Above the Clouds: Stories from the Boardroom
Sep 11, 2026 · 1 hr 11 min · 14 segments
There are at least ten companies with real funding and a credible shot at putting thousands of satellites into orbit every year. Every one of those satellites needs a thruster. The entire electric…
Jonathan HuffmanGuest
Richard ByrdHost
So argon, I think you can get in pressurized vessels for like $0.40 a kilo.
performance that you get from argon though is going to be vastly lower in terms of your thrust per watt you're you're going to end up consuming much more power to get the same thrust that
what you're doing is trading you can't store it at the same density as you store xenon or naphthalene so your tanks get bigger and heavier you you can't uh run it at a slow power and get the same thrust so you get bigger solar arrays.
You're trading dry mass for the cost and the dry mass has its own costs in terms of both your maneuverability and your launch costs.
But if you can run on something that's better, you run on something that's better.
And that's what everyone in government still does because their volume is low enough.
Well, and that's the SpaceX phenomenon where they are doing everything at scale.
So, uh, tell us a little bit more about, uh, what you guys are doing and, and, you know, how does that relate to, to people here on earth?
So argon, I think you can get in pressurized vessels for like $0.40 a kilo.
performance that you get from argon though is going to be vastly lower in terms of your thrust per watt you're you're going to end up consuming much more power to get the same thrust that
what you're doing is trading you can't store it at the same density as you store xenon or naphthalene so your tanks get bigger and heavier you you can't uh run it at a slow power and get the same thrust so you get bigger solar arrays.
You're trading dry mass for the cost and the dry mass has its own costs in terms of both your maneuverability and your launch costs.
But if you can run on something that's better, you run on something that's better.
And that's what everyone in government still does because their volume is low enough.
Well, and that's the SpaceX phenomenon where they are doing everything at scale.
So, uh, tell us a little bit more about, uh, what you guys are doing and, and, you know, how does that relate to, to people here on earth?
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3 of 10
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