Tom Mueller closes $500M Series D for Impulse Space, betting on in-space mobility as Starship drives down launch costs

Up next, we have Tom Mueller from Impulse Space. He's the founder, CEO, and CTO. Two job titles, three job titles. We're very excited to have Tom Mueller back on the show. Uh, he's been on before, but great to see you. How are you doing?

I'm doing great. Great to see you guys.

First question, Ferrari Luch reactions. What you got?

What I got? What do I have?

Ferrari Luche reactions. Ferrari Luche. The electric Ferrari. It's coming out $640,000. Do you think it's underpriced? Overpriced? What do you think?

Uh, overpriced for overpriced for that styling. It is. It is a It is an odd It is an odd positioning, but uh it got everyone talking.

I think the F40 is going to hold value. I don't think it's going to be an F40 disruptor. Not many people trading those in. Anyway, we're not here to talk about Ferrari. We're here to talk about impulse space. Uh can you uh reset the table for us? Uh reintroduce the company, give us the news, tell us what's happening, and then I have a million questions about the space broadly, but let's kick it off with that.

Impulse Base. I started this company 5 years ago. It's uh space mobility

success

which basically means that um we take over where launch leaves off. So

um we move things around in space. So start starting at LEO we move things up to to GEO like 20 up to 22,000 mi up. We can you know take things to the to the moon. We can greatly increase the amount of payloads you can take to Mars. Um we have our Mirror spacecraft. Three of those are flying uh right now and a bunch are in build.

Yeah,

those things uh do precision maneuvering in orbit. They can host payloads, they can deploy payloads, they can do rendevous.

Um we are hope hopefully we'll get um onramped onto the the new lunar um cargo uh program and do big some ton uh one ton class uh lunar landers. Um it's a lot happening right now. I can imagine. Um, uh, so there's been so much excitement about LEO, Starlink, uh, Planet Labs, you put a camera up there, you put a Wi-Fi router up there, basically, not to simplify too much, but, uh, even Varta manufacturing in LEO, like all so much of the attention's been on LEO that I think a lot of people have sort of lost the reference classes for what happens in higher orbits. Can you give us some examples of what's interesting at higher orbits? Whether that's uh Middle Earth orbit, I think, is that what it's called? Mio.

Yeah, Mio.

Middle Earth is just hilarious because it's a Lord of the Rings reference, but uh Mio uh Geo, I understand geostationary orbits are sometimes useful, but give us the 101 on why someone would be unsatisfied with just uh yoloing endless satellites into LEO in perpetuity. Well, the nice thing about geo uh you know is where where really comat started is that you can cover the whole earth with just three satellites.

Oh, that's right.

Um and and of course geo geocynchronous means or geostationary means that it's a 24-hour orbit. So you're you're always located at the same point in the sky. Super important. Still an important um uh uh orbit. um it's kind of been overshadowed by all the LEO launches, but there's still um you know, a dozen uh launches or more that that go uh to that orbit. It's becoming more important of an orbit for the space force.

Um there's a lot happening up there.

Yeah.

Um that I don't even know about. I don't have the need to know, but there's a lot going on up there

and um you know, our adversaries, China and Russia are maneuvering around our satellites up there. So, we need to we need to go to to have mobility to go up there and and defend and find out what's going on and be able to

protect our assets.

So, we have we have the capability to get to geo. Obviously, there are satellites currently in GIO. You mentioned there's maybe a dozen launches that sounded annual like maybe something like going up there. So we have the capability like the rockets exist but it's uneconomical and so the the value prop of impulse just to say it back to you is get on a rocket that's going to LEO but end up in geo and not and you don't need to pull all of those resources and so uh you're sort of unlocking geo based on all of the LEO capability that we have in spades. Is that right?

Yeah.

Yeah. So, what we're talking about here is our Helios product, which is

what we call a rocket on a rocket. We add basically a third stage to a Falcon 9.

It's got 12 tons of liquid oxygen and liquid methane, very high performance uh uh p pump pump fed stage combustion engine,

and it can get you from LEO to GEO in a day. So, it basically uh helps Falcon 9 do what Falcon Heavy does.

Yeah.

For tens of millions of dollars less.

Yep. or for an an example of a you know commercial guys usually don't fly on heavy they'll they'll fly Falcon 9 and then they'll spend months using electric propulsion to get to to where they want to get we'll get you there realized that I didn't realize that was an option that's so interesting uh I'll have to I'll have to research more of that I'm fascinated by that uh talk to me about how Starship changes things for you is that an accelerant for you I mean you're raising a $500 million series D I can imagine and you worked at SpaceX obviously for a very long time I imagine that that's not a nail in the coffin, that's not a threat, but I imagine it's a benefit. But how is it a benefit? Because uh the the intuitive, you know, uh the the lay person might think bigger rocket that'll get me to go easily that that why do I need impulse now? So talk to me about how Starship fits into the future of the space economy.

I mean, Starship is the, you know, is going to be the the ultimate uh LEO um you know,

workload. Yeah. cargo ship.

Yeah, because it it you know it's it doesn't need to refuel. Yeah. Um to get to LEO. It can get to LEO and be fully reusable, come back and fuel and go again.

Yeah.

So, it's going to greatly reduce the cost uh per kilogram or per ton to get um to get cargo to to orbit. And that's that's why I started the company basically cuz I worked on Starship the you know last six years I was there

realizing that now we have such an efficient way like I mentioned at the beginning launch is solved now we need to figure out how to move all that cargo around um once it's up in orbit. Of course, Starship can refuel and go to these high energy orbits, but I think it's going to be more effic if you need Starship there, that's what you need to do. Like if like if you're taking cargo to the moon or humans to the moon or to Mars, you that's the right thing. But if I don't know that it's the right thing if you don't actually need the Starship up there because if you think about it, Starship's 120 tons of stainless steel you got to bring up there

and and then you got to bring it back to get it back. So it it comes uh we'll see h how that how how the economics work out.

Okay. Speaking

how did uh how did uh the space sort of like founder uh startup community react to blue origin obviously you know massive setback and disappointing uh hopefully for all humanity.

I don't think anybody was cheering that on. It's I mean it's obviously bad for industry. um launch is, you know, is still constrained. Even though SpaceX is flying so often, there's just so many payloads that need to go that we need all of them to be successful. And I think it's been mentioned many times, SpaceX is not going to lower their price until they have a true competitor

and we need true competitors to come online. It's happening, but um you know, these setbacks delay it.

Yeah.

What uh what have you heard around how big of a setback it actually is? Is this setting the program? Dave Dave Lamp, the CEO, just um I think last night tweeted that they think they can it's not as bad as it initially looked and they they think they can fly again this year, which is great. It's great news.

Yeah, I was looking at the aerial photography of the launchpad and the the headline was billiond dollar launchpad, the only one they have completely destroyed, but some of the buildings looked pretty usable. I I I was optimistic, so I I'm I'm glad to hear that Dave Limp is uh is sharing some optimism there as well. Uh, I would love for you to uh sort of walk me through some of the trade-offs and economic uh considerations about getting to the moon because uh we just saw with the Aremis launch that uh single rocket seem to be able to just fly right up there, come back. And then when I see the Starship plan,

I'm like, it's a as big or bigger rocket. It should just be able to go straight there. But then when I see the actual plans, it's like seven different refueling stages and it seems much more complicated and it and it seems like you have the ability to potentially get to the moon with certain plans. And so it feels like there's an ensemble approach, there's different tradeoffs. Like what is the logic as we try and get to the moon more regularly? How will this actually play out?

Yeah, I think you know there's there's two ways to do it. you you you use a large um partially reusable where you throw you basically throw away those upper stages.

Okay.

And and and take a lander to the moon. That's kind of the Blue Origin uh approach. Or there's the fully reusable with with multiple refueling to get there and back, which is the SpaceX approach.

But what we do with Helios is sort of the former. We're adding this this expendable third stage

and now we can we can 10x the amount of payload on a Falcon 9 to the moon. So imagine that lever like you basically um for the same cost of the launch vehicle puts a little bit more for the Helios. You're getting 10 times the amount of cargo and and we've looked at missions to Mars Mars where we get uh five times the payload to Mars just by adding a Helios. So it's a huge leverage. It's it's going to be a really compelling product when it starts flying. It's it's already selling really well. I think once we flying it's we won't be able to make them fast enough.

So you you you have the money raised. Uh what what what are you actually working on in terms of uh creating reliable manufacturing your supply chain uh because I imagine that it's not enough to build one prototype a few prototypes something handbuilt. That might be something you're experimenting with in the early stages but the name of the game is industrial capacity here. Uh what do the next few years look like in terms of scale?

Yeah, ramping up production. We're hiring more people and we're and we're hiring a lot of people in the production area, you know, manufacturing engineers, technicians, um all all kinds of of people now where earlier, you know, earlier in the company's history, we were mostly hiring, you know, a lot of development engineers. So now we're really getting into production on our products. Um and we we just moved into or starting to move into a much larger facility here. We're filling that out with uh you know production capability and we're always um the same thing that we did at SpaceX. We're constantly um uh bringing more things inhouse like getting becoming even more vertically integrated.

Okay,

vert vertical integration takes a lot of capital which is why we've raised a lot.

Um but it it once you vertically integrated you have a huge advantage. We see that we see this with with SpaceX able to able to execute very quickly, very efficiently uh at low cost. Uh basically you can control cost, schedule and quality if you're vertically integrated.

And and take me through the shape of that vertical integration. Are you buying like tube bending machines, CNC machines, 3D printers? Like what is the shape of the vertical integration? Are you building like specific machinery that will just make one product over and over and over again? I mean that that's the tooling part of it, but certainly you know milling machines, lathes, uh 3D printers, um and uh building out test capability. Um

so like raw materials in and you finished product eventually.

Yeah. You know, you bring in raw material and spacecraft come out the other end of the factory.

I love it.

Uh what do you think the impact of the SpaceX IPO will be on, you know, the space economy broadly? uh you know talking about you know maybe people that have been there for a decade maybe ready to do something new.

How do you think it'll uh uh impact the industry? Well, certainly, you know, the space economy has been accelerating, you know, since the time that, you know, I've started this company a lot. And I think that's just the really the the general effect of of SpaceX and other startups have on the industry.

And now with the announcement, it's just supercharged the space industry.

Um, it's which is great. And I love what Elon's talked about, you know, uh, building, you know, basically he's talking about building mega structures now in space. you know, millions of of AI servers in space. And he's already talking about using the resources of the moon in order to build when, you know, when they max out what they can launch. And this is the theme of my company is like this is something I've talked about a lot is you need to use the resources of the moon to build these mega structures in space because it's going to be destructive to the earth to to launch it from earth or grab it from earth or or in the in the the case of compute power to the amount of compute power we're going to need in the next 30 years as it's growing at 15% uh annually is is just crushing. So moving that to space is is the obvious thing in the long term. I'm glad to see it's happening sooner.

Seems like you're excited about both the moon and Mars. Uh Elon uh was like a Mars maxi for a long time. Now he's interested in the moon. It's been exciting. I' I'm obviously excited about both, but uh what is different about these two missions? Obviously, the moon's closer, but uh like what what's uniquely unlocked by the moon? Why is the moon important? Why do you see Mars as as important as well? Obviously, you should never stop. I hope you wind up going to Alpha Centauri soon. But but but let's just uh narrow in on Moon and Mars. What are the unique opportunities? What are the risks? What are the trade-offs?

Yeah, I've always been uh more of a moon person myself. I I think the moon is more important in near term.

Uh it's it's easier to have a permanent base there.

And I think there everything we need to build in space is on the moon. The metals, you know, water, um you know, oxygen. So everything we need to to be self-sufficient uh of of building mega structures in space is is there. And I would also add near near-Earth objects. Some of them are easier to get to uh than the moon. Mars is super important. Uh

wait, what's a near-earth object that's closer to the there's secret planets or asteroids out there you know about? And I don't near asteroid.

Okay.

Near Earth asteroid. Yeah.

The thing about the moon is it still has a gravity well. You know, we we talk in kilometers per second.

Yeah.

Earth has a gravity well of like 9 km per second and the moon has a gravity well of like two 2.4.

Okay.

But it still have you still that's a lot of propulsion to to to break down onto the moon at 2.4 and then come back. You're talking 5 km per second total.

That's a lot of delta V.

And you got to bring that with you.

Yeah. You got to bring the propellant to do that. That's why the moon is is still pretty tough. Whereas a small asteroid is, you know, is it's just meters per second maybe or centimeters per second

because the gravity is so low. So you don't have to um to to use all that uh propellant in order to get there and back. So it's

and and those meteors I'm not trying to quiz you on something that you might not have dug into, but I'm fascinated. Are these like meteors that are just passing by and the whole point is that they pass by regularly enough that we could go up and back or are there actual meteors that are like orbiting the earth right now that I don't know about?

There are I mean there are I think there's one right now right that's these things get temporarily captured and orbit and then they eventually run the table and they get thrown out like the moon will throw them out or something.

Yeah. But there's you know

there's lot most of them are you know further than the moon but

but once you to escape Earth's gravity.

It just takes time to get there. But the but you don't have a gravity well once you once you get there to get the material to come back.

But the moon the moon is easier in just that you have surface gravity and you know and a nice surface you can land on and build on. So I think the moon moon is super important also.

Yeah. Uh sorry Drew you have something or uh not right now.

I I I I can keep going. Um I I'm interested in I'm interested in the in uh both the footprint of the company. You mentioned you're expanding. I know uh the original headquarters was in Elsagundo, correct?

Yeah, I I still have that little building over in Elsagundo. Started a little 7,000 foot building,

but I imagine you've outgrown. So, what what is the footprint of the company? What uh what's the workforce like today? Where do you see that going? What are you hiring for? This feels like a great company to join if you're, you know, uncertain about how AI will change the world. Well, we're going to be shooting rockets for 30 years, as you said. We have a lot of work to do. So, this feels like a fantastic opportunity for folks.

Yeah. Yeah. So, like I mentioned, we started in the 7,000 foot garage, people call it over over there. We we maxed that out and then we moved into to the um our facility that had an interim that's about 60,000 ft

and we just acquired another 240,000 square ft uh on the same block, basically at the other end of the block

that we're we're just starting to to build out. We've got 500 uh employees right now. We just we just passed 500 in a few weeks ago

and we've got uh 200 open job wrecks. So, we're hiring.

Whoa.

That is that is fantastic. Take me through the shape of the uh There we go.

Hiring 200 people. That's serious. Uh take me through the shape of the of the of those job racks. Are are you hiring software engineers? Are you using AI everywhere? Are you hiring everything?

Like I mentioned earlier, we're hiring a lot in the production area. Okay.

Um we're, you know, we're we're hiring, uh software, uh people, uh just

I mean, we're a spacecraft company. Um

we we do, you know, we have to do comms, we have to, you know, we have radios, we have antennas, we have reaction wheels, all kinds of stuff. Lots of avionics, lots of propulsion, lots of structures, lots of software to control it. There's, you know, no no such thing as being a tech company without software to to operate your hardware. So,

yeah,

all of the above. Guidance, navigation, and control. Um, orbital mechanics are I'm a rocket scientist. I don't understand most orbital mechanics. That's that's really tough stuff. Super smart guys that figure out how to get how to how to na navigate in space.

Yeah.

All of the above.

That's great.

Awesome. Uh, we have a gong. We'd love to hit it in.

Tell us about the fund raise. You raised $500 million from 137 Ventures.

There we go. We love Christians over 137. Uh well,