Douglas Gorman

“As I begin to understand how much [impact]…things like cellular telecommunications, imaging, climate [research]…have globally—once I started to understand that, I was like, ‘Okay, this is definitely the industry that I want to work in,’” Shin told Payload.

Max Bhatti’s recipe for success in the space industry is one part luck, and nine parts hustle.

Arpi Beshlikyan’s top priority is making a big impact. Right now, space is the vehicle allowing her to do that.

To many young space enthusiasts scrolling on TikTok, Camille Bergin is the face of the industry.

When Dhruv Jain transferred to a new school, he joined the astronomy club on a whim. Soon, he was chasing meteor showers and tracking the transit of Venus—and now, more than a decade later, he’s built a career helping space companies track objects in orbit.

“That’s where I realized we’re stuck at a 1980s standard: still shielding spacecraft with aluminum, and rad-hardened electronics [were] too expensive to build at the scale this economy demands,” Hunain told Payload.

In first grade, Patrick Miga saw a photo of Neptune (snapped by the Voyager 2 spacecraft).. Ever since then, his life has been directed toward space.

As an expert in 3D printing for terrestrial applications, Robert Ihnatisin was surprised by how slow the in-orbit manufacturing industry was progressing. So, naturally, he started a company to solve the problem himself.