Carissa Christensen is the Chief Executive Officer and founder of BryceTech. Christensen is an internationally-recognized expert on R&D processes, technology forecasting, and the space industry. She is currently a member of the National Research Council Space Technology Industry Government-University Roundtable, which advises NASA.
She has served on the World Economic Forum Global Future Council since 2018. She is a Senior Advisor to the annual US Air Force Schriever Wargame. She serves on the Advisory Council of the Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy.
On this episode of the Casual Space Podcast, Ms. Christensen enjoys a more casual conversation with Beth about our inherent desire as humans to explore, to learn, and how exploring space can help us be better human beings.
A moment from the show:
From Beth: When did your interest in space begin?
From Carissa: My interest in space started with a series of questions. I began with asking, “How is knowledge created? How do we figure things out?” Then, my questions evolved into, “How does science work?” Then I found a parallel thread in asking how governance and government work. To me, representative government is an extremely powerful human invention-because it gives us access to the minds and the capabilities of so much broader a cross-section of humanity. Those threads all come together for me (maybe unexpectedly) in a career in space because governments and governance is such an important part of how space activities have occurred. As we were talking about getting to space is so much about learning and exploring…all of those things come together for me in the framework of knowing (more), learning (more), and ultimately for humans- being more.
And,
“When I think about what’s universal about space, I think about the very fundamental human desire to want to learn, to know and to explore. And to me, space is the extreme manifestation of that. You can’t explore it unless you learn and unless you know- which is so difficult and so challenging. It’s a fundamental desire to unpack that mystery, and it’s a tough mystery to work with.
-Carissa Christensen from the Casual Space Podcast
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