in orbit

Welcome to The Seren Poetry Podcast, a series of conversations and readings with Seren poets.

In this episode we speak to North Wales-based poet Glyn Edwards about his collection, ‘In Orbit’ which is a sustained narrative of love, loss and longing. Using a variety of innovative forms, the collection explores grief and how we come to terms with losing someone close to us. The natural world offers sustenance and a new perspective in the face of intense emotions as a man struggles to come to terms with news of a beloved teacher’s death.   

Glyn Edwards is a PhD researcher in ecopoetry at Bangor University. His first poetry collection ’Vertebrae’ was published by the Lonely Press. He co-edits Modron, a journal for environmental writing, and the Wild Words feature for North Wales Wildlife Trust. He is a former winner and trustee of the Terry Hetherington Award for Welsh young writers and works as a teacher in North Wales.

‘In Orbit’ is available in bookshops nationwide or from the Seren website https://www.serenbooks.com/book/in-orbit/ 

The podcast is presented by Rhian Edwards  

The interviewer is Sarah Johnson  

The interview recordings are by Sarah Johnson.

Production, sound design and editing are by Chris Gregory of Alternative Stories 

You can find out more about Glyn Edwards by visiting his website https://www.glynedwardspoet.co.uk or following him on social media @glynfedwards

Other books by Glyn Edwards:

‘Vertebrae’ (The Lonely Crowd) https://thelonelycrowd.org/vertebrae-by-glyn-edwards/ 

Find out more about Seren and purchase books featured in this podcast by visiting the Seren website here https://www.serenbooks.com/ 

Follow Seren on social media  

Twitter https://twitter.com/SerenBooks 

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/serenbooks/ 

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/SerenBooks 

Contact them by email at seren@serenbooks.com 

This podcast is produced by Alternative Stories, a spoken word production company specialising in literary podcasts and radio programmes. To find out more about Alternative Stories, follow or hire them please follow the links below  
 https://alternativestories.com/

Contact them by email at office@alterantivestories.com  

Please join us next week for a conversation with poet Judy Brown about her collection ‘Lairs’. Subscribe in your favourite podcast app to have all future editions delivered to your podcast feed the moment they are released.  

In today’s episode, we welcome on Joel Spark, cofounder and chief satellite architect at Spire. The “space-to-cloud” data and analytics provider flys a proprietary constellation of 100+ nanosatellites to collect and analyze data from Earth. The data spans weather forecasting, maritime domain awareness, aviation, and more. Spire is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and currently has a market cap of ~$150M. 

Today’s episode is brought to you by Kepler Communications, a company bringing the internet to space. 

A sneak peek 

The back half of our conversation focuses on Spire’s “Space Services” play, and the concept of space-as-a-service. Before that, though, we explore Joel’s journey into the industry and how he was “spacepilled,” and unpack the mind-blowing fact that Spire began as a KickStarter crowdfunding campaign. 

Here’s what else you can expect in Pathfinder #0037: 

• The 80/20 principle of building complex hardware systems
• The primacy of vertical integration and agile development
• Spire’s Scottish roots and nanosat factory in Glasgow, Scotland
• AIS, ADS-B, and identifying planes and ships at scale
• Why pulling analytics and insights from that data is often more important than the data itself: “Where is the ship going?” “Is the plane flying off course?”)
• Applying the tech platform analogy to Spire Space Services
• Our Max Q questions: What happens if a customer goes belly up? How big is the market, really, for hosted payloads?

…there’s a whole lot more where that came from! After tuning in Pathfinder #0037, we’re confident you’ll come away with a comprehensive understanding of technical tailwinds, operational ethos, and management philosophy that drive Spire. 

• Chapters •

00:01—Intro

01:32—Sponsor

02:09—Guest Intro

03:43—How Joel was spacepilled…

05:07—Spire's origins as a Kickstarter campaign 

09:19—Reliability, uptime, and the 80/20 principle of being 

12:04—How many satellites does Spire currently operate in space today?

16:56—Agile development, vertical integration, operational tempo, and company culture

18:55—AIS and ADS-B definitions 

21:25—Can global identification of planes and ships only be done at scale from space? 

23:33—Ukraine airspace closing + visuals of airspace data

24:11—Are services like that Elon Jet tracker using Spire data? 

26:56—Kepler Ad Break

27:45—Spire as a “space to cloud” analytics provider

30:25—How does Earth intelligence fit into all of this?

33:01—The business model of “space as a service”

37:10—Conceptualizing Spire as a tech platform

40:32—What are your customers doing in space?

43:48—Customers looking to launch constellations

46:11—What happens if a Space Services customer goes belly up? 

47:10—Do you and the team pay attention to your stock prices every day or phase it out?

49:37—What’s the TAM of people, theoretically, of people trying to fly payloads on satellites? 

52:42—Anything else before lightning round?

54:07—Rapid fire questions + close of show 

• Show notes •

Spire — https://spire.com/

Spire Twitter — https://twitter.com/spireglobal

Recent earnings — https://payloadspace.com/spire-q4-2022/

Space Services — https://payloadspace.com/spire-q4-2022/

ADS-B data in leadup to Russia's invasion of Ukraine — https://payloadspace.com/six-months-ukraine-war/

Ryan's socials — https://twitter.com/Ryandoofy / https://www.linkedin.com/in/rfduffy/

Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace

Pathfinder archive — Watch: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_uY3GaNf67hP-i6TRWF2n06xMv1kdkZ6

Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/episodes