mtf.tv | meet the future

I just got back from my first space launch at Vandenberg out in California. No, I wasn’t on the rocket. But, hey — one small step… Transporter-17 lifts off with City Labs’ BOHR onboard. Source: SpaceX This wasn’t just any launch. It was history. Little did I know that I witnessed the first ever — of all time… in global history — commercial space nuclear satellite launch into orbit. How’s that for the rocket’s red glare on America’s 250th?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of conflict — not necessarily in a hot war capacity, but in the sense of slowly boiling the frog. It’s a theme that’s developed across my reporting in recent months, most notably in my conversation with Gen. Gagnon of the U.S. Space Force and with recently retired Pentagon CIO Leslie Beavers, who told me that we are facing a sustained cyber-invasion.

CABEUS — hello future. it’s me, kev. This month, America turns 300 years young. I am writing from the U.S. Territory of Cabeus, near the Moon’s south pole, where Earth hangs above us like a blue porch light. Light and its absence built this place. Every day here is a negotiation between what burns and what endures.

Subscribe to HELLO FUTURE: iHeart | iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Pandora Fifty years ago this summer, America held its breath on Mars. On July 20, 1976, NASA’s Viking 1 became the first American spacecraft to land on Mars and keep working. It sat there in the red dust, alone on another world, with a small biology lab tucked inside its metal body.

I got rid of my television a few months ago. Not because I stopped caring about the news. The opposite. I cared enough to admit the return on the time I spent with the machine no longer seemed worth it. Television has become so reductive that the tabloid section in the checkout line at the grocery store reads like Thornton Wilder and Arthur Miller. For me, Willy Loman’s briefcase in 2026 might as well be a flat screen TV.

SPACE JAM: REDWIRE IS GROWING STRAWBERRIES IN ORBIT AND INVESTORS ARE LOVING IT. Redwire just landed a contract to run the world’s first commercial space greenhouse on the ISS — and the market responded with an 11%+ stock pop. They’re not just sending up another experiment. They’re trying to grow actual food in space. —> WHY STRAWBERRIES? They’re basically the perfect space crop. High in nutrients, relatively fast-growing, and tough enough to handle microgravity.

Subscribe to HELLO FUTURE: iHeart | iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Pandora I think it’s time the Pope got on Substack. The Church has always been filled with early tech adapters — even Moses had a tablet. Source: AI generated Moses on Substack. —> FLASHBACK TO BOSTON BACK IN 1906 — CHRISTMAS EVE. Reginald Fessenden — some big-wig tech guy back in the day — had an idea that the radio should be used for more than just military tech.

...terraforming the Red Planet within a thousand years can help us beat climate change on Earth today. hello, future. it’s me, kev. America’s politicians are excellent at short-term fights and terrible at long-term vision. Right now, most of our national energy goes into managing the present while the real generational work sits on the sidelines. I think we need something bigger and more honest than another five-year strategy or another headline rocket launch.

Plus, inside China's schools for robots. Subscribe to HELLO FUTURE: iHeart | iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Pandora Team — today’s newsletter features TWO news articles that I wrote on mtf.tv (soon to be expanded into mtf.news)…. Back to the future… NASA JUST UNVEILED ITS MOON BASE PLAN... AND IT’S STARTING THIS YEAR! NASA is moving fast to build America’s first real outpost on the Moon.

...and he still wants America to go to Mars (thankfully). Send me! NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. Source: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics at ASCEND hello, future. it’s me, kev. …and this is a dispatch from the ASCEND earlier this week in Washington D.C., where the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics convened the most interesting group of thinkers in the nation.