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XTwenty Years Ago Today, NASA First Sent a Woman to the ISS. Here’s What She Sees for Future Missions.
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Samson is also a proud member of the Transgender Journalists Association. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter at @Samsonamore. Pronouns: he/him

Twenty years ago today Lt. Gen. Susan Helms arrived at the International Space Station where she would go on to carry out a historic mission.
During a five-month stint at the station, she emerged to take a spacewalk with fellow astronaut Jim Voss that spanned nearly nine hours, breaking world records for both the longest spacewalk ever and the longest completed by a woman.
Since then, she's been on another mission to inspire a new generation of aerospace pioneers and help them build their own legacy.
Melanie Stricklan co-founder and CEO of El Segundo-based Slingshot Aerospace, credits Helms with helping launch the startup that counts NASA among its clients. To date, the company has raised over $17 million from investors including L.A.-based Stage Venture Partners and Noname Ventures. And Helms' guidance and insight has been key to that.
"She is a pioneer. She made way for lots of other women to go to service academies and after that to pursue engineering degrees like she did," Stricklan told dot.LA. "She was the first military woman in space; the first woman to inhabit the ISS."
Slingshot Aerospace CEO Melanie Stricklan (L) and Lt. Gen. Susan Helms (R).
Stricklan, who was an Air Force military officer for over two decades before she took her degree in aeronautical space engineering to found Slingshot Aerospace in 2017, met Helms when she was Stricklan's superior in the service.
Helms' mentorship has helped Stricklan and Slingshot secure contracts from NASA, the U.S. Space Force and Air Force, as well as private contractors like Boeing, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems.
But Helms also boosted Stricklan's confidence as she helped develop Slingshot Aerospace.
The company sells two products. Slingshot Laboratory is a mixed-reality space simulation training tool that can be used by NASA astronauts and K-12 students. Although it's still in beta mode, it's being used to train university students and the Space Force Guardians.
Then there's Slingshot Orbital, an air traffic control-like system for space travel. The system gives the government a more accurate idea of exactly what's going on up there, without having to actually send more crafts into space. Helms talks about Slingshot as if she's making a pitch for her own company. Slingshot Orbital, she said, is key to protecting the U.S. from foreign threats in space as access to the stars becomes more democratized.
"Space has now become so accessible, you have to start thinking of it as a place where conflict could take place," Helms said. "Therefore, you have to focus on it with resources and defensive strategies."
Both point out that every launch produces debris, and even an accidental collision with another country's tech could have disastrous consequences.
"Space is one of the most critical environments to make accurate decisions in, especially with all of the hundreds of new satellites increasingly filling orbits," Stricklan said. "(There's) millions of pieces of debris... It's not a hair-on-fire moment, space is big."
Both have been working in the industry to help the next generation of women in space
"We're no longer hitchhiking on Russian rockets, which I love," Stricklan said. "I love the fact that women are leading the charge," Stricklan said.
Most major aerospace firms now have a woman in their C-suite — Leanne Caret is the CEO of Boeing Defense, Space and Security; and Marilyn Hewson ran Lockheed Martin for seven years until June 2020.
"Elon gets a lot of credit for what SpaceX is doing but [its CEO] Gwynne Shotwell is terrific. When we got our ticket back as a U.S. entity to go into space on the first privatized ride, she helped Elon get there," Stricklan said.
In 2019, 75% of all the major science divisions in NASA were run by women, the organization said. This includes Sandra Cauffman, a Costa Rican-born engineer who was the first woman to be appointed to the NASA Inventions and Contributions Board in 1994.
Helms now serves as the vice president of Texas-based Astra Femina, a nonprofit dedicated to encouraging young women to pursue careers in space. Astra Femina was founded by Sandra Magnus, a former Department of Defense chief engineer and one of the few astronauts to fly on the final Space Shuttle mission in 2011.
"Some of them have to just see it to be it," Stricklan said about young women interested in the field.
Helms won't be satisfied until there's finally a woman who sets foot on the moon.
"The astronaut office was 25% female when I showed up," Helms said. "What I'm looking for are the days when it's 50/50. There's people that say, why go back to the moon if we've already been there, and my answer is well, only 50% of you have been there. When you talk about human exploration, you're talking about humans in general."
The anniversary has her feeling nostalgic.
"I'm feeling kind of sad that the spacecraft I flew on that day isn't around anymore," Helms said. " I usually don't think about the anniversary that much, but since it's the 20 year anniversary and it sets us on International Women's Day in particular, it seems especially poignant."
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Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Samson is also a proud member of the Transgender Journalists Association. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter at @Samsonamore. Pronouns: he/him
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This Week in ‘Raises’: Improvado Hauls $22M, Clearlake Launches $14B Fund
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
This week in “Raises”: A pair of Web3 platforms for gamers landed funding, as did a Manhattan Beach medical startup looking to bolster primary care via nurse practitioners. Meanwhile, a Santa Monica-based investment firm launched its seventh fund with more than $14 billion in dry powder.
Venture Capital
Improvado, a marketing data aggregation platform, raised $22 million in a Series A funding round led by Updata Partners.
Web3 gaming platform FreshCut raised $15 million in funding led by Galaxy Interactive, Animoca Brands and Republic Crypto.
Medical startup Greater Good Health raised $10 million in a funding round led by LRVHealth.
Joystick, a Web3 platform for gamers and creators, raised $8 million in seed funding.
Open source data protection company CipherMode Labs raised $6.7 million in seed funding led by Innovation Endeavors .
Mobile phone charging network ChargeFUZE raised $5 million in seed funding led by Beverly Pacific, TR Ventures, VA2, Jason Goldberg and Al Weiss.
Polygon, a startup aiming to better diagnose children with learning disabilities, raised $4.2 million in seed and pre-seed funding led by Spark Capital and Pear VC.
Pique, a virtual women's sexual health clinic, raised $4 million in a seed funding round led by Maveron.
Psudo, a sneaker startup that utilizes recycled water bottles and 3D sublimation printing to create its shoes, raised $3 million in a seed funding round led by SternAegis Ventures.
Funds
Santa Monica-based investment firm Clearlake Capital Group raised $14.1 billion for its seventh flagship fund.
Raises is dot.LA’s weekly feature highlighting venture capital funding news across Southern California’s tech and startup ecosystem. Please send fundraising news to Kristin Snyder (kristinsnyder@dot.la).Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
LA Tech ‘Moves’: New Head of Originals at Snap, New President at FaZe Clan
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
“Moves”, our roundup of job changes in L.A. tech, is presented by Interchange.LA, dot.LA's recruiting and career platform connecting Southern California's most exciting companies with top tech talent. Create a free Interchange.LA profile here—and if you're looking for ways to supercharge your recruiting efforts, find out more about Interchange.LA's white-glove recruiting service by emailing Sharmineh O’Farrill Lewis (sharmineh@dot.la). Please send job changes and personnel moves to moves@dot.la.
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FaZe Clan brought on Zach Katz as the gaming and media company’s new president and chief operating officer. Katz was previously the chief executive officer of the music tech investment fund Raised in Space Enterprises.
TikTok brand factory LINK Agency promoted Dustin Poteet to chief creative officer. Poteet was previously creative director at the firm.
Livestream shopping platform Talkshoplive hired Tradesy co-founder John Hall as its chief technology officer. Universal Music Group Nashville's former vice president of digital marketing, Tony Grotticelli, also joins the company as vice president of marketing.
Anjuli Millan will take over as head of original content at Snap after three years of overseeing production for the division.
Tech and media company Blavity hired Nikki Crump as general manager of agency. Crump joins the company from Burrell Communications Group.
O'Neil Digital Solutions, which provides customer communications and experience management for the health care industry, hired Eric Ramsey as national account sales executive. Ramsey joins from T/O Printing.
Investment firm Cresset Partners named Tammy Funasaki as managing director of business development. Funasaki previously served as head of investor relations for Breakwater Management.
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Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Snapchat’s New Controls Could Let Parents See Their Kids’ Friend Lists
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
Snapchat is preparing to roll out enhanced parental controls that would allow parents to see who their teenagers are chatting with on the social media app, according to screenshots of the upcoming feature.
Snap’s parental controls.
Courtesy of Watchful.
Snapchat is planning to introduce Family Center, which would allow parents to see who their children are friends with on the app and who they’ve messaged within the last seven days, according to screenshots provided by Watchful, a product intelligence company. Parents would also be able help their kids report abuse or harassment.
The parental controls are still subject to change before finally launching publicly, as the Family Center screenshots—which were first reported by TechCrunch—reflect features that are still under development.
Santa Monica-based Snap and other social media giants have faced mounting criticism for not doing more to protect their younger users—some of whom have been bullied, sold deadly drugs and sexually exploited on their platforms. State attorneys general have urged Snap and Culver City-based TikTok to strengthen their parental controls, with both companies’ apps especially popular among teens.
A Snap spokesperson declined to comment on Friday. Previously, Snap representatives have told dot.LA that the company is developing tools that will provide parents with more insight into how their children are engaging on Snapchat and allow them to report troubling content.
Yet Snap’s approach to parental controls could still give teens some privacy, as parents wouldn’t be able to read the actual content of their kids’ conversations, according to TechCrunch. (The Family Center screenshots seen by dot.LA do not detail whether parents can see those conversations).
In addition, teenage users would first have to accept an invitation from their parents to join the in-app Family Center before those parents can begin monitoring their social media activity, TechCrunch reported.
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.