Latest / Earn Your Leisure / From NASA Engineer to Blue Origin Astronaut and CEO

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From NASA Engineer to Blue Origin Astronaut and CEO · Earn Your Leisure

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So how is it for you to be a go
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: from being an employee to being an entrepreneur?
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: You know, I feel like my strength in this situation
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: is knowing that there's so much that I don't know.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Like when I was an employee, when I would go
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: to work every day, all I wanted to do was
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: be respected for the things that I know. And as
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  Speaker 2: an entrepreneur, all I want to do is go out
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  Speaker 2: and speak to people and tell them that I don't
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  Speaker 2: know right, so that I can be made better by
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  Speaker 2: the things that they know. That is my goal, just
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  Speaker 2: be able to listen and support and have people improve
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  Speaker 2: the things that I create.
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  Speaker 3: That's not on the personal level as an entrepreneur, but
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  Speaker 3: you're also the CEO, yeah, and so there's people that
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  Speaker 3: are relying on you for their leadership. So walking into
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  Speaker 3: that role, how's the dynamics been for you? You know?
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Like I shifted when he asked me that question, because
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: the question really strikes at home because I spent so
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: many years as a woman professional just wanting to be
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: seen as being good enough. And when I let go
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  Speaker 2: of that, I realized that my strength is being authentic
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  Speaker 2: and being empathetic. And when I took a step back.
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  Speaker 2: I was crowding out the sun because I was trying
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  Speaker 2: to always lead and be strong in all this other stuff.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: And so when I said to the team for both businesses,
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  Speaker 2: I want to make space for you to bring your gifts,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: that's really when I started to see exponential growth. So
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: I have this concept of eighty twenty. You hire somebody
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: eighty percent for the things on the resume that you
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: know that they can that they can do, and the
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  Speaker 2: twenty percent that they can bring to the table that
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: you haven't discovered yet, and you cultivate that person and
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: they will take you to places that you never you
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: never knew that you would go.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about going to space. So what is
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  Speaker 1: the program that you're going out of space? How did
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  Speaker 1: you get involved in that? And are you just going
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: up coming back down? Is there observation that you're going
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  Speaker 1: to be doing when you're up, Like what's happening with
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: that situation?
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  Speaker 2: So I'm going to be flying to space on the
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  Speaker 2: new Shepherd vehicle with Blue Origin. We will be coming
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  Speaker 2: up and we will be coming back down.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm excited about how long will you be out
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  Speaker 1: of space?
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  Speaker 2: The total trip, so the round trip is roughly, I
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  Speaker 2: don't know, less than an hour, and it's about ten
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: minutes of microgravity.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Ten minutes out of space, yes, twenty five twenty minutes
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  Speaker 1: coming up, ten minutes out of space, and twenty minutes
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: come back go.
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  Speaker 2: I think so, and I think we got to fix
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: our hair before we can get out, so there's some
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  Speaker 2: time there.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: For sure. Well.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Look, so I will be the first to tell you
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: that I never thought that I was going to be
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  Speaker 2: leaving the Earth's atmosphere. I don't even like turbulence on
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  Speaker 2: commercial flights, and so for me, this is a try
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: it before you buy it situation where I get to
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: try space and it controls scenario. Once I started working
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: at NASA and meeting amazing astronauts, I never thought that
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: I could be them. And this is what I like
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: about life and karma in the world is like, right
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: when you think that you can't be something, life will
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: show you that you can. And I said to myself
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: many years ago, one of these years, I'm going to
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: apply to be a NASA astronaut. I'm going to go
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  Speaker 2: to the International Space Station. And somehow I manage not
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: to do it for a year after year after year,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, I have the opportunity to
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: be a Blue Origin astronaut, and my goal is to
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  Speaker 2: complete this and if I like it, which I'm probably
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: gonna love it, I'm going to turn around. I'm going
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: to apply to be a NASA astronaut.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: What's the preparation light for this? I remember it, maybe
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  Speaker 3: it was last year they had Michael Strahan and he
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: was going through and they had to take some time
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: off from Good Morning America. What do you have to do?
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  Speaker 3: What are they putting you through to get you prepared
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  Speaker 3: for this moment?
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  Speaker 2: So they have a trading program in their facility in
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  Speaker 2: Van Horn, Texas. That's mandatory. But in addition to that,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: you can do a host of other things. And so
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: I'm participating in a microgravity flight. I'm looking to fly
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: on a fight or flight with the jets, like real fast.
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  Speaker 2: I like to go fast. I'm looking to do a
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  Speaker 2: high altitude skydive. And then in addition to that, for me,
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  Speaker 2: this is about bringing it home right. There are so
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: many people in my family are like, what is NASA
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  Speaker 2: doing for me? What's space doing for me?
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  Speaker 1: Like?
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  Speaker 2: Why does any of this matter? And so I've been
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: reaching out to organizations HBCUs in high school so that
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  Speaker 2: I can either fly a patch for school or do
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  Speaker 2: experiments like I would like to partner with HBCU and
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  Speaker 2: do an experiment on orbit right, or fly a sensor.
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  Speaker 2: I really want the outcome of this to not be oh,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: you know, like that's like ten minutes. I want it
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  Speaker 2: to be. This was something that made me believe, or
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  Speaker 2: inspired someone to believe that they could reach for the
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  Speaker 2: stars and realize that it was only the beginning to
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: take the flight.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: I know it's expensive. So were you chosen, Like did
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  Speaker 3: you have to apply to become one of the astronauts
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  Speaker 3: or was there a sponsored event like Okay, this is
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  Speaker 3: the person we're putting forth as our choice.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really cool. I got a call all the
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  Speaker 2: blue from this lady named Nancy Conrad, and it just
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  Speaker 2: so happens that that first day when I was at NASA,
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: when I had a badge and I was decided to
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: be there, I met Nancy. Nancy is the wife of
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Pete Conrad, who's an Apollo astronaut. I remember seeing her
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: and being like, wow, like one day I hope to
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  Speaker 2: speak with her. Fast forward right over a decade. She's
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: calling me and she's like, look, there's this mission coming up.
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  Speaker 2: I think you'd be a really really good fit. How
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  Speaker 2: about you apply this time. I didn't say no. I
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  Speaker 2: put my application forward and it happened to work out
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  Speaker 2: that I was in the position to join the crew.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Now back to the even if I had it, I
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: don't know if I'd want to spend it. And the
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: reason for that is there's a lot of support for
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: space and for science right and go to African proverb,
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  Speaker 2: it's like, if you want to go you know fast,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
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  Speaker 2: So I went out to sponsors and I said, look,
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  Speaker 2: I want to know if you're going to back me
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: on this flight. And they have and so I'm getting
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: ready to announce some significant brand partnerships. But we really
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: are going to challenge the way that people look at
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  Speaker 2: going to space, and I'm excited to have amazing brands
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  Speaker 2: behind me to do it.