The Next-Generation of Single-Stage-to-Orbit Spaceplanes with Radian's Richard Humphrey | E2022

26:17TPS is one of the, in the shuttle program, right? That was actually the critical failure. It was a very delicate thermal protection. It was super fragile. And it was in a critical path for success. And it was one of the most expensive parts of the refurbishment. We're now 20 plus years later. NASA left the development spigot on for thermal protection. Other developments happened with companies like GE and others to develop more hardened thermal protection. And with the support of NASA and some of our Space Act agreements and some of these other industries, you know, leading suppliers, we've been able to marry a few of these together.

27:00And we've developed a thermal protection product that actually is completely reusable, Alex. When we come back through the atmosphere, and we've tested this already under plasma torches at NASA, it has almost the same exact properties after flight than it has before flight. Meaning it can take repeat multiple uses before it would get all the way to where we'd have to retire it. Yeah, well, I mean, honestly, I thought that the thermal protective system was going to be the thing that would be the limiting factor on the reusability of the space plate that eventually it would just get so burned to use a very non-scientific term that you'd have to kind of retire the craft.

27:39But it sounds like it's very strong. So then just because I'm very curious, Richard, what is the thing that makes the 100 use target 100 versus a thousand say? I'd say an abundance of caution, right? It would almost be unbelievable to step forward and make a claim of a thousand. Others do it, I suppose. But our team comes from the background of, you know, high credibility, you know, with the things they've done in the Air Force and NASA and others. There's nobody. We just have kind of a conservative approach to that stuff. So behind the scenes, you know, we want to make it 500, right? That's what we're working towards.

28:19But 100 is what we're putting out there as the target that we want to make sure we can get to. And 100 is outstanding, right? It hasn't ever been done before. And we're going to make that number. Now, engines are going to require refurbishment in between, maybe at 50 uses, something like that, maybe 25. But the economics of the company work at 100. So if you end up getting 150, 200, whatever, that's all gravy. but I presume you've modeled this out that with a hundred, everything kind of maths. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. The break, the break even of reuse is, you know, in the low twenties. So it makes sense really.

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30:15If you want to put your audio data to work and build powerful AI experiences for your customers, head to assemblyai.com slash twist and get 100 hours for free and join over 200 ,000 developers who are building amazing apps with voice data. Go to assemblyai.com slash twist today. Yeah, no, no, I feel the same way. But I do want to narrow down to what you guys announced recently i think it was in um september that you guys discussed uh the first round of ground taxi tests with your prototype vehicle which is called the pfvo1 i think we have an image of that so i'm curious what was the series of tests how did they go and then um just because a lot of people who watch the show know how to build software but less how to build a space plane uh now that you've completed this first set of two ground tests what's the next iteration uh that we'll get to see from the rating one yeah yeah so pfv that's a that stands for proto prototype flight vehicle it's our first one um that's uh it's a composite bird and the testing that happened so far we've got it out on the ramp sometimes it was 115 degrees out there alex we had oh the first time around i think we melted all the tires melted like in the first half hour it was pretty burrow in Abu Dhabi.

31:31So if anyone's curious why it was 115 degrees, it wasn't the North Valley here in the States. They were over the Middle East. Right. So there's a lot in that process of just making sure, you know, all your control surfaces work, everything's operating properly. We've done some hops, Alex, where it's been off the ground, but we haven't taken it up to altitude and started flying it just yet. Okay. That's coming up. So you're asking about what's next. That'll be obviously the next set of flight. We've already taken a lot of the learnings out of this and we continue to iterate in the back room you know doing our design work uh this is what we call av09 so that's our ninth iteration of the design we're now three cycles past that uh for various reasons we've got a little bit different tail configuration there's a few things um like that that are coming out of but what we what we learn most is that what we know, uh, what we're doing and learning inside the computer and inside the wind tunnel, uh, all converge.

32:32So everything seems to be matches. That means our modeling, um, all the wind, the wind tunnel modeling as well. Everything seems to match. And this is important. We don't want our first vehicle to be, you know, the, this 190 foot vehicle, the 60 yard vehicle, uh, that is, um, that is going to, and then find out, oh, geez, we should have put the tail in a different place. So this is really important. So we're really pleased with the results, by the way. I can tell from the release you guys put out, but this is a gauche question, but this is a startup show. So I'm curious to actually build the PFV01, how much did that cost?

33:09I don't know if it was like a million dollars or like 15, because I know it's a smaller version, but I have no idea what it costs to actually put that together at your stage. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's big. It's about the size. I think it's 16 feet long, something like that. That's like five and a half meters, five and a half yards, Alex. We have to use American measurements. I mean, this is... Yeah, right, right. You guys are based out of Washington. I'm on the East Coast. This is a yard country, and everyone else is correct, but... I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm often struggling with the meter conversions as well.

33:46So it's pretty big. I mean, this is an aircraft. You fly Cessnas. Alex, you know this is a little smaller than a Cessna, but not a lot smaller. And it's more durable, you know, in many ways. What I think about what it cost was, it's hard to put those into numbers because you said, what's the hardware cost? Well, that's one number, but all the time that went into the design of getting to that point, that's another number. But, you know, I'd say this is probably a$4 million endeavor when you add up all the effort and time and work that goes into it. So hardware costs are not that or something on the order of 10, 15 % of that, something like that.

34:25Okay. And then as you guys go from this 15, 16 foot plane to 190 feet, how many more iterations are you going to need as you go from this to that? It's not clear to me. It could be one. It could be five. It could be zero. But I'm curious. Yeah. We have a really robust test flight program that'll continue to iterate over time. We've already got PFV2, the prototype 2 on the drawing boards or beyond the drawing boards and soon ready to go and start its build. The next thing we'll be doing also is a test flight sled. So it won't be rocket power. These are jet engines, by the way, that are on here.

35:03And we'll be putting jet engines on there. But we're going to start testing separation flight on a sled. These are really complex technologies that really need to be iterated. So we're starting in kind of a low cost test bed and continuing to iterate while we get it smarter and smarter about it. Well, that's why it's exciting and fun. But I have to ask, do you need a crash test dummy to affix onto the sled? Because I have some time. I have a helmet. Are you volunteering? This is great. I am volunteering because it sounds like good fun. And that also makes for a great YouTube video. But I mean, I joke, but I am curious about the time here.

35:42You guys have been working on this for eight years or so, clearly making real progress. But are we eight years away from the first test flight of the full-sized Radiant 1 plane? Or is it more like three? What does that time frame look like? No, Alex, we're expecting to get first flights of Radiant 1. Radiant 1 is the full-size vehicle in 2028. And 2029, by the end of the decade, we expect to be doing orbital flights. And then the other thing to just keep in mind, Alex, is while we're eight years since we founded, those first two years, we were just running trades. We were just committing ourselves to the business.

36:20We each were running other businesses and things like that. So you say eight years. Yeah, it's eight years. But we really consciously dove in and became full-time, committed, being able to really dive into this full-time. and when I say full-time, I mean, we went from like, just are we going to do it, not do it to be 80 hours a week kind of thing. So it's really been a commitment on all of our part. But I think every one of us would say, you think this is our life's work? You know, it might be some of the most important work we'll ever do. We're going to get into the space economy and why I think you might be right in a second.

36:56But just one last question about the business before we go broader. um 2028 not that far away 2029 not that far away uh how much more money are you guys going to raise between now and then just thinking kind of venture capital terms for the other founders out there who are listening yeah yeah it's alex it's over a billion dollars that's needed to get all the way to the first flights scaling up will be even more than that it's it's a very um good business case there's an incredibly solid and i and i'll tell you we just like our numbers in the technical side that are conservative. We run that the same way because I think it's just a more compelling story.

37:31So, you know, it's got a very high IRR. It's got a very large gross profit margin built in. I mean, we see flights changing by an order of magnitude, you know, in terms of the cost per human flight, and it's still profitable, you know, under that environment. We've got bookings already.

37:54We've We've got over$2 billion in commitments in terms of letters of intent, things of that nature. And then we have hard orders that are in the hundreds of millions. Well, that's quite a lot. Now, if you're going to need a billion dollars, though, there's only so many buckets of money you can go out and get. And so I'm curious when we think about funding for this market, how much of this is private money versus how much of this is public money? Because we've talked about NASA a lot. There is a spigot of money from the government into the space economy. Is that something that you guys are going to be looking to tap more or is this mostly going to be private capital?

38:30No, it's something that's been a big part of a lot of our conversations. And when we founded the company, we felt it was extremely important to have a business case that worked that didn't require government participation. Because first of all, it's an unreliable piece of business to project in the future. And that doesn't mean it's unreliable once you have it. But I'm just saying you making a business case like, oh, I'm going to go sell the government. That's a really that's a really tough sell. At least at the time, we're in a little different world right now in terms of, you know, we've got the China parody heading towards us and the defense world is looking at things a little differently.

39:04But we didn't set out to be defense focused or even government focused now. So the model closes 100 % under a commercial model. Turns out, though, no surprise, but turns out there's a lot of government interest in what we do. And we're in those offices. We're in the offices you were just talking about. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, frankly, just I know this is just my my personal view, but I can see if we get to the point in which you guys are going up as often as you hope to. I mean, just looking at the EU and their struggle with the Ariane program, you know, I can see a lot of governments being very curious and very interested in having launch capacity through your company domestic to them.

39:43If you only need a couple of miles and you can land it on a runway. I mean, you probably don't need spaceports to be as single purpose and as big, maybe. I mean, to me, a lot of countries are going to want this. Yeah. No, you're right. We've talked to most space agencies around the globe already, and there's a lot more than there were just 20 years ago. I mean, every country's really decided they need to have a space presence. Now, most of the offerings right now, though, require you to, you know, either go to the Russians or you've got to go to the Cape where, you know, there's not a lot of places to launch.

40:17And there's very few places and very few countries that can launch from their sovereign soil. But there's a lot of interest in that. And I think just like aircraft at one point, it became a national security issue and a national business issue for every country. Some countries have one airplane, but it's, you know, Bhutan Airlines, you know, and it's important to their economy to be secure enough to be able to travel in and out of their country. I think there'll be something very much like that for space. What's unique about the horizontal launch, which you were talking about, the unique characteristics, I forgot to mention this, but it means you can launch inland too.

40:55So right now, every vertical launch happens on pretty much the eastern or southern seaboard or could be north or in Alaska or something for polar orbits. But in general, the launches all need to be on the coast. So if there are any falling or the first stage falls in the ocean, right, to clear the sea and clear the area, that becomes a very limiting factor. If you're a landlocked country or you have an unfriendly neighbor on the other side that you don't want to launch ballistic missiles over for fear they would retaliate. This answer is that calling. So a lot of interest in that, of course. Or you can be Kazakhstan with lots of space and you can launch from there no matter what, because, hey, why not?

41:35I want to talk about the space economy, though, because one thing that I've been really excited to see is how we have rebuilt our species level launch cadence. And we have a chart that we're going to pull up here showing you kind of orbital launches by year. And if you're watching this on YouTube, I'll explain really quickly the red bars, which spiked back in the seventies or Soviet union, the U S was a much smaller launch country at the time. And then recently the U S has definitely taken the lead and we are now seeing record launches to orbit as a species, which I think is very exciting. The question that I have there, Richard, is just how much more do we need to serve both the defense use case and the kind of space economy use case?

42:18Because I look at this chart and I go, wow, you know, we're going to do probably 250 over launches this year as a species. Does that number need to be 2 ,500 or does it need to be 500? So I'm curious just how much demand there is that isn't being met by existing solutions today that you guys might service in a couple of years. Yeah. I think that demand is going to absolutely continue to grow. Alex, there's multiple demands for that. Some are going to be going outside low Earth orbit, right? We've got programs that are going to take us to the moon again. We're going to go back to that. That's not what Radian does, but that's one piece of the kind of growing reason there's going to be more launch.

42:59Of course, satellite systems, constellations, those aren't going to slow down anytime soon. But what's really going to grow, and I really think this is what I consider like space 3.0, we first started putting things up into space. And then we started moving things in space that used to be on Earth, data transfer and things of that nature. But now we're really building humanity in space. And that is going to come and surprise all of us. I think there's nine space stations, I believe, under development right now. There's a few that are really leading contenders. I think Axiom is going to just do a fantastic job.

43:38And they've been doing a fantastic job. These companies companies really, they're going to rely on Starship to move their vehicle into space because you want something big, a heavy lifter, but that's not the vehicle to use to close their business model the rest of the year, moving people and supplies back and forth. So, Radeon really will fit in that category. There's lots of demand in low-Earth orbit. We don't think. We actually have the modeling for this and industry would clearly back this up but there's about 250 billion dollars of low earth orbit market for for launch you know coming by the time we we arrive is what i'm talking about so it's it's just growing yeah it's it's it's a great graph i know it um what's what you're not commenting on and you're probably thinking about though um is that yellow line really has gotten very very big uh or i should say the orange one not the yellow one and that's That's part of what we should all be concerned about, right?

44:36We've got an adversary. And I think in terms of a parity, I believe it's pretty clear that they're going to be on par with the US capabilities. 2027, I believe, is the parity date. And if you're listening to this on audio, the orange bar that he's referring to is the Chinese launches. And one thing you can see now is the amount of launches from Russia have reached essentially de minimis level. and it's the U.S. and China that are now the two, really the two main forces in getting things up into space today. And the EU is trying its best, but it does seem to be, I don't know, tertiary, Richard, would be, I think, fair to say at this point.

45:12I think so. Yeah. That's a good word for it. Okay. So getting things to orbit, talked about that. Clearly lots of demand that you mentioned. We've talked about defense a little bit. There's going to be a lot of defense applications for more frequent, you know, multi-thousand kilogram launches. But one thing that you guys had on your site that I think people don't discuss enough is what you called rapid point to point cargo transport. And I'm so excited that someone's talking about this because roughly 10 years ago, I was watching a TED talk and the guy was talking about fast freight. And now we're going to be able to get to anywhere in the world in an hour, you know, with this type of technology.

45:50And then it felt like it just fell off the map for a while. So I'm curious how much of a use case that really is for Radiance Tech, or if that's something you guys are going to do after you sort out the more kind of low-Earth orbit launch materials. Yeah. So it's absolutely, I think, something we all want to see happen, and the world is going to see it happen. And we're definitely aiming at that. There's no question about it. It's not the low-hanging fruit for a bunch of reasons. And in the very simplest way, it's going to come down to economics versus value. so it's going to work in the i'll tell you what's not going to work it's not going to work in the businessman who wants to go new york tokyo in an hour it'll go you the flight will take an hour but how reliable will is a rocket going to be in the beginning uh of the launch cycle right we we often have delays we have delays because of you know the liquid oxygen you know is is overboiled or we've got weather or something like that so just a six hour delay and suddenly the value proposition has really gone away.

46:52We're not going to put these rockets in New York City. It's just not going to happen. So they're going to be in more remote places. So they're going to have to be like, but Alex, it's coming. And in certain terms, you can be on a standby basis where the vehicle's fueled up and ready. This would be more for governments and that nature. But imagine during conflict or things like that, you need to get something over and delivered at a certain point. We don't have to come down and land. We can actually deliver a payload somewhere out in the middle of the ocean and a submarine picks it up or on an island where there's no access to help people out or a crew that needs food or certain supplies or mission critical parts.

47:32You know, mission critical parts are sometimes, you know, you have a hundred dollar part that may slow down, you know, a 10 million dollar mission of any kind, sometimes machinery in a factory or something like that. So so this is a real important and it's happening, Alex. You know, it definitely is happening. It just won't be the very first thing we do, which I think is what you you asked. But it's 100 percent on the roadmap. You bet. Okay. So one thing that always blows my mind is how expensive private jet travel is because you have to have a crew and a plane and inspections and fuel and there's just no cheap way to do it.

48:06Flying private is just expensive, full stop. This is going to be like flying private times, I don't know, 10. But it does strike me that with the growing billionaire class that we do have in the world, there's going to come a time when flying net jets or flying your Gulfstream is going to be pretty posse. And people are going to be like, well, no, I took my orbital plane over here. and that's going to be the real flex i think for the future we'll talk though like you know it's probably much more expensive to get all the way up into orbit than it is to do you know stuff around the earth but does this ever get to the point in which it's like six figures to launch a radian one and maybe land it somewhere else in the world or is this always going to be in in the multiple millions of dollars i'm just not quite sure how much the cost comes down with scale yeah And, you know, we're clearly, you know, like all, you know, aircraft over time, they get more efficient and they get better.

48:59I don't see us getting, you know, into the six figure zone. I'll tell you when that's likely to happen. We've got a payload in there, a payload bay that's pretty big. We've got a lot of abort system weight and extra EECLIS, which is, you know, the oxygen and things like that that are in there that are necessary. Some of that over time, as it becomes more reliable, you know, we can, you know, airplanes don't have an abort system, right? You just, it either works or it, you know, but there is no, no, he's wearing parachutes. There's not a capsule to bring you back. So we get to that level, a lot of that weight comes out and that just means more passengers.

49:37So, you know, could this be a 10, 12 person, 15 or 20 person vehicle at some point? Once we get to that level, uh, then, then you would come under the million dollar mark. So it's not impossible and it's not that far away, but it's not version one. And I know that I'm pushing the later envelope of iterations. Yeah, no, I love it. You're asking the great questions. It's where the world's going. I mean, we need to be aware of that and be thinking about that. At the start of the show, I said I'm a science fiction nerd and I want to go to space and that's not idle. I really do. And I would like to also get to go up and feel weightlessness and leave our gravity well without selling my house.

50:16So when you talk about, you know, getting to 12 people, 15 people that could lower the per ticket or per seat cost here to the point in which it would be almost reachable for folks who are not Jeff Bezos. And that's really exciting because right now, you know, if I wanted to go up, it would cost infinite money and it wouldn't work that well. But it seems like you guys could unlock a tourism component here that would be a fun extra business model for the company down the road. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost in the extra category. You know, I love our team. I think we just, we have such incredible people.

50:51They're mostly, you know, we got rocket scientists and PhDs and world-class leading engineers. And, you know, I think if I walked in tomorrow and said, hey, we're changing our business model and we're going to fly rich people to space, they'd be like, that's not what I thought I signed up for. I'm out of here. Yeah. But it's in our business model. I think it represents like 7 % of the potential of revenue there. So it's not that we're ignorant to it. I think the capacity of billionaires that are willing to pay$55 million, I think it's$58 million, whatever the current price is, I think we've seen many of those tapped out.

51:32They seem to be fewer and fewer of them left. I think they all had a great time, the ones that did it. But there's fewer of those. But the sub$5 million, which is what we're aiming at long term, that's a much bigger pool. And guys like you are going to make a lot of money. So I have no doubt that we're going to see you there. Oh, no. I mean, Richard, I'm a journalist. So if I end up on one of those, my publication is going to have to foot the bill, if you will. But I'm going to get to space come hook, crook, hell, high water, whatever it is. I need to I need to see our planet from above. You know, I overview effect.

52:08No, I totally get it. That's a that's a game changing from what I understand. Not been to space. But it's funny you say it because you say it with the same kind of passion. Me and my my three other co-founders, the four of us, we each showed up at the table going somehow I'm going to space. I've always expected to go. The world has not progressed the way I want it to. And, you know, it was definitely a thought experiment, but, you know, you think about like, imagine the world if we can make this happen, you know, and then the other half of that equation is, and imagine if we don't, like, that's also something I'm not really willing to accept.

52:41So that was, you know, very passion driven, mission driven company. These were at the core, at least of our co-founders. And I would tell you, most of the people on our team, especially in the engineering business and outside too, I often see them go, this is why I got into, you know, aerospace. This is what led me to become an aerospace engineer or do something else in aerospace was this concept of single stage to orbit flight, you know, just get in a plane, go come back. And it goes again, it goes again, and you get to really see, see this kind of aircraft like operations. And I know we need to wrap up, but like the thing about the future and keeping our eyes up above the horizon, I'm talking to founders at companies like Albedo Space, which is doing, you know, very low orbit on high res imaging, Axiom is building private space stations.

53:34There's a company that wants to use a neat water based propulsion system. They're going to get water from the moon to fly around in orbit. There's just so much neat stuff. And it's only going to go faster and get cooler if we can get the price of getting up into orbit down. And so that's why part be it for me to root for any individual company, because that's your job. But I really hope that, frankly, it works and that we can all get up there and do a lot more because it's too fragile to live on one planet. And I really do think we need to become at least here and on the moon, if not Mars, if not further out and so forth.

54:10And baby steps to get there. But Richard, I'm glad you're working on it. And just before I let you go, where can folks find your company and find yourself on the great wide Internet? that uh you can catch radian at radian aerospace.com and um that's where you'll find me as well so we're seattle-based and that's where you'll find us in person i got a couple you're not actually seattle-based i thought you were in bellevue yeah okay greater seattle-based you got you're very very specific you do you know the area or something most people would i used to be a microsoft beat reporter of course well then you yeah you know you know magnolia and all of those things but yeah I love your perspective on how low-cost access will change.

54:47The abundance of all things is in space, right? It's not on Earth by tearing it apart. So if we can access space regularly, there's just no doubt in my mind that that's how we change the world. That's why we're doing it for life on Earth, not for life in space. It gives us something that I think we all need a little bit of lately, given politics and geopolitics. I think it just gives hope. you know and there's no irr that you can apply to to hope and optimism but this is the sort of thing that puts a smile on my face when i get up much more so than a new sass application for pe veterinary clinic roll-ups you know so i'm i'm optimistic about this richard thank you much the next time you love your passion thank you thank you for having me today enjoyed it yeah absolutely and we'll have you back when uh the plane goes up everyone this is twist more interviews coming more live news we'll see you around the internet bye

55:40Thank you.