Relativity Space

Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors

@isaiah_p_taylor

Excited to announce this morning that Mo Shahzad, former President and CFO of Relativity Space, has joined Valar Atomics as President and CFO. Valar Atomics is at a major inflection point, and I’m thrilled to have Mo on our team as we take the next steps in our journey.

Dara

@daraladje

Most "hard tech" startups fail because they choose the wrong kind of hard. @Farshchi (PhD ex-chip researcher & GP at @Lux_Capital) has spent 18 years investing in the most complex companies on earth (Zoox, Relativity Space, Mosaic). He breaks "hard" into two categories: • Scientific Risk: Fundamental discoveries that don't exist yet. • Technical Difficulty: Engineering known science into a monopolistic product. The mistake isn’t ambition. It’s underwriting discovery when the job is execution. In this week's episode of The Library of Minds, we discuss how elite deep-tech investors think about risk before metrics exist, why finding a cure for cancer means nothing without distribution, and much more! 01:16 — From PhD to Founder: Choosing Hard Problems 07:11 — The "Ask Nothing" Strategy for Breaking Into VC 11:38 — Balancing Technical Difficulty vs. Scientific Risk 13:59 — Deep Tech Startups Having One Shot 18:26 — The Controversial Mosaic Investment 23:56 — Learning to Trust The Bets You've Made 27:20 — Hard Truths About Scaling from 1 → N 31:44 — Why Money Is The Ultimate Commodity

Sophia Gad-Nasr

@Astropartigirl

NASA has awarded 7 companies contracts to develop robots for Mars. This is a big deal: we're starting to see private companies take on larger roles in space exploration and NASA as the customer and science partner. The awards are part of STRIDE (Science Transport and Robotic Innovation for Deployment and Exploration). NASA is putting $17 million into concept studies and prototypes of robots, with the aim of them crossing difficult terrain and reaching places rovers like Perseverance can't. That matters because some of the most promising places on Mars for ancient life are likely the hardest to reach, like caves and lava tubes which are protected from radiation and extreme temperatures. These could better preserve organic material or evidence of ancient life. The 7 companies: AeroVironment, Astrobotic, Astrolab, Ground Control Robotics, Honeybee Robotics, Intuitive Machines, and MEI Technologies. A few of these, like Astrolab, make sense because NASA's call specifically wanted to modify systems made for Earth and the Moon to work on Mars, and those companies mostly focus on lunar missions. Remember Ingenuity? The little Mars helicopter that was supposed to make 5 flights, and gave us 72? AeroVironment helped develop it! They already have a proposed next-gen helicopter called Skyfall. So it would make a lot of sense if that's what they've been awarded for (that info is unknown, though). A few weeks ago, NASA announced a partnership with Relativity Space for a 2028 Mars atmospheric mission called Aeolus, where NASA provides the instruments, and Relativity provides the spacecraft, rocket, and cruise operations. STRIDE and Aeolus, they tell me that the Moon-to-Mars path is being paved, with commercial space companies at the center. It's already begun! Artist Impression: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Blake Scholl 🛫

@bscholl

The current @ycombinator batch is very impressive. Almost half the founders are building hardware. Back in my batch there were only 3 deep tech companies - @boomsupersonic, @Astranis and @relativityspace. https://t.co/EuCoohHOPx

Space Investor

@SpaceInvestor_D

NASA Announces Public-Private Partnership to Advance Mars Science Under this model, NASA will provide the Aeolus atmospheric‑science instrument payload suite, while Relativity Space supplies the spacecraft, rocket, and cruise operations necessary to deliver the instruments to Mars. This partnership reflects NASA’s growing commitment to approaches that accelerate discovery, expand mission cadence, and strengthen the foundation for future human exploration. By leveraging commercial investment and development capacity, NASA can focus resources on high‑value science while enabling more frequent opportunities to gather critical data about Mars, data essential to safely navigating the Martian atmosphere and ultimately landing humans on the surface.

Tanner Kirk Ottaway

@tottaway22

I repeat, don’t sleep on Relativity Project Forge eligible for $350m in support for new facility at the Cape to add a factory for Terran R. “Expanding our capacity in Florida enables our ability to scale the Terran R program to support commercial, scientific, and national security missions," Relativity Space Executive Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt said in the press release. https://t.co/ttbYGNwi2m

Tim Ellis

Co-founder & former CEO

Aerospace engineer who co-founded Relativity in 2015 and served as CEO until 2025.

Eric Schmidt

CEO & Chairman

Former Google CEO who took a controlling stake in Relativity and became CEO in March 2025.

Software and IT leader; as CIO and SVP of Software leads software engineering for design, test, launch, mission operations, and oversees enterprise IT, automation, cybersecurity, and AI.

Jen Morin

Director, Talent Acquisition

Previously at Sierra Space · Denver Metropolitan Area

Joined Jun 2026

Drake Cargnino

Staff Global Supply Manager, Raw Materials

Previously at SpaceX · Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area

Joined May 2026

Previously at Vast · United States

Joined May 2026

Yulin Shen

Senior Manufacturing Engineer, Components

Previously at Woodward, Inc. · Los Angeles Metropolitan Area

Joined May 2026

Peter Kurzawski

Senior Laser Weld Specialist

Previously at SpaceX · Hawthorne, California, United States

Joined May 2026

Previously at Advanced Spade Company · Santa Ana, California, United States

Joined May 2026