Yuk Chi Chan — On Rockets, Dog Years & Robotic Space-Snakes (EP.238)

Infinite Loops

My guest today is the human Swiss Army Knife, Yuk Chi Chan, who has packed more into the last decade than many people do in a lifetime.

Yuk Chi is the founder of Charter Space, the first British space company to graduate from the Techstars Space Accelerator. Before that, he served as an officer in the Singapore army (hmm, so maybe I should have described him as a Singaporean Army Knife) and practiced as a space lawyer (it’s funny how much cooler being a lawyer becomes when you preface it with the word “space”).

Suffice to say, Yuk Chi knows a lot about space. We had a blast discussing how ‘ownership’ of territory really works, why the sector impacts our daily lives FAR more than we think, and the mind-boggling mission of an intrepid robotic space snake.

I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. For the full transcript, episode takeaways, and bucketloads of other goodies designed to make you go, “Hmm, that’s interesting!”, check out our Substack.

Important Links:

• LinkedIn
• Substack
• Twitter
• Charter Website
• Charter Twitter

Show Notes:

• Yuk Chi Chan: The human Swiss Army Knife
• The strangely antiquated tools of the space industry
• Military training, problem-solving, and reframing the challenge
• The single most important trait in a co-founder
• Unlearning, cyclical culture, and robotic space snakes
• The labyrinthine world of space insurance
• Who owns space?
• The angry man on Yuk Chi’s shoulder
• Why Yuk Chi measures his life in dog years
• Space insurance as Zeno’s Paradox
• Why the space industry is WAY more ubiquitous than you think
• Yuk Chi as emperor of the world
• MORE!

Books Mentioned:

• Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said; by Philip K. Dick
• Ubik; by Philip K. Dick