Podcast Episode Details
Back to Podcast Episodes#701 – Electric Propulsion with Todd Bailey
Welcome back Todd Bailey of Starlight Engines, now Muon Space! (11 years later)
- Todd was on Episode 194 of The Amp Hour, when he was consulting in the art and design space and building instruments like Where the Party At (WTPA). He was designing ‘robot doors’ for Calvin Klein’s house, discussed last time.
- Through Andy Reitano, Todd learned about a role at Lockheed Martin (a US defence company) working on sonar for submarines.
- “What a good job is”
- Fun
- Lucrative
- Skills / teach you
- Todd, Andy, and other Lockheed Martin friends worked on the VEC9 discussed in ep194
- Clearance was required to work on sonar
- Military electronics had some differences from his past work, but Todd was interestingly complementary of requirements driven design / waterfall
- Chris and Todd were hanging out in a bar before he moved over to working on space and Todd mentioned he wanted to be Zefram Cochrane and do interesting things that matter (in space).
- Star Trek First Contact (gah, I said generations)
- Past guest Shawn Meehan talked to Todd and that’s how he started working at the “stealth space startup” at the time
- Astra
- HBO (not Netflix) special called Wild Wild Space
- Other past guests of the show who were at Astra include Charles Aylward and Jeri Ellsworth
- Silicon Valley Startup
- “When the heavens went on sale” (book)
- Commercial space by SpaceX
- Rocket Lab was second
- “Fail on stage”
- Booster state of that rocket motor control
- Electric turbo pump
- Delphin engine
- Cryogenic / feedback was hard
- Alameda indoor test facility
- Meant to fit in shipping container (8×8.5×40 ft)
- System design and market requirements (launches don’t want small rockets)
- Working remote
- No
Published on 3 weeks, 3 days ago