Orbit From Zero: A Rocket Company, 2027–2040
No money, an engine design and fourteen years. Win grants, survive three launch attempts, reach orbit, land a booster and build a real launch business, the way small launchers have. A future founder adventure.
It is 2027. You have an engine design, a few friends from a university rocketry club and no money at all. Fourteen years from now, the question is whether you run a real launch company. The path is the one small launchers have walked: small research grants, a seed round from investors who have lost money on rockets before, first flights that fail, the third that reaches orbit, a government launch contract, a booster that lands, a pad that explodes, a fleet grounded while the regulator investigates, and the constellations that need launches. You play every desk alone, a year at a time. What you sell is what a launcher sells: cubesat rideshare seats, dedicated launches for constellation batches, government missions with full mission assurance, rapid-response launches, cargo runs to space stations, satellite platforms built to order and payload integration, each with its own price, and every report says how many of each you flew and who paid. The choices are the founder's: how much to…
$5.00 a seat · 14 simulated years, decided yearly · by SparkTower.