Andy Lapsa

Co-founder & CEO, Stoke Space · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderexecutiveengineer@AndyLapsa ↗LinkedIn ↗stokespace.com ↗

Before co-founding Stoke Space in 2020, Lapsa earned a PhD and spent a decade at Blue Origin working in rocket engine propulsion. At Stoke Space, he leads technical strategy and company development for Nova, a fully and rapidly reusable medium-lift launch vehicle.

10statements → 5claims → 2claims resolved → 4/5average certainty → 1.6/5average debate potential → 1said about them ↓

1 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not yet assessed 2 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

5 assertions · 1 insight · 4 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, 1 is not yet assessed, and 2 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Andy argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Lapsa: First-stage reusability scaled annual launch capacity from 20 to 150

“In the last few years, the industry has shown the ability to reuse the first stage, which has been transformative. It allowed companies to scale from maybe a dozen or so, 10 to 20 launches per year, now to that 150 number.”

Andy Lapsa Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 2:43 Inside The Startup Building Reusable Rockets · Y Combinator

What they said10 What others said1 Episodes1

Everything Andy Lapsa said on the Y Combinator Startup Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Lapsa: Stoke Space Cuts Hardware Iteration Cycles to 1-2 Days

“We'll go learn something on a test stand, tear it down, drive it back here, pull it apart, run a change in the machine shop, drive it back out there, integrate on the test stand, and we're off and going. So a one month cycle is down to a day or two.”

Andy Lapsa Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 12:13 Inside The Startup Building Reusable Rockets · Y Combinator

Disclosure

Lapsa: Stoke Space is building fully reusable rockets with aircraft-like turnaround

“Stoke is building fully and rapidly reusable rockets with aircraft-like reusability.”

Andy Lapsa Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 0:06 Inside The Startup Building Reusable Rockets · Y Combinator

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Lapsa: Starlink launch dominance and constrained capacity restrict the space economy

“With only a 150 potential transactions, and most of them getting taken up by Starlink, there's just not that much availability, and so there are customers who are willing to pay quite a bit more to get the availability, but to make the space economy more ubiqu…”

Andy Lapsa Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 1:42 Inside The Startup Building Reusable Rockets · Y Combinator

Assertion Partly supported

Lapsa: Nova's first stage uses one of history's most fuel-efficient rocket engines

“It has one of the highest performing rocket engines in terms of fuel efficiency that's ever been produced.”

Andy Lapsa Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 2:22 Inside The Startup Building Reusable Rockets · Y Combinator

Disclosure

Lapsa: Stoke Space has raised about $990M to date

“We've raised about nine hundred ninety million dollars to date.”

Andy Lapsa Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 10:12 Inside The Startup Building Reusable Rockets · Y Combinator

Disclosure

Lapsa: Stoke Space Aims to Make Every Rocket Part In-House

“We want the ability to make every part on the rocket ourselves.”

Andy Lapsa Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 11:56 Inside The Startup Building Reusable Rockets · Y Combinator

Disclosure

Lapsa: Stoke Space built proprietary software Boltline to run factory operations

“So we made the decision very early on. We're going to build our own tool to do all this. We're going to base our operations around it and call it bolt line. And it's been a big part of our success”

Andy Lapsa Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 13:47 Inside The Startup Building Reusable Rockets · Y Combinator

Assertion Supported

Lapsa: First-stage reusability scaled annual launch capacity from 20 to 150

Andy Lapsa Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 2:43 Inside The Startup Building Reusable Rockets · Y Combinator

Insight

Lapsa: Rapid reusability scales flight frequency without expanding factory infrastructure

“What rapid reusability allows you to do is to scale the flight frequency without having to scale your factories and your test facilities and all of the infrastructure that comes with it.”

Andy Lapsa Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 3:51 Inside The Startup Building Reusable Rockets · Y Combinator

Assertion Open · timeframe Jan 2029

Lapsa: Stoke Space factory can build about seven vehicles per year

“The facility is designed to build about seven vehicles per year.”

Andy Lapsa Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 11:05 Inside The Startup Building Reusable Rockets · Y Combinator

The other half of the tape: Andy Lapsa's own voice is left out of every number here. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Statements about Andy Lapsa, by other people (1)

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Feldman: No Rocket Companies Were Rigorously Tackling Full Reusability in 2019

“There is this problem, you know, people are still throwing away rockets. And like, we really didn't see anybody actively working super hard to like, you know, attack that problem with rigor, combined with the fact that we thought we had a pretty good idea on h…”

Tom Feldman Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 5:03 Inside The Startup Building Reusable Rockets · Y Combinator

Appearances (1)

Episode	Date	Speaking time
Inside The Startup Building Reusable Rockets · Y Combinator	Jan 8, 2026	7m

Andy Lapsa

The record, in short

Their most notable supported claim

Statements about Andy Lapsa, by other people (1)

Appearances (1)

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