How Dancing Satellites from Japan Will Clean Up Outer Space

There are a lot of aerospace startups in Japan these days. We are seeing innovation in everything from component manufacturing to satellite constellations to literal moonshots. All of those, however, depend on the ability to place new satellites in orbit, and that is getting harder and harder due to the ever-increasing amount of orbital debris. It's simply getting too crowded up there. Nobu Okada founded Astroscale to solve this problem. Today we sit down and talk about his solution, and we also dive into the very real political and financing challenges that have prevented this problem from being solved. In many ways, the removal of space debris of a classic Tragedy of the Commons problem. Everyone agrees that it is an important problem that should be solved, but no one wants to spend their own money to solve it. Well, Nobu and his team have developed a business model that they believe will be able to address this problem.  It's an innovative and important approach. And yes, we also talk about dancing satellites. It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it. Show Notes What is this Kessler Syndrome and why do we need to worry about it Why dreams of being an astronaut did not work out Why aerospace startups need their own manufacturing facilities How to bring down a satellite The trigger leading world governments to finally get serious about space clean up What are your options when your satellite fails to launch The single biggest risk in the space debris removal business Why there are so many aerospace startups in Japan recently