In November 2019, a special purpose acquisition company called Stable Road Acquisition Corp. went public, raising $172.5 million from investors to merge with a company to be named later. Specifically, according to the first paragraph of its prospectus, Stable Road was looking “to focus our search on companies in the cannabis industry which are compliant with all applicable laws and regulations.” It had 18 months to find one; if it failed, it had to give investors their $150 million back.
After considering “dozens of companies in that industry,” Stable Road decided not to buy a cannabis company, and by June 2020 it was casting its net more widely. Specifically in outer space. That month, Stable Road’s sponsor Brian Kabot met Mikhail Kokorich, the founder of a company called Momentus Inc., which makes plasma space rockets, or tries to anyway:
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