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The spectacular and amazing Gwynne Shotwell discusses selling reused boosters and Starship launches.
Gwynne Shotwell talks about selling flight-proven rockets, Starship
Gwynne Shotwell talks about selling flight-proven rockets, Starship
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Gwynne Shotwell : Launching The Future | 2020 Power Women's Summit
The Pioneer: Launching The Future | 2020 Power Women's Summit
The Pioneer: Launching The Future | 2020 Power Women's Summit
Thanks for posting the link to that video of Gwynne being interviewed at Stanford recently. As an obsessive SpaceX follower I usually don’t learn much from her public events, but I did pick up a few things from this one.
Her admission that while she handled the first F9 failure in 2015 pretty well, in terms of rallying the team and identifying the root cause of the failure, she did not handle the second F9 failure in 2016 very well because she let her worry and anxiety show too much. And that each failure, while not being a threat to the company’s existence did cost about half a billion dollars in lost hardware and operational delays.
She said that she would personally very much like to go to the Moon and land because it would only be for a few days and it’s a short trip back to Earth, but not interested in Mars because the over 3 year round trip time is just too long!
Her admission that while she handled the first F9 failure in 2015 pretty well, in terms of rallying the team and identifying the root cause of the failure, she did not handle the second F9 failure in 2016 very well because she let her worry and anxiety show too much. And that each failure, while not being a threat to the company’s existence did cost about half a billion dollars in lost hardware and operational delays.
She said that she would personally very much like to go to the Moon and land because it would only be for a few days and it’s a short trip back to Earth, but not interested in Mars because the over 3 year round trip time is just too long!
Watts_Up
Well-Known Member
Gwynne Shotwell mentioned that when she joined The Aerospace Corporation in 1988,
her new boss was traveling but he contacted her and said that he will be back soon flying on a broomstick.
Gwynne Shotwell added that you can't say this anymore...
her new boss was traveling but he contacted her and said that he will be back soon flying on a broomstick.
Gwynne Shotwell added that you can't say this anymore...
I love how she is on board with Elon's vision with Starship and Super Heavy. It's all about the company's goal of making life multi-planetary. She, like Elon, realizes that some of what they intend to achieve will take longer than her lifetime. And as much as the media and some politicians push about Elon being a greedy billionaire, they just cannot understand that his accumulation of wealth is about spending it to make humanity multi-planetary. Which has little to do with him going into space and definitely not about "escaping" Earth.
It's been confirmed that Elon is distracted by Twitter:
www.teslarati.com
SpaceX's Gwynne Shotwell to oversee Starship program, Starbase facilities
The Information reports that SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell “will assume oversight” of the company’s Starship program and Starbase facilities, seemingly stepping in for Elon Musk as the CEO shifts his focus to Twitter. In his own words, Twitter appears to be in a precarious position...
www.teslarati.com
I hope that Gwynne does not get stretched to thin. Sounds like at the moment she is running the entire company. But she’s super smart and surely knows how to delegate. Maybe this is a good thing (I am resisting the urge to comment about Elon’s twitter antics…don’t go there in this thread!).
Assuming that Gwynne is worth her salt (and by all means and measures she appears to be), I don't think this is an issue. I mean, she's already President and COO, so making sure that Starship and Starport programs are on plan were probably her responsibility already.
Let Elon keep an eye on the big picture and solving tough technical problems (when he's not distracted by Twitter) and have Gwynne keep things in order. IMO both Tesla and Twitter need a Shotwell equivalent at each company.
Won't be a huge impact for Gwynne to roll SS under her umbrella. Bill pretty much lives in Boca and owns a lot of the activities and Juncosa also got moved over to SS recently too. (That's not great for Starlink, but...you can't have a profitable starlink without starship, so...)
It’s not just Gwynne who has new responsibilities. From a CNBC report:
Wow, to go from building EVs to building Starships!
Funny this Shotwell thread was near the top, as I was going to post this funny quote from her in the Ars article on the Delta IV:
She also once said that she did not know how to build a launch tower that could cost anywhere near as much as the SLS tower.
It's actually easy to spend $400 million per rocket. Just agree that you're going to build only 10 of them, and they all have to complete flawless flights.
That's how you spend $400 million per rocket. It doesn't matter who you are. That's artisan construction for you.
It's incredible that we're transitioning into the age of mass production of super heavy lift rockets. Consider the mass production of steel, of cars, of food, and so many other things that fundamentally changed the human experience. Then Elon throws reuse on top of it. Bonkers.
Hmmm. Reusable steel? Done. Reusable cars? Done. Reusable food? Hmmm.
That's how you spend $400 million per rocket. It doesn't matter who you are. That's artisan construction for you.
It's incredible that we're transitioning into the age of mass production of super heavy lift rockets. Consider the mass production of steel, of cars, of food, and so many other things that fundamentally changed the human experience. Then Elon throws reuse on top of it. Bonkers.
Hmmm. Reusable steel? Done. Reusable cars? Done. Reusable food? Hmmm.
