Igniting the Orbital Economy

Artificial intelligence may be built in software, but meeting its rapidly growing demand has become a physical infrastructure challenge. What if the fastest path to the next gigawatt of compute is not another data center on Earth, but one in orbit?
In this episode, Kelli Kedis Ogborn sits down with Joseph Yaffe, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal Officer of Cowboy Space, to examine the technical and economic case for orbital computing. They explore what low Earth orbit can offer that terrestrial sites cannot, as well as the operational and market conditions necessary to turn an ambitious concept into a sustainable business.
If orbital compute succeeds, its impact could extend far beyond AI. This new source of demand could help finance heavy-lift launch, in-space power, servicing and manufacturing, ground networks, and expanded spaceport capacity. Could AI’s growing need for compute become the long-awaited market force capable of pulling the broader space economy to scale?
 
 

Launch is no longer the bottleneck we thought it was—it's becoming a scaling problem. In this episode, Kelli Kedis Ogborn sits down with Adrian Mangiuca, Managing Partner at Rational Futures, to unpack the firm's new analysis of U.S. launch demand and the conditions that will either enable or constrain the next phase of growth. From vertically integrated constellations and the step-change implications of proposed space-based data centers, to evacuation zones, shared infrastructure, airspace modernization, and the unproven economics of non-traditional launch sites, this discussion examines what actually drives (or limits) scale. The result is a clearer picture of how launch is evolving from a technical challenge into a coordination, capital, and infrastructure challenge, and what that means for the future of the space economy.