The @notboringco deep dive into Varda this morning is awesome. Love the detail on using reentry services to underwrite the in-space manufacturing costs. And if you want to read more on the co., I recently interviewed Varda CEO Will Bruey for SpaceDotBiz:

For the full interview, check out the link below and subscribe to SpaceDotBiz! And if you enjoyed this interview, please like and RT! 10/10

... link budgets, meaning the power & losses for a communication signal. So if you have a balloon at 20 km, you're gonna get 400 times better link budget than a satellite at 400 km. However, the big challenge for balloons is in getting overflight permission." 9/10

On his time as a VP at Google and Project Leader for Project Loon: "There are some real advantages to balloons. Theoretically, it requires zero energy to go from ground to 60,000 ft because you're using buoyancy. In addition, it improves with the square of distance for... 8/10

...Once we make a decision, we pick a day and don’t talk about it again until that day comes. So for that five months, you're tenacious as hell. You're all in, you're not looking back, and you're not revisiting decisions." 7/10

...need to feel free to speak their minds. And then once we make a decision, everyone gets behind the decision and we don't revisit decisions. You don't go into the corner and talk about it with one person and keep it a secret... 6/10

On pivoting a startup: "You have to make it a collaborative process as you shift. Now, that doesn’t mean that it’s a democracy. I communicate clearly that it’s not a democracy and there is a chain of command. But when we have meetings and discuss things, people... 5/10

On the current venture environment: "If it was hot a year and a half ago it is now maybe cooler. But I think good companies still can get funded. The keys are to have a great team, move quickly, and focus on an area where there's a real need." 4/10

On advice he'd give space founders: "Everyone wants to be your second customer, so it’s helpful to be thinking about that ahead of time. For example, how we struggled with getting flight heritage and working creatively with Spaceflight to make that happen." 3/10

On achieving scale through selling to constellation customers: "Frankly, we wanted to win the SpaceX Starlink constellation. We wanted to win the OneWeb constellation. The increase in constellations was one of our big motivators for getting into this business." 2/10

For my SpaceDotBiz newsletter this week, I'm sharing Part 2 of my interview with @michaelpcassidy, who was founding CEO of the space startup Apollo Fusion, which sold to Astra for $145M. We talked about advice he'd give space founders, pivoting startups, & a ton more 🧵👇 1/10

On the the Astra acquisition: "It's a good fit to combine a small launch vehicle w/ a highly efficient ion thruster. In addition, there are of course other factors that come into play. From our perspective, it was kind of a local optimum in timing in terms of valuation..." 6/7

The conversation was so thoughtful that I had to split it into two parts. Read Part 1 of the full interview below and subscribe to SpaceDotBiz to get Part 2 in your inbox next week! 7/7

...Although, we were arguing that the exhaust velocity of a Hall thruster is something like 10,000 meters per second. The escape velocity in orbit is something like 7,500 meters per second. So in some ways, we're ridding the planet of Mercury, but anyway that didn't fly." 5/7

Overcoming challenges in maturing the technology: "We definitely had some challenges. For example, we tried a number of different propellants at first. One of the ones we looked closely at was Mercury. Mercury is potentially scary from an environmental hazard perspective.... 4/7

On balancing commercial and DoD customers: "We were not worried about focusing on one or the other. The key for our strategy from the beginning was being focused on building thrusters at large scale. We wanted to make products for constellations of 100 or 300 sats each" 3/7

The founding story: "We were actually called Apollo Fusion because we were trying to solve nuclear fusion. The short story is, it didn't work. We didn't get to nuclear fusion breakeven, or else you would've seen us win a Nobel Prize and we would've solved global warming." 2/7

For this week's SpaceDotBiz newsletter, I interviewed @michaelpcassidy about founding, scaling, & selling the electric propulsion company Apollo Fusion for $145M We discussed the founding story, creative ways to mature the tech, the acquisition by Astra, & much more 🧵👇 1/7

To read my full post on the topic see the below link. And to get more newsletters like these straight to your inbox, subscribe to SpaceDotBiz 9/9

Another massive market driven by space-enabled technology would have a major impact on investment in the industry. Of course, this only matters if the technology proves feasible at a price point that doesn't break the bank. Only time will tell. 8/9

That rivals the market for global broadband internet, which was around $419B in 2022, and which has been the largest driver for commercial space investment over the last 10 years between Starlink, Kuiper, and others 7/9

Why is this so exciting? Point-to-point unlocks a massive new market for space companies. The market for global cargo shipping was around $2.2T in 2021 and the most time-sensitive of that cargo, air freight, was $287B 6/9

And at the Space Mobility conference in February, rocket cargo was a major focus of the Space Force's interests. Gen Purdy, Program Executive Officer for the Assured Access to Space directorate stated "We absolutely would buy this as a service." 5/9

In addition, the DoD is starting to send strong signals, both in communications and in funding, that it wants this technology ASAP. AFRL created a Vanguard program around Rocket Cargo and recently awarded SpaceX over $100M to mature the technology 4/9