Welcome back to Cheddar news everyone launch vehicle company Astra
is rocketing into outer space in more ways than one
. Not only did the company reach orbit for the
first time on November 20, it also became the
fastest company to reach orbit with a privately developed liquid
fueled rocket. Yes, you heard that? Right
joining me now is chris, kEMp founder chair and
Ceo of Astra Chris, thanks so much for coming
on the show. Why did your company's launch,
which came a little over five years after you founded
the firm come so much more quickly than your competitors
like SpaceX or even Virgin orbit. Well, I
think, I think it's a couple of things we've
been very focused on taking small steps. So we
actually launched our first rocket two years after we incorporated
the business and we launched again and again and again
. And with each of these launches, we learned
as much as we could and so you might say
we learned our way to orbit. This is actually
our next launch vehicle right behind me. We built
this before. We never even reached orbit. And
this ability to just continue to build and iterate and
learn really resulted in this very fast pace. What
are the goals for 2022 Chris we see many companies
entering this space. SpaceX might even consider going public
blue origin leaning in more than ever. And Virgin
Galactic still trying to get its own private space flights
off the ground. What is the new year?
Have in store for your company? Well, Astros
mission is to improve life on earth from space.
And so we're focused on building behind me, this
rocket factory which will produce uh, someday to rocket
a day. And our focus is getting as many
satellites from as many companies into very low earth orbit
so that they can help us monitor, help us
understand our weather, help us uh, connect everything
on the planet. I really just generally improve life
here on earth. So earlier today, president biden
signing an executive order expanding the membership of the National
Space Council as part of its own efforts to harness
space technologies to advance both security in the United States
, but also science and math education and of course
tackle the climate crisis. A key priority for the
administration. What role does your company play in that
? I think if you look back over over history
for millennia, people have been climbing to the tops
of mountains and building telescopes, building observatories, building
radio towers. Space really is the ultimate high ground
. And it's a place where nations like, like
the United States really must build and innovate and have
the best technology. And what we're seeing this summer
is we're seeing almost a dozen companies go from private
companies to public companies and they're building incredible new technologies
that will help us really manage and improve everything that's
happening down here on earth in ways that you might
not even imagine. I mean, imagine what life
would be like without GPS. You know, if
you if you're if you couldn't navigate or airplanes could
navigate your card, couldn't navigate your, your iphone
or your android phone couldn't navigate. These are just
describing the surface of the types of things that we're
going to take for granted in five or 10 years
time. But is it true chris that by working
in space to improve the lives on earth that on
net these launches can be considered good for the climate
. We talked so much about emissions and getting to
zero emissions and then we see big rocket launches and
people like Prince William's saying that we shouldn't be focused
on space. We should actually be focused here on
the earth. How do you make that case that
this is right and justified? And even when we
need to scale back emissions that go into space is
worth it. Well, as an example, imagine
if you could know how many tons of CO two
are coming out of an individual factory or how much
a road contributes to the pollution in the city.
We have truly innovative companies that are allowing us to
see our planet, like we've never been able to
see it before and hold people accountable for reducing their
emissions. A rocket like this produces about as much
CO two as two trees consume uh, in a
lifetime. So we plant trees every time we do
a launch. And so we're carbon neutral on a
launch basis. And as a company, we have
a goal of being carbon neutral entirely By 2025.
And as a new business, we can work hard
as we set things up and as we build the
business to achieve this, this, this milestone.
But there's an unprecedented opportunity, I think from space
for us all to manage and reduce, uh,
you know, the impact of everything that's happening down
here on earth on our planet. Well as the
space race heats up chris which companies are your friends
and foes when it comes to the outer world.
I don't see they're all friends. I couldn't be
more excited to about what SpaceX is doing with their
starship program. I think that there's so many different
opportunities here. Uh, we're never going to fly
people in the rocket, like the one behind me
were really focused only on satellites. But if you're
going to mars, you need a much larger starship
. If you're building satellites, like many of the
companies that are going public this summer, all building
satellites and so we consider them partners and customers And
there's really a trillion dollar economy emerging here where there
will be room for dozens of companies to part about
different opportunities within the new marketplace. Okay. Is
private space travel at space tourism. Something chris that
you have your eye on as a company to build
out in the years ahead. Not at all.
Yeah, there's a couple of companies that are really
working hard on that. The beautiful thing about the
rocket behind me is it's designed specifically for payloads for
satellites and not for people because when you design a
system like this for people, it has to be
much more expensive, much more reliable and you have
has to be much larger and it's a very different
, it's a very different thing. So this is
a great example of where the market has room for
different players that have different areas of focus space debris
. I think also a major concern is your company
adding to space debris. And what are the challenges
that exist for those of us on Earth when it
comes to all of these items? Yes. Including
satellites that are now floating around in the outer world
. Yeah, no thanks. I'm glad you asked
that question. I think that as we start to
see satellites that are lower and lower and lower in
the atmosphere and we're building satellites that can operate in
the 405 100 kilometer range. The earth has its
own garbage collector and it's called gravity. And as
these satellites unless they have propulsion systems become obsolete because
new technology is launched. They simply burn up just
like the thousands of shooting stars and asteroids that our
planet every night. And uh this is great because
you know, we're effectively taking materials like silicon and
aluminum which are some of the most common common uh
materials on earth and we're putting them in space and
then they come right back down. They turn into
sand, they wash up on the beach. We
we make more silicon, we put more silicon in
space and the cycle continues. But I think it's
all about being as low as possible and being as
responsible as possible about what we're putting in space,
making sure that these orbits are de conflicted so they're
not kind of collide with each other. Um And
certainly what we've seen happen in space has been the
unfortunate actions of uh nation states and not the responsible
actions of companies trying to create a new frontier in
space for humanity. Yeah. I do think the
security of space right with the space force to obviously
be instated during the trump presidency is becoming more of
a focus and SpaceX for the first time right,
launching, becoming the first company here in the U
. S. To launch from U. S.
Soil american astronauts to the international space station so that
we don't need to carpool very much a big chapter
of this holistic space novel that we see playing out
my question to you is is it true Jeff Bezos
saying he envisions a world where millions of people yes
will live and work in space to benefit Earth.
Yeah, I think it's inevitable that humanity will become
a multi planetary species in space. Will be a
place where, you know the sphere of human economic
influence moves and uh you know, we're seeing about
a half a trillion dollar economy grow by many forecasts
over a trillion dollar economy over the next decade or
so. This will be uh not only hardware and
infrastructure in space, but it will be people.
And it will be a new commercial space station at
the biden administration is working on establishing it'll be hopefully
a permanent presence on the moon, a permanent presence
on MARS and the infrastructure that we need to go
in and operate. That. It is a opportunity
unlike any other, I think, uh, in
history, where humanity finally has an opportunity to go
and expand its sphere of influence outside of earth,
and we're seeing governments, we're seeing companies and we're
seeing individuals um that are pioneering this this this new
space, All right chris camp, founder, chair
and Ceo of Astra chris, thank you so much
for coming on the show. Astros Face is a
publicly traded company.