Rocketman (and woman): Elon and Gwynne, the pair who made SpaceX - Yahoo News

-- commonly known as SpaceX -- is slated to send two astronauts into space on Wednesday.

Despite not yet being 20 years old, the company has already developed a creation myth: on September 28, 2008, its first rocket Falcon 1 launched for the fourth time.

The 11th employee hired that year turned out to be someone good: Gwynne Shotwell, who was in charge of business development, soon established herself as Musk's right-hand woman.

The 56-year-old Shotwell, who became SpaceX president and chief operating officer in 2008, is a self-described nerd.

The SpaceX formula proved seductive to clients: in the past three years, the company has launched more rockets than Arianespace.

In 2018, SpaceX launched more rockets than Russia.

Having conquered the private launch market, SpaceX has claimed a bigger piece of the pie for public and military launches.

Still funded by NASA, SpaceX is set this week to become the first private company to launch astronauts into space.