The Arithmetic of Ambition: Engineering Rigor and Aesthetic Futurism in Deeptech VC
To drive progress forward, we might replace aesthetic futurism with unsentimental economic vetting
The “New Space” era — characterized by Space 2.0 startups and the rapid commercialization of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) — is often framed as an inevitable frontier of human progress. As someone who lives and breathes this sector, I believe in the transformative potential of private exploration. However, passion must not be mistaken for trustfulness. In the current venture capital landscape, there is a disconnect between the “hard” engineering required to build hardware and the “lazy” arithmetic used to justify the capital behind it.
To drive progress forward, we might replace aesthetic futurism with unsentimental economic vetting. If we are not doing the math, we are adding noise to a speculative bubble and slowing down the progress.
We run a SpaceTech and DeepTech consultancy for investors, corporates, venture studios, accelerators, incubators, public, and private ecosystem builders. If you need to make a deep dive into a specific niche, identify trends, red flags, make a Due Diligence, or come up with a strategy, feel free to reach out to our co-founder, Denis Kalyshkin, via email denis@spaceambition.org.
The Narrative Hegemony and the Drunkard’s Walk
Hypes often take over VCs. It can be especially dangerous when we deal with DeepTech, since, unlike other technology-intensive startups, these companies need multiple rounds before they earn their first revenue, so both founders and investors need to think more strategically. Unfortunately, we’ve seen over and over again how VCs were taken over by narratives, and then startups die not because of poor technology or business model, but simply because of the change in narrative. We at Space Ambition would like to contribute to changing this tendency.
From an investment perspective, this can resemble what mathematicians call a drunkard’s walk — a process in which each step is taken without reference to the previous one, and overall progress accumulates only very slowly. In venture capital, a sequence of decisions driven primarily by shifting narratives rather than by structured analysis tends to yield outcomes dominated by chance rather than by deliberate strategy.
Investors often find themselves on a “high-risk bus”, driven by the belief that certain technologies are inevitable. This is a “star founder effect,” where the presence of a visionary leader or investor causes other investors to skip their own due diligence. Sociologically, this creates a herd effect where optimism is fueled by a lack of complete information. When long-term investors change their individual strategies to match market exuberance, they are not managing risk; they are surrendering to it.
The Case for Economic Constraints: Orbital Datacenters
The recent analysis by Andrew McCalip on orbital solar power and compute serves as a quintessential case study in this lack of rigor. We at Space Ambition conducted similar research into the viability of SBSP and space-based data centers and found that our data aligns with his conclusions regarding the current economic delta. Public proponents of space-based data centers often jump straight to technical hardware discussions like thermal loops and solar arrays without addressing whether orbit offers competitive unit economics.
A first-principles evaluation by McCalip highlights a massive mismatch: orbital power currently costs approximately x3 compared to terrestrial setups. In this particular domain and at this particular moment, orbit does not get “points” for being cool; it must win on cost-per-teraflop and cost-per-watt against “boring” terrestrial alternatives like tilt-wall data centers. Proponents who skip this arithmetic are confirming the conclusion they already want, rather than assessing the physics of the business case.
“Building Cathedrals” and Second-Order Effects
In his article, McCalip argues that we should still actively urge billionaires to spend on high-risk projects. These capital projects by billionaires - what he calls “building cathedrals” in orbit - serve a vital purpose despite extremely long investment cycles. These projects provide the financial excuse to build the industrial scaffolding and induce second-order effects like infrastructure and expertise required for humanity to eventually spread further into space.
While this sentiment is romantic, it deserves economic criticism. Relying on investments of a few visionary billionaires alone to advance civilization is a fragile strategy. Such investments could be a good kick start, but as the projects scale, they demand funding from more risk-averse investors who are more prudent about their strategies. For example, there are a few VCs that are focused on SpaceTech startups after Series A. This is why visionary ideas can die before they can reach monetization.
We suggest an alternative: innovation through more reliable technological and business risk assessment. When a deeptech VC relies on engineering evidence rather than biases, the asset class becomes more efficient and less expensive. This attracts more partners — not just billionaires, but institutional capital that requires predictable returns. By directing the economy in a more sensible way, humanity can support a higher volume of deals and ensure that money performs its actual work.
For DeepTech investments, technical Due Diligence is very important. But sometimes we see that economic viability and overall profitability lag behind. Designing space hardware is difficult; modeling its economics is tricky, but often it is still not a “rocket science”.
As the example with space data centers shows, it is mission-critical to combine both rigorous DD and moderate risk. This involves:
TRL Mapping: Using the Technology Readiness Level framework to connect capital directly to risk milestones.
Sensitivity Analysis: Playing with parameters to identify the core bottlenecks (e.g., radiative heat rejection or launch margin stacks).
The “Deal Batting Average”: It is necessary to shift to a more accurate assessment of the degree of risk and, accordingly, set limits on the share of high-risk investments in the portfolio through concentrated scientific analysis.
The evidence for this approach is measurable. Research indicates that venture funds prioritizing robust benchmarking and rigorous technical analysis achieve a higher return than their narrative-driven peers. Furthermore, intense due diligence is shown to reduce the volatility of investment performance, preventing the extreme over- and under-investments that characterize bubbles. This does not imply that diligence mechanically guarantees superior returns: excessively burdensome or unfocused analysis can raise management costs and slow decision-making to the point where it undermines competitive positioning and deal execution. The implication, therefore, is not simply to increase the volume of diligence, but to apply it in a disciplined and analytically grounded way—seeking a balance between rigor and decision efficiency.
Our Mission of Transparency
Waste may be a systemic byproduct of capitalism—a temporary “spatial fix” for excess capital—but it should not become a design principle of the deeptech ecosystem.
Our mission is therefore not to eliminate risk, but to improve the quality of information on which risk is taken. We need investors who remain open to uncertainty yet are willing to revise their convictions as engineering realities and economic evidence evolve. Investors have the right to understand the risk profile of the “high-risk bus” they are boarding. Whether they choose to support long-term civilization-building infrastructure or to pursue nearer-term commercial returns, that decision should be made consciously and transparently.
In an environment where capital is increasingly harder to raise, and scrutiny intensifies with each financing round, narrative alone is no longer sufficient. “Fake it till you make it” may have worked in periods of abundant liquidity, but it becomes fragile when projects must confront conservative follow-on capital and real operating constraints. The future of space exploration will not be built on vibes alone; it will be built through a continuous alignment between ambition and progressively stronger techno-economic foundations.