 Hello, the commander, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. My name is Major Yaoya Kobu. Many are called, but few are chosen. Our next speaker happens to be among the chosen. Major Anidrisco and I are pleased to introduce the Alphabo, Lieutenant Colonel retired Kelly Latimer, who is currently a test pilot for Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit in California. In January of this year, Major Anidrisco and I had opportunity to visit with her in California. Undeniably, her story exemplifies D.C.A.'s geo-e-theme of courage, innovation, and resiliency. Major Anidrisco will conduct an on-stage interview of Lieutenant Colonel Latimer, where her amazing, remarkable, or stupendous story will be told, which will subsequently be followed by a question and answer session. First, please enjoy this short video with the highlights of her career. Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Kelly Latimer was born in Dover, Delaware in 1964. As a child, she dreamt of becoming an astronaut. She attended the United States Air Force Academy and graduated in 1987 with honors in Astronautical Engineering. She was then accepted into a master's program at George Washington University, where she earned a master's degree in Astronautics. In 1989, Lieutenant Colonel Latimer attended pilot training at Reese Air Force Base in Texas. After graduation, she stayed to serve as a T-38 instructor pilot. During her follow-on tour, she flew C-141s from McCord Air Force Base, Washington, and was then accepted into the Air Force Test Pilot School. Upon graduation, she began test flying on both the C-17 and C-141 aircraft at the 418th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards Air Force Base in California. When the attacks of September 11th happened, Lieutenant Colonel Latimer knew she wanted to get into the fight. She went to fly C-17s back at McCord Air Force Base. After two years of deploying and operational flying, Lieutenant Colonel Latimer was asked to become the commander of the 418th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards Air Force Base. After finishing squadron command, Kelly desired to explore the civilian side of flight testing. Before retiring from the Air Force, she deployed to Iraq, where she advised Iraqi pilots flying combat missions. Upon retirement, Lieutenant Colonel Latimer became the first female test pilot for NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center flying on the SOFIA project, which is the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. She then moved to Boeing as a test pilot for the KC-767, P-8, B-787, B-737, and KC-46 aircraft, and culminated as a chief test pilot for the C-17. Lieutenant Colonel Latimer now works as a test pilot for Virgin Galactic, where she flies the White Knight 2, the dual fuselage, high wing composite aircraft that carries a spaceship too. Spaceship 2 is a reusable wing spacecraft designed to carry passengers into space. She's a lead 747 test pilot for the Launcher 1 program, the 747 named Cosmic Girl, which will launch a rocket into space and enable the space market for civilian small satellites. She has flown over 40 aircraft and has an impressive 6,500 hours of flight time. Lieutenant Colonel Latimer is a pioneer test pilot and continues to pave the way for Air Force aviators and women in the field of space and technology. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming to the stage the impeccable Lieutenant Colonel Latimer. Welcome to the stage, Kelly. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here. As Yao had mentioned, he and I both had an opportunity to go out to California to meet with Kelly and we had an opportunity to watch a full test mission, which was really an incredible experience. So I learned a ton by going out there. So today, the way that we're gonna guide this interview is we're gonna quickly go through kind of her career, what shaped her to become who she is today. We're gonna hit the wave tops of her experience in the Air Force and through Boeing and at NASA. And then we're gonna spend a good 15 minutes talking about exactly what she's doing out in California right now with both Virgin Orbit and Virgin Galactic. And she's been kind enough to provide us with some pictures and some videos to kind of further talk about these. So we'll spend a good 15 minutes at that and then open it up for question and answers. All right, so if you can kind of just start off with talking to us about just who you are, what's guided you to this path and how you got here. Okay, first I'd like to say a big thank you to the Air Command and Staff College and the Gathering of Eagles staff putting on one of the most amazing weeks I've been a part of and I am extremely humbled, odd and just honored to be a part of the other Eagles with me. Their stories have just been probably some of the most inspirational things I have heard. So this week for me has been fantastic. So a big thank you for that. So my journey started, I'm kind of one of those people that from as long as I can remember knew exactly what I wanted to do. So from the age of, I can't ever remember, I knew I always wanted to be an astronaut. So I tell the story that I remember, even before nursery school and I had seen probably rocket launches and the Apollo launches and men on the moon and stuff. I don't remember any one particular thing. I just remember always just being fascinated with that. But I remember before going to nursery school, I was at home watching that little show, Romper Room, where they have little kids and stuff and it was like the Halloween episode and these kids come in dressed up and there's this little boy dressed as an astronaut. And I was like, he can't wear that because that's what I'm gonna be. That should be my outfit for today. So I just remember like that early that that's exactly what I wanted to do. So growing up, I was always good at math and science. I'm actually one of those weirdos that liked school. I liked math and science class. I loved sports, played a lot of sports. But I always had this passion that I needed to be an astronaut and how do I do it? So my dad was in the Air Force. I was actually born at Dover Air Force Base Hospital but then we moved out to McCord and he was probably by the time I was about two. So I didn't really grow up around the Air Force but I had those pictures of my dad in the Air Force. I knew a little bit about the military. So when I was getting ready to go to high school on eighth grade, I just went down to local library and decided, well, it's time to figure this out. So I get out the old Encyclopedia Britannica. It was the biggest one. So I figured that had the most information and looked up astronauts and just started looking up astronauts, who are they and how do you get to be an astronaut? And it turns out they were all military test pilots. I'm like, okay, military test pilots. So how do you do that? And it's like, well, you gotta be an officer. I was like, hmm, okay, how do you do that? We gotta get commissioned. Well, what does that mean? And you can go OTS, you can go ROTC or you can go to one of the academies. I grew up in New Jersey. So I knew about West Point and Annapolis, but I had actually never heard of the Air Force Academy. So I'm going through it. I'm like, well, see, if you go to Annapolis, you can go to the Navy or Marine. So maybe West Point, you go to the Air Force or the Army. I'm not really sure. So, because the Encyclopedia actually didn't mention the Air Force Academy. So I go through my whole thing. I'm like, well, I guess I'll try and go to, one of the academies, maybe West Point. And then I need to get my flying time and all that and be a test pilot. Then I can be an astronaut. And then some point a little bit later, like a few months later, I ran over to something and I said, oh, and here's the U.S. Air Force Academy. I'm like, what? They have their own academy? Like I didn't even know that. This is gonna be perfect. So immediately I get my little typewriter out. And I'm dear sirs, my name is Kelly Latimer. I'll be attending high school this year and I'm very interested in going to the Air Force Academy. Please send me any information. So I sent off and then the Academy sent me the entire application package before I was even in high school. So I had my little package and I kept it under my bed. I didn't tell my parents. I thought they think I was nuts wanting to go to a military academy. So I kind of kept that. And I just sort of figured out what I needed to do to be able to go to the Air Force Academy. And by the time I was a sophomore, I'm like, well, I got to figure out who my congressmen and senator are. So again, dear sir, my name is Kelly Latimer. I really want to go to the Air Force Academy and I need a nomination. So they sent me their application packages and put the whole thing together. And then it finally came time, like going through the process where you have to get a physical. And again, I hadn't told my parents. I just told them, oh yeah, I applied to like Rensselaer Polytech and Georgia Tech. I'm just gonna wanna be an engineer and I think I wanna go in the Air Force and fly. But it came to the point where you actually have to go like to a base and get a physical. So at school day, I needed the car. So I finally told my mom like, yeah, actually I applied to the Air Force Academy and I have to get this physical. And she's like, what? That's fantastic. My dad was like elated. So I had no idea. I thought they'd try and talk me out of it. But they related. So I went through the whole process and got accepted. I remember that letter coming in the mail that I got accepted to the Air Force Academy. I'm like, boom, that's it. My career started. And now I'm just gonna go to the academy and be a pilot and go to test pilot school and be an astronaut. It's as simple as that, folks. I know. That's awesome. So you did make it to the Academy. Then you started in 1983 and graduated in 1987. So at that point, females weren't flying fighter aircraft and females hadn't attended test pilot schools. So how did you cross that barrier? What kept you going? Yeah, so I talked to some of the instructors, especially in the actual department as they were all up on like applying to be an astronaut and that stuff. And so they said the best thing to do would be to be a T-38 instructor. She could get high performance time and then go off and fly heavies and get your aircraft commander time. And that will help you be competitive with everybody else who's competing for the astronaut program. So I was like, all right, that's a good idea. So that was my plan was to go to pilot training and do that. And then I was lucky enough to get a scholarship. So I actually went to grad school right away and I was kind of in that mode where I really wanna just go flying and start this whole flying career and stuff. But I also knew that man, the chance to get a master's degree paid for like right now I'm still in the school mode. So made that decision. So I went to George Washington University. It actually was in this cooperative program at NASA Langley. So I actually worked in the NASA Langley, the spacecraft control branch and worked with all these incredible engineers that had worked from the Apollo program up through. And it was like the history of NASA there at Langley. It was incredible. And their computational fluid dynamics programs. I mean, it was just top notch. So they got to learn a lot about NASA and have a real appreciation for that entire organization and their research and just the brilliant minds that are there and their dedication to their mission. So I went to grad school. It was a year and a half. And then from there I went to pilot training. And then at the time you didn't have the merit assignment system so you couldn't choose your assignment. So I just basically did the best I could. So I'd be at the top of my class and at least there was a little FAR-TTB. So we had to get FAR in order to be an instructor. So I got FAR'd and then I ended up staying on as the T-38 instructor. So I did that for three years. That's awesome. And then how did you get into TPS? So after doing the instructor for three years, which was a great assignment. And one of the interesting things too, I thought was, you know, come right out of pilot training and then you go right into being an instructor. So for me, I think as far as flying skills and technical and learning how to fly and really, really get good at flying that was probably one of the best assignments that I could have done. And the other thing is, I was talking earlier about how I'm really like in high school, I was very quiet. You know what I mean? Like in sports not so much because I was always competitive and stuff, but like I hated being up in front of the class. I hated speaking in front of the class. I just, you know, never wanted to do it. So if I was like high school, me looking here right now, I would be like, who is that person? You know, I don't even know. And that's one of the things that I think the Air Force really did and grew in me was just being an instructor, you know, up in front of the class, you're instructing students in this place I hated to be, but it made me comfortable doing that. So it was a big growth period, not only in flying, but also in just developing, you know, instructor skills and some leadership skills. So then I went to go fly 141s and I actually drove through test pilot school on my way and stopped in the office. I was like, hello, I'm Kelly Latimer and I really want to go to test pilot school. And what should I do? You know, I just finished being a T-38 instructor and all this stuff. And they said, well, you know, when you get up to your command, just, you know, get as much as many upgrades as you can get, as many hours as you can get, you know, as much operational experience as possible. So I went up to McCord and flew C-141s. And that was another, like just besides the flying, that for me was like the big growth and the big learning period for running a crew and a crew that's mostly enlisted personnel, a lot of NCOs, a lot of airmen. And that's something that at that point I hadn't done because it was all, you know, pilot training is pretty much all officers. And of course, you know, the academy, you don't really see NCOs or enlisted members much. So that was a big, for me, I think it was sort of a core development on how you go out with a crew that has anywhere, you're in charge as the captain and you have anywhere from Lieutenant Colonel, you know, master sergeant, you know, a baby load who's like a year and a half out of high school that just finished load master training and how you have this group of, you know, 10, 12, sometimes 15 people and you're on this mission, you know, and going around the world and how you handle that. So again, another, another big learning point for me that I just think that, I think the Air Force is the best and one of the most, probably one of the places where coming in as a young member, whether you're enlisted or whether you're an officer, that you will get responsibility and the training and the leadership training to take that on as fast as you can handle it versus any other organization, you know, that I've been in. So those are big growing years for me, but it also, let me get on my, you know, my tap to get the minimum requirements I needed to go to test pilot school. So I finished up that and as soon as I had enough hours to have my one year's aircraft commander, I threw my application in and then they bring it down to give you a flight of Al and then I got accepted to test pilot school. So I went down there in, in 96, so I was class 96B and went through the year of test pilot school and I think that was probably the funnest year of my life. We just, we flew everything and anything. They would let us fly and the whole year was about flying. It was challenging. It was a lot of engineering work that I hadn't seen since I got my degree. It's kind of funny. You go to school, you know, then you come out of school and it's, you know, six or seven years later and you're looking at the equations like, yeah, I used to understand like what to do with these, but it's basically just applying all that knowledge to flying, so it was just a, just a fantastic year. That's awesome. So then you made it through TPS, spoiler alert, she graduated, but then 9-11 happened. How did that shape your career? Yeah, so right after, so I graduated, graduated TPS and then I went over to the 418th and I did test flying on the 141 and C-17s and the C-17, what a magnificent machine. And it also gave me appreciation that time of test flying for not just the operational mission, but all the engineering that goes into designing an airplane, maintaining it, testing it, modifying it. There's just a host of work that goes from the initial design into flying it. So I got my experience in C-17s, 141s, and I was back at, went back on staff at test pilot school and that's when 9-11 happened. So the typical career path, you know, when you get to acquisition and you get into the test world, we need to go back to a program office and once 9-11 happened, I was like, no way am I missing this. Like I missed Desert Storm, I missed all of it. You know, when you're in the Air Force, you're like, I just want to be part of it. I want to be part of the mission, whether it's just like flying toilet paper to somebody. I don't care. I want to do my piece. I want to do my part. So, so I went to my commander and I'm like, hey, how do I get back and get operational? He's like, well, your career, you know, you really need to go to a program office and then, you know, you go to school after that. And so I called a friend of mine who was working at Personnel. So here's where you do trust Personnel people is when they're your friends. So I called my friend who was working and he was working C-17 assignments and at the time there was just McCord and Charleston and there was only 50 C-17s out there and they were dying for experienced C-17 crews. And he's like, Kelly, I could use you tomorrow. I'm like, all right, we can plan this. Let's strategize. And so we kind of the strategy and worked it up the chain to have like, you know, material command, work with mobility commands. And you know, and I got the talk and said, hey, you know, your career, this could really, you know, it's not the normal path and this could really, you know, tube your career. And I was like, if me going to fly C-17s in Afghanistan tubes my career, then pull out the gun because it's done. You know, I'm going to go. So anyway, so and they let me go. And for me too, there's a lot of respect to the leadership that listened to me. They listened to what I wanted to do. And I like, and they gave me like the reality, like here's the situation. And I was like, I want to go and get in. I want to fly this thing in theater with Night Vision goggles. So I went back to, so I got to go back to McCord, which was fun. That's kind of where I'd been before. And I was in the 8th Airliver Squadron there and I did a quick mission checkout and stuff. And then pretty soon, you know, I was flying missions into Afghanistan. You know, typically for us we go through Interlick or through Frankfurt. And one of the key things that's getting that operational experience because everything changed. So I mean, the whole like strategic airlift changed so much after 9-11. It just wasn't the same. When I flew 141s, you know, it's kind of getting a big crew and you flew around and you did a bunch of stops. When I came back, I mean, everything was pretty much over to one of the stages. It was 24 hour missions at night. Everything was Night Vision goggles. You're hitting tankers on the way in, landing heavy, coming out, you know, either hitting another tanker on the way back out. But it gave me a lot of experience in Night Vision goggles and, you know, airlift tactics, which helped me out later when I ended up, you know, working up with Boeing. But it also helped when I came back. So after that assignment, it turned out that the 418 flight test squadron had come open. That commander was leaving and material command didn't have any test pilot school grads that were large aircraft people. And meanwhile, I was now about three years, you know, on my operational tour at McCord. And they go, hmm, are you available? Did it come back and be a commander? You know, I was kind of like, isn't this going to do my career? Now you want me to come back to be a commander? So anyways, I was like, well, I guess I'm available. So I ended up going back down to Edwards, but it was great to be able to get out and get three years of that ops experience. And Iraqi Free Image just happened. So we flew some of the initial missions, you know, into Balaat and other bases. So I had just come out of that and went into the, you know, taking over as the test squadron commander. And it was great because all these new capabilities that wanted to get fielded were fresh out of what was happening. And I had a knowledge and understanding of where that came from. And so it turned out that that was sort of the new model. It's like, well, now we actually want people to go back and get that ops experience, you know, and come back to flight tests. So sometimes you never know, you know, when you make decisions or do something out of the ordinary, then it actually turns out to be, you know, a pretty good decision. And sometimes it changes the way other people look at managing their folks. Absolutely. So you had a passion to become an astronaut. Can you kind of talk through how you kept after that goal? Yep, so when I finished test pilot school and I started doing my test flying, that's the first time where I had the men requirements to actually apply. So I got that first application out, you know, sending it into NASA. And I got called for an interview. So just as Dr. Bluford had talked about, it's this week long, basically physical and psychological avow. So I got called in for that interview, went through the whole week. And then it's interesting because there's this whole process that happens after your interview. And everybody, like everybody, all the interviewees, there's usually six weeks of 20, so about 120. We all keep tabs on email of who's doing what and there's all these little stages. So the first stage is if you get the, when you finish, if you get a background check, that means you're in like the next list. And so my neighbors were like, hey Kelly, someone came over and asked me about you. I'm like, yes, you know, I made the next step. And so I pretty much came down to where like, no kidding, the next phone call was like, you're gonna be an astronaut or you're not. And you got a call from one of three people. If you got a call from the medical office, that was bad, you got disqualified. If you got a call from the head of the astronaut office, that was good, you're an astronaut. And if you got a call from the selection office, you passed everything but didn't get selected. So anyways, I got to, so a bunch of the guys that had all applied, because we're at Edwards, we're all test pilots, everybody wanted to be astronauts. So I get down from a flight and someone goes, hey, I hear that Ford just got the call, he's gonna be an astronaut. I'm like, what, I'm going back to my desk. I say, hey Kelly, you got a message. You need to call the selection office. I was like, ugh. So I passed everything but I just didn't get selected. But it was my first time applying and I thought, that's okay, I'm back here on staff now. I'll get some more high performance time. But at the time, they had picked this huge class of astronauts, 40 some, and then this class was like 19, and then they were going through budget overruns, cutting down on shuttle flights. And so they canceled the next interview, which was two years later, and they didn't know when they were gonna have another one, so I'm starting to think, this is never gonna happen. And that's about the time 9-11 happened. So I went back operational and I was happy to do that. And then while I was out operational, I see a little news clip. Hey, NASA's gonna do a selection again this next year, so I pull out the old application, blow off the dust, update it with my stuff, and send it in. And so I got called down a second time. And this time I actually was deployed to Bagram. So I was on the ground at Bagram. I was working at the CJTF-180. I was the mobility component of the ACE cell there, which also was probably one of the most rewarding jobs in eye-opening and learning experiences, was working right there with the joint command at Bagram, and basically being that airlift conduit, calling back to get airlift missions shifted or changed. And that's one of the things, the chief had talked earlier about, one of the things in leadership is credibility. And so me, that was a huge lesson in the credibility because you're there is the one focal for mobility. And everybody coming to me, everything was a crisis all the time. And so I had to be that filter. I can't call up and say everything's a crisis because everything wasn't a crisis. Maybe to each person there it was a crisis, but it wasn't really. So you have to be able to filter out, like what is a crisis? So I had to know who was credible when they were coming to me and there was about, there was two people that if they came and said, we have a problem, I'm like drop everything, what do you need? Because I know you got a problem. A lot of other people, there was always a big problem when you had to kind of sort through. But the same way when I was calling up for something, I knew I had to be that credible person when I said, hey, we have a problem, we need to fix it right now. I know it's going to be a hassle to swap these loads, but you need to get the ammo on that fifth airplane up to the first airplane, do whatever it takes and get that in here now and we'll sort out the rest. And you can make those things happen. So just having that ability to do that coordination was really incredible. Anyways, I was there doing that and I pulled up my AOL email one night and it's like, the astronaut selection office, hey Kelly, we like to bring you out for an interview. We're gonna do interviews again this year until December and I actually was gonna be in theater until December. So anyway, talked with the staff there again and again, great leadership helped me out. They knew I needed to get back for a week. So I hopped on a C17 up to Frankfurt and then NASA flew me from Frankfurt to Houston. I ran into like the local clothing store and said, okay, I need outfits. I got five days, I need business clothes, it's all physical, I need easy on, easy off and one interview outfit, mix and match and a pair of shoes and the ladies were like, got me hooked up. So I paid the credit card, I had my week long of clothes, went through the whole interview again that time, packed up the clothes, shipped it to my sister, got back on the plane and you know, went back into theater and unfortunately this time, the phone call I got was, hey, you got a message to call the medical office. And so it turns out that I've got this blood reading of antibodies that's disqualifying and it's one of those where it's like, it'll never change, there's nothing you can do and you're just never gonna be an astronaut. And I was like, wow, that was crushing. You know, after this whole lifetime of like, you know, pursuing this goal and trying to do it and I just, you know, got so close twice. I'm like, so it's just never gonna happen, you know. So it was, it's a lot to digest, you know. It's just sort of surreal for a while. And then what's funny is after you sort of, you know, get like the crushing blow gone, like this is never gonna happen, it also has a little kind of a sense of relief. Like I had just been like kind of building this resume for my whole life, right? Trying to do this thing and trying to prove myself. And finally I felt like, oh, I can stop doing that for a while. Like what do I, like if I could just do anything, you know, what is it that I really want to do? You know, and I was like, well, I just want to get paid to fly and learn how to surf. So, so this is, and so I came back, it took over is the, and this is about the time I've come back to take over, you know, is the commander. So I'm like, well, I'm obviously finished out my 20 years. And then, and then it was after all that happened that the opportunity to be a commander came up. And I had never really, like when I had, you know, planned out my career and stuff, I had never really planned the command path, right? I had planned that whole pilot, you know, test pilot, go be an astronaut stuff. And so being a commander actually wasn't something that I had sought out, you know. And suddenly here it was in my lap. I was like, no way would I turn down, you know, being like a flying squadron commander. Like there's just, there's, I mean, wow, how did this drop into my lap to be able to do this. So I, you know, so that two years was probably the most challenging and the most rewarding two years that I could have ever had. You know, for me, being the not wanting to be up front, not wanting to be, you know, out there all the time. I mean, you're just forced and you have to do it. You know, you have to do it for your unit. You have to do it for your people. So just, it was incredibly challenging for me. But again, it's probably the most rewarding because it's one of those jobs as a squadron commander. It's probably the time you have the most impact on the people that are directly working for you. I mean, you know everybody in that squadron. You know their histories, you know, that their paths forward, you know their families. I mean, you know everything. So it's a demanding job because it's a 24 hour day job. You can't just, you don't just let it go. But that was probably, anybody here is going to command, you know, it's just gonna be intimidating. And that first year, I remember that first year I just felt like, I don't know what I'm doing. I suck at this. I just don't know what I'm doing. And then, and then somewhere about six months into it, you start to pick up steam. And then that second year, you actually feel like you know what you're doing and you're making changes and stuff and like all of us, you're probably harder on yourself at the beginning, but you really pick it up. And that second year for me was just, you know, everything came together and it was just a fantastic time. If you can pass one lesson then from your commands, what would it be? So I think the hardest thing about commands, I'm a very positive person, right? So I'm easy to be that cheerleader and let's go and let's get your career going and what do you need? And how do we put people in for rewards and do all that stuff? I mean, that's all great. The hardest thing and the thing you have to do again to be credible and to be trustworthy is the non-performers. You know, you have to take care of those problems. And it is not easy for me. It's not easy for me to sit down with someone and give them bad feedback. Like, you know, flying, if we're doing a sortie, I can do it. You know, we came back, all right, the ride's an unsat, I hooked you in, here's why. You know, because for me it's very technical. But when you get to people's lives and their careers and you have to either, you know, deal out some discipline or deal out the, we're not gonna put you in for this information, it is hard to do. But everybody in that unit knows who the non-performers are. And if you let them slide by, if you let them, you know, get rewarded with everybody else, everybody sees that. It takes away your credibility when you're rewarding somebody for a good job. So that to me is just probably the biggest thing is you need to handle the non-performers and the problems as well as all your superstars. Awesome. So you finished up Commands and then your Air Force career came up to retirement. Yeah, so I did one more, I did, so just before I left, I did the Iraqi deployment, which that was interesting. So I finished up Command and stuff and I liked deploying. I didn't mind at all. I actually found being in theater, I liked it because you could get stuff done, things were quick and easy. There isn't this big staff. It's like, you need something, you call this person and it's done. So I was like, I got six more months. I'm like, I don't want to deploy. You know, what do you got? And they go, oh, we have this position. You know, it's an advisor to the Iraqi Air Force. I'm like, oh, okay, sounds like some kind of a staff job or something. I don't know, like advising the staff on whatever. And there was no more information. Just here's the thing, get your mobility pack, get your training, go shoot the gun and get on this, be at the airport at this time and go. So the guy on replacing calls me. He goes, yeah, they tell you about this job. I'm like, no, I just know it's an advisor to the Iraqi Air Force. I'm not sure what that means. He goes, well, you're actually like, you're in the Iraqi squadron. I'm like, oh, no, I didn't, like in the squadron, what does that mean? We're here at Bajra and they have a squadron and they basically live on base and these like a little trailer park essentially and you actually live with them and fly with them. Like, oh, well, what do we fly? It's like, well, these little single engine prop, you know, one of them is kind of a pusher prop, tail dragger. And so, yes, I was a test pilot. I flew a lot of stuff, but like not little airplanes, you know? And I'm like, I'm not going to go make a fool of myself. So to prep for that, I called a friend of mine, his nickname is Bubba. So I called Bubba, he's got a bunch of airplanes. I'm like, Bubba, I need tail dragger time and I need it now. I'm going to go rack to fly with these guys and tail dragger, I have no idea. So Bubba, you know, sticks me in his airplane. We go, we do some, you know, crow hopping a couple of times down the runway. Then I finally figure out the tail wheel, front wheel landing thing, get that down. And then I go in theater and it was just, I mean, it was really interesting because obviously there weren't any women, you know, it's an Iraqi squadron and it's all guys. And so it was a little, it was a little uncomfortable at first. I mean, it was just, it was obviously weird. So I got there and I flew with a squadron commander and he was very good. He said, and they just called me Colonel Kelly. He's like, Colonel Kelly, I told, you know, I pulled all the guys in and told them that we're going to treat you like our sister from America, you know, who's here to help us. So you're our sister, you know, and that's how we're going to treat you. I was like, that's great. So I flew with him and the other coalition pilots got checked out. And then once I got qualified, it's like, I wasn't on the schedule to fly with anybody, you know? So it's like, hmm, he goes, oh, well we had to, you know, this change. And then I wasn't on the schedule again. And then so Magoo is the other pilot. And so Magoo and I like, well, let's go talk to him. It's like, hey, I'm on the schedule with somebody. So they kind of had two crops. There was a really senior guys that had flown MiGs and IL-76s. Then there's the guys that had gone to like a basic pilot training and probably hadn't flown anything in like five years. And so I flew with like the brand new young guys, you know? But then it's like anything, once they fly with you and you're just like, you do the brief, you walk out, they see you can fly, you give them some instruction, help them get better. Suddenly it was like cool to fly with Colonel Kelly. And so everyone's flying with me and taking selfies and, you know, so then I was just like, then I was like, you know, the sister that was there to help them, but for a while they were sort of like, yeah, not really sure, but then, you know, once you kind of break the ice and stuff, it's just like any other flying organization, everybody wants to fly. So I did that before I retired. So speaking of that then, I mean, in multiple different organizations, when you went to the academy, there weren't a lot of females. When you went through pilot training, there weren't a lot of females. TPS, not a lot of females. Again, Iraqi, your Iraqi tour and then at NASA being the first female test pilot. How, how did you approach that? Yeah, I just, I mean, after a while it just looks like it's a normal thing. I mean, when I first went to the academy, I knew there wasn't that many women, you know, there's only a couple of my class, then as you go to engineering, you know, there's even less and when you get to flying, so it just, I mean, the thing was, you know, you always know that you stand out, right? Like, here's the whole, like here's the whole classroom, it's all guys and everything and you come walking in, everyone's like, oh, you know, like there's the girl, you know, so you kind of know that you stand out, you know, and you're sort of, and for me, like, you know, being the shy person initially, you know, I was like, oh, I just hate this and, you know, but I just, every time I go in, I'm just like, take a deep breath, take the training, do your best, just don't worry about it, you know, so that's kind of how I approach it each time and then after a while it's just, I mean, it's like a normal thing, but at the beginning it was just sort of that, don't worry about it, just do your best, take the training, it'll all be fine. Awesome, can you talk to you how you ended up at NASA and then how that linked to you getting to Virgin Galactic? Yeah, so, so I was getting, so I was retiring and, you know, when you retire I had a bunch of terminal leave and so I was kind of looking at my options and so I was getting retired, big career, you know, did the commander tour in Iraq and I was kind of ready for a break and NASA had a, they were dried at the time, had a job open and I had applied on a job that had opened some years earlier, you know, and it was just, it was NASA dried and, you know, it's just the legacy there, you know, all the X planes they've flown, like just super research on aerospace vehicles, so I applied there for a job, but at the same time I was thinking, yeah, I just want to get paid to fly and live at the beach and surf, so I started looking at other applications and one of my other options was, you know, I could work for a Cathay Pacific and live in Hong Kong or fly around the world, so for me there's always this temptation to want to go to, like, what is your comfort zone, right? Like, what would be easy and comfortable for me and that would be just some basic flying job, I get one airplane and I fly it, I know what I'm doing, get paid to do it, then I got time to do, you know, other stuff on my free time and then there's the other side of me that's always looking for that next thing out there that could be really exciting to be a part of, so anyways, I'm going through this whole thing, so NASA, you know, offers me the job, you know, it dried and I was like, well, the way I'm going to say no to that, I'll, you know, take the job and see how it goes and of course, fantastic organization, so I got to fly their SOFIA test project and that's a 747, a shortened version that has a telescope in the back, you know, the door opens, they fly up to 41,000 feet and you know, take a look at all these astronomy events all around the world and the big, the reason they put it on a 747 because once you get above 41,000 feet, you get rid of about 98% of the humidity so this infrared telescope can get above almost all the humidity just by going to 41,000 feet and it's a lot cheaper than putting it on a satellite and putting it up in space. So that was the project that I flew, so I did the initial, after the aircraft was modified, we did the initial testing for that airplane and then I think I hit, you know, NASA a little bit of a slump in their aerodynamic testing because that airplane, so we tested that and then it was getting ready to go down for about a two year mod and then there wasn't really much else going on, I had a little bit of environmental science, they were bringing on some global hawks and predators and getting into some UAV and meanwhile I had lived out at Edwards in the desert in various deserts for like 10 years and I really, I just driving into the gate one day thinking why did I think I could do this for 10 more years, I don't think I can so I called a friend of mine that worked at Boeing because I knew Long Beach C-17s had a job open and meanwhile Boeing had the 7.8 coming on, the 7.4-8 and all these exciting programs so I ended up taking a job down at Long Beach on the C-17 and then that experience put me into all the tanker programs so the KC-767 and then eventually the KC-46 and what's important about that is the one part I loved about, so when I got to be a contractor I mostly worked in military stuff because that was my background and when you develop weapon systems in the Air Force we would test them, test new things but it was always the contractor that did the actual design and usually by the time I got to the military to test I mean the design was kind of fixed so if you want to change it by then, good luck I mean it's not easy to do and so for the first time I was the chancellor actually sitting there designing the cockpit and nobody on that team had night vision goggle experience and the airplane was going to be NBG compatible from a receiver, NBG compatible from flying up front so what I loved was the chance to actually have some impact onto how the flight deck was designed, how we did the lighting for the refueling in the back and use all that ops experience that I got so again it was that ops experience that I got because I kind of didn't follow the conventional path and jumped off and wanted to get into the war so anyway so I did that flying for about eight years or so and I actually hadn't thought too much about you know I mean I thought a little bit about the Virgin Galactic I knew was out there but I also was pretty skeptical about it you know I thought hmm I don't know like the passenger to space the little vehicle spaceship I'm not really sure and then they had like the tragic accident where they lost a pilot, lost a vehicle late 2014 and in my mind I thought I think that's the end of the company and I don't think they're gonna come back from that and survive so anyways so forward to 2015 I got a call from one of my friends who's a pilot down there and he goes hey Kelly I don't know if you really thought about Virgin Galactic and you know in the back of my mind I'm still like oh I actually was thinking about it I just didn't really act on it or do anything and he's like he goes we are regrouping and we're picking up and we're moving forward he goes we're gonna hire two more test pilots and if you're at all interested you know let me know we'll come down and give you an informal tour of what's going on so I came down it was a so just took a Friday off work I didn't tell anybody what I was doing I just went down there and they showed me around and I was just odd at the organization they were setting up so after they had the accident they basically you know scale composite was the designer of the aircraft and the original plan was scale was design the aircraft you know build it do all the testing and then basically throw it over the fence and Virgin Galactic would catch it and be the operator so after the accident Virgin Galactic doubled down and said no we're gonna own this whole thing from beginning to end so thank you very much we're gonna take it from here and they built up an entire test organization a control room from the ground up and you know as part of that cadre they brought in is bringing in you know test professionals to set up an entire test program so that was 2015 and we'll probably show a short video here in a second but we've actually got to where we've done the first two powered flights of the new vehicle so we call it it's so Spaceship 2 is the actual Spaceship and White Knight 2 is the carrier aircraft so yeah sorry so I took the job with them moved down to move down to Mojave and yeah it's probably a good time probably to show that well let me just let me just see what's gonna happen in the video so when you test the vehicle you always start from the beginning so for the Spaceship basically it gets hooked on to White Knight 2 so you'll see in the video White Knight 2 is this dual fuselage airplane the Spaceship hooks up in the middle and you fly it up to depending on how heavy the Spaceship is 50,000 feet or 47,000 feet and then drop it so for testing we would drop the Spaceship and then go a little bit faster each time so first you clear the envelope for a very slow speed controllability then we drop it they shove the nose down they go a little bit faster eventually you can't get that fast you need to light the rocket to get the speeds so in April we had our first actual 30 seconds rocket lights and then just day before yesterday we had the second 30 second rocket light which was a huge deal so if you wanna go ahead and show the video I'll talk to you a little bit through it and we fly everything out of Mojave so there you see so White Knight is basically the dual fuselage and then the Spaceship is hooked in the middle Good morning everyone, welcome to the next test flight of Unity a little bit about today's flight obviously the flight last month was a great step forward for the program to recap on crew assignments we have Dave McKay as pilot in command on Spaceship 2 Mark Forges-Sookie in the right hand seat on White Knight 2 we have C.J. Sturko Nicola Pacelli and Flight Test Engineer Colin Bennett so there you see the vehicle taken off so for the White Knight everything is in the right fuselage that less fuselage is actually empty there's nothing in it but a little bit of ballast so if you see there's kinda like looks like windows on both sides actually the windows on the left are just painted there's nothing in there so both pilots, yeah just to make it look cool so both pilots sit on the right fuselage next to each other and then we have a flight test engineer in the back and then for Spaceship it's two pilots side by side and here I think they're dropping around 47,500 feet and then you light the rocket immediately and so for the actual space shot this rocket light will be 60 seconds and you pretty much turn the quarter immediately and go vertical and on this flight they got a maximum of 1.9 Mach and they went up to 114,000 feet and so for the full duration burn the expectations will get up to 340,000 feet and then for the passenger ride once you hit that point and the rocket shuts off you go zero gravity so the passenger in the back of that point will be able to unstrap and actually float around and there's windows across the top we have a reaction jet system that uses pneumatic pressurized air we can control the vehicle when we're out of the atmosphere we basically turn the vehicle so it's upside down so they continue to go up and here's the re-entry what's interesting is we basically fold those booms 90 degrees up so the airplane comes down sorta like a badminton birdie where basically no matter what attitude you're in the atmosphere will eventually ride it so you always come down the correct way and then once you get enough airspeed you de-feather the booms they come back down and then you just glide in and come to a landing on the runway okay, that's good there so Kelly can you just recap for everybody what the mission of Virgin Galactic is and what they're trying to do and the timeline that they're trying to hit yep, so Virgin Galactic so the mission is basically space tourism is to let people experience space is to let people like me that had that dream, that passion to do it that you're not gonna be the two in the next five years that get selected to go to be able to just experience that and it's starting at the very initial level I mean to get to where you orbit people and you take passengers is difficult so the mission of spaceship two is basically to let people have that the rocket ride and you are literally sitting on the rocket I mean it is right behind the seat so you get the rocket ride all the way up you get the zero gravity from the order of four and a half, five minutes you get the curvature of the earth you get the official astronaut altitude and glide back down and lands and it holds, it's got room for six passengers in the back and two pilots up front and so the time frame now that we've got these two burns done is depending when they look at the data if they're able to move on we'll go on to a little bit longer burn so it may be 40 seconds, it may be 50 seconds and then after that we go to the full duration burn which is 60 seconds and then once we prove we've done that in the re-entry we'll do it six more times and then we have to go through the FAA to get our certifications so versus like typical military or public use programs all of our programs are FAA certified so they actually, the FAA has representatives that sit in in the control room we do our practice sims, they sit in we do all of our flights we give them data reviews and all of that because they're the ones that eventually right now they give us a license just for us to go on our own but not take passengers so the goal is after those six flights we get to go ahead to take passengers and then the very first flight with a passenger will be Richard Branson and that'll probably be out of Las Cruces our actual operating will be out of Las Cruces, New Mexico they built a space port out there called Space Port America that operates out of the White Sands Missile Range and then how widespread do you think this space tourism will be? so right now, so the tickets are not cheap so the tickets, yeah, are on the order I mean the price right now is about $250,000 but we've sold 700 and they actually stopped selling them because we're just trying to get caught up so I always joke that if you throw my name out I'll get you the friends and family rate of $249,000 so got that going for you so but right now we're actually making so the goal is like, no man, you start any venture it is expensive, right, it's ridiculously expensive but that's what it takes to get this started and there's people out there that are passionate about it that support it and invest in it to make it happen so we're actually making two more spaceships right now so the goal is by the end of we start passenger operations in 2019 by the end of 2019 we'll have three spaceships in one white night then we're gonna build a second white night three more spaceships so the goal is when we get to the place where there's actually a whole cadre of these operating where you're doing space flights almost on a daily basis at that point, things become affordable and come down but the biggest thing is just to make it where it actually is affordable and reliable and that's probably our two biggest goals for getting people to space okay, awesome, so Kelly is in charge she is a test pilot for this program but she's also the lead test pilot for another program can you tell us about that? Yep, so when I got hired so I was the last pilot to get hired so there's seven and so the way we're working it right now is you can tell those flights aren't very long so to get experience, I mean so the two primary pilots are Mark and Dave our chief pilot and our lead test pilot and so they're pretty much the ones that are doing all of the envelope expansions for space ship because every time they fly they get about 10 minutes of flight time you know, or 15 minutes so it takes quite a few flights actually to build up that experience and only one person gets to land per flight so they're pretty much swapping out and then the next two pilots and one of them is an ex shuttle astronaut CJ Sturkow so CJ and Sooch are the next two so as they get through like a development phase they'll cycle out of the right seat so for the rest of us we swap out every other flight in white night and so actually so the Dave Perez flight was supposed to be mined from the right seat but this was more important so I came out here to do this and they'll just roll me in next time so but so for me being number seven it's gonna be a while till I get up into space ships I'm checked out in white nights and again you get two pilots in the room and you'll get five opinions so there's already enough pilot opinion going on the development stuff so meanwhile Virgin Galactic had a second program called Launcher One which is a 747 modified to carry a liquid-fueled rocket on the wing and that liquid-fuel rocket will take small satellites into low earth orbit and the goal of that is to make affordable launch for small satellites so since I had large aircraft experience and I had some time on my hands it's just one of those things that's an opportunity so I jumped down there to start to kind of shepherd that program so right now I'm the lead test pilot for the 747 and that facility down there is pretty amazing because both of these what was interesting is the Virgin companies were both galactic and the second company actually spawned off it's not called Virgin Orbit but they're all under galactic ventures which is a big umbrella for all these space ventures but the interesting thing is we do all as much as we can produce in-house everything in-house so we can be responsive to ourselves and not rely on outside vendors so if you're a small company that has a 1Z, 2Z requirement you usually don't get very good service from other vendors and companies so we do everything in-house so we're gonna show a video really quick of the last year for Launcher 1 but when I came on that program it was two years ago and you'll see a thing of the factory floor with all these rocket parts and pieces first and second stages laid out it was empty when I first got there there was nothing, it was 100 people and now there are about 450 people and we're getting ready to put the first rocket on the airplane and probably a month and a half to test fly it and I'll talk a little more after the video so again all the machining all the composite laying all the tanks all the engine pieces parts the avionics everything is built there in-house we actually have the largest 3D metal printer in the world down there and the idea of that is if you can 3D metal prints things like a nozzle or like complicated parts that require bends and welds and bolts if you can make that all one piece you can make it as stronger and much faster we do all of our engine testing up at Mojave so you can see the thrust gimbling there so both the first and second stage all that testing is at Mojave this is the airplane we send out to L3 and Waco to get modified and this is when we flew it into Long Beach which is where she resides right now so the left wing got modified structurally to be able to hold the rocket and the profile for that is we pretty much fly the 7-4 up to basically 30,000 feet and then pitch it at 35 degrees and it was high and then just drop the rocket there and at that point the 7-4 is pretty much out of air speed so we just fall off to the side come down to land and the rocket drops and five second later it goes and that's the payload up front so that's the payload fairing that separates to let the payload out and you'll see here in a second when they show outside they've already done like this is a full mock-up of the rocket basically gets the first and second stages minus the engine and then minus the payload up front and they built the entire rocket with all the plumbing and then took it out, hung it as if it's hung on the airplane hooks and did all the fueling and defueling for the locks and the RP and the RP is just rocket propellant it's basically a high-grade kerosene but the rocket itself is all composite so it's extremely light so the rocket is on the order of 5,000 pounds with all the pieces and then once you put all the locks and fuel in there it's 58,000 pounds so pretty much all of it is just all that the liquid fuel sitting in the tanks and so to show a second picture here of the, we actually have we're ready to go with the test rocket so again the way we step through it is you're not just gonna put on the airplane and go fly it but this is pretty much the test rocket that we're gonna use so it has all the tanks there but they're all empty right now it's got a mass to simulate the rocket engine so you don't wanna fly with an actual rocket engine and it's missing the payload piece in the front which again we'll just have a dummy load up there but when we put this on the airplane for the first time we're just gonna fly it empty so it's lightweight, we're not worried about loads and we'll go and just make sure that all of our assumptions for like the aerodynamic stability and everything is good to go and what we've been able to do is partner with NASA Ames and they have a 747 simulator that we have our computational fluid dynamics group go through and they can run this model on the aircraft and we've used Boeing to help with our CFD analysis we've used NASA Ames and Armstrong both to help us with our CFD analysis and we can actually model how the aircraft flies we go to the sim and they put all those parameters in the simulator as if the mass, the weight and the aerodynamics of the rocket are there so we can actually go to take off landings we can do our pitch up maneuver we can practice abort and then we can actually practice the release maneuver and see how the sudden change and all the aerodynamics and the loss of the weight affects the aircraft so a couple of tools that are really cool but that is gonna go on the airplane probably middle of July and we'll fly and then we'll come back and we'll fill it up with water basically water and some baffle balls and then we'll go fly this if it's the heavy weighted mass and we'll get all of that testing done and then we'll actually go out to one of the ranges and do a practice drop so we'll drop it once and if all goes well the next thing will be put in the actual rocket on you know fueling it up and first launch the best case optimistic everything goes well which it never does would be that we launch sometime you know October or so that's awesome can you talk to the price point for these and then yeah so I told you about the price point for a spaceship too it's high but there's a lot of people out there that play that price point so we're pretty much booked for that the price point for this is right now it's about 12 million dollars for a launch the goal is to get it down where it's more in the eight million dollar range so the idea behind launcher one is to make a platform that is you know it's flexible we can fly it out anywhere if you have a runway you know we can take off and fly there it's responsive and it's affordable to get small satellites so right now since launch is so incredibly expensive you tend to go with one satellite that does everything and is hugely expensive you have the option to go quick launch on your schedule for an affordable price it may change the way that that we design satellites or do constellations instead of one big satellite you go with five you got a little reliability maybe spread out your targets a little bit so there's it's one of those things where the hope is that if we make it affordable and reliable and responsive that you know we sort of change the access to space on the commercial side is there any engagement with the Department of Defense there is yeah so we we actually have a so so because there is engagement with Department of Defense to keep it out like a little bit separate from the commercial company we have like another company we call Vox and they basically handle any customers with like special requests or special requirements or any of that type stuff so yeah there is engagement there and there's a lot of interest okay awesome so I know that we're kind of rolling up on time I'm gonna go ahead and say we can take one question sir are we okay let's go ahead and we can take field one question if anybody wants to jump up and ask and then awesome we got somebody run into the mic good morning ma'am major smith flight eight just want to ask with all your experience in the Air Force NASA and now with private industry what can the DoD learn from private industry to allow us to innovate better I think one of the things I've learned you know seeing like the three all the organizations are very different right they come out of kind of a different pedigree so what I think is interesting is probably the virgin companies are the ones that are like the leanest and meanest that I've seen I mean they're but they're basically startups right so companies like Boeing tend to get very big very large you know I see the military government as very big very large a lot of processes that get put into place over years and it's always difficult once a process gets put in place I think it's very difficult to get rid of that especially on a large organizational level like I remember being in a squadron there's little things I could change in the squadron to kind of help processes you know streamline some things get rid of some things but to make bigger changes is very difficult so I feel as though that like the government and NASA and even Boeing I mean Boeing is they are good on their you know commercial product thing but they still in the end are this big organization there's still a lot of different you know masters to feed when you go through then they get to the virgin companies and they're small they're startup and we talk about how we just we hire people that'll pick up a shovel so we may hire like the smartest you know aerodynamic person in the world but if we need someone to go down and shove a bolt you know into the side of something then they need to be able to go do that and it's amazing how quickly and fastly problems get solved I mean everybody is there I mean there isn't like layers of leadership there's just a couple people so we hire people that are experts that have this experience across industry so let's take launcher one I mean flight operations is literally two people it's the director of flight ops and me and so we just we just run the thing how it's supposed to get run it's not a huge operation though right it's one airplane so we sort of have that ability to be you know very small where it's one airplane and then for me the challenge is how do we go when we have two seven four sevens or three seven four sevens and how do we keep ourselves from building these processes that become you know an encumbrance and it just become difficult to change so to me I think that the more you can make the case for you know getting rid of processes in a way where it makes sense usually the better you're gonna be and the more efficient you're gonna be awesome so I'm gonna go ahead and ask one last question then so obviously you're incredibly driven and up to this point you've worked really hard what have you found that has enabled you to have a work-life balance and ensured your happiness at this point in your life? Good question I don't know if I have a great work-life balance or had it through I mean I always you know I just was sort of like always on to the next thing you know and I always feel like I'm gonna take a break you know this is gonna be I'm gonna take a break I'm done and like a little shiny star comes up like oh look that shiny star I'm gonna go do that you know so yeah so it's been hard I think I've probably I think if I look back there's probably I just was so into I needed to get all the time I can get any to get all the missions I can get I need to you know you know be in there like as soon as like something's ready for me to go do it I want to go do it right now and I think I missed out a lot of things like friends weddings you know when my sister had her kids like I wasn't at any of that stuff you know and I look back now I'm like it probably would have been fine for me to go do that and I don't know why you know my mind everything was just so you've got to do this now and you know be on the schedule and I look back and I go so I didn't really need to just to widen that balance but here I find myself in the program where I'm talking to you know Ray my husband as of October that you know like like like coming yeah getting a little bit of balance so you know and I'm like hey we have time to go do stuff I'm like all right launch the ones get ready to fly put everything on hold for the next year because I got to be devoted to this program and as soon as it's ready to fly I gotta be there to be ready to fly so I think I'm not doing a great job at it I think I'm still I mean I'm trying I know it's like you know something that I'll look back on and I just want to I just want to try and not look back and regret missing out on important things you know my family's life because of what I'm doing professionally because like I say like this you know like the flight this week it's like there'll be another one just like go to this event I'm just like I came here in the experience and meeting everybody and being part of this gathering at Eagles has been amazing. Awesome. Well thank you so much everybody I hope you caught all of that I know both of us speak quickly and we're highly caffeinated so thank you Ray thank you for coming out and enjoying the speak with us and Kelly thank you so much for your time thank you for sacrificing emissions that come and be with us and to share your leadership and your insights so thank you. Thanks.