Our team is solving the thousands of problems that make hypersonic travel possible. We’re engineering innovative aircraft shapes, heat shields, flight mechanics, and so much more. Our mission is to connect the world and make it a safer place.
This isn’t easy. This is Rocket Science.
Sassie Duggleby is the CEO and co-founder of Venus Aerospace. Before launching Venus, she was Launch Systems Engineering and Mission Management Consultant at Virgin Orbit, where she also developed and tested launch software and telemetry systems, helping to launch rockets from the wing of a 747. She has spent her career growing multiple high tech startup businesses including fiber-optic test (Luna Technologies), biotech (Ecolyse / Phage Biocontrol), and hazardous trailer manufacturing (Exosent). Engineer and MBA, serial deep tech entrepreneur who is passionate about women in tech. Honoree of Inc’s 2023 Female Founders 200 list. Recently created the “Bada$$ Women in Aerospace” networking group. Mom of two, avid lover of outdoor activities. Named herself Sassie at 2 and it stuck.
Dr. Andrew Duggleby is the CTO and co-founder of Venus Aerospace, a U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander and an engineering professor. Before launching Venus, he was head of launch operations at Virgin Orbit where he led operational planning, mission control, telemetry, ground equipment, launch infrastructure, and payload operations teams. He also led a team of engineers and technicians to hotfire the first dual-mode 3D print (DMLS printed and DED cladded) rocket engine, in collaboration with NASA MSFC. Dr. Duggleby was a Mechanical Engineering Asst. Professor at Virginia Tech and Texas A&M. He founded Exosent Engineering with a former student, making ASME-rated hazardous transport trailers, and exited in 2015 to pursue his space passion. A Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve, he has multiple deployments to Japan (shipyard repair), and multiple commanding officer tours of US-based reserve maintenance units. Would love to get more PhDs but his wife won’t let him.
Bob Ess brings more than 30 years of experience to Venus. He is a results focused leader who performs large-scale, multi-discipline, multi-location program management as well as engineering analysis, and provides both people and technical direction. Ess has a strong background of project management from conception to development and implementation. He is highly skilled at building and leading effective teams in fast paced, complex technical programs. Most recently, he was the Senior Director of the New Glenn Programs Office at Blue Origin, and served as Acting Director of New Glenn Avionics. In his nearly 30 years at NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, he oversaw the Orion Spacecraft Program and worked as a Deputy Manager, Program Manager and served as both Engineering Lead and Senior Engineer. He resides in Friendswood, Texas.
Mitch Kugler’s career spans service as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army to leading Corporate Strategy for Raytheon over the course of four decades. In between, he spent 10 years in the U.S. Senate in senior staff positions, worked at a think tank, and led advocacy integration for Boeing’s defense business while serving as an advisor to top officials at the Department of Defense, Department of State, and National Security Council across multiple presidential administrations. He retired from Raytheon Technologies after leading critical integration activities in the Raytheon/United Technologies Corporation merger. He is currently Managing Partner of Haystack Strategy Partners, LLC while serving as a Senior Advisor to McKinsey and as an Advisor to Prime Movers Lab.
Mandy Vaughn is the CEO & Founder of GXO, Inc. and has served on the National Space Council Users’ Advisory Group since 2018. Formerly, she helped create VOX Space and then served as its President. She was Senior Director of Business Development and Mission Management for Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne program. At General Dynamics Mission Systems’ Space and Intelligence Systems Directorate, she was responsible for space control and space protection investment portfolios. A developmental engineer and program manager in the Air Force, Vaughn supported programs in the Space Superiority Systems Directorate at Los Angeles AFB.
Eric Ries is the founder and CEO of the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE). The LTSE is building a new national securities exchange designed to transform the public company experience for businesses that are built-to-last. He is an entrepreneur and the author of the New York Times bestseller The Lean Startup, and of The Startup Way. Eric is the creator of the Lean Startup methodology, a global movement in business, practiced by individuals and companies around the world, and the inspiration behind his founding of the LTSE. He has founded a number of startups, including IMVU, where he served as CTO, and he has advised on business and product strategy for startups, venture capital firms, and large companies, including GE, with whom he partnered to create the FastWorks program. Eric has served as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Harvard Business School, IDEO, and Pivotal. In 2015, he ran a Kickstarter campaign to produce The Leader’s Guide, which went on to become one of the top Kickstarter book campaigns of all time.
Natalya Bailey is the SVP and Head of Strategy at Bloom Energy, a company building fuel cells and electrolyzers to make clean, reliable energy affordable to everyone in the world. Prior to Bloom, she founded and led Accion Systems to commercialization of its novel ion engines for satellites. Accion was acquired in 2021 by Tracker Capital and Natalya sits on the board and chairs the Technical Subcommittee. Natalya is on the advisory boards of a handful of technology and space companies, and invests with XFactor Ventures, a fund that supports female founders with world-changing ideas. A technologist, space enthusiast, and youth STEM advocate at her core, Natalya is a member of the AIAA Electric Propulsion Technical Subcommittee, the MIT AeroAstro Visiting Committee, and a former board member and current mentor to YouthCITIES. She received her BS, MS, and PhD with a focus in space propulsion from San Diego State University, Duke University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, respectively.
Jim Bridenstine is an independent consultant focused on space, defense, and aeronautics. Previously, Jim served as the 13th Administrator of NASA, where he was responsible for managing NASA’s 70,000-person workforce and $23 billion annual budget. Under his leadership, NASA reestablished an American human spaceflight program, which was lost after the retirement of the Space Shuttles in 2011. He also created NASA’s Artemis program to establish the first permanent presence on the Moon with commercial and international partners.
Before being appointed as NASA Administrator, Jim served in the United States House of Representatives from Oklahoma’s First Congressional District from 2013 to 2018. He was a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee where he chaired the Subcommittee on the Environment.
Prior to Congress, Jim served as a pilot in the United States Navy acquiring 1900 flight hours and 333 landings on an aircraft carrier. He flew combat missions in Afghanistan (2002) and Iraq (2003) off the USS Abraham Lincoln, where he earned an Air Medal and Navy Commendation Medal with Combat “V”. Originally an E-2C Hawkeye pilot, he transitioned to the F-18 Hornet and flew as an aggressor (Red Air) at the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center, the parent command to TOPGUN.
Jim serves on the Board of Directors for Viasat, Inc., the Board of Trustees of the Aerospace Corporation, and he Chairs the Board of Advisors for Voyager Space. Jim earned a triple major from Rice University in Economics, Business, and Psychology and an MBA from Cornell University.
