🖖 It’s Dan Goldin. On my flight to our capital this week, I was thinking about where we need to apply pressure for our Renaissance to be successful:

These are the harder things to do. Each effort requires movement against what’s popular. But, I believe they’re essential in getting all us Americans working together in pursuing the next American century, which — to me — that’s the dream.

With that, today’s main thought is about a technology that I believe captures the ultimate ambitions of our Renaissance: robotics.

Also in today’s issue: We Asked, You Answered; America’s biggest bank bets $1.5T on the Renaissance, a reusable launcher’s big fundraising round, and more…

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Robots are the ultimate expression of our ambitions for this Renaissance. They promise to transform productivity and plug labor gaps (thereby driving economic competitiveness superiority).

But the challenge of moving robotics beyond carefully choreographed dance routines or towel-folding demos reveals where we stand across the entire chain of power:

→ Critical metals (lithium, copper, rare earths…)
→ Advanced manufacturing (batteries, actuators, drives…)
→ Data capture of the physical world
→ Up-the-development stack of AI algorithms

This is where the technology superpowers’ playbooks split. China deploys at scale, with robots learning by doing, accumulating operational hours, and iterating through failure. America, by comparison, polishes prototypes and chases perfection, with a “demo trap” holding back true breakthroughs.

Robotics is fast becoming a sharp litmus test of manufacturing depth and supply chain control. We are being greatly out-deployed, and while we still hold some decisive advantages, we’ve got to move quickly to put them to work.

So, in today’s Antimemo, we look at The Last Hardware Problem and ask:

Are we willing to pay the price of robotics leadership? 👇

Last week, we shared a glimpse into the work of Out of This World Design (OOTWD). It’s hard to overstate the thought and iteration behind their space and defense experiences. What you see here is just a snapshot of the countless design cycles that brought the IAC experience to life. For those new to the International Astronautical Congress (IAC), it’s where the global space community charts its next chapter. OOTWD made sure the Starlab and Astroscale exhibits truly felt out of this world 😉.

A couple weeks ago, we asked you in a Per Aspera reader poll to weigh in on China’s jet engine timeline. Specifically, we asked: when will a fully Chinese-designed/built jet engine power certified, routine commercial passenger flights?

Most of you landed somewhere between 2030 and “it’s complicated” (translation: ¯_(ツ)_/¯ ). That tracks. Jet engines remain one of the clearest, hardest tests of national industrial ambition.

JPMorgan Chase announced the “Security and Resiliency Initiative” as its $1.5 trillion, decade-long commitment to finance and invest in critical U.S. industries.

The firm will deploy loans, VC, and up to $10B in direct equity into 27 high-priority sectors across 4 verticals central to national security:

Call it American Dimonism (h/t @mattparlmer). “It has become painfully clear that the United States has allowed itself to become too reliant on unreliable sources of critical minerals, products and manufacturing – all of which are essential for our national security,” said JPM CEO Jamie Dimon. “Hopefully, once again, as America has in the past, we will all come together to address these immense challenges. We need to act now.”

This is a big shift for Wall Street, which has long been criticized — by technologists, by builders, by us ourselves — for chasing short-term profits at the expense of America’s long-term prosperity and resiliency. Well, the tides have turned and now America’s largest bank is showing up in a big way.

More to come? Per Alan Simon (CEO of Closeshoring and PA Founding Sponsor), “it’s inevitable that more of the largest U.S. asset managers will also take this approach, providing the necessary capital to reindustrialize America.”

Stoke Space has raised a $510M Series D to accelerate development of the fully reusable Nova rocket and activate Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral, the historic pad where John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth. The round was led by United States Innovative Technology (USIT) and funds Nova through first flights.

👇 What Stoke investors are saying:

This round brings Stoke's total capital raised to $990M. The only question in our mind: Did Stoke intentionally stop shy of $1B so they can someday soon say they developed a fully reusable rocket for under a billion?

Icarus (a Cyrus Ventures portfolio co) announced last week that it’s joined Y Combinator’s Fall 25 batch. The startup is working to build fleets of high-altitude, solar-powered drones that act as reconaissance birds. CEO Henry Kwan has published Icarus’s pitch deck — check it out for an overview on the stratosphere’s “Sputnik moment” and the company’s unique approach to HAPS.

Sanjeev Gordhan, GP at Type One Ventures, has unveiled the Global Space Awards 2025 — a new initiative celebrating innovation across the entire commercial space ecosystem (not just the big guys!). The ceremony will be held on Dec. 5, 2025 at London’s Natural History Museum. Nominations are now open — 🇺🇸 U.S. teams, let’s represent!

Space Capital dropped their Q3 Space IQ Report. The key insight: the space sector has seen a decisive shift toward defense-driven infrastructure, as founders, investors, and government customers align around the architectural demands of Golden Dome.

Army launches Janus Program to deploy commercial microreactors at military installations by 2028, using NASA COTS-style milestone contracting to field next-gen nuclear technologies // K2 Space plans triple-orbit Trinity mission for 2027 // Tom Mueller’s Impulse Space announces lunar architecture, including company’s own lander // California Gov. Newsom vetoes bill that would limit port automation // Anduril working on AR headset for welding (?) 👀 // Harvard economist estimates investments in datacenters & “information-processing software” accounted for 92% of U.S. GDP growth in H1 ‘25 // Toyota aims to achieve, widely deploy “world’s first” all-solid state batteries // researchers using synthetic diamonds to cool AI chips // hmm, never seen this one before: Chinese silicon wafer makers rapidly gaining share by undercutting prices of leading firms from Japan, Taiwan, South Korea // Pew survey of U.S. parents: 90% say their kids aged 12 or younger watch TV, 61% use a smartphone, 50% use a gaming device, and 8% use a chatbot (read last week’s piece for more on this).

Want to pitch us on an Antimemo? Got a helpful resource or some company news to share? Thousands of your fellow Renaissance-pilled readers might like to hear from you. Reply here or drop us a line at [email protected] ↗