Guest:  Manuel Cuba; Topics:  Helix Space business in Luxembourg, European space awareness, Luxembourg as an economic space center, Helix Space projects including Space Translational Medicine, cybersecurity products and activities, public funding, Product-Market Fit framework & more.

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We welcomed Manuel Cuba to the program to introduce us to his company Helix Space in Luxembourg. In addition, we talked at length about Luxembourg as a major commercial space focal point, European space in general with a look to satellites, lunar development and public funding grant money available for companies and entrepreneurs.  To assist you with this program, please visit the Helix Space website, www.helixspace.eu and use the Tags for this show as a short and concise summary of our talking points and topics.  For your convenience, I've repeated the Tags below.

Tags:  Manuel Cuba, Helix Space in Luxembourg, New Space Age, short version commercial space timeline, Luxembourg Space Agency, commercial space markets needing servicing, Helix Space servicing commercial space industry gaps, pricing as a rule of thumb, space technology, European public funding, public funding grants, Helix Space as a for profit commercial company, Alt. Space becomes New Space, space resource utilization, ESA Moon Village, space population awareness in Luxembourg, Helix Space to remain a private company, Starlink, Eutelsat, SES, Elon Musk commentary, SSTO history, the Helix Space Translational Medicine R&D, medical regulations and Helix Space, Helix Space and China, ISU and NASA Ames 2009, Dr. Namrata Goswami, space and national security, Russian space activities, David's personal dog story, space settlement, European Space Resources Center and business startups

In addition to the topics represented by the Tags, I found the short historical timeline provided us early in the program by our guest relevant to Europe and then in specific to Luxembourg to be most interesting.  It seemed almost like a clone of what I recall over the past 22+ years of Space Show history.  I found the part of the timeline history pertaining to Luxembourg becoming a commercial space center with its Space Ministry to be especially interesting.  Let us know what you think about this historical timeline and Luxembourg starting up its own commercial space agency.  Please post your comments on our blog.

Helix Space, a for-profit company, has been and will continue to be largely funded by public sector European grants.  In fact, as you will hear Helix Space plays a significant role in helping other space companies obtain funding for their projects.  The funding Helix Space assists with is public funding which is available for a broad range of space-related projects and activities for various European space companies from a variety of European programs including some from ESA and some from Luxembourg. The Helix Space website has an excellent section devoted to this Helix Space service so check it out here:  https://helixspace.eu/#funding. 

Another part of the discussion that was of great interest to me was the discussion focused on the Helix Space Translational Medicine R&D.  While the exact medical R&D project was not identified, the fact that Helix Space was interested in this area and developing a soon to be announced R&D effort was impressive from my point of view.  Typically medical R&D is heavily regulated, often with the regulations serving as barriers to some companies due to the compliance cost to engage in an R&D project. I was excited to learn more about Helix Space in this area and have asked Manuel to return to The Space Show for a separate program when he can talk freely about this part of the company business plan. In the meantime, check out what their website says about this upcoming project:  https://helixspace.eu/#spacetranslationalmedicine. 

Other topics that got my attention included a heavy focus on satellites with some focus on settlement.  When pressed for more information about Helix Space and settlement, our guest said that since they were a commercial for-profit company, there was not at this time a significant profit potential in pursuing space settlement.  He said as that changes in the future, Helix Space will put more focus into that sector.

Please post your comments/questions for Manual Cuba by putting them on the blog for this show.  I'm also happy to announce that Helix Space is our newest sponsor. Manuel, thank you very much for your Space Show sponsorship.  You can reach Manuel through me here at The Space Show or through the Helix Space website.