Seven, six, five, four-stage engine start.

Three, two, one, and lift off.

We close with good night, good luck, and God bless all of you on the good earth.

Welcome to Next Giant Leap, a podcast from GZero's Blue Circle Studio and produced in partnership with MDA Space.

I'm Mike Massimino, Columbia Engineering Professor and former NASA astronaut.

And I'm Mike Greenlee, CEO of MDA Space, a global leader in communication satellites, Earth and Space Observation, and Space Exploration and Infrastructure.

In 1957, the Soviet Union accomplished a technological first.

They launched a shining silver sphere called Sputnik 1 into Earth's orbit.

Sputnik's success jolted the world into a new era of

geopolitical rivalry as Russia and the United States competed for dominance over the sky.

This became known as the space race. Nearly seven decades later, space technology is almost

unrecognizable.

Thousands of satellites have been launched into orbit.

Six different rovers have traversed the surface of Mars, and the revolutionary James Webb

Space Telescope has expanded our understanding of the universe by leaps and bounds.

As our knowledge and abilities continue to expand,

space is once again on the forefront of geopolitics.

Who will be the first to have citizens live on the moon?

Who will be the first to plant their flag on Mars?

And how will those advantages translate into power here on Earth?

Today, we're diving into why space is so critical to national security, how global powers like

the U.S. and China are shaping the modern space race, and why this is one of the driving

...