The project SpaceX's first employee raised $500M for from This Week in Startups

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Jason Calacanis

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The project SpaceX's first employee raised $500M for

1 hour 1 minutes Posted Jun 3, 2026 at 10:26 pm.

Blue Origin, and why fixing things in orbit is hard

What Mira is and what it does

Why was the commercial demand for Mira softer than expected

Space Force demand and the GEO-capable Mira

Helios: a "rocket on top of a rocket."

Sentry Your team should be focused on shipping features — not chasing down bugs. New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST

How Helios beats Falcon Heavy on price ($25M)

Reusability, in-orbit refueling, and propellant depots

Landers, the Moon base, and "Mega Helios."

NSSL and the politics of flying government payloads

Every.io For all of your incorporation, banking, payroll, benefits, accounting, taxes or other back-office administration needs, visit https://every.io

Why the Moon matters: megastructures and data centers in space

The space talent market and the SpaceX "mafia."

Northwest Registered Agent: Get more when you start your business with Northwest. In 10 clicks and 10 minutes, you can form your company and walk away with a real business identity — Learn more at https://northwestregisteredagent.com/twist

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Today's show:

Want to get to space? Several launch companies can help you. SpaceX, Rocket Lab, the Russians, the list goes on. But what about once you make it upstairs, then what? Impulse Space CEO and CTO Tom Mueller is building the next stage of our orbital economy. With its Mira and Helios spacecraft, we'll soon be able to take mass from lower orbits to higher orbits, or even to the Moon, with ease.

Meanwhile, venture capitalists are enamored with the idea of humanoid robots — robots share our shape, our work environment, and even our tools. But startups like Dusty Robotics are taking a different tack; instead of building human-shaped robots, Dusty has built a small, wheeled 'bot that can mark out building sites quickly and accurately. And it's doing more revenue than all humanoid robotics companies combined, I reckon. Dusty's CEO, Dr. Tessa Lau, joins Alex to go deep on purpose-built robots in today's build-crazy market.

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