NSF Live: The future of Astra with Founder and CEO Chris Kemp

On this week's episode, NASASpaceflight editors Thomas Burghardt and Chris Gebhardt will speak with Chris Kemp, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Astra. Astra's mission is to launch a new generation of space services to improve life on Earth. The company reached space for the first time in December with its Rocket 3.2 launch vehicle.

[ross]

Thanks to Chris Kemp for taking the time to provide so much information about current and future plans for Astra. I learned so much from all the great questions and I'm excited to see Astra succeed in achieving such a rapid launch cadence. Well done to Thomas and Chris G for conducting a great interview and for setting this up. Love the new intro too.

[filyn]

My goodness this was such a great episode
I was a big Astra fan before but now it has escalated to absolutely new heights!
Go Astra!!! 🤘

[biffpope]

Excellent interview Thomas and Chris- despite Chris' connectivity issues. Sincerely appreciated!!

[SteveEhrmann]

What a great interview! From my point of view, every question was interesting and every answer almost equally fascinating. I know how rare that is, and I really appreciate the work put in by ChrisK, you two, and viewers submitting questions. I was riveted!

[rebeccam]

Excellent interview of Astra's CEO Chris Kemp by NASASpaceflight! I agree with the other commenters that Chris Kemp will be someone to watch! Mr. Kemp if you read these comments I would definitely enjoy a tour of Astra! I promise to write up a glowing review on Twitter!

[lesumsi]

Love the updated intro with the original music and spirit! Was waiting for Tim Dodd screaming and was happy when it appeared :)

[timod]

great interview and chris kemp is so open to us and he unterstands something about scaling up production capability’s!

[astroboyspacex]

Thank you Chris Kemp. What an inspirational story, team and company. I found the comments on adaptive printing (3D) informative. Thanks to the NSF team for the interview.

[natheirabu-dahab]

Chris's point about 3D printing is soo on point

[leobislig]

I’m invested! Lets go space! Chris seems to be well versed with astra, the employees, and just the system as a whole. I’m looking forward to a successful future.

Thanks for getting into the details. My main thoughts I wanted answers for are:

1. Renewable Rockets. Answer: Not foreseeable financially. Will not go reusable.

2. Is there a future for multi-rocket propulsion to support larger payloads, Maybe an attached swarm system that can launch any sized payload in space to compete in every category. ** Unanswered **

3. Earth to Earth transport of human beings. Answer: Possibly, but partner with another company for reentry.

Can #2 be a possibility? hmm??🧐

[kenjiokura]

Interesting, I guess not all launches vehicles have to have 100% reliability (i.e. if you carry humans you want to have that near 100) but all launch vehicles should have 100% safety rate (by having successful flights; or by failing in 'safe' way). Also kinda cool to see a CEO talk openly about other launch providers. Hopefully we can get even more aerospace CEO/leaders/engineers in the future. Thanks for Thomas and Chris G. for interviewing!

[janedoe]

Great interview! It sounded a little bit like a business pitch at times, but still, it was really nice hearing someone so dedicated and motivated as Chris Kemp.

[benreidford]

the new intro is absolutley amazing!!!!

[fhmconsulting]

Brilliant show guys and Chris is someone really to watch. He should talk to Sandy Munro. Taking the whole "rocket as a service" model he could licence his "chip\ship" to anyone so you could have 70 space agencies as franchisees.

[dgsindelar]

great interview and great guest. you guys are really helping us understand a lot about this whole spaceflight community and i love all of your coverage. thanks for the quality stuff!!

[Riddlestar]

Great convo, thanks for the excellent questions.

[vsikifi]

I think the photograph Chris Kemp meant was the "The Blue Marble" photo. But it was shot from Apollo 17, not Apollo 8.

[DreamlinerBL]

we need a video of just the intro, please i beg of you

[kkollsga]

Great interview! They really got Chris to cover a lot of ground. Really interesting, with a lot of information. Astra is really setting itself apart from rocketlab in my head. The clear focus on cheap, rapid launches, from everywhere I'm sure will pay out. Love the comment about people shipping packages through FedEx, and not Maersk :) Who wants to wait for shipping stuff when you can send it away straight away. Thanks a lot. Look forward to the next one :)

[basslinedan]

I've learned a lot from this, very impressive