It's Not Rocket Science

Jeff Ward

A podcast exploring the life arcs of smart, creative, driven people who helped Elon Musk and SpaceX revolutionize the space industry. How did they get there? What was it like? What world are they creating now?

Episodes

  1. Bulent Altan - The Right Type of Challenging

    Jun 2

    Bulent Altan - The Right Type of Challenging

    Bulent Altan started his career at SpaceX in 2004, fresh out of Bob Twiggs' CubeSat lab at Stanford, joining the small team working on Falcon 1. He stayed long enough to put his technical fingerprints on every major SpaceX development. Now he's the founding partner at Alpine Space Ventures, a venture capital fund making hands-on investments in European space startups. Even as a VC, he "gets to do engineering every day." Listen in as we discuss everything from surviving the hot seat on Elon's jet to advice for angel investors.

    38 min
  2. Krishna Pribadi - From Merlin to VO2 Max

    May 19

    Krishna Pribadi - From Merlin to VO2 Max

    Krishna Pribadi spent six years on the test stand at SpaceX in McGregor, Texas — Merlin 1D, the first OctaWeb, F9R Dev1, the first booster recovery, and finally Raptor. He left in 2019 and has since worked on cargo drones, traveled back to Indonesia to trace his family history, race-engineered in the Moto America Superbike paddock, and started a stealth-mode human-performance coaching practice called Tanaga Labs. We talk about all of it.

    32 min
  3. Hans Koenigsmann - From Falcon 1 to the Kármán Line

    May 5

    Hans Koenigsmann - From Falcon 1 to the Kármán Line

    Hans Koenigsmann: From Falcon 1 to the Kármán Line Hans Koenigsmann was SpaceX employee #4 and the company's first VP of Avionics, Guidance, Navigation and Control, and later its chief engineer for launch and VP of Flight Reliability. He spent nineteen and a half years at SpaceX before retiring in 2021. In November, he flew to the Kármán line on Blue Origin's New Shepard alongside Michi Benthaus, the first paraplegic astronaut. Jeff and Hans first crossed paths in the small-satellite world of the 1990s — Hans in Bremen, Jeff at Surrey — before reconnecting when Jeff joined SpaceX as Hans was handing off avionics to focus on systems. In this conversation, Hans recounts the post-Falcon-1-Flight-3 meeting where Musk told a near-broke team they had six weeks to launch the fourth and final rocket. He explains why GNC at SpaceX owned its own hardware instead of writing specs and tossing them over the fence. He talks about pulling Gwen Shotwell into the company, scuba diving with Musk at Kwajalein, and the peer-review line that became his personal benchmark: resilient and unfazed by ambiguity or changes in strategic direction. And he describes what it's like to trust someone else's rocket — and what the ride felt like. A glance into something that's way bigger than you thought.

    42 min
  4. Paul Mahacek - Climate is Hot Right Now

    06/09/2024

    Paul Mahacek - Climate is Hot Right Now

    Entrepreneur and former SpaceX enginer Paul Mahacek speaks about his engineering career and his latest project AtmoCooling, which seeks to re-green coastal deserts. Along the way, we stop in France, California, Antarctica, and Kwajalein Atoll.

    29 min
  5. Joel Brinton - That West Wing Moment

    03/13/2024

    Joel Brinton - That West Wing Moment

    Former SpaceX engineer Joel Brinton discusses breaking into the space industry, hanging upside down under rocket engines, sending his DNA to space, having lunch with Elon Musk, the risks of space faring (including exploding rocket engines), ADD, imposture syndrome, and learning from AI. And that one West Wing moment.

    28 min
  6. Edwin Chiu - Expect Failure

    11/15/2023

    Edwin Chiu - Expect Failure

    Edwin Chiu - Expect Failure by Jeff Ward

    26 min
  7. Dolly Singh - Unicorn Herding

    04/15/2023

    Dolly Singh - Unicorn Herding

    An interview with expert Unicorn Herder Dolly Singh about SpaceX, life after SpaceX, feminism, and the unifying power of technology. And plumbers are millionaires.

    36 min
  8. Endless Playtime - Erin Gatling and Casey Schilling

    10/21/2020

    Endless Playtime - Erin Gatling and Casey Schilling

    An interview with engineers Erin Gatling and Casey Schilling about SpaceX, raising kids on a boat, sheltering in place in Baja, and what life is about.

    25 min
  9. The Impossible Drive and Work Life Balance - Peter Dohm

    08/05/2020

    The Impossible Drive and Work Life Balance - Peter Dohm

    An interview with entrepreneur Peter Dohm about his trajectory from college, to SpaceX and onward to Prime Lightworks and the LA Curling Center.

    22 min
  • 9 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
16 Ratings

About

A podcast exploring the life arcs of smart, creative, driven people who helped Elon Musk and SpaceX revolutionize the space industry. How did they get there? What was it like? What world are they creating now?

Information

  • Creator
    Jeff Ward
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    9
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    It's Not Rocket Science

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