Stoke Space

Looking Outward ...

Stoke Space aims to build rapidly reusable rocket with a completely novel design

"We took a leap of faith and jumped off a cliff."

Stoke Space.  Eric Berger

Andy Lapsa went to the best aerospace engineering schools. He then worked very hard to help advance the development of some of the most advanced rocket engines in the world at Blue Origin. But in 2019, after a decade in the industry, he felt like the spaceflight future he was striving toward—rapidly reusable rockets—had not gotten much closer.

"It is the inevitable end state," he said of low-cost rockets that can launch, land, and fly again the next day. "It's gonna happen. It's just a matter of who does it and when they do it."

His vision for the future is not unique. It happens to be shared by two of the richest people in the world, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. Lapsa worked for one of them, first helping Bezos develop the powerful BE-4 engine and then as director of Blue Origin's BE-3 program.

Further Reading ... 

Despite Tuesday’s flight, Jeff Bezos is running out of time to save Blue Origin

“I love Jeff’s vision for space," Lapsa said in an interview with Ars. "I worked closely with him for a while on different projects, and I’m basically 100 percent on board with the vision. Beyond that, I think I would just say that I will let their history of execution speak for itself, and I thought we could move faster.”

This is a polite way of saying that more than two decades after Bezos founded Blue Origin, the company has yet to reach orbit. So three years ago, Lapsa, who is in his late 30s, and Tom Feldman, another rocket scientist there who had just turned 30, began to look around for a place to make a difference faster. They were animated not so much by a midlife crisis but by a desire to bring forward the era of low-cost, regular access to space and the future that might unlock for humanity.  ,,, '