Share

cover art for  The Future of Space Exploration with SpaceX COO, Gwynne Shotwell

Future Positive

The Future of Space Exploration with SpaceX COO, Gwynne Shotwell

Season 2, Ep. 3

In this episode, XPRIZE CEO and astronaut Anousheh Ansari, talks to SpaceX COO and President, Gwynne Shotwell, about working with interstellar innovator Elon Musk, and the company's plans for the future of space travel and exploration including its plans to build communities on the moon, Mars and beyond. Recorded at Paramount Studios during XPRIZE Visioneering, Anousheh invites guests to question Gwynne about her predictions for commercial space travel.


Anousheh Ansari is CEO of the XPRIZE Foundation, the world’s leader in designing and operating incentive competitions to solve humanity’s grand challenges. Ansari, along with her family, sponsored the organization’s first competition, the Ansari XPRIZE, a $10 million competition that ignited a new era for commercial spaceflight. Since then, she has served on XPRIZE’s Board of Directors. Prior to being named CEO of XPRIZE, Ansari served as the CEO of Prodea Systems, a leading Internet of Things (IoT) technology firm she co-founded in 2006, and continues to serve as the executive chairwoman. She captured headlines around the world when she embarked upon an 11-day space expedition, accomplishing her childhood dream of becoming the first female private space explorer, first astronaut of Iranian descent, first Muslim woman in space, and fourth private explorer to visit space. Ansari serves on the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Future Council and has received numerous honors, including the WEF Young Global Leader, Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and STEM Leadership Hall of Fame, among others. She is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and serves on the board of Jabil and Peace First, as well as several other not-for-profit organizations focused on STEM education and youth empowerment. Ansari also co-founded The Billion Dollar Fund for Women, announced in October 2018 at the Tri Hita Karana (THK) Forum on Sustainable Development in Bali, with a goal of investing $1 billion in women-founded companies by 2020.

She published her memoir, My Dream of Stars, to share her life story as inspiration for young women around the world. Ansari holds a bachelor’s degree in electronics and computer engineering from George Mason University, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from George Washington University; and honorary doctorates from George Mason University, Utah Valley University, and International Space University.


As President and COO of SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell is responsible for day-to-day operations and for managing all customer and strategic relations. She joined SpaceX in 2002 as Vice President of Business Development and built the Falcon vehicle family manifest to more than 70 launches, representing more than $10 billion in business. Shotwell is a member of the SpaceX Board of Directors. Prior to joining SpaceX, Shotwell spent more than 10 years at the Aerospace Corporation, holding positions in Space Systems Engineering & Technology and Project Management. Shotwell was subsequently recruited to be Director of Microcosm’s Space Systems Division,managing space system technologies, serving on the executive committee and directing corporate business development. In 2014, Shotwell was appointed to the United States Export Import Bank's Advisory Committee and the Federal Aviation Administration’s Management Advisory Council. Shotwell has been awarded the World Technology Award for Individual Achievement in Space, has been inducted into the Women In Technology International Hall of Fame and was elected to the honorable grade of Fellow with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. SpaceX supports science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs locally as well as national engineering programs and competitions. Shotwell has helped raise over $1.4 million for STEM education programs reaching thousands of students nationwide. Shotwell received, with honors, her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Northwestern University in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mathematics, and serves as both a University Trustee and a member of the Advisory Council for Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering. She has authored dozens of papers on a variety of space related subjects.


Links: 

https://www.spacex.com/

More episodes

View all episodes

  • 39. Why We Need Alternative Proteins

    32:59
    XPRIZE Founder Peter H. Diamandis is in conversation with His Excellency Faisal Al Bannai, the Secretary-General of the Advanced Technology Research Council at ASPIRE, partner and sponsor of XPRIZE Feed The Next Billion. Tune in to hear these industry leaders discuss the fight against global food insecurity.His Excellency Faisal Al Bannai, Secretary General, Advanced Technology Research Council, sits with XPRIZE to chat about food security in the Middle East and how advanced research and technology will drive transformative breakthroughs in our future food systems. His Excellency oversees ASPIRE, the technology programme management pillar of the Abu Dhabi Government’s Advanced Technology Research Council. The $15M XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion competition is sponsored by ASPIRE and The Tony Robbins Foundation. https://www.xprize.org/prizes/feedthenextbillion
  • 38. This Podcast Will Extend Your Life

    46:05
    For this week’s Future Positive Podcast we bring you an exclusive conversation with XPRIZE Founder, Peter H. Diamandis and XPRIZE Innovation Board Member, Sergey Young.  In their conversation they dive deep into all aspects of longevity and what the implications of living longer will have on the future of humanity.  They also both share their own advice on how to live a longer, healthier, younger and more active existence.  Sergey Young is a longevity investor and visionary with a mission to extend healthy lifespans of at least one billion people. He founded the Longevity Vision Fund to accelerate life extension technological breakthroughs and to make longevity affordable and accessible to all. He is on the Board of Directors of the American Federation of Aging Research (AFAR) and the Development Sponsor of Age Reversal XPRIZE global competition designed to cure aging. Sergey is also a Top 100 Longevity Leader who is transforming the world one workplace at a time with Longevity@Work--the first non-profit corporate longevity program of its kind. Sergey has been featured as a top longevity expert and contributor on Fox News, BBC, Sky News, Forbes, and Thrive Global. His book The Science And Technology Of Growing Young is available for pre-order at https://sergeyyoung.com/ Links:  http://xprize.org  https://sergeyyoung.com/
  • 37. Algorithms For Equality

    25:21
    Our Pride Month podcast take over culminates this week.  For the past four weeks we have been bringing you a series of interviews conducted by Journalist Amelia Abraham with leading figures from the LGBTQ+ community who are impacting our world  for the better.  This week Amelia speaks to Kelly Rakowski, the CEO and founder of LEX – a queer dating app based on personal ads. Queer visibility online, and coding LGBTQ+ platforms for inclusivity are just a couple of the topics they talk about.Lex is a lo-fi, text-based dating and social app for lesbian, bisexual, asexual, and queer people. Lex is for womxn and trans, genderqueer, intersex, two spirit, and non-binary people for meeting lovers and friends. Inspired by old school newspaper personal ads, Lex (formerly known as Personals) lived on Instagram for years before evolving into an app. If you missed the previous episodes with Vincent, Desmond, Lucas Larochelle and Os Keyes then we strongly recommend that you check it out in our feed.   Links:  http://xprize.org  https://thisislex.app/ 
  • 36. Algorithms For Equality

    24:54
    Continuing our Pride Month podcast take over we bring you the third in our series of interviews conducted by Journalist Amelia Abraham with leading figures from the LGBTQ+ community who are impacting our world  for the better.  This week Amelia speaks to Vincent Desmond, a writer and essayist living and working in Lagos, Nigeria.  They sit down to discuss the issues facing the queer community in Nigeria, the very real perils of digital catfishing and the power of social media movements.Vincent is currently an editor at Zikoko. He has written for Vogue, ELLE US, Allure, Reuters, i-D, VICE, Dazed, NYLON, PAPER and several more.  In 2019, he was awarded the TIER’s Young Activist Award for his work in media advocacy.  In 2020, he was shortlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Difference and Diversity and nominated for the Future Award for Leading Conversation.    If you missed the previous episodes with Lucas Larochelle and Os Keyes then we strongly recommend that you check it out in our feed.  Links: http://xprize.org https://www.desmondvincent.me/ https://www.zikoko.com/
  • 35. Algorithms For Equality

    33:27
    Continuing our Pride Month podcast take over we bring you the second in our series of interviews conducted by Journalist Amelia Abraham with leading figures from the LGBTQ+ community who are impacting our world  for the better.  This week Amelia speaks to Os Keyes a PhD candidate and lecturer at the University of Washington’s Department of Human Centred Design & Engineering. Os was also the inaugural winner of the Ada Lovelace Fellowship.Os has a background in law, data science and data ethics. Their research interests include: 1) the way gender is encoded into technology, and its social and ethical implications; 2) Data ethics and their viability under different political frameworks; 3) classification systems and the tensions of negotiating them in design. They are currently researching the way gender is built into physical and virtual infrastructure and the implications this has for trans users.If you missed the previous episode with Lucas Larochelle we strongly recommend that you check it out in our feed.  Links: http://xprize.org https://ironholds.org/
  • 34. Algorithms For Equality

    17:11
    June 1st marks the beginning of Pride Month, and to celebrate we are bringing a series of interviews conducted by Journalist Amelia Abraham with leading figures from the LGBTQ+ community who are impacting our world  for the better. For our first interview, Amelia talks to designer and Queering The Map founder Lucas LaRochelle about the importance of digital queer spaces, AI and surveillance and… gay penguins.Lucas LaRochelle is a designer and researcher whose work is concerned with queer geographies, critical internet studies, and community-based archiving. They are the founder of Queering The Map, a community generated counter-mapping project that digitally archives queer experience in relation to physical space.They have lectured, facilitated, and exhibited nationally and internationally, recently at Ars Electronica (Austria), Somerset House (United Kingdom), Onomatopee Projects (Netherlands), fanfare (Netherlands), OTHERWISE Festival (Switzerland), Studio XX (Canada) and SBC Gallery (Canada), The Bartlett School of Architecture (United Kingdom), University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras School of Architecture (Puerto Rico), Links: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/gay-male-penguins-steal-lesbian-couple-s-eggs-dutch-zoo-n1244575 http://xprize.org  https://www.queeringthemap.com/
  • 33. Avatar - A Sense of Presence

    35:39
    How can avatars allow us to use our senses at a remote location in real time? Will we ever be able to smell and taste remotely? For this week’s Future Positive podcast, Amelia Abraham speaks with Dr. Jacki Morie – Scientist, Artist, Educator and Senior Advisor on the A.N.A Avatar XPRIZE to answer these questions and more. We also hear from four of the semifinalist teams competing in the ANA Avatar XPRIZE who take us through their approaches to creating robotic avatars that convey a sense of presence and human connection in the most remote of locations.  Forged Droids is a project that aims to create a low-cost, humanoid robotics system, which includes a robot, an immersive operator control/training system, and service for sharing the training data. Cyberselves began life at the University of Sheffield, UK.  They work at the intersection of psychology, computer science, cultural studies, and philosophy, looking at what happens to human beings as we increasingly find ourselves engaging in immersive, digital cultures and environments, including everything from social media to virtual reality spaces. Touchlab manufactures e-skin thinner than human skin which can be wrapped around hard or soft surfaces to sense pressure and location in real-time. Applications include on-land, underwater, and in space robotics & machines.Dragon Tree Labs empowers human beings to surpass distance, strength, accuracy and two-task limits.  Rooted in the collaboration of those who invent - academia, technology entrepreneurs, corporate researchers. They see their role as creating an environment where a great mixture of professors, research experts and engineers become a community for breakthrough innovations.Links: http://xprize.org  https://www.xprize.org/prizes/avatar  https://www.forgeddroids.com/ https://www.touchlab.io/
  • 32. Future of Fuel

    31:29
    Converting carbon into fuel is the next exciting frontier in the ever changing energy landscape. For this week’s Future Positive podcast, we get the scoop on the future of fuel with two finalists of the NRG COSIA CARBON XPRIZE who are now successfully turning carbon into fuels.  First,  journalist Amelia Abraham interviews Brooklyn based Staff Sheehan of Air Company,  then she catches up with Jason Salfi of Dimensional Energy based in Ithaca, New York. Staff Sheehan  is the Chief Technology Officer at Air Company.  He is a scientist and entrepreneur in the Renewables & Environment industry. Skilled in green chemistry, electrochemistry, process chemistry, chemical engineering, heterogeneous catalysis, and carbon dioxide conversion. Jason Salfi is the CEO and Co-founder of Dimensional Energy, he is also a board member of Scale for ClimateTech which is dedicated to helping companies navigate time-sensitive, critical decisions throughout the full manufacturing process.Links: http://xprize.org www.dimensionalenergy.com  www.aircompany.com
  • 31. What Alternative Fish Can Bring To The Table

    29:29
    Our oceans, and specifically fish, have been on our cultural menu recently with the success of the much talked about documentary, Seaspiracy and the academy award success of the film My Octopus Teacher. On this week's episode Journalist Amelia Abraham takes a deep dive into the deep blue with XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion Judge and all round fish guy, Dr Keith Cox.  They explore the depths of ocean health and how cultivated and plant-based fish can really help with healing this fragile ecosystem.Dr. Cox is a co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Seafood Analytics, a company that manufactures electronic devices that measure, store and auto-analyze metrics that help monitor different aspects of growth or degradation of protein foodstuffs. Currently, the data pathway provides real-time analysis of different parameters including health, degradation, body composition and other specific metrics such as whether the product has been previously frozen.  Personally, Dr. Cox has over 20 years of experience working with organisms including plants and animals that vary in size from whales to bacteria.  He has also held positions at the University of Alaska the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. Links: http://xprize.org http://feedthenextbillion.xprize.org   https://certifiedqualityseafoods.com/