Aerospace recently held the Space Transformation Summit, convening government leaders, commercial space companies, and defense officials all interested in working better together. As part of that event, a small group took part of the morning to participate in what's called a "riskgaming" exercise.

The game, a bit like a cross between wargaming and a tabletop game, was a simulation of commercial and government interests vying for funding, customers, and influence in the face of a revolution in AI capabilities.

While a detailed account of the game would spoil its surprises for anyone who may participate in future, the general setup involves casting IRL government officials as commercial CEOs in the game, and vice versa. This role reversal, combined with limited data, time pressure, and unexpected developments in the game world, produced what was by all accounts a pleasantly stressful situation and some insight into how the other side works.

The process was interesting enough that it attracted a writeup by space news outlet Payload, which spoke to some of the participants after the event.

"Just as in real government acquisitions, information is limited," Space Force Lt. Col Tim Trimailo told the outlet. "Time is limited. You don’t have every piece of information to make an informed decision. And you know, it made me very sympathetic to our industry partners—that their job is not easy."

The game was designed by Danny Crichton at Lux Capital, where he and the team have made several other riskgaming exercises, some of which you can download and run yourself here.