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E-motorcycles are getting more popular — especially among teens and young adults — and Austin is stepping up enforcement.
You might have heard of big rocket companies like SpaceX or even Blue Origin who have moved to Texas over the last few years. But what about Central Texas’ own Firefly Aerospace? We’ll have more on the rocket company in our backyard.
Need some ideas for things to do over the long Labor Day weekend? We have suggestions for a few arts events around town.
It’s kickoff weekend for most Texas college football teams, including UT. Will this finally be the year for the Longhorns? We’ll talk about the season ahead.
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The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jennifer Stayton Emoto vehicles are getting more popular, especially among teens and young adults, and Austin is stepping up enforcement. I’m your host Jennifer Staton.
Ben Philpott And I’m your host, Ben Philpott. You might have heard of big rocket companies like SpaceX or even Blue Origin, who have recently moved to Texas. But what about Central Texas’s own Firefly Aerospace? We’ll have more on the rocket company in our backyard. This is the Austin Signal, a KUT News production.
Jennifer Stayton Need some ideas for things to do over the long Labor Day weekend? Well, hear about a few arts happenings this weekend in our Where the Art is segment.
Ben Philpott And it’s kickoff weekend for most Texas college football teams, including UT. Will this finally be the year for the Longhorns? We’ll talk about the season ahead. All that and more coming up on Austin Signal. Howdy Austin, it’s Friday, September 4th, 2026. I’m your host, Ben Philpott.
Jennifer Stayton And I’m your host, Jennifer Staten. This is Austin Signal. Thanks for tuning in.
Ben Philpott We’ve got a special co-host at Austin Signal for you today. It’s in honor of Jen’s last day as KUT’s morning edition host, and, you know, a passing of the baton, so to speak.
Jennifer Stayton And to underscore that it’s not a complete goodbye for me, fortunately, you’ll likely hear more of me here on Austin Signal. And of course, weekday mornings on KUT from 9 a.m. Till noon.
Ben Philpott And for me, well, from now on, I’ll be the voice waking you up every weekday. You’re welcome, Austin.
Jennifer Stayton I’m looking forward to that too, Ben. And now let’s get into the show. Austin is stepping up enforcement of e-moto vehicles as they become more popular, especially among teens and young adults. KUT’s Luz Moreno-Lozano has more on the city’s efforts.
Luz Moreno-Lozano Austin’s neighborhood streets are being frequented by what the city is calling e-motos. These are essentially high-powered, self-propelled bikes that reach speeds over 28 miles per hour. In May, the Austin City Council passed a resolution aimed at regulating e-motos. The city is trying to define and manage these devices and found that state law already has clear rules. APD just has to figure out how to enforce them. Assistant Austin Police Chief Mike Chancellor says the challenge is identifying what e-motos are versus an e-bike and a motorcycle. APD has updated its training to reflect that.
Mike Chancellor So we’re trying to educate the community as much as we can on what those differences are so that parents, so that users of these vehicles, and so that our law enforcement officers can understand the differences and what laws apply and how we need to handle these situations.
Luz Moreno-Lozano Per state law, emotives are street legal, but the person riding it must have proper registration and insurance and the right safety equipment like a helmet. APD will be looking for these factors among others. The city is also exploring creating designated areas for these types of devices. I’m Luz Moreno Lozano in Austin.
Ben Philpott A handful of private space companies have significant presence here in Texas. You’ve probably heard of SpaceX and its launch site near Brownsville, or maybe Blue Origin with its site out in West Texas. But closer to home, another company has entered the commercial space race. Cedar Park’s Firefly Aerospace is building rockets, lunar landers, and more. Last year, it became the first private company to achieve a successful moon landing. The company is the subject of a new documentary called To The Black, The Story of Firefly, which makes its streaming debut today on Prime Video. Miles Bloxson spoke with director Scott Edwards about the film.
Miles Bloxon First of all, how did this project pop up on your radar, and what was your interest in it?
Scott Edwards Well, I shoot videos and advertisements for companies. And one took me to Firefly Aerospace, where I was doing a pretty standard project there. When I met them, they said, hey, hey hey, this can’t be used in a video, but just film this anyway. And a big announcement went out. Their CEO, Tom R. Cusick, at the time was saying, we just completed our Series A funding round. We raised, I think it was $30 million. And everybody was toasting champagne. And I was like, the whole place was buzzing. And then that ended. And it was very exciting and that was kind of, that was day one when I met them.
Miles Bloxon So you, at first, when you first started filming, it wasn’t going to be something that was gonna be put out there. That’s right. And just to clarify, Scott, this is an independent film. So you just wanted to follow your hunch to see where it went? Is that what you were thinking?
Scott Edwards Yes, absolutely right. Not paid for by the company or anything like that at all. Independent film. Wanted to make what would be an entertaining and truthful story. Hopefully looking for human insights, things to learn. And so I funded it, did it on my own time. I actually visited Firefly’s sites over 120 times over the years. And I always would drive up there to film, sometimes in a great mood, sometimes wondering what am I doing? And is this all gonna be for nothing? But I’m grateful that it’s not.
Miles Bloxon And you started filming in 2016 until now. So this company is still operating. So how do you know when to end a project like this?
Scott Edwards Oh, that’s a great question. When I was following them, they were a small startup company. This was a small team. And in the space world, everybody at that time had a billionaire backing them. That’s either Bezos, Branson, or Musk.
Miles Bloxon Now remember this, yeah.
Scott Edwards These guys didn’t have that. And so they were making, trying to build rockets out in these country, rural fields of Texas with a small budget. And so, they were unknown at the time. And the goal for me was the story is if these guys can get to space, that was kind of the business model. If a rocket can make it to space then they’re in. And so for me, that was the store. Follow them to orbit.
Miles Bloxon And you spoke with several people for this, not just the employees, but the neighbors and the ranchers. When you talk to them, what do they say about living next to Firefly’s facility? Because I’m from Austin and I know Cedar Park and I bet you they were like, what is happening in our backyard?
Scott Edwards I think this is such a fun piece about the film is it’s really where the past kind of meets the future. So modern space company, but yet their neighbors are cattle ranchers in Texas. These are just country folk, you know, and they talk that way and they show themselves that way, and it’s fun. So I would go and interview them and ask, hey, what do you think is going on? Many of them were suspicious. They’re paranoid. What is this? We don’t really know. You know, some of them do know. Some of them kept newspaper clippings. And some didn’t like the noise, complained about that, but some kind of geeked out and followed the company. They wanted them to be successful. So you get a lot of different views from neighbors.
Miles Bloxon One of the interesting things that we hear in the documentary is the worry of burnout, not from the equipment, but from the employee. So what was it like talking to them about burnout? Because they started out pretty passionate about this whole project.
Scott Edwards Yeah, this is something that makes this company unique. It’s not a job. That just isn’t really the way, that doesn’t put it. That doesn’t suffice. It’s a mission. These guys are all in to get their rocket to space. And they, without that billionaire to back them, they don’t have unlimited time. Time is money. They have to go fast. So they’re working on weekends. They’re working overtime. They’re work long hours. Everybody’s just committed to the goal. And in order to do that, Tom, the CEO, would really have to try to inspire them. And so, you know, he’s standing on a table many times giving a speech to try and inspire them, so it’s buzzing and fun to be around that because these aren’t people doing their job. They’re all rallying around this goal and the job is just kind of the formality that has to be there. So, yeah, burnout seemed to be a risk. People pretty much, you now, built rockets and went home and went to sleep and that’s all they were doing.
Miles Bloxon You were there when a fire broke out in 2020 while they were testing, and there were several testing failures after that, but it seems like you had pretty open access to most of the ins and outs of the company. Is that right?
Scott Edwards That’s right. I think this might be the most remarkable part of the project is I was entrusted with really intimate access. I could show up when I want and film pretty much whatever I want. And that was just incredibly transparent and trusting of them. So I was in rooms where typically you have to have a badge to get in the room or they’re closed or meetings or people are deciding, you know, which department to lay off because of some financial troubles. Or as you said, a fire broke out, that was kind of an explosion on one of their rocket tests and local officials shut down Highway 183 because they thought it was unsafe. And I’m standing in the street on a foggy night with blue and red police lights everywhere as Tom, the CEO, has to try to assuage the concerns of officials and let them know you can open up the highway. Everything is now safe. And I mean, that’s like a documentarian’s dream, right? It’s. Grab an extra battery and you’re just on the go and you end up in the highway that’s shut down with the police and with the main character so little adventures like that are very fun what i love about this film is they do i am not holding back um on the failures and on the challenges and people you know cussing when they’re mad because the test didn’t go right this this is the stuff that other companies won’t show
Miles Bloxon In the film, the for-profit space race is mentioned, comparisons to other rocket and space companies. How constant is that awareness of what other Texas space companies are doing? Or did it seem like there was more of a concentration on focusing what they were actually doing?
Scott Edwards Great question. The film I decided to really focus on the story of Firefly because you get kind of involved in these characters, but they themselves, as you mentioned, are very aware of the space race. It adds stakes to the film. What the general consensus when these guys were starting, and I think this is still true today, is that the world who wants to put satellites and things into space, that market probably only needs a few rocket launch companies. We don’t need 20. And so the first few who get there will be established, they’ll be the ones. And so there was a race going on to see who would fill those needs. Similarly in shipping, we have whatever, we have FedEx and UPS or whoever, but we don’t have 20. We don’t need 20. And when it comes to putting stuff in space, you only need a few of those. And these guys had to get there quick or they would lose their spot and then all would be for nothing.
Miles Bloxon That’s pretty interesting. Cause I think about airlines when you talk about that too, like who established themselves first. What are you hoping that people take from this documentary?
Scott Edwards Oh, I think there’s a couple of things. A strong theme in the film. I just want to state that I’m not a huge space geek. I’m interested a little bit in space. I care a lot about stories. I care about human stories and character-driven dramas. And what those usually put us to is the test. And these people and this team was really put to the test and this story is about not giving up. It’s about developing resilience when obstacles stand in your way. And we’re all trying to do things in our lives. We all have projects we’re endeavoring. We’re all try to be more than we are. And I think what you can draw from this film is a persistence to continue and to not give up and to be resilient. And at some point your project has to sort of be fueled on a faith that it’s gonna work out. And I that’s notable and it’s, you might even say virtuous. It’s admirable when people can maintain that faith.
Jennifer Stayton KUT’s Miles Bloxson speaking with director Scott Edwards about his documentary, Tooth of Black, the story of Firefly, now on Prime Video. More Austin signals still ahead. Is the Austin Signal. Welcome back. I’m Jennifer Staton. And I’m Ben Philpott. It’s Friday.
Ben Philpott The weekend is almost here, but how to spend all that free time.
Jennifer Stayton Well, to help you plan your weekend, we’ve got art beat editor Stephanie Federico in the studio with us today to give us a glimpse of a few art things going on this weekend for our where the art is segment. Hey, Stephanie. Hey, Jen. Hey Ben.
Ben Philpott Hello. All right. Some people, they need to have a plan right now for something tonight. So what do you suggest?
Stephanie Federico Got a couple things going on tonight. The first is over at UT’s Visual Arts Center. There’s two exhibits opening tonight there. The first one is called Experimental Seeing. It celebrates the founding of UT’s photography program by Russell Lee. He’s a pioneering photographer and he was a professor there. It features the artwork or photographs of 25 alumni from the school’s MFA photography program. And then the second exhibit over there tonight that’s opening tonight is How to Grow the Cowpea. And this explores the climate crisis through collaboration between scientists and artists. The work explores our relationship with the environment and offers strategies for survival. I thought cowpea, I thought the name was. Yeah, where does that name come from? Yeah, I though it was kind of interesting. So I looked it up, the title comes from a pamphlet that was written by George Washington Carver for black farmers in rural Alabama.
Jennifer Stayton All right. So this may feel like a bit of an abrupt pivot, but you know, there’s a variety on the Austin art scene, as this discussion exemplifies. Stephanie, there is also a Barbie-esque production that is starting tonight. Tell us about that. Yeah, the Barbie…
Stephanie Federico Dream heist that’s starting tonight. Uh, it goes on for a couple of nights. It’s over at the butterfly bar at the vortex.
Ben Philpott Love the Vortex.
Stephanie Federico Yes, awesome. And this is produced by La Fenice, the theater troupe. They have a youth production company. So Austin area’s high school students are involved in this. This is called The Spark. And La Feniche is known for their physical comedy. And so this play is about five Barbies and one Ken who are trying to put on a fashion show. And they discover that an AI app is scheming to ruin the show. So
Ben Philpott real life.
Stephanie Federico Real life, yeah. So it takes on the real issues of AI, it’s threats to creative work in the environment, but supposedly it’s gonna be still really fun, so.
Ben Philpott Sounds fascinating. So there’s always something musical to go see here in Austin, but I hear you’ve got something that is not your ordinary choir concert that’s happening tomorrow night.
Stephanie Federico Yes, well there is a local group called Inversion and they have a spin-off community choir for singers who are 50 and older. And they have performance on Saturday night over at St. James Episcopal Church in East Austin called Wanting Memories. And the show explores struggles with memory, cognitive decline, desire to remember, willingness to let go of things and to heal. And it just sounds really lovely. And I don’t know if I mentioned the group’s name is called Encore. Um, but what I love about this show is that it’s going to benefit benefit the love notes chorus, which is a separate choir. And it’s for people who are, um, have early stage memory loss and for their caregivers. So that sounds like it’s gonna be really nice.
Jennifer Stayton So Stephanie, any other things that folks should be on the lookout for this weekend?
Stephanie Federico Well, as you know, we had two greats pass recently, Dolly Parton and Tim Curry. And last weekend, or last week on the show, I mentioned a bunch of Dolly tributes going on. But they’re continuing. They’re still going on. You can never get enough. So one thing that stood out to me over at Radio East, they’re doing a double feature tonight of Tim Curry movies. So Rocky Horror, Picture Show and Clue, and then tomorrow night they’re going to do the Dolly Parton double feature. At nine to five and best little whore house in Texas. So if you need some Dolly or Tim Curry, go on out there. You can never get enough.
Ben Philpott All right, Stephanie, one final question. When you would go see a Rocky Art Picture Show back in college, who did you dress up as?
Stephanie Federico I didn’t dress up. Sorry, but I did. And it wasn’t in colleges, it was in high school. But I did sing and I did do the dance and everything.
Ben Philpott Oh, yeah. Yeah. How about you? I like to go in his riff raff.
Stephanie Federico Well, Riff Raff was great. Jen? No comment. No comment!
Ben Philpott All right. So fun. Well, thank you very much, Stephanie. We’ve been speaking with art beat editor Stephanie Federico from our Where the Art is segment. Stephanie, thanks so much for telling Austin about all the things going on here on Austin Signal.
Stephanie Federico My pleasure. Have a good weekend. You too. You too!
Ben Philpott College football is kicking off. The Texas Longhorns will start what many hope will be a championship season tomorrow.
Jennifer Stayton And to discuss what we can expect from Texas this season, we’ve got Jimmy Maas here with us. Hey, Jimmy. Hello
Jimmy Maas How are you?
Jennifer Stayton Good, good, Jimmy. So, lots of Texas fans are already talking. They’re talking college football playoffs, maybe a national championship. They are talking a Heisman Trophy for a quarterback archmading, but we haven’t even played a game yet.
Jimmy Maas No games have been played.
Jennifer Stayton Not yet, that changes tomorrow. But Jimmy, before everything actually starts, give us kind of a realistic outlook for the season ahead for the Texas Longhorn football team.
Jimmy Maas Texas has everything in front of them. That if they they have a big early season game, Ohio State at home next Saturday, that’s next Saturday. They have that on the schedule. If they do well there and they do well in SEC play, they will be in the mix for a national title game. Now, you know, they have to they have to do all of that. I mean, that that’s the thing. Like they run a gauntlet of a schedule. There’s you know there’s lots of big games. There’s Tennessee, there’s Mississippi. There’s lots of big games down the road. But the big game tomorrow, a local rivalry, guys. I-35-
Jennifer Stayton I-35!
Jimmy Maas Oh, man, you know Texas State and Austin and San Marcos 31 miles away officially Yeah, the DKR Texas Memorial Stadium and the UFC you Stadium in San Marcas weird that they would name it after a University of Texas federal community, but whatever, you Miles away They they are so close and yet they have played one time ever Wow Texas did and you know when there’s a theme here to this 30 thing Do you know? When they last played 30 years ago 1930. Oh, wow. Yes yes back when they were known as the Texas State Teachers College and This is it’s I mean, they’re probably closer rival closer proximity schools division one schools But probably none that played this few times in their history. It’s kind of a wild thing You know there are This is the, these are the game notes for tomorrow. This is 120 something pages of game notes between the two schools. And that could be also indicative of what the final score could be. It could be in the neighborhood of 100 something. Hey, but.
Ben Philpott But Texas State, they’re a Pac-12 powerhouse now.
Jimmy Maas They are a Pac-12. This is a new thing from Texas State. No, I kid a little bit, but Texas State has been growing its football program for years. Their baseball team is ranked most years recently. And they, you know, they have successful alumni, Paul Goldschmidt and Major League Baseball, but G.J. Kinney has turned this program into something that the Pac- 12 was interested in fostering in Pac- twelve. It’s not your… It’s not your uncle’s pack 12. This is this is a new pack 12 with I think two original members, but
Ben Philpott It feels like it’s mostly old Mac schools or something. Or not Mac.
Jimmy Maas Mattering of different pickups. But anyway, it’s not the USC, UCLA, Arizona, Arizona state that we all kind of grew up with. But this is a new era for them. So we’ll get to see this dawn tomorrow under the leadership of Brad Jackson, a quarterback for Texas State University as they go up against potential future Heisman trophy winner. Depending on how well he does the first game, because that’s really all the rope he gets in with the social media. Archmanny, thank you. There we go. I got stuck in Brad. I know Brad Jackson. I could just drop that name, but I don’t know Archmany. What’s wrong with me?
Ben Philpott Uh, well, Jimmy, what else are you here to talk about?
Jimmy Maas Well, here’s the thing today, we had a thank you. We had a very interesting morning and we said we allowed Jen to say goodbye for morning edition. But here’s the thing. You’re not actually going away. This is the transitions happen. It’s over. It’s like now you get you have a whole new platform here on our midday show with Austin Signals.
Jennifer Stayton Yeah, I don’t know after today if they want me back.
Jimmy Maas We’ll see, we’ll see. And Ben, you will be more involved with this program now because you are taking a lead role with KUT’s hosting. So I just want to say congrats to both of you on the new missions that you start officially Monday, even though like we’ve kind of been in a transition phase for about three weeks now, but I do want to say can’t wait for all of this to take off. And this is going to be really huge for both this show and your individual efforts.
Jennifer Stayton Yeah, I’m really excited and really grateful to be still hanging around here at KUT. I’ll be on the air from 9 to noon, hopefully hopping into Austin Signal a little more often. And when Ben takes a much needed breather from early morning morning edition duties, I’m looking forward to hopping back in every once in a while to this morning edition. But Ben, we’ve got a baton in here. I am handing you the baton for morning edition! Oh I’ve got it. Morning edition.
Ben Philpott Oh, I dropped it. No, I’ve gotten it. Everything’s fine. Yeah. It will be a little bit of a transition. People will, you know, I’ll have to get a little used to the job. People have to a little use to me after listening to you forever.
Jennifer Stayton Well, but the great thing though is Ben, people actually are quite used to you because Ben is a veteran of the KUT newsroom. He has been here from the very beginning and the Morning Edition audience in KUT are going to be in great hands.
Ben Philpott Well, thank you so much. And on behalf of Austin, thank you, Jennifer, for all that you’ve done for KUT and for the city of Austin for the last 22 years and still more to go.
Jennifer Stayton It’s been, it’s been my great pleasure to do that. And to hop in for Austin Signal, that is it for us today on Austin Signal. Thank you to KUT’s Luz Moreno-Lezano for her reporting. Host Miles Bloxson for her interview on the Firefly documentary. KUT Stephanie Federico and Jimmy Moss for coming on the show today. Thanks to Ben for co-hosting with me.
Ben Philpott Well, thanks to Jen for co-hosting with me. Jake Perlman is our technical director. Alexandra Hart is our producer. Kristen Cabrera, fresh off a vacation back and excited to be here, is our managing producer. Jimmy Moss is the showrunner and likes to talk a lot about football. And I’m your co-Host, Ben.
Jennifer Stayton Philpott. And I’m your co-host Jennifer Stayton and thanks for joining us for Austin Signal. Have a great weekend.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
