sourcery (@sourceryy)
@sourceryy
Investing + Tech. Open Sourced. → Newsletter/Podcast | @mollysoshea
163 正在关注 16.1K 粉丝
SpaceX's 1st employee Tom Mueller (@lrocket) on Starlink & SpaceX's "hockey stick" growth:
"All the naysayers said, 'There's no way they'll be profitable. They're going to crash.'"
"We're looking at it the other way saying, 'This will hockey stick the stock.'"
"Which it did."
显示更多
BREAKING: Inside Impulse Space with Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX's 1st Employee)
FULL TOUR
The famous engineer behind the Merlin engine, now Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space (@GoToImpulse)
ICYMI: Merlin still powers Falcon 9 today, the most reliable rocket engine ever flown & the highest thrust-to-weight ever developed. It's the workhorse behind nearly every SpaceX mission: Starlink launches, Dragon crew & cargo flights to the ISS, & booster landings
Tom walks us through the factory floor, from the avionics clean room to a live rocket engine firing in the vacuum chamber
Impulse is building the in-space mobility layer: the vehicles & engines that move spacecraft after launch, from LEO to GEO, the Moon, infinity & beyond
We cover:
→ Mira: precision maneuvering spacecraft & its saiph thrusters (8 thrusters, ~50 lbs thrust, 5-yr orbit life)
→ Helios: long haul same-day delivery vehicle (12 tons of LOX/methane, LEO to GEO)
→ Deneb Engine: 15,000 lbs thrust engine that powers Helios, ox-rich staged combustion, carbon skirt running over 3,000°F
→ Why 3D printing is "almost a cheat code" for rocket engines
→ In-house composite tanks, Novaloy, & copper liners machined from 700 lbs down to 25
→ 3 spacecraft in orbit + a 1,200-meter rendezvous
→ Starlink, iterating Merlin & Raptor, & working with @elonmusk
→ Nuclear propulsion, the Moon, & why compute needs to move to space
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Tom Mueller, Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space
(00:49) Inside Impulse Space
(02:32) Avionics Bay floor
(02:59) Building rockets at home
(03:50) Mira and Helios
(08:00) Why Tom left SpaceX
(09:33) The Deneb Engine walkthrough
(11:42) Testing in Mojave
(12:23) Favorite part of the Engine
(13:30) How it's 3D Printed
(14:21) Why 3D Printing changes everything
(16:54) Finding Talent for COPVs
(17:28) No Modern hardware without software
(19:52) The Mill Turn explained
(22:42) Payload Deck Design
(25:28) Entering the Secret Area
(30:48) Thrust, Flow Rate, & 100 Sensors
(32:13) Collision avoidance in Orbit
(32:57) The Electric Propulsion Chamber
(34:28) Nuclear Electric is the future
(38:49) Data Centers in Space
(40:28) SpaceX & Starlink's Growth
(41:10) Working with Elon
(42:07) If not CEO, then what?
(42:32) Moon matters more than Mars
显示更多
.@elonmusk was not the first employee at SpaceX.
According to @_Eric_Romo, employee 001 (at least officially in the payroll system) was @lrocket:
"[Elon] found Tom, and I think that was really the impetus for saying, 'Okay, I actually think I can make a company around this.'"
" The engines are the thing that fail. They're the thing that's the hardest to build. They're the thing that is always the critical path in the schedule."
"Without Tom, I don't think that company goes in the first days."
显示更多
Tom Mueller was SpaceX’s first employee and built the rocket engines that helped make Elon Musk’s space empire possible.
Now, the billionaire engineer has a new bet: Impulse Space, a startup racing to build the fast lane for satellites, cargo and eventually people after launch.
My latest feature story in @Forbes takes a look under the hood of Mueller's grand ambitions in the emerging space economy.
显示更多
Data centers in space are a "no brainer."
SpaceX's 1st employee Tom Mueller @lrocket on @elonmusk's plan to move compute into space:
"It makes the most sense of anything to move to space. All you need as an input is power, and all you have as an output is data."
"You move it to space, you have all the power you would ever need, and you transmit that data back down on a terabit laser beam—it's solved. It's just so simple."
显示更多
BREAKING: Inside Impulse Space with Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX's 1st Employee)
FULL TOUR
The famous engineer behind the Merlin engine, now Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space (@GoToImpulse)
ICYMI: Merlin still powers Falcon 9 today, the most reliable rocket engine ever flown & the highest thrust-to-weight ever developed. It's the workhorse behind nearly every SpaceX mission: Starlink launches, Dragon crew & cargo flights to the ISS, & booster landings
Tom walks us through the factory floor, from the avionics clean room to a live rocket engine firing in the vacuum chamber
Impulse is building the in-space mobility layer: the vehicles & engines that move spacecraft after launch, from LEO to GEO, the Moon, infinity & beyond
We cover:
→ Mira: precision maneuvering spacecraft & its saiph thrusters (8 thrusters, ~50 lbs thrust, 5-yr orbit life)
→ Helios: long haul same-day delivery vehicle (12 tons of LOX/methane, LEO to GEO)
→ Deneb Engine: 15,000 lbs thrust engine that powers Helios, ox-rich staged combustion, carbon skirt running over 3,000°F
→ Why 3D printing is "almost a cheat code" for rocket engines
→ In-house composite tanks, Novaloy, & copper liners machined from 700 lbs down to 25
→ 3 spacecraft in orbit + a 1,200-meter rendezvous
→ Starlink, iterating Merlin & Raptor, & working with @elonmusk
→ Nuclear propulsion, the Moon, & why compute needs to move to space
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Tom Mueller, Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space
(00:49) Inside Impulse Space
(02:32) Avionics Bay floor
(02:59) Building rockets at home
(03:50) Mira and Helios
(08:00) Why Tom left SpaceX
(09:33) The Deneb Engine walkthrough
(11:42) Testing in Mojave
(12:23) Favorite part of the Engine
(13:30) How it's 3D Printed
(14:21) Why 3D Printing changes everything
(16:54) Finding Talent for COPVs
(17:28) No Modern hardware without software
(19:52) The Mill Turn explained
(22:42) Payload Deck Design
(25:28) Entering the Secret Area
(30:48) Thrust, Flow Rate, & 100 Sensors
(32:13) Collision avoidance in Orbit
(32:57) The Electric Propulsion Chamber
(34:28) Nuclear Electric is the future
(38:49) Data Centers in Space
(40:28) SpaceX & Starlink's Growth
(41:10) Working with Elon
(42:07) If not CEO, then what?
(42:32) Moon matters more than Mars
显示更多
SpaceX's 1st employee and CEO & CTO of @GoToImpulse Tom Mueller @lrocket on the best way to learn how to design products for space:
"Make one. Blow it up. Find out how you did. Then design from there."
显示更多
BREAKING: Inside Impulse Space with Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX's 1st Employee)
FULL TOUR
The famous engineer behind the Merlin engine, now Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space (@GoToImpulse)
ICYMI: Merlin still powers Falcon 9 today, the most reliable rocket engine ever flown & the highest thrust-to-weight ever developed. It's the workhorse behind nearly every SpaceX mission: Starlink launches, Dragon crew & cargo flights to the ISS, & booster landings
Tom walks us through the factory floor, from the avionics clean room to a live rocket engine firing in the vacuum chamber
Impulse is building the in-space mobility layer: the vehicles & engines that move spacecraft after launch, from LEO to GEO, the Moon, infinity & beyond
We cover:
→ Mira: precision maneuvering spacecraft & its saiph thrusters (8 thrusters, ~50 lbs thrust, 5-yr orbit life)
→ Helios: long haul same-day delivery vehicle (12 tons of LOX/methane, LEO to GEO)
→ Deneb Engine: 15,000 lbs thrust engine that powers Helios, ox-rich staged combustion, carbon skirt running over 3,000°F
→ Why 3D printing is "almost a cheat code" for rocket engines
→ In-house composite tanks, Novaloy, & copper liners machined from 700 lbs down to 25
→ 3 spacecraft in orbit + a 1,200-meter rendezvous
→ Starlink, iterating Merlin & Raptor, & working with @elonmusk
→ Nuclear propulsion, the Moon, & why compute needs to move to space
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Tom Mueller, Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space
(00:49) Inside Impulse Space
(02:32) Avionics Bay floor
(02:59) Building rockets at home
(03:50) Mira and Helios
(08:00) Why Tom left SpaceX
(09:33) The Deneb Engine walkthrough
(11:42) Testing in Mojave
(12:23) Favorite part of the Engine
(13:30) How it's 3D Printed
(14:21) Why 3D Printing changes everything
(16:54) Finding Talent for COPVs
(17:28) No Modern hardware without software
(19:52) The Mill Turn explained
(22:42) Payload Deck Design
(25:28) Entering the Secret Area
(30:48) Thrust, Flow Rate, & 100 Sensors
(32:13) Collision avoidance in Orbit
(32:57) The Electric Propulsion Chamber
(34:28) Nuclear Electric is the future
(38:49) Data Centers in Space
(40:28) SpaceX & Starlink's Growth
(41:10) Working with Elon
(42:07) If not CEO, then what?
(42:32) Moon matters more than Mars
显示更多
CEO & CTO of @GoToImpulse Tom Mueller @lrocket says the "future of propulsion is nuclear electrics":
"Nuclear electric propulsion is going to be important for going out to the outer planets."
"If you're staying near Earth or even between Earth and Mars, probably solar electric is going to outperform it on cost and performance because solar is now getting very light in space."
"Especially if @elonmusk starts doing these data servers in space—they're going to really optimize the solar panels to be really light."
"I think it's pretty far in the future, maybe a few decades away before we're really doing big nuclear stages."
"But that is the next step."
显示更多
BREAKING: Inside Impulse Space with Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX's 1st Employee)
FULL TOUR
The famous engineer behind the Merlin engine, now Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space (@GoToImpulse)
ICYMI: Merlin still powers Falcon 9 today, the most reliable rocket engine ever flown & the highest thrust-to-weight ever developed. It's the workhorse behind nearly every SpaceX mission: Starlink launches, Dragon crew & cargo flights to the ISS, & booster landings
Tom walks us through the factory floor, from the avionics clean room to a live rocket engine firing in the vacuum chamber
Impulse is building the in-space mobility layer: the vehicles & engines that move spacecraft after launch, from LEO to GEO, the Moon, infinity & beyond
We cover:
→ Mira: precision maneuvering spacecraft & its saiph thrusters (8 thrusters, ~50 lbs thrust, 5-yr orbit life)
→ Helios: long haul same-day delivery vehicle (12 tons of LOX/methane, LEO to GEO)
→ Deneb Engine: 15,000 lbs thrust engine that powers Helios, ox-rich staged combustion, carbon skirt running over 3,000°F
→ Why 3D printing is "almost a cheat code" for rocket engines
→ In-house composite tanks, Novaloy, & copper liners machined from 700 lbs down to 25
→ 3 spacecraft in orbit + a 1,200-meter rendezvous
→ Starlink, iterating Merlin & Raptor, & working with @elonmusk
→ Nuclear propulsion, the Moon, & why compute needs to move to space
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Tom Mueller, Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space
(00:49) Inside Impulse Space
(02:32) Avionics Bay floor
(02:59) Building rockets at home
(03:50) Mira and Helios
(08:00) Why Tom left SpaceX
(09:33) The Deneb Engine walkthrough
(11:42) Testing in Mojave
(12:23) Favorite part of the Engine
(13:30) How it's 3D Printed
(14:21) Why 3D Printing changes everything
(16:54) Finding Talent for COPVs
(17:28) No Modern hardware without software
(19:52) The Mill Turn explained
(22:42) Payload Deck Design
(25:28) Entering the Secret Area
(30:48) Thrust, Flow Rate, & 100 Sensors
(32:13) Collision avoidance in Orbit
(32:57) The Electric Propulsion Chamber
(34:28) Nuclear Electric is the future
(38:49) Data Centers in Space
(40:28) SpaceX & Starlink's Growth
(41:10) Working with Elon
(42:07) If not CEO, then what?
(42:32) Moon matters more than Mars
显示更多
SpaceX's 1st employee Tom Mueller @lrocket on what makes @elonmusk so successful:
"He just energizes you. He's got this infectious enthusiasm and gets you hyped up to go do crazy stuff."
"It's all about urgency and getting it done. He really gets the best out of everybody."
"He's also really good at finding and recruiting talent. The key to success is having a great team."
" That's why that company is so incredible."
"Elon's great to work with."
显示更多
BREAKING: Inside Impulse Space with Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX's 1st Employee)
FULL TOUR
The famous engineer behind the Merlin engine, now Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space (@GoToImpulse)
ICYMI: Merlin still powers Falcon 9 today, the most reliable rocket engine ever flown & the highest thrust-to-weight ever developed. It's the workhorse behind nearly every SpaceX mission: Starlink launches, Dragon crew & cargo flights to the ISS, & booster landings
Tom walks us through the factory floor, from the avionics clean room to a live rocket engine firing in the vacuum chamber
Impulse is building the in-space mobility layer: the vehicles & engines that move spacecraft after launch, from LEO to GEO, the Moon, infinity & beyond
We cover:
→ Mira: precision maneuvering spacecraft & its saiph thrusters (8 thrusters, ~50 lbs thrust, 5-yr orbit life)
→ Helios: long haul same-day delivery vehicle (12 tons of LOX/methane, LEO to GEO)
→ Deneb Engine: 15,000 lbs thrust engine that powers Helios, ox-rich staged combustion, carbon skirt running over 3,000°F
→ Why 3D printing is "almost a cheat code" for rocket engines
→ In-house composite tanks, Novaloy, & copper liners machined from 700 lbs down to 25
→ 3 spacecraft in orbit + a 1,200-meter rendezvous
→ Starlink, iterating Merlin & Raptor, & working with @elonmusk
→ Nuclear propulsion, the Moon, & why compute needs to move to space
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Tom Mueller, Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space
(00:49) Inside Impulse Space
(02:32) Avionics Bay floor
(02:59) Building rockets at home
(03:50) Mira and Helios
(08:00) Why Tom left SpaceX
(09:33) The Deneb Engine walkthrough
(11:42) Testing in Mojave
(12:23) Favorite part of the Engine
(13:30) How it's 3D Printed
(14:21) Why 3D Printing changes everything
(16:54) Finding Talent for COPVs
(17:28) No Modern hardware without software
(19:52) The Mill Turn explained
(22:42) Payload Deck Design
(25:28) Entering the Secret Area
(30:48) Thrust, Flow Rate, & 100 Sensors
(32:13) Collision avoidance in Orbit
(32:57) The Electric Propulsion Chamber
(34:28) Nuclear Electric is the future
(38:49) Data Centers in Space
(40:28) SpaceX & Starlink's Growth
(41:10) Working with Elon
(42:07) If not CEO, then what?
(42:32) Moon matters more than Mars
显示更多
SpaceX's 1st employee Tom Mueller @lrocket on the chart showing Raptor's design progress:
"It was amazing."
"It took 3 versions of Merlin to get it to be really tight, and it took 3 versions also of Raptor."
"It takes 3 iterations to get to a really, really tight product."
显示更多
SpaceX's first employee Tom Mueller @lrocket says he first met @elonmusk by making amateur rockets in his garage:
" I've done a few things in my garage."
BREAKING: Inside Impulse Space with Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX's 1st Employee)
FULL TOUR
The famous engineer behind the Merlin engine, now Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space (@GoToImpulse)
ICYMI: Merlin still powers Falcon 9 today, the most reliable rocket engine ever flown & the highest thrust-to-weight ever developed. It's the workhorse behind nearly every SpaceX mission: Starlink launches, Dragon crew & cargo flights to the ISS, & booster landings
Tom walks us through the factory floor, from the avionics clean room to a live rocket engine firing in the vacuum chamber
Impulse is building the in-space mobility layer: the vehicles & engines that move spacecraft after launch, from LEO to GEO, the Moon, infinity & beyond
We cover:
→ Mira: precision maneuvering spacecraft & its saiph thrusters (8 thrusters, ~50 lbs thrust, 5-yr orbit life)
→ Helios: long haul same-day delivery vehicle (12 tons of LOX/methane, LEO to GEO)
→ Deneb Engine: 15,000 lbs thrust engine that powers Helios, ox-rich staged combustion, carbon skirt running over 3,000°F
→ Why 3D printing is "almost a cheat code" for rocket engines
→ In-house composite tanks, Novaloy, & copper liners machined from 700 lbs down to 25
→ 3 spacecraft in orbit + a 1,200-meter rendezvous
→ Starlink, iterating Merlin & Raptor, & working with @elonmusk
→ Nuclear propulsion, the Moon, & why compute needs to move to space
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Tom Mueller, Founder, CEO & CTO of Impulse Space
(00:49) Inside Impulse Space
(02:32) Avionics Bay floor
(02:59) Building rockets at home
(03:50) Mira and Helios
(08:00) Why Tom left SpaceX
(09:33) The Deneb Engine walkthrough
(11:42) Testing in Mojave
(12:23) Favorite part of the Engine
(13:30) How it's 3D Printed
(14:21) Why 3D Printing changes everything
(16:54) Finding Talent for COPVs
(17:28) No Modern hardware without software
(19:52) The Mill Turn explained
(22:42) Payload Deck Design
(25:28) Entering the Secret Area
(30:48) Thrust, Flow Rate, & 100 Sensors
(32:13) Collision avoidance in Orbit
(32:57) The Electric Propulsion Chamber
(34:28) Nuclear Electric is the future
(38:49) Data Centers in Space
(40:28) SpaceX & Starlink's Growth
(41:10) Working with Elon
(42:07) If not CEO, then what?
(42:32) Moon matters more than Mars
显示更多
SpaceX employee #13# @_Eric_Romo on why we don't see many Falcon Heavy launches:
"Falcon Heavy is extremely expensive, in part because it's three Falcon 9s strapped together."
"SpaceX has been clear they would prefer not to fly that vehicle."
"And it makes sense—every time they fly one of those, they have to shut down the pad for longer than they would for a Falcon 9."
"So when you look at how much time it takes to launch one Falcon Heavy and how many Falcon 9s they could have launched during that time, it's actually economically better for them to launch Falcon 9s."
" They have to launch Falcon Heavies because they've got big contracts with Space Force. Our government really needs it. NASA really needs it. But in the commercial market, those launches don't happen very often."
显示更多
BREAKING: Impulse Space Raises $500M Series D
Reaching $1+ Billion in Total Funding to Build In-Space Mobility Infrastructure
aka "Move Things in Space"
Full interview w/ President & COO Eric Romo (@_Eric_Romo) (SpaceX Employee #13#)
Founder & CEO Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX Employee #1#):
"We're building more than spacecraft: we're building the economic & technical engine that will power humanity's expansion into space. From Earth orbit to the Moon & beyond, the ability to move quickly, precisely, & affordably on orbit is the fundamental capability that will unlock a true space age."
We cover:
→ The $500M raise
→ Mira: precision maneuvering
→ Helios: same-day delivery
→ Caravan: GEO rideshare
→ Commercial vs defense
→ Space Force demand
→ SpaceX origins
→ Hiring 200+ roles
The Series D was co-led by @137ventures & BANNER VC. Additional participating investors include Founder’s Fund, Lux Capital, & Linse Capital.
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Eric Romo, President & COO at Impulse Space
(00:58) Fueling the next phase with a $500M Series D
(04:30) Crossing the $1B funding mark
(06:00) The freedom to execute
(07:09) Why startups d*e from indigestion
(08:30) Building beyond SpaceX
(13:32) How defense became the real opportunity
(16:19) Impulse’s product stack: Mira, Helios & Caravan
(23:43) The economics of urgency
(26:23) "Closer to a fighter jet than a tugboat"
(30:40) The new era of space defense
(37:33) The SpaceX DNA at Impulse
(38:27) The biggest lesson from SpaceX
(44:23) Hiring world class engineers
(45:38) If not COO, then what?
(46:43) The road to first Helios launch
显示更多
SpaceX employee #13# @_Eric_Romo describes the moment @elonmusk and SpaceX knew they had to become vertically integrated:
"They're canonically so vertically integrated now. But at the time, we were outsourcing basically everything."
"Any time we would need some new part built, it was like, 'Send the drawing to the vendor and get it built.'"
" Maybe two weeks later, if you're lucky, you get this part back."
"One of the [vendors] was always the quickest, pretty cost-effective, and very communicative. We were really reliant on this one."
"I remember sitting in the bunker in Texas underground with @lrocket and the team, and we get a call from that vendor and he's like, 'Hey sorry, but we're shutting down. We're closing our doors.'"
"We realize we have to go hire as many people from that vendor as we can, and we have to build up the internal capacity because that's what's going to help us iterate."
" It's all stuff that seems super obvious now."
"But in 2003, that was not so obvious at the time."
显示更多
BREAKING: Impulse Space Raises $500M Series D
Reaching $1+ Billion in Total Funding to Build In-Space Mobility Infrastructure
aka "Move Things in Space"
Full interview w/ President & COO Eric Romo (@_Eric_Romo) (SpaceX Employee #13#)
Founder & CEO Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX Employee #1#):
"We're building more than spacecraft: we're building the economic & technical engine that will power humanity's expansion into space. From Earth orbit to the Moon & beyond, the ability to move quickly, precisely, & affordably on orbit is the fundamental capability that will unlock a true space age."
We cover:
→ The $500M raise
→ Mira: precision maneuvering
→ Helios: same-day delivery
→ Caravan: GEO rideshare
→ Commercial vs defense
→ Space Force demand
→ SpaceX origins
→ Hiring 200+ roles
The Series D was co-led by @137ventures & BANNER VC. Additional participating investors include Founder’s Fund, Lux Capital, & Linse Capital.
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Eric Romo, President & COO at Impulse Space
(00:58) Fueling the next phase with a $500M Series D
(04:30) Crossing the $1B funding mark
(06:00) The freedom to execute
(07:09) Why startups d*e from indigestion
(08:30) Building beyond SpaceX
(13:32) How defense became the real opportunity
(16:19) Impulse’s product stack: Mira, Helios & Caravan
(23:43) The economics of urgency
(26:23) "Closer to a fighter jet than a tugboat"
(30:40) The new era of space defense
(37:33) The SpaceX DNA at Impulse
(38:27) The biggest lesson from SpaceX
(44:23) Hiring world class engineers
(45:38) If not COO, then what?
(46:43) The road to first Helios launch
显示更多
.@GoToImpulse President and COO @_Eric_Romo says the idea of cleaning up space junk is a "scam":
"People show these really misleading graphics like, 'Oh my God, look at all that junk around Earth. It's so congested. It's all going to blow up and crash into each other.'"
"The reality is, if you showed that at scale, you wouldn't even see the satellites because they're all so tiny."
显示更多
BREAKING: Impulse Space Raises $500M Series D
Reaching $1+ Billion in Total Funding to Build In-Space Mobility Infrastructure
aka "Move Things in Space"
Full interview w/ President & COO Eric Romo (@_Eric_Romo) (SpaceX Employee #13#)
Founder & CEO Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX Employee #1#):
"We're building more than spacecraft: we're building the economic & technical engine that will power humanity's expansion into space. From Earth orbit to the Moon & beyond, the ability to move quickly, precisely, & affordably on orbit is the fundamental capability that will unlock a true space age."
We cover:
→ The $500M raise
→ Mira: precision maneuvering
→ Helios: same-day delivery
→ Caravan: GEO rideshare
→ Commercial vs defense
→ Space Force demand
→ SpaceX origins
→ Hiring 200+ roles
The Series D was co-led by @137ventures & BANNER VC. Additional participating investors include Founder’s Fund, Lux Capital, & Linse Capital.
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Eric Romo, President & COO at Impulse Space
(00:58) Fueling the next phase with a $500M Series D
(04:30) Crossing the $1B funding mark
(06:00) The freedom to execute
(07:09) Why startups d*e from indigestion
(08:30) Building beyond SpaceX
(13:32) How defense became the real opportunity
(16:19) Impulse’s product stack: Mira, Helios & Caravan
(23:43) The economics of urgency
(26:23) "Closer to a fighter jet than a tugboat"
(30:40) The new era of space defense
(37:33) The SpaceX DNA at Impulse
(38:27) The biggest lesson from SpaceX
(44:23) Hiring world class engineers
(45:38) If not COO, then what?
(46:43) The road to first Helios launch
显示更多
.@elonmusk was not the first employee at SpaceX.
According to @_Eric_Romo, employee 001 (at least officially in the payroll system) was @lrocket:
"[Elon] found Tom, and I think that was really the impetus for saying, 'Okay, I actually think I can make a company around this.'"
" The engines are the thing that fail. They're the thing that's the hardest to build. They're the thing that is always the critical path in the schedule."
"Without Tom, I don't think that company goes in the first days."
显示更多
BREAKING: Impulse Space Raises $500M Series D
Reaching $1+ Billion in Total Funding to Build In-Space Mobility Infrastructure
aka "Move Things in Space"
Full interview w/ President & COO Eric Romo (@_Eric_Romo) (SpaceX Employee #13#)
Founder & CEO Tom Mueller (@lrocket) (SpaceX Employee #1#):
"We're building more than spacecraft: we're building the economic & technical engine that will power humanity's expansion into space. From Earth orbit to the Moon & beyond, the ability to move quickly, precisely, & affordably on orbit is the fundamental capability that will unlock a true space age."
We cover:
→ The $500M raise
→ Mira: precision maneuvering
→ Helios: same-day delivery
→ Caravan: GEO rideshare
→ Commercial vs defense
→ Space Force demand
→ SpaceX origins
→ Hiring 200+ roles
The Series D was co-led by @137ventures & BANNER VC. Additional participating investors include Founder’s Fund, Lux Capital, & Linse Capital.
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
(00:00) Eric Romo, President & COO at Impulse Space
(00:58) Fueling the next phase with a $500M Series D
(04:30) Crossing the $1B funding mark
(06:00) The freedom to execute
(07:09) Why startups d*e from indigestion
(08:30) Building beyond SpaceX
(13:32) How defense became the real opportunity
(16:19) Impulse’s product stack: Mira, Helios & Caravan
(23:43) The economics of urgency
(26:23) "Closer to a fighter jet than a tugboat"
(30:40) The new era of space defense
(37:33) The SpaceX DNA at Impulse
(38:27) The biggest lesson from SpaceX
(44:23) Hiring world class engineers
(45:38) If not COO, then what?
(46:43) The road to first Helios launch
显示更多
General Matter CEO @ScottNolan's biggest lessons from working as an early employee at SpaceX:
"Pick the right thing to work on. Pick the problem no one else is working on, that really needs to be solved."
"Lesson two is—clean slate. Start from scratch. Question everything."
显示更多
