#35 Pangea Aerospace: Aerospikes

Do you know what an aerospike engine is? It’s a special type of rocket engine, the idea of which has been around for many decades, but it has been technologically difficult to pull off so far. That may all be changing now - it is what this week’s company is working on. I have Adria Argemi and Federico Rossi from Pangea Aerospace in Barcelona joining me. Enjoy! Full discloure: E2MC Ventures is an investor in Pangea.

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Episode notes:
0:00 Intro
3:06 Barcelona's local space ecosystem
6:20 The origin story of the company
11:30 The basics of aerospike engines (Audio issues stop here!)
17:28 The rocket equation and efficiency in rocket engines
20:56 Differences between Pangea's and "regular" rocket engines
25:00 Why has this not been done before?
29:51 Materials used
32:51 Reusability, size and clustering of the engine
38:04 Potential plans for an entire launch vehicle
41:08 Medium/long term vision
46:22 Single stage to orbit"?
49:50 Other good ideas of the past?
51:25 Pangea is hiring!
51:42 Sci-Fi