Will Edwards, CEO & Co-founder of Firehawk walked around defense conferences with what was essentially Lego plastic demonstrating it could become rocket fuel. Everyone laughed until Firehawk proved thermoplastic works as a binder for 3D-printable solid propellant, cutting production from 60 days to 6 hours. The breakthrough came from a failed pivot: they tried selling hybrid rocket engines to disrupt the supply chain, but learned the military won't swap proven systems for new architectures. Success required replicating solid motors exactly, just manufactured differently.
Will also explains why missile startups without propellant production will fail and why comparing defense manufacturing to SpaceX misses the point: primes already produce thousands of complex systems annually, they're just constrained by cast-and-cure physics, not capability.
Topics discussed:
- Using thermoplastic binders to 3D print solid rocket propellant, cutting production time from 60 days to 6 hours
- Why hybrid rocket engine disruption failed and success required replicating solid motors with different manufacturing physics instead
- How traditional cast-and-cure propellant production constrains scale through 5,000-pound batches requiring hundreds of molds before curing
- Why missile startups without propellant production capacity will fail competing against Northrop and L3Harris manufacturing queues
- Debunking SpaceX comparisons in defense: primes already produce thousands of systems annually, constrained by physics not capability
- Scaling from thermoplastic fuel experiments to 200,000 base bleeds annually and 10,000 rockets monthly by 2028
- Designing only for systems requiring 300,000+ units annually to ensure meaningful defense production impact at scale
- Building distributed propellant manufacturing in Europe and Indo-Pacific regions to match Ukraine artillery consumption rates
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