The problem, stated precisely
The Tsiolkovsky rocket equation governs every chemical launch vehicle ever flown:
Reaching low Earth orbit requires Δv ≈ 9.4 km/s — roughly 7.8 km/s of orbital velocity plus 1.5–2 km/s lost to gravity and atmospheric drag during ascent. Chemical exhaust velocity is capped by combustion chemistry at roughly 4.4 km/s (Isp ≈ 450s). Solving the equation at that exhaust velocity for a 9.4 km/s budget yields a required mass ratio in excess of 8:1 — over 87% of liftoff mass must be propellant before any structure, engine, or payload is accounted for. This ratio does not improve with vehicle scale.
There are exactly two variables available to break this constraint: raise exhaust velocity, or reduce the delta-v the vehicle itself must supply. Chemical combustion has been near its practical ceiling on the first variable for six decades.
Architectural response
Beamed-energy propulsion decouples propulsion energy from propulsion mass. A ground-based transmitter delivers energy to a receiver on the vehicle; the vehicle carries only reaction mass, not the means of generating its own thermal or kinetic energy. Exhaust velocity rises beyond chemical limits without carrying an energy-dense fuel-oxidizer pair, because the energy source's mass stays on the ground and is reused across every flight.
Published feasibility modeling for laser-thermal beamed propulsion (Rocket Lab, AIAA 2024) puts payload fraction for a small single-stage-to-orbit vehicle at approximately 3%, versus approximately 1% for an equivalent chemical SSTO — a threefold improvement at equal launch mass, driven by exhaust velocities in the 600–900s Isp range against chemical's ~450s ceiling.
Specific staging architecture, receiver design, and ground-segment configuration are proprietary and outside the scope of this document.
Precedent
Beamed propulsion has a continuous seventy-year research and demonstration history:
- 1972Kantrowitz proposes ground-based laser propulsion for orbital launch.
- 1980sUSAF and SDIO independently fund sustained laser and microwave propulsion research.
- 1991Kare formalizes the laser thermal launch concept.
- 1997Myrabo demonstrates powered liftoff of a small vehicle under a pulsed CO₂ laser — flown, not simulated.
- 2015Escape Dynamics builds and tests a tethered microwave thermal propulsion demonstrator.
- 2024Rocket Lab publishes a peer-reviewed AIAA feasibility study on laser-thermal SSTO performance.
No entity has carried this physics through to an operational commercial launch system. The gap is one of execution and capital sequencing, not unresolved physics.
Adjacent infrastructure
The economics of this approach improve independent of our own execution, because the power-generation half of the system is being built by a separate, well-capitalized ecosystem: orbital solar power transmission has moved from single-point demonstration (Caltech MAPLE, 2023) to funded national programs and multiple venture-backed firms within the past three years. We are not dependent on building this infrastructure — we are positioned to consume it.
Execution plan
Phase 1 — current. Bench-scale demonstration of beamed-power-to-thrust conversion, producing a measured, documented thrust-per-watt figure at small scale.
Phase 2. Subsystem-supplier positioning into the existing beamed-propulsion and space-based solar ecosystem, avoiding full-stack capital requirements at this stage.
Phase 3. Progressively scaled ground-transmission demonstrations, each de-risking a specific subsystem — beam tracking, receiver thermal survival, propellant flow control — rather than the full system simultaneously.
Space access for any orbital hardware required along this path is via rideshare and hosted-payload arrangements, not dedicated launch.
Team
Samuel James Greenfield — Founder
Founding CGO at Knit, an education RevOps platform, since May 2026 — leading sales and business development, and chairing partnerships with Experian, PayFast, FEDSAS, and SBMA. The company has grown roughly 12x in that period across three product pivots. Prior work spans stablecoin infrastructure, cryptographic verification, and hardware tooling:
- VumaEmployment benefits platform for domestic workers, built on stablecoin rails.
- ClimeCryptographically verifiable link-in-bio for creators, built to prevent impersonation and scam links.
- OpenGrexDecentralized coordination protocol — BLE mesh attendance proof in person, zero-knowledge verification online, stake-based commitment to filter out low-intent participation.
- R&DVersion control system for hardware and robotics teams, tracking builds from ideation through first prototype.