Shows
T-Minus Space DailyUsing lunar resources for the betterment of all humankind.Lunar Outpost was founded on the belief that resources from the moon can be used for the betterment of humankind. The space mobility company has recently unveiled its new Eagle Space Truck and has plans for new vehicles to traverse the lunar surface. Find out more from Lunar Outpost Cofounder and Chief Strategy Officer, Forrest Meyen.
You can connect with Forrest on LinkedIn, and learn more about Lunar Outpost on their website.
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Be sure to follow T-Minus on LinkedIn a...2025-07-0530 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerNetworking the quantum internet, featuring Noel Goddard of QunnectUnder New York City lies a patchwork of long-dormant dark fibers that are now illuminating with entangled rubidium atoms.In our conversation with Noel Goddard, CEO of Qunnect, we learn about the tough tech testbed named GothamQ. Qunnect is pioneering the future of the telecom industry by transforming existing fiber optics into quantum networks, providing a robust, secure communication channel for the next evolution of the digital age.Qunnect’s rubidium-based networking devices promise to safeguard communications against eavesdropping by ensuring that any attempts at interception destroy the transmitted message. This makes digital communications that ar...2024-08-3051 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerLeading the century of atoms, featuring Fernando Dominguez Pinuaga of SandboxAQMelding quantum mechanics with artificial intelligence is going to change how we understand our world.Several years ago, a small team was pursuing a deeper understanding of the quantum sciences while tracking advancements in machine intelligence. Combining two complex and misunderstood fields of study, Fernando Dominguez Pinuaga, Vice President, and his colleagues formed SandboxAQ, a growing juggernaut in materials discovery, cybersecurity, computational simulation, and so much more. This episode is our first among several in which we examine the quantum sciences. Percolating in the burgeoning overlap between artificial intelligence and quantum mechanics, the potential areas o...2024-06-1147 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerCultivating billion-dollar narwhals, featuring Adam de Sola PoolWhere is the money in oceanographic research? Fundamental understanding of the watery parts of our planet (i.e. most of it) is woefully under pursued. However, just as it seems some ocean systems are almost falling apart – coral bleaching, rising tides, species extinctions – we are beginning to see more attention paid to exploring the depths. "There will be unicorns of the ocean, very successful companies which we call ‘narwhals’,” Adam de Sala Pool told us. A Special Advisor to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, de Sala Pool has seen a similar situation before: he was an early i...2024-05-0743 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerReimagining coastal transportation, featuring Billy Thalheimer of REGENT CraftIt’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… technically a flying boat! When challenged to imagine how to electrify aviation, Billy Thalheimer, CEO and co-founder of REGENT Craft, and his team set to work looking at what has been done with hydroplanes before – and what emerging technologies are available today that change the equation for what is possible and economically achievable.“Building with atoms is harder than building with bits. You can’t just revert to your last code push,” Mr. Thalheimer told us. “Early on, it was really just finding those investors that ‘got’ tough tech.” And...2024-03-1430 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerDeploying undersea explorers, featuring Jeff Smith of SaabThe blue parts of our planet are beautiful yet stunningly punishing for even our toughest of technologies.Dark, crushing, unexplored, and unknown – the depths of the seas are where an explorer like Jeff Smith has devoted his career to understanding. As the Vice President and General Manager of Autonomous and Undersea Systems at Saab, Inc., Smith has experience developing submersibles of nearly every shape and size, including some of the most advanced systems for remotely-operated and autonomous research vessels. A distinguished figure in the undersea robotics realm, Smith brings a wealth of experience fro...2024-02-1354 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerTough Tech Today Season 4 Preview: Exploring Oceans, Quantum Realms, and Machine IntelligenceTough Tech Today is transitioning seasons, recapping our Season 3 themes exploring the tough tech domains of biology, space, and fusion energy. We are also preparing for the show's fourth season and we are really excited for it!Upcoming themes:Blue tech – The advanced technologies of the maritime industry. Incredible machines, sustainable oceans, and mysteries to solve in our planet's seas.Quantum sciences – A wild world where physics gets weird, we are super curious about opportunities in computing, sensing, and communication.Artificial Intelligence – While it was only fairly recently that "A.I." has debuted on the pop-culture zeitge...2024-01-0913 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerFusing atoms with lasers, featuring Thomas Forner and Pravesh Patel of Focused EnergyIf this company perfectly combines lasers and atoms, the reaction could be worth trillions of dollars.Focused Energy’s Thomas Forner, CEO, and Pravesh Patel, CTO, join us to talk about making lasers. Lots and lots of lasers. But for what aim? They are pointing hundreds of directed beams at a tiny target: a millimeter-sized plastic capsule of deuterium and tritium, about the size of a peppercorn. These experiments may reveal a commercial pathway to grid-scale fusion energy. In contrast to other pursuits for nearly limitless clean energy such as stellarators and tokamaks, our third installment of th...2023-12-1250 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerBringing fusion to the grid, featuring Tina Tosukhowong of TDK VenturesInvestors are betting big on clean energy becoming the norm.Tina Tosukhowong of TDK Ventures joins us for a review of the major approaches to curbing carbon emissions in hard-to-abate industries. A thorough assessment led Tosukhowong to opportunities for practical, grid-scale fusion. TDK Ventures invested in Type One Energy Group, a private fusion company affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Their stellarator-based design is one of several that have emerged in recent years, with the Type One team and their thesis-driven backers like Tosukhowong of TDK Ventures being among the leaders of commercial fusion approaches in the...2023-11-1445 min
What's Your Problem?Making Oxygen on MarsForrest Meyen is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Lunar Outpost, a company that builds machines that go to places like Mars and, if everything goes according to plan, the moon. The company is betting that the private space boom of the past decade will soon go beyond Earth’s orbit to the moon and beyond.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.2023-11-0933 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerThe Star Machine: How Proxima Fusion is Powering the Sustainable Grid! Featuring Francesco SciortinoHow do we harness the power of the stars to deliver clean energy on Earth?It has been a collective goal – and, perhaps, an impending imperative – for human civilization to secure renewable energy sources for its present and future needs. The team at Proxima Fusion (https://www.proximafusion.com/about), led by co-founder and CEO Francesco Sciortino (https://www.linkedin.com/in/francesco-sciortino-aa340180/), is focused on one approach to build a fusion power plant. Their use of a “stellarator”, a wildly complex machine that until recently has been literally impossible to build, could prove the econ...2023-10-1059 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerMastering Billion-Dollar Tech Investments & Galactic Defense 💸🛰️👾 featuring Preston DunlapStanding up a space force within the world’s largest bureaucracy is not for the faint of heart.Preston Dunlap – former (and first) Chief Architect / Chief Technology Officer of the United States Air Force and Space Force and present CEO of Arkenstone Ventures – has developed a privileged view into the government machinations necessary to design, develop, and buy the right mix of tough tech capabilities. Mission-focused and multidisciplinary, Dunlap and the organizations in which he engaged at the most senior levels have commanded hundreds of billions of dollars in defense acquisitions.A curious combination of comput...2023-09-1258 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerTracking weather from space, featuring Scarlett Koller of Mithril TechnologiesAn early-stage startup will offer unparalleled weather data when it unfolds its orbital sensors.Captivated by the stars and focused on improving life on Earth, Mithril Technologies founder and CEO, Scarlett Koller, is venturing into weather awareness and storm tracking by launching and commercializing a large space-based sensor. In this episode, we have the privilege of learning how Koller and her co-founder are translating a new technology out of the lab and into a space business.Aviation, shipping, insurance, and defense industries are each keen to get better clarity on Earth’s complex atmosphere at an...2023-08-0851 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerBetting on Space, featuring Chad Anderson of Space CapitalIn one sentence: The space economy is booming in more ways than one.Space-based assets are changing the way industries operate on Earth. Chad Anderson – Founder and Managing Partner at Space Capital – is one of those individuals who has a deep perspective on the what it is like backing the entrepreneurs who are launching the newest breed of space companies.An investor by profession and explorer by passion, Anderson relates to us how “the economy of the future” will be built on global positioning systems, geospatial intelligence, and communications.To paraphrase the title of a book by Ashle...2023-07-1159 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerOrchestrating microbes, featuring Cheri Ackerman of Concerto BiosciencesIn one sentence... The interactions of the microbial world within us has been incredibly difficult to see – until now.From the depths of our intestines to the surface of our skin, our bodies are host to trillions of microbial cells spanning thousands of species. While critical to helping us to fend off illnesses and digest complex foods, we know very little about the complex interactions among these microbes.The team at Concerto Biosciences, led by CEO and Cofounder Cheri Ackerman, has put in place a key step in advancing the understanding of ourselves: a system, th...2023-06-1355 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerUnveiling age-defying proteins, featuring Mark Allen of ElevianIn one sentence...Aging is malleable and there is a particular, mysterious protein of interest that may enable new therapies for age-related diseases such as stroke, diabetes, and obesity.Young blood in old bodies has been demonstrated in several studies to counteract some age-correlated ailments. Mark Allen, a medical doctor by training and an entrepreneur in practice, co-founded Elevian to understand and commercialize therapies using a recombinant growth differentiation factor known as GDF11, a ‘magic’ protein, as referenced by the New York Times. Dr. Allen describes how his t...2023-05-091h 02
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerCreating new and better medicines, featuring Virginia Burger of New Equilibrium BiosciencesIn one sentence...Computational biology is enhancing our understanding of intrinsically disordered proteins, leading to exciting new medical treatments.OverviewFrom videogames to protein discovery, high performance computing impacts how we understand and engage with each other and the world around us. Virginia Burger, CEO and Co-Founder of New Equilibrium Biosciences, epitomizes the value of interdisciplinary skills applied to a hunch that biology and computer modeling can lead to new medical discoveries. “[New Equilibrium is] taking a problem that a lot of people have looked at before and looking at it from a c...2023-04-1153 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerJMill & Forrest's Epic Reveal: New Tough Tech Today Season, Monthly Groove & Upcoming Themes! 🚀🧬🔋Join a tag-up among JMill and Forrest as we reveal something really exciting for what’s ahead: the launch of the newest season of Tough Tech Today! Plus, we mention work and babies.We set the stage for our new monthly cadence, with a new release occurring on the second Tuesday of each month. Each quarter (3 months), we focus on a theme. The next three themes are Biology (2023Q2), Space (2023Q3), and Energy (2023Q4). We really appreciate your support and enthusiasm for Tough Tech Today, and it is our honor to share with you our con...2023-04-0703 min
Valley of DepthLive from MIT: Beyond LEO and to the Moon...with Honeybee, Draper, Lunar Outpost, and Lunar StationLast Friday, Payload moderated the “Beyond LEO” panel at the MIT Sloan New Space Age Conference in Cambridge. Joining us were: Will Hovik, engineering lead @ Honeybee Robotics; Kevin Duda, senior space systems manager @ Draper Laboratory; Forrest Meyen, cofounder and CSO of Lunar Outpost; and Blair DeWitt, the founder and CEO of Lunar Station.Today's Pathfinder is brought to you by Kepler Communications, a company bringing the internet to space. Find out more at https://kepler.space/• A sneak peek •This discussion couldn’t have come at a better time. On Monday, ispace said its HAKUTO...2023-03-2243 min
Lagrange PointEpisode 499 - Air and atmospheres on exoplanetsCO2 gets a lot of bad press on earth, but in space, it could actually be incredibly helpful. On Mars, the Perseverance mission turned CO2 into Oxygen just like a tree. Making air on Mars requires a bit of Moxie and Perseverance. Mar's atmosphere may be thin, highly variable and full of CO2 but it can be harnessed to produce Oxygen. Could future mission to Mars make their own oxygen on the surface of Mars? Finding CO2 on exoplanets has been incredibly hard but the JWST helps shed light on this universal gas. Incredible hot, massive but not super...2022-09-0518 min
Celestial CitizenMore than a Moonage DaydreamOn this week's episode, we’re joined by Justin Cyrus and Dr. Forrest Meyen of Lunar Outpost - an emerging leader in the new Cislunar economy pushing the bounds of robotics in extreme environments, and enabling a sustainable presence on the Moon and Mars. We'll discuss some exciting, recent announcements from Lunar Outpost, what a sustainable lunar presence looks like, and the challenges and rewards of being a space entrepreneur.One of the guests on the show, Justin Cyrus, is the CEO of Lunar Outpost. Justin attended UC Boulder where he received his undergraduate degree in electrical and...2021-09-0253 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerM12 bets big on the digital frontier with Matt GoldsteinDigitization of the physical world brings new synergies and expanding attack surfaces – so it is key to invest in those who defend us.—————Overview: Probing the cybersecurity of 3D printing, scaling the digital transformation of manufacturing, and developing quantum-safe encryption for the next evolution of the Internet, Matt Goldstein, Managing Director at M12, Microsoft’s Venture Fund, shares with us the criticality of investing in companies exploring the frontiers of cybersecurity and infrastructure.“No one thinks their front door lock is obnoxious,” shares Goldstein, yet there remains a consumer hurdle in adopting baseline cybersecurity pract...2021-06-2258 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerSynthesizing High-Tech Food is TOUGH, featuring Kate Krueger of HelikonIn one sentence: “Synthesizing” and “food” are uncommon word pairings, but the engineered dishes they serve may be an appetizing feast for the senses.Overview: Climate change, a growing global population, and maturation of new biotechnologies are driving the motivation for – and means of – producing more food. Engineering is improving traditional agricultural means for food production, yet, in our conversation with Kate Krueger of Helikon, emerging synthesization techniques are bringing food from the lab to the market, with exciting and healthy results. Topic Timecodes:00:59 What is "high-tec...2021-04-0852 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerExposing cancer with bioengineering, featuring Cyriac Roeding of EarliIn one sentence:We can make cancer cells tell us exactly where they are.—————Overview:Consumer internet entrepreneurs lack many of the skills for the life sciences revolution – or do they? Cyriac Roeding, CEO and co-founder of Earli, shows us what his team of bioengineers are accomplishing by applying fast-learning software development discipline to hard life science problems. Earli’s mouse and canine models are producing exciting results inducing cancer cells to expose their locations, enabling precision medicine to pinpoint malignant from benign many months earlier than state-of-the-art techniques. “I love the idea of having m...2021-03-231h 05
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerJmill goes glamping while Forrest lands on Mars and launches a new company.Just a quick Tough Tech Today update as we take a bye week and prepare for our guest in two weeks.2021-03-0207 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerGoogle Maps for gold? AI-Assisted Mine Prospecting is Tough!In one sentence: When the frontiers of geology overlap with the frontlines of contested regions, international collaborations help protect minerals core to our civilization.—————Overview:There’s a world of minerals in every electronic device. Anything that cannot be grown must be mined, Emily King tells us. A global mining expert and founder of Prospector Portal, Emily shares stories and advancements in the finding, protecting, and stewarding of minerals.From digitizing and structuring disparate datasets sourced around the globe, to mobilizing with armed teams to identify and secure minerals critical to humanity’s future, our co...2021-02-1853 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerUnlocking new mRNA Treatments with Jake Becraft, CEO of Strand TherapeuticsIn one sentence: Unlocking new mRNA treatments will save lives, but it's not as simple as that.—————Overview—————Jake Becraft of Strand Therapeutics is an expert in designing and programming mRNA, critical strands of genetic material that provide instructions for making proteins. As one suite of tools in the emerging synthetic biology toolkit, mRNA is a twenty-first century harbinger of life. Yet, with all powerful tools, there are risks of accidental or intentional misuse. It is this shared responsibility among the scientific, private, and public realms that Becraft advocates for thoughtful, anticipatory stewardship of these influential...2021-02-0259 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerFreedom Without Fear - Making injections effortless with autoinjector tech to saves lives, with Conor Cullinane of Pirouette MedicalIn one sentence: A needle shaped like a hockey puck is a ‘revolutionary’ medical device that can deliver epinephrine during a severe allergic reaction on Earth or in space. —————Overview—————EpiPens and other emergency auto-injectors have changed little for decades, though there are known limitations in their accidental (mis)use. Conor Cullinane, co-founder of Pirouette Medical, shows us his team’s surprisingly non-needlelike auto-injector that is shaped smooth, flat, and round, and easily totable so those at risk can have, in the company’s words, “freedom without fear”.Following a patient-centered design process supported by the founders’ expert...2021-01-131h 05
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerTough Tech Today in 2020 and Beyond (Year in Review)A chat to review the first year of Tough Tech Today.2021-01-0142 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and Miller$2.5B Exit Entrepreneur, Sujal Patel, is Creating a Proteomics Startup to Upgrade Human HealthIn one sentence...Human health upgrades may be unlocked by a data storage expert focused on probing the proteome. Overview:It’s not everyday that one hears about the crucial relationship between digital data storage and biology, yet this is core to Sujal Patel’s work leading Nautilus Biotechnology. By any measure already an accomplished tech entrepreneur, Sujal’s experience building Isilon Systems (acquired by EMC for $2.5 billion) became a perfect, if non-obvious, ingredient for disentangling the complexities of proteins.If successful in analyzing the proteins within...2020-12-1655 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerA moon rover startup gears up for launch, featuring Justin Cyrus of Lunar OutpostIn one sentence...Living on the Moon requires infrastructure that Justin Cyrus of Lunar Outpost knows can be helpful here on Earth.OverviewEarth’s moon is viewed as the upcoming base of operations for humanity’s further exploration of the cosmos. Justin Cyrus, founder of Lunar Outpost, shares what it is like building a suite of technologies that not only meet space objectives, but also address terrestrial challenges.Incredible initiatives are underway to develop our moon into a pied-à-terre for humans on their way to Mars. These initiatives requir...2020-12-0141 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerWhen tough tech and dual-use ventures collide, with the U.S. Air Force Banshee ProgramBanshees of the United States Air Force hunt for mission-enhancing technologies. The world's largest startup accelerator, MassChallenge, teamed up with the Air Force Labs to establish the Banshees training program. Members are U.S. Department of Defense acquisitions officers who are learning how to find tough tech and nurture dual-use ventures. Such startups are jointly serving the private commercial sector and the government as clients.Forrest and jmill discuss tech commercialization challenges and #protips from several stakeholders' points of view: as entrepreneurs, as investors, and as government liaisons. 2020-11-1734 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerBringing heroes home, featuring Caleb Carr of Vita InclinataIn one sentence...A helicopter rescue mission gone awry fuels this man’s mission to bring heroes home safely with drones built for aircraft load stabilization.OverviewAs a Black Hawk helicopter’s rotors whop-whop-whopped overhead in their fight for command of the winds amid a stormy – and ultimately failed – rescue mission, a teenage Caleb Carr had a life-shaping experience that led him, many years later, to launch Vita Inclinata, a mission-focused company pioneering aerial load stabilization.Whether for medical evacuation, construction, firefighting, or many other applications, tetherin...2020-11-0348 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerBootstrapping mass spectrometry, featuring Mazdak Taghioskoui of Trace MattersHe built a mass spectrometer from scratch and reinvented it in the process!Bearing a smile, Mazdak “Maz” Taghioskoui says he immigrated to the United States from Iran for a good education and same-day shipping, two key features that have supported his focus on building – from scratch – a sophisticated next-generation analytical tool: the Trace Matters SPion mass spectrometer.Maz is the Founder and CEO/CTO of Trace Matters, and we sat down with him for show-and-tell to discuss how he and his company is reinventing the mass spectrometer to save lives here on Earth and to advan...2020-10-2045 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerTough Tech Venture Capital and America's Innovation Engine with Orin HoffmanWhile aboard a plane nosediving into Baghdad, one may be forgiven for pondering how one’s life path could lead from vacuum cleaners to minesweeping robots. Yet, not only does Orin Hoffman, of MIT’s The Engine venture capital firm, share this humbling connection, but also how it advances an overarching narrative of the United States national industrial innovation base, VCs, and the crucial roles served by tough tech entrepreneurs. Public-private partnerships may not be what immediately comes to most people’s minds when asked about frontier tech, though government funding for basic scientific research has been commonp...2020-10-0651 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerVenturing into federal tech, featuring Will Dickson and Trinity Torres of FedTechWhat happens to the ideas generated across the United States federal government’s research initiatives? Will Dickson and Trinity Torres walk us through the pathways of taxpayer-funded technological advancements and opportunities for a diverse pool of private citizens-entrepreneurs to find commercial success licensing patents owned by the U.S. government.The United States government generates vast amounts of intellectual property across its many research organizations, national laboratories, and other technical divisions. Unbeknownst by many citizens, novel technologies are available for licensing and may be a boon to ‘proto companies’ (not-quite-yet-born startups). FedTech is an organization that conducts progra...2020-09-2253 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerLaunching dual-use ventures, featuring Katy Person of the MIT Innovation InitiativeDual-use ventures – tough tech startups pursuing commercial relationships with the private sector and federal government, are a unique class of companies with whom Kathryn "Katy" Person, of the MIT Innovation Initiative, works daily."[Working with the United States government, such as the Department of Defense,] is not for everyone and not for every business. It depends on whether you come in mission-focused... and it depends on your business strategy," says Katy. As a military veteran with a background in U.S. Army acquisitions, Katy observes "the trough of disillusionment occurs between Phase II and Phase III" of go...2020-09-0841 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerCommercializing Satellite Propulsion, featuring Louis Perna of Accion SystemsNo longer the domain of strictly nation-states, 'new space' is undergoing a wave of commercialization and growth. Two key engineering challenges, observed Louis Perna, are in-space communications and propulsion. He and his co-founder, Natalya Bailey, launched Accion Systems to provide cost-effective electrospray propulsion for satellites.While the complexities of space travel are something that many members of society may recognize, less obvious may be the terrestrial challenges spacefaring tech developers face: designing and manufacturing hardware, cultivating an interdisciplinary team, and working through unit economics of complicated systems. Louis details his insider's view of the privatization of space, one...2020-08-2554 min
Tough Tech Today with Meyen and MillerStoring your data in DNA, with James Banal of Cache DNAThe building blocks of life, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), can be used for computational advantage, posits Dr. James Banal, postdoctoral research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Biological Engineering, in the Bathe Lab. “I work on the wackiest things in computing and storage right now, which is quantum computing and DNA data storage,” says James.From ultra-dense, ultra-long storage of digital data (think: storing exabytes for fifty years) to building a 'frozen zoo' or 'species time capsule' to preserve living components of our planet in case of catastrophe, DNA storage and computing leverages the l...2020-08-1155 min