First Breakfast(@FirstBreakfast):America's munitions are bottlenecked by a single factory built in 1942. One fire at Holston Army Ammunition Plant—or worse, sabotage—and the U.S. would lose domestic capacity to produce RDX and HMX, two of the military’s workhorse explosives. Now venture-backed startups are trying to do for explosives what SpaceX did for launch: break the government monopoly with a commercially viable alternative. First Breakfast’s @Madeline_Zimm sat down with the founder of one of these startups, Kevin Capozzoli of the Critical Materials Group. Watch their conversation and read Madeline’s profile to learn why private energetics manufacturing might be America's most underrated national security bet.

2026.09.17 17:38

America's munitions are bottlenecked by a single factory built in 1942. One fire at Holston Army Ammunition Plant—or worse, sabotage—and the U.S. would lose domestic capacity to produce RDX and HMX, two of the military’s workhorse explosives. Now venture-backed startups are trying to do for explosives what SpaceX did for launch: break the government monopoly with a commercially viable alternative. First Breakfast’s @Madeline_Zimm sat down with the founder of one of these startups, Kevin Capozzoli of the Critical Materials Group. Watch their conversation and read Madeline’s profile to learn why private energetics manufacturing might be America's most underrated national security bet.