Space Valley Founation with Bryce Kennedy

Hi. This is Paul Zalester, and welcome to the Awarepreneurs podcast. On this show, we dive deep into wisdom from some of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. Our goal is to help you increase your positive impact, your profitability, and your quality of life. Before we get into today's topic, I have one request. If you could hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, it helps more people learn how to have positive impact through values based business. Thank you so much. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Bryce Kennedy, And our topic is space for good.

Former attorney turned space advocate, Bryce Kennedy is the executive director of Space Valley Foundation and space connectivity officer under the International Telecommunication Union and UN. He works with emerging economies to ensure that they have a place in space. Bryce, welcome to the Awarpreneurs podcast.

Thanks so much, Paul.

Space for Good. We've never done an episode on this. I think we published episode 366 this week. And, yeah, first time we've done anything like this, and you're the exact right person to help us with this topic. Before we get into the specific topic, Bryce, how did you get interested in space? And even more particularly, how'd you get interested in space for good?

It was one of those things that I I'm sure you hear a lot of stories around this, but it happened during COVID.

And Funny thing happened on the way when the world was shut down.

Right? Exactly. I mean, it's now actually becoming a little cliche. But my wife and I were living in New York City, and my I have a leadership coaching business with Boston Consulting Group. And they basic we that was my one client. We pivoted away from working together, and, yeah, it was a it was a perfect time. So, anyway, we my wife and I left New York, started traveling around The US, and it was funny. It was funny. The more west we moved, the more sky we could see.

And the more sky we could see at night I just remember looking up, you know, to my early days as a kid in Greensburg, Pennsylvania looking through the telescope with my dad and and just being mesmerized by the stars. Well, one day, this this question just popped in my head, and they go, who and it was who's protecting space? Because I love space. It was a it was a solace. It was refuge. It was mystery, creation, everything in that and potentiality. And it kind of bubbled up again for the first time. And and that question led me on a four year I guess it was, yeah, around 2021. '4 year adventure.

Different touch points in The US until I landed in New Mexico are really blossomed. And, yeah, that's that's where where the space bug bit me.

And we have some space in New Mexico, both literally. We're a state the size of Colorado, but we have only 2.4, two point five million people in the entire state. There's a lot of elbow room here. And we also have a very robust space industry with NASA and the Very Large Array and, you know, Space Force and big presence by folks who are in the space sector. And I'm sure that that came to your awareness pretty quickly as you started to check out New Mexico. Is that fair to say?

Totally. That just like you said, this the physical space space of of the land and the sky. And then I mean, there's no other state. What once I started kind of peeling back the layers of space in New Mexico, I was like because I was I was looking at the the traditional space areas, Los Angeles, Colorado, Texas, Florida. And all of a sudden, people are like, well, there's space here. I'm like, what are you talking about? And then next thing I know, it's three NASA sites. You know, the Apollo legacy is was birthed here. We have obviously Los Alamos, Sandia, Air Force Research Labs, Space Force.

I mean, there is not another state that

that Electric Galactic. Space Yeah.

Galactic Space Force, the first commercial spaceport with the most restricted airspace. I mean, it it's it's obscene. And, yeah, that's when I started peeling back those layers. I was like, wow. We this is this is my backyard and a no brainer.

Cool. So this idea of space for good, give us, like, a foundation of it, Bryce. Think with us a little bit about why is it important that everyone has access to space.

That's a really good point. So when when I landed in New Mexico, one of the things that so I I run Space Valley Foundation. And when it originally started, it was really focused on economic development. And and that was okay. You know, we do a lot of EDD here, excuse me, economic development in New Mexico. And but I you look at it, and it's not touching the entire population. And I was like, if this is a real space state, it's gotta touch the entire population. And it's not just STEM.

It's not just, you know, work for the labs. It's just not, you know, do aerospace that that the traditional and then I realized the things that I love about New Mexico are actually the precursors today to today's modern space. And it has nothing to do with being the richest state or the the most educated. It's actually the heart of the state, and that is New Mexico. And so, well, doctor Montoya from UNM told me once, he goes, we've been a space state for two over 2,000 because of the celestial creation stories, because of our relationship to the skies, because of the art, the history, aliens, everything. And so that got me thinking. I was like, wow. This that is actual space.

That that is that is that is the the the beginning of why we even have rockets and satellites and all this other stuff. So why why do the two worlds need to be disparate? Why do they why does it need to be binary? So fast forward, I ended up getting a job with the UN, International Telecommunications Union, and I got to travel the world. I worked for the developing sector to preach the the gospel of space to these to these countries. And it was funny. It was a very similar problem we were having in New Mexico where we're pushing STEM or pushing satellite to very rural villages that don't necessarily even have water or electricity. And it's so funny to talk about a billionaire excuse me, a billion dollar satellite regime where they don't even have the infrastructure on the ground to receive that. And so it just got my wheels turning, and this last piece to the puzzle felt when I saw the UN had this five year program running under the ITU. The the two work together, ITU and UN.

And it's called AI for good. And AI for good is this massive initiative where they have Sam Walton come in. I think that's his name, the guy. And, you know, they have all these all these leaders of of AI just pour in and pour money and all. And that's when my boss, the secretary general of the ITU, go, let's launch a space for good initiative. And it really stemmed into Mexico, and and starting to think backwards as opposed to rush forward to push these initiatives. But look at the culture. Look at the people.

Look at what the industry already exists. Back to your original question, because space is, by 2035, gonna be a 1,800,000,000,000 industry. And it's one of those things where Bitcoin, Internet, if you come in on the ground floor where you start thinking about again, from it doesn't mean that you have to participate up there. It just means that you want to be a part of the space economy from just purely looking at as a new domain of commerce. That's it. And if you can do that from the beginning, you will place your I mean, because think about it. This is the first infinite domain of commerce that humankind will ever will know for the rest of our lives. And whatever we do now and however we place ourselves, again, from sci fi stories to satellites to to space stations to whatever, will impact for, you know, eons in the future.

So that's that's why I'm really, really, really pushing hard for everyone to look at their place in space now immediately, no matter economic status, no nothing, and really diversifying what your touch point can be.

Beautiful. I'll put a link listener to the International Telecommunication Union and AI for Good just to give you some sense of the backstory to this. So so here we are. It's 2025 and this idea of Space for Good is it's life. Right? Like, where do you even start? It's, like, when I say massive, like, space is mind blowingly big. I my little brain can't even think about how big. Right? Like, where do you start with an initiative like that? Okay. Great.

Your, you know, leaders say, we're a go. Space for good. It's on. How do you even start something like that?

Man, that's a million dollar question.

We're we're gonna be here for twenty seven years. Right? Is that what you're telling me?

Yeah. It's, it's it's I I know this word is is a bad word nowadays, but inclusivity. It really, really, really, really is inclusivity because it's again, there's this thing called the overview effect coined by Frank White. And the overview effect is he this this it's either a Harvard professor or Yale professor, probably one of the big boy. And he studied this the psychology of astronauts when they learned. Astronauts, tikka knots, cosmonauts, all the knots from every country. And we're talking about, typically, you know, military personnel, typically, you know, scientists, engineers. Well, you know, a little more no.

I wouldn't say they they venture into the woo woo.

They're pretty left brained folks, for sure.

Yes. Thank you. I couldn't remember what type of the brain it was. And what was fascinating after interviewing all these different knots, he realized that almost every single one of them had the same perspective, and that was a major shift in consciousness and their major perspective in in how they viewed the world. And they had profound experiences. They became artists. They became this this this, you know, generation of of leaders that started talking about unity and not just being focused on on on the state and, you know, your your country and your identity to that. And it was fascinating.

And, again, that's one of these things that really I'm kind of using that as a as the the beginning step because the like him or hate him, Elon Musk, the Bezos, you know, the Apollo era, all these things, they have pushed us forward in space faster than anyone on Earth. Like it or not, you know, we we can go to those merits in a different discussion. But because of that, we're at least even able to have a discussion. And so that is pretty, quote, unquote, well established. And now I think that the real key is is how do we diversify the thought processes so it's super it's incredibly dynamic from all these different places that we can go up there with this tapestry of wealth of knowledge beyond just left brain, beyond just right brain, but the combination, the holistic approach where we can start to shape it. That's what I'm trying to do. So, for example, I'm going to be in LA tomorrow, actually, and I'm gonna have a conversation with one of the largest anime companies. Turns out kids are now moving away from Marvel and all these other typical things, and they're heading really deeply into anime.

And so I'm going to ask them maybe they'll listen to this podcast and hear my ask early. But you won't get

a lot by tomorrow. I'm sorry.

Okay. Okay. Cool. This this early participation in Space for Good because they're already shaping the narrative for kids through, quote, unquote, sci fi and fantasy. What would that be like for that? So that these very, say, disparate industries now I'm going to pull together under one roof to help shape a a much different narrative.

Beautiful. So all that has led to the something called Space Valley Foundation. Tell us a little bit about Space Valley. Why did it get created? What is it? Who do you work with? Like, the who, what, when basics.

Yeah. So Space Valley, before I came, it was part of a Build Back Better grant. Again, the tradition it was Space Valley Coalition then, and they focused on primarily economic development. And and what we found were there are a lot of organizations that are doing economic development in this this world, and, you know, there was a lot of overlap. And so what we did was we pivoted to a foundation of five zero one c three, and we we we you know, the original terminology was space for Earth, space for all. Because, again, New Mexico has this incredible relationship to the sky. It's just you can't find it. Everyone everyone I talked to has some story about they're taking pictures of stargazing, of aliens, of spaceships of Goddard.

There's not a New Mexican here that I have yet to meet that didn't have some touch point in the sky. And so when we did the Space Valley Foundation, we brought that under the space for a space for all tagline. But, really, to put it in modern parlance, opened up this idea of space as a domain of commerce. In this way, we have total we can have total buy in from anyone in New Mexico no matter their socioeconomic status, no matter, you know, if they wanna go STEM, no matter what. And we really find that it's actually the the probably one of the more truthful and honest approaches to economic development in New Mexico because we're we're inclusive of everything under this domain, and it already exists here. That's the beauty of it. Like, when we looked at Space Valley so Space Valley technically is the Rio Grande Corridor. It runs from Colorado Springs down to El Paso.

And, you know, we're bringing those in, but New Mexico right now is is a hub where we're starting that with our MVP type of thing. And, yeah, and that that's really the broad idea of Space Valley. We have a couple initiatives that we're working on right now, but, really, it's a it's a branding campaign where people can start seeing themselves at the forefront of Space Valley. We don't own Space Valley. We don't own the name. We are we that is we didn't purposely trademark that. We're giving that so people can adopt it like a Silicon Valley that just spurs creativity and imagination.

So it started off as the frame of a coalition. Like, who's in the coalition? Who's engaged in this conversation?

Yeah. So I think the original oh, you're gonna test me on this one. But the originals were we had UNM. We had m NMSU. We had, I think, all the universities, tech, Navajo Tech, Mexico Tech. And then we had NewSpace Nexus, the Spaceport America. There were very adjacent Air Force research labs with STEM Arts Lab. We the the, Lovato, who's a consulting organization to help us with to to make sure we're, you know, really provide that holistic approach.

So it was it was it was this this group. But what we found was and re the reason we went from a coalition to the foundation is there's even more than that. We started uncovering you know, all of a sudden, NASA White Sands is like, hey. Why aren't we part of this? And then the the Bistnai Badlands, the Alien Eggs, why are we part of this? And the the nuclear museum, why are we part of this? You know? And it's so it was just like, well, we could either have a 20 board person that gets nothing done, or we could move it into this model where what we're doing is we're so we built this beautiful map called the the Space Valley Trail. Excuse me. The Space Trail. And it and it lists all these entities in a, you know, in a in a really cool format. And so that's why we shifted it to this.

And then, we were funded by a type one NSF grant to do the the foundation.

Very cool. So, again, listeners, I'll put a link to some of those. Those are more organizations than I could get all of them, but a few of them to give you a sense of who's coming together here. When did it start? And give us a sense of, like, how did the early you got everybody from people in the military, right, military organizations, and alien organizations. People who are very actively pursuing, you know, who's out there besides us and that's a pretty wide range. Right? Like, so how did it start and how do you keep such a diverse group going when it's a fairly inclusive, fairly wide angle mission?

Yeah. We've we've learned a lot. We've pivoted a lot. We've we've we've built a database of 415 organizations and people that we point to. So our our real our real mantra right now is to be amplifier of the ecosystem and then the aggregator of the ecosystem. We don't want to do anything that anyone else is doing. We find that redundant and kind of a a silly mindset. So the idea is to pull together and to point people into it.

Like, New Mexico partnership, we would point to a lot of the STEM work that they're doing and outreach with startups, that type of thing. And Q Station, you know, more on the DOD side and some of their stuff. Yeah, I forgot to actually mention. Q Station was one of the is the core founding member as well. So when yeah. We we initially were gonna have this kind of this board format. We were gonna have partnerships, all this other stuff. What we found was that if we're going to be a leading organization, then we should probably rely on a lot of tech.

So we we went back to the drawing board and decided that we were going to develop our, again, kind of cliche here again, our own LLM, large language model, our chat chat QET version. Because what we were hearing from these different organizations with NSF funding, that's when we started our Orion interlink. And that's that's actually, our our first version is gonna be done here March or no. That's jeez. April. And that is going to be a accessible database to anyone that wants to look up any space, quote, unquote, entity in New Mexico as well as we're trying to dial in to pair different organizations to job placements to what what the economy what what the real economy is in that type little area. And then what we're going to use is to start building that out to pull in larger databases so it becomes much more dynamic. And then from that from the usage, we're actually gonna pull that out.

So that was one of the things that we pivoted away for. We wouldn't do a lot of in person stuff, but what we're finding is is the more people that want to invest and participate, they're actually looking for that online participation in this dynamic format. So that's where the Orion interlink came from, and that's how we're finding most of it. Now we're doing one other thing to do that in person thing is is our our our mini South by Southwest. It's called Atomic sixty six. We're gonna be launching that or that's gonna be happening July June 11 through the thirteenth. And so that's gonna include tech talks, and we have Space Fiesta on Wednesday, the eleventh, and that's gonna be Maloof meets NASA. It's gonna it's gonna get really funky and weird.

But I guess to your question is the more that we can integrate the data where people can start accessing it Great example. I don't know if you knew this, but in Rio Rancho, there is I'm gonna butcher the name. It's a the the National UFO Historical Museum or database. I I forget the exact terminology. This guy is has has partnered up with the Rio Rancho school system to teach kids how to investigate data, not to prove that there's aliens, but just use this as a backdrop and his massive amount of data collection. By the way, if you ever go see it, it's one of those things that they go, we're not Roswell. So they're not pushing for aliens. But they they do it in a way that there's so much data that's found through military records.

You walk out of there even more afraid if you already weren't Aviania in existence because it's you there's not there's not even anything to prove. This is just basic black and white records, and you're like, oh, that's that's pretty confirming. So anyway, that's that's what the Rio Rancho School so those are the type of things that we can the more we can pull those type and, you know, this broader acceptability.

Awesome. And, you mentioned Atomic sixty six. I had the blessing to interview Vicky Apodaca a couple weeks ago

Oh, right. When we were

live. So I'll put a link listeners and I'm, one of the co leads for the programming for the climate and advanced energy track on Friday, June 13. So listeners have been hurrying, you know, plug it a lot. Come visit us in Mexico. Okay. Good. In June, whether you're interested in space or culture or Meow Wolf or climate, there's something here for you. It's gonna be awesome.

So we'll put a link to that interview with Vicky where we go pretty deeply into Atomic sixty six. But thanks for sponsoring that and being a Yeah. Just an advocate for it and bringing your resources and energy and creativity to it. We're super grateful and super excited about it.

Awesome. Me too.

So let's do this. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, I have lots of questions about what some of the initiatives are and where you see it's going now that you're getting some data. How do you see using that data and also, how does this relate to some very particular New Mexicans? Some folks whose families may have been here for generations and some folks who maybe have a different relationship. But before we do that, I'll just take quick word and hear a word from our sponsor. If you got the chance to interview over 300 of the world's top social entrepreneurs and impact investors, you'd have to be pretty clueless not to learn something. Fortunately, I've been paying attention. And our listeners, you are smart, mission driven leaders building real solutions.

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Super excited to help fix that. Bryce three hundred and sixty six episodes. You'd think we'd get the message, but I can be a little slow. So anyway, we're here to fix that. So we were talking in kind of in a wider angle. Now, in the second half of the show, I wanna dig a little deeper into kind of some of the specific initiatives, who's engaging and how this translates into some inclusive opportunities for all in terms of economic development and entrepreneurship. So give us a little bit of like, what's on the ground. If you looked at Space Valley right now or in general Space for Good initiatives in New Mexico or in Space Valley right now, you've got the database, the Orion interlake, and that's coming online in the next month or so.

What else is like on the ground right here, right now, and who's taking part in those?

There are several really incredible accelerators and incubators that happen in New Mexico and and at large we have the catalyst campus one. I'll start with Colorado just because they are the tip of us of of the Space Valley. So we have the catalyst campus. They they do an incredible job with theirs. We have new space nexus igniter program. They have I forget. They they have a really fairly robust cohort that does a lot, and they I think I forget how many that might be a two year program. But it's rare it's a really I think it's they're five years now on.

And with the queue station cohort, they they're a little bit smaller, a little bit more focused. What they do in particular is they give you pretty much every resource you can want as a start up, early stage start up, to succeed. So they'll have attorneys of IP. They'll have marketing, you know, leadership coaching, all this. And they take they the reason their cohorts are small is because it's it's pretty full on in terms of this ecosystem that they provide. So there's that. Then there's the Hyperspace Challenge, which is just a behemoth in itself. What they've done, I forget, a hundred and $10,000,000 impact or something.

Just incredible. Then there's the LEAP program from Los Alamos. NMSU has incredible, incredible resources for space startups. It's so funny that that all these programs that gets it exists and no one really knows about it because, again, the information is it's not that hard. It's just difficult to find where it is in New Mexico because it's so spread out, which we're hoping to focus with the Orion interlink. New Mexico Tech also has all kinds of award programs coming out for start ups and what I think there's actually one coming over the twenty fourth, April '20 fourth. I forget which one that is. But, anyway, there's there's they have their own versions.

So, yeah, on the ground, these are incredible. On top of that, you have the the New Mexico partnership organization that is really helping organ companies land as well as Area, Albuquerque. Man, I always forget that. But Area

all economic alliance. Yeah.

Thank you. They they're just there's so many damn resources. And so every time we have a company coming, like, who do we talk to? It just seems like an abundance. And pulling them all together to work together has been one of our our strongest attributes. So that way, when everyone's in the room talking to each other, oh, hey. We we actually do this better than you do this, and then we could do this better than you And then really lift off. Pardon the pun. So, yeah, that's that's what I'm seeing on the ecosystem front as well as, I mean, jeez, just the accessibility to Air Force Research Labs testing and LANL testing and CMB tests.

You know, one of the guys from there's a company called SpinLaunch down at Spaceport America, and they're you just have to look up SpinLaunch. It's hard to explain. It's it's a pretty incredible company. He told me he goes, the only place in the entire US, possibly the world, where you could develop something and then in twenty four hours launch something is at Spaceport America. Typical testing at that scale, even though it's suborbital, would potentially take one to two years for permission. And because we have our the most restricted airspace, which means we don't have to navigate for the most part anything with FAA because there's no planes flying over it because it's restricted, you're able to quickly turn and test at Spaceport America faster than anywhere in the anywhere in the world. That is massive.

Very cool. So give me the pitch. I I recently had the honor to have a conversation with somebody really smart, New Mexican, who's in the start up space and is literally doing some things with space. And she's the first person in her family to go to college. First person in her college to ever think about entrepreneurship. And space is a pretty far reach, given what her lineage, multi generation New Mexican family. Like, we have a lot of smart young people here in New Mexico who are looking for something, but don't, this is not the world their family has been swimming in. What would you say to somebody who's got that background about what's happening here and why they might wanna come check it out?

I I think okay. So from a New Mexican standpoint, I have to I'll look at it from that. I think that if they first start with a question of, like, what's my relationship to the sky? And, a, do I look up at the stars? Or, b, do I, you know, dream? Do I have this creative bone in my body? Is there something spiritual? Is there something from a heritage standpoint? Is there something from a legacy standpoint? Almost every New Mexican that I talk to answers one of those questions, yes. And that is that and that's why we're doing Space Valley the way we're doing it. It's because if you can answer one of those touchpoints, then what we're trying to do is bring in your that accessibility from one of those things. So let's just say like this, I guess, from a multigenerational standpoint is if this industry is really going to reach those 1,800,000,000,000.0 by 2035, some are even guessing maybe double that by 2035, maybe 2040, and the cocky curve just swings up, and then we just get silly numbers. If that is the case, without having to sell your soul or become lose your identity, the reason I would look at it from a multigenerational standpoint is because this these words are are are funny, but it's country. This is your birthright.

Space is your birthright. Like, if it weren't for New Mexico, I don't even know if we'd be talking about space from from nuclear propulsion, from the testing that's gone on White Sands, from the first reusable rocket was was he with that at at White Sands. P Conrad nineteen ninety something before Musk. Those patents were given to Musk so he could actually those blueprints were given to Musk so he could actually do what we do now. All New Mexican. All New Mexican. As well as the spirit the spiritual creation stories, these these heritage stories that, you know, looking at petroglyphs at the time of the supernova, you know, and and all these different things. It's a birthright.

And so what I'm trying to talk to New Mexicans about and it's funny because I would never ever say this, but I'll say it on the podcast. It's like and I haven't used the word birthright before. But if if if we do space right, it will be the most inclusive, most accessible domain of commerce in the history of humankind, and it will take everyone from every lineage, from every cultural, from every intelligence, from every socioeconomic, every aspect of humankind to be able to make this work. We might be able to pierce the veil with some really cool rockets, but we're never gonna get that force multiplier to where our species can proliferate space. And why would we wanna proliferate space? Because as, who was it that says it? Carl Sagan says it he goes, I'll butcher this too like everything else. Extinction is the norm. Survival is the exception. So if we're looking at it like that, it's because people are are looking at why would we wanna focus on space when Earth is in such trouble.

Well, turns out the way to save Earth most likely is actually to go into space as that force multiplier and then bring down what we need to from the technology standpoint and all these different so and to me, Mexicans that are living with, say, less resources than, say, other states still are the most kind, creative, inventive, irreverent, misfit group of people that that that don't think like the rest of The US or the rest of the world. They have their own way of thinking, and that is why I fell in love with it. That is why I'm here. And everyone I talk to that was either born here, raised here, or moved here, it was they they they say the same thing. It's like, I wanted to make an impact. I wanted something different. And that and so if I am talking to these people, that impact, that difference, that heritage, that culture is is only going to be accelerated in space and it have but there's no other state, in my opinion, that can shape the future like New Mexico.

Talking about some folks who know how to dream out of the box. Right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm a New York Jew. I got here in 1993 and just fell in love and never left. So I've been here a long, long time, Bryce. A long time. And you just described why I love the beauty of the place, but even more so, the beauty of the people is just remarkable.

The creativity you're describing. And that leads into my next question is, I don't I'm in the climate and advanced energy space. It's different but there's certainly overlap like how are you gonna power things when you go to space. There's there's a lot of overlap. I get a lot of inbound from people who don't live here, but are hearing about the kinds of initiatives, the kind of start up culture in New Mexico growing as a clean tech hub and as a hub in general and they ask me a lot of questions and they're trying to make sense of this place which is, you know, it doesn't look like a lot of other startup hubs. What would you say to that smart person who's hungry and is like working really hard and sees space for good as something that's really exciting and for all the reasons you just described but they're looking in as what you're calling Space Valley and looking at this place that, you know, things don't always work here the way they might work in some other hubs that people are more familiar with. What would you say to somebody who's looking in saying, that sounds super cool, but it just, like, I'm not quite sure how it works yet. Help me out.

Help me understand.

I I think if I if I were able to figure out how it works, then the mystery of the allure would be over. Like, I honestly because I ask people all the time too to your point that that have either moved to you or say, I'm like, what the hell are you doing? Why why are you here? Because it doesn't make sense. Right? You know, we have economic benefits, and we have the, you know, the the things. We got the things. We got the packages. But it's like, when when I did I the two words when I was working with my PR team to come up with it, like, after interviewing a lot of people doing my market research, it just came down to innovative misfits. Like, there's there's so much space. There's so much sky that and I hate this as an an example, but, like, if you wanted to figure out how to do nuclear energy, you could do that in the desert.

Like, that that's how crazy this place is. If you wanted to do massive installations and see how you could live off the grid and build a, quote, unquote, earthship, you could do that. If you want to build a city of the desert that, you know, is totally green and all that, you could do that. And so the the space for creativity and irreverence and and get misfit and also deep, deep, deep heritage and culture and respect for the land, I just I don't know how you pack I still don't know how you package that up. So the way that I I ever talk to people is I was like, just come visit. Like, one of the reasons I have this UN job is because I I I worked with someone to bring over for, about what we were doing. From Geneva, ex Google guy, and he he lands here. He's like, what what what is this guy? So he he was bred in Silicon Valley.

You know? And it loved that. And I was like, and then bred in Geneva, the height of, you know, UN. He comes out of Albuquerque. Like, I don't get it. I don't get it. This whole thing. I don't get I don't get it. Loved it.

Fell in love with it. And the reason Space for Good is even happening right now is because of his love for Space Valley. The people, the innovation, again, of what came out of Albuquerque, Santa Fe, these Las Cruces, all at to Taos. And and he still can't formulate the why except for I love it. And so I guess the thing that I would tell startup founders and all all these different things is, like, sure, you need to know the numbers. You need to know workforce development. You need to understand where you're gonna land and all all this other stuff in traditional focus stuff. But, like, if you're really gonna be an outside of the box and really make an imprint, I say come to New Mexico at least twice.

Go north to south, south to north, visit it. And and if you don't have that itch to move here, then then you know it's not for you. Because the way my wife and I did it, we left New York. We did everything that you could do to that to to avoid the mix. So we came through Santa Fe. We stayed here for two months, and then we left. We're like, oh, we gotta go to California because California is where space is. Then we went to California.

I'm like, I I gotta get back to New Mexico. I don't know why. Then we landed in Taos for two months. We're like, no. No. No. We gotta go to Austin. Yeah.

That's that's weird. We were in Austin. We're like, no. It doesn't work. And we landed in Albuquerque for three years, and we just actually moved to Santa Fe. And so all of those places had you could you could fit into the machine. But in terms of impact and dynamism and just outside of the box type of thing, nothing nothing nothing nothing will give you as much as New Mexico.

And part of the reason we created Atomic sixty six is to give people a way to kinda get an intensive of it. Three days Yes. To really get a lot of the different flavors and start to meet some of the players. So that's very much baked into the DNA. Please come check it out. Tickets are free, so you literally, you can just come on down and meet a lot of people who both live here and are looking and supporting from other places. So come check out Atomic Sixty Sec. So, alright.

We talked about some of the uniqueness and misfits and I love all that, but like, where are we in terms of the economic development? We got listeners who are really greedy entrepreneurs, like, how is this starting to show up in terms of, like, I assume we're not at 1,800,000,000,000.0 right now here in twenty twenty five, April. But is it starting to have a ripple effect in the New Mexico economy and beyond?

I have never seen more VCs interested in New Mexico in my life. Like, it is it is wild to start to see the VC community outside of New Mexico outside of New Mexico pour in as well as the global community. Like, India. I was just in India talking to Indian space companies about Space Valley, and they're like, they're salivating. They're salivating at the opportunity because let's use Space Force again. The their their this airspace in India is so restrictive that they they can't launch even through their Indian ISRO, their version of NASRO NASA. And so they can't even they can't even get a damn rocket up or satellite. And, you know, you look at Kennedy Kennedy, Florida, and Vandenberg in California and Texas, all of these have really, really intense long waiting times as 12.

You have to do environmental impact studies, all that stuff. And I'm just using Space Port as an example. The what we're seeing is from an opportunity from a I'm going to Italy, actually, to talk to them too because they wanna start bringing stuff over to do this. So I am seeing a massive and massive amount of global entities that are looking into Mexico that I I was really, really surprised about. At The US level, what we're finding again is the companies are starting to realize the accessibility of New Mexico to very high level people that have national impact from the labs, from AFRL, from wherever. And once they realize, like, oh, I could go down to queue station or I could go to NewSpace and sit there, and next thing I know, you know, open up a kombucha. You know, I'm talking to a three star that has you know, is in charge of $500,000,000,000 of fund. You know? You're like, oh, wow.

That's I'd have to wait six months to have a conversation if I even could get in the door, and here I am having it here. So in terms of economic, I don't know when there there's a group that's going to be announcing a pretty substantial build out of companies that are going to be landing in New Mexico that will, I I believe, start actually changing the narrative of what New Mexico. That I think that happens in May. I don't I can't give too much away, but that's a massive massive story. And I think that's just going to be the tip of the iceberg from what we're what we're starting to see. So yeah. Yeah. Everything from soup to nuts is what I'm starting to see pour in here.

One of the examples of I'm co we're called co leads for the Climate End Advanced Energy track for Atomic sixty six. David Perez is my co lead for the program for that day. David is this is public information. David is working and has funding for what's called the innovation hub, the New Mexico innovation hub. It's 82 acres at the Santa Fe

Oh, right.

Yeah. I'm sorry. But the Albuquerque Airport. When that's all done, it's gonna be hundreds of thousands of manufacturing space and advanced energy and this next generation economy that you're talking about, Bryce. So, like, literally, things are in the work to do 82 acres worth of high level, very technical manufacturing and you don't invest in that kind of infrastructure. David's a very smart guy, the president and the board of New Mexico Angels. You don't invest in that kind of infrastructure as a state and as an ecosystem unless you have pretty good idea that there's people wanting that space. So just one little example, and again, David's gonna be one of the tech talks for Atomic sixty six where you can kinda get a sense of what's happening here.

So just one little tiny data point to give you sense of the scale of what's coming. Yeah. So how about entrepreneurs? So, you know, that's that's a little bit about like VCs, but if you're an entrepreneur and you have you're resonating with Space for Good and you're like, hey, I got an idea that's about Space for Good. What would you suggest that somebody who's either early stage or, you know, maybe has gotten a few rounds of funding, but it's still pretty early? What would you suggest for somebody who has an idea in the Space for Good realm? How did they plug in? How does their start up I mean, I know I'm talking to folks who are literally moving their start ups to New Mexico for some of the reasons we've been talking about. Somebody listens to this and they said, I would consider New Mexico if some of this, you know, good sauce could get spread on my startup. What what would you suggest to somebody in that space?

I think what I would start to do is really have people start to think about space differently and have kind of a dual use approach where you have you have your tech on earth, You know? Because if you focus solely on space, that is that is just that's a that is a lift. That is a real, real lift. And you have to love space to be able to do that. So if you're if you're in that entrepreneurial space where you wanna create something really cool, have an impact, and then bow out, awesome. Space isn't quite there yet. Although, you know, when you're talking about contracts, you're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars to get a a lot of times. I mean, India, again, in fact, India is actually doing it for one thirtieth of the cost. But if I were an entrepreneur and, you know, Harvard Business Review called the space industry the future proof of of businesses, you future proof it by having that touchpoint.

I would start looking at supply chain. I would begin looking at entertainment industry. I would begin looking at all these these disparate industries and how they're going to how they're all already starting to form and begin this kind of approach towards space. Again, whether it's just from a, hey. We're gonna do it from a philanthropic standpoint to make sure that everyone has access to it. From my commercial, yeah, standpoint to down here at Space Valley, someone said, you know, if you do Space Valley right, I wanna be the first Space Valley real estate agent. Because if you if you do it like Silicon Valley did it, then my my housing prices will go out of the roof, and, I'll make a ton of money. And I'm like, right.

So if I was an entrepreneur and I had this access to this breadth of space assets, then I would there's a couple different actual approach. You could do one where you look at the tech to see what you can use and how you can approach it into space or suborbital because, Spaceport America only launches suborbital, not orbital or orbital totally. I would I would do that to see how you could commercialize a lot of it. The second point is I would leverage just the the domain broader, how I would start to really broaden that landscape and that narrative because there's a ton of money in that alone. If you look at Blue Origin, love Blue Origin, blah blah blah blah, but they're sending the first female crew up into space. They're going glam. Now a lot of people feel this is tone deaf. And at this at this moment in time, which is funny because if this were five years and maybe a different administration, everyone would be celebrating and now and I'm not saying either is right or wrong.

What's just really interesting is there's this this opportunity to really, again, diversify the narrative. So this could be celebrated in both political spheres, but it's not being done like that. And so there's just just an obscene amount amount of opportunity. And, yeah, if I was an entrepreneur, that's the last thing I would do is I would go to these entities that already exist, NASA, NFRL, SpaceForm. What do you need? What do what do what do you they they are so overwhelmed with work, and they have so many projects, and they're getting you know, whether it's a budget cut or this, that, or personnel cut, all these different things. But they you know, what I learned from NASA is, you know, they'll they'll have projects completed 90% and the funding gets cut. And all of that IP and whatever just gets thrown into the public and never used. 10% more, you most likely have one of the most viable products that, you know, you could take to market.

So if I were an entrepreneur and I had the time and the wherewithal, I would actually start digging into what already exists, what you can do better, obviously, that typical mindset. But in New Mexico, it's how can I help? What can I do? Well, what do you need?

Yeah. Yeah. You put your finger on something really important, Bryce. We have one of the highest or maybe the highest in New Mexico per capita levels of PhDs in the world because of things like Los Alamos and Sandia Labs and Space Force everything, NASA, everything we've been talking about. And classic example for us in the climate space, we have a New Mexico startup called Gridflow, a next generation lithium battery company. Chuck Hall, who was on this podcast, awesome member of our ecosystem here in Advanced Energy, that technology is licensed from Sandia. Right? So very, very, very smart people in the, you know, Sandia Lab ecosystem developed something very innovative and did all did did a lot of the science and then there's an office called the commercialization office. There's a process to go do that kind of sorting through that you're talking about.

But Chuck and company did that and said, oh, this is very interesting. And now they own the IP to it. But a lot of that work was done by Sandia Sandia Sandia Sandia Sandia. And how do you know, like, that kind of stuff? How do you know when it exists or what's out there? Like you're saying, Bryce, if you're either here or can have relationships with somebody here, people are incredibly generous and want more of these kind of startups. And we're finding our commercialization offices at Sandia, at Los Alamos, at UNM, New Mexico Tech, being very much more engaged with the entrepreneurial community. So if you go say hi and you're looking for challenges and cool technology that meet those challenges, things literally just fall in your lap here because people are like that here. It's they just say, hey, I was working on this cool thing and I'm too busy, but you're smart and you're excited about space. You might wanna talk to so and so because they did this really, really cool research and it seems like it's right up your alley.

That's that's my experience of how things work here and all you have to do is show up and say hi. It's it's really quite remarkable.

It is. And and sincerity. Like, so coming from New York, you know, as a as a working in the consulting company and and the and the lawyer, I I had a chip on my shoulder. I was a cocky piece of shit. And when I when I came in, I was like, I'm gonna take off. I'm gonna I'm gonna do it. And it was hilarious. Like, this state just rips apart any type of ego.

It pulls away any type of bullshit identification. It just it gets you down to brass tacks where you're, you know, facing yourself and stare at yourself at the beer because there's there's not the the ability to get because we don't have just the, you know, excess funding of, say, Silicon Valley and then, you know, where we can throw money in. We don't have it it's just a unique place where the desert, the mountains, all these things just kinda pull this this thing away. And so about two weeks in, I was like, I was humbled. I was a humbled, humbled human being. And when you know, by the third week by the third week, once I I I kinda had my cup to Jesus about it, and I realized it's like, no. Just leave with your heart. Just leave with transparency.

Just leave with truth. I I got a job with a space law firm, a space startup law firm, helping companies navigate the regulatory landscape. And then within a year, we launched a space regulatory boot camp. And then within the next year, I'm leading Space Valley, you know, as executive director to pull in all these different parts. And it's funny. None of that would have happened had I still had that chip on my shoulder or try to be an ivy or whatever because the Mexicans smell it. But if you get a if you don't live here, it it takes it takes something. It takes that you know? Yeah.

Yeah. You can't

you can't your sleep and show that you're part of the community, not better than the community. Exactly. Like, literally, NM Climate was given to me and other other cofounders. Like, literally, they just the people started that were busy startup folks and they just said, you take it. We trust you. You've been showing up here. Right?

Oh, okay.

And I wasn't even I already had a lot on my plate, but okay. Sure. Yeah. I'm happy to do that. Like, if you roll up your sleeve and get to work, all kinds of opportunities, if you're smart, but you're also a community player, not an ego player. I couldn't agree more, Bryce. So thanks for kind of giving the lay of the land here. I think that's so helpful.

So, Bryce, Bryce, I could hang out with you all day and I know you're busy. I know our listener is busy. If we're if you were gonna hope we covered something and we didn't get to it yet, or there's something you wanna leave our listeners with on this topic of space for good as we start to say goodbye. What would that be?

I you know, you know, everyone everyone's like, I wish I invested in Microsoft or Amazon or Apple or Bitcoin when I had that opportunity. This is your opportunity. This is your opportunity. And and I really it is how you define space. I am a recovering attorney. I have no science background, engineering background, and I am I have well I've positioned myself in the space industry with I'll ever even conceiving this would be the way to do it. And what is it that comes back down to impact? And if and I see the more and more people from entrepreneurs to the children to to everyone are are really seeking to make real impact. I I really I really see a real impact.

And space is this time in our lives where we are at a critical point of, like, of of discovering the new world, if you will. And however we move forward is going to have ripple effects for eons. I mean that, really, eons, eons, eons. Just a quick diversion real quick. Sorry. Is this back in Hugo Gratius, oh, early fifteen hundreds, I think, argued against a lot of the nations when they were starting to divvy divvy up the seas, the oceans, and they believe that every every country should own a piece of the ocean so that there wasn't gonna be open seas. And this man argued that there need to be open seas, open seas, open seas in the fifteen hundreds, may have even been earlier. And because of that argument, he won, and that's why we still, to this day, have open seas, and it's not completely owned by the nations.

And that open sea treaty led to the outer space treaty in 1960 god. A terrible date. 6265. And that said no nation can can own anything in any celestial body in space nor have any type of war. That type of thing, 15 hundreds still rippling, rippling, and keeping people free so they can fish, so they can participate, they can swim, they can all these different things is now what we're looking at space. And so space for good isn't you're like, oh, I'm not gonna do satellites. I don't care about rockets. I wanna focus here and all of a sudden.

No. No. No. They are they are symbiotic. There is no there is no binary. There it is symbiotic. And the more we can start participating and and focusing on that, the the the longevity we as a human species will have.

Right. So somebody wants to get a hold of you, find out more about Space Valley Foundation and the work that you're doing, what would be the best way for them to do it?

Website, spacevalley.org, and my name, Bryce, b r y c e, at space valley dot org. Please let me have our LinkedIn. LinkedIn's always a good one. So Bryce Kennedy. I'm actually quite responsive on that.

Cool. So we'll put the links as always. There's a lot in the show notes. I got as many as I could, listeners. Check out the show notes, and we'll put Space Valley Foundation at the top and Bryce on LinkedIn. Bryce, thank you so much for your time, and also just thank you so much for all the great work you're doing for New Mexico.

Thank you, Paul.

So listeners, you know what we do here. Please go tell a friend about this episode. You get a sense of the energy and the dynamism that's happening here in the space industry. Please go and tell your friends. Also wanna ask, if you like this, please go to your favorite podcast app and hit subscribe, do a review. That's how more people find the show. Lastly, I wanna say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times, and thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.