Soil moisture and the value of free data

Hello and welcome this is Space Cowboys episode 13. I hope so. I do think I lost count ages ago. I'm going to check this in a while. Hi Thijs. Hi Herbert. How's it going? Welcome to you. I'm fine. Are you? Yeah very good. I became an uncle for the first time in my life. Congratulations. Yeah my brother got a baby. Boy or girl? A boy. Weight? Weight? Yeah you're supposed to know that. Yeah 3000 grams almost. Yeah. Gender? A boy. Okay name? Samuel. Samuel. Yeah Samuel. That's beautiful. Sammy as a. Congratulations. Yeah thank you. And amazed by how much space news is happening. It's like it's so prolific. There's so many things constantly going on. That's why we started Space Cowboys in the first place. That is. That's true. We thought there were so many things going on and not enough places to talk. We need a podcast. Yeah with and with the people who are involved in it all. Yeah. And it's there's ups and downs in when it comes to space news or active developments because missions get cancelled or sometimes there's just a lull in. Budgets go down. Budgets go down yeah and but then sometimes it's just like weeks where so many things happen at the same time. That's now. That's which is great. Shall we first introduce our guest? Yes. Let's. Let's do that. And then we can join him in the conversation about all these things that are going on. He is Robbert Mica. Welcome Robert. Thank you. Hi. And who is Robbert Mica? And Robert is a co-founder of Vandersat. Yes. Is that a right pronunciation as far as you're concerned? Sort of depends on where you live. Vandersat. Vandersat. I mean. Vandersat. In all seriousness. Yeah I mean in American it sounds or in English it sounds nice like Vandersat. Vandersat. Vanderbilt you know all that. Venderbeers and then it's got this sort of vibe to it. Vander. It's very Dutch. Van der. Do they recognize it as something Dutch sounding? Yes. They do. Yes. Vander is a thing. Yeah. Vanderbilt. Vander this. Vander that. Yeah. It's cheesy movies want to make something Dutch. Yeah. They just put Vander in front of it. Exactly. So I mean and we're working with water agriculture where very Dutch satellites technology is also Dutch in a sort of way. So we all came together. You have to figure it out right. The Netherlands is one big swamp. Yeah. And. There you go. Exactly. All right I'm leaving. Thank you. Gather data. We look at the swamp from space. Exactly. Good idea. Very good. Well we're going to definitely chat about that. Yeah. We do. But we have a whole bunch of stories of the week. That's right. We usually do one story of the week but now it's stories of the week. Well you've been known to do five. Yeah I know. That's kind of true. I mean I think the biggest one is that America wants to send astronauts to the moon again. I mean I think that's the biggest news so far. How many times have I heard that? Yeah. And that's the only. Yeah. Like that's exactly the whole point. Like is this. This is not the same. Most presidents have come up with plans in that direction. To astronauts to the moon. Yeah. Or Mars. Or Mars. Like if. So Mike Pence. That's the news. Mike Pence. You can't be president and not present plans to go to either moon or Mars. To send an astronaut somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Mike Pence the vice president has basically announced that within five years this is supposed to happen. And that just makes it so weirdly arbitrary in a way. Like OK so why suddenly does the United States need to go to the moon with an astronaut within five years. Like there's these plans to go to Mars. There's plans to maybe build another base there. There's all these developments going on. And then suddenly the Trump administration comes with this plan to send people. Well it's interesting that you note the base plans. Because how can you have a base and not send people. I mean this this plan to send astronauts was there to begin with. Right. So what's new. Yeah. Well I think there were ideas by ESA to create a base that wasn't necessarily instantly inhabited. So you would start small and you would build it out. OK. We have a base and we have no people there. Yeah. Not yet. Not yet. So eventually then it would be able to support people. But in essence first it was like let's first get that infrastructure up to get to the moon and get all that stuff working. Shall we just first listen to what Mike Pence had to say. Let's do that. Yeah the quote. Let's see if you got it ready. Yeah. It takes two clicks. Just as the United States was the first nation to reach the moon in the 20th century. So too will we be the first nation to return astronauts to the moon in the 21st century. And I'm here on the president's behalf. To tell the men and women of the United States. To tell the men and women of the Marshall Space Flight Center and the American people. That at the direction of the president of the United States. It is the stated policy of this administration and the United States of America to return American astronauts to the moon within the next five years. America will once again astonish the world. With the heights we reach. The wonders we achieve. And we will lead the world. In human space exploration. Once again. Now let's get to work. Let's get to work. Why are you laughing Robert? I'm just thinking that. Imagine that a Dutch or a European person was using these words. Today we announce criminal extortion. Sorry. That's the next bloody video. How about criminals right? I mean come on. No, no. I mean you need big language to reach big things. Like I'm very much in tune with the big language. It's more than. Let's take it for its merits. Like how do you feel about them sending people to the moon? I mean you know it appeals to an inner. Well this is cool. Right. I mean the first thing I thought was okay. I'm going to live to see this happening. Right. I mean you know the stories and it's still going around. Like we went to the moon. Of course you have the people who said no it never happened. That's going to be fun. Spark up that conversation by the way. This is going to be another small step for man. Another giant leap for mankind. No but I mean it's extremely cool. And for me to see that and hopefully I mean and my kids. But do you believe this? I mean. I don't know. All presidents have just like I said. Yeah. You know. Yeah, yeah. I mean if they put their minds to it, yes. I mean it can be done. And literally two weeks ago I was there. But this is the bullshit presidency. Yeah. Yeah. Well yeah, yeah. There you have a point. I mean I'm talking about politics. I mean it is politics. It is definitely. It's definitely politics. It is. I mean that's what's clear about it because there were. We've been talking sort of like about what the American budget has been doing. There are. There were small steps being taken this way, the other way. Like what are you doing with astronomy? And then suddenly this big whopper of an announcement where we should do a whole show on this. Because the idea that you can send somebody to the moon within five years is. Is almost as ambitious as doing it in the 60s. It's not like you have the blueprints of the Saturn V just laying somewhere and you can just make a copy. But this time around they are used to you. Allowed to use commercial vehicles, or vehicles, whatever. Spaceship, whatever you like. So Elon Musk yesterday on Twitter was already like, oh yeah, I'm here. Hi. Sort of looking at the opportunities like, well I build a company around this. So this might be something. I mean it's again, it's appealing. And sometimes people just do stuff to do it. I mean we were talking before this whole podcast about, you know, somebody wants to build the tallest building. I mean and then want to go to the moon. I mean it's appealing. But yeah, the need for it. I don't know. And in all honesty. Herbert, you have always. I'm not the person to. Well. Yeah. You always have something against human space flight. No, I don't have very much against you. I'm all for it. But. But I'm asking the practical questions such as what does he really intend? So that's one thing. The other question that I would like to ask is where's the money? Yeah. I'm not opposed to going to the moon. I'm just questioning the sincerity of Mike Pence. Yeah. And a lot of other people. Yeah. Are they going to put the money where their mouth is? Yeah. Somebody on Twitter yesterday responded like, how did we get from not having enough money for upgrading Elon Musk? Yeah. And then we're upgrading 11 spacesuits to we're going to the moon in five years. Yeah. I thought that's a valid point. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll just wait and see. Is that then I guess we have to kind of leave it at that. We can. Yeah. We can. We're not going to wait and see. We're going to. We're going to do a show on this. Yeah. And rigorously and critically follow this. Yeah. That's that's what we're going to do this. Yeah. Then. Okay. So other news. Right. Because I saw something else that I thought was really cool. A pretty cheap mission to. Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to do a mission to Triton, Neptune's moon. We've talked on the show a bunch of times about going to the outer solar system and maybe having a mission there and it would go to, I believe to Venus and it would stop by. Let's see. Sounds like another slingshot road. Yeah. Sort of like a slingshot road. Where did it go? I think it was either Saturn or Jupiter. Yeah. Yeah. Also. Oh, IO. Yeah. Jupiter's moon IO. Yeah. So it would go to Venus IO, I guess first to Venus, I would assume. Yeah. And then to IO and then eventually to Triton and Neptune. And it's pretty cool because why not? I don't have the number here. I thought it was something like a hundred million for this mission, which is a really cheap mission, maybe between a hundred and 200 million as like a follow up to Voyager basically, because, you know, we're going to do a mission. We're going to do a mission. We're going to do a mission. We're going to do a mission. We're going to do a mission. We're going to do a mission. We're going to do a mission. We're going to do a mission. We're going to do a mission. We're going to have a mission for basically, because Voyager was the last one to visit Neptune. So this was pretty cool. This is this was announced this week. First, you have to see also again in this one, it will be funded. Will it actually happen? But what you first need is a mission proposal. And so we'll see. So we'll keep an eye out for that. Beautiful. And then I got one more thing. I'm all for that too. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, it's a classic exploration and Triton, of course, super cool. And unmanned missions, unmanned astron- astronomical missions. very cheap for what they return yeah in terms of knowledge yeah and in this case triton might be an ocean world so you know we're still looking out to see if there might be life there or not or what the conditions are so this would be one of those super cool missions my money is on no life but yeah but still interesting and i could you i could get i could really use some like really nice new posters of uh neptune on my wall at home yeah so i'm really looking forward to those pictures close-up details exactly like epic storms yeah yeah on neptune lovely yeah uh until that time um the stories of the week are not just for news but also just for you know whatever we we come across and i i'm a really big fan of melody sheep and his name his real name is john boswell he lives in washington state in america and he's he's just a space nerd who make who has a youtube channel who just makes the most amazing amazing sort of mashups of certain space issues and he's just a space nerd who makes the most amazing sort of mashups of certain spaces issues like some people might know him from remixes of carl sagan and um uh bbc documentaries where he makes these people sing like carl sagan singing just sort of anthems to science okay really beautiful and it just i i love him so much just for the nerdiness of it using autotune yeah to the edge we're going on we're to the edge that's neil degrasse tyson singing you know about space exploration i love it so much and i love it so much and i love it so much and i love it so much and i love it so much and i love it so much but but the last few years he hasn't been making that many videos he did a show for national geographic at a certain point and um now he came out with a time lapse of the future and it's i think it's truly a masterpiece like and i don't say that lightly it's a half hour video it's a half hour video of the future of the universe and therefore the entire sort of like life of the universe and of course about halfway in it becomes highly speculative because it's just like really science that hasn't fully developed yet what is he saying what's the what's that it's the it's it's a video um that basically after about one or two minutes um i'm like hey we're already so deep down into the future like the earth has already been destroyed the sun has already died out and it's cool and you just yeah everything's fine and you just look at exactly and you just look at like okay so how long is this video going to take because isn't that the end of the you know of everything this is like one minute in of the 30 minutes that's the end of the video and then you're like what's this a minute what's the next they've got this whole stuff going on here it's still happening and then it's like 150 minutes but it's still happening to you it's so what how do you see it what exactly does it mean to you life is only possible in zero point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero even forever i don't know to be honest i couldn't have done that with my life back in 2015 what kind of a representation was he like where was it at like how did you do it i missed i missed that scene there and i didn't need to the guy in this video he is theajo here and that guy is the guy with i don't want to say that but at us point silence at me after the end of the video we're like see when is he doing this so in this video psycho which and popularity and that's kind of what he did right there so in the end what is it because i can't definitely he's just quickly flipping through okay and i'm literally gonna kind of kind of name this um okay at a certain point he said 20 million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years yeah in into the future um where the last black holes evaporate oh wow and there's the age of black holes colliding of dark universes of just the neutron star universe where all light has died out except it's very faint distant neutron stars we go through the most he's got the pictures he's got the pictures and they're so beautiful are there humans around to witness it no no absolutely not they die out within a minute evaporated i think elon musk will solve this oh yeah yeah he'll be out there so it's about it's about exploding stars the expansion of the universe how radiation will will will work um how the universe will will end in darkness and in ice and not in another explosion how maybe other universes will interact with it i i implore everybody to watch it it's called time lapse of the universe a journey to the end of time in 4k put on headphones big speakers the biggest monitor you can find and just just sit in your car yeah how did the earth end yeah oh the sun just really expands into a really big fiery ball and then everything you know everything you ever loved will burn right yes everything will die that is how that works do you do you know this um george carlin stand-up comedy yeah who says what do you mean saving the planet the planet will be fine the people are screwed that's all i know that's even and even the planets will not be so now the planet is not fine anymore but still the universe is okay yeah exactly yeah well i mean did you know that in 30 000 trillion trillion trillion years the black hole era um will occur it's fascinating it sounds cool i'd like to be there yeah with elon musk yes exactly 30 minutes just elon and me yeah so that was it for me this week okay great herbert oh story yeah have i got a story yeah you i believe you wanted to tell about mike pence uh sending people to the moon oh no no no we already expected you spoke about that but i mean uh what just came out like a couple of hours ago but i mean depending on when you listen to the podcast um the indians blowing down satellites oh yeah uh mission shakti i think it's called i don't know the name but they did anyway they took down a satellite 400 kilometers up high um which was announced with uh yeah i don't know a lot of pride and a lot of look at what we've done we are the fourth nation uh in the world capable of history made history um that the president was on television live etc they made it they made a point out of it and now you have the whole like science community space community just uh they have an opinion because there's this thing called space debris um and you're not supposed to wage war in in space no no no no so i mean uh this is yeah i don't know that's it what's your personal opinion uh well what i find find difficult to believe is that there is no space debris i mean blow something up in space and it will go everywhere right it's not that it's that it's going down that everything single part is going down and it will will burn i mean um and please uh there's there's probably somebody out there is like no no no that's possible because we did it like this and that and that but i mean for now it's hard to believe it's going everywhere hold on hold on because it's hard to track and it's an issue for rocket launches and and and right really i mean yeah yeah yeah and so this news is new to me as well just to recap what what what happened is that so india successfully shoots down satellite in space and the prime minister indeed like you said oh yes uh on modi goes on tv yeah and and the news the news even says india is a space superpower now or that's actually what modi says yeah yeah yeah because they're the fourth to do this in the journey of every nation there are moments that bring the utmost pride and have an historic impact on generations to come he said one such moment is yeah today and that's because they shot a satellite yeah out of the universe and just a little background that that is obviously very interesting to do right i mean in terms of warfare i mean if you can shoot down a satellite then i mean that has some serious implications i mean imagine taking down i mean and this is way more difficult but i mean taking down gps or you know however you want to do it right i mean uh whoa that is like you're pressing the pause button on the world right uber will not work anymore first world problems with yes and uber eats my pizza will not know where to go now the whole financial system will collapse because gps is actually plays a huge part in yeah it's a clock uh so i mean these kind of things but i mean it goes a long way um so so in the end this is an yeah i find it a pretty aggressive message right yeah yeah it is it's about power in this case it's about power um should you celebrate that yeah there are nations who like to celebrate that i don't know it's yeah if you're that nation you're going to celebrate yeah exactly exactly but to me coming from the indians i didn't i wouldn't expect that from india let's just put it like that well for modi maybe they develop nuclear weapons true true but i mean with no but but given there's all this visibility to it right like the capability i mean what you could also do is do it and just hush shut up yeah right i mean okay we guys we can do this the show they're making is for home purposes of course yeah yeah and now you're saying that you cannot do this without space to creating space debris and this can be eventually i'm not claiming to be a scientist of any sort but i mean from what i know and what i've seen and what i've checked and again um uh it might be wrong here but i find it very hard to believe and and some some people what do you find hard to believe that the debris will go one way and it will all fall down and um it will evaporate yeah and and and it's gone i mean yeah that's just um yeah that's that's that's odd but just coming back to that that that topic uh uh it goes to show that the relationship between space and politics is very strong right i mean we're talking about going back to the moon that's politics uh where india is is doing this with uh with a lot of yeah a lot of bravura and it's with a missile i see so it's they literally send the rockets to take down this other thing i mean if you can dock if you can dock quietly with an international space station then you can also just shoot something out of the air like yeah yeah laser beams something yeah that's also that's also one yeah interesting yeah very interesting things yeah okay hammered yeah i have one too um i don't know if you noticed this one but we had a solar storm last weekend oh everything works at my place i mean i didn't notice it yeah and um i i didn't notice this either until after the fact but um um reports are that there were uh there were northern lights as far down as panama panama i mean that's right over at the freaking equator yeah but then so why did we or in the in the states or in canada and my question well first of all nobody reported on this except cnet where i found it yeah and but i didn't see it in the papers in the netflix or it didn't happen right are there pictures i'm not sure i didn't i didn't see them um and there was another reason that i wanted to say but i forget but it was but it also says that this is march 22nd oh yeah okay yeah so that was last week yeah okay and cnet where i found found this um also tells me that um this was a big one because northern lights as far down as panama oh yeah that was the other one and nothing in the press but also cloud cover yeah in holland at least yeah so uh and in all the lights you wouldn't have seen no i mean i even went to iceland and it was overcast the whole week right and only i did a time lapse at night and on one picture i saw i caught the northern lights but the entire weekend yeah i didn't see anything there was this weekend solar storm uh but cnet notes uh this was a relatively big one but it was nothing like what hit the earth somewhere around 600 oh no i see 1859 is that what you mean from the cnet article uh that's one internet went down then yeah the internet went down it did yeah the point about 1859 or something was that um electricity uh did we have electricity at all back then 1859 i don't think so no in in small labs but i forget how they noticed back then but they had there must have been events like this um the carrington event is the one in 1859 okay um and it was noticed but i forget how um anyway the point is if we had internet back then the telegraph system certainly the telegraph telegraph system that's what it's oh yeah blew out that's funny so if you even blew blow out telegraph you would certainly blow out any kind of microchip yeah ever invented yeah true so um the point that cnet makes is we're going to have more events like uh like this character event not even not just more events like the one of last weekend yeah but also more events like the carrington event i always hear about it and and i and i never experienced i've never experienced it's just everybody always warns me about it all these headlines and then then i'm always kind of like okay well the zombie apocalypse might happen every minute now and then nothing happens so happy nothing happened so sure but i like some spectacle also uh take heed because it's not much you can do about it yeah is there anything i can do uh there's there's these couple of really big skyscrapers for instance tinfoil hats and people always work people wear your tinfoil live in your faraday cage okay true true yeah that works stuff like that anything properly isolated will survive yeah there's these big skyscrapers here and there like i i always pass one when i lived in new york and but they have one here in amsterdam as well where they i think their server farms are like big telecommunications towers where they they just look like jails or yeah like no windows whatsoever the nsa and organizations like yeah they have these towers right yeah will be put away nicely in their faraday cages and will survive so you'll still be able to monitor us and we don't even have smartphones okay that's nice that's that's very good awesome that's my news yeah great well and as always in the show notes where is where you can see them yeah and it's time to talk to robert yeah about your business because um space business yeah sort of but let's talk about well you your business is uh is uh earth monitoring remote sensing right yeah um but uh what is what's interesting to talk about first is your uh former business yeah because you used to be in solar panels yeah true yeah i'm actually an economist but they're their space travel invention right i always heard that solar panels were first really developed in leiden yeah and then they were put in athletic cities correct 오 6...4...5 years ago the magnetic solar panels or solarpiüy is very developed in leiden Yeah, and then they were put on satellites in order to harvest most sun rays. It was called Dutch space, and actually a lot of satellites are equipped with Dutch solar panels. Yeah, from the 70s originally or something. Not anymore, but I mean that's... But that technology, I think it originated in space, yeah. In space research, right? Yeah, space research. So it was optimized. At least it gave it a boost. Yeah, and that's a nice intro because actually there's a lot of application for space technology. And coming back to my own introduction, I'm an economist actually, but I became an entrepreneur about, I don't know, eight, nine years ago. Started a solar company, Sungevity, back then it was called Sunline. It's currently employing 160 people. It was acquired by Engie a couple of years ago, but before that time I already left. But we were already then using satellites. Satellites to assess rooftop potential for solar. And back then that was very new. I think it was, I mean, satellite imagery combined with aerial views, et cetera. So you used satellite technology to look down on Earth and find where the roofs are. Yeah, how big the roofs are, there's a tree there, how much shadow is there, all that sort of stuff. And then sell the solar panels and interest. Turn it into a business. But what was the step? So you discover a roof that's very well suited for, do you go out and contact the person who lives there? That's actually one of the things we tried the first time and that's the way it works. I mean, it's the other way around actually. It's just that, I mean, you build the company and then people want solar panels. And then you start looking. And then they look on the internet and then they found this company where you can assess your roof and you get a very nice picture of your roof. With solar panels, you see exactly how much it costs and you place, click, I want to buy. I mean, in the end, that was it. And as I said, by now it's employing 160 people here in Amsterdam. But for me, that was an intro into space. And I'm not a space geek or anything, but it did show me the potential of what was possible with satellites. So then I joined a European company very close to ESTEC. The ESA. A research facility here in Noordwijk. And I had the opportunity to become an entrepreneur in residence at this company and started investing in space technology to see if we can build companies based on space technology. A couple of things came out of that. And Van der Sot is one of those. And Van der Sot is growing very fast right now. And we're actually one of the top players right now when it comes to remote sensing. Okay. Time to explain. Yeah. What's your one? What's your one line pitch that Van der Sot does? What's your purpose, man? What's your purpose? What's your purpose in life? Nah, I mean, if you look on the website, it's satellite observed water data globally daily. Right? I mean, and again. Weather data. No, no, water. Oh, water. Yeah, sorry, water. Water. Yeah. So, and there's a lot more that we do. But this is the core. I mean, what we see is soil moisture. And now soil moisture sounds very boring. In the beginning, you're like, yeah, whatever. But if you think about it a bit more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can see water everywhere on the globe, like in the ground, how much water there is. That gives you a lot of predictive power. So we're not talking surface water like lakes and stuff, but. We also, I mean, we also do that. That's called inundation or flooding. Right? I mean, you can use satellites. But you're actually talking fields and swamps. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, but just fields. All the land mass in the world, we monitor it every day and we build it up every single day. So it radiates all the time how moist it is. Yeah. So a little bit more background on the company. It came out of academics, actually. I was looking in technology for applications for farmers or whatever. And I spoke to about 60 or 70 engineers, aspiring entrepreneurs, I don't know, ESA people, NASA people, et cetera. But every single time, the thing that came back was that, yes, there are so many possibilities. And that's why we're here. And then, yes. So can you show me something? No, no, no, no, no, no. And this happened every time. And as I was doing my research, it turned out that there wasn't that much, actually. And the things that were out there were based on optical data. And just to give you a little insight, optical data is just, when you look at someone, is that what you see? But the spectrum itself is much bigger. Right? You know, x-ray and you got infrared and et cetera. And a lot of people are afraid to say it. But clouds are a huge minus for the satellite business, right? For Earth observation. And again, two-thirds of the Earth is covered in clouds at any given moment. Two-thirds? Yeah. Yeah. So that's a lot. But doesn't infrared just pierce through it? Well, no. Infrared doesn't? No. Infrared is still in the optical part of the domain. Okay. So we use this niche technology. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that then opens up a world of applications. And that's why we've grown so fast. I mean, by now we work for the biggest agricultural companies, the biggest insurance companies, biggest water companies, because they all use our data to power their applications. And all of a sudden, certain things are possible that weren't possible before. Like what? Like irrigation, right? I mean, we work for one of the biggest precision agricultural companies based in the U.S. And they give advice to farmers for irrigation. It turns out that soil moisture is a critical part for this protocol, right? I mean, they try to solve it. But it turned out that when they added our data to their whole protocol, all of a sudden things got way, way, way, way better. Pesticide use. I mean, there's this very strong relationship between soil moisture, and we also see other things, so temperature, for example, and disease outbreaks. Okay. So they know the conditions in which certain diseases thrive, for example. Yeah. Add all the magic buzzwords to it. AI, big data, blah, blah, blah. I really don't like those words, by the way. You had something against startup culture, too. And it's all good. And then you have a company like BASF, who is a partner, customer of ours, who can now start predicting where the disease outbreak will be. Hence, they can advise their farmers when not to use pesticides. Or when to use pesticides, going into precision farming, precision pesticide use, et cetera. I mean, there are heaps of applications. Insurance. The whole country of Kazakhstan is about to be insured based on our data, together with one of the biggest reinsurers in the world. Yeah. Why is that? Because the relationship between our data and the crop yield is so big that they can only look at our data and say how big the crop will be. Right? Or what the crop failure will be for droughts, for example. That means that they do not have to assess the damage in the field itself. They just look at the satellite data and press enter. And then the farmer gets a payout based on that. The farmer also gets the data. They don't even have to go out and assess the damage. No. No. So that lowers the premium. So farmers can get that insurance. They have a parameter that is very close to reality. Right? It's a very, very strong proxy. And again, it solves for… There are a lot of issues because they used to do NDVI for this. And NDVI is a term, just for your information, the greenness of the leaves, just to put it shortly. But that's based on optical imagery. So they had a lot of limitations. And the applications go on and on. I mean, we work for banks, Rabobank, for example. Rabobank wants to… They do a lot with farmers? Yeah. They do a lot with farmers, but they also do a lot with farmers outside of the Netherlands. For example. Yeah. But they want to go… That's the funny thing about the Rabobank, this Dutch bank. And then suddenly you're in the middle of nowhere in a certain country. And then suddenly there's a Rabobank. Yeah. Rabobank. Like Kenya or something. Yeah. Or in my case, the US. And I think Canada as well. They're pretty big in the US, actually. Yeah. And then you… Yeah. Because they work with farmers. And then… So there's nothing in that town, but there is a Rabobank. It's super funny. Yeah. Well, I mean, just talking about this Rabobank, I mean, you can imagine that, for example, they want to get a… Get a bigger presence in Africa. But how do you give a credit to a farmer that you have no financial information about nothing? And now all of a sudden they can use our data. Yeah. Look at their fields. Say, okay, this has been it like the last 15 years. And then here's your credit. Yeah. And is it just as easy to look at Africa as at the US? Like the satellite, the data you have access over… Yeah. …will monitor Africa all the same as Holland or Canada or whatnot? Well, I mean, in terms of frequency, it sort of depends on the location. Right? Yeah. But we're always on the good side. I mean, it's usually once a day, sometimes once every two days in certain locations. Yeah. But somehow it nicely works together with the places in the world where there's agricultural fields. So where exactly do these data come from? Do you have your own satellites? No. No. So we use open data from NASA, from ESA, from JAXA and what have you. Right? Right. So these data are there for everybody to… Yeah. You're just the one to turn it into a company. Yeah. But I mean… Smart. They make it sound so easy, right? I mean, but that's not the case. I mean, it's… What is it you do then? Yeah. Well, a lot of research. I mean, just to give you an idea, our academic citations are up there with the foremost, most foremost universities out there. Like when you look at the team. It's not an easy thing to do. So what do we do with it? We do magic with it. But we… No. Oh, now it all makes sense. No. No. Yeah. Okay. So thanks again, guys. Okay. Thanks. This was fun. Thanks, Cowboys. No. We have developed a patented method, proprietary method by now on how to do this. And again, and there's the other thing, you have to turn it into an API in a viewer and it has to have all this business stuff. So and if you can… A digital infrastructure around this whole thing. Exactly. It's a service. Yeah. And that's pretty unique. And coming back to what sort of data, we use several satellites at a time and we combine that in a very smart way. And that's how we get through that high resolution. And then are these satellites very different? Yeah. Or are they… Okay. So it's not one system of… Yeah. Well… Like GPS, totally similar satellites, lots of them. Yeah. The underlying technology is called passive microwaves. Right? I mean, and sometimes we use some other parts of the spectrum. Passive microwaves. That's a source. That's what's coming from the ground. Passive microwaves. Yeah. So passive microwave technology, an example is the NASA SMAP mission, soil moisture active passive, SMOS ESA mission, and then MSIR-1, MSIR-2. There are a couple out there. And new ones will be launched too, by the way. We just found out. So that's very good news. And then we combine that in a smart way. So coming to that technology, it's the emission of the earth or the transmission. It's transmission of一下 activity. Right. Yeah. So that's very important. That's just part of the map design problem, right? Instead of just giving you this little bit of groundлонart space GitHub, you can create big hot airship land earlier on in your project. It's an 77 milussyvert Tai Lopez powered celestial station, seeing how linear and and then we do something with the overlapping footprints, as to say, and that's the way we get through that high resolution. Like enhancing a blurry photograph. Yeah, something like that. But in the end, I must say, it's an observation, right? So we're not modeling something here. It's a real observation, and that's very important to our customers also because you could model these kind of things, but that's not the case. Does it make the job difficult that you're using a couple of very different satellites, different ages, I suppose? They come from different countries as well. I mean, I suppose they're operating on different standards, maybe? Yeah, I mean, this is all part of the job, really. I mean, at different angles, they change something. New satellite is launched, right? I mean, it's got completely different characteristics, and you need to integrate that into your API, but you need consistency for your customers, right? You cannot go like, okay, here's a different satellite, here's a different satellite, here's a different satellite, here's a different data set, you sort it out. I mean, that's also the part that we solve, that is, we have 40 years of data, just a small reminder. Yeah, the first satellite that was launched with this technology was in 1978. So now we can go back 40 years in time, and why is that interesting? Because, for example, for the insurers, they need to put things in perspective. How often does a drought happen, right? How often does a flood happen? And these 40 years of data were not in your vaults because the company didn't exist back then. So they're in the vault of... Scattered. NASA, ESA. Yeah, I mean, and you know this, but I mean, it's not like Google Maps, right? It's scattered across servers, across the earth, and sometimes it's really easily accessible, and sometimes literally, yeah, we threw that away. Right? I mean... Yeah, like, who cares? Yeah, we threw it away. We wanted to free up a hard disk. Yeah, no, no, no, yeah, yeah. That goes to show that that's not good because we could use it now. But, I mean, we're filling gaps with other satellites, and then you're combining, everything into one consistent data set, and soil moisture is one of the things we get out of it. We're known for the soil moisture thing and the fact that we see through clouds. So what else? Temperature. Land surface temperature. It's also very interesting. We are actually talking to governments right now who have stopped the rollout of weather stations because of the fact that you can see it with satellites, right? And that's very interesting because if you put one weather station here and one 100 miles away, then what you usually do, you interpolate and you try to assess what the temperature would be. But now you have a 100 by 100 meter grid. Every 100 meter, we scan the temperature. How often? By the end of the year, we're going to some spots on Earth, these six to eight times a day. Eight times a day? Yeah. You draw a complete world map. Yeah, and that's... We have some servers running. Yeah, I was about to say, how many terabytes is that? Yeah, well, yeah, in terms of... 100 by 100 meters. Yeah. Crazy, man. Yeah, I mean, we're a big Google customer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. And some of our architects, sometimes they flip on like 15,000 cores. Just like click. And then you see smoke coming from our data center. It's really, really intense, yeah. So temperature is one thing. And then the third one is VOD, or vegetation optical depth, which is not a good term, but it's a scientific term. And that's the water content of the crops. Like the crop itself. Yeah. How much water is there? In the crop. And that's a completely new parameter and also very interesting for all sorts of applications. And then the newest thing we're working on is a NDVI. It's like a holy grail within earth observation, agricultural applications, or whatever you're looking at, biomass, et cetera. We're going to daily observations for that because we're combining our data with some optical imagery and we fill the gaps and now we get daily NDVI observations on 10 by 10 meters. And that's big. Yeah. So we're thinking about releasing that by the end of this year. And so from my understanding, you can see the crop. Yeah. And you can see what's under there. You can see the moisture in the soil as well. Yeah. You can see the entire sort of like field. Yeah, the first time I saw that, it was like, can we see, like asking Richard, can you see through the crops? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, okay. So if there's two meters of maize growing on top, it's like, no, that's cool. Okay. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. So you directly look at the ground and you can imagine that it's also very interesting because for a crop to grow, you need to know how much water there is available to the roots, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's what you see. That's literally what you see. How deep can you look? We look at the first 10 to 15 centimeters. 10 to 15 centimeters. But, and this is also very nice to know, we can go down to ground level even by looking at the dry down of the soil. So, okay. You have 40 years of data. You see how certain soil dries down and it has certain characteristics. By looking at that dry down, you can assess what type of soil it is, if it's sand or clay, et cetera. If you know that, then by then you have built a soil map of the world. That means that if you know the soil moisture combined with the soil map, you know how fast it will go to ground level. And then you can go to root zone or whatever. And that's the way that we do that right now. So you see the whole site, you can see the cycle almost. Like when a drought happens or when there's like a mason going on, there's like, you can see the results and you can see what that soil usually should do. And then what it has done. And then how the crop has responded to it. Yeah, all these things. And then over almost the course, there's probably gaps in your data, but 40 years. Yeah, exactly that. That's insane. Yeah, and that gives a lot of possibilities and a lot of applications right now are being powered by data. And because of the fact that it's daily, et cetera. And then there's also this niche thing that sort of came out where, for example, we were working for the Dutch firefighters. We have very detailed 10 by 10 meter maps that we made for what grows where in the Netherlands. And we could do that everywhere. And that is in a ridiculous detail, like what type of grass, like there are five types of grass and we can see literally, what type of grass is growing. And how is that interesting to firefighters? I mean, it's interesting to me. Some things burn better than other things. Ah, right. Right? So they sort of do a minority report type of thing for firefighting where they say, okay, combined with our soil moisture data and all these things that I just mentioned, and you know what's growing where, then all of a sudden you can start predicting where the fire will happen. And if it starts burning, which way it will go, also depending on wind, et cetera. But this is actually life. This is already happening. Beautiful. Yeah. Hey, when did you start with this? Okay. I started three and a half years ago. Yeah. If I understand. If I understand, I'm one of the co-founders. Yeah, exactly. We started three and a half years ago, but the academics go back 20 years. Like Richard has been working on this for 20 years and the whole team. But the possibilities seem so, yeah, it sounds so stupid, but so endless. It's like, it's so, my girlfriend is a landscape architect and also very interested in water. I don't know. Water is a big thing in the Netherlands, of course. Yeah. And it's just cool because not only just for insurers or farmers or whatnot, but it's like, there's this vast thing, like especially with droughts happening more often in certain parts of the world, or like you say, maybe even restoring forests, you know, just looking at wildernesses as well, understanding ecosystems. There's so many things that you can do. I mean, as a company, you have a lot of challenges, but one of the things right now we have is not to dive into everything we like. Yeah, exactly. Right? I mean, there are a lot of academics out there who constantly want to do R&D. It's like, oh, this is cool. This is cool. Should we do that? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. All these rabbit holes to dive into. Let's stay focused, people. Because you guys got to make money, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get your priorities straight because there's, yeah. You have a company to run. Yeah, there's a company to run. Yeah, exactly. And we're doing fine, right? I mean, we're doing very well, but I mean, we need to stay focused and- On value creation. Yeah. Exactly. And get very, very good at this. And, yeah. So one thing you need to do is look at the future and stay on top of things. How dependent are you on space organizations keeping on launching satellites that do what you- That's a decent question. Supply the data that you need? I mean, this is something we discuss and we actively act upon. If a certain president somewhere decides just to close the data source, then we might have an issue. By now we have- Or to move. Move all the money to a moon mission. For example. No, but no, no, literally. I mean, this is the way it happens, right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, we were talking about it earlier on, but NASA's got this big budget. If it goes to flying to the moon, then it depends on Earth observation, we'll get cuts. Yeah. It's not a huge issue to us right now because there are so many satellites out there using this technology. We also have the head of ESA visiting us and he had some good news about future missions last week. So that's looking good. Yeah, that's good. We tried to make a redundant system. So if one satellite fails, then boom, we switch. And that all needs to be developed. Well, that's already finished, but yeah, that was one of our priorities. Then again, we are looking into launching our own satellite and two weeks ago, we had some very serious discussions about this and we're exploring the options. Cool. And it's very much possible, but it's more- Yeah. It's actually more a business decision than it is something else because is it possible? Yes, period. But should we, right? I mean, if you look at the cost nowadays- Going down. Going down, but I mean, getting the things up there, 20 to 30 million for a bunch of CubeSats and then just operations- You're talking a network of satellites. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. And then 5 million maintenance, right? Every year. Yeah. Okay. I mean, you need a solid, yeah. A solid customer base you need. Yeah. I mean, and again, we're good, but do you want all that hassle, right? I mean, it's every single person- Are you sure you need it? Exactly. I mean, and it should be very much a business decision and every single person at our company is geeking out like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do this, right? And then there's like, yeah. Our own stuff. I know. It's very cool, but I mean, maybe we should focus on what's out there and it's already working very, very well. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. There you have it. Suppose these big organizations start cutting on their satellites, the ones you need. Yeah. Do you have time enough to start a procedure and then build your own network when you need it? It takes about 18 months. If we would say yes right now, then within 18 months we would have a satellite up there. I suppose that's okay because the ones that are up there now that you're using- Yeah. Won't go out of service anytime soon. No. Will they? No. Except when maybe some government blows up a satellite and it hits another. That won't happen, but I mean- No, if it doesn't go down, then we're perfectly fine. But we do have a backup plan in case that happens or just look at the options. And again, it's very cool to talk about, obviously. And there's this new thing called P-Band, right, within the spectrum. And then you can look 30 to 40 centimeters into the ground. 30 to 40 centimeters. Yeah. And I assume it depends on what kind of rock or sand it is because here in Holland, it's a swamp, like we said. But then if you look at the Sahara, it's sand and it's dry and it's completely different from, say, I don't know, California, which is rocky. What can you see? Everything. Yeah, everything. I mean, literally every spot on earth, you can assess how much water there is in the soil. Yeah. And you just said it's one big swamp. It's actually not. I mean, the- The Netherlands. The Netherlands is not a big one. Well, yeah, maybe- We've got a couple of dunes. Yeah, I know. But I mean, the variation within the country is huge. I mean, if you look at that drought from last summer- We had a drought here in the Netherlands, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. We had a very big drought and it was- Horrible. All the parks died and everything. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was the first time that the Netherlands looked like Australia, Jimmy. Yeah, that's true. I mean, it was walking in the park. Everything was yellow. It stopped being fun at a certain- Yeah, everything was yellow. Yeah. It stopped being fun. It was like, oh, the weather is so nice. Yeah. No, it hasn't rained for months and everything died. But regional differences were huge. For example, we have something here called the Green Hart or the Groene Hart. For those who don't know. For those who don't know. Yeah, it's a green area right within all the metropolises, sort of. Yeah. One of the few green areas. Yeah. But it also has a lot of water. So that stayed wet until the end. When you would look at rainfall, you would say, oh, it's dry, it's bad, and the whole country is dry and that's it, if that's your definition of drought. But for most farmers or basically most people, the definition of drought is, are things growing, right? That's what you want to know. And the regional differences were huge. Like in the east or the south, it was bone dry. And then going to the west, it was less. And actually- Groundwater level. Yeah. Yeah. And actually, it came out two days ago that for the first time we were able to assess the groundwater levels using this technology. And it turns out that about three or four days ago, we were able to assess the groundwater levels using this technology. So we were back at the normal level for the Netherlands, only 10 months after this whole thing happened. Drought's over. Yeah. The agricultural drought is over. So right now, we're at a normal level where we should be. Yeah. Yeah. And so nobody has really reported on this? Nah. I saw your Twitter. BNR has. Yeah. BNR has? Yep. Yeah, we have. Yeah, BNR. Okay. I mean, and all the farmer, online farmer communities, whatever- We did just now. They did just now. Oh, you literally did? You just did like an hour ago. Not in this podcast. No, just an hour ago in BNR Digital. That's where you talked about it. On air. Yeah. Yeah. With Robert. But you're saying the farmer websites are doing this? Yeah, I mean, because this is crucial to them. Yeah. Right? I mean, but mainstream, no, not so much. Well, last year, it was- Last summer. The topic. Yeah, it was the topic. And then now I forwarded it to a couple of these news outlets. It's like, yeah, okay, whatever. I saw that in California, actually, the drought was also- Yeah. Yeah. It's over. They finally have snow packs and everything is back to normal there as well. Sometimes, I don't know, I knew stories about the drought coming from California. And then sometimes we're like, it's over. No, it's really over now. No, it's really over now. Even though then always there's someone saying- It's complicated. Yeah, it's complicated because, yeah, it's still not really over. And it's, you know- Yeah. Yeah, no, no, no. I mean, it's true, but also- But at least you can see it. At least you can see it and measure it and send maps to the people that need to know it. Yeah, we do that very, very detailed. Yeah. And we do that for- Again, for a lot of companies, but also for countries. Yeah. And they use it for agriculture, but also for other things. I mean, something we didn't discuss, but we also do within insurance is assess damage from forest fires. Okay. California last year, Portugal. By now, they are using satellites to assess the damage. Much easier because before they would go there, literally- Yeah. Figure out what was going on. Yeah, photograph. You could see it. Yeah. And now, by using- By using our technology, they can assess the damage and there's a payout, et cetera. Again, making things easier. And so, if I hear all this, then my conclusion is, so all this data had been laying around sort of, like, and was available to certain people. You just make it much more easily accessible. Yeah, that's one of the things. But it's also a frustration coming from the academics at the company, right? Mm-hmm. Again, very strong scientific base, and they were getting frustrated by- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. They were doing this awesome research, and they saw all the possibilities, and then there was a paper, and then they got quoted in Nature or something. And that's the end of it. And that's the end of it. And I mean, and this was getting frustrating to, to, to, for especially- Whose idea was it to make this company? Combined. Yeah. Richard, in the end, he was walking around with the idea, okay, this should happen. Richard. Richard Dio. Mm-hmm. Dr. Richard Dio, one of the co-founders. And then I met him. I was like, okay, did this, we should do this. Mm-hmm. And, and, and, and that's when things started. So you being the, the Steve Jobs businessman type, and he being the Steve Wozniak techie type. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you would do that comparison. Yeah. But, but yeah, there, there's a business side to it. And, and, and, and there's, there's a very much a tech side to it. And this is also interesting. I mean, in, in, in terms of, you see this whole space hype going on, right? In terms of satellites being launched and CubeSats, et cetera. Mm-hmm. And now you have, I think, Capella, and you have IceEye. You have Planet, you know, all going out there. Lots more people to invite. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. But all this data that all these CubeSats, all these private CubeSats are sending, sending back is, is not open, I would assume. No. No. And so, so there's going to be a difference eventually with private industry launching satellites, having this data. Yeah. That's, that's, yeah, then copyrighted almost. And, and, and this public data. Mm-hmm. That's still available of, I would assume at a certain point, it's the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, ESA is seriously pushing for, for these kinds of things, right? I mean, they, their end goal is not to exist, basically. Yeah. But you don't. Yeah. It's the same as what happened with the railroads or any sort of, like, new technologies. I still don't believe in that. Yeah. Yeah. But it creates a very difficult situation right now, because you can imagine that if you're launching CubeSats. And then you have the ESA Sentinel constellation, which is like the best out there. The ones that you use. Some of the ones that you use. Some of the Sentinels we use, combined with other satellites. But that's difficult, right? I mean, you're being backed by FEC or whatever. You've raised 200 million. You're awesome. Wire tech crunch, everything. But at the same time, you have ESA going like, hello, it's free. Right? I mean, that's tricky. And for us, it's less relevant because we do something with that open data that's already out there. And then we apply our method and then we get to that high resolution. Yeah. Are you interested in any way in other kinds of remote sensing to expand your business maybe? Or do you have plenty of ground to cover as it is? No, I mean, the competition will come, right? I mean, you could argue it's already out there. But there's in our mission, literally, they always keep innovating. And again, I mean, they're scientists. They want to do that. So like I just said, that daily NDVI, right? That doesn't have cloud obstruction. That's something we're developing now. And after that, something else will pop up too, right? I mean, constantly, we are building new products based on the open data. I mean, we don't buy commercial data up until now. There's no need for it. But yeah, we will always come up with new data products to scale our business, definitely. Yeah. All right. Yeah. What else? Well, what else? What else? Yeah. We can keep talking about this. I think it's, I don't know, the possibilities are so endless that at a certain point, you have to start thinking like, where do you want to take this company? Like what you said, you talked about your mission. Like, yeah, I'll keep innovating. But also, what's next sort of for this? Yeah. What do you need to do? I mean, everybody's enjoying it so much that we're not in it for the sell, right? I mean, never say never, you never know what's going to happen, et cetera. But there's so much potential out there and so much stuff you can do that I don't see us doing anything else for the next couple of years. It's just too nice. Is there a lot of this open data still available? Because I'm now thinking like, okay, so if all this, I want completely something different. Found your own company? Well, I once did a web shop with NASA shirts where you could buy just Hubble pictures basically because you can use those freely as well. ESA is, by the way, a little bit tougher with that, with using images, reselling their images. NASA is completely okay with it. But there must be tons of data out there that's open and just ready to be used. Waiting to be used. Waiting to be unlocked. Exploited, yeah. Before it's all privatized, I would assume. Yeah, I don't know. You're at basically a unique moment still. Yeah. Yeah, I would say so. I mean, media will make you believe that it's already out there, right? I mean, all the data is being combined and already there. But in reality, it's definitely not. It's scattered all over the place. You need to know where to get it. You need to have contact sometimes. Like, really, I know someone. It's like, can you, I know it's open, yes. Well, look. I mean, that's, that's literally how it works. It's not mature yet. Yeah. So in the end, yeah, like 50 years, I don't know, timelines, but everything will be out there and it can be combined, et cetera. But for now, it's just, it's a craft. Yeah. And so what sort of people are you looking for? Sort of people, like in terms of... Who do you need to hire? Scientists. Scientists. But we're good. I mean... No, but I mean... You hired plenty of people and... No, no, no. I mean, we, again... Don't call him, he'll call you. Maybe you want to be a PR person. No. No, but again, just think, my, again, the whole family of my sister, of my girlfriend, sorry, her brother, is a geologist, for example. Yeah. And everybody, it's also traditional in this country, so to speak, that the classic sort of geology thing, it's about digging ditches and relaying rivers. Yeah, we... What, to take steps into this industry, like what's... Earth observation, remote sensing, those type of things. Yeah, okay. And we look... Specific. We look at the top-notch performers there. Yeah. And that comes from our own network, which is very strong in that sense. So right now we're in a position that we don't have that IT problem, that software problem, where it's like we cannot get the right people. Yeah. Actually, what makes it so fun is that people really want to join us, really, really good people, because now they have the opportunity to turn it into applications, right? Purpose. Purpose, to break out of the academic arena and the projects and the tenders and go like, okay, we're building this and it's actually solving... And maybe make a little bit more money than they would as a government employee. Arguably, I don't know. I don't know what you're paying. No, I mean... Do you pay well? Probably not telling us. Not saying anything about... No. No, but yeah, so scientists, scientists. That's the core also of the company. It's science. And then some business people add it on. Yeah. Okay. Robert. Beautiful. Yeah. Thank you so much. This was a really great conversation. It was. Yeah. Always love to see how you can use this. These things that already exist and then just basically rewrap them in a very good way. Yeah. And then present them to the world in a completely new, innovative way. I also love the contrast talking one week to an astronomer about very interesting, but not really... About the evolution of stars. Evolution of stars. Which is just as cool, by the way. It's amazing. If not cooler. And then by talking to an entrepreneur doing... Very useful things. Yes. And that you can know the vegetation of basically anything that grows and how it's there. It's like, that to me is mind blowing. It's like, okay, so you can now map as such as like fine grid, the entire world and then the ecosystems that live on it. Exactly. Basically, that to me is like, oh my God, brave new world. And so necessary. So necessary and deeply needed to save the animals. And the people. And the people. And the people. Okay. Of course. We are animals too. Okay. Thank you, Thijs. Thank you, Robbert Mica. Thank you, Herbert. Thank you, Robert. So much. And thank you, listeners, for enjoying one more hour of Space Cowboys Podcast. Yeah, exactly. Whether you were on Spotify or on iTunes or in your crazy app. Or be on our website or on YouTube. Okay. Wave at the camera. That's right. Okay. We're on video as well. Okay, people. This has been Space Cowboys Podcast episode 13. Yeah. On to 14. And we'll be back next week. Thank you very much. See you. See you then. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Bye.