Gwynne Shotwell, Rocket Woman

Elon Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies Corp. in 2002 with the goal of revolutionizing space travel and making life multiplanetary; Shotwell, who oversees day-to-day operations and growth, was one of his earliest employees. Before being introduced to Musk, she spent a decade at Aerospace Corp., a large defense contractor, then a few years at Microcosm Inc., a private space startup that designs and builds low-cost rockets and rocket parts.

In 2012, SpaceX became the first private company to deliver cargo to and from the International Space Station. Then, this May 30, after years of working with NASA and learning from cargo runs and countless safety tests, SpaceX made history: Its Falcon 9 rocket carrying its Crew Dragon capsule with Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley aboard blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 3:22 p.m., bound for the space station. The astronauts returned on Aug. 2, splashing down safely in the Gulf of Mexico. “This is really just the beginning,” Shotwell said at a news conference afterward. “We’re starting the journey of bringing people regularly to and from low Earth orbit and on to the moon and then ultimately on to Mars.”