B/E Aerospace

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

Fortune 500

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

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B/E Aerospace Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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B/E Aerospace Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings | Fortune

BluShift made history in 2021 for launching the first commercial rocket using biofuel. As rocket use grows so does concern about polluting the stratosphere. Small companies are developing innovative solutions to the problem.

This eco-friendly rocket fuel can change the space industry

Environment

BluShift made history in 2021 for launching the first commercial rocket using biofuel. 

BluShift made history in 2021 for launching the first commercial rocket using biofuel. As rocket use grows so does concern about polluting the stratosphere. Small companies are developing innovative solutions.

BluShift made history in 2021 for launching the first  commercial rocket using biofuel.

Rocket launches are gonna increase by some tenfold over the next 10 years. Going from a very small percentage of contribution to climate change to a very large portion. We're doing stuff to make our airplanes more sustainable car transportation more sustainable. What are we doing for rockets? Why is it important to address the issue of sustainability of rocket activities? The stratosphere is a region of the atmosphere that is extremely sensitive to small changes, primarily that's due to the mass of air that's there. You're up at 1/10 to 1 1000 of the pressure when you deposit exhaust products up their, their impact on climate, their impact on ozone is disproportionate. If the surface you've got something that lasts for a few weeks in the stratosphere, you've got something that lasts for a few years. There are two kinds of particles, there are black carbon particles and there are aluminum particles and these particles have a huge lever arm in terms of their influence on climate and ozone because they're in the stratosphere, the same materials emitted at the surface of the earth would have no impact at all. That's where the uniqueness of rockets comes in. There are a variety of rocket fuels that are currently in use very generally. We don't think of the environmental part of it when we think about their uses were thinking primarily about the energy that you get the cost and the safety of those fields across the industry. We're seeing a handful of companies working on bio fuel alternatives. I'm Sasha, dairy and Ceo and founder of Blueshift Aerospace, It was about a decade ago that I started blue shift and it really started on a farm. They have to be my brother's farm and at the time we were testing out a certain type of rocket engine using petroleum fuel. And I sat down my brother's kitchen and I saw the certain substance on his windowsill. He just pulled off the farm a few weeks before and I thought gosh, if this if this could work as well or even close to as well as petroleum alternatives, it's a much more sustainable way of fueling rockets. And so it was like maybe two weeks later we tested out the fuel. Found out not only did it work, it work better than the petroleum that we made history as the very first company to have launched a rocket commercially using a carbon neutral bio derived, non toxic rocket fuel. We saw the media and the public questioning the larger rocket companies, why why aren't you doing things in a more sustainable way? In the past, the space industry has been dominated by a few very large players. Us government soviet government, chinese government. But now space is becoming a free market commercial activity. And so we expect small companies to start to play a role here. Gregory Constantine ceo of their company. Their company is a carbon utilization company that takes carbon dioxide before it's captured from the atmosphere and turns it into useful products that can help shape our future. Yeah. The beauty about working with groups such as Nasa is they're really focused on pushing innovation and pushing research and development. And some of the work that we're doing with them is really geared towards the rocket fuel that we're making from carbon dioxide and how we can optimize the use of the work that is done in academia. And the work that is done in lab doesn't often find its way to commercial realities as well. And because it's a big challenge. Um and so we try to spend a lot of time innovative business solutions as well that allow that innovation to see the light of day in the real world, thankfully some of the work that we're doing with groups like Nasa as well allows us for that research and development into actuality small companies that innovate. If they can innovate and there's all this room for growth, then they can change the face of the space. The biggest challenge right now is the research, we have to understand now what these different propellant types will do in the future. We know that the amount of carbon dioxide put out by a medium sized rocket is about the same as an airline flight. And we know there are thousands of airline flights every day and there are only a few 100 rocket launches each year. So when it comes to the big picture aviation has thousands of times greater impact than spaceflight. But when it comes to the upper part of the atmosphere, there is no aviation, and rockets are the only game in town. The spaceflight industry, It's very small right now. And if it froze that way, we could write the paper and and go home. But we think it's going to grow a lot and that's why we have to get better scientific information.

Vanessa Clark and Lynette Tan are powering some of the world’s most innovative space startups.

Ladies who launch: Meet some of the female stars of the private space industry

Features

Meet some of the female stars of the private space industry

Mhm. Mhm. I think we've all seen the recent headlines about everything that seems to be really exciting and innovative when it comes to space. And most of those headlines have to do with a very small handful of billionaires, male billionaires like Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos and a few others. And what I wanted to do with this particular story is look beyond those headlines, not only at some of the really exciting and promising innovations and advances that are happening in the sector, but I also wanted to really showcase some of the women that are driving some of these innovations. It's been really interesting seeing the evolution of public awareness about musk visas and Branson's effort in space. I first became aware of SpaceX in the late two thousands And when they were first launching their Falcon one rocket, my colleagues and I were stunned that this small upstart from America could actually do this. Like it was incredible. They just put so much more attention onto the space industry and that is important. I think maybe in a way that does undermine the technology development that they put in. For example, you know, it took ill on mask a decade long to get to where he wants to with the reusable rocket, with getting contracts and getting business Richard Branson, you know, with the uh developments on the White Knight. Uh you know, that wasn't something that happened overnight, there was a lot of effort. There was a lot of in genuity, there was a lot many, many technology development, what they're doing is really admirable, but I do think it's time that we pay more attention to minority and diversity founders who are doing the same thing that are coming up close on their heels. So early on in my reporting process, I was introduced to a woman named Candace johnson. She's american, but she's been living in europe most of her life. Her dad actually worked on the very first commercial satellite for the U. S. Government Back in the 60s today. She's not only worked for a handful of satellite companies over the years, but she's also invested in a growing number of space and new space startup. And so early on, she connected me to a very, very long list of women all across the globe out of tumors. We are building and operating space tokes. There's a woman Vanessa clark her company what they're developing, they call it a tugboat for satellites. Were using the technology of tomorrow at a time when we are building and operating orbital transfer vehicles. These are space tugs that allow satellite operators to get to their place in space launch vehicles today are really great for getting payloads into space. But once it's in space, a rocket like that isn't that efficient at moving around, which means if satellite operators want to put their systems beyond low earth orbit or even in difficult to reach places in low earth orbit. It costs a lot of money to get them there with orbital transfer vehicles or space tugs. We can use lowest orbit as a transportation hub. Rockets can launch payloads to low accessible of it. And our orbital transfer vehicles which reside in space can run their view with those payloads, capture them and transfer their payloads to their final destination. Our systems can then return to a low staging orbit to be refueled and serve more customers. So this method saves 20-40% of launch costs for satellite operators and allows really challenging missions that just aren't possible with the rockets that we have today. Lynette Town is based in Singapore and she's trying to not only get more people into the sector, but she's really trying to start at a very young age. So things like space camp and education programs In our education program. We start them from five years old, 15 years old, 25 years old all the way to 75 years old. And some of them have taken part in our programs when they were 15, gone on to 25 and started a space company and then we help them without accelerated program. We help them with the connectivity that we provide them Uh and we provide them access to mentors and experts. We have 34, startups from all over the world from Russia, from Uzbekistan, from New Zealand, from Hong Kong and certainly from Singapore. We incubate them. We provide them with access and connections two key market to end users uh, and certainly of in fundraising, we help to act also accelerate the adoption of the technology to integrate it into systems to prove that their technology could make a difference to enterprises or two people. So we do a whole range of activities almost end to end uh, to get them up into the market so that we can all of us here can use their technologies for life to be better for businesses to be more efficient. Uh, you know, to also make the planet a better place for all of us when it comes to space. You know, the vision for a lot of this for a lot of these innovations is that at some point we become a multi planetary species. That's actually probably going to have and if everything from space suit two vehicles to even like pod that will sustain human life at the onset at least is all being developed and designed by one type of individual, then there are going to be problems because they have really long term and really broad implications for humanity. Um, so that's why I think it's really important to have representation from the get go. So in the U. S. A lot of the large aerospace companies and Nasa have great diversity programs. The recently retired Ceo of Lockheed martin was a woman Ceo of Aerojet Rocketdyne is a woman. Ceo of Northrop Grumman is a woman, these incredible women are breaking the glass ceiling at those large aerospace companies. Now, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that there is a really big discrepancy in startups and so it's difficult to get women with families or expecting families soon in early stage startups just because there isn't a stability that that type of candidate would typically look for in leadership and start up something. There's also a discrepancy. I know some great women founders out there who are just not as well funded as their male counterparts, which is something that I think we all have to come together as a community to change. It was tough, it still continues to be tough or we will take a while to break the stereotypes. But you know, I think that's why I find this job particularly meaningful because just being in this position to be able to help others, especially young women, you know, means a lot to me. I would want any young bright brain, you know, who want to reach for the star to not have to face unnecessary challenges to get the ones you really want to be. Like I said, face pack is really super hard, you know, I don't want them to have more, more challenges that they should have. There are still definitely barriers and hurdles um there is still a lack of women globally um and a lack of different ethnicities and races represented throughout a lot of these companies, but I would say, you know more and more, I mean they're really they're investing in each others, companies, their networking with each other. They're giving each other speaking opportunities to sort of elevate their profiles. And there are more and more women and again, more and more people in general that are being attracted to this field.

 ALAN MURRAY: The airline business has just been pummeled. When do you think you'll be back to anything close to normal? GREGORY HAYES: Close to normal, I guess we would define as 2019, which was the highest level of air travel ever. And just to put it in perspective, on a typical day in the US, you'd have about 2 and 1/2 million people going across to the TSA checkpoints in the US. Back in early April, that was down to less than 200,000. Today, it's back to around just under a million. I think we had one day over a million a week and a half ago. Let's call it about a million. So we're still down significantly. I think domestic air travel is going to take several years to recover. The more problematic piece, I think, is the international air travel, and that remains down about 88% from pre-pandemic levels. And it's hard to imagine getting on a wide body airplane, a 777 or 787 or an 8350, and going across the Atlantic because frankly, they don't want us. And you can't go to Asia. And again, that will take a really long time. I think that's 2023, maybe early '24 before we finally see a recovery. ALAN MURRAY: Your business depends heavily on innovation, new products on both sides, defense side and commercial side. How have you found maintaining innovation during this crisis? GREGORY HAYES: It's another great question, Alan. I think what we have found is a couple of things. Where we have specific development programs underway and we have people, that is, engineers, program engineers, project engineers, other folks working from home, we've actually seen an increase in productivity. And that's probably not surprising because you don't have people commuting. You don't have people talking at the water cooler. People are getting their work done. And so we've seen about a three point uptick in productivity across all of our development programs, so that's the good news. The bad news really goes to your question on innovation, and that's where we have seen a significant slowdown. And the way I would measure it is patent applications. We've got over 10,000 patents in our portfolio. We're generally developing somewhere between 500 and 600 new patents a year. As we look today, as we sit here in October, our patent application rate is down about 50%. What that tells me is that while we're getting work done, it's not a same as being together and innovating. And I always tell people this. Companies don't innovate. People do. And if you don't have people in the same room going back and forth, this is not, I would say, innovation like many people would think of. But we do some of the most complicated systems in the world, whether it's a radar, whether it's a jet engine, whether it's a cyber program. Those things require close collaboration, and that's where the discovery happens. That's where the innovation happens. So I don't think we're not falling behind anywhere, but clearly, it's an issue for us. ALAN MURRAY: You don't think they're digital tools that could be developed that can help you fill that gap without bringing people back together? That's a big change, down 50%. GREGORY HAYES: It is, and I think it is a challenge that we're going to have to face as I suspect we won't be fully back in the office until sometime probably the middle of next year. And we can't afford to lose a year of innovation. Look, we've got lots of tools that we're using. We're use the Teams platform from Microsoft. We've got Zoom. I don't know about you, but I think people get fatigued on Zoom. And when you've got seven or eight hours on Zoom in front of the camera, it's not the same as talking to somebody sitting next to you in a room. And it is that personal interaction, I think, that's missing here, which goes a long way to driving innovation. 

International air travel might not recover until 2024

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Raytheon Technologies CEO Gregory Hayes explains why.

 Buzz, this is Houston. Radio check and verify CV circuit breaker in. And we're hitting a fixer on the TV. We got a good picture, huh? That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. All engine running. I think space travel is important sort of on two levels. At its core, it's a technology problem. And many of the great technologies of today are artifacts of the space program. Lightweight plastics, lightweight but incredibly strong metals came from aerospace and space programs. But beyond the technology, I think it's a human thing for us to want to explore, for us to want to do difficult things. And so the space program has always been about exploration, learning about not only our world but the environment and the universe that we live in. So I think it's fundamental to the human spirit. We at IBM are very proud of our history with the space program all the way from the early days of working with the Department of Defense and some of the first satellites that were put into space through the Mercury, Gemini programs, and of course into the Apollo program, culminating and putting a man on the moon. IBM, through the course of the Apollo program, had over 4,000 IBMers working on that program, developing the computer systems, writing the software, present in the control centers. We were responsible for writing the control programs for rocket telemetry and trajectory. We were responsible for the computing and sensing of the behavior of the rockets in the capsule as it was launched and as it was guided into orbit and then out of orbit, and then sensing the capsule information, and bringing it back and making course corrections as we went through. As amazing as the technology seemed at the time-- and it was very advanced-- relative to the day, there's almost no comparison. So when you think about the technology of the 1960s, you're talking about something that looked like this, this little piece of ceramic with just two transistors on it. Fast forward to the technology of today, this is a technology that's powering IBM's largest supercomputers-- in fact, the two largest supercomputers in the world. This has two transistors on it. This has 8 billion transistors on it. So while this put a man on the moon, this is tackling some of the biggest problems in the world today-- more efficient sources of energy, understanding what's going on in climate change, getting to the root cause of some of the most disastrous diseases on the planet, such as cancer. Those are the moon shots of today right here on Earth. And those are all programs that we're heavily involved in. The technologies of the future now around these new class problems are things like artificial intelligence and quantum computing. And those are the technologies that are going to conquer the moon shots of our era. 

IBM’s John Kelly reflects on Apollo 11’s historic mission and looks forward to what future technology will accomplish. 

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