Looking to learn more about the commercial space industry? Ian Vorbach, an alumni of the inaugural 2018 Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship Class, has launched a newsletter called SpaceDotBiz! In his latest installment, Ian interviewed Steve Isakowitz, one of the founders of the Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship Program. Read on for an excerpt of the interview:
Interview with Steve Isakowitz, CEO of the Aerospace Corporation
For this newsletter, I’m interviewing a prominent figure in the space world, Steve Isakowitz. Steve is President and CEO of the Aerospace Corporation, a critical organization in the history of the space industry that sits at the intersection of public and private aerospace. Aerospace is a nonprofit corporation established in 1960 that advises and conducts analysis for government, civil, and commercial aerospace customers. The organization has over 4,000 employees and earned over $1.1B in revenue in 2020. Steve has previously held roles including President of Virgin Galactic, CFO of the Department of Energy, and NASA’s Deputy Associate Administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate.
I spoke with Steve about a number of topics including how he has seen the commercial space industry evolve, what technologies he’s excited for going forward, and what he thinks isn’t receiving enough attention in the space industry. We also spoke about the Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship, a program Steve and his family started after the passing of his son Matthew, who worked extensively towards the development of commercial space. The fellowship is very important to me as well, I was part of the inaugural class in 2018 and it has had a long-lasting impact on my career. I highly encourage any students passionate about the commercial space industry to explore the fellowship and apply for the current application process closing on October 29th.
The Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship Program is an organization you started for students looking to break into the commercial space industry. Can you please talk about that program and why you founded it?
Steve: My family founded this program based upon my son Matthew who passed away too young, but in his life was an amazing force for change for something we all take for granted today, namely this exciting, emerging, commercial space industry. There was a time a little over ten years ago when victory was not assured, where there were a lot of naysayers who thought we shouldn’t be taking the risk of flying astronauts or payloads to the space station on these privately built vehicles. There were those who questioned efforts to go the moon that would involve commercial activity and who might have questioned whether the government should spend any money on these commercial ventures. There was the sense that it would be better if it was built in house at NASA centers or government labs, or with traditional contractors going forward. Frankly, there was the political atmosphere in Congress that tended to support those legacy efforts as opposed to new ways of doing business.
Matthew and like-minded individuals around him fought and made the case that the space program is about to be transformed in important ways and that the government should at least get out of the way or, better yet, be an enabler. So his efforts at the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and later through his involvement in successful startups led to the emergence of this industry.
When he passed away, we created a program aimed at carrying on his spirit of excitement in this industry and, in particular, tap into the incredible enthusiasm we see from students. When you go to a college job fair, you see the lines are longer at these emerging space companies than any other companies. You see aerospace departments having more students wanting to get in. The fellowship is dedicated to those students that want to come together, get an amazing opportunity working at these exciting companies, be paired up with executives in the industry as mentors, and in my view, best of all, come together in a summit where you get to network with other fellows and make lifelong connections that will assure your success in the industry for years to come.
We just opened up applications on September 9th for our 5th class with an application deadline on October 29th. So we urge those with a passion for commercial space to take advantage and head to the website to apply!
Click here to read the full interview with Steve. To subscribe to Ian’s newsletter and read all of his past articles, check out https://spacedotbiz.substack.com/.