On this week's episode of Valley of Depth, our first recorded in person, we sit down with Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace, in the company's historic Blue Ghost mission control room in Cedar Park, Texas — the same room where 60 engineers watched their lander touch down at one meter per second last year.

From there, the conversation opens into how Jason actually thinks: about the Moon, about scale, and about being a "mission CEO" rather than a hardware or software one. Firefly went public in 2025, acquired defense software company SciTec within months, and now sits inside Golden Dome. Jason argues the market still prices the company as a pure launch player while he's building an end-to-end stack he puts in the same conversation as Anduril and Palantir.

We cover:

The last 30 seconds of the Blue Ghost Mission 1 landing, from inside the room where it happened
Why Blue Ghost Mission 2 is harder: a three-spacecraft stack and the first US far-side landing
Whether small launch makes money, and why Alpha is both a profit center and a strategic asset
The Eclipse medium-lift bet, the Northrop partnership, and why Starship doesn't make everyone else obsolete
Why the Moon matters, and how big the commercial lunar economy actually gets
Why a hardware CEO bought a software company
The valuation gap with Rocket Lab and what he believes the market hasn't priced in
His honest read on SpaceX, China, the new-launch shakeout, and the path to a $100 billion company

• Chapters •

00:00 - Trailer
00:53 – Blue Ghost Mission 1
04:41 – The bar for success for Blue Ghost Mission 1
07:16 – What is the new objective in Blue Ghost Mission 2?
11:49 – Jason coming into Firefly leadership
16:35 – Day 1 as Firefly CEO
18:53 – AE Industrial and how private equity informs Jason's mindset
21:02 – Product stack
22:34 – Demand signal from responsive launch
24:21 – Alpha and small launch economics
26:20 – Firefly's Eclipse
28:09 – How Starship will impact the launch market
29:41 – Viability of commercial launches
32:15 – Blue Ghost x Eclipse?
33:51 – Why does the Moon matter?
36:02 – Jason's commercial lunar economy predictions
38:02 – The future of Blue Ghost's missions
39:52 – Why Jason acquired Sitec
44:30 – Sitec in the Space Force's Golden Dome contracts
47:16 – Why shift Firefly to being a public company?
49:04 – How does Jason address stock price fluctuation internally?
50:49 – Do the public markets understand the space economy?
52:57 – Is Firefly just a launch company?
55:25 – What part of Firefly has the market not priced in yet?
56:50 – Firefly's strategy in a world where lift becomes effectively free
58:49 – Which launch companies will survive?
59:56 – The China question
1:00:33 – Is there a company out there that doesn't get enough attention?
1:01:53 – How Firefly is thinking about M&As
1:04:25 – The path to Firefly hitting a $100B valuation
1:05:25 – Jason Kim, the person
1:07:07 – Who does Jason call for advice?
1:07:57 – What Jason would tell 25-year-old Jason
1:11:58 – What Jason does for fun when not working on space

• Show notes •

Firefly’s’ website — https://fireflyspace.com/
Jason’s’ socials — https://x.com/Jason_Lil_Kim/
Mo's socials — https://x.com/itsmoislam
Payload’s socials — https://x.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace
Ignition’s socials — https://x.com/ignitionnuclear / https://www.linkedin.com/company/ignition-nuclear/
Tectonic’s socials — https://x.com/tectonicdefense / https://www.linkedin.com/company/tectonicdefense/
Valley of Depth archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/

• About us •

Valley of Depth is a podcast about the technologies that matter — and the people building them. Brought to you by Arkaea Media, the team behind Payload (space), Ignition (nuclear energy), Decoding Bio (biotech) and Tectonic (defense tech), this show goes beyond headlines and hype. We talk to founders, investors, government officials, and military leaders shaping the future of national security and deep tech. From breakthrough science to strategic policy, we dive into the high-stakes decisions behind the world’s hardest technologies.

A Firefly Future, with Jason Kim (CEO of Firefly Aerospace)

Valley of Depth

A Firefly Future, with Jason Kim (CEO of Firefly Aerospace)