Exploring Spacetech
Tune in to this episode of Void Deck to hear Dr. Christopher Luwanga share his journey from Malawi to founding Galamad Aerospace, and discover Singapore's growing role in the space industry.
Episode 3: Exploring Spacetech with Dr. Christopher Luwanga (Galamad Aerospace)
Singapore may be known as the Little Red Dot, but its ambitions are astronomical. In this episode, we explore how this tiny island nation is becoming an unexpected player in the space industry, with homegrown spacetech companies reaching for the stars. We chat with Dr. Christopher Luwanga, the CEO and founder of Galamad Aerospace, a space start-up based in Singapore. We discuss his journey growing up in Malawi to completing his engineering PhD at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Along the way, Christopher talks about the awe-inspiring vastness of the universe, the importance of reuseable satellites, and his vision of the future of space exploration.
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Episode Highlights
Discover how Dr. Christopher Luwanga went from reading Shakespeare at age 9 in Malawi to founding a spacetech company in Singapore
Learn about PROSat, Galamad Aerospace’s programmable and reusable satellite that could be part of the expected 50,000 satellites orbiting Earth in the near future
Find out why Singapore, despite its small geographical size, is an ideal base for space start-ups
Explore the challenges of implementing AI systems in satellites, including creating synthetic space environments for training
Hear first-hand about fascinating developments in the space industry, such as the fact that since 2019, more satellites have been launched than in the entire period from the 1950s to 2019 combined!
Get mind-blowing insights into the sheer scale of the universe: when you look at the sun, you're seeing the sun as it was roughly 8 minutes ago due to the time it takes light to travel!
Timestamps
00:00 Preview
00:27 Intro
01:31 Growing up in Malawi and early interest in literature
04:18 From Shakespeare to space: realising the immense scale of the universe
07:11 Founding Galamad Aerospace
09:28 Why Singapore is an ideal base for Galamad Aerospace
10:45 PROSat, Galamad Aerospace’s spacecraft, and the state of current satellites
14:24 How do satellites avoid hitting each other?
16:36 Implementing AI systems with satellites
20:07 Managing operations across Asia and Africa
21:31 Creating opportunities in Africa
23:37 [Mid-roll Ad] Space Explorers: THE INFINITE at Science Centre Singapore
24:25 Paiseh question: Does Singapore have astronauts?
26:19 Advice to Singaporeans interested in the space industry
27:32 Word Association Game
33:10 Outro
Guest Biography
Dr. Christopher Luwanga is a space engineer and physicist based in Singapore, and originally from Malawi, Africa. As founder of Galamad Aerospace, he is leading a team of designers, engineers, and builders of spacecraft for the new age of consumer applications that are built around space technologies. One of the most exciting applications is that of broadband connectivity from and via outer space. This extension into space not only creates a powerful, resilient complement to our existing terrestrial network infrastructure but in some places is the only practical means to connect people to the internet. Galamad Aerospace is also specifically developing the PROSat, a programmable, reuseable, and highly manoeuvrable spacecraft that will ultimately enable smart constellations that do not unnecessarily crowd or pollute the space environment.
Transcript
This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.
CHRISTOPHER: I didn't realise that, you know, eight or nine planets, we're talking about our solar system and that our solar system is one of billions. Understand? And it is in a galaxy that itself is one of billions. In fact, people think trillions of galaxies are there.
So when I learned about that, it was just truly like, you know, you can spend your whole life studying this stuff and there would still be more to discover.
[Upbeat electronica music plays]
RISHII: Hello and welcome to Void Deck, a casual science podcast brought to you by Science Centre Singapore. I'm your host Rishii from Science Centre Singapore. And today we're joined by my colleague Shao Xun from the Education Department in the Centre.
SHAO XUN: Hi everyone, very excited for today's episode.
RISHII: Today we're going to talk about space tech. So Singapore is often called the little red dot because of how tiny we are. But did you know that Singapore is home to a number of space tech companies vying to boldly go to the frontier of space?
SHAO XUN: So in this episode, we chat with Dr Christopher Luwanga, the CEO and founder of Galamad Aerospace based in Singapore.
RISHII: If you want to support more electrifying talks with Singapore-based scientists, share this podcast with a friend and show us some love with a five star rating. Thanks for tuning in and exploring the universe from the heartland. Let's get the podcast started. Hi Christopher.
CHRISTOPHER: Hi Rishii.
RISHII: Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm sure you're busy running your own company.
RISHII: I think before we jump into all the intense space talk that we want to discover today, I just wanted to know more about you, Christopher. What were you like when you were a child? Did you always want to do space when you were growing up?
CHRISTOPHER: Hello everyone listening. I'm Christopher from Malawi. That's where I grew up. Malawi is in Central Africa, Southeast Africa. I've met a lot of people and I would say Malawi is in Southern Africa. And someone says, is it South Africa? Actually, it's a completely different country. So it's a small country, but certainly not as small as Singapore.
When I was younger, actually, I was interested more in literature. So by the age of nine or so, I used to actually read a lot of Shakespeare. So Macbeth, for example, is one of the books I remember when I was very young. I read that book and I took it to class and the teacher was like, how can you be reading this book? Because it was like no one else in my age group read books like that.
So in my younger days, [it] really was more that. And I used to write poems. So our country organised education days. In education days, you could perform an existing poem. Or in my case, I wrote my own poems and then went and performed those poems in front of a lot of people. So I was famous for that, for writing poetry, actually. And so it was literature.
RISHII: So you're telling me at nine, not only were you reading Shakespeare, but you were also writing your own poems.
CHRISTOPHER: Yeah, actually, it was not something that I had planned per se. It's just that I didn't really have, I guess, a lot to do. I grew up on a farm and all that. So in my free time, I used to read the dictionary.
RISHII: Oh, wow.
CHRISTOPHER: I memorised and knew a lot of words So that allowed me to be able to both speak well enough at an early age as well to be able to write. Very young, I actually had people from the main radio station in my country come to my village just because they were surprised that someone can speak English in that village that well. So it was because I had not much else to do. So I read a lot and I was able to write also.
RISHII: Shao Xun, what were you doing when you were nine? I'm just clarifying that we all didn't...
SHAO XUN: Sad to say, I think I was watching cartoons mostly.
RISHII: Yes, and I think the books that I was reading at nine were probably half as thick as the books that you were reading. It was probably like Mr. Midnight. It's a very childhood horror book that's very famous among kids here. But never Shakespeare. But wow, that's very impressive.
So how did you, I guess, pivot from literature, which is very artsy, like how I grew up, into STEM, right? I mean, like space is... I'm assuming physics is involved as well. So how did you make that pivot all of a sudden?
CHRISTOPHER: I think it was not really one moment. When I went to high school, I became more and more interested in science, mostly from an engineering point of view. Looking at what people have built, that excited me.
RISHII: From Lit to STEM, that's actually a big pivot.
SHAO XUN: Yes, from Shakespeare to space.
RISHII: Yes, from Shakespeare to space. It's super cool that you could actually make that pivot so seamlessly. And so you were saying that you were into engineering, right? And how did that evolve into specifically space tech or wanting to do something related to space? Was there a moment in school that kind of inspired you? Or was it just something that you just stumbled upon?
CHRISTOPHER: I would say more stumbled upon. When I was younger, even in my high school days, I really hadn't had a lot of inspiring figures or anything to do with space. So I was not enthusiastic about space movies. I was not interested in what happened for us to get here in terms of space.
But I think sometime in my late teens, I realised that there were not eight planets or nine planets. And it's a trivial thing, but all my life up to that point, I actually thought that there were only eight or nine planets.
It was because in primary school, of course, we're very young. So they don't really say that it's eight or nine planets in our solar system. They just say eight or nine planets. I didn't realise that eight or nine planets, we're talking about our solar system and that our solar system is one of billions.
And it is in a galaxy that itself is one of billions. In fact, people think trillions of galaxies are there. So when I learned about that, it was just truly like you can spend your whole life studying this stuff and there would still be more to discover. So it was more, this would be very interesting.
I could spend my life doing this and I wouldn't get bored, in other words, right? I just felt it was very untouched as a field. There wasn't a whole lot. Like I said, me growing up, I didn't know a thing about this whole universe beyond our eight or nine planets. So it was based on logic. I'd like to do something in this area.
[Musical transition]
RISHII: When you put it that way, I mean, it's crazy to think, right? Like you're saying like there's maybe billions or trillions of like planets and solar systems out there. And we're just like this tiny person in this little red dot right now. So that was a very interesting insight into how you got into space. So maybe we can talk more about Galamad Aerospace, the spacetech company that you founded. What is the origin story of this company and what motivated you to start this company?
CHRISTOPHER: So when I came to Singapore in 2018 to do a PhD, luckily I was also involved in building satellites. So during the four years that I was doing space physics focused research, so even though I was in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, my research was a bit more on the science side. But luckily, concurrently, I was involved in engineering work.
So, you know, while doing that engineering work, I saw that we could certainly do more using a different business approach. So traditionally, satellites have been very, very expensive. And only a few countries have really built their own satellites. So, for example, across Africa, very few countries have actually built satellites. And sometimes when you hear so-and-so has built a satellite, often just means they bought.
And then so in reality, very few people are involved. But I also know that in order for us to do anything meaningful in this space, you need an enormous number of people. Because today, even though NASA, of course, is a big organisation, in the grand scheme of things is very tiny, in the number of people that actually work on space, space.
So I felt creating a company that's focused on how we can do things at scale, instead of just building five, ten satellites a year, how can you create a company that allows us to build things at a significantly larger scale? Because in the process of building, you learn more about building itself.
So if we want to go to Mars, for example, there is no way we're going to go to Mars with only one main company.
Building a city on Earth requires an enormous number of companies. Building a city on a different planet will require a significantly larger number of people involved, a significantly larger number of companies involved and resources.
So our company is just preparing for that eventual future where we're exploring beyond Earth. And in our own way, we believe that we can make that contribution by involving as many people as possible, both here in Singapore, as well as, as I’ll mention later on, in other parts of the world.
SHAO XUN: Christopher, I have an interesting question. As you were sharing about improving the access to space and space tech, you spoke about big scale. So why base your company in Singapore, which is a small nation?
CHRISTOPHER: Well, it's a small nation, but not a small people, right?
SHAO XUN: Wow! [Claps]
CHRISTOPHER: It's geographically small, but obviously it punches above its weight in a lot of ways. And one of them is certainly in terms of talent access.
So there is a significant amount of intellectual resources required to build satellites. And often it's very hard for me to just go into any ecosystem and find that already there. Because Singapore has already built, you know, people want to come to Singapore for their own reasons, one of them being money. So they come here for those reasons, but the talented people are here.
By basing one foot of our company here, it allows us to access that global talent. So in a manner of speaking, there is knowledge that we need here. That's one of the primary reasons that we based ourselves here.
SHAO XUN: That's an interesting insight.
RISHII: My key takeaway is he said that we are talented people.
SHAO XUN: Yeah, you and I.
RISHII: Thanks for making my day, Christopher.
CHRISTOPHER: Absolutely.
[Musical transition]
SHAO XUN: Can you tell us more about the spacecraft that you are creating in your company?
CHRISTOPHER: So as any company, you start off with a vision. And our vision is to build the satellite that we're calling or we're basing on what we call ProSat. ProSat, the P stands for programmable. The R stands for reusability. And the O stands for orbitless.
Programmability just means that it's able to be reprogrammed to do something else. For example, yesterday I wanted to use the satellite for doing TV transmissions. But today I'd like to use it for carrying Internet traffic, for example. I would like to be able to programme while it's already in space.
SHAO XUN: And you mean to say that at the current state, most of the satellites are built with a specific use in mind and is usually not repurposed?
CHRISTOPHER: Absolutely. Almost all of them are built that way.
SHAO XUN: Oh, wow.
RISHII: So once it's out there, when it functions as one purpose, like for example, you said TV transmission, right? It can't do anything else except be for TV transmission.
CHRISTOPHER: Correct. That's all it would do. And after it's done with this job, it's thrown away.
SHAO XUN: So for perspective, do we know how many satellites are there around Earth right now?
CHRISTOPHER: Yeah, thousands. In the near future, we're looking at possibly 50,000. So since 2019, between 2019 and now, we've launched more satellites than we had launched from the 1950s to 2019. So in the last six years or so, five, six years, it's been a significant increase in order to support specific applications. In this case, the application of telecommunications or carrying Internet data through satellites.
That requires a large number of satellites. But moving forward, our business is also going to build lots of satellites.
And that's why we have the reusability element to be able to both reuse the satellites as well as, if needed, we bring it down. So we just don't throw it away.
But the applications that we are looking at require a lot of satellites. So moving forward, we're expecting not fewer satellites, but a significant increase in the number of satellites that are out there.
I should mention, however, that when people talk about space debris, that is, trash in space, that's a valid concern, but at the same time, somewhat overblown sometimes. Space is big.
So the surface of the Earth is, whatever size it is, imagine you have many shells of bigger sizes all over. We have, for example, on Earth, as you know, we have 1.2 over 1.2 billion cars. It's not like they're always ramming into each other.
There is some level of organising that we would need to do in space. In other words, we don't necessarily reduce the number of satellites, but we create infrastructure that allows us to manage the traffic in space appropriately. So if you, your satellite is coming for mine, I should have an ability, a built-in ability, to avoid it.
RISHII: Right.
CHRISTOPHER: So that's the component that in our PROSat, the O part, orbitless to give it autonomy. OK, I see something coming. I should avoid it. And this doesn't require new inventions, really. We already have what we call thrusters, which are little, small engines.
You turn it on, it will change your location so that when the thing comes, you will have avoided it by the time you meet and so on. So just doing things at a bigger scale and managing the traffic appropriately is the way forward.
RISHII: So right now, do the satellites just drift, I guess, like, aimlessly? Do they bump into each other or like, how do they avoid hitting into each other right now? Because it's something that you said you're working on, right? And is it something that's new or do many companies already try to do this? Because I'm just imagining like a bunch of satellites hovering above Earth, just like bumping into each other and just like crashing.
CHRISTOPHER: So, to actually bump into another satellite, you would have had to make so many mistakes on Earth in your design.
[Everyone laughs]
CHRISTOPHER: So before I launch, actually, I know where other satellites are. So there's a coordinated system where every satellite is given its own orbit.
And so when I say that my satellite is in orbit of 580 kilometres and this is the inclination and so forth, these details, you know that they would not conflict with another satellite. So only in scenarios where something has happened, that is, your orbit has somehow been disturbed by natural forces or artificial forces, that's to mean maybe an attack of sorts, then you might have issues.
So in general, it is very, very unlikely that you would have a satellite hit you.
RISHII: Okay.
CHRISTOPHER: What might hit you, though, is if a satellite breaks up, for example, there are some tests some countries are doing for their own reasons, for military reasons. If they hit another satellite, break it up, then those pieces, their trajectories are a bit less predictable. And those could hit you. Again, this is rare.
And then the other issue might be a rock coming from some other part of the universe. And the concern is mostly that it's very high speed. And so even though it might be very small, if it hits you, the damage can be substantial.
But all of these events are rare. It's just that when they do happen, it can be catastrophic. That's why we have to think about them.
[Musical transition]
SHAO XUN: And I understand that you have also implemented some AI systems in your satellites. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?
CHRISTOPHER: So what we're looking at there is the orbitless component in the PROSat. To be able to autonomously, for example, make the decision to say, look, something is coming, I should move.
That decision making, of course, requires a brain-like system. So that's where the AI comes in.
So right now we're exploring some specific algorithms like reinforcement learning that allow us to do some of the manoeuvring and some of the what we call attitude control, which is how to do pointing, that kind of stuff using machine learning.
So it's one of the areas that we are aiming to be very good at, that is to leverage algorithms to create spacecraft that are more advanced and able to do things more efficiently.
SHAO XUN: What would be some of the challenges to coming up with a great algorithm for that?
CHRISTOPHER: The greatest challenge is the environment. So to create the environment, you know, training model requires data.
So in this case, of course, we cannot send out satellites and train it there.
So what we need to do is create a synthetic environment that is as good as possible in terms of fidelity, very close to what we'll actually experience in space. But it's on a computer and then we can run the simulations. We can train it in that synthetic environment and be confident when it goes to space, it will work as expected.
But it's very hard to create a synthetic environment –
SHAO XUN: Yeah, I would imagine.
CHRISTOPHER: –because the more refined you need it to be, the more that perhaps you might as well just do the physics, so to speak.
Because if your physics is very, very detailed and very, very accurate, then there is no need for a machine learning model.
But at the same time, machine learning model itself requires a good enough representation of the reality of the real environment.
So it's balancing these two things. So creating data, in other words, or a good enough synthetic environment is one of our challenges.
RISHII: But there's still a bit of unpredictability, right? Because it seems like as much as you can create a synthetic environment here, you still don't know what would happen there. Absolutely. So just working in the space industry, is it something that a big part of it is also just hoping and praying everything just goes well? Because like you said, you can't do the trials in space, right?
CHRISTOPHER: Yeah, we try to do our very best here to make sure that we account for things that we know. So, for example, we know how gravity affects our systems.
And so we try to have high resolution models or we try to use high resolution models for gravity. But even if you have a very high resolution model of say gravity or magnetic field, there are still events that are unpredictable that would have an impact on you.
So, for example, here on Earth, before we launch, all of our satellites go into an environment that simulates the magnetic field of the Earth. So our studio here in Singapore, we have space where we recreate the magnetic field of the Earth.
But then when you're actually in space, the sun can modulate the magnetic field environment in unpredictable ways. So we are not able to account for that. And that could have an impact to just drag the satellite and therefore add drag to the satellite.
And thus make it come down faster, for example. So these sort of natural but unpredictable events, they're very hard to put into a model. So we just hope that you will not have a disastrous impact on our space systems.
[Musical transition]
RISHII: You were saying about how you have a studio in Singapore to do all of this. And I guess the engineering and design for your satellites are done in Singapore. But I also understand that these satellites will be assembled in Africa. So what's that like, managing your operations across almost two continents, right? Asia and Africa. How do you manage it all?
CHRISTOPHER: Well, in today's world, I think with the Internet, it's not too difficult. But some things that need to be done, we need to be physically together.
So first, we make sure that the tasks are divorced in such a way that the people that I need to physically be with, I can be with. So for example, the design, the prototyping, some of the work that I need to see right here, I'm able to sort of monitor or interact with my team directly. There are some tasks that I don't need to be physically there.
And so we make sure that the tasks are set up in that manner. And the Africa operation, the idea of assembly, integration and testing will certainly require me to go there to some degree. Because it's more of building a factory. So it's not like I have to be on the assembly line myself. But certainly setting the whole operation up is something that I will be physically involved in. So we look forward to either being in Rwanda, Ivory Coast or in Malawi. And by the end of this year, we'll have decided on one of those locations.
RISHII: Right. I mean, it really sounds like what you were saying. If you want to build a city in space or just to build a city, you need to... It's not like just one company and it's like bringing a whole community together. And now you're working across two continents really shows you're trying to get as many people involved.
CHRISTOPHER: Absolutely. There are millions of people who are educated and not working in Africa. Millions. We're not talking of not even one million. We're talking of literally hundreds of millions of people.
So in other words, they've got the skills and talent and they're just sitting. But we want to explore space. We have so much work to do as a civilization. And then there are still lots of people who are like, what do I do with my skills? I don't know what to do.
So we're trying to say, OK, look, there's quite a lot to do for a lot of people. If I had a magic wand, so to speak—you know, if our company employed, let's say, eight million people. OK, there is no company that's that big today.
But in the overall, you know, that would be a very small number when you do it as a fraction of humanity. Right. When you do it as a fraction of the people who are unemployed and so forth.
But at that scale, we could go to the moon every week if we wanted.
RISHII & SHAO XUN: Wow.
SHAO XUN: Going to the moon every week.
RISHII: That would be a nice trip. Would you say this would be your way of giving back to your roots as well? You know, like giving back to the people of Africa as well, because you were saying like there are quite a number of people unemployed. And by you actually, you know, kind of straddling the operations across these two continents, it really creates opportunities. Right.
CHRISTOPHER: I hope that it certainly inspires some people to see that things can be done in Africa and especially high tech things. Because Africa is known for resources, resource extraction, and that kind of stuff. Hopefully through our operation, we can also just be a beacon for building high tech products in Africa.
[Experimental electronic music starts playing]
JAMIE (Podcast Producer): Hello there. It's time for the mid-roll ad. This spacetech episode is brought to you by Science Centre Singapore. Planning your next vacation? What about taking a trip to space, no passport required? Visit Science Centre Singapore and be immersed in Space Explorers: The INFINITE, the world's largest immersive space exploration experience. Through VR, you'll be transported 400 kilometres above Earth into the International Space Station. On this one hour journey, you'll step into never before seen 360 degree videos captured in space. Admire mind blowing views of Earth and explore the daily lives of astronauts. Get your tickets now at infinite-experience.com/singapore. Now back to the show.
[Experimental electronic music stops]
RISHII: Well, thank you so much, Christopher. I think now we would like to ask some paiseh questions. So do you know what paiseh is? I just wanted to check.
CHRISTOPHER: I've heard this term many times, so I think I know it. I don't know if I really know it.
RISHII: After today, you can actually use it regularly. I think paiseh just means like embarrassing. It's just embarrassing. Like you don't want to ask something because it's a bit embarrassing. But today we are asking embarrassing questions as the non-designated science person in this podcast. Shao Xun is probably more familiar with STEM and whatever.
SHAO XUN: [Laughs] Not space science.
RISHII: So he will be joining us in the paiseh segment as well today. So I think one of the questions that I had is, does Singapore actually have astronauts? Do we send people to space? Is that a thing that we do here? Or do we just do satellite stuff?
CHRISTOPHER: People, not yet, I believe. I'm sure of it. No, not for people.
RISHII: Do you plan to send anyone to space?
SHAO XUN: Can I sign up?
CHRISTOPHER: I do think that we will. Galamad [Aerospace] itself stands for “Galactic Nomad.” The idea is to be able to initiate a nomadic civilization. So absolutely, we're going to send some people as a company.
But right now it's a little early because the difficulties of sending people up are just, [its a] bigger mountain to climb than sending spacecraft up, which we want to get very good at first. Then we move to sending people up.
RISHII: Do let us know when the job ad comes up because I think Shao Xun wants to be one of the first.
CHRISTOPHER: Yeah absolutely. What we want to be able to do is to send people to the moon on a honeymoon.
SHAO XUN & RISHII: A honeymoon!
CHRISTOPHER: Maybe your grandkids. I think that is quite likely.
[Musical transition]
SHAO XUN: I have a question. Singaporeans are usually very conservative and we usually explore careers like being a doctor, being in the public service, for example. What would you say to a Singaporean who is exploring maybe a career in space science or space tech?
CHRISTOPHER: Well, first, it certainly is a bigger industry now than it was in our parents' time. So if your parents were concerned before that there might not be jobs in the space industry, I think that concern is less now because the industry has really grown. So if you're exploring space, you can be confident it will be there in five, in ten, really in 30 years time. Because like I mentioned at the beginning, this is a big unexplored region of knowledge, of humanity. So your jobs will be there. So it's worth exploring.
SHAO XUN: I'm sure with someone leading the frontier like you, people will be inspired to join.
RISHII: Yes. I mean, he sold me on honeymoon, you know. The wordplay.
SHAO XUN: And weekend trips to the moon as well.
RISHII: I really hope Christopher would help fulfil our dreams in that aspect.
[Musical transition]
So we'll play some word association games now. Basically, we're going to throw some words at you actually. And we just want to see what comes up. What's the first thing that comes up in your mind and then we'll just take it from there.
CHRISTOPHER: Sounds good.
RISHII: So you ready? I mean, we won't give you much time to think. Whatever comes to your mind.
CHRISTOPHER: Okay.
SHAO XUN: Lightyear.
CHRISTOPHER: Distance.
SHAO XUN: Ah, okay. Distance.
CHRISTOPHER: Very large distances are measured in light years. So that's certainly the first thing that would come to the mind of every physicist.
SHAO XUN: Okay. And that there's something that you deal with on a daily basis?
CHRISTOPHER: Not on a daily basis. We think about it. We think about how vast the universe is and thinking about distances that light [travels] takes billions of years. Can you imagine? Like it's mind-bogglingly large, the universe we live in. So it's exciting, but also scary.
RISHII: So does that mean like, let's say when I see like a star or something that's moving in the skies and the time that I mean, like in real time, I'm looking at it like moving, like, you know, maybe in like seconds. But actually it's moving at a much different time space because like you're saying, like light years, it's how things move. Right?
CHRISTOPHER: Yeah. So I think everything you see, you're looking at the past. I mean, even here, of course, when I look at you, I'm looking at you nanoseconds ago.
RISHII & SHAO XUN: Oh, wow!
CHRISTOPHER: Because, you know, light takes time to come to me. But the farther away it is, the more, the farther into the past we look. So that's how we're able to look back millions of years. We're able to look back billions of years. That's how people are trying to look back all the way to the beginning.
Like what happened in the beginning [of the universe] by looking at the light.
RISHII: So when I'm looking at the moon, it's like delayed telecast in a sense.
CHRISTOPHER: Yes, so when you're looking at the sun, you're looking at the sun as it was about eight minutes ago.
RISHII: That's so yesterday.
SHAO XUN: Okay. So my turn next. Interstellar.
CHRISTOPHER: The movie comes to mind.
RISHII: Yes, let's go, Christopher! [Everyone laughs] Do you like the movie?
CHRISTOPHER: I don't remember the movie very much to be honest. I think I only watched it once and that was it. So I think I'm okay with it. I cannot remember what the story was. I just know that I've watched it.
RISHII: Are there any sci-fi movies that you would say it's very accurate in terms of the space scene? Or are they all just like, exaggerated?
CHRISTOPHER: Not sci-fi, but a movie that the story could have been interesting is the movie called For All Mankind. Which is, I believe, only on Apple TV. And they're sharing about what would have happened if the Soviets had been first to go to the moon. What would have the United States done? And where would we be as humanity today?
I think it's a nice arm of history to explore. I do feel that we need to be much farther than we should be. That we are now as humanity in terms of exploring space. Historically interesting to look at what would have driven society if that had happened. But it's not really sci-fi. It's space, but not sci-fi. It's more I’d say space history.
RISHII: So, For All Mankind. If you have Apple TV, please catch it. If you don't, I'm not going to tell you how to watch it.
SHAO XUN: I think the next word we can try is Milky Way.
CHRISTOPHER: The galaxy that we're in now.
RISHII: Chocolate bar. Sorry.
CHRISTOPHER: One of trillions of galaxies, but we're here. So, we love Milky Way.
RISHII: My turn next. Mars. [Pauses] Not the chocolate bar. [Everyone laughs]
CHRISTOPHER: Mars, the planet, comes to mind.
We think that going to Mars is a great step forward. As a company, therefore, we would like to do whatever we can to support this vision. As I mentioned, there are only a few people working on it right now. Too few to do anything meaningful. But I think it's a good step toward exploring beyond Earth.
RISHII: Is Mars, like, because from what I understand, it's the next best place that's habitable for humans. Is that right?
CHRISTOPHER: There's a lot of work to do on any planet we go to. So, our models of what it is, what is required, will continue to evolve. But if humanity is set on a particular planet, I think that's better than having us look at many at once.
So, even though it might not be the best, I think if we pull all of our resources and intellectual resources, so to speak, on this planet, we'll make it happen.
RISHII: OK. Last one...
SHAO XUN: Future.
CHRISTOPHER: The word is future?
SHAO XUN: Yes, the word is future.
CHRISTOPHER: Okay…The first word that comes to mind after “future”... Future, the singer. There's a singer called Future.
RISHII: Oh!
SHAO XUN: Oh!
RISHII: The singer called Future.
SHAO XUN: The one with the PH. Is that the one?
RISHII: [He’s] a rapper, right? R&B slash hip-hop rapper, Future. Is that one of your favourite artists?
CHRISTOPHER: I've not listened to any of his songs. I just found (see) them on my YouTube. But you know, in my earlier life, I used to rap.
RISHII: How did this not come up in the start?
CHRISTOPHER: I think it was my mid-teens. It's like something that, at least in the high school where I went, it's this sort of rite of passage. At a certain age, you do rap. You want to impress the girls, so you rap.
SHAO XUN: So, on top of poetry, Shakespeare, text, we should add rapper to that list.
RISHII: That's an impressive way to... You can impress any girl lah. Shakespeare, poetry, rap, and also having your own company.
SHAO XUN: That's doing spacetech.
RISHII: Well done, Christopher.
CHRISTOPHER: But you grow up, so now we’re doing other things.
RISHII: Yes. Alright, so thank you so much, Christopher. It's been a pleasure talking to you [about] from the time you were growing up to what satellites are [and] the good work that you do at Galamad Aerospace. We're so excited to see what you come up with next. And thank you so much, everyone, for tuning in.
SHAO XUN: I think for me, it's really listening to you and being renewed with that sense of awe when you talk about space. How big it is and how small we are. But at the same time, we can do something to really push that frontier in science. So, that's inspiring, really. Thank you very much.
CHRISTOPHER: It's been my pleasure being here.
SHAO XUN: Thank you. If this episode has ignited your passion about science, visit Science Centre Singapore to continue exploring the cosmos. Wondering what stars, planets and constellations are in the skies tonight? Visit Science Centre's observatory on select Friday nights. Admire celestial objects in our live planetarium strolls at the Omni Theatre. Afterwards, join my colleagues for a stargazing session out in the field. More details in the show notes.
RISHII: And you can follow Void Deck on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever you get your podcasts to be the first to listen to some mind-blowing conversations with local science changemakers. To find out more about Christopher's work, you can follow Galamad Aerospace on LinkedIn. Alright guys, we'll see you next time.
SHAO XUN: Goodbye. See you!
Resources
Galamad Aerospace
Dr. Christopher Luwanga’s LinkedIn
https://sg.linkedin.com/in/christopher-luwanga
Space start-up raises US$1.05m to build satellites in Malawi
High Impact Thesis Podcast by NTU World of Wisdom: Episode 29--Dr. Christopher Luwanga [Founder]: Decoding the Ionosphere
Luwanga, C., Fang, T., Chandran, A., & Lee, Y. (2022). Automatic spread‐f detection using Deep Learning. Radio Science, 57(5). https://doi.org/10.1029/2021rs007419
NTU launches 10th satellite into space
https://www.ntu.edu.sg/news/detail/ntu-launches-10th-satellite-into-space
Want to continue exploring the cosmos? Check out Science Centre Singapore’s exhibitions and programmes below:
Space Explorers: THE INFINITE
https://www.science.edu.sg/whats-on/workshops-activities/stargazing
Credits
This episode of Void Deck was hosted by Rishii Vijayahkumar and Tan Shao Xun. The episode was written, produced, and sound engineered by Jamie Uy. Sound recording and post-production assistance was provided by Lydia Konig, Joyce Sia, and Fynn Teo. The episode graphics were designed by Jansen Michelle and podcast cover art was illustrated by Vikki Li Qi. The background music "Data Flow" and "Spatial" was created by Fugu Vibes. Special thanks to Christopher for coming on the show.
Last updated 10 December 2024