Interview with Jim Cantrell: The Entrepreneur Who Helped Launch SpaceX and the New Age of Private Spaceflight

From Apollo Dreams to a New Space Age

For Jim Cantrell, the dream of space began like it did for millions of others — watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin take their first steps on the Moon in 1969. But unlike most, Cantrell didn’t just stay a spectator. Over the next four decades, he would help found over a dozen aerospace startups, advise governments, and play a pivotal role in the early days of SpaceX, where he was employee number four and the man who famously took Elon Musk to Russia to buy rockets.

Today, as CEO and co-founder of Phantom Space, Cantrell continues pushing the boundaries of commercial space, carrying forward the spirit of Apollo — not through government programs, but through entrepreneurship and innovation.

Finding Purpose in an Era Between Eras

“I was lucky enough to watch the Apollo 11 landing,” Cantrell recalled. “That was like a miracle. We all thought we’d be on Mars by the time I was in college.”

When the shuttle era replaced Apollo, his enthusiasm dimmed. “It wasn’t the same,” he said. “We weren’t exploring anymore.”

But everything changed during a NASA-funded Mars design course in college. “I got pulled back in,” Cantrell said with a grin. “That project changed my life — for better or worse, depending how you look at it.”

After graduation, he joined NASA and later worked with the French Space Agency on a joint Soviet–French Mars mission, where he discovered something profound. “We all thought the Soviets were superhuman,” he said. “But when I met them, I realized they were just people — smart, driven people, solving problems their own way.”

That experience shattered Cold War stereotypes and reshaped his view of engineering: creativity, not nationality, drives progress.

Becoming an ‘Orphan of Apollo’

Despite early success, Cantrell grew disillusioned with NASA’s stagnation in the late 1980s. “We were spending huge sums of money doing nothing,” he said. “The shuttle wasn’t flying, and there were no other rockets ready. We’d gone from Apollo to bureaucracy.”

He began calling himself an ‘Orphan of Apollo’ — part of a generation inspired by humanity’s greatest leap, but left without the means to continue it.

Then, in 2001, the phone rang.

The Call from Elon Musk

“Elon called me out of the blue,” Cantrell said. “He’d just left PayPal and wanted to do something to make humanity multi-planetary.”

Through Robert Zubrin of the Mars Society — a mutual acquaintance — Musk had heard of Cantrell’s experience in post-Soviet Russia helping convert ICBMs into launchers. Musk’s idea was bold: fund a private mission to Mars himself.

“So Bob told him, ‘I know a guy,’” Cantrell laughed. “And that’s how I ended up taking Elon to Russia to buy rockets.”

When negotiations failed, the two decided to build their own launch company instead. That company became SpaceX.

Building the First SpaceX

In those early days, Cantrell and Musk often debated how to build rockets from scratch. “The biggest disagreement we had was about vertical integration,” he explained. “Elon wanted to build everything ourselves — every nut and bolt. I thought we should partner with suppliers.”

He chuckled. “He was more right than I was — though not completely. Elon even wanted to buy our own scandium mine for a special aluminum alloy. He took integration to the extreme.”

Still, the foundation of SpaceX’s culture — doing the impossible in-house — was laid in those conversations. “It was intoxicating,” Cantrell said. “For the first time, we didn’t have to wait for the government. We could take our future into our own hands.”

Lessons from Vector and the Birth of Phantom Space

After leaving SpaceX, Cantrell founded and co-founded over a dozen companies, including Vector Launch and Phantom Space. While Vector ultimately went bankrupt, Cantrell views it as an invaluable learning experience.

“I learned three big lessons,” he said. “First: choose your co-founders and investors carefully. They need to be perfectly aligned. Second: be frugal. Engineers love to spend, but progress isn’t the same as spending money. And third: face problems immediately. Delays destroy companies.”

At Phantom Space, those lessons became doctrine. “We’ve spent less than half of what Vector did and achieved more,” Cantrell said. “Because now, we walk the walk — small team, frugal mindset, and everyone aligned.”

Becoming the Henry Ford of Space

Phantom’s goal, Cantrell explained, is to make access to space as commonplace as buying a car in the early 1900s. “Henry Ford didn’t just build a car — he built an affordable car,” Cantrell said. “That’s what we’re doing for rockets.”

Phantom’s long-term vision goes beyond launch vehicles. With Phantom Cloud, the company is developing space-based data centers equipped with AI processing, designed to move data faster and enable an orbital “app store” for space applications.

“We want to bring AI to the data, not the other way around,” Cantrell said. “It’s about making space a platform for innovation — not just exploration.”

Startups, Skeptics, and the Spirit to Build

When asked how he dealt with skeptics who once called him “crazy,” Cantrell smiled. “You just have to not care,” he said. “Most people are focused on job security. I was focused on building the future. You have to take responsibility and go do it.”

He believes the biggest untapped opportunities in aerospace lie in launch capacity, U.S.-based satellite supply chains, and digital infrastructure for space data. But he cautions that success isn’t about raising the most money.

“Too many founders think fundraising equals success,” he said. “It doesn’t. The only thing that matters is building something people want — and surviving long enough to deliver it.”

Advice for the Next Generation

To young aerospace entrepreneurs, Cantrell offers timeless wisdom:

“Find something you’re truly passionate about,” he said. “If you’re going to work this hard, you’d better love it.”

He also emphasized understanding product–market fit — “make something somebody wants to buy” — and the importance of self-awareness. “Even if you have passion and a great idea,” he said, “you need to be good at it. And if you’re not, bring in people who are.”

The Entrepreneurial Ethos of Space

After decades at the intersection of engineering and entrepreneurship, Cantrell still carries that Apollo spark — but his mission is grounded in pragmatism. “I don’t wait for someone else to build the future,” he said. “I just go build it.”

From taking Elon Musk to Moscow, to building the rockets that could launch the next generation of innovators, Jim Cantrell’s journey proves that the frontier isn’t found in the stars — it’s built by the people bold enough to reach for them.