Oct 1, 2026 · 48 min · 11 segments
Sassie Duggleby, Co-Founder and CEO of Venus Aerospace, joins Massive Signals to discuss building the world's first high-thrust rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) — and the journey from a…
Sassie DugglebyGuestDavid MandellHostAri NewmanHostI want to come back to that later because I have questions for you about how you knew you were talking to the wrong investor, but we'll put a pin in it and we'll come back.
So can you give us the 60-second version of what the rotating detonation rocket engine is, what's special about yours, and why no one else has been able to crack this nut up until now in a meaningful way around high thrust?
So if I put a line of gasoline across my table here and I light that gasoline on fire on the side, what's going to happen?
So if it lit on one end and burned across the table to the other end faster than the speed of sound, we would call that a detonation.
And anytime you detonate propellant, it is a more energy efficient combustion process.
And so in doing that, and as opposed to having it go in the line, what we do is have it go in a continuous line, which is a circle.
And so we kick off the flame and it goes around and around in an annulus about 10,000 times per second, constantly detonating our fuel and oxidizer.
And in doing that, it lets us pull more energy out And so that more energy efficient combustion process means at the end of the day, we can fly a mission that either has more range, more payload, and has more flexibility.
As opposed to traditional, everyone's used to what a traditional propulsion rocket engine looks, sounds like.
Talk about just the contrast of the RDRE versus traditional propulsion and So we can visualize
So, you know, your standard rocket engine is just a slow campfire burn in a chamber.
And so you're burning in a chamber, and you're gaining thrust by getting the nozzle, just like when you put your finger over a fire hose.
And so it's a very different engine technology, whereas we are burning with the supersonic detonation wave going continuously around and around in a circle in the combustion chamber.
I want to come back to that later because I have questions for you about how you knew you were talking to the wrong investor, but we'll put a pin in it and we'll come back.
So can you give us the 60-second version of what the rotating detonation rocket engine is, what's special about yours, and why no one else has been able to crack this nut up until now in a meaningful way around high thrust?
So if I put a line of gasoline across my table here and I light that gasoline on fire on the side, what's going to happen?
So if it lit on one end and burned across the table to the other end faster than the speed of sound, we would call that a detonation.
And anytime you detonate propellant, it is a more energy efficient combustion process.
And so in doing that, and as opposed to having it go in the line, what we do is have it go in a continuous line, which is a circle.
And so we kick off the flame and it goes around and around in an annulus about 10,000 times per second, constantly detonating our fuel and oxidizer.
And in doing that, it lets us pull more energy out And so that more energy efficient combustion process means at the end of the day, we can fly a mission that either has more range, more payload, and has more flexibility.
As opposed to traditional, everyone's used to what a traditional propulsion rocket engine looks, sounds like.
Talk about just the contrast of the RDRE versus traditional propulsion and So we can visualize
So, you know, your standard rocket engine is just a slow campfire burn in a chamber.
And so you're burning in a chamber, and you're gaining thrust by getting the nozzle, just like when you put your finger over a fire hose.
And so it's a very different engine technology, whereas we are burning with the supersonic detonation wave going continuously around and around in a circle in the combustion chamber.
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