Rapid Response: Landing on the moon, with Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines

Masters of Scale

WaitWhat

Entrepreneurship, Business, Management, Reid Hoffman, Mindset, Diversity & Inclusion, Jeff Berman, Bob Safian, Startups

4.6 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In tackling our own moonshots, few businesses can offer inspiration like Intuitive Machines. When the company’s Odysseus lander touched down on the moon on February 22, Intuitive Machines became the first private enterprise ever to reach the moon — and the first U.S. presence on the surface in 52 years. CEO Steve Altemus joins Rapid Response host Bob Safian to share how his team navigated multiple last-minute challenges, with lessons about both meticulous planning and swift adaptability. From autonomous vehicles and 3-D printed engines to leveraging software and AI, Altemus explains how commercial space exploration is leaving the realm of science fiction to become a real industry.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Bob Safian. You've been hearing me as the host of rapid response in this feed for a few years now,
0:07.8	with short newsy interviews alongside the deeper dives of Masters of Scale. Well, I'm excited to share that rapid response is expanding into its own feed.
0:17.0	We'll be putting out shows twice a week, focusing on the urgent issues that business leaders are dealing with in real time.
0:24.7	So search for rapid response in your podcast player
0:28.0	and subscribe to make sure you get all our episodes.
0:31.2	I'll see you on the other side.
0:36.8	All stations, this is Mission Director on IM-1.
0:42.1	We're evaluating how we can refine that signal and dial in the pointing for our
0:46.4	dishes. What we can confirm without a doubt is our equipment is on the surface
0:51.4	of the moon and we are transmitting.
0:53.7	So congratulations I am team.
0:56.2	We'll see how much more we can get from that. An excellent call from our mission director of Dinezim Crane.
1:08.0	And over to our CEO, Steve Altos.
1:11.0	Yeah, if I could just pass on a few words to the entire team in Intuitive
1:14.9	machines at Super Babb and here in the here in the mission control.
1:18.9	One of that astounding effort I know this was abitter, but we are on the surface and we are transmitting and welcome to the moon.
1:29.0	Houston Odysseus has found his new home. Hey everyone Bob Safian here. That was Steve Altamus, the CEO of Intuitive Machines, which recently became the first company ever to land on the moon and the first U.S. presence there in more than 50 years.
2:01.0	But so many things didn't go as planned, requiring multiple rapid responses, always with
2:07.3	imperfect information and under intense time pressure.
2:11.0	The fact that the Odysseus Ler made it to the moon's surface at all, even if it was on its side, is kind of miraculous.
2:18.0	Back in the day, Steve worked on space shuttle launches at NASA, some 40 of them.
2:24.3	Now he's trying to start a whole new industry in space.
	...

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