00:00SpaceX's blockbuster debut shining a spotlight on the growing space economy or at least hopes of that.
00:06But building a presence in space requires more than rockets.
00:10Redwire is developing the critical infrastructure and technologies needed to operate beyond Earth from lunar systems to national security applications.
00:19CEO Peter Canedo joins us now.
00:21And Peter, before we get up in the or beyond the atmosphere, let's talk about what you do here on
00:28Earth.
00:28How much infrastructure or what kind of infrastructure are you providing to to rocket launch companies and explain the business
00:36growth that you've seen to us?
00:39Yeah, well, great to be here. Thanks for having me.
00:43We provide space infrastructure across the entire space ecosystem.
00:51Our core five value drivers are next generation spacecraft, large space infrastructure like solar arrays.
01:00We do microgravity development where we are doing pharmaceutical crystal development and organ 3D printing in space,
01:11as well as we have an entire segment of our business dedicated to defense tech, particularly uncrewed airborne systems or
01:20what people call drones and a variety of sensors and payloads, too.
01:24It's the stuff of sci-fi organs to strawberries.
01:27I know you're looking to harvest in space, too.
01:30And Peter, I think, you know, much like SpaceX, Redwire 2, it's this business where you have these really, really
01:34high flying ambitions.
01:36And often it's difficult for people to kind of try to wrap their head around value.
01:40I know just in the month of May alone and probably tied to some of the SpaceX hype, your shares
01:45rallied by something like 167 percent.
01:48We had Sheila Kayalu of Jeffries on earlier who covers your company and had downgraded you just because that big
01:53rally.
01:54A rally like that, is that a good thing for the company or does it make you kind of nervous
01:59when there's volatility, despite, you know, whether it's upside or downside?
02:02We should say shares have fallen about about 30 percent so far this month.
02:07Yeah, well, rallies are good for shareholders, obviously, and they're good for the stock.
02:12I think the SpaceX IPO has really shined a light on the fact that space is no longer a niche
02:20market.
02:20This is critical infrastructure that's really important to the entire global economy.
02:27I mean, when you look at things like GPS or global communications, this is all coming from space.
02:33So I think SpaceX has really brought to light the value that is being created in space that maybe the
02:42general public or the average investor didn't know about.
02:46So we see that value is starting to unlock as people become more educated on how important space is to
02:54the global economy.
02:56And for us, it's been really good.
02:58It's been an opportunity to raise capital, which in addition to SpaceX, most space companies are doing right now.
03:07And so being able to raise capital at a good valuation, I think, keeps the value creation momentum going.
03:16How I mean, I just need to wrap my head around putting a giant data center in space.
03:22And you're the perfect guest to explain how that works, because when I look at a gigawatt of compute on
03:27Earth, they need 500 acres of land.
03:32Right. And satellites aren't very big, even the large ones.
03:37So how does this all work, Peter?
03:40Yeah. So I think we're really in the early days of just figuring that out.
03:45But we have put very large infrastructure in space to include the International Space Station.
03:52Redwire currently has provided the large rollout solar arrays that are currently powering the space station.
04:01So the ability to deploy very large solar arrays that can generate power in space is proven.
04:10So when you start looking at compute power and Moore's Law and what NVIDIA and other great companies are doing
04:18in terms of making more compute power smaller,
04:22I don't think this is happening tomorrow, but you can see that there's a viable pathway over time as the
04:31space infrastructure grows
04:32and compute continues to shrink, that you could supplement terrestrial compute with data centers.
04:40Now, I don't think we're going to absolutely replace every data center on the planet,
04:45but there will be opportunities to expand total compute in space.
04:49Hey, Peter, just one other question when you were talking about, you know, the ability to raise capital.
04:54I was speaking with Alexis Ohanian. I'm a 767 co-founder of Reddit, now has a lot of space investments
05:01himself.
05:01And he was like, this is great because SpaceX is going to create, yes, paper at the moment,
05:05but a lot of paper millionaires who are super interested in space and might move on to invest in other
05:10space-related investments.
05:12Are you seeing a similar atmosphere kind of being created?
05:15Do you think just like the pure wealth that the SpaceX IPO has created is good news for Redwire?
05:22Yeah, 100 percent, right?
05:24Like I said, people are realizing that space is a new emerging technology that is creating a lot of value,
05:33whether you talk about longer-term value, such as data centers in space or the ability to put full manufacturing
05:42capabilities in space,
05:43where you can build things that you can't build on Earth because of the unique aspects of manufacturing in microgravity.
05:50There's also a lot of near-term stuff going on right now for space as well,
05:54whether you're talking about commercially advanced communications and the incredible things that large constellations like Starlink and others are producing,
06:05or just space from a national security perspective, where space has now become a critical national security asset.
06:14And in some cases, people have said space is an emerging warfighter domain where assets need to be defended.
06:22So there's a lot of both government, national security money going into space right now as well as commercial money
06:29going into space,
06:30and that's creating a lot of value.
06:32And the people who have money that they've made, returns that they've made on the SpaceX investments,
06:41I think recognize that and will continue to invest.
06:44Peter, just as a CEO, I wonder how you deal with the volatility because you've had some insane months.
06:51In May, your stock was up 200%, like an annualized 1,000%.
06:58And then over the last couple of weeks, it's lost 43% of its value.
07:03Now, you're still obviously up on the year and you're still doing well, but the peaks and troughs are far
07:08apart.
07:09How do you deal with that as an operator?
07:12Yeah, well, Redwire is really focused on the long term, and that's the kind of investors we want as well,
07:19is we want people who see the long-term value of space.
07:23And so the ups and downs within a quarter or even within a year, I think the idea is that
07:34we are looking to create shareholder value over time.
07:39So from an execution perspective, we have a really good strategy and we have a really good plan,
07:46and we continue to execute that every day, regardless of the volatility associated with either space stocks or the macro
07:57economy at large.
07:59It's clear it's a ride that you have a front row seat of and looking forward to following along.
08:04Peter, thank you so much.
08:05By the way, what's your timeline for getting strawberries in space?
08:07When do you think that'll happen?
08:09Is that like yours?
08:10It's close.
08:11It's close.
08:11Close.
08:12We've already grown all things in space, so we're on the way.
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