Sensing the Signal

Creating a sensor to test the atmosphere of Venus was just the start for Space AM, one of the UK's recently announced 'Defence Unicorns' in which the MOD is making unprecedented investment. Building technology for defence was not what Chris Isaac, CEO of SpaceAM, originally set out to do, yet the unique advanced technology he and his co-founder created in the commercial sector has proven to be of immediate interest to the military. On this episode of Sensing the Signal, we talk to Chris Isaac about the technology, the problems it is addressing, and the journey towards becoming a UK defence unicorn.
Outline
00:00 — Recap: the Defence Investment Plan and the SME problem
01:00 — A possible biomarker on Venus sparks a private mission race
02:33 — Sycamore seeds in the woods, and the birth of Space AM
05:46 — From art school and hypercars to a letter from the US
09:40 — Designing for sulphuric acid: coatings, sensors and every last gram
13:11 — Five years of Venus R&D turns out to be dual-use
17:03 — Fundable but unfunded: soldering irons, demos and dead ends
21:33 — Named a Defence Unicorn, and why the money moved so fast
25:40 — Eight-layer boards nobody in the UK can build
30:03 — Sovereign capability, medical spin-offs and ISO 27001 in six weeks
33:26 — The Formula One parallel: hard problems pay dividends elsewhere
37:50 — The hire he didn't see coming, and a very expensive fire door
41:12 — Sovereign AI: shrinking large models onto a grain of rice
43:36 — VCs, Series A, and the ambition to become a UK neoprime
45:24 — Host debrief: what this says about UK defence innovation

The UK's Defence Investment Plan (DIP) has finally arrived after a long delay, and not before prompting the Secretary of Defence to resign. As the Prime Minister soon followed, the revised plan has already had a significant, albeit unintended, impact on the UK before even being implemented. What does it tell us about the state of Defence in the UK? And will it deliver the capability improvements the UK requires if it's to modernise and keep up with NATO allies and partners?
In this episode, Terry Pattar and Chris Toase of Atreides discuss what they wanted to see in the DIP and whether it does enough to provide UK defence industry with the positive signals required to drive growth. 
Outline
00:00 – Intro: recorded before the Defence Investment Plan was published
00:51 – Setting the scene: SDR one year on, DIP delays, and the Defence Secretary's resignation
06:56 – Spending creatively: infrastructure, clusters, and closing the innovation "valley of death" for SMEs
12:38 – The nuclear deterrent debate and short-term vs long-term priorities
19:05 – Sub-threshold threats: disinformation, influence operations, and are we really in peacetime?
26:33 – Aid cuts, corruption, and why soft power matters for defence
30:00 – Drones, the risk of fighting yesterday's war, and building grassroots capability
35:22 – Final pre-publication thoughts: NATO integration and rethinking defence engagement
40:41 – Post-publication reaction: the numbers, shifted priorities, housing, and small-business procurement
01:04:46 – The politics of the resignation, what to watch next, and wrap-up
Previous Episodes Referenced
Ep. 24: How is Russia's war machine building an entire AI-driven drone ecosystem?
Ep. 23: What can Defence learn from F1?
Ep. 20: How can we defend against disinformation?
Ep. 17: What are the key trends in defence technology?
Ep. 16: What is the UK doing to prepare for the next war?

In 2026 wars and small conflicts seem endemic around the world and threats to international security appear to be increasing. Yet, there remains a lack of discussion on the role of climate change in driving conflict. With food security becoming an urgent priority around the globe, while melting glaciers reshape our geography, and the competition for natural resources heats up, there is an urgent need to better understand the climate crisis as an international security issue.
The first quarter of the twenty first century has already shown that drought is a leading indicator of conflict. What other threats can we anticipate by monitoring our rapidly deteriorating climate? We discuss this question and the topic of why climate change is our biggest security challenge with Arthur Snell, an expert on geopolitics and author of the book ‘Elemental: The New Geography of Climate Change and How We Survive It’. 
Episode Outline
01:24 — Arthur's background: Foreign Office postings in Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan, and how he came to write about climate and geopolitics
05:25 — The Sahel: the role of climate alongside other factors in regional instability
07:15 — Perceptions of climate change and why some politicians question it
13:23 — The challenge governments face in communicating the costs of climate policy and defence
16:40 — COP summits, the 1.5°C target, and what has and hasn't been achieved internationally
22:52 — Climate as a catalyst in conflict
26:34 — Different energy strategies
30:17 — Climate change as a national security consideration
32:31 — Ukraine: critical minerals and agricultural land as factors in the conflict
33:51 — The relationship between aid budgets, defence spending, and stability
36:40 — The global food system: supply chains, agricultural yields and trade dependencies
39:45 — Water: shared river basins, dam building and displacement from rising sea levels
44:10 — Developments in renewable energy costs and scale
50:47 — Consumer-led adoption of solar power in South Asia and Africa
53:49 — AI data centres and future energy demand
59:27 — Arthur's book and his podcast Behind the Lines
Resources and Links
Elemental: The New Geography of Climate Change and How We Survive It by Arthur Snell
Behind the Lines with Arthur Snell - https://www.playpodcast.net/podcast/behind-the-lines-with-arthur-snell/

Russia's military is rapidly overhauling its capabilities through the adoption of new technology, specifically by enhancing command and control functions, while also building an entire ecosystem for advanced drone development adopting military AI. This is giving Russia's military the ability to field test and iterate autonomous drones with the potential to take humans out of the loop for targeting.
We talked to a returning guest on the podcast, Kateryna Bondar, a Senior Fellow at the Wadwhani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington D.C. about her research into these developments in Russian military capability that are already having a direct impact on the battlefield in Ukraine. In this episode, Kateryna explains how Russia has pivoted it's approach to defence technology and industrial development, employing greater flexibility and incorporating more dual-use technology, while also driving the development of the human capital necessary to deploy a mass of drones.

Speed + technology + innovation + faster adaptation = high performance in engineering, all ultimately underpinned by intelligent decision making. These are all concepts we associate with Formula 1, but there is so much more that we perhaps don’t readily consider when we think of the top level of motorsport. For example, the terabytes of data that are generated by each car during a race and then processed and analysed by a team of engineers and data scientists to inform decisions around how to improve performance and gain an advantage over competitors who are all doing the same.
In this context, we talked to Mark Mathieson MBE, the founder of Purple Sector about his experience in F1 and more broadly in rapid delivery of engineering solutions on nationally significant projects such as the UK’s COVID Ventilator Challenge. The concept created by Purple Sector – Industrial Racecraft – has the potential to bring better connection and alignment into organisations, which is vital to improve the use of massive-scale data to speed up innovation and deliver intelligent decision advantage. 
And of course, we asked Mark for his thoughts on the new era of F1 that has launched in 2026 and what it tells us about technology and innovation, both within the sport and beyond.