Andy Lapsa attended some of the top engineering schools. He helped advance the development of some of the most advanced rocket engines in the world. After 10 years in the industry, he felt like the spaceflight future he was trying to create had not gotten much closer.
He said that low-cost rockets that can launch, land, and fly again the next day are inevitable. I think it's going to happen. It's just a question of who does it and when.
He has a similar vision for the future. Two of the wealthiest people in the world are sharing it. 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.
Lapsa told Ars that he loved Jeff's vision for space. I worked closely with him for a while on different projects and I'm on board with the vision. I thought we could move faster and let their history speak for itself.
More than two decades have passed since Bezos founded Blue Origin, the company has yet to reach space. Three years ago, Lapsa, who is in his late 30s, and Tom Feldman, who is just 30 years old, began to look for a place to make a difference. They were animated by a desire to bring forward the era of low-cost, regular access to space and the future that might open for humanity.
AdvertisementThere were dozens of rocket companies in the US. A friend of theirs, a former Blue Origin engineer named Tim Ellis, co-founded a Los Angeles-based company. The company didn't fully commit to the Terran-R rocket at the time. They weren't as enthusiastic about 3D-printing an entire rocket or about Additive Manufacturing.
"I think it's novel, but you want to choose the tools for production that make sense, and you don't want to let the best answer win." Their approach was too single-minded.
They finally considered the company. The two men were looking for three key ingredients in a company, Lapsa said. The primary focus of the company was on the Starship rocket. It was home to the largest and most talented team of rocket engineers in the world.
It was not for them.
Lapsa said that they have an amazing history of execution, of awe-inspiring stuff that has transformed our industry. There is room for a different type of company. We talk to a lot of people who have left the space program after a few years. They're done.
Lapsa and Feldman formed their own company at the end of the year. Neither had run a business before. They didn't have a plan for their rocket. They had a strong belief that the future they wanted wasn't going to happen.
Lapsa said that they jumped off a cliff.
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