Impulse Space founders Tom Mueller and Eric Romo on making space beyond LEO affordable and the lunar economy

difficult challenge requiring uh physical endurance of the G-forces but also a bunch of dexterity and obviously image processing and I was talking to a bunch of AI folks about how long it will be until humanoids are actually at that level where they could do something like that and it took I think the consensus was around 45 20 45 something like that anyway Tom great to meet you I don't think it'll take that long will it how long do you think it'll take this is a great question I I don't when you take fear know.

Yeah. Yeah. May maybe that's a big one. I don't know. You you've done a lot more laps than I have. So, please uh don't they haven't had they already shown that fighter aircraft can beat a human in, you know, in dog fights. So, yes.

So, the difference there is that I I'm adding the challenge of the the Dodge Viper ACR must be stock. And so, the humanoid must operate three pedals and the stick shift and the steering wheel.

And that's a lot more challenging than just plugging into the steering column and, you know, controlling it like you do in a Tesla or Whimo. Um, and so I think that adds a wrinkle, but I don't know, 2045, 2035, it's clearly going to happen.

But, uh, well, that that's that that that's a good way to say that you're bullish about uh, humanoid robotics. Yeah. Do you anticipate that humanoid robotics will have an impact on your business in the next decade in terms of maybe manufacturing or something even more narrow scope? Uh certainly manufacturing.

Um I think I think for manufacturing robotics are developing fast. But I think you know I I think humans should explore space but but it's really expensive and dangerous to put humans in space. So if you really want to like you know use the economies of of space I think it's going to take a lot of robotics.

So I'm I'm bullish about robotics. We got to put put a Nurburg ring on Mars and then ship on the moon, which I'm all about. Yeah, I would love a track. Use taxpayer dollars to put a racetrack on Mars. I would love that. Anyway, sorry, we jump straight into it.

Would you mind kicking us off with an introduction for both of you and a little bit about the company? Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'm Tom Mueller. I'm the CEO and founder of Impulse Space.

I was one of the founding members of SpaceX uh where I led the development of the propulsion systems for Falcon 9 and and Dragon and a little bit into Starship and left there in 2020 and started Impulse in 2021 and uh we have our four-year anniversary here coming up next month. Congratulations. That's great to hear.

It's amazing. And it's been uh been doing great. And Eric, would you mind introducing yourself? Yeah, sure. I am Eric Romo. I'm the president of the company. I've been with the company for the last two years. I've known Tom for better part of god Tom 22 years I want to say now 23.

I so I was an early propulsion engineer at SpaceX uh in the very early days and then went did a bunch of uh nonspace non propulsion stuff for a long time and found my way back to Tom a couple years ago. Amazing. Yeah.

Uh I mean as I describe it in kind of uh layman's terms or in terms even a venture capitalist could understand you can get to LEO pretty easily but you need impulse to get to higher orbits. Is that still kind of the bread and butter of the business? Am I describing it even remotely accurately? Yeah.

At you know at SpaceX we I think we really um made LEO very accessible lowered the cost made it you know you get you know flights going there you know every other day. Mhm. So I want to do the same for for everything beyond LEO.

So get make it much easier to get to high energy orbits, to get to the moon, to get to Mars, to get to outer planets, anywhere in space. Like let's make it much easier, much more affordable, and you know, really start the true space age. Yeah. When you were at SpaceX, did you have an idea of how valuable LEO would be?

Uh, I think a lot of folks Starlink took them by surprise basically in terms of not just how awesome that service is if you've been on a plane and used it. Uh, but also the business that was to be built there. Uh, did that take you by surprise?

And then, uh, is there something that you can use as a concrete example of what is exciting about the higher orbits? Well, yeah.

I I'm old enough to remember the first time we tried to do Leo constellations, you know, back in the late '9s and and actually worked with some companies uh that that tried to do it and you know, it wasn't the right time.

Uh technologies improved a lot, especially lowcost launch, you know, better bandwidth, uh easier to manufacture spacecraft, all the things. So, I kind of realized it was the right time and when it was, you know, when when SpaceX first started talking about it, it really clicked. I'm like, "Yeah, we need to do this.

" Yeah. Uh and so in terms of the higher orbits um what are I mean obviously going to the moon is very concrete.

Are there specific um obvious business cases or or anything that would be you know inspiring or or immediately relevant that geostationary orbit is still probably the most important orbit because it's it's the 24-hour orbit over the equator.

So you you just point your dish at that and and it's always there in the sky or your antenna. Um or you can cover the whole you can cover the whole earth with with three satellites. Wow. So making access much more affordable to that I think is a huge help.

But then I'm I'm you know I've always said I'm I'm really all about a lunar economy starting and and even mining asteroids and things like that. So those are the those are the things I'm most excited about. Question. Uh, I'm sure you guys have gotten asked in every single pitch meeting, so I'll ask it.

Uh, why uh do you think this is on SpaceX's roadmap? Do are you guys partnered with them already? Do you expect uh do you expect them to want to prioritize this in the future or, you know, what does that kind of uh partnership or competitive dynamic look like? Lonnie, you cover that one, Eric.

Yeah, I mean they're pretty busy, right?

And so this is the equivalent of the Silicon Valley startup question of like why doesn't Google just do that or Facebook just do that or right they could they could do anything right they're technically amazing company that's shown they can execute on pretty much anything they sink their teeth into.

I think the question is will they um and why where would this be on the priority stack so you know one of our products Helios is really good at getting large payloads to high energy orbits like medium earth orbit and and geostationary orbit.

Um SpaceX can certainly do that with a Falcon Heavy but they've been super vocal about the fact that they would prefer not to. Um, and there's operational reasons for that and cost reasons for that.

But, um, so this is a space where we think that we can actually help them and other launch providers get to a thing that they're to some degree ignoring right now.

And then on the the small spacecraft, uh, side of things, we we make a small, highly maneuverable vehicle called Mera, which is largely usable for Space Force. So, we announced some contracts with them late last year and a partnership with Andrew to go to market with with Mera.

Uh, and that's a thing that's pretty far a field from anything that SpaceX is working on today. um you know that Starlink is awesome but it you know kind of just sits there right as a constellation whereas mirror is designed to move very quickly as its core compensate.

Can you talk about the lunar economy and how you imagine that developing? Does it start with tourism or scientific exploration? Do we need an ISS like base that's kind of taxpayer funded on the moon first or do we go straight to mining or helium 3? I remember the movie.

Um, but what what are what like what are the rest uh what is the tech tree look like as we build out the moon as a as a capability possibly all of the above like mining helium 3 certainly could be um a good starting point because it's uh even right now on earth if you don't flood the market it's on the order of $20 million a kilogram so you can certainly if you can get it on the I don't know how the part of getting it like you got to mine apparently millions of tons of regalith to get it but if you have it there transporting it back is like500 of that cost.

So, it's definitely it's it's economically doable assuming that you have you have a you know a can of it.

Um but I think if if if you're doing mega structures or or or massive manufacturing in LEO pretty fast, you'll figure out that it's 23 times roughly uh more efficient to bring mass from the surface of the moon than from the surface of the earth just because the gravity well is so much lower.

Y and I think that's that's when the real use of the resources of the moon will happen just to get to get material to low Earth orbit. Um yeah. Yeah. I've always thought that the moon was also just a great staging ground for Mars. You imagine if you're up there, the moon's always facing Earth.

So something goes wrong, you know, the sci-fi version. Oh, there's a crack in your in your suit. You can just dive in an escape pod and you're aiming in the right direction. Whereas Mars, you have to deal with the transfer window.

uh it's a whole different problem and if we can get really good at living on the moon, we're probably going to be able to get good at living on on Mars.

Um I I am interested in kind of these questions about when the one one of the great stories about SpaceX is that it feels like it's a relatively smooth handoff of capability in terms of uh launch capacity from NASA to SpaceX, from the taxpayer to the private sector.

Um, at the same time, I love that NASA put a helicopter on Mars because I can't imagine that would ever happen no matter how crazy the VCs are. Uh, I don't see that happening and being underwritten against any sort of 10year, 20-year uh, you know, life cycle of return on investment.

And so my question for you is like what type of space projects should we be pushing into the you know the the NASA world, the government funded world, the even the nonprofit world versus what is commercializable today?

Um and do you see both as important going forward that we that we kind of have this, you know, taxpayer funded R&D, the really fringe scientific experiments and then we commercialize thing when they're ready?

Well, I I think two things really that I'd like to see from from NASA mainly um is is answering the big science questions like is there other life out there? Um and and also let's explore what's out there. Like I just posted a picture this morning from the the new Vera Rubin uh observatory.

Amazing, you know, just amazing stuff. They could should continue to do things like that. And but I think as far as develop, they should develop technology that's that that takes a lot of money to develop that maybe commercial companies aren't going to invest in now.

Like I think the next thing, you know, Jared Isaacman was talking about is is NEP. And I'm I'm always touting that too is the next step in propulsion.

So rather than than build a giant rocket that competes against people that already build giant rockets, why don't they go develop the next thing, you know, the next the next technology? I think that's probably the best use of taxpayer money through NASA is to advance science. How do you think about Oh, sorry.

I was just going to say fundamentally I think NASA needs to figure out if it's a jobs program or if it has goals, right? I mean, I think that's the that's the thing like SLS made no sense in in the commercial rocket economy.

Maybe it did when it started planning 20 years ago or whatever, but in for the last decade or more, it's made zero sense. But yet, it's still kind of hanging on because Congress wants to fund jobs in Alabama, which is, you know, maybe a noble purpose, but, you know, is that the purpose of NASA?

I think is the thing that they need to figure out. Yeah. How do you think about extraterrestrial life? Uh do you ascribe to the dark forest theory or uh like do you think it's promising? Do you think, you know, we will have an answer to this in a few years? Do you think we're getting closer?

What What is your take overall? I Yeah, we need we need to get we need more information. Definitely. I I hope it's just life is extremely rare and it's not, you know, some some great filter that's that's still ahead of us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That would be a good What are the What are the the kind of upcoming events in the next one to two years in commercial space that you think can be major catalysts for the industry overall that maybe you guys are working on or or that that you want to see from the industry broadly?

Well, something that we're not working on, but something that that SpaceX is developing is Starship. I I I really started this company realizing that Starship and other, you know, reusable rockets are going to be be bringing massive amounts of cargo to to LEO and it needs to go other places.

So that's was the premise of this company. So I'm excited about Starship finishing development and becoming a commercial, you know, commercially viable uh spacecraft.

And then well we have really uh you know we have the the mirror that that uh Eric talked about um earlier and NH is really for for government and defense and then we have Helios coming on online here next year.

We're developing it right now which is basically adding a third stage to Falcon 9 and other midsized rockets and that's what it can allow us to get, you know, more easily to to high energy orbits. So those are the two big things uh for us right now.

super excited about lunar landers, Mars landers, all kinds of cool stuff. It's going to be awesome. I was just going to tack on I think you're seeing one big trend is that um Space Force the the rhetoric of uh counterpace or space defense activities has really ramped up in the last 6 months um in the public sphere.

There's not been a lot of investment in in you know sort of space on space defense. Um but in privately Space Force has been talking about that a lot more. Um and then they started about six months ago really publicly not coincidentally with the change in administration.

And so the the question I think for companies like ours is you know do dollars follow that rhetoric you know is there increased investment in that sort of thing.

Um and then on the commercial side I think you have an awful lot of operators who are trying to figure out how do they carve out a niche and survive in a post Starlink world.

Um how do they figure out you know what their space is as a commercial compat operator that you know once you have the dominant Starlink player in the market. Uh I'm interested to hear about the challenges of developing rocketry or or engines at different scales.

Um I've heard this story that one of the reasons the Raptor engine was so successful was that it wasn't a mega project in the sense that you didn't need to bring in a crane necessarily to work on it. There were more smaller modular pieces. Is that true?

And then I'd love to know um about the challenges of of scaling up and making bigger rockets. It I was tracking obviously I want Starship to work as soon as possible.

It feels like it's a really really tough challenge and it feels like it's a harder challenge than the Falcon 1 or the Falcon 9 which you know went it did it did crash several times exploded several times.

uh but you know SpaceX is a much more mature uh company and so you would expect that it's not just you know the first time that they're doing it. It's actually something fundamental about the larger scale engineering that's going on there. So can you share anything about that?

Well, we've become a lot better at developing rocket engines, you know, over the last, you know, 20 years. Certainly, um, when when we started SpaceX, there wasn't really, it it wasn't like startups would do rocket. That's why I had such a hard time hiring people in the early days because nobody believed in it.

And that now there's many teams all over the world that are developing liquid rocket engines. And it's it's never easy. It's not. it.

Um, but it's it's doable and modern, you know, modern tools are affordable and and available and certainly modern manufacturing techniques like 3D printing is is almost a cheat code for for rocket engines.

Um, but when you're doing something like Raptor, which is extremely high pressure, full flow stage combustion, very advanced engine, the most advanced engine ever, it's just it takes the difficulty to 11. So, not surprising that there's been setbacks.

Um, also one of the hardest things to do uh in in in launch vehicle recovery is getting back in upper stage.

You know, um, you saw we had pretty good success with Falcon 9 getting back to first stage and certainly the flying the boosters back and land that awesome landing, but second upper stages are coming in with a lot of energy. So, really hard. Um, they're going to solve it. Um, it's it's just a matter of time. Yep.

Just time. Well, it is rocket science after all. You know, I was saying people don't people don't use that phrase. It's not rocket, you know, this isn't rocket science anymore because we've gotten really good at there's a lot of stuff that is rocket science. How many times have you heard that? Come on, Tom.

It's not rocket science. It is rocket science. Well, I'm sure you have a lot of rocket science to do. We'll let you get back to it. We really appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. This is a lot of fun. Yeah. Thanks for have a great rest of your day.

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