How a former Blue Origin intern obtained a $500,000 check from Mark Cuban to create arch-rival SpaceX

Ellis is an engineer at Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' aerospace company, and he dreams of starting his own rival company. His cold emails to Cuba were investments calling space "sexy" and disrupting the idea of ​​3D printing whole rockets.

The terrain worked - almost instantly. "Minutes after the cold email to Mark Cuban, we had a half-million-dollar commitment," Ellis, 31, told CNBC Make It.

Today, Ellis is the co-founder also CEO of Los Angeles-based Relativity Space, just months away from launching the world's 1st 3D-printed rocket into space. Along the way, Ellis also co-founder Jordan Noon who apprenticed at Ellis at Blue Origin before landing a job like an engineer at SpaceX have raised more than $1.3 billion from investors, added BlackRock and Tiger Global.

The money is worth Relativity Space's $4.2 billion while also funding 3D-printed rocket missions to compete in the private aerospace industry, expected to cost more than $1 trillion by the end of the decade.

Ellis' love of rockets started early: After studying at the Rocket Engine Laboratory at the University of Southern California and a three-year summer internship at Blue Origin, Ellis landed a full-time job as an engineer at Bezos.

At Blue Origin, Ellis 3D printed rocket parts one by one and was intrigued by the idea of ​​building an entire rocket with a mega-sized 3D printer. He argues that that could lower costs and potentially pave the way for the kind of multi-planetary society that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk often talks about.