're doing to address the STEM gap today, we need to apply the same thing for cybersecurity. We absolutely need smart and innovative people to protect both our economic wellbeing as a nation, as well as our national defense. So this is the right conversation to have at this time, John. And again, thank you and Cal Poly host for having this symposium and having this opportunity to have this dialogue. Thank you. >> Gentlemen, thank you for your time and great insights. We couldn't be there in person. We're here virtual for the Space and Cybersecurity Symposium 2020, the Cal Poly. I'm John Furrier with SiliconANGLE and theCUBE, your host. Thank you for watching. (soft music)

>>from around the globe. It's the Cube >>with digital coverage of VM World 2020 brought to you by VM Ware and its ecosystem partners. Hello and welcome back to the VM World 2020 Virtual coverage with the Cube Virtual I'm John for day. Volonte your hosts our 11th year covering VM. We'll get a great guest Greg Lavender, SBP and the CTO of VM. Where, uh, welcome to the Cube. Virtual for VM World 2020 Virtual Great. Thanks for coming on. >>Privileged to be here. Thank you. >>Um, really. You know, one of the things Dave and I were commenting with Pat on just in general start 11th year covering VM world. Uh, a little difference not face to face. But it's always been a technical conference. Always a lot of technical innovation. Project Monterey's out there. It's pretty nerdy, but it's a it's called the catnip of the future. Right? People get excited by it, right? So there's really ah lot of awareness to it because it kinda it smells like a systems overhaul. It smells like an operating system. Feels like a, you know, a lot of moving parts that are, quite frankly, what distributed computing geeks and software geeks love to hear about and to end distributed software intelligence with new kinds of hardware innovations from and video and whatnot. Where's that innovation coming from? Can you share your thoughts on this direction? >>Yeah, I think first I should say this isn't like, you know, something that just, you know, we decided to do, you know, six months ago, actually, in the office of C T 04 years ago, we actually had a project. Um, you know, future looking project to get our core hyper visor technology running on arm processors and that incubated in the office of the CTO for three years. And then last December, move the engineering team that had done that research and advanced development work in the office of the CTO over to our cloud platforms business unit, you know, and smart Knicks, you know, kind of converged with that. And so we were already, you know, well along the innovation path there, and it's really now about building the partnerships we have with smart nick vendors and driving this technology out to the benefit of our customers who don't want to leverage it. >>You get >>Greg, I want if you could clarify something for me on that. So Pat talked about Monterey, a complete re architect ing of the i o Stack. And he talked about it affecting in video. Uh, intel, melon, ox and Sandoz part of that when he talks about the Iot stack, you know, specifically what are we talking about there? >>So you know any any computing server in the data center, you know, in a cola facility or even even in the cloud, you know? Ah, large portion of the, you know CPU resource is, and even some memory resource is can get consumed by just processing. You know, the high volumes of Iot that's going out, you know, storage devices, you know, communicating between the different parts of multi tiered applications. And so there's there's a there's an overhead that that gets consumed in the course server CPU, even if its multi core multi socket. And so by offloading that a lot of that I owe work onto the arm core and taking advantage of the of the hardware offloads there in the smart Knicks, you can You can offload that processing and free up even as much as 30% of the CPU of a server, multi socket, multicourse server, and give that back to the application so that the application gets the benefit of that extra compute and memory resource is >>So what about a single sort of low cost flash tear to avoid the complexities of tearing? Is that part of the equation? >>Well, you know, you can you can, um you know, much storage now is network attached. And so you could if it's all flash storage, you know, using something like envy me fabric over over Ethernet, you can essentially build large scale storage networks more efficiently, you know more cheaply and take advantage of that offload processing, uh, to begin to reduce the Iot Leighton. See, that's required taxes. That network attached storage and not just storage. But, you know, other devices, you know, that you can use you could better network attached. So disaggregated architectures is term. >>Uh, is that a yes? Or is that a stay tuned? >>Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. I mean the storage. You know, more efficient use of different classes of storage and storage. Tearing is definitely a prime use case there. >>Yeah, great. Thank you. Thanks for that. John, >>How could people think about the edge now? Because one of the things that's in this end to end is the edge. Pat brought it up multi cloud and edge or two areas that are extending off cloud and hybrid. What should people think about the innovation equation around those things? Is that these offload techniques? What specifically in the systems architecture? Er, do you guys see as the key keys there? >>So so, you know, edges very diversified, heterogeneous place, Uh, in the architectures of multi cloud services. So one thing we do know is, you know, workload. I would like to say workload follows data, and a lot of the data will be analyzed, the process at the edge. So the more that you can accelerate that data processing at the edge and apply some machine learning referencing at the edge were almost certainly gonna have kubernetes everywhere, including the edge. So I think you're seeing a convergence of the hardware architectures er the kubernetes control plane and services and machine learning workloads. You know, traveling to the edge where the where the data is going to be processed and actions could be taken autonomously at the edge. So I think we're in this convergence point in the industry where all that comes together. >>How important do you >>do you see that? Okay, John, >>how important is the intelligence piece? Because again, the potatoes at the edge. How do you guys see the data architecture being built out there? >>Um, well, again, it's depending on the other. The thick edge of the thin edge. You know, you're gonna have different, different types of data, and and again, a lot of the the inference thing that could happen at the edges. Going to, I think, for mawr, you know, again to take action at the edges, opposed to calling home to a cloud, you know, to decide what to do. So, depending on, you know, the computational power and the problem with its video processing or monitoring, you know, sensors, Aaron, oil. Well, the kind of interesting that will happen at the edge will will be dependent on that data type and what kind of decisions you want to make. So I think data will be moving, you know, from the edge to the cloud for historical analytics and maybe transitional training mechanisms. But, you know, the five G is gonna play heavily into this is well right for the network connectivity. So we read This unique point is often occurs in the industry every few years of all these technology innovations converging to open up an entirely new platform in a new way of computing that happens at the edge, not just in your data center at the cloud. >>So, Greg, you did a fairly major stint at a large bank. What would something you mentioned? You know, like an oil rig. But what would something like these changes mean for a new industry like banking or financial? Uh, will it have an impact there and put on your customer hat for a minute and take us through that >>e? You know, eight machines, you know, branches, chaos. You know, there's all make banks always been a very distributed computing platform. And so, you know, people want to deliver mawr user experience, services, more video services. You know all these things at the edge to interact positively with the customer without using the people in the loop. And so the banking industry has already gone through the SD when, and I want transformation to deliver the bandwidth more capably to the edge. And I just think that they'll just now be able to deliver Mawr Edge services that happened can happen more autonomously at the edge is opposed that having the hairpin home run everything back to the data center. >>Awesome. Well, Pat talks about the modern platform, the modern companies. Greg, I wanna ask you because we're seeing with Kovar, there's to use cases, you know, the people who don't have a tailwind, Um, companies that are, you know, not doing well because there's no business that you have there modernizing their business while they have some downtime. Other ones have a tailwind. They have a modern app that that takes advantage, this covert situation. So that brings up this idea of what is a modern app look like? Because now, if you're talking about a distributed architecture, some of things you're mentioning around inference, data edge. People are starting to think about these modern naps, and they are changing the game for the business. Now you have vertical industries. You mentioned oil and gas, you got financial services. It used to be you had industry solution. It worked like that and was siloed. Now you have a little bit of a different architectures. If we believe that we're looking up, not down. Does it matter by industry? How should people think about a modern application, how they move faster? Can you share your insights into into some of this conceptual? What is a modern approach and does it doesn't matter by vertical or industry. >>Yes, I mean, certainly over the course of my career, I mean, there's there's a massive diversity of applications. And of course, you know, the explosion of mobile and edge computing is just another sort of sort of use cases that will put demands on the infrastructure in the architecture and the networking. So a modern, a modern app I mean, we historically built sort of these monolithic app. So we sort of built these sort of three tier apse with, you know, sort of the client side, the middleware side. The database back in is the system of record. I mean, this is even being more disaggregated in terms of, you know, the the consumer edges both not just web here, but mobile tear. And, you know, we'll see what emerges out of that. The one thing for sure that is that, um they're becoming less monolithic and mawr a conglomeration of sass and other services that are being brought together, whether it's from the cloud services or whether it's s, you know, SBS delivering, you know, bring your own software. Um, and they're becoming more distributed because people need operated higher degrees of scale. There's a limit to Virgil vertical scaling, so you have to go to horizontal scaling, which is what the cloud is really good at. So I think all these things were driving a whole new set of technologies like next generation AP gateways. Message Busses, service mesh. We're announcing Tanzi's service message being world. Um, you know, this is just allowing allowing that application to be disaggregated and then integrated with other APS assassin services that allow you to get faster time to market. So speed of delivery is everything. So modern C I. C d. Modern software, technology and ability to deploy and run that workload anywhere at the edge of the core in the data center in the cloud. >>So when you do in your re architecture like this, Greg, I mean you've seen over the course of history in our industry you've seen so many companies have hit a wall and in VM, whereas it's just amazing engineering culture. How are you able toe, you know, change the engine mid flight here and avoid like, serious technical debt. And I mean, it took, you know, you said started four years ago, but can you give us a peek inside? You know, that sort of transformation and how you're pulling that off? >>Well, I mean, we're providing were delivered the platform and, you know, spring Buddhas a key, you know, technology that's used widely across the industry already, which is what we've got is part of our pivotal acquisition. And so what we're just trying to do is just keep keep delivering the technology and the platform that allows people to go faster with quality security and safety and resiliency. That's what we do really well at VM ware. So I think you're seeing more people building these APS Cloud native is opposed to, you know, taking an existing legacy app In trying to re factor it, they might do what it called e think somebody's called two speed architectures. Take the user front, end the consumer front in, and put that cloud native in the cloud. But the back end system of record still runs in the private cloud in a highly resilient you know, backed up disaster recovered way. So you're having, I think, brand new cloud native APS we're seeing. And then you're seeing people very carefully because there's a cost to it of looking at How do I basically modernized the front end but maintain the reliability of the scalability of security and the reliability of that sort of system of record back in? So either way, it's it's winning for the companies because they could do faster delivery to their businesses and their clients and their partners. But you have to have the resiliency and reliability that were known for for running those mission critical workloads, >>right? So the scenario is that back end stays on premise on the last earnings call, I think, Pat said, or somebody said that, that I think I just they said on Prem or maybe the man hybrid 30 to 40% cheaper, then doing it in the cloud. I presume they were talking about those kind of back end systems that you know you don't wanna migrate. Can you add some color that again from your customer perspective That the economics? >>Yeah. You know, um, somebody asked me one time what's really a cloud. Greg and I said, automation, automation, automation you can take you can take You can take your current environments and highly automate the release. Lifecycle management develop more agile software delivery methods. And so therefore, you could you could get sort of cloud benefits, you know, from your existing applications by just highly optimizing them and, you know, on the cost of goods and services. And then again, the hybrid cloud model just gives customers more choice, which is okay. I want to reduce the number of data centers I have, but I need to maintain reliability, scalability, etcetera. Take advantage of, you know, the hybrid cloud that we offer. But you'll still run things. Cloud natives. I think you're seeing this true multi cloud technology and paradigm, you know, grow out as people have these choices. And then the question is okay. If you have those choices, how do you maintain security? How do you maintain reliability? How do you maintain up time yet be able to move quickly. And so I think there's different speeds in which those platforms will evolve. And our goal is to give you the ability to basically make those choices and and optimize for economics as well as technical. You know, capability. >>Great. I want to ask you a question with Cove it we're seeing and we've been reporting the Cube virtual evolve because we used to be it at events, but we're not there anymore. But the as everyone has realized with cove it it's exposed some projects that you might not want to double down on or highlighted some gaps in architecture. Er, I mean, certainly who would have forecast of the disruption of 100% work from home VP and provisioning to access and access management security, and it really is exposed. What kind of who's where in the journey, Right in digital transformation. So I gotta ask you, what's the most important story or thing to pay attention, Thio as the smart money and smart customers go, Hey, you know what? I'm gonna double down on that. I'm gonna kill that project or sunset. That or I'm not gonna re factor that I'm gonna contain Arise it and there's probably there's a lot of that going on. In our conversations with customers, they're like it's pretty obvious. It's critical path. It's like we stay in business. We build a modern app, but I'm doubling down. I'm transitioning. It's a whole nother ballgame. What >>is >>the most important thing that you see that people should pay attention to around maintaining an innovation and coming out on the other side? >>Yeah, well, I think I think it just generally goes to the whole thesis of software defined. I mean, you know the idea of taking an appliance physical, You know, you have to order the hardware, get it on your loading dock, install in your data center. You know, go configure it, mapping into the rest of your environment. You know, whereas or you could just spend up new, softer instances of load balancers, firewalls, etcetera. So I think you know what's What's really helped in the covert era is the maturity of software to find everything. Compute storage, networking. Lan really allowed customers and many of our customers toe, you know, rapidly make that pivot. And so you know what? It's the you know, the workspace, the remote workspace. You gotta secure it. That's a key part of it, and you've got to give it. You know, you gotta have the scalability back in your data centers or, if you don't have it, be able to run those virtual desktops you know, in the cloud. And I think so. This ability again to take your current environment and, more importantly, your operating model, which, you know the technology could be agile and fast. But if you're operating models not agile, you know you can't executed Well, One of the best comments I heard from a customer CEO was, you know, for six months we debated, you know, the virtual networking architecture and how to deploy the virtual network. And, you know, when covet hit. We made the decision that did it all in one week. So the question the CEO asked now is like Well, why do we Why do we have to operate in that six month model going forward? Let's operate in the one week model going forward. E. I think that that z yeah, that's e think that's the big That's a big inflection point is the operating model has to be agile. We got all kinds of agile technology and choices I mentioned it's like, How do you make your organization agile to take advantage of those technological offerings? That's really what I've been doing the last six months, helping our customers achieve. >>I think that's a key point worth calling out and doubling down on day because, you know, whether you talk about our q Q virtual, our operating model has changed and we're doing new things. But it's not bad. It's actually beneficial. We could talk to more people. This idea of virtual ization. I mean pun intended virtual izing workforces face to face interactions air now remote. This is a software defined operating business. This is the rial innovation. I think this is the exposure. As companies wake up and going. Why didn't we do that before? Reminds me of the old mainframe days. Days? You know, why do we have that mainframe? Because they're still clutching and grabbing onto it. They got a transition. So this is the new the new reality. >>We were joking earlier that you know it ain't broke, don't fix it. And all of a sudden Covic broke everything. And so you know, virtualization becomes a fundamental component of of of how you respond. But and I wonder if Greg you could talk about the security. Peace? How how that fits in. You know everybody you know, the bromide, of course, is security can't be a bolt on. It's gotta be designed in from the start, Pat Gelsinger said years ago in the Cube. Security is a do over. You guys have purchased many different security components you've built in. Security comes. So how should we think about? And how are you thinking about designing insecurity across that entire stack without really bolting in, You know, pieces, whether it's carbon, carbon, black or other acquisitions that you've made? >>Yeah, I mean, I think that's that's the key. Inflection point we're in is an industry. I mean, getting back to my banking experience, I was responsible for cybersecurity, engineering the platforms that we engineered and deployed across the bank globally. And the challenge, the challenge. You know, that's I had, you know, 150 plus security products, and you go to bed at night wondering what? Which one did I forget to deploy or what did I get that gap? Do you think you think you're safe by the sheer number, but when you really boil down to it is like, you know, because you have to sort of like both all this stuff together to create a secure environment, you know, on a global level. And so really, our philosophy of VM where is Okay? Well, let's kind of break that model. That's what we call it intrinsic security, which is just, you know, we have the hyper visor. If you're running, the hyper visor is running on most of the service in your data center. If we have your if you have our network virtualization, we see all the traffic going between all those hyper visors and out to the cloud as well hybrid cloud or public cloud with our NSX technology. And then, you know, then you sort of bring into that the load balancers and the software to find firewalls. And pretty soon you have realized Okay, look, we have we have most of the estate. Therefore we could see everything and bring some intelligent machine learning to that and get proactive as opposed to reactive. Because our whole model now is we. All this technology and some alert pops and we get reactive. How about proactively telling me that something nasty is going on. >>I need to ask you a >>question. May be remediated. Sorry, John. It may be remediated at some point anyway. Bring in some machine intelligence tow. So instead of like you said, getting an alert actually tells me what what happened and how it was fixed, you know? Or at least recommending what I should dio, right? >>Yeah. I mean, part of the problem in the historic architectures is it was all these little silos. You know, every business unit had its own sort of technology. And Aziz, you make things virtualized. You you sort of do the virtual networking. The virtual stories of virtual compute all the software. You know, all of a sudden you have you have a different platform, you have lots of standardization. Therefore you don't have your operating model simplifies right and amount of and then it's about just collecting all the data and then making sense of the data. So you're not overwhelming the human's capacity to respond to it. And so I think that's really the fundamental thing we're all trying to get to. But the surface area is enlarged outside the data centers we've discussed out to the edge, whatever the edges, you know, into the cloud hybrid or public. So now you've got this big surface area where you've gotta have all that telemetry and all that visibility again, Back to getting proactive. So you got to do it in Band is opposed out of band. >>Great. I want to ask you a question on cyber security. We have an event on October 4th, the virtual event that Cuba is hosting with Cal Poly around this space and cybersecurity, symposiums, intersection of space and cyber. I noticed VM Ware recently announced last month that the United States Space Force has committed to the Tan Xue platform for for Continuous Dev ops operation for agility. I interviewed Lieutenant General John Thompson, Space Force, and we talked about that. He said quote, it's hard to do break fix in space. Uh, illustrating, really? Just can't send someone to swap out something in space. Not yet, at least. So they're looking at software defined as a key operating reality. Okay, so again, talk about the edge of space Isas edges. You're gonna get it. Need to be completely mad and talk about payloads and data. This >>is kind >>of interesting data point because you have security issues because space is gonna be contested and congested as an edge device. So it's actually the government's interested in that. But fundamentally, the death hops problem that you're you guys are involved in This >>is a >>reality. It's kind of connects this reality idea of operating models based in reality have to be software. What's >>your name? Yeah. I mean, I think the term we use now is def sec ops because you can't just do Dev ops. You have to have the security component in there, So, uh, yeah, the interesting. You know, like, there's a lot of interesting things happen just in fundamental networking, right? I mean, you know, the StarLink, you know, satellites at Testa. His launched Elon musk has launched and, you know, bringing sort of, you know, higher band with laurel agency to those. Yeah, we'll call it near space the and then again, just opens up all new opportunities for what we can dio. And so, Yeah, I think that's the software that the whole the whole saw for development ecosystem again, back to this idea. I think of three things. You gotta have speed. You gotta have scale and you gotta have security. And so that's really the emerging platform, whether it's a terrestrial or in near space, Uh, that's giving us the opportunity, Thio Do new architectures create service measures of services, some terrestrial, some some you know, far remote. And as you bring these new application architectures and system platform architectures together with all the underlying hardware and networking innovations that are occurring, you mentioned flash. But even getting into pmm persistent memory, right? So this this is so much happening that is converging. What's exciting to me about being a TV? Where is the CTO and we partner with all the hardware vendors? We partner with all the system providers, like in video and others. You know, the smart nick vendors. And then we get to come up with software architectures that sort of bring that together holistically and give people a platform. We can run your workloads to get work done wherever you need to land those workloads. And that's really the excitement about >>the candy store. And yet you've got problems hard problems to work on to solve. I mean, this really brings the whole project moderate, full circle because we think about space and networks and all these things you're talking about, You need to have smart everything. I mean, isn't that software? It's a complete tie into the Monterey. >>Yeah, yeah, yeah, Exactly. You're right. It's not just it's not just connecting everything and pushing data around its than having the intelligence to do it efficiently, economically, insecurely. And that's you know. So I see that you don't want to over hype machine learning. I did not to use the term AI, but use the machine learning technologies, you know, properly trained with the proper data sets, you know, and then the proper algorithms. You know that you can then a employee, you know, at the edge small edge, thick edge, you know, in the data center at the cloud is really Then you give the visibility so that we get to that proactive world I was talking about. >>Yeah, great stuff, Greg. Great insight, great conversation. Looking forward to talking mawr Tech with you. Obviously you are in the right spot was in the center of all the action across the board final point. If you could just close it out for us. What is the most important story at VM World 2020 this year. >>Um, well, I think you know, I like to say that I have the best job. I think you know that I've had in my career. I've had some great ones is you know, we get to be disruptive innovators, and we have a culture of perpetual innovation and really being world for us, Aly employees and all the people that work together to put it together is we get to showcase. You know, some of that obviously have more up our sleeves for the future. But, you know, being world is are, you know, coming coming out out show of the latest set of innovations and technologies. So there's going to be so much I have, ah, vision and innovation. Keynote kickoff, right. Do some lightning demos. And actually, I talk about work we're doing in sustainability, and we're putting a micro grid on our campus in Palo Alto and partnership with City of Palo Alto so that when the wildfires come through or there is power outages, you know we're in oasis of power generating capacity with our solar in our batteries. And so the city of Palo Alto could take their emergency command vehicles and plug into our batteries when the power is out in Palo Alto and operate city services and city emergency services. So we're not just innovating, you know, in cortex we're innovating to become a more, you know, sustainable company and provide sustainable, you know, carbon neutral technology for our customers to adopt. And I think that's an area we wanna talk about me. We talk about it next time, but I think you know our innovations. We're gonna basically help change the world with regard to climate as well. >>Let's definitely do that. Let's follow up for another in depth conversation on the societal impact. Of course, VM Ware VM Ware's VM World's 2020 is virtual is a ton of sessions. There's a Cloud City portion. Check out the 60 solution demos. Of course, they ask the expert, Greg, you're in there with Joe Beta Raghu, all the experts, um, engage and check it out. Thank you so much for the insight here on the Cube. Virtual. Thanks for coming on. >>Appreciate the opportunity. Great conversation and good questions. >>Great stuff. Thank you very much. Innovation that vm where it's the heart of their missions always has been, but they're doing well on the business side, Dave. Okay. The cube coverage. They're not there in person. Virtual. I'm John for day. Volonte. Thanks for watching.

>> Announcer: From around the globe, it's The Cube, covering Space and Cybersecurity Symposium 2020, hosted by Cal Poly. >> Everyone, welcome to this special virtual conference, the Space and Cybersecurity Symposium 2020 put on by Cal Poly with support from The Cube. I'm John Furey, your host and master of ceremony's got a great topic today, and this session is really the intersection of space and cybersecurity. This topic, and this conversation is a cybersecurity workforce development through public and private partnerships. And we've got a great lineup, we've Jeff Armstrong is the president of California Polytechnic State University, also known as Cal Poly. Jeffrey, thanks for jumping on and Bong Gumahad. The second, Director of C4ISR Division, and he's joining us from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for the acquisition and sustainment of Department of Defense, DOD, and of course Steve Jacques is Executive Director, founder National Security Space Association, and managing partner at Velos. Gentlemen, thank you for joining me for this session, we've got an hour of conversation, thanks for coming on. >> Thank you. >> So we've got a virtual event here, we've got an hour to have a great conversation, I'd love for you guys to do an opening statement on how you see the development through public and private partnerships around cybersecurity and space, Jeff, we'll start with you. >> Well, thanks very much, John, it's great to be on with all of you. On behalf of Cal Poly, welcome everyone. Educating the workforce of tomorrow is our mission at Cal Poly, whether that means traditional undergraduates, masters students, or increasingly, mid-career professionals looking to upskill or re-skill. Our signature pedagogy is learn by doing, which means that our graduates arrive at employers, ready day one with practical skills and experience. We have long thought of ourselves as lucky to be on California's beautiful central coast, but in recent years, as we've developed closer relationships with Vandenberg Air Force Base, hopefully the future permanent headquarters of the United States Space Command with Vandenberg and other regional partners, We have discovered that our location is even more advantageous than we thought. We're just 50 miles away from Vandenberg, a little closer than UC Santa Barbara and the base represents the Southern border of what we have come to think of as the central coast region. Cal Poly and Vandenberg Air Force Base have partnered to support regional economic development, to encourage the development of a commercial space port, to advocate for the space command headquarters coming to Vandenberg and other ventures. These partnerships have been possible because both parties stand to benefit. Vandenberg, by securing new streams of revenue, workforce, and local supply chain and Cal Poly by helping to grow local jobs for graduates, internship opportunities for students and research and entrepreneurship opportunities for faculty and staff. Crucially, what's good for Vandenberg Air Force Base and for Cal Poly is also good for the central coast and the U.S., creating new head of household jobs, infrastructure, and opportunity. Our goal is that these new jobs bring more diversity and sustainability for the region. This regional economic development has taken on a life of its own, spawning a new nonprofit called REACH which coordinates development efforts from Vandenberg Air Force Base in the South to Camp Roberts in the North. Another factor that has facilitated our relationship with Vandenberg Air Force Base is that we have some of the same friends. For example, Northrop Grumman has as long been an important defense contractor and an important partner to Cal Poly, funding scholarships in facilities that have allowed us to stay current with technology in it to attract highly qualified students for whom Cal Poly's costs would otherwise be prohibitive. For almost 20 years, Northrop Grumman has funded scholarships for Cal Poly students. This year, they're funding 64 scholarships, some directly in our College of Engineering and most through our Cal Poly Scholars Program. Cal Poly scholars support both incoming freshmen and transfer students. These are especially important, 'cause it allows us to provide additional support and opportunities to a group of students who are mostly first generation, low income and underrepresented, and who otherwise might not choose to attend Cal Poly. They also allow us to recruit from partner high schools with large populations of underrepresented minority students, including the Fortune High School in Elk Grove, which we developed a deep and lasting connection. We know that the best work is done by balanced teams that include multiple and diverse perspectives. These scholarships help us achieve that goal and I'm sure you know Northrop Grumman was recently awarded a very large contract to modernize the U.S. ICBM armory with some of the work being done at Vandenberg Air Force Base, thus supporting the local economy and protecting... Protecting our efforts in space requires partnerships in the digital realm. Cal Poly has partnered with many private companies such as AWS. Our partnerships with Amazon Web Services has enabled us to train our students with next generation cloud engineering skills, in part, through our jointly created digital transformation hub. Another partnership example is among Cal Poly's California Cyber Security Institute College of Engineering and the California National Guard. This partnership is focused on preparing a cyber-ready workforce, by providing faculty and students with a hands on research and learning environment side by side with military law enforcement professionals and cyber experts. We also have a long standing partnership with PG&E most recently focused on workforce development and redevelopment. Many of our graduates do indeed go on to careers in aerospace and defense industry. As a rough approximation, more than 4,500 Cal Poly graduates list aerospace or defense as their employment sector on LinkedIn. And it's not just our engineers in computer sciences. When I was speaking to our fellow panelists not too long ago, speaking to Bong, we learned that Rachel Sims, one of our liberal arts majors is working in his office, so shout out to you, Rachel. And then finally, of course, some of our graduates soar to extraordinary heights, such as Commander Victor Glover, who will be heading to the International Space Station later this year. As I close, all of which is to say that we're deeply committed to workforce development and redevelopment, that we understand the value of public-private partnerships, and that we're eager to find new ways in which to benefit everyone from this further cooperation. So we're committed to the region, the state and the nation, in our past efforts in space, cyber security and links to our partners at, as I indicated, aerospace industry and governmental partners provides a unique position for us to move forward in the interface of space and cyber security. Thank you so much, John. >> President Armstrong, thank you very much for the comments and congratulations to Cal Poly for being on the forefront of innovation and really taking a unique, progressive view and want to tip a hat to you guys over there, thank you very much for those comments, appreciate it. Bong, Department of Defense. Exciting, you've got to defend the nation, space is global, your opening statement. >> Yes, sir, thanks John, appreciate that. Thank you everybody, I'm honored to be in this panel along with Preston Armstrong of Cal Poly and my longtime friend and colleague Steve Jacques of the National Security Space Association to discuss a very important topic of a cybersecurity workforce development as President Armstrong alluded to. I'll tell you, both of these organizations, Cal Poly and the NSSA have done and continue to do an exceptional job at finding talent, recruiting them and training current and future leaders and technical professionals that we vitally need for our nation's growing space programs, as well as our collective national security. Earlier today, during session three, I, along with my colleague, Chris Samson discussed space cyber security and how the space domain is changing the landscape of future conflicts. I discussed the rapid emergence of commercial space with the proliferation of hundreds, if not thousands of satellites, providing a variety of services including communications, allowing for global internet connectivity, as one example. Within DOD, we continued to look at how we can leverage this opportunity. I'll tell you, one of the enabling technologies, is the use of small satellites, which are inherently cheaper and perhaps more flexible than the traditional bigger systems that we have historically used and employed for DOD. Certainly not lost on me is the fact that Cal Poly pioneered CubeSats 28, 27 years ago, and they set a standard for the use of these systems today. So they saw the value and benefit gained way ahead of everybody else it seems. And Cal Poly's focus on training and education is commendable. I'm especially impressed by the efforts of another of Steven's colleague, the current CIO, Mr. Bill Britton, with his high energy push to attract the next generation of innovators. Earlier this year, I had planned on participating in this year's cyber innovation challenge in June, Oops, Cal Poly hosts California middle, and high school students, and challenge them with situations to test their cyber knowledge. I tell you, I wish I had that kind of opportunity when I was a kid, unfortunately, the pandemic changed the plan, but I truly look forward to future events such as these, to participate in. Now, I want to recognize my good friend, Steve Jacques, whom I've known for perhaps too long of a time here, over two decades or so, who was an acknowledged space expert and personally I've truly applaud him for having the foresight a few years back to form the National Security Space Association to help the entire space enterprise navigate through not only technology, but policy issues and challenges and paved the way for operationalizing space. Space, it certainly was fortifying domain, it's not a secret anymore, and while it is a unique area, it shares a lot of common traits with the other domains, such as land, air, and sea, obviously all are strategically important to the defense of the United States. In conflict, they will all be contested and therefore they all need to be defended. One domain alone will not win future conflicts, and in a joint operation, we must succeed in all. So defending space is critical, as critical as to defending our other operational domains. Funny, space is the only sanctuary available only to the government. Increasingly as I discussed in a previous session, commercial space is taking the lead in a lot of different areas, including R&D, the so-called new space. So cybersecurity threat is even more demanding and even more challenging. The U.S. considers and futhered access to and freedom to operate in space, vital to advancing security, economic prosperity and scientific knowledge of the country, thus making cyberspace an inseparable component of America's financial, social government and political life. We stood up US Space Force a year ago or so as the newest military service. Like the other services, its mission is to organize, train and equip space forces in order to protect U.S. and allied interest in space and to provide spacecape builders who joined force. Imagine combining that U.S. Space Force with the U.S. Cyber Command to unify the direction of the space and cyberspace operation, strengthen DOD capabilities and integrate and bolster a DOD cyber experience. Now, of course, to enable all of this requires a trained and professional cadre of cyber security experts, combining a good mix of policy, as well as a high technical skill set. Much like we're seeing in STEM, we need to attract more people to this growing field. Now, the DOD has recognized the importance to the cybersecurity workforce, and we have implemented policies to encourage its growth. Back in 2013, the Deputy Secretary of Defense signed a DOD Cyberspace Workforce Strategy, to create a comprehensive, well-equipped cyber security team to respond to national security concerns. Now, this strategy also created a program that encourages collaboration between the DOD and private sector employees. We call this the Cyber Information Technology Exchange program, or CITE that it's an exchange program, which is very interesting in which a private sector employee can naturally work for the DOD in a cyber security position that spans across multiple mission critical areas, important to the DOD. A key responsibility of the cyber security community is military leaders, unrelated threats, and the cyber security actions we need to have to defeat these threats. We talked about rapid acquisition, agile business processes and practices to speed up innovation, likewise, cyber security must keep up with this challenge. So cyber security needs to be right there with the challenges and changes, and this requires exceptional personnel. We need to attract talent, invest in the people now to grow a robust cybersecurity workforce for the future. I look forward to the panel discussion, John, thank you. >> Thank you so much, Bob for those comments and, you know, new challenges or new opportunities and new possibilities and freedom to operate in space is critical, thank you for those comments, looking forward to chatting further. Steve Jacques, Executive Director of NSSA, you're up, opening statement. >> Thank you, John and echoing Bongs, thanks to Cal Poly for pulling this important event together and frankly, for allowing the National Security Space Association be a part of it. Likewise, on behalf of the association, I'm delighted and honored to be on this panel of President Armstrong, along with my friend and colleague, Bong Gumahad. Something for you all to know about Bong, he spent the first 20 years of his career in the Air Force doing space programs. He then went into industry for several years and then came back into government to serve, very few people do that. So Bong, on behalf of the space community, we thank you for your lifelong devotion to service to our nation, we really appreciate that. And I also echo a Bong shout out to that guy, Bill Britton. who's been a long time co-conspirator of ours for a long time, and you're doing great work there in the cyber program at Cal Poly, Bill, keep it up. But Professor Armstrong, keep a close eye on him. (laughter) I would like to offer a little extra context to the great comments made by President Armstrong and Bong. And in our view, the timing of this conference really could not be any better. We all recently reflected again on that tragic 9/11 surprise attack on our homeland and it's an appropriate time we think to take pause. While a percentage of you in the audience here weren't even born or were babies then, for the most of us, it still feels like yesterday. And moreover, a tragedy like 9/11 has taught us a lot to include, to be more vigilant, always keep our collective eyes and ears open, to include those "eyes and ears from space," making sure nothing like this ever happens again. So this conference is a key aspect, protecting our nation requires we work in a cyber secure environment at all times. But you know, the fascinating thing about space systems is we can't see 'em. Now sure, we see space launches, man, there's nothing more invigorating than that. But after launch they become invisible, so what are they really doing up there? What are they doing to enable our quality of life in the United States and in the world? Well to illustrate, I'd like to paraphrase elements of an article in Forbes magazine, by Bongs and my good friend, Chuck Beames, Chuck is a space guy, actually had Bongs job a few years in the Pentagon. He's now Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer at York Space Systems and in his spare time, he's Chairman of the Small Satellites. Chuck speaks in words that everyone can understand, so I'd like to give you some of his words out of his article, paraphrase somewhat, so these are Chuck's words. "Let's talk about average Joe and plain Jane. "Before heading to the airport for a business trip "to New York city, Joe checks the weather forecast, "informed by NOAA's weather satellites, "to see what to pack for the trip. "He then calls an Uber, that space app everybody uses, "it matches riders with drivers via GPS, "to take him to the airport. "So Joe has launched in the airport, "unbeknownst to him, his organic lunch is made "with the help of precision farming "made possible to optimize the irrigation and fertilization "with remote spectral sensing coming from space and GPS. "On the plane, the pilot navigates around weather, "aided by GPS and NOAA's weather satellites "and Joe makes his meeting on time "to join his New York colleagues in a video call "with a key customer in Singapore, "made possible by telecommunication satellites. "En route to his next meeting, "Joe receives notice changing the location of the meeting "to the other side of town. "So he calmly tells Siri to adjust the destination "and his satellite-guided Google maps redirect him "to the new location. "That evening, Joe watches the news broadcast via satellite, "report details of meeting among world leaders, "discussing the developing crisis in Syria. "As it turns out various forms of "'remotely sensed information' collected from satellites "indicate that yet another banned chemical weapon "may have been used on its own people. "Before going to bed, Joe decides to call his parents "and congratulate them for their wedding anniversary "as they cruise across the Atlantic, "made possible again by communication satellites "and Joe's parents can enjoy the call "without even wondering how it happened. "The next morning back home, "Joe's wife, Jane is involved in a car accident. "Her vehicle skids off the road, she's knocked unconscious, "but because of her satellite equipped OnStar system, "the crash is detected immediately, "and first responders show up on the scene in time. "Joe receives the news, books an early trip home, "sends flowers to his wife "as he orders another Uber to the airport. "Over that 24 hours, "Joe and Jane used space system applications "for nearly every part of their day. "Imagine the consequences if at any point "they were somehow denied these services, "whether they be by natural causes or a foreign hostility. "In each of these satellite applications used in this case, "were initially developed for military purposes "and continued to be, but also have remarkable application "on our way of life, just many people just don't know that." So ladies and gentlemen, now you know, thanks to Chuck Beames. Well, the United States has a proud heritage of being the world's leading space-faring nation. Dating back to the Eisenhower and Kennedy years, today, we have mature and robust systems operating from space, providing overhead reconnaissance to "watch and listen," provide missile warning, communications, positioning, navigation, and timing from our GPS system, much of which you heard in Lieutenant General JT Thomson's earlier speech. These systems are not only integral to our national security, but also to our quality of life. As Chuck told us, we simply no longer can live without these systems as a nation and for that matter, as a world. But over the years, adversaries like China, Russia and other countries have come to realize the value of space systems and are aggressively playing catch up while also pursuing capabilities that will challenge our systems. As many of you know, in 2007, China demonstrated its ASAT system by actually shooting down one of its own satellites and has been aggressively developing counterspace systems to disrupt ours. So in a heavily congested space environment, our systems are now being contested like never before and will continue to be. Well, as a Bong mentioned, the United States have responded to these changing threats. In addition to adding ways to protect our system, the administration and the Congress recently created the United States Space Force and the operational United States Space Command, the latter of which you heard President Armstrong and other Californians hope is going to be located at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Combined with our intelligence community, today we have focused military and civilian leadership now in space, and that's a very, very good thing. Commensurately on the industry side, we did create the National Security Space Association, devoted solely to supporting the National Security Space Enterprise. We're based here in the DC area, but we have arms and legs across the country and we are loaded with extraordinary talent in scores of former government executives. So NSSA is joined at the hip with our government customers to serve and to support. We're busy with a multitude of activities underway, ranging from a number of thought-provoking policy papers, our recurring spacetime webcasts, supporting Congress's space power caucus, and other main serious efforts. Check us out at nssaspace.org. One of our strategic priorities and central to today's events is to actively promote and nurture the workforce development, just like Cal-Poly. We will work with our U.S. government customers, industry leaders, and academia to attract and recruit students to join the space world, whether in government or industry, and to assist in mentoring and training as their careers progress. On that point, we're delighted to be working with Cal Poly as we hopefully will undertake a new pilot program with them very soon. So students stay tuned, something I can tell you, space is really cool. While our nation's satellite systems are technical and complex, our nation's government and industry workforce is highly diverse, with a combination of engineers, physicists and mathematicians, but also with a large non-technical expertise as well. Think about how government gets these systems designed, manufactured, launching into orbit and operating. They do this via contracts with our aerospace industry, requiring talents across the board, from cost estimating, cost analysis, budgeting, procurement, legal, and many other support tasks that are integral to the mission. Many thousands of people work in the space workforce, tens of billions of dollars every year. This is really cool stuff and no matter what your education background, a great career to be part of. In summary, as Bong had mentioned as well, there's a great deal of exciting challenges ahead. We will see a new renaissance in space in the years ahead and in some cases it's already begun. Billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Sir Richard Branson, are in the game, stimulating new ideas and business models. Other private investors and startup companies, space companies are now coming in from all angles. The exponential advancement of technology and micro electronics now allows a potential for a plethora of small sat systems to possibly replace older satellites, the size of a Greyhound bus. It's getting better by the day and central to this conference, cybersecurity is paramount to our nation's critical infrastructure in space. So once again, thanks very much and I look forward to the further conversation. >> Steve, thank you very much. Space is cool, it's relevant, but it's important as you pointed out in your awesome story about how it impacts our life every day so I really appreciate that great story I'm glad you took the time to share that. You forgot the part about the drone coming over in the crime scene and, you know, mapping it out for you, but we'll add that to the story later, great stuff. My first question is, let's get into the conversations, because I think this is super important. President Armstrong, I'd like you to talk about some of the points that was teased out by Bong and Steve. One in particular is the comment around how military research was important in developing all these capabilities, which is impacting all of our lives through that story. It was the military research that has enabled a generation and generation of value for consumers. This is kind of this workforce conversation, there are opportunities now with research and grants, and this is a funding of innovation that is highly accelerated, it's happening very quickly. Can you comment on how research and the partnerships to get that funding into the universities is critical? >> Yeah, I really appreciate that and appreciate the comments of my colleagues. And it really boils down to me to partnerships, public-private partnerships, you have mentioned Northrop Grumman, but we have partnerships with Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Space X, JPL, also member of an organization called Business Higher Education Forum, which brings together university presidents and CEOs of companies. There's been focused on cybersecurity and data science and I hope that we can spill into cybersecurity and space. But those partnerships in the past have really brought a lot forward. At Cal Poly, as mentioned, we've been involved with CubeSat, we've have some secure work, and we want to plan to do more of that in the future. Those partnerships are essential, not only for getting the R&D done, but also the students, the faculty, whether they're master's or undergraduate can be involved with that work, they get that real life experience, whether it's on campus or virtually now during COVID or at the location with the partner, whether it may be governmental or industry, and then they're even better equipped to hit the ground running. And of course we'd love to see more of our students graduate with clearance so that they could do some of that secure work as well. So these partnerships are absolutely critical and it's also in the context of trying to bring the best and the brightest in all demographics of California and the U.S. into this field, to really be successful. So these partnerships are essential and our goal is to grow them just like I know our other colleagues in the CSU and the UC are planning to do. >> You know, just as my age I've seen, I grew up in the eighties and in college and they're in that system's generation and the generation before me, they really kind of pioneered the space that spawned the computer revolution. I mean, you look at these key inflection points in our lives, they were really funded through these kinds of real deep research. Bong, talk about that because, you know, we're living in an age of cloud and Bezos was mentioned, Elon Musk, Sir Richard Branson, you got new ideas coming in from the outside, you have an accelerated clock now in terms of the innovation cycles and so you got to react differently, you guys have programs to go outside of the defense department, how important is this because the workforce that are in schools and/or folks re-skilling are out there and you've been on both sides of the table, so share your thoughts. >> No, thanks Johnny, thanks for the opportunity to respond to, and that's what, you know, you hit on the nose back in the 80's, R&D and space especially was dominated by government funding, contracts and so on, but things have changed as Steve pointed out, allow these commercial entities funded by billionaires are coming out of the woodwork, funding R&D so they're taking the lead, so what we can do within the DOD in government is truly take advantage of the work they've done. And since they're, you know, paving the way to new approaches and new way of doing things and I think we can certainly learn from that and leverage off of that, saves us money from an R&D standpoint, while benefiting from the product that they deliver. You know, within DOD, talking about workforce development, you know, we have prioritized and we have policies now to attract and retain the talent we need. I had the folks do some research and it looks like from a cybersecurity or workforce standpoint, a recent study done, I think last year in 2019, found that the cyber security workforce gap in U.S. is nearing half a million people, even though it is a growing industry. So the pipeline needs to be strengthened, getting people through, you know, starting young and through college, like Professor Armstrong indicated because we're going to need them to be in place, you know, in a period of about maybe a decade or so. On top of that, of course, is the continuing issue we have with the gap with STEM students. We can't afford not have expertise in place to support all the things we're doing within DoD, not only DoD but the commercial side as well, thank you. >> How's the gap get filled, I mean, this is, again, you've got cybersecurity, I mean, with space it's a whole other kind of surface area if you will, it's not really surface area, but it is an IOT device if you think about it, but it does have the same challenges, that's kind of current and progressive with cybersecurity. Where's the gap get filled, Steve or President Armstrong, I mean, how do you solve the problem and address this gap in the workforce? What are some solutions and what approaches do we need to put in place? >> Steve, go ahead., I'll follow up. >> Okay, thanks, I'll let you correct me. (laughter) It's a really good question, and the way I would approach it is to focus on it holistically and to acknowledge it upfront and it comes with our teaching, et cetera, across the board. And from an industry perspective, I mean, we see it, we've got to have secure systems in everything we do, and promoting this and getting students at early ages and mentoring them and throwing internships at them is so paramount to the whole cycle. And that's kind of, it really takes a focused attention and we continue to use the word focus from an NSSA perspective. We know the challenges that are out there. There are such talented people in the workforce, on the government side, but not nearly enough of them and likewise on the industry side, we could use more as well, but when you get down to it, you know, we can connect dots, you know, the aspects that Professor Armstrong talked about earlier to where you continue to work partnerships as much as you possibly can. We hope to be a part of that network, that ecosystem if you will, of taking common objectives and working together to kind of make these things happen and to bring the power, not just of one or two companies, but of our entire membership thereabout. >> President Armstrong-- >> Yeah, I would also add it again, it's back to the partnerships that I talked about earlier, one of our partners is high schools and schools Fortune, Margaret Fortune, who worked in a couple of administrations in California across party lines and education, their fifth graders all visit Cal Poly, and visit our learned-by-doing lab. And you've got to get students interested in STEM at an early age. We also need the partnerships, the scholarships, the financial aid, so the students can graduate with minimal to no debt to really hit the ground running and that's exacerbated and really stress now with this COVID induced recession. California supports higher education at a higher rate than most states in the nation, but that has brought this year for reasons all understand due to COVID. And so our partnerships, our creativity, and making sure that we help those that need the most help financially, that's really key because the gaps are huge. As my colleagues indicated, you know, half a million jobs and I need you to look at the students that are in the pipeline, we've got to enhance that. And the placement rates are amazing once the students get to a place like Cal Poly or some of our other amazing CSU and UC campuses, placement rates are like 94%. Many of our engineers, they have jobs lined up a year before they graduate. So it's just going to take a key partnerships working together and that continued partnership with government local, of course, our state, the CSU, and partners like we have here today, both Steve and Bong so partnerships is the thing. >> You know, that's a great point-- >> I could add, >> Okay go ahead. >> All right, you know, the collaboration with universities is one that we put on lot of emphasis here, and it may not be well known fact, but just an example of national security, the AUC is a national centers of academic excellence in cyber defense works with over 270 colleges and universities across the United States to educate and certify future cyber first responders as an example. So that's vibrant and healthy and something that we ought to take advantage of. >> Well, I got the brain trust here on this topic. I want to get your thoughts on this one point, 'cause I'd like to define, you know, what is a public-private partnership because the theme that's coming out of the symposium is the script has been flipped, it's a modern era, things are accelerated, you've got security, so you've got all of these things kind of happenning it's a modern approach and you're seeing a digital transformation play out all over the world in business and in the public sector. So what is a modern public-private partnership and what does it look like today because people are learning differently. COVID has pointed out, which is that we're seeing right now, how people, the progressions of knowledge and learning, truth, it's all changing. How do you guys view the modern version of public-private partnership and some examples and some proof points, can you guys share that? We'll start with you, Professor Armstrong. >> Yeah, as I indicated earlier, we've had, and I could give other examples, but Northrop Grumman, they helped us with a cyber lab many years ago that is maintained directly, the software, the connection outside it's its own unit so the students can learn to hack, they can learn to penetrate defenses and I know that that has already had some considerations of space, but that's a benefit to both parties. So a good public-private partnership has benefits to both entities and the common factor for universities with a lot of these partnerships is the talent. The talent that is needed, what we've been working on for years of, you know, the undergraduate or master's or PhD programs, but now it's also spilling into upskilling and reskilling, as jobs, you know, folks who are in jobs today that didn't exist two years, three years, five years ago, but it also spills into other aspects that can expand even more. We're very fortunate we have land, there's opportunities, we have ONE Tech project. We are expanding our tech park, I think we'll see opportunities for that and it'll be adjusted due to the virtual world that we're all learning more and more about it, which we were in before COVID. But I also think that that person to person is going to be important, I want to make sure that I'm driving across a bridge or that satellite's being launched by the engineer that's had at least some in person training to do that in that experience, especially as a first time freshman coming on campus, getting that experience, expanding it as an adult, and we're going to need those public-private partnerships in order to continue to fund those at a level that is at the excellence we need for these STEM and engineering fields. >> It's interesting people and technology can work together and these partnerships are the new way. Bongs too with reaction to the modern version of what a public successful private partnership looks like. >> If I could jump in John, I think, you know, historically DOD's had a high bar to overcome if you will, in terms of getting rapid... pulling in new companies, miss the fall if you will, and not rely heavily on the usual suspects, of vendors and the like, and I think the DOD has done a good job over the last couple of years of trying to reduce that burden and working with us, you know, the Air Force, I think they're pioneering this idea around pitch days, where companies come in, do a two-hour pitch and immediately notified of, you know, of an a award, without having to wait a long time to get feedback on the quality of the product and so on. So I think we're trying to do our best to strengthen that partnership with companies outside of the main group of people that we typically use. >> Steve, any reaction, any comment to add? >> Yeah, I would add a couple and these are very excellent thoughts. It's about taking a little gamble by coming out of your comfort zone, you know, the world that Bong and I, Bong lives in and I used to live in the past, has been quite structured. It's really about, we know what the threat is, we need to go fix it, we'll design as if as we go make it happen, we'll fly it. Life is so much more complicated than that and so it's really, to me, I mean, you take an example of the pitch days of Bong talks about, I think taking a gamble by attempting to just do a lot of pilot programs, work the trust factor between government folks and the industry folks and academia, because we are all in this together in a lot of ways. For example, I mean, we just sent a paper to the white house at their request about, you know, what would we do from a workforce development perspective and we hope to embellish on this over time once the initiative matures, but we have a piece of it for example, is a thing we call "clear for success," getting back to president Armstrong's comments so at a collegiate level, you know, high, high, high quality folks are in high demand. So why don't we put together a program that grabs kids in their underclass years, identifies folks that are interested in doing something like this, get them scholarships, have a job waiting for them that they're contracted for before they graduate, and when they graduate, they walk with an SCI clearance. We believe that can be done, so that's an example of ways in which public-private partnerships can happen to where you now have a talented kid ready to go on day one. We think those kinds of things can happen, it just gets back down to being focused on specific initiatives, giving them a chance and run as many pilot programs as you can, like pitch days. >> That's a great point, it's a good segue. Go ahead, President Armstrong. >> I just want to jump in and echo both the Bong and Steve's comments, but Steve that, you know, your point of, you know our graduates, we consider them ready day one, well they need to be ready day one and ready to go secure. We totally support that and love to follow up offline with you on that. That's exciting and needed, very much needed more of it, some of it's happening, but we certainly have been thinking a lot about that and making some plans. >> And that's a great example, a good segue. My next question is kind of re-imagining these workflows is kind of breaking down the old way and bringing in kind of the new way, accelerate all kinds of new things. There are creative ways to address this workforce issue and this is the next topic, how can we employ new creative solutions because let's face it, you know, it's not the days of get your engineering degree and go interview for a job and then get slotted in and get the intern, you know, the programs and you'd matriculate through the system. This is multiple disciplines, cybersecurity points at that. You could be smart in math and have a degree in anthropology and be one of the best cyber talents on the planet. So this is a new, new world, what are some creative approaches that's going to work for you? >> Alright, good job, one of the things, I think that's a challenge to us is, you know, somehow we got me working for, with the government, sexy right? You know, part of the challenge we have is attracting the right level of skill sets and personnel but, you know, we're competing, oftentimes, with the commercial side, the gaming industry as examples is a big deal. And those are the same talents we need to support a lot of the programs that we have in DOD. So somehow we have do a better job to Steve's point about making the work within DOD, within the government, something that they would be interested early on. So attract them early, you know, I could not talk about Cal Poly's challenge program that they were going to have in June inviting high school kids really excited about the whole idea of space and cyber security and so on. Those are some of the things that I think we have to do and continue to do over the course of the next several years. >> Awesome, any other creative approaches that you guys see working or might be an idea, or just to kind of stoke the ideation out there? Internships, obviously internships are known, but like, there's got to be new ways. >> Alright, I think you can take what Steve was talking about earlier, getting students in high school and aligning them sometimes at first internship, not just between the freshman and sophomore year, but before they enter Cal Poly per se and they're involved. So I think that's absolutely key, getting them involved in many other ways. We have an example of upskilling or work redevelopment here in the central coast, PG&E Diablo nuclear plant that is going to decommission in around 2024. And so we have a ongoing partnership to work and reposition those employees for the future. So that's, you know, engineering and beyond but think about that just in the manner that you were talking about. So the upskilling and reskilling, and I think that's where, you know, we were talking about that Purdue University, other California universities have been dealing with online programs before COVID, and now with COVID so many more Faculty were pushed into that area, there's going to be a much more going and talk about workforce development in upskilling and reskilling, the amount of training and education of our faculty across the country in virtual and delivery has been huge. So there's always a silver linings in the cloud. >> I want to get your guys' thoughts on one final question as we end the segment, and we've seen on the commercial side with cloud computing on these highly accelerated environments where, you know, SAS business model subscription, and that's on the business side, but one of the things that's clear in this trend is technology and people work together and technology augments the people components. So I'd love to get your thoughts as we look at a world now, we're living in COVID, and Cal Poly, you guys have remote learning right now, it's at the infancy, it's a whole new disruption, if you will, but also an opportunity enable new ways to encollaborate, So if you look at people and technology, can you guys share your view and vision on how communities can be developed, how these digital technologies and people can work together faster to get to the truth or make a discovery, hire, develop the workforce, these are opportunities, how do you guys view this new digital transformation? >> Well, I think there's huge opportunities and just what we're doing with this symposium, we're filming this on Monday and it's going to stream live and then the three of us, the four of us can participate and chat with participants while it's going on. That's amazing and I appreciate you, John, you bringing that to this symposium. I think there's more and more that we can do. From a Cal Poly perspective, with our pedagogy so, you know, linked to learn by doing in-person will always be important to us, but we see virtual, we see partnerships like this, can expand and enhance our ability and minimize the in-person time, decrease the time to degree, enhance graduation rate, eliminate opportunity gaps for students that don't have the same advantages. So I think the technological aspect of this is tremendous. Then on the upskilling and reskilling, where employees are all over, they can re be reached virtually, and then maybe they come to a location or really advanced technology allows them to get hands on virtually, or they come to that location and get it in a hybrid format. So I'm very excited about the future and what we can do, and it's going to be different with every university, with every partnership. It's one size does not fit all, There's so many possibilities, Bong, I can almost imagine that social network that has a verified, you know, secure clearance. I can jump in, and have a little cloak of secrecy and collaborate with the DOD possibly in the future. But these are the kind of crazy ideas that are needed, your thoughts on this whole digital transformation cross-pollination. >> I think technology is going to be revolutionary here, John, you know, we're focusing lately on what we call visual engineering to quicken the pace of the delivery capability to warfighter as an example, I think AI, Machine Language, all that's going to have a major play in how we operate in the future. We're embracing 5G technologies, and the ability for zero latency, more IOT, more automation of the supply chain, that sort of thing, I think the future ahead of us is very encouraging, I think it's going to do a lot for national defense, and certainly the security of the country. >> Steve, your final thoughts, space systems are systems, and they're connected to other systems that are connected to people, your thoughts on this digital transformation opportunity. >> Such a great question and such a fun, great challenge ahead of us. Echoing my colleagues sentiments, I would add to it, you know, a lot of this has, I think we should do some focusing on campaigning so that people can feel comfortable to include the Congress to do things a little bit differently. You know, we're not attuned to doing things fast, but the dramatic, you know, the way technology is just going like crazy right now, I think it ties back to, hoping to convince some of our senior leaders and what I call both sides of the Potomac river, that it's worth taking this gamble, we do need to take some of these things you know, in a very proactive way. And I'm very confident and excited and comfortable that this is going to be a great time ahead and all for the better. >> You know, I always think of myself when I talk about DC 'cause I'm not a lawyer and I'm not a political person, but I always say less lawyers, more techies than in Congress and Senate, so (laughter)I always get in trouble when I say that. Sorry, President Armstrong, go ahead. >> Yeah, no, just one other point and Steve's alluded to this and Bong did as well, I mean, we've got to be less risk averse in these partnerships, that doesn't mean reckless, but we have to be less risk averse. And also, as you talk about technology, I have to reflect on something that happened and you both talked a bit about Bill Britton and his impact on Cal Poly and what we're doing. But we were faced a few years ago of replacing traditional data, a data warehouse, data storage, data center and we partnered with AWS and thank goodness, we had that in progress and it enhanced our bandwidth on our campus before COVID hit, and with this partnership with the digital transformation hub, so there's a great example where we had that going. That's not something we could have started, "Oh COVID hit, let's flip that switch." And so we have to be proactive and we also have to not be risk-averse and do some things differently. That has really salvaged the experience for our students right now, as things are flowing well. We only have about 12% of our courses in person, those essential courses and I'm just grateful for those partnerships that I have talked about today. >> And it's a shining example of how being agile, continuous operations, these are themes that expand the space and the next workforce needs to be built. Gentlemen, thank you very much for sharing your insights, I know Bong, you're going to go into the defense side of space in your other sessions. Thank you gentlemen, for your time, for a great session, I appreciate it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you gentlemen. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, thank you all. I'm John Furey with The Cube here in Palo Alto, California covering and hosting with Cal Poly, the Space and Cybersecurity Symposium 2020, thanks for watching. (bright atmospheric music)