Chris Kemp on Astra's Comeback, Rockets and Drones from Space

If you’ve seen HBO’s Wild, Wild Space (play.max.com/movie/55ee21e5-4295-4107-859a-a97…) or read When the Heavens Went on Sale (amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0062998870/ref=tmm_hrd_swat…), then Chris Kemp needs no introduction. Kemp is one of the stars in both works.
For the less familiar, Kemp is the co-founder and CEO of Astra Space, a maker of rockets based in Alameda, Calif. For several years now, Astra has been on a quest to create the cheapest, easiest to launch rocket in the market and to turn rocket-making into a mass production affair.
The company has enjoyed glorious highs all the way to orbit and lows where it verged on bankruptcy. Over the past year, Kemp and Astra co-founder Adam London took the company private and raised a fresh $80 million as they head toward flying Rocket 4 - their next-generation machine. We have lots more on that story here (corememory.com/p/astra-space-raises-80m-and-pl…).
In this episode, we get into Astra’s tumultuous journey with Kemp, his disdain for some of my filmmaking choices and the future of rockets. He envisions a world with rocket launch sites in many countries and rockets ferrying things like drones into battles in far-off places in a matter of seconds.
As always, you can listen here or via your favorite podcast provider. And we have a YouTube channel (youtube.com/@CoreMemoryVideos/featured) with the podcasts and our latest science and tech videos. Leave a review. Like and subscribe. Calm our souls.
Most of all - enjoy!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit corememory.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&am…