Rockets and rocket fuel, made in Holland

Hi folks and welcome to Space Cowboys episode... I don't know, nine? I think it's nine. I think it's nine. At a certain point we're going to lose track, I'm sure. Very soon, during this episode I will check, but not right now. I think, Herbert, it's episode nine and welcome everyone. Welcome to you, Thijs. Welcome to you, Herbert. And welcome to our guest. Our guest, Roel Eerkens. Yes. Of T-Minus, one of our Dutch space companies. It's a rocket company. That's correct, yeah. Rockets are your core business. You're a rocket scientist. Apparently so, yeah. That makes you super smart. Sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes. Depends on the topic, obviously. Very cool. So today we're going to talk about rockets and building rockets. Not just any rockets, but as tiny as a needle. No. They're not space excise, I would say. That's a bit too much maybe for the Netherlands. But you found a niche. You found a niche in orbit. And we're going to talk all about it. Yeah, that's right. But not before we first talk about what happens out there in space or close or in Earth orbit. And are we going to mention the sponsors? Yeah. Let's do that after. Okay. Let's first chat about what happened. That's good enough for me. What's your story of the week then? Well, there was... There were a couple again. A lot is happening. A lot is happening. But you got to sort of pick one. And I want to go back to sort of like... Well, this is Space Cowboys. We want to talk about space exploration as well. And I find it fascinating that if you look at the outer solar system, that we haven't really explored it that much. So there was a new moon discovered circling Neptune. It's called Hippocamp. I saw that... That's a weird name. It's a super weird name. And supposedly this was already a moon that was photographed by Hubble in 2013. But they didn't know where it was exactly. And now suddenly they figured it out. But I found it fascinating that there's still a new moon around Neptune to be discovered. And it made me realize like we haven't really been back ever since Voyager passed by. That's true. Yeah. Why do we not... Why are we not orbiting Neptune or Uranus? Because it's far away. It's bloody far. It's bloody far away. That's a pretty good answer. That's a pretty good answer. It's probably very expensive again. And I believe there's tens of moons, maybe hundreds of moons around Neptune waiting to be discovered. Yes, you would think so, right? Every smaller ones, of course. Yeah. And it's probably... Hippocampus is probably a fragment of another moon that was already circling Neptune. So... How big is it anyway? Let's see. How big is it? I seem to remember about 30 kilometers, 30 miles or something. Yeah. Yeah. It's the smallest... It's the smallest moon yet discovered in orbit around Neptune. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I know that there are a couple of... There have been ideas about going back there. But there's nothing literally in the works right now. No, no. I don't think so. To go out there. But there's a lot to explore. Tell me about this hippocamp moon. There was a couple of weird things about the orbit, right? Very low, very fast. Yeah. I seem to remember. Yeah. No. I didn't go that far into it. I found it just a fascinating fact that it's in there. What did you hear about it? Just the sole fact that it was another, a new moon. Yeah. Well, especially around Neptune. Yeah. It's more that it took Voyager to figure out that they actually even have close-up shots of them. Most of the things that we've... The pictures that you see from Neptune are from Voyager still. There's a couple of pictures from Hubble that were taken by Hubble. But we hardly know anything about these places yet. So New Horizons had a much better look at Pluto than Voyager had of Neptune or Uranus. Yeah. Because technology has gone forward. Exactly. Exactly. So sometimes it feels like, oh, yeah, it's our cosmic backyard and we sort of already know. And then constantly we realize, like, no, we don't know. We don't know anything. And there's so much. So we can talk about human space exploration to Mars. We can talk about a moon base. All those. Yeah. All those things. But there's so much. And we talk about exoplanets, but we hardly know anything about the planets in our own solar system. You know what happens when I type hippocamp in Google just like that? No. I get all kinds of information about camping sites in France. Okay. That's super weird. Yeah. So I don't know. What is the total of moons that we have discovered now then? Oh, man. Because there's so... You mean around Neptune? Around Neptune, yeah. I'm already looking like... Not that much. Maybe 10 max. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I'm counting eight right now. But I guess we have to invite a guest who knows everything about the outer solar system. That's one for on the list. We will. I'm just quickly reading some stuff about hippocamp. It's 20 miles across. Yeah. So you're right. Astronomy.com tells me. Yeah. I'm not seeing too much about the... Orbit right now. Well, and the... I didn't see anything about the orbit either. I'm seeing that it's 14 is the number of total moons that we've now discovered around Neptune. 14. Oh, wow. Yeah. Several inner moons, including hippocamp, along with six outer moons and Neptune's largest moon, of course. Okay. And all you listeners, you can Google hippocamp yourself. Hippocamp and Neptune, because otherwise you'll get stuck into camping sites. Yeah, exactly. Hippocamp, yeah. So that was my story of the week. But it's the story of the next few years, I think. Okay. Roel, what's your story of the week? My story of the week was difficult to pick, but Spaceship Two, getting back into, well, service and also... That's Virgin Galactic. Yeah. Virgin Galactic's... Space tourism. Space tourism. Richard Branson. I think first female commercial passenger. Yeah. Oh, wow. That's a new one as well. And I'm really glad that they managed to come back from... Well... The setbacks they had in the, well, previous years. Because they had a fatal casualty. Yeah. And all that. Yeah, it was terrible. What was her role again? Was she just a commercial? I thought she also had a function or something. I think she was responsible for new passengers. Yeah. That kind of... Yeah, so she was the first sort of non-pilot to go up. But she did have some sort of... She was the director of the... Of the tourism part. Anybody got a name, by the way? Let's... Yeah, Google that. No. No worries. We can solve that. Yeah. On the fly. I was once there in New Mexico near the spaceport. It's very desolate. There's not much there. As it should be. Yeah. And it was so funny because the lady who toured us around was... When we left, she said... I mean, it's literally... It's 45 minutes down a... Back then it was a dirt road. I think now it's... They paved it from a town called Truth or Consequences. And then Truth or Consequences is hours from the nearest... Beth Mosey's. Beth Mosey's. And so when we left and when we shook hands and said farewell, she said... Hey, so if you guys are ever in the neighborhood, hey, please give us a call. And really, really, if you're ever in the neighborhood, please... Yeah. Please call. There's no one here. So it's not a place where you... If you accidentally take a wrong exit, that you end up at Mojave Airport and spaceport. No. It's really in the middle of nowhere. And it's... But it's... It must be... They were... This was in 2011 that I was there. So maybe 2010 even. So it's been a while. And now I know there have been developments. I think they even have places to stay close by now. So now... Because they're building it into a tourism site, it needs to have all the amenities, of course, that a tourist resort needs. So if, dear listener, you are planning to go up there, then there's probably a bubble bath waiting for you. Yeah. Somewhere. Should be quite comfortable. Actually, truth or consequences, the town is very known for its hot springs. So there's a lot of spas pretty close by the spaceport. So if you go up into space and then you go back down to the little... To the town of truth or consequences, then you can go to one of these spas. Yeah. But I know this goes far, but truth or consequences is the name of the town because they... I think there was some sort of radio show in the 50s. And then this town, I forgot what the old name was, was like, well, if we join the game show, then they promised that they would change their name into the game show or something. So that's why they're... Let's rename the town. Yeah. So that's why the name of the town is truth or consequences. And that's where the spaceport is. Now, Roel, you mentioned this event, Virgin Galactic launching its first test passenger, first female astronaut and all that. How close are they, in your view, to starting the real space tourism business that they were going to do? It's obviously difficult to say from out here. Like any setbacks that they had in the previous couple of years. They didn't anticipate those. But I think that when they're moving forward and the maturity of the technology is improving. And what also happened is that a lot of the R&D went into the company. And there's a lot of, well, collaboration or relationship between the stuff going on with Launcher One. So with Virgin Galactic, well, air launched access to orbit. So I think they're moving. They're moving forward quite strongly. But yeah, difficult to say, obviously. They could have more setbacks. It's part of the deal. If you're developing, you encounter problems. And the way forward is to solve them. Yeah. And they had setbacks, of course, especially because it included fatalities. It was a really big setback, of course. It was a tragedy and a drama for all the people involved, of course. But if you looked at their timeline, they didn't even have that many setbacks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was just that the setback that they had was so catastrophic that it gave the whole project a different, yeah, put the project in a different light, I think. Even though sometimes a rocket can blow up or some test part can blow up, but then usually there's not always people involved. But in this case, it was, of course, two people, I believe, right? Yeah. Pilot and co-pilot. That's right. Terrible. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So when are we now then? Finally going up? I mean, this was the first one. That was actually my question. Yeah. Yeah. I think two weeks ago, we had one of the stories of the week was that Richard Branson wants to do it on the date of the moon landing, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So July. So that will be 20th of July. 20th of July. Yeah. Yeah. This year? This year. Yeah. So then it's exactly 50 years after the moon landing. That was his symbolic. So that's what they're aiming for right now. Yeah. Okay. A couple of months. Yeah. Hey, Ann Herbert, your story of the week. Well, I have two. Oh. We do a lot of looking forward in this podcast. Mm-hmm. I'd like to look back just for a couple of seconds because I encountered this YouTube video entitled, You Won't Believe How the First Spy Satellites Worked. Okay. And I had a hunch. There was a little man. I had a hunch that Yuri Gagarin was just... He was taking pictures from a little pod. Yes. With his iPhone probably. Yeah, exactly. You're not far off. Oh. Except for the iPhone. First spy satellites photographed... Sorry, that was me. That's your smartphone working. Mm-hmm. The first spy satellites worked with film. Film. They had film on board. Okay. Just a little roll of film. And what happened when the film was full... Mm-hmm. It was jettisoned. It was thrown into the atmosphere. Well, that's simplifying things. But it was thrown down. And it was... On the way, it was caught by a plane. And then they went on, of course, to develop the film and everything. Whoa. But you can hardly believe... It was caught by a plane? Yep. Mid-air? Mid-air. What? Cool. Yeah. And according to this video, you ought to go and see it. According to this video, that was actually the easy part. Because the difficult part was throwing it in such a way... That it could be caught in the third place. In the right region, you know. Okay. So... Yeah. So something happened this week that now has upgraded the system. That's fun already. But one little detail is also very interesting. How do you get a new roll of film inside the satellite? The answer is you don't. No. That's true. The first spy satellites were the most expensive throwaway cameras ever. Oh, wow. For sure. You can hardly imagine this in an era of video cameras and digital stuff. Yeah. And just wirelessly transmitting something. So that was really an eye-opener for me. And I think for younger people even more so. And this was in the 60s? That's right. Yeah. In the 60s. Yeah. Well, maybe 70s. I ought to check that. But okay. We'll put the video in the show notes if one goes to you for itself. Because I remember Voyager always having... It had sort of like TV cameras. So they had already sort of like an analog signal. Analog ones. Yeah. So, of course, there was no film involved or anything. Yeah. That would be weird. We need to develop the film up there somewhere and beam it back down. Yeah. Oh, wow. A bath. Okay. So that's one story. And another one. Well, we talked about Hayabusa 2 a couple of times before. And it's in the vicinity of asteroid Ryugu. Yeah. The Japanese mission. And Hayabusa is a Japanese mission. And it has done its first vacuuming of dust from the asteroid. Of course. And it shot a bullet into the asteroid itself. Dust went up and they collected it. Well, so they hope. Because they don't know until it's back if it actually collected something. They don't even know for sure. And I had this picture in my head of them. Just finally they've recovered it. And they had this epic mission to the outer solar system. They open up the little box or whatever. And they only find their own bullet or something. Something like that. And it's completely empty. You never can tell. But they do a second one, which will go into the asteroid even deeper. And throw up more stuff. And a different kind of stuff, of course. Because the most superficial dust will have been exposed to radiation and whatnot. And then they're going to probe for a deeper level. And hope for material that is more virgin, etc. Oh, yeah. Wow. So it's all very interesting. Exactly. I saw that story, too. It's just, yeah, it's fascinating. And we'll be following this, of course. Of course. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. Yeah. That's right. So thank you so much, Herbert, for those updates. You're welcome. Before we go to our guests. Oh, yeah. Yes. Now is the time for the sponsor message. No, yeah. Because Space Cowboys is supported by people like you, listeners, on Patreon. That's right. Yes. If you go to patreon.com slash Space Cowboys, you can, yeah, make an account. Get rid of your money. Get rid of your money. That's basically it. Yeah. Get rid of your money and help us make these episodes for you guys, where we talk about space exploration in the modern era. Absolutely. I'd love to hear tips if we have colleagues doing sort of the same thing and follow a couple of people on YouTube who talk about space travel, but I don't know of any podcasts who are really just doing roundups. Yeah. I don't know of any podcasts who are really just doing roundups with interesting guests. Like all of our colleagues are welcome, but shoot an email. There must be many podcasts out there. Yeah, but about space travel in this sense. Everybody has their own. There should be. But a space news podcast? I don't know. Do you know any who? No. You were the first one to get introduced to me. Yeah. Okay. Exactly. So we'll see. Somebody has to do it. Yeah. And you can follow us on, well, you're already listening to us, so you are following us somewhere, but you can follow us on Spotify, on iTunes, and on YouTube. We're also on YouTube. So subscribe. Subscribe there. So then, without further ado. Roel Eerkens. Yes. Welcome from T-minus. T-minus engineering. Yeah. You have your own company, your own space company, and your company has its own rocket. That's true. Yeah. So how did that come to pass? Yeah. So no, what happened is that during our time at the university, I co-founded this company with three other people, Mark Uytendael, Hein Oldhoff, and Eric Schmidt. And we're all graduates from the TU Delft. Technical University. TU Delft. Yeah. Technical University. When did you graduate? Ooh, 2013. Okay. Yeah. So not quite recently, but also because of I was already running the company before I graduated. Oh, wow. Okay. That's always interesting. Really? Yeah. Sometimes you just have to do it. But yeah, we met up because we all like building rockets at a student society. We did that. And we were friends. Fairly successful with that with Stratos 1, which was a European record holder for the highest rocket launch by amateur students or by students in Europe. And when we looked at the technology that was available at launch ranges and regarding the sounding rocketry, we kind of figured out, okay, there's room for improvement. There's room for new technology. There's room for smarter stuff. And well, why not do it with a team that's already experienced in that as a student group? That already knew each other. That were already, well, acquainted with each other and know what everybody was up to. Exactly. So we just started and we went from there. And what we do is we, well, design, build and launch sounding rockets. So we don't go into orbit. We just go up and probe, well, the up layers of our atmosphere. Our main product that we're developing goes up to the atmosphere. Up to 120 kilometers. So now it's just above the Von Garman line. Nowhere is reaching space. And our customer base are typically, yeah, research institutes. So what's the name of that line? Von Garman? Oh, Von Garman line. Okay. And that's at a hundred kilometers. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Going back to the spaceship too, like they reached, I think 90 kilometers. Oh yeah. A little bit higher. You've been there for years. No, no, no. We're still under development. I have to be careful. I'm not clear on that. Okay. No. Yeah. We're aiming for that. And we've done test launches of our vehicle in Holland, three of them. But yeah, being so densely populated, I wouldn't launch here. I would go to Manavie or any other place in the world to launch higher up. And that's our goal for this year. Because you've been launching these rockets from the Netherlands. Yeah. Military side. Yeah. Oh, military side. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So how many kinds of rockets flying from this country? Well, it depends on how you define rocket obviously, but yeah, there's been an active community of enthusiastic people launching their own rockets, building their own rockets. Student society in Delft called DARE does a lot of rocket launches as well. And we've done it as well. Hey, if Florida can do it, then we can do it. Sure. Yeah. So the side limitations are sometimes a challenge for us. Yeah. Yeah. Are you saying so far you haven't commercially exploited your rocket? No. The rocket which we're aiming up, the one that goes up to 120 kilometers is still under development. Okay. That one. But we have smaller rockets that we use for educational purposes and we have other R&D projects running that have also acquired quite a bit of knowledge on rocket propulsion. Sure. So the name of the rocket is the DART, right? The DART. Yeah. The DART. That's a fun name. Yeah. It's a very fun name. Nice name. Yeah. Because you're throwing that little DART only to that one region. Why that region of 120 kilometers? Well, if you get a really big helium balloon, like immense, like the ones that get released from the northern parts of Europe, Kiruna or other places. Kiruna is in Sweden, right? Yeah. Kiruna is in Sweden. It's a sounding rocket range, but also a balloon range. They go up to 40, 50 kilometers altitude max. Yeah. Yeah. If you have a satellite, then the typical orbit is above 200, 250 kilometers. You have some eccentric orbits. Okay. And that leaves a forbidden region. The ignorosphere. The ignorosphere. Oh yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah. It's a really difficult place to get measurements. You are de-ignoring that. We are. We are. We're trying to, well, as Thijs already mentioned, like we hardly know anything about the deep sea. We hardly know anything about the far away, but even in our own atmosphere right above us, there's still a layer that's quite unknown. And obviously scientists want to get there and we want to accommodate those scientists. Really? Okay. So that's why you do it. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So what kind of science is being done in that region? So atmospheric science. Yeah. So particle physics, like for example, the Northern Lights. What happens with those waves? What happens with those particles? Because they happen right in that area, the Northern Lights. Yeah. Part of them occur in that region. Yeah. And so we've never flown anything through the Northern Lights, so to speak? Well, we were trying to do that. And I think there were some sounding rockets that were successful in that. But if you look at like the current state of sounding rocketry. It's typically like 1970s, 60s surplus military stuff that becomes outdated, becomes unreliable, and is very, very big. So these rockets are typically above the millions in euros. Whereas well, with your phones, with our electronics, we can do measurements that are interesting in that area while having a limited volume. So bringing them up there is interesting. Mm-hmm. And we can bring them up to a certain specific location when there's, for example, activity, when there is Northern Light going on. That's something that's really difficult with a huge rocket. Our rocket is only four meters tall. Four meters. Yeah. So it's a really small rocket. And therefore also, well, cost efficient. Yeah. And we can launch it quite quickly. Yeah. I was about to ask you for some specs. Yeah. Okay. You're giving me the height of the rocket itself. Yeah. So how about its lifting power? Yeah. So how about the height it can reach? Its girth? Like how thin is it? Yeah. So it's like 120 millimeters wide, the body about. What? It's nothing. No. And it's a boosted dart concept. So there's one part that contains like all the propellant. And on top of that, there's a part also called the dart. Really confusing for everybody. And that's inert. So it doesn't have any propellant in there, no control systems. The tip of the dart. Yeah. The tip of the dart, as I would say. And that flies on inertia. So we accelerate it with the booster. Okay. Yeah. Like eight kilonewtons of average thrust, a little bit more than that. We're still also in development of our propulsion system. But it can carry us up to like Mach 5 at eight kilometers altitude. That's our current... Eight kilometers. Eight kilometers altitude. Okay. And it's travels at Mach 5. So really fast. Yeah. Yeah. And then purely on the aerodynamic shape of the rocket. Yeah. So it's a little bit more than that. Yeah. So it's a little bit more than that. Yeah. So it's a little bit more than that. Yeah. So it's a little bit more than that. Yeah. Yeah. And then purely on the aerodynamic shape of the dart and the booster, they will separate. It's purely mechanical. It's really easy. Really... Cool. Cost efficient, I would say. Yeah. So there's more drag to the backside than to the front side. Yeah. And therefore it separates. Therefore it separates. And then it free falls from that eight kilometers, Mach 5, to 120 kilometers altitude without any propulsion. Without any... Wow. It goes up another 90 kilometers. Yeah. Because there are... There's no atmospheric drag in that area or... Well, there is, but very little. You're just purely converting... How close are you to escape velocity anyway with these Mach... What did you say? Mach 8? Mach 5. Mach 5. We're far away. Okay. Far away. So we're not going to compete with the big boys in the lower orbit anytime soon. But yeah, we're developing technology that will evade. That will eventually be... Can carry us there. But for now, our main goal is this niche. We're seven people. So in... The whole company is seven people. Yeah. Right now. Right. And obviously our ambition is to grow. And yeah, we got... A lot of the stuff we do is in-house. So we have full control about all design of electronics, design of structures, design. And in the end, also we're working on design of the propulsion system. So... Speaking of specs, how many kilograms of payload can you launch? Yeah. So it's a good question. And typically for lower orbit, it's like how many kilograms can you get into orbit? Yeah. And for us, the limiting factor is not so much the mass, but more the volume. So it's a really thin dart. So it's about like three centimeters and 40 centimeters tall, which is tiny. Three centimeters and 40 centimeters tall. Yeah. And you can still... Can't compare it to anything. No, no. You can't compare it to anything. Lamp post on the street. Yeah. Not even. It's like an umbrella. Almost like only the stick that holds an umbrella up. Traffic sign. It's a stack of two Euro coins. Yeah. 40 centimeters. Yeah. Like American quarter, sort of. Yeah. You know it better. Yeah. Rootstick. Yeah. Well, but in that payload, you can put, well, fortunately microelectronics quite a bit. Yeah. But you can also put injectables in there. Yeah. And trace chemicals that either react with the atmosphere, which you can again observe from the ground. So either by visual or by radar. And what's moving along as well is, yeah, ejectable or not injectables, but extending structures. So even if you can fold it up quite nicely and expand it, when you're up there, then you can do cool stuff. What kind of stuff have you already done? Have you been able to do some experiments? Well, we did obviously when we were launching our rockets in Holland, we put in the basic acceleration gyroscope, those kinds of things to see what kind of behavior our rocket has and to see what kind of performance it gets, what kind of aerodynamic behavior is up there for our vehicle. So we have payloads of that and it's, well, they are available for our customers as well, as well as transmitters and these kinds of things. Oh yeah. Yeah. So you have a lot of people working there? Yeah. But... Hang on. I'm still... Specs. Specs. Yeah. Okay. Herbert, you get your specs first. So how long does a typical dart flight take? Duration? So the propulsive phase, so the motor is burned up in something like five seconds, so really fast. And then the fall and the free fall is in the minutes, but it also depends on what kind of mission. So if you have something that you want to... If you want to send back telemetry, you can take a parachute with you, eject the payload, use the parachute in the lower layers to elongate the time for your data to be transmitted back to the ground. Sure. Because, well, the flight itself and the free fall is quite fast, but yeah, you can extend that with... You can hover a bit. Yeah. You can slow down the descent. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Hey, and what about cost? Suppose I have this... Well, maybe the actual cost. Well, maybe the ashes of some deceased relative. If I have anything to send up, what will you charge me? So like a complete mission is really complicated to put a number on. Like the vehicle is under 100K, but you're not there with the vehicle. You also need our support to be able to launch it. You need a launch range and other facilities. But in the end, we've got the typical mission. And the mission would be is that we don't launch one. We launch like 10 of these in a day in order to... 10 darts, 10 rockets. Yeah, that's our... Oh, wow. Because the natural phenomena, they change over time. They change with daylight, with conditions. So if you really want to do interesting science, it's a unique opportunity for this kind of price point to be able to launch multiple of these. Yeah. And the cost of launch site are then shared by the various customers. Various customers or the same customer. But the cost of launch site... It's a lot more, but gets a lot more data. Is it single use? Yeah, it's a throwaway. Yeah, it's a throwaway. And so it just gets discarded into, I think, the ocean then, I guess? Yeah, it depends on your launch rates. So yeah... You don't want a spike of three centimeters. Nope. Why it's coming back down on a city. No, you won't find it back if it hits the ground, for sure. Yeah. No, but there are launch sites that accommodate land landing as well. So the bigger areas... No. The US, obviously, but also Australia and Sweden, they have partly areas that are bigger than our country that you can... Where nobody lives and where you can safely launch these rockets. And how many darts have you launched so far? So we launched three of them in Holland and we'll launch... Presumably we'll launch three of them this year again, but then to greater heights. That's our goal for this year. Well, that's great. And when it comes to how this works, is how does it transmit the data then? So it measures its data and then it starts falling back to earth? Yeah. Is that when it quickly starts transmitting it to some ground station? I would suggest to my customers to always be transmitting. But yeah, it really depends on your mission type. Somebody really just wants to know that this chemical was released, one piece of information that's critical for their understanding. And then they... On that package, radio package, they'll observe from the ground. Whereas others might want to have a lot more data and they will constantly transmit as much data as possible during the complete flight. So yeah, difficult to say. One of the added values of this system is also because you are separating the propulsion system and the payload carrier, the dart, or the small dart. The payload carrier, the dart, or the small dart. The payload carrier, that's the system. The payload carrier, the dart, or the small dart. The payload carrier, the dart, or the small dart. The payload carrier, the dart, or the small dart. I can give it to you. You can go on a plane. You can go to your research institute. You can integrate your payload with each other at the launch range. I'll integrate it with the complicated logistics that we took care of. And then we'll launch it. Yeah. So it's really advantageous to have such an easy way of operations, whereas in the typical mission, yeah, you're confined to certain rules that make logistics a bit more complex. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They started out of, well, you were a college kid and a rocket enthusiast. Yeah. And you started a company. It sounds like something from a boy's book, you know. It's like these things actually happen. How hard is it to start your own rocket company? Well, you go to the Chamber of Commerce. You fill in a couple of forms. You build a website. You get your Instagram going. Fill in some forms. And so you first design a really bad business card. That's also a really important step. Yeah, of course. Very important. Really bad business plan as well, maybe. Maybe. I think you can even start without a business plan. That's not a problem. Oh, yeah, sure. Yes. Wi-Fi passwords with profanity in it. Also very important. Yeah. Disclaimer. No. So what are... Because you... Were you able to... Well, one is how did you start this company? But also because you have seven people working there already. How did you get it all funded? If you don't have real commercial jobs yet and you're still developing it. Like... For me, it sounds something like, yes, it's possible. But you have to be either crazy or super rich to start. Super rich would be nice to start. But no, we weren't that lucky. So now what we did was, especially in the beginning days, was a lot of engineering consultancy on the side. So what we did was a bunch of projects that bring in the money. And, well, the people that were at the company, they could spend it. Basically on our own product development. So we did... And we also did some educational projects for ESA education. But also for the Netherlands. And also for Belgium. Just launching rockets for high school kids to have a great time. And, yeah, obviously we need more people in science. So there was funding available for these kinds of projects. CanSat, by the way, if you have young children want to join. What's the name? CanSat. It's a satellite in a can. And we launch those satellites in a can, like a Coke can. Even smaller than a CubeSat? Yeah, I think so. Not too much of a difference. The CanSat competition. But the main difference is that these don't go into orbit. But they go up in, for example, our rocket. We'll bring them up to one kilometer. We eject them. And they go up in a parachute. One kilometer in this case? Yeah, in this case. So we can launch that safely in Holland and Belgium. And, well, in general parts of Europe. Yeah. And so for the past six years... Five years, six years, you've been working. So everything went into product development all the time. If you had a bit of money, if you had people. Especially in the early years. Well, being straight out of university, we didn't need much. So we could, well, invest a lot in our own development. And the way that the company grew, we also got more funding available from Dutch government. Great. Either locally in the south of Holland, which we're located in Delft. And they've got some funds for R&D, which we were able to tap into. But also from ESA, the Netherlands Space Office. And ESA also supported us with R&D funding. But obviously, like, yeah, you really should... You're really milestone-based. So they want a certain product. You build it. And it's in line with what we were developing. Yeah. Because, of course... I don't want to instantly compare you to SpaceX. Because it's a completely different order of magnitude. But are there a lot of competitors of you out there that not so much are working on this specific niche that you're working in. But small rocket companies that are trying to fill all the niches, basically. What we've seen in the past year is that there are more and more companies being able to sustain themselves. Most of these companies... Most of these companies, they typically aim for a higher payoff in lower orbit. So in our niche, we're the one. Yeah. Everybody wants to be Elon Musk, I would assume. Like, oh... It's a good example to follow. It is some good stuff. So what's your ambition? Just now you said we may eventually reach orbit. So what do you actually want to achieve? So first Dutch commercial company that reaches space. That's a good challenge for now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think if we're completely own the company and we would like to keep that in this way until we... So no venture capitalists. No, it's also like our strategy is to grow slowly but steadily. Good idea. And because we are acquiring and have a lot of the knowledge and IP in-house, it's fairly... You say easy, it's never easy. No. But it's relatively easy to expand. It's not like it's rocket science. No, no, it's not. Sorry, you had to get that one in there. Just get it over with. No, no, no. I had to do it. Yeah. All right. But speaking of Elon Musk, you must be following what he does with a certain, well, interest. Yeah. So let me just ask you, where were you when you first heard about the successful landing of a SpaceX rocket back on the launch pad? Oh. I really don't know. You don't? I'm sorry. No. So it's not that important to you, right? It is, but my memory just fades on me. Yeah. Okay, okay, okay. No. Where I was? No, I don't know. My memory of... But it's a milestone, right? For you as well. Yeah, for sure. As a rocket scientist. Yeah. The complete growth of his company in the early days also challenges with some failures, being able to push through. And then eventually... Well, going for like the big funds from NASA, being able to really move forward with that. Yeah. It's an immense performance and immense... Yeah, it's really impressive. Yeah. But things like that, do they make you think, I'd like to reuse my dots, for instance, or is it somehow not an option? Technically, it's not. Yeah. For us, it's not an option. For us, it's not economically viable. So like, Elon also pays for his ships to return. To port and to refurbish. And for our price point, like the ship is more expensive than the dark. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, sure. Okay. Obviously, like what is interesting in that respect is that he... Obviously, with the space shuttle, we had an idea of reusability. And he, as a newbie or an unknown person, started landing his boosters, which was like very unconventional. And which was frowned upon, I would say, in the beginning. And then he landed two of them at the same time. And everybody's like, okay, this is like science fiction, but it's not fake news. Yeah. It took two of them to really convince people. Maybe it did. Yeah. That's true. But yeah, that's something that... Okay, you can achieve change. Yes. So typical competitors of ours... Paradigm change, right? Yeah. I mean, NASA never did anything but throw away rockets. Yeah. But does it give you... Well, no. Maybe space shuttle. Okay. Yeah, true. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. But does it give you some sort of like new ambition level? Like where do you want your innovation to go? Of course, you're developing your products. But did he sort of move the bars? He definitely moved the bars, but we were not competing with those bars. No, no. Is it true? But for you, do you have a different end point sort of? Or do you keep on doing what you were doing and trying to do that well? No, our strategy is still the same in that respect. What you do see is that access to LEO... Also with like the constellation that he's already also working on. They really change what is needed in the space industry, which is interesting to follow. But yeah, it's not for us right now to put that on our projected future. No, that's probably smart. Do I understand this correctly? The smaller your rocket, the less important it is to reuse it? No. It's always a balance between... Yeah. What you need and what's required and what's feasible. So obviously like our rocket is less expensive than a Falcon 9. Sure. The technology to refurbish it works better with liquid. We use solid rocket propellant. Oh, I see. And also... Yeah. Solid rocket propellant. Tell me about solid rocket propellant. Because I get liquid, but why did you choose solid? The main advantages of solids are it's easy to transport, it's easy to launch. Okay. And easy, I would say, you make it once, you get the appropriate certification and you can ship it all over the world. You make it yourself? Yeah. We're working on making it ourselves. Okay. And why is that? So you make your own rockets and then you make your own fuel? Yeah. Or propellant. Propellant, sorry. Yeah. So it's basically we knocked on the doors of various companies that can make rocket propellant in this world. And well, we're not too many doors to knock on. And we being like this company from Delft that has ambitious and not an existing track record, it was always really difficult to get good contracts and good relationships. So at a certain point we figured, okay, this is way too annoying to do. Too difficult and too price prohibitive. And we can do it ourselves and we can do it cheaper and we can do it better. So that's when we started to work on our own production facility. Really? Yeah. And we are now, well, we have a signed lease in Deventer. It's a small city in Holland. Deventer, yeah. Yeah. Where we can, well, we'll be able to produce our own solid propellant in this year. And what kind of propellant is it? It's super fun. Yeah. And Deventer is a very quaint, nice town on the river. Yeah. Yeah. If you're done working and… An hour from Amsterdam, a little more. And how difficult is it to, I mean, do you need licenses? How about safety and stuff? Yeah. Do you have to jump a lot of hoops? Well, we're not going to Deventer because of its nice, quite quaint city. Oh, that's too bad. I'm going there this weekend actually to chill out in the woods there. It's a good choice. You have a place to visit now. Exactly. And it's also geographically not really close to our area. It's a little bit further from our development site in Delft. But there's a site of Nurion, former AXA Nobel, and they're refurbishing, reusing it to accommodate high reactive chemical companies, companies that want startup. So they have proper buildings. They have the infrastructure with regards to handling of goods. Yeah, safety. Safety. So we're basically renting a building that has 60 centimeters thick walls. Okay. Nice. Everything in place. Everything in place. What sort of propellant are we talking about? What is this chemical? It's based on AP, so it's similar to the space shuttle boosters. Really? Yeah. But we're not aiming, as NASA probably did, for like ultimate performance, but our objective is more like, obviously it's tailored to our own engine design. Mm-hmm. So we can customize our own formulation. But we're also aiming at an economical price point. Yeah. And then being able to sell it. Yeah. So you'll be able to sell propellant? Well, let's first sell rocket vehicles. Yeah. Okay. And then we'll see. Yeah. Cool. So at first you will be manufacturing fuel just for your own company? Yeah. It's, yeah, single. Okay. And when will production start? Any idea? So if it's up to us, next week. Next week. Next week. Next week. Wow. Wow. Yeah. There's always, we're the first renters in this new environment. Yeah. So we kind of have to lead the way in that respect. Yeah. So we're really eager to get started. But you can literally start right away? Technically, yes. Wow. But the limitations right now is sometimes the red tape, the paperwork. Really? Yeah. That's what you're waiting for? Yeah. Yeah. So it's not the only thing that you do, of course. I mean, maybe this will be your new, one of the future new ventures, but you've also worked on InSight, I believe. Yeah. We talked about it even on this show. Yep. What's up with you and InSight? The Mars mission, of course, that's figuring out how the geology of Mars works right now, sending back really funny pictures of itself all the time. Selfies. Selfies back all the time. Yeah. It's very 2019. Yeah. It's up there with the high tech stuff. Yeah. Now, as I already mentioned, we had to pay the bills in the early phase of our company. So due to our context and experience, we were asked by DLR Bremen site to assist them with assembly integration and testing of- DLR is Deutsche Luft und Rampfart or something? Yeah. What are they? The German NASA. Okay. Cool. That's the most international way to put it. Okay. So that's a big shot, big shot company. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Now, it's an institute, but they're responsible for... DLR as a whole is responsible for HPQ, so the heat and properties payload that's currently on Martian soil. And yeah, we assisted with part of the assembly integration and testing at their site. And this is, yeah, one of the reasons why we were selected is we're knowledgeable. We know this stuff. We know we can quickly introduce people. And at a certain point, we were obviously asked, okay, can you help us out? We need people right now. Okay. Let's say we can start a production propellant in one week. We can also work in Germany in one week. We just call each other up like, okay, who has time to go? Okay, I go. And then we went there and did our work. We did our work- Small company, versatile. Yeah. And we did our work- They needed propellant. No, no. We did assembly integration and testing. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, there's a design, there are components of that. And they thought only T-minus can do this. Well, we had- You actually mentioned the name of your company. Yes, we did. Okay, sorry. It's good to know. Sometimes I get carried away. T-minus engineering. Yeah. Now we did. Now we did, Roel. I think we should also mention the website, T-minus.com. Oh, yeah. Sure. Do your shout out. Now I'm in. It's actually T-minus. T-minus. Thanks, Herbert. Enough of this. Yeah. Let's move on with the conversation. Yes, you're trying to take the point of the Patreon sponsor, I believe. Yes. We should start that one as well. So DLR needed somebody to do some testing. Couldn't they do this- Sorry, when did this happen? When was this? Because Insight's already up there. Insight is already up there. I think we ended the work with them around three years ago. So we started our work with them maybe five, six years ago. Okay. So they figured only T-minus can do this. Well, yeah. Right? Not in that case, but yeah, we were the only, well, we were one of the first that were asked and we could deliver on such short notice, which was critical for them because there are always a time crunch. And once we were there, they saw what we did and they asked us back and they asked us back. And then we were with two people over there and then three, and then during the weekends with four, and then we had a house over there in Bremen where we stayed during the week and then back to Delft. And the company, basically the T-minus was like 90% in Germany and doing the work in Holland was on a, well, steady state. But yeah, being able to work on a Mars mission, it's kind of difficult to let go. Yeah. You said testing, development and assembly? Assembly integration and testing. Okay. Yeah. Of what? Yeah. The question is, so you assembled, did you assemble something that's now up there? It's difficult to say because once we were, once the mission for the LR site was complete, then we had like the flight hardware was partly assembled and integrated by us. However, there was some delay in the project and then they had some times to do alterations and improvements. So it might well be that they took part or reassembled. Or did a lot of new stuff. Oh yeah. So you can be sure. No, not sure. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Because it's such a tough time. You don't even know if the thing that you built is there now. Yeah. Part of it for sure is, or parts. But yeah, because we left this assignment two years ago, it was like, okay, this is something that we put on a website and it's cool. And then it gets launched and we announce it. You're part of the team, of course. It's a huge, huge team. Yeah. It's an enormous team. Yeah. And then when it landed, it becomes more and more excited also for us. And now it's… It's working. Yeah. Well, yeah. That's even also for me difficult to say because now the latest information that I got, and it's the same information that everybody that has internet has, is that was released. Yeah. But yeah, there's a, if you look at like the system, it's a, there's a support structure. Yeah. Which holds a mechanical mole. This mole is going to dig into the Martian soil. So but this mole obviously needs to, well, when it's active, needs to freely move down to the core. However, during transit and during all the other operations, it's locked in place. So I'm not sure if it's now released as in not locked in place anymore, or it's actually already drilling. Yeah. I'm not sure either. I'm waiting for the next selfie. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So it was hanging, it was hanging there. Yeah. That's intriguing. One language thing that I just thought of is, I'll keep on saying that inside is up there, but actually it's down there, up there. I was also thinking about how about down there? Yeah. Who's higher anyway? Yeah. Inside is down on Mars. Do you say it that way? Or is it, is it, it's on Mars, but it's sort of up there, but then you're down. If the sun is up, then Mars is free. It's surely down. You know, on the other hand, if you, if you imagining a gravity well, the sun is way down there and Mars is really up. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we're going to have... Everything is relative, I think. Everything's upside down. Let me know when you figure it out. Yeah. Oh, hey, Roel, are you still here? Yeah. So, sorry. What I think is cool is that, so you were asked for this, right? Yeah. Yeah. So you're talking about the ecosystem of these small startups, of small space startups that you are definitely a part of that are all, all very, well, hopeful for the future. I mean, everybody's ambitious and everybody's doing these things, but it's also sort of under the radar in a way. Like if you're, if you know about this field, then people know each other and they will be able to find each other. For the outside world, it's, it's... You're a well kept secret. Yeah. You're a well kept secret. Not only you, but the whole ecosystem you're in. Can you give us a little bit of insight in, in like, who are you? Who are you? Like, who are your colleagues around you? Who are your competitors? Like, is there a vast ecosystem of these small, smaller skill companies? Or are you secretly the only one? Well, what we do is unique, obviously. Sure. Sure. Just making a joke about it. T minus. Now, what, what, what really, what you really see in the last, I would say five to 10 years is that there is a potential for this, there's, there's room for these companies, for these smaller companies that make a really big impact. Yeah. And there's really a big difference. And there's support from, and institutes from, from government, but also support from, from customers. And that's recent, you say? I think it is. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously I, I wasn't in the business 10 years ago. But yeah, I think that's, that has changed. If you, if you look at like, for instance, what, what happens with ESA, they have the, the business incubation centers. It's a recent thing. They, I'm, I'm not sure. I'm guessing, but I think they started something like five years ago, maybe more, seven years ago with one or two business incubators. So basically a starting point for a company to, or for a company to, to get access to ESA, to get access to ESA knowledge, to be supported by technicians from ESA, but also to get into the ecosystem, since, to get into the ecosystem. Create a network. Yeah. Building a network. Yeah. And then showing what you can do. Now, I think that it's, it's my guess, maybe Google can tell, but there are probably 20 ESA bigs right now in Europe. I think every, almost every country contributing to ESA has one or multiple. Yeah. And that's, that's something that's really inspiring. We were part of an incubation system that's run by the TU Delft called YesDelft. And that's in the early days has really helped us with getting our, getting off the ground. Yeah. And that's, that's something that's really inspiring. Yeah. And that's, that's really inspiring. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. It's, it's really beneficial if you can talk to other founders, if you can discuss with mentors, if you can be supported by companies that want to support you. Yeah. I don't, if it's a boring, I'm not, I was almost saying boring, but even it's the functional requirement of administration and finance. Of course. Overhead. Overhead. You can be assisted with that, but, but also on a technical note and really on a business note. So that has, that has paved the way I would say a lot. But also, yeah, basically access to space is not a purely governmental element anymore. It's not only spy satellites that. It's proven every day. Yeah. And it's, it's really moving towards well, just another industry. Which is super cool. Yeah. Which is super cool. And not, not all will make it, I would assume. Have you, what do you see around you? Yeah. I see a lot of things popping up. I don't see any big. Major failures. Major failures. Because the fields is still, or the, the, the pie is not shared or not divided. Zero sum game. Everybody can find, start a company and do this like you guys. Yeah. Do this completely new thing that nobody has done before. Because as we've said. Yeah. We always say space is pretty big. Actually, Roel is the third Dutch space entrepreneur that we have on this show in a row. Oh yeah. Yeah. Last week we had. Oh yeah, of course. Egbert Edelbroek from Space Life Origin. The week before we had Coen Janssen of Hiber. So we have a real parade of space entrepreneurs here on the show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But if you want more names. Yeah. Are we quickly depleting them? That's also. That's, that's. There's still, there's still plenty, but it's, it's, it's, I remember this story by Motherboard. The website of, I think about, it must've happened five years ago where they just took a camera and they started walking through some halls, I think somewhere close to Stanford University, where it's like, Hey, there's space startups here. And that was just, it was simply a new thing to see like the startup culture and then doing space. Yeah. And it was always a, a governmental thing, vast and epic and large, but. Government and Boeing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. No, it was always the private industry was always part of it, but it was never something that you could do, so to speak from your bedroom, you know, like you can start it from there. No. Or from a college dorm room in this case. No. A lot of has changed with smaller satellites, with readily available information, with well, demonstration. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of demonstration of companies that, that were success are successful. Yeah. That have grown. Yeah. So when's your first landmark mission? Like when, when, what, what's the plan for the next, let's say two years? For the next two years. Well, being the first company to, to, to, to reach page commercially from the Netherlands. That that's a landmark that's on our list for this year. Yeah. However, getting the, the, the propellant site up and running functional. Yeah. Getting the first static test. Those are also pretty big milestones that I will easily step over, but are accomplishments by themselves. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's all for the end goal, which is access to space for us. Yeah. And how do you, what's, what's the name? You said it was above the Karman line, but do you have a, do you have a name already for that specific space that you're, that you're reaching? You can redefine that, that area. No, I don't think that they will accept it. Even for me, I'm not sure. Like the scientists, they have E region and certain... E is for Eakins. We could always spin it like that. Yeah. If we do enough marketing. You should. It's good for your branding. If you, if you claim you're part of the atmosphere, that's... I'll look into it. Yeah. No, but there are certain regions. But yeah, our, our, our ambition is like the 120 kilometers and below that, because then you can drop into those of course. And then you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, you can, and do measurements. Yeah. So yeah. Throw your darts there. One thing's for sure. In the future, I will buy all my rocket fuel in Deventer. Yeah, exactly. Deventer, where you go for your rocket fuel. Yeah. Okay. Any more questions? No? I hope to see this thing launched from the Netherlands once. That would be... Say bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. See you. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Okay. Well, no, thank you very much for coming on the show. Oh, well, good luck. Well, I have to say good luck to you guys. Thanks, David. I hope we can talk more about orbit. Oh boy. Maybe the kingdom, but not here. Oh yeah. You'll take an island somewhere in the Caribbean. You'll go to the tropics. Yeah. Plus the equator. Yeah, maybe, or international waters, you never know. Yeah, you never know. Okay. Hey, thank you, Roel. Thank you so much. You're welcome. And good luck to you. Yeah. Also with the rocket fuel. Thank you, Thijs Roes. this was episode number nine and uh next week uh we're gonna probably do a roundup of many space stories together with Joeri the Joeri that you've known from the show and star space nerd yes and in march uh we'll probably have a conversation with uh ed stone from voyager looking forward to it jpl yeah that's also coming up stay tuned bye now bye you