EXCLUSIVE: @AndyLapsa, CEO of @stoke_space, joins VALLEY OF DEPTH for his first sit-down since the company's $1B raise and the unveiling of its new 15T to LEO Nova Block 2 launch vehicle. Stoke is a launch company building Nova, a two-stage rocket designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, with an upper stage that uses a hydrogen-cooled metallic heat shield and a first stage powered by a full-flow staged combustion engine called Zenith. Highlights: 01:04 – New developments at Stoke 02:16 – The Nova product family 08:19 – Meeting with Jared Isaacman 09:48 – $1B fundraise, use of proceeds 12:12 – Future production capacity 13:44 – Was this the last private funding round for Stoke? 23:46 – Why are rockets still so hard? 26:17 – Why build a full-flow staged combustion for your first stage? 29:14 – Technical hurdles that are left to solve 35:05 – Stoke's heat shield vs ceramic heat shields 39:51 – The state of the launch industry. Are we screwed in the short term? 49:00 – A payload agnostic future 51:36 – The application layer for Block 2 1:01:20 – What keeps Andy up at night? 1:02:29 – What happens after mission success? 1:06:31 – When should we expect the first flight of Block 2? Full episode 👇