Gwynne Shotwell Quotes
I left Aerospace because I wanted to go build, and put spacecraft together.
Born in the Ukraine to middle class parents, he became an successful engineer in Russia before he emigrated in 1919. America has not only been a magnet for the persecuted and the poor but highly skilled, and educated people came to America for the opportunity to further their career. No companies in Europe were then interested in producing large airplanes. In America, within 4 years he started his own company. He helped to design the famous Pan American Airways Flying Boats and in 1942 his company developed the world’s first production helicopter. He might have done that in France, Russia or elsewhere but he chose America like millions of other immigrants.
While this is generally true, from the scientific point of view, it is not quite right. The layman and most engineers believe that scientists discover things that exist. Although they do most of the time, breakthrough’s of the last century have for example discovered new chemical elements, but there are a few that science has CREATED—they exist nowhere in nature. Scientists are beginning to develop new life forms as well as discovering already existing ones. For over a century now the science of metallurgy has created thousands of alloys that did not previously exist.
Gwynne Shotwell is an American businesswoman and engineer. She is the president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, an American space transportation company, where she is responsible for day-to-day operations and company growth.
