Andy Lapsa on 100% Reusable Rockets

Andy is the CEO and cofounder of Stoke Space, a startup that aims to build 100% reusable rockets. The startup raised a $9.1M seed round in 2020, graduated from Y Combinator's Winter 2021 batch, and then announced a $65M Series A in December. All the while, Stoke has been moving quickly to build a completely new kind of rocket.Today’s episode is sponsored by Spaced Ventures, which recently launched an effort to open an investment round into SpaceX. The space investment portal has received over $38M million in pledges from 2,150+ investors. Find out more at https://www.spacedventures.com/*CHAPTERS* 01:57 — Andy's resume, from Cornell to Blue Origin and beyond 06:54 — Leaving Blue and thinking through what's next 08:36 — Thesis, team, & track record 12:06 — An engineering challenge, not a science problem 15:52 — Escaping Earth's gravity well is no small feat 18:36 — $$$ 22:18 — Analogy from the high seas and 200 years ago 24:02 — What Stoke is doing differently ... and @ 24:55 the unsolved problem 28:38 — The most novel part to Stoke's approach 33:24 — Speed, vertical integration, and tightly coupled systems 37:21 — The test stand in Moses Lake, Washington 39:44 — Fundraising, from the seed round to a $65M Series A 40:15 — Sustainability 52:45 — Testing + developing a reusable second stage 1:00:49 — Stoke in a post-Starship world 1:04:05 — Who will the customers be?*SHOW NOTES* Stoke Space’s website: https://www.stokespace.com/ Stoke Space’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/stoke_space Andy’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndyLapsa Ryan’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/RyandoofyPayload’s Stoke Space coverage: https://payloadspace.com/stoke-series-a/ *ABOUT US*Pathfinder is brought to you by Payload, a modern space media brand, and while we have designs on becoming the biggest space content company in the galaxy, for now, we publish: 1) Payload, our flagship daily newsletter, every Monday to Friday morning2) Pathfinder, this podcast, on Tuesday mornings 3) ...and 💫Parallax!💫 on Thursday afternoons.Parallax is our new weekly science newsletter for the space industry. Subscribe now so you can say you were early by signing up at parallax.beehiiv.comSubscribe to our daily newsletter and find out more about us at https://payloadspace.com/