Episode 2 takes a deep dive on how artificial intelligence is escalating the usefulness of information and how, when viewed through a new lens, once underestimated and underappreciated datasets may yield illuminating findings they were never intended to uncover.  

Featured guests are Jackie Barbieri, Founder and CEO of Whitespace, and Dr. Steve Lewis, leader of Aerospace’s SPEAR team and a formative mind behind the concept of massless payloads, which essentially are software upgrades to existing space systems that let them perform new functions and yield new insights.  

They explore how human-machine teaming, agentic AI and underused data sources are accelerating decision-making in the space domain to empower analysts, operators, and acquirers to act in real-time with greater precision—and users are open to adapting.

“I really can’t say enough about how receptive the space community has been to new, unknown efforts, capabilities, solutions and the pursuit of that,” Barbieri said, noting Whitespace’s experience supporting the Space Force’s Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Tracking program. “It’s yielded some incredible breakthroughs, in particular direct support to operational end users at a pace and of a quality that most people just assumed wasn’t possible before they tried.”

Lewis agreed from his experience supporting U.S. Space Command’s Joint Commercial Operations Cell. “The environment is complex already. It’s getting more complex,” he said, noting that datasets and data providers will evolve over time. “There’s probably going to be nuances, and we’ve got to be ready for those nuances with software that can adapt to it. I think the community is open to finding some creative, resourceful, rigorous solutions to try to solve those complex problems with the amount of data that we’re dealing with.