The Saturday Morning Newsletter #97
The Value of Freedom, Grocery Price Emergency in America, and Tracking Dangerous Heat in the U.S.
This Week I’m Tracking: 14 developments across the sectors shaping our future
Reading Time: 5 minutes of curated insights
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Let’s dive in.
#1: Muon Space
Description: Muon Space is a creator of satellite constellations.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Muon Space recently raised $250M in venture capital funding. Muon Space is a technology stack that enables companies’ satellite constellations. This technology enables faster time-to-orbit and superior constellation performance. Their technology integrates information from the physical sciences, aerospace engineering, software engineering, data science, and industry domain expertise.
#2: Longshot
Description: Longshot is developing kinetic launch systems.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Longshot recently raised $5M in venture capital funding. Rockets are too complex. Longshot is striving to move more of the fuel and systems onto the ground. The infrastructure behind hypersonic testing is costly, scarce, and too low-cadence for the speed modern development requires. Longshot’s goal is to create lower-cost access to orbit for many space commercialization companies.
#3: H2SITE
Description: H2SITE is an industrial hydrogen production and separation company.
Why Is This Company Interesting? H2SITE recently raised $6M in venture capital funding. One of the more underappreciated parts of the clean energy transition is that we will need large volumes of low-carbon hydrogen to decarbonize heavy sectors. H2SITE’s membrane reactor technology allows hydrogen to be separated from certain molecules, filtering out and absorbing hydrogen with a 99%+ purity.
#4: Ubotica
Description: Ubotica enables satellites to analyze Earth observation data onboard.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Ubotica recently raised $11M in venture capital funding. Ubotica is creating solutions for cognitive Earth observation, static surveillance, and cognitive EO. Their solutions help companies and organizations predict where to look, process at the edge, and make decisions quickly and confidently. Cognitive EO predicts risk, decides what to task, and learns from every cycle to create an actionable intelligence master platform.
#5: Melazyme
Description: Melazyme is a precision fermentation startup.
Why Is This Company Interesting? Melazyme recently raised $2M in venture capital funding. Melazyme is creating a domestic source of melanin. In the biotech industry, it has been termed “black gold” for the high cost of extraction and purification. Applications include cosmetics, UV protection, hair colorants, and much more. Their fermentation process produces melanin at 99%+ purity at a scale previously untouched by current solutions on the market.
The Hill: Trump Administration Announces $17.5B in Loans to Support 10 Nuclear Plants
The Trump administration is planning to loan $17.5B to speed up the process of building 10 large-scale nuclear power plants. These loans are expected to go toward the purchase of nuclear plant components that require long lead times to produce, in order to speed up the process once other portions of the design and permitting stages are completed. This continues the rapid expansion of nuclear energy in the United States.
The New York Times: Tracking Dangerous Heat in the U.S.
This week, close to half of the population in the United States lives in areas expected to experience dangerous levels of heat. This equates to over 114 major cities experiencing heat over 103 degrees Fahrenheit. Summer temperatures have become hotter and more extreme in recent decades, with health effects increasingly severe.
The New York Times: U.S. to Overhaul Radiation Safety Rules to Spur Nuclear Expansion
The NRC is proposing to readjust the safety rules for radiation exposure from nuclear. It proposes eliminating the principle that nuclear power operators should keep radiation exposure as low as reasonably achievable. They argued this led to additional costs without a measurable safety benefit, with maximum dose limits set well below levels associated with known health effects.
Space: Rocket Lab Launches US Space Force Mission With Less Than 17 Hours’ Notice
Rocket Lab successfully launched a spacecraft for the U.S. Space Force’s Victus Haze TacRS mission with less than 17 hours’ notice from when they received the notice to launch and lift off. This beat the previously set record by over 10 hours. This continues the trend of rapid responses designed to simulate a real-world orbital threat. How fast can we go?
The New York Times: We Crunched the Data: There’s a Grocery Price Emergency in America
Even well-off families are struggling with high prices and financial stress, despite the tax cuts and wage gains the Trump administration highlights as the “solution” to these problems. These experts argue that this administration isn’t investing in long-term solutions or offering short-term relief. “Respondents split almost evenly among three worries: prices that are too high; prices that change unexpectedly; and the feeling of getting less value for their money from products and services because of shrinkflation, hidden fees or declining quality.”
Pitchbook: 8 Charts: SPACs, From Boom to Bust, and Back Again
SPACs were incredibly popular in 2021 and are beginning to regain their popularity. After the hype, the SEC eventually rolled out disclosure requirements that bar SPAC issuers from advertising forward-looking growth and revenue projections. Now, investors in SPACs will be better protected, as there is less ability to sell them on future growth and speculative excitement.
Your Tango: Smart People With Deep Hearts Almost Always Have The Same Experience In Common
Most people assume that life is automatically easier for someone who is smart. This isn’t exactly the case. Highly intelligent people often struggle with feeling misunderstood and not fitting in with traditional societal norms. Dostoevsky wrote, “Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.”
The New York Times: What Does It All Mean? Once a Year, French Students Try to Explain.
French students were debating the following philosophical question this year: Can one be happy when others are not? And, do we have control of our words? Philosophy students take a written philosophy test each year and must answer one of the questions above. French blogs simultaneously invite actual philosophers to discuss their own responses to the questions.
‘Merica!
It’s Independence Day today in the United States of America. For those of you celebrating today, thank you for spending a bit of your day off with us here.
For those of you not celebrating, hopefully you’ll also make a bit of time this week to do something fun, take a break, do a cool activity, or have some time to yourself. Everyone needs a good break every now and then.
Freedom is an interesting concept to consider. It’s a classic “with great power comes great responsibility.” We should all be pushing for more and more freedoms, but know that the cost is that we must be responsible with how we use them.
In most cases, freedom is a great thing and should be pursued at all costs. In other cases, additional freedom is detrimental to the current status quo.
Today, be mindful of where you are, take breaks from your everyday life, and reflect on the freedoms you have and where there may still be room to expand.
That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup.
Drew Jackson
Founder & Writer
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