Thinking On Paper

The Top 10 Space Industry Raises of 2026: Space Tech's Biggest Bets

Space technology investment is surging into 2026. Confidence is high. The ten largest funding rounds total over $3.7 billion. And it's only April. Defence and national security contracts are driving much of the momentum, with companies like Stoke Space, Sierra Space and Cesium Astro attracting hundreds of millions on the strength of government partnerships. Infrastructure remains the dominant investment thesis — from encrypted GPS alternatives and space-based weather platforms to satellite communications and reusable launch vehicles — reflecting a market that is still building the foundational layer needed for commercial space to scale. The biggest surprise sits at the top of the list: Beijing-based iSpace China claimed the single largest raise at $729 million, confirming the US V China space race is very much happening.   Meanwhile, three companies have crossed the unicorn threshold — StarCloud, Tomorrow.io and Sierra Space, the latter commanding a confirmed $8 billion valuation.  Human spaceflight and space station ambition round out the upper tier, with Vast Space and Axiom Space collectively raising $850 million to build the commercial space stations and crew infrastructure that will replace the ISS when it retires later this decade. The Top 10 In Full iSpace China — $729M Sierra Space — $550M (Series C) Vast Space — $500M (Series A) Cesium Astro — $470M Axiom Space — $350M Stoke Space — $350M PLD Space — €210M (Series C) Tomorrow.io — $175M Xona Space — $170M (Series C) StarCloud — $170M -- 🎧 Listen to every podcast⁠ [https://www.thinkingonpaper.xyz/] 📺 Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/toptechpodcast/] 🏠 Follow us on ⁠X⁠ [https://x.com/thinkonpaperpod] 🏠 Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremygilbertson/] To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz [hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz] Chapters (00:00) Starcloud (00:52) Xona Space (03:27) Tomorrow IO (06:01) PLD Space (08:00) Stoke Space (10:18) Axiom Space (12:29) Cesium Astro (14:50) VAST Space (19:02) Sierra Space (21:47) I-Space (Beijing Interstellar Glory Space Technology Ltd.)

All We Are Saying, Is Give Peace A Chance: The Martens Clause

The Martens Clause, a legal principle drafted by Russian-Imperial diplomat Fyodor Martens during the first Hague Peace Conference of 1899, established that even in the absence of specific written law, nations and individuals remain bound by "the laws of humanity and the requirements of public conscience."  Originally conceived as a compromise to prevent the collapse of early international humanitarian law negotiations - when smaller nations like Belgium objected to how occupying powers classified resistance fighters - the clause became a foundational backstop in international law.  It was subsequently invoked in some of the most consequential legal proceedings of the twentieth century, including the Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46 to counter arguments that prosecuting Nazi war crimes constituted retroactive legislation, the 1949 Corfu Channel case where Albania was held responsible for failing to warn shipping of mines in its territorial waters, and the 1986 ICJ ruling against the United States for mining Nicaraguan harbors and supporting the Contra insurgency. Mark & Jeremy from Thinking On Paper are now asking whether this 127-year-old principle could serve as what some are calling a "minimum viable architecture" for governing emerging technologies — particularly artificial intelligence, commercial space operations, and quantum computing — where the pace of innovation vastly outstrips the speed of regulation.  Jeremy argues that the clause's core logic — that something not being explicitly prohibited does not make it automatically permitted — could provide a much-needed ethical and legal floor beneath industries currently operating in regulatory grey zones, from AI training on copyrighted data to autonomous weapons systems and asteroid mining rights.  Mark counters that the clause has historically only been applied retroactively to clear moral atrocities, and that its deliberately vague language, while effective at building diplomatic consensus, lacks the specificity needed to adjudicate the morally ambiguous questions at the frontier of technology, such as algorithmic bias, AI decision-making opacity, and the concentration of technical power among a small number of corporations and nation-states. Please enjoy the show. -- 🎧 Listen to every podcast⁠ [https://www.thinkingonpaper.xyz/] 📺 Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/toptechpodcast/] 🏠 Follow us on ⁠X⁠ [https://x.com/thinkonpaperpod] 🏠 Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremygilbertson/] To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz [hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz] -- (00:00) The First Peace Conference: A Historical Perspective (07:37) The Martin's Clause: Implications for Modern Governance (10:05) Space Tech and the Outer Space Treaty (13:58) AI and the Need for Ethical Frameworks (17:21) Accountability in Technology Deployment (22:56) The Future of Humanity: Collaboration vs. Competition

AI Strategy For The Department Of War: Signed, Pete Hegseth

Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum to every senior official at the Pentagon directing the Department of War to become an AI-first warfighting force. Six weeks later America was at war with Iran and AI was identifying targets. The memo outlines seven pace-setting projects — Swarm Forge, Agent Network, Ender's Foundry, and four more — and contains one sentence that defines the entire document: "We must accept that the risks of not moving fast enough outweigh the risks of imperfect alignment." Mark & Jeremy get into what every section actually means, why Anthropic was designated a national security supply chain risk for refusing to remove two guardrails, and the question the memo never answers: should a machine ever be allowed to pull the trigger? -- 🎧 Listen to every podcast⁠ [https://www.thinkingonpaper.xyz/] 📺 Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/toptechpodcast/] 🏠 Follow us on ⁠X⁠ [https://x.com/thinkonpaperpod] 🏠 Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremygilbertson/] To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz [hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz] -- Chapters (00:00) Artificial Intelligence Strategy for the Department of War (00:58) Executive Order 14179: America's AI Military Dominance (01:59) China And AI Arms Race (04:36) Anthropic & Eliminating Bureaucratic Barriers (07:20) The 7 Pace Setting Projects (PSPs) In The Memo (08:28) 100% LLM Kill Chain Capability (10:22) Palmer Luckey (11:53) Intelligence & The AI Open Arsenal (13:57) The War Time Approach To Blockers (16:46) AI Talent Acquisition At The DOW (18:54) We must accept that the risks of not moving fast enough outweigh the risks of imperfect alignment

Iran Made a Lego War Video. The Whitehouse Was Not Amused

Iran posted an AI-generated LEGO propaganda video mocking Trump and Netanyahu. The White House fired back with Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty and a Wii Sports video of Iranian military sites being destroyed. A senior White House official told Politico they were "just grinding away on banger memes, dude."  A hundred million views later… - WATCH ON YOUTUBE - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R58dlaNaGIE&feature=youtu.be] This is the AI slop propaganda war, playing out in public - mostly on Twitter -  as the bombs drop, the drones fly and the smoke and mirrors of a confused story evolve. Operation Epic Fury has killed hundreds, triggered one of the largest oil and energy shocks in history, and will reshape the Middle East - and global politics - for decades to come. This is the meme war that accompanies it. We react to all of it. The Iran LEGO propaganda video. The White House GTA Iran meme. The deleted Call of Duty airstrike video. The Wii bowling Iran war clip.  Why did Iran use LEGO? Is this propaganda, or kids playing video game make believe? What does it mean when governments reach for children's toys and video game aesthetics to sell a real war to a generation raised on screens? The answer is uncomfortable. It is a desensitisation of death. It is a military hiring video dressed as a meme. This is part of our on-going AI and the War Machine Season. Please enjoy the show. -- 🎧 Listen to every podcast⁠ [https://www.thinkingonpaper.xyz/] 📺 Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/toptechpodcast/] 🏠 Follow us on ⁠X⁠ [https://x.com/thinkonpaperpod] 🏠 Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremygilbertson/] To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz [hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz] Timestamps (00:00) What Is Propaganda? (00:36) Iran Lego Propaganda Video (02:45) Reaction (06:55) Whitehouse GTA Iran War Video (09:07) Epic Fury - US Wii Sports Video (13:22) Call Of Duty Iran War Video

Orbital Gridlock: Is 70,000 Satellites the Point of No Return for Kessler Syndrome?

The Kessler Syndrome, first theorized by NASA scientist Donald Kessler in 1978, is no longer a distant hypothetical. When an active American communications satellite collided with a defunct Russian satellite on February 10th, 2009, at 22,300 miles per hour, it scattered more than 23,000 trackable debris objects and an estimated 100 million smaller fragments into low-Earth orbit (LEO).  Today, companies like Astroscale are racing to develop active debris removal (ADR) technology before orbital overcrowding triggers an irreversible chain-reaction of collisions.  The barrier to launching satellites has dropped dramatically — SpaceX alone has reduced launch costs by over 90% through reusable rocket technology — meaning China, Amazon, and countless private operators are flooding LEO with new constellations faster than any international regulatory body can respond. With Starlink already operating thousands of satellites and a license filed for up to one million objects, the orbital environment is approaching what scientists describe as a tipping point: roughly 70,000 objects in LEO is the threshold beyond which collision cascades become self-sustaining and unstoppable, regardless of whether new launches cease entirely. The space debris crisis is inseparable from a deeper question about market power, monopoly risk, and the long-term governance of the space economy. SpaceX's dominance in orbital launch, satellite internet, and crewed spaceflight has produced extraordinary short-term innovation — but former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine's warning that "a private monopoly that the government is dependent on" poses unique dangers is becoming harder to dismiss.  The US military's submarines, aircraft carriers, and intelligence infrastructure are increasingly reliant on SpaceX's Starlink connectivity and launch capabilities, raising urgent questions about what happens when a single private actor controls the physical infrastructure of a space-to-Earth economy worth trillions.  The tragedy of the commons — the economic principle whereby individuals exploit a shared resource in their own interest until it is destroyed — maps directly onto orbital space: every satellite operator externalizes the debris cost onto every other current and future user of LEO.  Without binding international coordination mechanisms, investment in debris remediation, and genuine competitive alternatives to SpaceX in the launch market, the space economy risks replicating — and amplifying — the worst failures of terrestrial economics in the most consequential new frontier humanity has ever opened. We're reading Space To Grow by Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau, this is Part 4.  Please enjoy the show -- 🎧 Listen to every podcast⁠ [https://www.thinkingonpaper.xyz/] 📺 Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠ [https://www.instagram.com/toptechpodcast/] 🏠 Follow us on ⁠X⁠ [https://x.com/thinkonpaperpod] 🏠 Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremygilbertson/] To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz [hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz] -- Timestamps (00:00) How 150,000 pieces of space junk ended up in orbit and why nobody cleaned them up (06:21) Kessler syndrome explained: the tipping point where collisions become unstoppable (10:57) Why the insurance market is not pricing orbital collision risk (13:50) Government intervention, the Moon Treaty and the five-year deorbit rule (20:26) Active debris removal: magnets, robots and who is building the solutions (22:37) Astroscale: how one company is trying to clean up space junk commercially (24:53) Who pays to clean up orbit when the market has no incentive to (26:26) Is SpaceX a monopoly and does that matter for the space industry (29:08) NASA Administrator: there is only one thing worse than a government monopoly (33:04) Space governance, coordination and whether the tragedy of the commons can be solved in orbit