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Developing The Low Earth Orbit Economy On The World’s First Commercial Space Station — David Zuniga, Senior Director, In-Space Solutions, Axiom Space


David Zuniga is Senior Director of In-Space Solutions at Axiom Space (https://www.axiomspace.com/), a space infrastructure developer headquartered in Houston, Texas, which plans human spaceflight for government-funded and commercial astronauts, engaging in in-space research, in-space manufacturing, and space exploration. The company aims to own and operate the world’s first commercial space station, and Mr. Zuniga helps to develop strategy and growth around Axiom’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) economy, also playing a critical role in business and technical integration of Axiom’s in-space manufacturing and research capabilities for Axiom Station architecture.

Mr. Zuniga has over 20 years of experience through engineering and business development in human spaceflight and the department of defense, developing system architectures and technology for deep space systems via the Constellation, Orion, and Gateway programs. He was a Certified Principal Engineer for Orion’s Air Revitalization System, and subsystem manager for NASA’s Gateway program for the Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) where he developed requirements and certification criteria for future architectures.

Andreessen argues that thanks to A.I., “productivity growth throughout the economy will accelerate dramatically, driving economic growth, creation of new industries, creation of new jobs, and wage growth, and resulting in a new era of heightened material prosperity across the planet.”

This week, on the Lex Fridman Podcast, he offered advice to young people who want to stand out in what he describes in this “freeze-frame moment” with A.I.—where tools like ChatGPT and GPT-4 are suddenly available and “everybody is kind of staring at them wondering what to do.”

He noted that we’re now living in a world where vast amounts of information are at our fingertips and, with A.I. tools, “your ability both to learn and to produce” is dramatically higher than in the past. Such tools should allow for more “hyper-productive people” to emerge, he said. For example, there’s no reason authors and musicians couldn’t churn out far more books or songs than was customary in the past.

Ever since the release of OpenAI’s new chatbot ChatGPT in November, investors have been enamored with A.I. and its potential to revolutionize the world’s economy. Hopes for a future with increased productivity and lower costs as A.I. tools are rolled out to the masses have helped to lift markets in 2023 despite stubborn inflation, rising interest rates, and consistent recession predictions from economists. After dropping more than 30% in 2022, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has recovered nearly all of its losses, gaining over 28% year to date, and the S&P 500 is now up more than 12%.

While some on Wall Street question whether stocks can continue their run of form in the second half of the year, pointing to stretched valuations in the Big Tech names and A.I. plays that have led the rebound so far, Wedbush’s top tech analyst Dan Ives argues it’s just the beginning of the “A.I. gold rush.”

“Many of the tech skeptics will point to today as a ‘1999 moment,’ à la on the verge of the dotcom bubble/collapse, given the significant move in tech valuations. We strongly disagree,” the veteran analyst wrote in a Monday research note. “While valuations in tech will be front and center, we continue to believe A.I. is driving the tech sector to a ‘1995 moment’ with a long runway of growth ahead that we have not seen since the 1990s.”

Cotton is the primary source of natural fiber on Earth, yet only four of 50 known species are suitable for textile production. Computer scientists at DePaul University applied a bioinformatics workflow to reconstruct one of the most complete genomes of a top cotton species, African domesticated Gossypium herbaceum cultivar Wagad. Experts say the results give scientists a more complete picture of how wild cotton was domesticated over time and may help to strengthen and protect the crop for farmers in the U.S., Africa and beyond.

The findings are published in the journal G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics. Thiru Ramaraj, assistant professor of computer science in DePaul’s Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media, is lead author on the publication. Leaps in technological advancement in the past decade made it possible for Ramaraj to analyze the in his Chicago lab.

“The power of this technology is it allows us to create high-quality genomes that supply a level of detail that simply wasn’t possible before,” says Ramaraj, who specializes in bioinformatics. “This opens up the possibility for more researchers to sequence many crops that are important to the and to feeding the population.”

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Watch the full interview here: https://youtu.be/gho0PlDU_TI

Filmmaker James Cameron has visited the Titanic wreck more than 30 times, and this sparked his love for deep ocean exploration. In this 2018 #60Mins interview, he said with most voyages to the ocean floor, the risk is high and rescue is difficult.

WATCH more of 60 Minutes Australia: https://www.60minutes.com.au.

One hundred thousand tons of clothes dumped illegally in a Chilean desert. The tragic collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh… People are increasingly turning to a concept called “circular fashion” that may help end situations like that. Beyond Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, it encourages innovative designs and values that attract both young and old. We catch up with some of the new business models, as well as the people buying into these novel products and services.

Guest:

Yasui Akihiro (Circular-economy researcher)

Have you ever wondered how can North Korea afford its nuclear program and the luxury goods for its leadership when its economy is effectively cut off from the world? Well… let me tell you a little secret.

If you want to support the channel, check out my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ExplainedWithDom.

Selected sources and further reading:
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/north-koreas-criminal-act…-challenge.
https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article…monographs.
https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/JIPA/Display/Article/328526…ase-study/
https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/RL33885.pdf.
https://www.rusi.org/events/open-to-all/organised-crime-north-korea.
https://moneyweek.com/19827/north-koreas-criminal-economy

Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel who died earlier this year, is famous for forecasting a continuous rise in the density of transistors that we can pack onto semiconductor chips. James McKenzie looks at how “Moore’s law” is still going strong after almost six decades, but warns that further progress is becoming harder and ever more expensive to sustain.

A video worth watching. An amazingly detailed deep dive into Sam Altman’s interviews and a high-level look at AI LLMs.


Missed by much of the media, Sam Altman (and co) have revealed at least 16 surprising things over his World Tour. From AI’s designing AIs to ‘unstoppable opensource’, the ‘customisation’ leak (with a new 16k ChatGPT and ‘steerable GPT 4), AI and religion, and possible regrets over having ‘pushed the button’.

I’ll bring in all of this and eleven other insights, together with a new and highly relevant paper just released this week on ‘dual-use’. Whether you are interested in ‘solving climate change by telling AIs to do it’, ‘staring extinction in the face’ or just a deepfake Altman, this video touches on it all, ending with comments from Brockman in Seoul.