Micah, am I right that your beat is the business of space?

Yes, it is.

It is indeed the business of space.

That's our colleague, Micah Maidenberg.

And is there a lot of business in space these days?

Yes, there is. Well, it's a really great question. How to make money in space is, there's a few

ways to do it and lots of ideas on how to find more ways to do it. And in the space business,

there's one company that's undeniably the most important,

Elon Musk's SpaceX.

They're not just a supplier of a part or software or something like that,

but they're building rockets like Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship.

They're building and deploying and operating satellites

for, most notably, their Starlink satellite internet fleet.

And, you know, ultimately, the goal for years has been to mount some kind of, you know,

human mission to Mars. That's long been, you know, Elon Musk's dream and why he started the company about 20 years ago.

Most people do associate SpaceX primarily with Elon Musk. But like, on a day-to-day basis, who is in charge?

On a day-to-day basis, Gwen Shotwell is in charge.

We aren't human if we don't go seek out what there is to learn in space.

And I think robotic exploration is great as precursor missions,

but we need to get out to other planets and certainly out to other stars.

Gwen Shotwell is the longtime president of SpaceX. She's been in that role since 2008.

She's very tough, very charismatic. And in the space industry, you know, sometimes people will just talk about Gwen.

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