When Kayla Simon first saw a fictional astronaut rescue effort in 2015’s The Martian, she knew she wanted a space job. “I want to be the person who has the headset on, that helps drive teams,” she recalled of her reaction.
Left brain, right brain: While Simon was in high school at the time, she quickly prepared to major in aerospace at Syracuse University. Alongside learning about physics and rockets, Simon also bolstered her creative skills with a minor in “visual culture”—meaning classes in film photography and graphic design.
Both creativity and technical skill are now helping Simon today at Relativity Space, where she serves as a staff program manager.
Launch line: Simon enjoys testing different types of manufacturing methods to put rockets together at production scale. Her team aims to make sure Relativity is “identifying the right strategy to get to launch faster,” but doing so with safety and reliability in mind.
Simon also makes time to get together for lunch every month with other women in rocket manufacturing: “I’m a big believer that you need to have mentorship, but I think sometimes mentorship may not be formal,” she said.
‘Nothing to something’: Simon paid tribute to how hard her company mates work, praising her colleagues for their ability to both work together, and to take alone time to think through hard problems.
And looking ahead, her goal is to continue making ideas into viable products, or as she says, “turning things from nothing to something, and then being able to apply that logic to other products.”
