- Hi, it's me, Tim Dodd,
the Everyday Astronaut. Electronics have gotten
smaller and smaller and they continue to do so
every day, which of course has led to smaller and
smaller satellites as well. And with these small satellites
has emerged a whole flood of companies trying to
launch small satellites on a more dedicated rocket. After all, sometimes less is more because it'd be pretty
silly to pay for a rocket that has extra performance
that you just don't need. Why would you have a semi-truck
delivering your pizza when a scooter will suffice? So today I wanted to do a comparison and a little overview of
some of these key players in the small sat launch industry with a handful of new launchers getting hardware out on the launch pad launching and some of them
even getting to orbit, I think now is a good
time to give you a rundown on some of these exciting new rockets. So we'll do a quick little
overview on a rundown of some of the features
of Firefly's Alpha, Virgin Orbit's,
LauncherOne, Astra's Rocket, Relativity Space's
Terran-1 rocket, ABL's RS-1 and of course, the current
king of small sat launchers, Rocket Lab with their electron
that has launched 20 times. But small sat launchers aren't new. So we're also going to compare them all to the OG new space private
small sat launcher the Falcon 1 to see if the industry is catching up to what SpaceX was
doing over 10 years ago. Okay, let's get started. - [Voiceover] Three, two, one... (bright upbeat music) - This video is brought to you by KiwiCo. All right, all right. All right off the bat, I
have to make a confession. This isn't a complete list
of small sat launchers currently flying or trying to fly because that list is this long. So we had to make some cuts. I decided to make a rule. The company has to have
either attempted to launch or at least have hardware
out on the launch pad and targeting launching in 2021. I also wanted all of these
rockets to be clean slate designs not just repurpose hardware
like some other launch vehicles. But of course, that gets confusing because some of these
launches we'll be launching out of shipping containers
off the back of a truck. And it doesn't really matter
where their launchpad is or like Pegasus, it just
gets a little bit confusing. So I promptly broke our rules and I just had to make
some executive decisions. So sorry if your favorite
launcher wasn't included in this rundown, but we
still figure this was a big and comprehensive enough
comparison for what might be flying by the end of 2021. We want hardware here folks
not drawings, no paper rockets. And if you were expecting to see some of the private launchers
from China on this list, unfortunately, we just really don't have a lot of info on them. And most of them are just rebranded military solid rocket boosters. So, although some of them are really cool and hold a lot of promise, they didn't quite it on this list. And we also are including
older systems like the Pegasus. Because Pegasus could
definitely fit a fair amount of these definitions, but it's expensive and it literally has no
future in commercial space or really almost no future at all. It's pretty much done. So here's timestamps for
each section and each rocket and the final big comparison for you guys. Now, of course, there's
links to the timestamps in the description of this video. The YouTube play bar is broken up into these sections as well,
and there's an article version of this video up at everydayastronaut.com for easy searching and references. (bright upbeat music) So before we get into
all of this new hardware let's first define what
a small sat launcher is and why they exist. A small sat launcher, or technically a small lift launch vehicle
is a class of rocket. So it's a rocket that's capable of taking up to 2000 kilograms
to lower earth orbit. Anything above 2000 kilograms to Leo is technically a medium
lift launch vehicle such as the Soyuz, the Proton
the Atlas V or the Falcon 9. So obviously a small lift
launcher isn't as capable as a bigger rocket but they're not really supposed to be. With a large number of
lightweight satellites that are being built
and developed right now, there's plenty of demand
for a rocket launcher that can take them directly
to their destination. But you might be quick to think why do these rockets even
exist when the Falcon 9 is already one of the cheapest dollar per kilogram rockets ever made or will this all even matter
when Starship is online? Well, first off, just like
we mentioned in the intro you wouldn't expect a pizza to
be delivered by a semi-truck. Yes, of course, a semi-truck
and carry a lot more. And it's dollar per kilogram
of cargo is pretty cheap but it's just simply not the
best option for all payloads. It's a bit overkill. And the same thing is true with airplanes. Cessna's still exist at the
same time as jumbo jets. And even in the jetliner world,
a small regional jet taking a few dozen passengers is
a completely different need than flying 100 of people across the ocean as efficiently as possible. Now there's countless examples of this, but at the end of the day, if you have a 200 kilogram satellite and you want to fly it
to a specific orbit, you could either pay, say $50
million-ish for a Falcon 9 or you could maybe pay about $5 million for a smaller rocket that
will do the job, no problem. Now of course, ride sharing
is an emerging option but you're typically at a
fairly limited launch cadence and destination. So sure, sometimes hopping
on a bus in a big city and getting off a few
blocks from your destination is just fine. But other times you just want an Uber to take right to your front door. Besides that developing
a massive rocket requires a lot more capital and it
carries with it a ton more risk. We're talking about
development and investments in the billions for rockets
like the Falcon Heavy, Starship, New Glenn or Vulcan. So brand new rocket company
would probably be pretty silly to think they could just
come out of the blue and sink billions of
dollars into a huge rocket instead of starting with a
smaller, less risky program that may only cost a few million dollars to get off the ground, literally. Okay, so small lift launchers. Cool. Now, let's talk about a few of these and what makes them stand out in a sea of potential space Ubers. We're just going to briefly
describe these rockets and then do a side-by-side comparison of their exact capabilities at the end. (bright upbeat music) Now, before we get into the
official ones that we chose, I did have to touch on a few that are just too cool to not talk about but they're probably not
going to be flying in 2021. And I really hope we see them fly 'cause some of these
systems are just awesome. Orbex is working on a very unique rocket that we don't know a
ton about called Prime. The things that make
this rocket super unique besides launching from the UK is the fact that it has coaxial tanks. This means the fuel tanks
housing liquid propane are actually inside the
liquid oxygen tanks. They both run the length
of the stage vertically like a tube inside of a tube. The use of propane is key
because when it's surrounded by cryogenic liquid oxygen,
it doesn't freeze solid. It stays a liquid. And we don't know a ton
about the engines themselves or even what the first
stage will look like other than they plan on it being reusable. But keep your eye out for Orbex. Another one that's gonna be
flying from the UK is Skyrora with their Skyrora XL launch vehicle. This rocket will be pretty cool
because of the same reason. It also uses coaxial tanks. I don't know where you guys
across the pond are doing over there and what your
love with coaxial tanks are, but I love it. Skyrora XL will run on
high test peroxide or HTP for the oxidizer and RP-1 for the fuel. It'll have nine Sky Force
engines on its first stage and a single vacuum Sky Force
engine on the second stage and a pressure fed, kick stage. Their engines are a
unique closed-ish cycle. There'll be using basically
a monoprop to spin the pumps. So decomposed peroxide much
like the RD-107 and RD-108 on the Soyuz. But instead of dumping it overboard, they're gonna be piping that right back into the main chamber. So it's technically closed cycle but not staged combustion cycle. Something cool I've never
seen that done before so I thought that was pretty awesome. But we don't really know anything else about the Skyrora XL,
so we'll be watching out for them closely too. And lastly, we have to talk about the rocket launching
launch company, Launcher. No, wait, rocket launching
company, Launcher. There we go. They're working on a
rocket called Rocket-1. So yes, Rocket-1 is going
to be launched by Launcher. This will never get confusing
besides having a handful of exciting contracts
and very healthy funding. The most exciting thing
to me is they're pursuing a closed cycle oxygen rich keralox engine called, wait for it, Engine 2 or just E-2. This thing is incredible. It can hit 365 seconds of
specific impulse in a vacuum, which is amazing. It's 3D printed and the
main chamber and the nozzle are copper alloy which
just simply looks awesome. Now, they don't have a
launch pad picked out yet and we don't really know when
we can expect to see them fly but they have a lot of potential and I just really want to
see that E-2 engine fly. That thing looks amazing. Okay, so those are some of the vehicles I just had to mention quickly that didn't make the cut for this video but hopefully they continue to mature and get out to the launch pad soon because I wanna see all of them fly. But for now it's on to our main features. (bright upbeat music) Let's start off with a
familiar launch vehicle. Rocket Lab's Electron rocket. The Electron is one of the
only small lift launchers actively flying to date with their first launch attempt in 2017, which was going very smoothly until a ground tracking station
lost track of the rocket and the mission had to be terminated. But they ended up
successfully reaching orbit on their second attempt,
less than a year later which proved the rockets
flight worthiness. The Electron has a few
features that are super unique and it even sports a few rocketry first. The body is entirely made
out of carbon composites with no separate liner or anything. All carbon fiber baby. This makes it very
lightweight and very strong. It also uses electric pump fed engines called the Rutherford. Electric pump fed is a simple design that uses powerful
motors to spin the pumps that pulls the propellant
from the tanks and forces them into the combustion
chamber at high pressures. The Rutherfords are also 3D printed which for a rocket engine,
this size makes a ton of sense. There are nine sea level
Rutherford's on the first stage and a single vacuum optimized
Rutherford on the upper stage which also runs on RP-1 and liquid oxygen otherwise known as Keralox. The Electron launches from
either LC-1A or soon LC-1B on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. And then there's also MARS
Pad 0C at Wallops, Virginia that Rocket Lab actually calls LC-2. So we haven't seen them fly from there yet but hopefully it's gonna
fly there really soon. Another fun note about Rocket Lab is that there are technically
an American aerospace company but founded in New Zealand with a wholly owned New Zealand subsidiary who is now actually publicly traded on the New York stock exchange. And full disclosure, I
am a proud shareholder. By being a US company
with US headquarters, they found a great way to
make it so they could fly NASA and US military payloads really easily. And they could also develop
the avionics and engines in the US. But one of the most exciting
things about the Electron is Rocket Lab is actively
pursuing reusing it. Now, I've done a video on this topic why their plans to use just a parachute and a helicopter should
work and why SpaceX or other companies don't do
something more similar to this. As of the making of this video they've successfully
recovered two electrons and reuse some of the parts
of the first recovered rocket. And I have no doubt that
we'll see a fully recovered and reused Electron in the near future. One more detail about
Rocket Lab's Electron is it has a third stage and
that third stage can do a lot including sending payloads
to the moon or even to Venus. They have a basic cold gas kick stage with a tiny little engine
called the Curie engine to circularize their orbits or they have a full-blown
Photon spacecraft with a hyper Curie that
can be by-propellant and they can even extend the
tanks for maximum performance. Okay, so that's Rocket Lab. Next... (bright upbeat music) The next smallest launcher
to make it into orbit and on our list is Virgin Orbit with their super unique LauncherOne. Now notice this isn't Virgin Galactic, it's their sibling company, Virgin Orbit. Virgin Galactic for now is
only suborbital space tourism using their White Knight
Two mothership aircraft and their spaceship to rocket plane. Virgin Orbit is different,
although kinda the same. It's a similar idea by using
a 747 as a carrier vehicle that essentially acts like
a portion of the first stage by getting the rocket high up
and into the upper atmosphere, and then it also gives
it some initial velocity. Now, the truth of the
matter is because of how little velocity is actually
put into the rocket itself, the 747 Assist is less of a first stage and more of a flying launchpad. Now, of course it still has its advantages like being able to fly and launch above or around adverse weather conditions or fly to exact inclinations
for maximum performance. It also allows them to utilize a more vacuum optimized
engine on the first stage which also increases performance. Someday I'll make a
video about air launching and why more companies aren't doing it. Because on the surface
it makes a ton of sense to give the rocket a little boost but there definitely are some reasons why it may not be worth it for most engineers and most systems. Pros and cons my friends. It's all about those fun compromises. But back to the system,
the 747 is a 400 series named Cosmic Girl which was originally in
Virgin Airlines fleet. A 747 was chosen for a few
really, really good reasons. First off, it's readily available. There's thousands of
experienced and trained pilots, engineers, mechanics and
parts readily available. But another fun reason is
the 747 was actually designed to hold a fifth engine under its left wing for transporting engines around the world. Now, this pylon had to be
modified to handle the weight of the rocket and to drop
the rocket mid air, of course but the plane was already
designed to handle similar loads from the get-go. So that's very cool. The rocket itself is a
two-stage keralox rocket with a single open cycle engine called Newton 3 on its first stage and a single open cycle
vacuum optimized engine called the Newton 4 on the second stage. One fun little note is the role
of the rocket is controlled by the exhaust from the gas generator, which is always something I
thought was a really cool idea after I first learned
about it from the RS-68 that's on the Delta IV. Just like Rocket Lab's launch history, Virgin Orbit followed a similar fate with their first launch,
which happened in 2020. The rocket had a clean
drop from the carrier plane but the rocket failed shortly
after main engine ignition. But they successfully made it into orbit on their second launch
attempt in January, 2021. They're now operational and ready for more commercial launches. (bright upbeat music) Astra's Rocket is what would happen if you combine the old school looks of the Atlas Convair SM-65A rocket with Rocket Labs Electron kind of and then launch it from one of the most gorgeous
launch sites in the world in Kodiak, Alaska. Astra's rocket used to be called Rocket 3 and was following a number
scheme of 3.0, 3.1, 3.2 for each launch, et cetera, et cetera. But Astra actually told me to just simply call it Astra's rocket likely because they're still evolving so quickly that that numbering scheme
just doesn't really make sense. So our facts and numbers do
reflect what Astra told us and might not necessarily
reflect previous Rocket 3 series. Astra was a quiet little rocket company who was located in Alameda, California which is just across the
bay from San Francisco. They were actually known as
the stealth space company for a while, until they
started test launches. Astra's launch services are a low cost highly portable solution. One of the most unique
features is their ability to fit inside of a
standard shipping container and have all of the launch infrastructure, also be able to be shipped
via shipping containers. These containers can then
be loaded into a C130 and then taken to launch
sites around the world. This adds a rapid response capability. Like the other rockets
we've talked about so far in this video, it also runs
on keralox on both stages. The first stage has five
of their Dolphin engines, which like the Electron
are electric pump-fed and 3D printed. And the upper stage has a single
ether pressure-fed engine. So far there have been
three tests launches and they were able to
demonstrate orbital capability but they haven't quite
made it to orbit to date. Their most recent launch
attempt in December, 2020 made it past the Karman line and even to their target orbital
altitude of 390 kilometers but failed to reach a stable orbit when it fell just 500 meters
per second short of orbit due to a bad fuel mixture
ratio in the upper stage. The company announced plans
to become publicly traded in February of 2021 through a special purchase
acquisition company or SPAC. Now, again, full disclosure. I'm also a proud shareholder
'cause I like rockets. Astra is raring to go
with 10 plus customers including Planet and NASA ready
to go in the next few years. Astra is also exploring other launch sites as part of their spaceport strategy. They're focusing on a complete
turnkey lawn solution. So call them up and they
will launch your payload efficiently and affordably. It feels like they're
putting a lot of extra effort into the customer facing side, which is probably a good thing now with so many new customers
hitting the market. (bright upbeat music) Firefly's Alpha is a
rocket that kind of slipped by me a bit. I think it was a bit confusing to me because the original company,
Firefly Space Systems went bankrupt. And then it got a whole
new round of funding and emerged as Firefly Aerospace. And when this switch over happened, they dropped their original
Firefly Alpha Aerospike powered small lift launcher,
which that was cool. It was cool But they ended up completely starting over with a new rocket, still called the Alpha but this is basically
an entirely new rocket. So fast forward to today
and the company has an orbit ready rocket on the launch pad. And may I say, I think
this is one of the coolest looking rockets I've ever seen. I love that paint job. Just like the Electronic,
Alfa is made entirely from carbon composite tanks. But Alpha is a much larger rocket. In fact, Alpha is the largest
carbon composite rocket that will fly to date. Again, like every other rocket here so far Alpha runs on keralox. But its engines are doing
something very unique. They run on the tap off cycle,
which is where you basically just punch a hole in the side
of your combustion chamber and then have that high
pressure gas spin the turbine to turn your pumps. It's a cycle type that has
never flown on an orbital rocket and Firefly will be using
them on both stages. There's four Reaver
engines on the first stage and a single Lightning
engine on the upper stage. Firefly is based out of Austin, Texas, which is where their headquarters are, but they actually build
and test their hardware about 80 kilometers Northwest of Austin. They'll be launching Alpha from SLC 2W in Vandenberg Space
Force Base in California where their first Alpha is on the pad as of the making of this
video, just waiting to fly. (bright upbeat music) Next up, we have ABL Space
systems with their RS-1 Rocket. ABL is focusing on trying
to make the most simple and cost effective rocket ever made. Like the others, it also runs on keralox. And like most of the other rockets here the engines they're using are 3D printed. Their E-2 engines are open cycle. There's that familiar nine
engines on the first stage and a single vacuum optimized E-2 engine on the second stage. I think one of the
standout features of ABL kind of similar to Astra is
that they can launch really from anywhere. ABL just packs up their
entire launch infrastructure in standard shipping containers. And when I say everything, I
mean, absolutely everything. They're integrated mobile
launch system is called GS0 which stands for something,
something, something we couldn't actually
find it quoted anywhere but I would assume it's probably something like Ground System Zero. Maybe it's my love of tiny homes and shipping container houses that makes me love these
shipping container concepts. It's cool to think you could
just ship the systems anywhere with a concrete pad and have a launch pad in your own backyard if you want it to. But what's important for commercial and government customers
is they can operate from all FAA licensed sites. So all of the sites we're
familiar with in the United States and even including one in
Camden county, Georgia. Like so many of the other
companies in this group, ABL is based out of California,
specifically El Segundo which is right next to Hawthorne. (bright upbeat music) A lot of the rockets
we're talking about today are using 3D printing for a
lot of parts and even engines. But none are taking 3D printing
quite as far as Relativity. Relativity is literally trying to 3D print the entire rocket. Yeah, like all of it. That's right. Their Terran-1 rocket is pretty
much entirely 3D printed. The fuselage and all. They're trying to reduce the
number of parts by 100 times. This greatly simplifies manufacturing, reduces part lead time,
simplifies the supply chain and theoretically increases reliability. And just look at how big their 3D printer called Stargate is. It's actually one of the world's largest 3D printers ever made. This allows relativity to
make unique shapes and designs but it also allows them
to quickly make changes to their designs since they don't have to really change any tooling. The first stage of the
Terran-1 has 9 Eon 1 engines and the upper stage has a single vacuum optimized Eon engine. Eons are open cycle and
run on liquid natural gas and liquid oxygen. A fun note about this
rocket is they're planning to use autogenous pressurization
to backfill the tanks much like the Space Shuttle's
external fuel tank or Starship which removes the need for expensive and hard to manage helium in the system. Relativity is based out of Long Beach and Los Angeles, California where their headquarters
and factories are located. But they'll be launching the Terran-1 from LC-16 at Cape Canaveral
Space Force Station, and they also have a site picked
out at Vandenberg as well. Okay, so that's our list of current and upcoming small lift launchers. How do they compare against each other and are any of them making improvements over what SpaceX accomplished
over 10 years ago with their Falcon 1? (bright upbeat music) Okay my friends, it's time
we line these babies up side by side. So let's do just that. So we can get a sense of how
big each rocket really is. For being small lift launchers, some of these rockets
are getting pretty big. Terran-1 for example is actually about half the height
of SpaceX's Falcon 9. Next up their width. Again, Alpha and Terran-1
are pretty big rockets. Much bigger than I think
most people might realize. But the one thing that's
kind of surprising here is LauncherOne. Is probably because when you see a picture of it attached to a massive 747, it looks like a little rinky
dinky missile or something but then when you see people next to it you realize it's indeed a
surprisingly big rocket. Okay now let's show each
rockets thrust, the cycle type, and specific impulse
of the first two stages and whether or not they have a kick stage. Maybe more important than their sizes and payload fairing volume is how much can these vehicles
actually put into orbit? For these numbers we're going to look at how much they can lift to
Sun-Synchronous Orbit or SSO which is a number we could
get an accurate quote on from each company. This is similar to a polar
orbit and takes more energy to get into than just a
low inclination orbit. Astra's Rocket, although
tiny, it's a very capable small lift launcher. But the other outlier here is the RS-1. Is the payload leader, but it's
not even the biggest rocket. So now the price. And again, we should take
some of these numbers with a little grain of salt because some of these
are just rough quotes that companies have published. But in general, this seems
to be about the lowest cost for most of these companies or maybe even like a starting
point for a dedicated ride. So don't actually put too
much weight on these numbers. And also the Falcon 1 is
adjusted for today's dollar. As far as just a base price, if you totally had to book
a ride all on your own and have a satellite under 500 kilograms, it'd be hard to be Astra's price. But then again, we don't
actually know what it cost for the full 500 kilograms that 2.5 million is likely
just a starting point for a much lighter payload. But one for sure, you cannot discount Rocket Lab's orbital launch experience. This is a very serious consideration because flying regularly to
orbit is vastly different from some just vague
target initial launch. And this is even despite
Rocket Lab's recent setback. For now they're the only
ones regularly flying and with a lot of experience
under their (mumbles). Now might be tempting to do
a dollar to kilogram ratio here for these rockets. But unfortunately with only
knowing the starting point and the maximum payload potential, it just might not be a fair
or accurate comparison. But here's the reminder,
small lift launchers don't always look great for
their dollar to kilogram ratio because you're buying a
dedicated ride to space. If your satellite is safe, 300 kilograms you would want to purchase
the cheapest rocket that can support that period. So most of the time that
dollar to kilogram ratio number is a lot less important
than the final amount at the end of the day to
launch your satellite. How much are you writing that check for? But as far as how do these
compare to the Falcon 1? Well, some are potentially
making some improvements but honestly, others
still can't quite keep up with what SpaceX was doing 12 years ago. It's honestly pretty spectacular what SpaceX accomplished
in the early days. Had they kept flying Falcon 1? I have no doubt they would
have continued making tweaks and performance and price, and it would have been even
more competitive by now. Wow, they were honestly
super far ahead of the game. So that's all these rockets
compare side by side. So let's get some final thoughts in. (bright upbeat music) Clearly, there's a flood
of small sat launches coming online and competing
for a healthy handful of small satellites and cube sets. But the ultimate question for me is how many of these companies can co-exist. In my outside opinion, it
feels like there's really only room for about four
or maybe five of them to exist based on the
current demand of payloads. And at some point, it'll
almost be too late to join in a small sat launching game unless you have some
big radical breakthrough that makes you super
ultra competitive somehow. At the end of the day, one
thing we need to keep in mind is there are definitely
advantages to going bigger. There's a lot of launch operation costs that are just simply fixed costs like range and safety personnel time and a few things that
don't increase linearly with the size of the vehicle. As in launching a Falcon 9
that could launch say 50 times that of a small sat launcher,
likely doesn't require 50 times the amount of
people to operate it. So there's always some benefits
to just simply being larger that small lift launchers can't overcome. But the fact that you could book a ride for your small satellite
and be flying potentially much quicker directly
to your desired orbit is extremely appealing. I know for those of us who
are outside of the industry, it can be kind of hard to understand why that's really that important. But for those trying to be first to market with a new satellite or a new concept getting a ride to prove
out your technology in a hurry is actually a huge, huge deal. But as far as which of these companies do I think will be around in 10 years, I wanna think all of them may be but that's maybe a little bit unrealistic. In fact, until a company is
flying and flying regularly, there's just so much risk involved in developing and launching. But I think Rocket Lab has
proven to be a solid player with plenty of demand
and clearly a system set up for rapid launch cadence. I fully expect there'll be around longterm and I'm excited for them to get into the medium lift launchers
with their neutron rocket. Personally, I'm very excited
about Terran-1 being 3D printed but that also seems like
a fairly risky endeavor since it's utilizing 3D printing at a new never before done scale. But if they can pull it off, it might be a pretty massive disruptor. I really liked LauncherOne because I think air launching is cool but of course that's not reason enough. I also think there's some
payloads that will almost require LauncherOne including payloads that they'll want to integrate on site or not ship it across the world first before they integrate it onto the rocket. Well, there's also the option
for the LauncherOne to fly to another country and launch from there which might be appealing
for some payloads. I think Firefly's Alpha
is a real solid contender especially if you need more performance and the fact that they have a rocket on the launch pad as we
speak, makes them a step ahead of a few others in this comparison. I personally think if you can get your rocket operational this year, you'll be here to stay,
but the race is still on until you're regularly
and reliably flying. I mean, just look at Astra who has gotten so close to orbit or Rocket Lab who is very experienced but just saw an unexpected
failure on their 20th mission. Spaceflight is hard. It really is. It takes a lot of
perfection to do regularly. And these small sat
launchers are often riding on a very, very thin margin for what's even physically possible. But something about that just
makes them even cooler to me small lift launch vehicles,
tiny, but awesome. I hope the best for all of these companies and any other aspiring company working on getting their first rocket to the pad. I feel like you need to be extra creative and extra plucky to make a
small lift launcher work. So cheers to all of you trying. So what do you think? Do you think any of these
launchers stand out? Are there any that you're
really excited about in particular? Which ones do you think will
still be here in 10 years? I mean, of course I hope all of them are but maybe the biggest question, do you think small sat
launches are here to stay or do you think bigger ride share options will ultimately just win out? Let me know your thoughts
in the comments below. Thanks to Casper Stanley for
the awesome 3D rocket renders as always his work is amazing. Find him on Twitter,
find his YouTube channel and find his Rocket Explorer
app on the Steam Store. And we also need to thank the sponsor of this video, KiwiCo. KiwiCo makes amazing hands-on projects and toys designed to expose
kids to concepts in Steam. So science technology,
engineering, art and math. Personally, I wish KiwiCO
was around when I was a kid because I was always building
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mess or losing my dad's tools. Sorry, dad. KiwiCo is a monthly
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filled with content to learn even more about the crates theme. So not only is it fun, it's
also engaging and educational. So win, win, win. Now, I'm not gonna lie. I saw this robotic arm online and I just had to play with it. When I was growing up I wanted to be a... Well, first I wanted to be a tractor which is not really something
you can be when you grow up. And then I wanted to be a scorpion trainer which may have been a good career, but for a long time actually
for most of my childhood, I wanted to be a prosthetic
and robotic engineer. So this is definitely like
hitting the fields for me. This is really cool and I'm really glad that I got a chance to play with this. You can get 50% off your
first month of any crate by going to kiwico.com/everydayastronaut. There is a link below in
the description as well. So thank you to KiwiCo
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patrion.com/everydayastronaut. Thank you. And while you're online,
be sure and check out our awesome web store for shirts like this the Aerospike shirt, which is not only one of my favorite engines, it's
also one of my favorite shirts. But browse around there was
lots of really cool stuff. And we finally got our full flow stage combustion cycle hoodies back in stock. So there's tons of cool stuff. And just shop around, maybe
grab something for yourself or a friend and show your
support for the channel by going to everydayastronaut.com/shop. Thanks everybody. That's gonna do it for me. I'm Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut bringing space down to
earth for everyday people. (gentle music)
