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Automakers around the globe produce millions of vehicles every year. The global rocket industry? It makes fewer than 100 per year that are capable of delivering satellites to orbit.
But the way Jim Cantrell sees it, cars and rockets aren't all that different. And he wants his startup, Vector, to churn out rockets just as Ford churned out Model Ts.
Cantrell — who was an early member of Elon Musk's SpaceX team — just hired some top brass away from the auto industry to help meet those bold production goals.
Brian Barron spent more than two decades at BMW helping to fine tune the company's assembly lines. Vector said Thursday that he's joined the company as its vice president of manufacturing.
"He's bringing his team along with him to put in place a manufacturing process at Vector to allow us to build hundreds, if not thousands, of [rockets] per year," Cantrell told CNNMoney.
Vector is one of several young startups that are angling to become the next big thing in a new era of spaceflight, in which private companies, not just governments, are willing to take on the daunting costs and risks of space travel.
Like his former employer, SpaceX, Cantrell wants to make trips to space cheaper and more frequent.
But Cantrell doesn't think SpaceX's powerful rockets are going to give the satellite industry what it's hungry for: a small, inexpensive rocket that can fling tiny satellites into Low-Earth Orbit.
(CNN)
