Origin Stories Space Podcast

This week on the EVONA Origin Stories Space Podcast, Miya is joined by Andrew Aldrin 🚀 Despite being the son of Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Andrew didn’t always have his sights set on a career in the space industry. We discuss the various stops on his route into the industry, including his brief stint as a van decorator 🚐 Andrew’s journey led him to build an incredibly impactful career of h...

This week on the EVONA Origin Stories Space Podcast, Miya is joined by Michael Cassandra , co-founder and chief culture officer of RocketStar 🚀🪐 Based in New York, RocketStar are rethinking space travel from the inside out, starting by improving the engines that power us to the stars. With a strong focus on reusability, reliability, and minimising cost, their revolutionary Aerospike engines comb...

This week on the EVONA Origin Stories Space Podcast, Miya is joined by Sam Peterson , director of spacecraft operations at Firefly Aerospace, and former Swedish Space Corporation business development director 🚀🪐 With a military background, Sam’s extensive industry experience has taken him on an incredible journey through the space sector. He’s been involved in some unbelievable projects that we...

This week on the EVONA Origin Stories Space Podcast, Miya is joined by Christina Korp , Astronaut Wrangler, space advisor, producer, and Nicole Stott , NASA astronaut, aquanaut, engineer, artist, and author 🚀🪐 Not only is this week a two-guest special, but it's taking a brand new perspective. It’s an EVONA Origin Stories diversity and inclusion special 💪 Christina and Nicole are both strong fem...

Today on the podcast we’re joined by Ryan McDevitt , co-founder and CEO of Benchmark Space Systems. Ryan’s dream of working in the space sector was set in motion in his early childhood, with his first ever drawings being of spacecraft and astronauts. From here, he followed his passion through education before founding Benchmark, an innovative space start-up who are reimagining systems for a new cl...

Today we’re speaking with Leon Alkalai , CEO of Mandala Space Ventures. After some incredible industry experience, including 32 years as a tech fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lap working on some fascinating lunar robotic exploration projects, Leon has re-entered the world of space as an entrepreneur, investor, and mentor. His latest endeavour, Mandala Space Ventures, is a venture studio dedicated...

This week we’re joined by Eric Ingram , founder and CEO of SCOUT. SCOUT was founded in 2019 with a mission to enable a new era of space safety and transparency. Their in-space products and services allow spacecraft to safely manoeuvre through space, as it becomes increasingly crowded, while avoiding potential threats. Eric is also a passionate ambassador of diversity and inclusion, and the ways di...

Today we're joined by serial entrepreneur and CEO of Aquarian Space, Kelly Larson . After growing up on her parent's farm in rural Iowa, Kelly actually started out her career as a yoga teacher. From here, a very surprising turn of events led her to where she is today - CEO of the world's first high data rate internet service provider for the solar system. Kelly is passionate about inspiring other...

CEO and Co-Founder of Xona Space Systems, Brian Manning talks to us of his early days of engineering at SpaceX to founding Xona - one of the most accurate and secure real-time PNT services on the planet. Committed to exploring the evolution of GPS to support the rapidly growing modern technologies of autonomous vehicles, aerial mobility and augmented reality, Brian explains Xona's role in connecti...

Our guest this week on Origin Stories is Patrick Shannon , engineer, entrepreneur, self-professed sci-fi nerd, and the founder and CEO of TrustPoint. Established in 2020, this incredible startup is commercialising GPS, developing an alternative global navigation satellite system. As a lifelong lover of space with a childhood dream of becoming an engineer, Patrick shares some great advice for anybo...

Sassie Duggleby joins us on the podcast this week. Sassie is the co-founder and CEO of Venus Aerospace, an incredible startup bringing Earth-based transportation up to speed with space travel. They're enabling the future of hypersonic transportation, building an engine that enables one-hour global transport. Aside from being a strong female leader in the sector, Sassie is a passionate advocate of...

Today we’re joined by visionary space architect, Arch. Michal Ziso , Founder & CEO of ZISO Innovation + Architecture Lab. After falling in love with diversity, buildings and architecture in New York aged 12, she went on to join the Israeli intelligence corps at 18 where she began learning about space, satellites and communication. These two passions were the catalysts for an incredible career...

Today we're speaking with Greg Delory , CEO and co-founder of Heliospace. After following his childhood passion for space, he's worked on some incredible projects — including several NASA lunar and Mars missions. Today, he's head of an incredible aerospace company using real space experience to achieve the New Space vision.

Our guest this week is artist, author, veteran NASA astronaut and aquanaut, engineer, and former International Space Station resident, Nicole Stott . She's a passionate female leader in the sector, as well as a strong advocate of inspiring more women to enter STEM fields. Nicole's lifelong passion for space and flight, alongside a natural flare for creativity, led her into a career that will blow...

As the first academic in his family, Daniel Seidel 's story as a lifelong lover of space and science fiction is truly inspiring. Today he's the co-founder of LiveEO, the leading solution provider for AI-powered satellite-based infrastructure monitoring. With goals to build a large international space data business by 2025 and to launch his own space hardware into orbit by 2030, he's is an incredib...

Diviya Devani 's lifelong love of space, science and physics propelled her into the space sector. Named as one of 2022's Top 100 Rising Stars in Science & Engineering, she's a passionate advocate of women and young people in STEM, as well as the importance of diverse workforces.

After taking a very unconventional route into the sector, Stella Guillen is now a female leader in the space industry and CEO of Isar Aerospace. She's a passionate leader and a strong advocate of women in space and STEM. With an incredibly forward-thinking mindset, Stella is celebrating diversity and challenging outdated mentalities in the sector.

From an arts background, Kim Macharia is a shining example of not taking 'no' for an answer and keeping focussed on her goals. Now Chair to the Board of Directors for Space Frontier Foundation and Executive Director for Space Prize, Kim explains how taking risks in the Space sector pays off.

The voice for diversity and inclusion in the space sector, for this episode we speak to COO of Space Foundation, Shelli Brunswick . Making space accessible to everyone, she began her career in the US Airforce and promotes space inspired awareness and educational programmes across STEM at all levels.

Astrodynamicist, Space Environmentalist, TED fellow, Professor, Space Craft Navigator, Chief Scientists and Co-Founder of  Privateer Space alongside Steve Wozniak, we talk to Moriba Jah about sustainability of our planet and making space accessible to everybody.  TW/ Suicide

Former radio host, public speaker, Rachel Lyons is the Executive Director of the not-for-profit organisation Space for Humanity and talks to us about her role in the movement to expand access to space for all of humanity.

Laura Crabtree is living proof that STEM is cool. Finding her calling early on, Laura's career as a systems and operation engineer at Northrop Grumman and later SpaceX saw her at the controls of the first ever Dragon Mission in 2010 and instrumental in the crewed Dragon mission to the ISS in 2020.  In 2021, Laura Co-founded Epsilon3, a company focussing on operating systems for space craft and com...

Inspired to 'make things better' we meet with Allan Cannon , the co-founder of R3-IoT who combine cutting edge satellite communications technology with the best of IoT to offer unique end-to-end data services to the 90% of the planet that lacks traditional communications infrastructure.

Fascinated at university by the various technical problems facing the space sector, Jeroen Cappaert started his career as an Aerospace and Aeronautics engineer. Witnessing that there were many more applications that can be enabled by space, Jeroen co-founded Spire and helped them scale to an international business. In this episode, Jeroen provides solid advice on how to be successful within the Ne...

From humble beginnings to founding her own commercial space company, Space Dots, Bianca Cefalo is a passionate advocate of diversity and inclusion within the space industry with a relentless drive for educating future generations on the opportunities of the space sector.