If You Should Ever Be With Gwynne Shotwell in a Meeting

It would be good idea to not expect her to be a DEI hire and an especially not to treat her like one. You might get crushed like a bug.  Figuratively speaking, of course.

Eric Berger does an interesting article on Gwynne centered around a financial conference on Friday in which she talked about her vision for SpaceX in the coming few years. 

Perhaps it's best to continue with that idea of her not being a DEI, or just being hired to be a pretty face.  She's one of the early hires at SpaceX and was leading their sales effort when there was literally nothing to sell. They were six years away from reaching orbit. 

Apart from founder Elon Musk, Gwynne Shotwell is now SpaceX's longest tenured employee. She joined the company just months after its founding in 2002 as vice president of sales. In 2008, she became president of the company and has led its operations since then. Although she is more diplomatic than Musk, her desire to disrupt the global spaceflight industry is no less intense. She relishes the fight, as her remarks at the business conference indicated.

With the time being close to the sixth test flight of Starship, it's fitting she commented a lot about the future for the groundbreaking rocket. 

"We just passed 400 launches on Falcon, and I would not be surprised if we fly 400 Starship launches in the next four years," Shotwell said at the Baron Investment Conference in New York City. "We want to fly it a lot."

I read that 400 Starship launches in four years not as 100 per year, but an increasing number every year - that's how it typically works after all. It's hard to wrap our heads around this, but there might not be enough liquid oxygen and liquid methane production capacity to do that 100/year.  Right now they only have one operational pad, with two more in the works. It helps to note that even now, with Starship flying test flights, SpaceX will launch Starship four times this year, twice the number of Falcon Heavy missions. An acceleration of Starship launches is highly likely. Yes, the Falcon 9 boosters used in the heavy consume RP-1 (high quality kerosene) so the fuel side of that observation isn't the same. 

Shotwell said SpaceX is planning to steadily replace its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches with Starship missions in the coming years. Even the last bastion of Falcon 9 flights—crewed missions on the Dragon spacecraft—will end sooner than people realize, she said.

"Starship obsoletes Falcon 9 and the Dragon capsule," she said. "Now, we are not shutting down Dragon, and we are not shutting down Falcon. We'll be flying that for six to eight more years, but ultimately, people are going to want to fly on Starship. It's bigger. It's more comfortable. It will be less expensive. And we will have flown it so many more times."

It's especially worth reading to read her views on current regulations and the possible nationalization or government priority for their missions.  Go read the whole thing. 

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell and NASA astronaut Bob Behnken share a laugh. Credit: Eric Berger