It’s no secret that there are plenty of big egos in the spaceflight industry. While the key players typically refrain from roasting their rivals in public, that wasn’t the case at this year’s Berkeley Space Symposium. At least, not for Astra CEO Chris Kemp.
During a talk he gave at the event on September 5, Kemp threw some serious shade at SpaceX, Blue Origin, Firefly, and Rocket Lab, Ars Technica reports. While some of his remarks spoke to legitimate shortcomings amongst his competitors, they came off harsh, especially given Astra’s history of financial troubles and its rocky launch record.
Kemp co-founded Astra in 2016 alongside CTO Adam London. Five of the company’s seven operational rocket launches between September 2020 and June 2022 resulted in failure. Astra retired its “Rocket 3” in August 2022, and by March 2024, the company’s valuation had fallen from $2.6 billion to about $11.25 million, Reuters reported. Kemp and London took the company private at 50 cents per share to avoid bankruptcy.
Now, Astra is focused on developing Rocket 4, targeting summer 2026 for its inaugural launch. It’s possible that this new chapter could help Astra rejuvenate its reputation and capital, but Kemp’s recent remarks may create more problems for the struggling company. Here’s what he had to say about four of his biggest competitors.
Gizmodo reached out to each of them for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication. You can watch Kemp’s full talk here.
SpaceX
In his closing remarks, Kemp attempted to appeal to prospective interns in the audience by arguing that Astra provides a better work environment than SpaceX’s Starbase in south Texas.
“It’s more fun than SpaceX, because we’re not on the border of Mexico where they’ll chop your head off if you accidentally take a left turn,” he said. “And you don’t have to live in a trailer. And we don’t make you work six and a half days a week, 12 hours a day. It’s appreciated if you do, but not required.”
Yikes. Up until this moment, Kemp generally spoke respectfully about SpaceX, drawing fair comparisons between Elon Musk’s approach and his own. To end on this sour note felt like an unnecessary jab. Needless to say, no SpaceX interns have ever been beheaded.
Blue Origin
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