Rothblatt was born 1954 into an observant Jewish family in Chicago, Illinois, to Rosa Lee and Hal Rothblatt, a dentist.[1] She was raised in a suburb of San Diego, California.[8][9]
As an undergraduate, she became a convert to Gerard K. O'Neill's "High Frontier" plan for space colonization after analyzing his 1974 Physics Today cover story on the concept as a project for Professor Harland Epps' Topics in Modern Astronomy seminar. Rothblatt subsequently became an active member of the L5 Society and its Southern California affiliate, the Organization for the Advancement of Space Industrialization and Settlement (OASIS).
During her four-year J.D./M.B.A. program, also at UCLA, she published five articles on the law of satellite communications and prepared a business plan for the Hughes Space and Communications Group titled PanAmSat about how satellite spot beam technology could be used to provide communication service to multiple Latin American countries. She also became a regular contributor on legal aspects of space colonization to the OASIS newsletter.[11]
Career
Satellite communications
Upon graduating from UCLA in 1981 with a joint J.D./M.B.A. degree, Rothblatt was hired by the Washington, D.C., law firm of Covington & Burling to represent the television broadcasting industry before the Federal Communications Commission in the areas of direct broadcast satellites and spread spectrum communication. In 1982, she left to study astronomy at the University of Maryland, College Park, but was soon retained by NASA to obtain FCC approval for the IEEEC band system on its tracking and data relay satellites and by the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Radio Frequencies to safeguard before the FCC radio astronomy quiet bands used for deep space research. Later that year she was also retained as vice president by Gerard K. O'Neill to handle business and regulatory matters for her newly invented satellite navigation technology, known as the Geostar System.[12]
Rothblatt is a regulatory attorney.[13] She also served as a member of the Space Studies Institute (SSI) board of trustees.[14]
In 1984, she was retained by Rene Anselmo, founder of Spanish International Network, to implement her PanAmSat MBA thesis as a new company that would compete with the global telecommunications satellite monopoly, Intelsat. In 1986, she discontinued her astronomy studies and consulting work to become the full-time CEO of Geostar Corporation, under William E. Simon as chairman. She left Geostar in 1990 to create both WorldSpace and Sirius Satellite Radio. She left Sirius in 1992 and WorldSpace in 1997 to become the full-time chairman and CEO of American medical biotechnology company United Therapeutics.[15]
Rothblatt was responsible for launching several communications satellite companies, including the first private international spacecom project (PanAmSat, 1984), the first global satellite radio network (WorldSpace, 1990), and the first non-geostationary satellite-to-car broadcasting system (Sirius Satellite Radio, 1990).[16]
Rothblatt helped pioneer airship internet services with her Sky Station project in 1997, together with Alexander Haig.[17][18]
She then successfully led the effort to get the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to allocate frequencies for airship-based internet services.[19]
As an attorney-entrepreneur, Rothblatt was also responsible for leading the efforts to obtain worldwide approval, via new international treaties, of satellite orbit/spectrum allocations for space-based navigation services (1987) and for direct-to-person satellite radio transmissions (1992). She also led the International Bar Association's biopolitical project to develop a draft Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights for the United Nations (whose final version was adopted by the UNESCO on November 11, 1997, and endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1998).[4][20]
Medical and pharmaceutical
Rothblatt is a well-known voice for medical and pharmaceutical innovation. In 1994, motivated by her daughter being diagnosed with life-threatening pulmonary hypertension,[21] Rothblatt created the PPH Cure Foundation and in 1996 founded United Therapeutics.[5][15] That same year, she says, she had sex reassignment surgery.[22] At that time she also began studying for a Ph.D. in medical ethics at the Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London. The degree was granted in June 2001 based upon her dissertation on the conflict between private and public interests in xenotransplantation. This thesis, defended before England's leading bioethicist John Harris, was later published by Ashgate House under the title Your Life or Mine.[23]
In 2013, Rothblatt was the highest-paid woman CEO in America, earning $38 million.[1]
As of April 2018, Rothblatt earned a compensation package worth $37.1 million from United Therapeutics.[24] The majority of the compensation package is for stock options.[7]
In January 2022, Rothblatt's company Lung Biotechnology made an attempt at effectuating her Ph.D. dissertation by transplanting the first genetically-modified porcine heart in hopes that it would successfully save the life of a patient. The recipient subsequently died on Tuesday, March 8, 2022.[25]
In June 2022, Rothblatt unveiled the world's most complex 3D printed object, a human lung scaffold, based on 44 trillion voxels of data and comprising four thousand kilometers of capillaries and 200 million alveoli.[26]
Aviation
Rothblatt is an airplane, seaplane[27] and helicopter pilot with night-vision goggle (NVG) certification. She generally pilots a Pilatus PC-12NG, a Kodiak 100 and a Bell 429WLG. Her other achievements in aviation include providing current weather information to all XM radio-equipped North American aircraft via her SiriusXM satellite system, and pioneering Aircraft Geolocation Tracking via her Geostar Satellite System.[10] In 2018, Rothblatt received the American Helicopter Museum and Education Center Annual Achievement Award for innovation in rotary-wing flight.[28][29]
Electric aviation
Rothblatt's company United Therapeutics formed a subsidiary, Lung Biotechnology, to preserve and restore selected donor lungs, making them viable for transplantation.[30] Rothblatt began looking at electric helicopters as a way of reducing energy consumption and noise while reducing transportation time for the sensitive organs.[31]
In September 2016, Rothblatt teamed with Glen Dromgoole of Tier 1 Engineering and pilot Ric Webb of OC Helicopters to conduct the world's first electric-powered full-size helicopter flight at Los Alamitos Army Airfield.[31][32] The helicopter, a modified Robinson R44 weighed 2,500 pounds with Webb as its test pilot, flew for five minutes, attained 400 feet and exceeded 80 knots airspeed, all completely powered by rechargeable batteries.[33]
On February 16, 2017, Rothblatt's electric helicopter established new world records of a 30-minute duration flight and an 800-foot altitude at Los Alamitos Army Airfield.[34] At the end of the flight, the 2,500 pound helicopter still had 8% state of charge remaining in its Brammo batteries. On March 4, 2017, Rothblatt and Ric Webb set a world speed record for electric helicopters of 100 knots at Los Alamitos Army Airfield under an FAA Experimental permit for tail number N3115T. This was also the first-ever flight of two people in a battery-powered helicopter.[35] On December 7, 2018, Rothblatt earned certification in the Guinness Book of World Records for the farthest distance traveled (56.82 kilometers) by an electric helicopter.[36][37]
In 2019, she received the inaugural UP Leadership Award for her advances in eVTOL technology.[38][39]
In September 2021, Dr. Rothblatt's project to deliver transplantable organs by electric drones was successfully achieved at Toronto General Hospital (TGH), resulting in the world's first delivery of transplanted lungs by drone.[40][41]
In October 2022, Rothblatt piloted the historic first-ever electric helicopter flight between two airports, flying from Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport in Thermal, California, to Palm Springs International Airport.[42][43]
Rothblatt's United Therapeutics has placed orders with both EHang and BETA Technologies for electric vertical take-off and landing eVTOL aircraft.[44] In June 2021, she was the first flight engineer to fly BETA's ALIA eVTOL aircraft, and as of November 2021 sat on the company’s board of directors.[45][46]
Sustainable building
In September 2018 Rothblatt inaugurated the world's largest net zero office building site, called the Unisphere, containing 210,000 square feet of space in Silver Spring, Maryland, powered, heated and cooled completely from on-site sustainable energy technologies.[47][48][49] This office building uses 1 MW of solar panels, fifty-two geothermal wells, a quarter mile long earth labyrinth and electrochromic glass to operate with a zero carbon footprint while graphically communicating its net energy status in real time to the building occupants.[47][49]
Personal life
In 1982, Rothblatt married Bina Aspen, a realtor from Compton, California.[1][2][50] Rothblatt and Aspen each had a child from a previous relationship and legally adopted each other's children; they went on to have two more children together.[51][52]
In 2004, Rothblatt launched the Terasem Movement, a transhumanistschool of thought focused on promoting joy, diversity, and the prospect of technological immortality via mind uploading and geoethical nanotechnology. Through a charitable foundation, leaders of this school convene publicly accessible symposia, publish explanatory analyses, conduct demonstration projects, issue grants, and encourage public awareness and adherence to Terasem values and goals. The movement maintains a "Terasem Island" on the Internet-based virtual world Second Life, which is currently composed of two sims,[54] which was constructed by the E-Spaces company.
Through her blog Mindfiles, Mindware and Mindclones, she writes about "the coming age of our own cyberconsciousness and techno-immortality" and started a vlog together with Ulrike Reinhard on the same topic. She also created Lifenaut.com as a place where thousands of people could go to backup their minds.
In May 2024, the University of Maryland School of Medicine awarded Rothblatt the Dean's Distinguished Gold Medal in recognition of her high-impact contributions in medicine and science and in acknowledgement of her commitment to significantly improving the health and well-being of humankind.[62]
Lawyer and bioethicist Wesley J. Smith ridiculed the feasibility of the Terasem Movement Foundation's claims to offer a free service that can "preserve one's individual consciousness so that it remains viable for possible uploading with consciousness software into a cellular regenerated or bionanotechnological body by future medicine and technology". Smith facetiously questioned whether this offer would be followed by the sale of "longevity products".[63]
Rhetorician and technocritic Dale Carrico harshly criticized Rothblatt's writings for promoting what he argues to be the pseudoscience of mind uploading and the techno-utopianism of the Californian Ideology.[64] Carrico later criticized Rothblatt's claims about digital technology and "mindclones" as being nothing more than wishful thinking.[65] Carrico went on to criticize Rothblatt for caring more about rights of "virtual, uploaded persons"—who he argues are neither real nor possible—more than the rights of actual human persons and some animals, such as great apes and dolphins.[66]
Describing a conversation with BINA48, one of "humanity's first cybernetic companions," created by Rothblatt and Hanson Robotics, journalist Amy Harmon concluded it was "not that different from interviewing certain flesh and blood subjects."[67]
Awards and honors
Rothblatt has received many awards, including several honorary doctorate degrees.
On May 11, 2010, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Ben Gurion University of the Negev in recognition of her accomplishments in satellite communications and biotechnology.[69]
In September 2017 Forbes magazine named Rothblatt one of the 100 Greatest Living Business Minds of the past century, with special reference to her roles as a "perpetual reinventor, founder of Sirius and United Therapeutics, and creator of PanAmSat."[70] On December 5, 2017, North Carolina State University conferred her an honorary Doctor of Sciences degree.[71]
In January 2018 Rothblatt was presented the UCLA Medal, the university's highest award, in recognition of her creation of Sirius XM satellite radio, advancing organ transplant technology, and having "expanded the way we understand fundamental concepts ranging from communication to gender to the nature of consciousness and mortality."[72] On May 16, 2018, Rothblatt and Didi Chuxing President Jean Liu were awarded Doctors of Commercial Science degrees, honoris causa, at NYU's 186th Commencement at Yankee Stadium.[73][third-party source needed] In 2018, the University of Victoria'sChair in Transgender Studies, Founder and subject matter expert of the Transgender Archives, nominated Martine for an Honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD).[74][75] She was officially awarded this on November 13, 2019, at the 10:00 am graduation ceremony.[76]
In 2019 Rothblatt was recognized as one of Business Insider's most powerful LGBTQ+ people in tech.[77] Also in 2019, Rothblatt received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Sir Peter Jackson during the International Achievement Summit in New York City.[78][79]
In October 2021, the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) selected Dr. Rothblatt for its highest honor, the Meritorious Service to Aviation Award, for her fostering of aviation weather information on the flight deck and of advanced air mobility such as electric helicopters.[80]
In April 2023, Rothblatt received the Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences in recognition of her many transformative, diverse, singular scientific and public service contributions.[81]
Rothblatt is the executive producer of the following films:
2B, Transformer Films, 2009. The film is a techno-thriller set in the near-future that deals with the moral questions confronting society following the creation of the world's first posthuman.
^ abEubios Ethics Institute (November 2, 1996). "Human Genome Project and Bioethics News". Retrieved October 12, 2016. Those readers who want details should contact the chair of the drafting committee, Martine Rothblatt, Mahon & Patusky Law Offices...
^Space Studies Institute (September 1985). "Space Studies Institute". THE HIGH FRONTIER® NEWSLETTER, VOLUME XI ISSUE 5. Retrieved October 6, 2016. Martin Rothblatt has been Vice President for Regulatory Affairs for Geostar...
^Mark Lewyn (September 1996). "Space Case". Wired Magazine. Retrieved November 22, 2014. The Haigs were accompanied by businessman Martine Rothblatt, 41, their new partner and a successful regulatory attorney in Washington, DC, for more than a decade.
^Space Studies Institute (September 1985). "Space Studies Institute". THE HIGH FRONTIER NEWSLETTER, VOLUME XI ISSUE 5. Retrieved October 6, 2016. Martin Rothblatt was recently named to the SSI Board of Trustees...
^Steve G. Steinberg (November 1, 1997). "Updata". Wired. Retrieved November 28, 2016. In May, the FCC set aside the 47-GHz band for various earth-based communications services, which marked the first step in the company's plan to float hundreds of 11-ton, 466-foot-long telecommunications platforms in the stratosphere.
^Andy Coghlan (November 2, 1996). "Gene Treaty Promises Rewards for Unique Peoples". New Scientist Magazine, Issue 2054. Retrieved October 12, 2016. The IBA's law and medicine subcommittee, which Rothblatt chairs, spent four years drawing up the document...
^ ab"EwingCole's Net Zero Designed Unisphere Opens in Silver Spring". EwingCole. September 27, 2018. Retrieved November 23, 2018. The 210,000 square-foot, elliptical shaped "Unisphere," is the largest site Net Zero commercial building in the US and houses clinical operations for pulmonary disease, heart failure, and organ transplantation as well as In Silico molecular biology – a virtual drug development lab. Led by chairman and CEO Dr. Martine Rothblatt
^Lisa Miller (September 7, 2014). "Martine Rothblatt Is the Highest-Paid Female CEO in America. She Was Also Born Male". New York Magazine. Retrieved November 22, 2014. But they had much in common—starting with the fact that they were both single parents. Martin had met a woman in Kenya on his way home from the Seychelles; the relationship had not worked out, but had produced a son, Eli, who was 3. Bina's daughter, Sunee, was about the same age.
^Ledyard King (November 4, 2014). "Bill Posey easily wins fourth term". Florida Today. Retrieved November 22, 2014. Rothblatt also was helped by $258,000 spent on signs and billboards by "Space PAC," a super PAC solely funded by his parent, Martine Rothblatt, founder of Sirius Satellite Radio and CEO of the Maryland-based biotech firm, United Therapeutics.
^Jessica Roy (April 17, 2014). "The Rapture of the Nerds". Time Magazine. Gabriel Rothblatt, a pastor at Terasem, photographed at the Terasem ashram in Melbourne Beach, Florida April 7, 2014
^Jessica Roy (April 17, 2014). "The Rapture of the Nerds". Time Magazine. Retrieved November 22, 2014. Until 2011, Gabriel was a manager at a local pizza restaurant. Now, he spends most of his time running for Congress in a longshot campaign to get on the Democratic ballot to challenge Rep. Bill Posey this fall.
^"On Politics: Innocent question creates a bit of a stir". Florida Today. October 17, 2014. Retrieved November 22, 2014. That led Posey to say that he thought he saw something in Rothblatt's candidate financial disclosure statements indicating Rothblatt was a pastor and community organizer.
Tyrkus, Michael (2016). Contemporary Authors. Volume 347: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Nonfiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television and Other Fields. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, Cengage Learning. ISBN9781410311450.
Avery, Laura (2016). Newsmakers. 2016 Cumulation: the People Behind Today's Headlines. Farmington Hills, Mich: Gale, Cengage Learning. ISBN978-1-57302-450-1.