Eric Romo, President and COO of Impulse Space, discusses geopolitical competition in space and China's push into commercial space launch.
Opinion
Romo: Space debris remediation startups are largely a scam today
“It's a scam, I think, largely. So look the orbital remediation could be a problem one day. It is not currently a problem, and I think there are there are studies you can point to on this around, like, what's the probability of collision, and what challenge cou…”
Opinion
Romo: Commercial LEO space tug market is dead on arrival
“So when you stack those things together, you know, dubious economics, small market, and bad working capital dynamics, it just didn't really pencil. So here we are, we just launched this first Mira, and we thought that had this commercial market, we kind of rea…”
Insight
Romo: Mira's true market fit is a Space Force fighter jet, not a space tug
“The practical reality is that the product market fit for MIRA, for a high thrust, high Delta V space vehicle, Is it's closer to a fighter jet than a tugboat. This is a thing that the, what Space Force wants to do with this is move really fast at some foreign a…”
Insight
Romo: Moving fast in hardware requires insourcing component development
“If you want to move quickly, you absolutely must insource a lot of the development. You must build your own components. You must take as much internally as you can”
Assertion Open · timeframe Jun 2029
Romo: Helios Reaches GEO in Eight Hours Cheaper Than Falcon Heavy
“Helios gets them to their same, same place they want to go the same day to launch eight hours later. And it's cheaper than a Falcon Heavy, more expensive than Falcon Nine, obviously, because they need to play for, pay for that and the Helios”
Prediction Open · timeframe Jun 2031
Romo: Satellite life extension will never be useful in LEO
“There are some companies that are working on life extension. That's useful in GEO, where satellites are really expensive, and so therefore we should extend their life a little bit. Never gonna be useful in LEO. It's not a, LEO, just replace it. It's easy to ge…”