Ariel Ekblaw: Space Colonization and Self-Assembling Space Megastructures | Lex Fridman Podcast #271

1. 0:00 – 0:56

   Introduction

   1. AEAriel Ekblaw0:00

      We think that self-assembly, this modular reconfigurable algorithm for constructing space structures in orbit is gonna give us this promise of space architecture that's actually worth living in.

   2. LFLex Fridman0:12

      You see, you do believe we might one day become intergalactic civilization?

   3. AEAriel Ekblaw0:18

      I have hope, yeah.

   4. LFLex Fridman0:21

      The following is a conversation with Ariel Ekblaw, Director of MIT Space Exploration Initiative. She's especially interested in autonomously self-assembling space architectures, basically giant space structures that can sustain human life, and that assemble themselves out in space and then orbit Earth, Moon, Mars, and other planets. This is the Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, and now dear friends, here's Ariel Ekblaw.

2. 0:56 – 10:02

   Space exploration

   1. LFLex Fridman0:56

      When did you first fall in love with space exploration and space in general?

   2. AEAriel Ekblaw1:01

      My parents are both ex-Air Force. So my dad's an A-10 fighter pilot and my mom trained and had qualified to be a fighter pilot but it was early enough that women were not allowed in combat at that time. And so I grew up with these two pilots, and although they themselves did not become astronauts, there's a really rich legacy of Air Force pilots becoming astronauts, and this loomed large in my childhood. What does it mean to be courageous, to be an explorer, to be at the vanguard of something, uh, hard and challenging? And to couple with that, my dad was a huge fan of science fiction...

   3. LFLex Fridman1:35

      Mm-hmm.

   4. AEAriel Ekblaw1:35

      ... and so I as a kid read Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, um, all these different classics of science fiction that he had introduced me too. And that just started a love affair with space exploration and really thinking about civilization-scale space exploration.

   5. LFLex Fridman1:52

      So did they themselves dream about going to the stars as opposed to flying here in Earth's atmosphere, just looking up?

   6. AEAriel Ekblaw2:02

      Yeah. My dad always said he was absolutely convinced 'cause he was a child of the Apollo years that he would get to go in his lifetime.

   7. LFLex Fridman2:08

      Mm.

   8. AEAriel Ekblaw2:08

      Really thought it was gonna happen. And so it was a challenge and, you know, sad for many people when, um, to their view on the outside, space exploration slowed down for a period of time. In reality, we were just catching up. I think we leapt so far ahead with Apollo, uh, more than the rest of society was ready for, and now we're coming back to this moment for space exploration where we actually have an economy and we have the other accoutrement that society needs to be able to make space exploration more real. And my dad's thrilled because finally, you know, not nearly... I hope not anywhere near the end of his life, but as he's an older man, he now can see still within his lifetime people really getting a chance to build a sustainable lunar settlement on the Moon or maybe even go to Mars.

   9. LFLex Fridman2:49

      So settlements, civilizations on other planets, that's the, that's the cool thing to dream about in the future.

   10. AEAriel Ekblaw2:55

       Yes.

   11. LFLex Fridman2:56

       What was the, uh, what was the favorite sci-fi au- authors when you were growing up?

   12. AEAriel Ekblaw3:00

       Probably Isaac Asimov Foundation Trilogy. This is a w- amazing story of Hari Seldon, this, you know, foundation that he forms at different ends of the... well, according to the story, uh, difference the universe... and has this interesting focus on society. So it's not just space exploration for the sake of space exploration or novel technology, which is a lot of what I work on day-to-day at MIT, but how do you structure a society, um, across those vast expanses of distance and time, and so I'd say absolutely a favorite. Now, though, my favorite, uh, is Neal Stephenson and Seveneves. It's a book that inspired my own PhD research and some ongoing work that we're doing with NASA now for the future of swarm robotics for spacecraft.

   13. LFLex Fridman3:46

       We were saying offline about, uh, Neal Stephenson and that... 'cause I just recently had a conversation with him.

   14. AEAriel Ekblaw3:51

       Mm-hmm.

   15. LFLex Fridman3:51

       And I said that, you know, not until I was doing the research for him that I realized he also had a, a role to play in Blue Origin. So it's like sci-fi actually having a role to play in the design, engineering, just the implementation of ideas that come kind of, um, percolate out from the sci-fi world and actually become reality. It's kind of... it's a fascinating figure in that way. Do you, do you also think about, uh, him beyond just his work in science fiction, but his role in coming up with wild, crazy ideas that actually become reality?

   16. AEAriel Ekblaw4:24

       Yes. I think it's a great example of this cycle between authors and scientists and engineers, that we can be inspired in one generation by what authors dream up. We build it, we make it a reality, and then that inspires another generation of really wild and crazy thought for science fiction. Think Neal Stephenson does a beautiful job of being what we'd call a hard science fiction author. So it's really grounded in a lot of science, which makes it very compelling for me as a scientist and engineer to read and then be challenged to make that vision a reality. The other community, you know, that Neil is involved with and some of my other mentors are involved with that we are thinking about more and more in the work that we do at MIT is The Long Now Foundation and this focus on what does society need to take in terms of steps at this juncture, this particular inflection point in human history, to make sure that we're setting ourselves up for a long and prosperous horizon, for humanity's horizons. There's a lot of examples of what The Long Now Foundation does and thinks about, but when I think about this in my own work, it's what does it take to scale humanity's presence in orbit? We are seeing some additional investment in commercial space habitats, um, so it'll no longer be just NASA running the International Space Station, but to really democratize access to space, to have... Um, like Bezos wants to have millions of people living and working in space. You need architecture that's bigger and grander and can actually scale, and that means you need to be thinking about how can you construct things for longtime horizons that are really sustainable in orbit or on a surface of a celestial body that are bigger than the biggest rocket payload fairing that we currently have available, and that what led me to self-assembly and other models of in-space construction.

   17. LFLex Fridman6:08

       Okay. Every, every time you speak, I get like a million tangent ideas. But let me-

   18. AEAriel Ekblaw6:12

       You can cut me off. Keep going. (laughs)

   19. LFLex Fridman6:13

       No, no, no, no, no, no. Please, keep talking. This is amazing.

   20. AEAriel Ekblaw6:16

       Keep going.

   21. LFLex Fridman6:16

       I just... There's, uh, there's like a million of i- um, ideas. So, one sort of on the dark side, let me ask.

   22. AEAriel Ekblaw6:21

       Yeah.

   23. LFLex Fridman6:21

       Do you think about the threats to human civilization that kind of motivate the scaling of the expansion of humans in space and on other planets? What are you worried about? Nuclear war?

   24. AEAriel Ekblaw6:34

       Mm-hmm.

   25. LFLex Fridman6:34

       Pandemics? Uh, super-intelligent, artificial intelligence systems? You know, more not, uh, existential crises, but ones that have significant, potentially significant detrimental effects on society, like climate change.

   26. AEAriel Ekblaw6:49

       Mm-hmm.

   27. LFLex Fridman6:50

       Those kinds of things. And then there's, of course, the fun asteroid coming out from the darkness-

   28. AEAriel Ekblaw6:54

       (laughs)

   29. LFLex Fridman6:54

       ... and hitting all of Earth. There's been a few movies on that. Anyway, is there something that you think about, um, that threatens us in this century?

   30. AEAriel Ekblaw7:02

       Mm-hmm. I mean, as an ex-military family, we used to talk about all of this. We would say that luck favors the prepared. And so growing up, you know, we had a plan, actually, a family plan for what we would do in a pandemic. Didn't think we were going to have to put that plan into place-
3. 10:02 – 27:44

   Swarm robotics and self-assembling space habitats

   1. LFLex Fridman10:02

      you mentioned, to go back to swarm-

   2. AEAriel Ekblaw10:05

      Mmm, yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman10:06

      ... so that was interesting to you, first of all, in your own work, but also, I, I believe you said something that was inspiring from Neal Stephenson-

   4. AEAriel Ekblaw10:14

      Yeah.

   5. LFLex Fridman10:14

      ... as well. So when you say s- uh, swarm, are, are you thinking about, um, architectures? Or are you thinking about artificial intelligence like robotics? Or are those kind of intermixed?

   6. AEAriel Ekblaw10:28

      I think the future that we're seeing is that they're going to be intermixed, which is really exciting. So, the future of space habitats are one of intelligent structures, maybe not all the way to HAL, and the, you know, 2001 Space Odyssey reference that scares people about the habitat having a mind of its own. But certainly, we're building systems now where the habitat has sensing technology that allows it to communicate its basic functions. You know, maintaining life support for the astronauts, but could also communicate in symbiosis with these swarm robots that would be on the outside of the spacecraft, uh, whether it's in a microgravity orbiting environment or on the surface. And these little robots, they crawl just a la Neal Stephenson in Seveneves, they crawl along the outside of the spacecraft looking for micro meteorite punctures or gas leaks, or other faults and, uh, defects. And right now, we're just working on the diagnosis. So, can the swarm with its collective intelligence act in symbiosis with the spacecraft and detect things? But in the future, we'd also love for these little micro robots to repair in situ, and really be like ants living in a tree altogether connected to the spacecraft.

   7. LFLex Fridman11:39

      Do you envision, uh, the system to be fully distributed, and just like an ant colony if one of them, uh, is damaged or, you know, whatever, uh, loses control and all those kinds of things, that, that that doesn't affect the performance of any... Of the complete system? Or does it need to be centralized? This is more like almost like a technical question. Do you think we could-

   8. AEAriel Ekblaw12:01

      Good architecture question.

   9. LFLex Fridman12:03

      Right. E- from the ground up, it's so scary to go fully distributed.

   10. AEAriel Ekblaw12:08

       Yes. (laughs)

   11. LFLex Fridman12:10

       (laughs) But it's also exceptionally powerful, right? Robust, resilient-

   12. AEAriel Ekblaw12:14

       Right.

   13. LFLex Fridman12:14

       ... to the harsh conditions of space. Where do you...Um, if you look into the next 10, 20, 100 years, um, starting from scratch, do you think we should be doing, architecture-wise, distributive systems?

   14. AEAriel Ekblaw12:28

       For space, yes, because it gives you this redundancy and safety profile that's really critical. So whether it's small swarm robots where it doesn't matter if you lose a few of them, to habitats that instead of having a central monolithic habitat, you might actually be able to have a decentralized node of a space station, uh, so that you can, kind of right out of Star Wars, you can shut a blast door if there's a fire or if there's a conflict in a certain area, and you can move the humans and the crew into another decentralized node of the spacecraft. There's another idea out of Neal Stephenson, Seveneves, actually, were these arclets, uh, which were decentralized spacecraft that could form and dock little temporary space stations with each other and then separate and go off on their way and, and have a decentralized approach to living in space.

   15. LFLex Fridman13:16

       So the self-assembly component of that too, so this is your PhD work and beyond, you explored autonomously self-assembling space architecture for future space tourists' habitats and space stations in orbit around Earth, Moon, and Mars. There, there's few things I personally find, uh, sexier than self-assembling (laughs) space arc- autonomously self-assembling (laughs) space architecture. In general, it doesn't even need to be space. The idea of, like, self-assembling architectures is really interesting, like building a bridge or something like that...

   16. AEAriel Ekblaw13:49

       Yeah.

   17. LFLex Fridman13:49

       ... through self-assembling materials. It feels like a incredibly efficient way to do it, because optimization is built in. So you can build, like, the most optimal structures given dynamic uncertain changing conditions.

   18. AEAriel Ekblaw14:08

       Mm-hmm.

   19. LFLex Fridman14:09

       So, uh, maybe can you talk about your PhD work, about this, this work about TESSERAI? What is it in general? All the-

   20. AEAriel Ekblaw14:17

       Sure.

   21. LFLex Fridman14:17

       A- any, any cool stuff 'cause this is super cool.

   22. AEAriel Ekblaw14:19

       (laughs)

   23. LFLex Fridman14:19

       So... (laughs)

   24. AEAriel Ekblaw14:19

       Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So TESSERAI is my PhD research. It's this idea that we could take tiles that construct a large structure-

   25. LFLex Fridman14:29

       Is this what that is?

   26. AEAriel Ekblaw14:29

       ... like a buckyball. Yeah. This is exactly what we're looking at here...

   27. LFLex Fridman14:31

       Okay.

   28. AEAriel Ekblaw14:31

       ... which is the tiles that are packed flat in a rocket. They're released to float in microgravity. Magnets, pretty powerful electropermanent magnets, on their edges draw them together for autonomous docking. So there's no human in the loop here, and there's no central agent coordinating, saying, "Tile one-"

   29. LFLex Fridman14:49

       Oh.

   30. AEAriel Ekblaw14:49

       ... "go to tile two." It's completely decentralized system. They find each other on their own.
4. 27:44 – 32:01

   Microgravity

   1. LFLex Fridman27:44

      So you mentioned, uh, microgravity, and, and I saw... I believe that, uh, there's a picture of you floating in microgravity.

   2. AEAriel Ekblaw27:52

      (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman27:52

      Uh, when, when did you get to experience that? What was that like?

   4. AEAriel Ekblaw27:54

      Ah, so I've flown nine times-

   5. LFLex Fridman27:56

      Wow.

   6. AEAriel Ekblaw27:56

      ... on the affectionately known as the Vomit Comet. It's the parabolic flight, and essentially it does what you'd want a plane never to do. It pitches really steeply upwards at 45 degrees.

   7. LFLex Fridman28:07

      Oh, there's a picture of you.

   8. AEAriel Ekblaw28:07

      Yeah, yeah.

   9. LFLex Fridman28:08

      (laughs)

   10. AEAriel Ekblaw28:08

       That's tessellate. That's super early in my PhD, some of just the passive tiles. Before we even put electronics in, we were just testing the magnet polarity and the... essentially, is it an energy-favorable structure to self-assemble on its own? So we tweaked a lot of things between

   11. NANarrator28:23

       (instrumental music)

   12. LFLex Fridman28:24

       Are we looking at a couple of them, or...

   13. AEAriel Ekblaw28:26

       Yeah, you're looking at a bunch of them there.

   14. LFLex Fridman28:27

       Oh, oh, oh, I see.

   15. AEAriel Ekblaw28:27

       There's almost, almost 32 of them.

   16. LFLex Fridman28:29

       Oh, I see, a lot more.

   17. AEAriel Ekblaw28:29

       Yeah.

   18. LFLex Fridman28:29

       Cool, and they're assembled in z-

   19. AEAriel Ekblaw28:29

       They're clumping, they're clumping, yeah.

   20. LFLex Fridman28:31

       Can you comment on what's the difference between microgravity and, and zero gravity?

   21. AEAriel Ekblaw28:36

       Yes. So there is-

   22. LFLex Fridman28:38

       Is that an important difference?

   23. AEAriel Ekblaw28:38

       It's an important difference. There is no zero gravity. There's no... nothing... there's... in the universe, there is no, no such thing as zero gravity. So Newton's law of gravity tells us that there's always gravity attraction between any two objects. So 0G is a shorthand that some of us fall into using, or is a little easier to communicate to the public. The accurate term is microgravity, where you are essentially floating, you're weightless, but generally in free fall. So on the parabolic flights, the Vomit Comet, you're in free fall at the end of the parabola. And in orbit around the earth-

   24. LFLex Fridman29:11

       Oh, that is cool.

   25. AEAriel Ekblaw29:11

       ... when you're floating, you're also in free fall.

   26. LFLex Fridman29:14

       What was it like?

   27. AEAriel Ekblaw29:15

       So that's micro G. Uh-

   28. LFLex Fridman29:15

       Uh, uh, so affectionately called Vomit Comet, I'm sure there's a reason why it's called affectionately so.

   29. AEAriel Ekblaw29:20

       (laughs)

   30. LFLex Fridman29:20

       So, what's it like? What's... uh, your first time to both philosophically-
5. 32:01 – 37:11

   Deep duration space missions

   1. LFLex Fridman32:01

      Deep duration space missions.

   2. AEAriel Ekblaw32:03

      Mm-hmm.

   3. LFLex Fridman32:03

      Okay, let's talk about this. Um, I was just gonna ask a bunch of dumb questions. So approximately how long does it take to travel to Mars?

   4. AEAriel Ekblaw32:11

      Mm.

   5. LFLex Fridman32:11

      Asking for a friend.

   6. AEAriel Ekblaw32:12

      (laughs) Asking for a friend, as we all do. Uh, about three years for a round trip.

   7. LFLex Fridman32:17

      Okay.

   8. AEAriel Ekblaw32:17

      And that's not that it actually takes that long.

   9. LFLex Fridman32:18

      Why, why the round trip? Is that-

   10. AEAriel Ekblaw32:21

       Well, you're just asking-

   11. LFLex Fridman32:22

       Oh, uh, the friend was asking about the one-way trip. (laughs)

   12. AEAriel Ekblaw32:23

       ... just for one way. Got it, got it, got it, got it.

   13. LFLex Fridman32:24

       One way. Uh, so okay, cool. So for just, like, literally flying to Mars and around, it takes three years. Interesting.

   14. AEAriel Ekblaw32:30

       There's some interstitial time there because you really can only go between Earth and Mars at certain points in their orbits where it's favorable to make that journey, and so part of that three years is you take the journey to Mars, a few months, six to nine months. You're there for a period of time until the orbits find a favorable alignment again, and then you come back another six to nine months.

   15. LFLex Fridman32:52

       So one-way travel, six to nine months. Then you hang out there on vacation, then come back six to nine-

   16. AEAriel Ekblaw32:56

       Forced vacation- (laughs)

   17. LFLex Fridman32:57

       Forced vacation.

   18. AEAriel Ekblaw32:57

       ... and you come back.

   19. LFLex Fridman32:58

       Well, me who loves working all the time, e- all vacation is forced vacation, but, uh, all right. Uh, so okay, so that gives us a sense o- of duration, and we could maybe also talk about longer and longer and longer duration-

   20. AEAriel Ekblaw33:11

       Right.

   21. LFLex Fridman33:12

       ... uh, as well. What are the hardest aspects of this, of living in space for-

   22. AEAriel Ekblaw33:19

       Mm-hmm.

   23. LFLex Fridman33:20

       ... many days, for, let's say, 100 days, 200 days? Maybe there's a threshold when it gets really tough. What are, what are some stupid little things or big things that are very difficult for human beings to go through?

   24. AEAriel Ekblaw33:32

       There's one big thing and one little thing, and they're the s- two classic problems that we're trying to solve in the space industry. One is radiation. It's not as much of a problem for us right now on the International Space Station because we're still protected by part of Earth's magnetosphere, but as soon as you get farther out into space and you don't have that protection once you leave the Van Allen, uh, Belt area of the Earth and the, you know, cocoon around the Earth, we have really serious concerns about radiation and the effect on human health long term. That's the big one. The small one, and I say it's small because it seems mundane, but it actually is really big in its own way, is mental health and how to keep people happy and balanced. And you were alluding to some of the psychological challenges of having humans together on missions, and especially as we try to scale the number of humans in orbit or in space. So that's another big challenge, is how to keep people happy and balanced and cooperating.

   25. LFLex Fridman34:24

       That's not an issue on Earth at all.

   26. AEAriel Ekblaw34:25

       At all. (laughs)

   27. LFLex Fridman34:27

       (laughs) Okay, so we- we'll talk about each of those in the, in a bit more detail. But let me continue on the chain of dumb questions. What about food?

   28. AEAriel Ekblaw34:35

       Mm-hmm.

   29. LFLex Fridman34:35

       What's a good food, source for food in space, uh, and what are some sort of standard go-to meals, menus?

   30. AEAriel Ekblaw34:42

       Right now, your go-to menu is gonna be mostly freeze-dried. Every so often, NASA will arrange for a fun stunt or fresh food to get up to station, so they did bake DoubleTree cookies with Hilton a couple years ago, as I recall, I think sometime before the pandemic. But there's work actually in our lab at MIT. Maggie Coblentz, one of my staff researchers, is looking at the future of fermentation. Everybody loves beer, right? Beer and wine and kimchi and miso, these foods that have just been h- you know, really important to human cultures for eons because we love the umami and the better flavor in them, but it turns out they also have a good shelf life if done properly, and they also have a additional health benefit for the microbiome, for probiotics and prebiotics. So we're trying to work with NASA and convince them to be more open-minded to fermented food-
6. 37:11 – 43:33

   Extraterrestrial life

   1. AEAriel Ekblaw37:11

      those.

   2. LFLex Fridman37:11

      I really hope there's life or traces of previous life on Mars.

   3. AEAriel Ekblaw37:16

      This is a special spot in my heart because I got to work on Sherlock, which is the astrobiology experiment that's on Mars right now, searching for, what they would say in a very cautious way is, signs of past habitability. They want to be careful not to get people overly excited and say we're searching for signs of life. They're searching to see if there would have been organics on the surface of Mars, or water in certain areas that would have allowed for life to flourish. And I really love this prospect. I do think within our lifetimes, we'll get a better answer about finding life in our solar system, if it's there. If not on Mars, maybe Europa, one of the icy worlds.

   4. LFLex Fridman37:56

      So, you like the, you like a- astrobiology?

   5. AEAriel Ekblaw37:59

      I do.

   6. LFLex Fridman37:59

      So, this is part, part of the ... So, it's not just about human biology, it's also other extraterrestrial alien biology.

   7. AEAriel Ekblaw38:06

      Search for life in the universe.

   8. LFLex Fridman38:08

      Okay. (laughs)

   9. AEAriel Ekblaw38:08

      Yeah. (laughs)

   10. LFLex Fridman38:09

       Does that scare you or excite you?

   11. AEAriel Ekblaw38:10

       It excites me, profoundly excites me.

   12. LFLex Fridman38:12

       That there's other alien civilizations, potentially very different than o- our own?

   13. AEAriel Ekblaw38:16

       I think there's gotta be some humility there. And certainly from science fiction, we have plenty of reasons to fear that outcome as well. But I do think as a scientist, it would be profoundly exciting if we were to find life, especially in the near neighborhood of our solar system. Right now, we would expect it to be most likely microbial life, but we have a real serious challenge in astrobiology, which is it may not even be carbon-based life.

   14. LFLex Fridman38:38

       Right.

   15. AEAriel Ekblaw38:38

       And all of our detectors, we only know to look for DNA or RNA. How would you even build a detector to look for silicon-based life, or different molecules than what we know to be the fundamental molecules for life?

   16. LFLex Fridman38:52

       And you mentioned offline, Sarah Walker, I mean, she-

   17. AEAriel Ekblaw38:54

       Yes.

   18. LFLex Fridman38:54

       ... her, the, the question that she's obsessed with is even just defining life.

   19. AEAriel Ekblaw38:58

       Mm-hmm.

   20. LFLex Fridman38:58

       What is life? To look outside, uh, the carbon base. I mean, to, to look outside of basically anything we can even imagine chemically, uh, to look outside of any kind of notions that we think of as biology. Yeah, it's, it's really weird. So, you, you now get into this land of, like, complexity of-

   21. AEAriel Ekblaw39:15

       Mm-hmm.

   22. LFLex Fridman39:15

       ... measuring of, like, how many assembly steps it takes to build that thing.

   23. AEAriel Ekblaw39:23

       Right. (laughs) Right.

   24. LFLex Fridman39:23

       And maybe, maybe a dynamic movement or some maintenance of some kind of membrane structures Like, we don't even know, like, which properties life should have-

   25. AEAriel Ekblaw39:34

       Right.

   26. LFLex Fridman39:34

       ... uh, whether it can, should be able to reproduce and all those kinds of things, or pass information, gen- genetic type of information. We don't know. And it's like, it's, it's so humbling. I mean, I tend to believe that there could be something like alien life here on Earth, and we're just too human bi- biology-obsessed to even recognize it.

   27. AEAriel Ekblaw39:56

       The shadow biosphere, I remember you and Sarah were talking about. (laughs)

   28. LFLex Fridman39:59

       (inhales deeply) I mean, that-

   29. AEAriel Ekblaw39:59

       It's a crazy mission.

   30. LFLex Fridman39:59

       ... that's like, speaking of beer, I mean, that's something I want to make sure, in all of science, to shake ourselves out of, like, remind ourselves constantly how little we know.
7. 43:33 – 50:12

   Music and sports in space

   1. LFLex Fridman43:33

      and y- he mentioned something about what kind of instruments you could use to play music in space. Could you, could you mention about, uh, like, does Spotify work in space? And if I wanted to do a live performance, what, w- what kind of instruments would I need?

   2. AEAriel Ekblaw43:47

      Yeah. I mean, you referenced culture before, and I think this is one of the most exciting things that we have at our fingertips, which is to define a new culture for space exploration. We don't just have to import cultural artifacts from Earth, um, to make life worth living in space. And this musical instrument that you referenced was a design of an object that could only be performed in microgravity.

   3. LFLex Fridman44:09

      Oh, cool.

   4. AEAriel Ekblaw44:10

      So it doesn't sound the same way when it's, um, it's a percussive instrument, when it's rattled or moved in a gravity environment. It is unique.

   5. LFLex Fridman44:17

      Is, is there... Can we look it up?

   6. AEAriel Ekblaw44:18

      It's called the Telemetron. Yep.

   7. LFLex Fridman44:19

      (laughs)

   8. AEAriel Ekblaw44:19

      It's created by- (laughs) Yeah.

   9. LFLex Fridman44:20

      Of course it's called the Telemetron.

   10. AEAriel Ekblaw44:21

       Telemetron.

   11. LFLex Fridman44:22

       That is so awesome.

   12. AEAriel Ekblaw44:23

       Uh, created by Sans Fish and Nicole L'Huillier, two amazing, uh, graduate students and staff researchers on my team.

   13. LFLex Fridman44:29

       What does it look like?

   14. AEAriel Ekblaw44:30

       It, uh, it looks steampunk, actually. Yeah.

   15. LFLex Fridman44:33

       That's awesome.

   16. AEAriel Ekblaw44:33

       Yeah, it's a pretty cool design. It looks like it's a geometric solid that has these interesting artifacts on the inside, and it has a lot of sensors, actually, additionally on the inside, like IMUs, inertial measurement sensors, that allow it to detect when it's floating and when it's not floating and provides this really kind of ethereal, um... They later sonify it, so they use electronic music to turn it into a symphony or turn it into a piece. And yeah, this is the object, the Telemetron.

   17. LFLex Fridman44:59

       How does a human interact with it?

   18. AEAriel Ekblaw45:01

       Uh, by tossing it. So it's an interactive musical instrument. It actually requires another partner.

   19. LFLex Fridman45:06

       Mm-hmm.

   20. AEAriel Ekblaw45:06

       So the idea was that it's something like a dance, um, or just, like, something like a choreography in space.

   21. LFLex Fridman45:12

       Got it. And the, speaking of which, you also talked about sports-

   22. AEAriel Ekblaw45:15

       (laughs)

   23. LFLex Fridman45:15

       ... and, uh, like, ball sports, like playing soccer.

   24. AEAriel Ekblaw45:18

       Yeah.

   25. LFLex Fridman45:18

       So what... So y- you mentioned that... So your, your muscles can move at full speed, and then if you push off the wall lightly, you c- you fly across.

   26. AEAriel Ekblaw45:27

       You zoom.

   27. LFLex Fridman45:28

       Zoom, zoom across.

   28. AEAriel Ekblaw45:28

       Yeah.

   29. LFLex Fridman45:29

       So how does the physics of that work? Or can you still play soccer, for example, in space?

   30. AEAriel Ekblaw45:34

       You can, but one of the most, uh, intuitive things that we all learn as babies, right, is whenever you throw something, if I was gonna toss something to you, I'd toss it up 'cause I know that it has to compensate for the fact that that Keplerian arc is gonna draw it down, the, you know, equations of motion are gonna draw it down. I would, in space, I would just shoot something directly towards you.
8. 50:12 – 57:33

   Colonizing space

   1. LFLex Fridman50:12

      yes. So let me ask a silly-sounding, ridiculous-sounding, but probably extremely important question.

   2. AEAriel Ekblaw50:18

      Mm-hmm.

   3. LFLex Fridman50:20

      Sex in space, including intercourse, conception, procreation, birth, like, being a parent.

   4. AEAriel Ekblaw50:27

      Mm-hmm.

   5. LFLex Fridman50:27

      Like raising the baby.

   6. AEAriel Ekblaw50:29

      Yeah.

   7. LFLex Fridman50:29

      So basically from birth, well, from the before the birth part, um, like the birds and the bees and stuff, and then the, uh, the whole thing. How complicated is that? I remember looking at the... (laughs) Thank you. Thank... (laughs) I remember looking at this exact Wikipedia page actually, and it's, uh, I remember being, uh, the, the Wikipedia page is Sex in Space, and fascinated how difficult of an engineering problem the whole thing is. Is that something you think about too, how to have generations of humans?

   8. AEAriel Ekblaw50:59

      Of humans.

   9. LFLex Fridman50:59

      Self, uh, self-replicating organism.

   10. AEAriel Ekblaw51:03

       Societies, yeah. They are.

   11. LFLex Fridman51:03

       Yeah, societies essentially.

   12. AEAriel Ekblaw51:04

       They are.

   13. LFLex Fridman51:04

       I mean, I guess with micro, like if you solve the gravity problem, you solve a lot of these problems, yeah.

   14. AEAriel Ekblaw51:09

       That's the hope, yeah, is like this central challenge of microgravity to human reproduction. But we do host a workshop every year at Beyond the Cradle, which is the space event that we run at MIT, and we always do one on pregnancy in space or motherhood or raising children in space 'cause there are huge questions. Um, there have been a few mammal studies that have looked at reproduction in space, but there are still really major questions about, how does it work? How does the fetus evolve in microgravity if you were pregnant in space? And I think the near term answer is just gonna be, we need to be able to give humans a 1G environment for that phase of our development.

   15. LFLex Fridman51:45

       Yeah, so there's some studies on mice in microgravity, and it's interesting. Like, I think the mice, like one of them, the mice weren't able to walk or, like, their, their understanding of physics, I guess, is off or something like that.

   16. AEAriel Ekblaw51:56

       So, yeah. The mental model when you're really young and you're kind of, um, getting your mental model of physics, we do think that that would change, um, kids' abilities to, if they were born in microgravity, their ability to have that intuition around an Earth-based 1G environment might be missing-

   17. LFLex Fridman52:13

       Mm-hmm.

   18. AEAriel Ekblaw52:13

       ... 'cause a lot of that is really crystallized in early development, early childhood development. So that makes sense that they would see that in mice, yeah.

   19. LFLex Fridman52:20

       So what about life when we, uh, choose to park our vehicles on another planet, on the moon-

   20. AEAriel Ekblaw52:28

       Mm-hmm.

   21. LFLex Fridman52:29

       ... but let's go to Mars. First of all, does that excite you, humans going to Mars, like stepping foot on Mars, and when do you think it'll happen?

   22. AEAriel Ekblaw52:38

       It does excite me. I think visionaries like Elon are working to make that happen in terms of building the road to space. We are really excited about building out the human lived experience of space once you get there. So how are you gonna grow your food? What is your habitat gonna look like? I think it's profoundly exciting, but I do think that there's a little bit of a misunderstanding of Mars anywhere in the near future being anything like a replacement for Earth.

   23. LFLex Fridman53:05

       Mm.

   24. AEAriel Ekblaw53:05

       So it is good for humanity to have these other pockets of our civilization that can expand out beyond Earth, but, uh, Mars is not, in its current state, a good home for humanity. Too many perchlorates in the soil. You can't use that soil to grow crops. Atmosphere is too thin. Certainly can't breathe it, but it's also just really thin compared to our atmosphere. A lot of different challenges that would have to be fundamentally changed on that planet to make it a good home for a large human civilization.

   25. LFLex Fridman53:33

       How does a large civilization of humans get built on Mars, and w- what, what do you think, um, where do you think it gets, starts being difficult? So can you have a small base of like 10 people essentially, uh, kind of like the International Space Station kind of-

   26. AEAriel Ekblaw53:48

       Yeah.

   27. LFLex Fridman53:48

       ... situation? And then can you get it to 100, to 1,000, to a million? Are there some interesting challenges there that worry you, saying that Mars is just not a good backup at this time-

   28. AEAriel Ekblaw53:59

       Yeah.

   29. LFLex Fridman54:00

       ... for Earth?

   30. AEAriel Ekblaw54:01

       I think small outpost, absolutely, like McMurdo, right? So we have these models of really extreme environments on Earth, in Antarctica, for example, where humans have been able to go and make a, a sustainable settlement. McMurdo-style life on Mars, probably feasible in the 2030s. So we wanna send the first human missions to Mars, uh, maybe as early as the end of this decade, more likely early 2030s. Moving anywhere beyond that in terms of a place where h- like an entire human life would be lived, where it's not just you go for a three-month deployment and you come back, that is actually the big challenge line, is just saying is there enough, um, technological sophistication that can be brought that far out into space? If you imagine your electronics break, there's no RadioShack. (laughs) This dates me a little bit, but my mind jumps to RadioShack.
9. 57:33 – 1:02:06

   War in space

   1. LFLex Fridman57:33

      let me ask another sort of dark question. Uh, what do you think about, coming from a military family, uh, there's still, sadly, wars in the world. Uh, do you think-

   2. AEAriel Ekblaw57:43

      Yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman57:44

      ... wars, uh, military conflicts will follow us into space? B- wars between nations. Like, fr- from my perspective currently, it just seems like space is a place for scientists and engineers to explore ideas.

   4. AEAriel Ekblaw57:59

      Mm-hmm.

   5. LFLex Fridman58:00

      But the more and more progress you make, does it worry you that nations start to step in and form, you know, that's, that go out on full-out military conflict, whether it's in cyberspace, in space, or a actual hot war?

   6. AEAriel Ekblaw58:18

      I am really concerned about that, and I do think for decades, the scientific community in space has hung onto this notion from the 1967, uh, Outer Space Treaty, which is space is the province of all humankind, peaceful uses of outer space only. But I do think the rise in tensions and the geopolitical scene that we're seeing, um, I do, yeah, I do harbor a lot of concern about hot wars following humanity out into space, and it's worth trying to tie nations together with more collaboration to avoid that happening. The International Space Station is a great example. I think it's something like 18 countries are party to this treaty. It might be less, it might be more. Um, and then, of course, there's a smaller number of countries that actually send astronauts. But even, uh, at the fall of the Soviet Union and through some tense times with Russia, the ISS had been a place where the US and Russia were actually able to collaborate between Mir and ISS.

   7. LFLex Fridman59:13

      Yeah.

   8. AEAriel Ekblaw59:14

      I think it'd be really important right now, in particular, to find other platforms where these hegemonic powers in the world and developing world nations can come and collaborate on the future of space and purposefully intertwine our success so that there's a danger to multiple parties if somebody's a bad actor.

   9. LFLex Fridman59:33

      So we're now talking as, uh, there's a war in Ukraine, and I haven't been sleeping much. I have family, um, friends, colleagues in both countries, and I'm just talking to a lot of people, many of whom are crying, refugees.

   10. AEAriel Ekblaw59:47

       Mm.

   11. LFLex Fridman59:48

       And I, you know, there's a basic human compassion and love for each other that I believe technology can help catalyze and accelerate. But there's also science. There's, there's something about rockets. There's something about, and I mean, like, space exploration, that inspires the world about the positive possibilities of the human species. So in terms of Ukraine and Russia and China and India and the United States and Europe and everywhere else, it seems like collaborating on s- giant space projects is one way to escape these wars, um, to escape these sort of geopolitical conflicts. I mean, there's something, there's so much camaraderie to the whole thing, and um, even in this little, um, period of human history we're living, uh, through, it seems like that's essential. Even with, through this pandemic, there is something so inspiring about those, like, SpaceX rockets going up, for example.

   12. AEAriel Ekblaw1:00:52

       Sure.

   13. LFLex Fridman1:00:53

       Uh, this reinvigoration of the space exploration efforts by the commercial sector, I don't know. That was ... I, I had some, as many of us have, sort of some dark times during the, uh, this pandemic, just like loneliness and sometimes emotion and anger and just f- and just hopelessness and politics. And then you look at those rockets going up, and it just gives you hope. So I, I think that's an understated sort of value of space exploration, is a thing that unites us and gives us hope, obviously also inspires young generations and young minds to also contribute in not necessarily in space exploration, but in all of science and literature and poetry. There's just something about when you look up to the stars...

   14. AEAriel Ekblaw1:01:38

       (laughs)

   15. LFLex Fridman1:01:38

       ... that makes you dream.

   16. AEAriel Ekblaw1:01:39

       Mm. Very true.

   17. LFLex Fridman1:01:40

       And, um, so that, that's a really...... good reason to sort of invest in this, whether it's building giant mega structure, which is so freaking cool, but also, uh, colonizing Mars. (sighs) Yeah. It's, it's something to look forward to, something that, uh, that, that, uh ... And not make it a, a domain of war, but a, a, a domain of human collaboration and human compassion, I think.

10. 1:02:06 – 1:16:48

    Robots in space

    1. LFLex Fridman1:02:06

    2. AEAriel Ekblaw1:02:06

       Yeah.

    3. LFLex Fridman1:02:06

       Uh, you're the founder and director of the MIT Space Exploration Initiative. It includes a ton of projects.

    4. AEAriel Ekblaw1:02:14

       Mm-hmm.

    5. LFLex Fridman1:02:14

       So, I just wanted to, um ... They're focused, I guess, on life in space from astrobiology, like we talked about, to habitats. Are there some other interesting projects, part of this initiative that you are, um ... that pop to mind that you find particularly cool?

    6. AEAriel Ekblaw1:02:29

       Absolutely. One is the future of in-space manufacturing. So, if we're gonna build large-scale space structures, yes, it's great to ship them up from Earth and self-assemble them, but what about extrusion in orbit? It's one of the best technologies, uh, to leverage in microgravity because you can extrude a particularly long beam that would sag in a normal gravity environment, but might be able to become the basis of a truss or a large-scale space structure. So, we're doing miniature tests of extrusion and are excited to fly this on the International Space Station in a few months. We are working on swarm robots. Uh, we have just announced actually MIT's return to the moon. So, my organization is leading this mission for MIT, going back to the surface of the moon as early as the end of this year, 2022.

    7. LFLex Fridman1:03:15

       Wow.

    8. AEAriel Ekblaw1:03:15

       Maybe early 2023. And trying to take data from our research payloads at this historic South Pole site-

    9. LFLex Fridman1:03:24

       Mm-hmm.

    10. AEAriel Ekblaw1:03:24

        ... where NASA's supposed to send the first humans back on the Artemis 3 mission. So, our hope is to directly support that human mission with our data.

    11. LFLex Fridman1:03:32

        How does that connect to the swarm, uh, aspects? Does it connect? Does-

    12. AEAriel Ekblaw1:03:35

        Yes. Yeah. So, we're actually gonna fly one of the little AstroAnts. That's the current plan.

    13. LFLex Fridman1:03:39

        Nice.

    14. AEAriel Ekblaw1:03:39

        One of the little swarm robots on the top of a rover. Um, that's part of the mission.

    15. LFLex Fridman1:03:44

        Ant riding a rover? (laughs)

    16. AEAriel Ekblaw1:03:45

        Yes. An ant ... Exactly. An ant riding a rover. That rover gets packed in a lander. That lander gets packed in a SpaceX rocket. So, it's a whole nesting dolls situation to get to, to get to the moon.

    17. LFLex Fridman1:03:55

        Mother of robot dragons.

    18. AEAriel Ekblaw1:03:57

        Yes. Yeah. (laughs) Exactly.

    19. LFLex Fridman1:03:58

        Okay. So, this one, uh, a swarm of one?

    20. AEAriel Ekblaw1:04:01

        Swarm of one. Exactly. We're testing out ... It's a tech demonstration mission, not a true, not a true swarm. Yeah. There they are. Those are the AstroAnts.

    21. LFLex Fridman1:04:09

        Wow. And they ... This was a distributed system, and they in, in theory, you could have a ton of these.

    22. AEAriel Ekblaw1:04:14

        Yes. These could also be centralized. So, they, they have wireless technology that could also talk to a central base station, and we'll be assessing kind of case by case whether it makes sense to operate them in a decentralized swarm or to command them in a centralized swarm.

    23. LFLex Fridman1:04:29

        Each robot is equipped with, uh, four magnetic wheels which enable the robot to attach to any magnetic surface, so you can operate basically in any environment. He tested the ... Uh, "We tested the mobility of all robots on different materials in a microgravity environment."

    24. AEAriel Ekblaw1:04:44

        On the Vomit Comet prior to going to the moon.

    25. LFLex Fridman1:04:46

        On the Vomit Comet.

    26. AEAriel Ekblaw1:04:46

        Yeah.

    27. LFLex Fridman1:04:46

        That must look so cool. So, they're basically moving along different s- like metallic surfaces.

    28. AEAriel Ekblaw1:04:52

        Yeah. Exactly.

    29. LFLex Fridman1:04:54

        Yeah.

    30. AEAriel Ekblaw1:04:54

        It's interesting when you, you know, just a minute ago talking about the reflection of how space can be so aspirational and so uniting. There's a great quote from Bill Anders from the Apollo 8 mission to the moon, which is he ... It's the Earthrise photo that was taken, where you see the Earth coming up over the horizon of the moon. And the quote is something along the lines of, "We came all the way to discover the moon, and what we really discovered was the Earth." This really powerful image looking back. And so we're also trying to think for our lunar mission. We realize we're a very privileged group at MIT to get the opportunity to do this. How could we bring humanity along with us? And so one of the things we're still testing out, I don't know if we're gonna be able to, to swing it, would be to do something like a Twitch Plays Pokemon-
11. 1:16:48 – 1:20:25

    Commercial space exploration

    1. LFLex Fridman1:16:48

       Well, first, I'd love to get your opinion on commercial space flight, what SpaceX, what Blue Origin are doing.

    2. AEAriel Ekblaw1:16:53

       Yeah.

    3. LFLex Fridman1:16:54

       And also, another question on top of that is, uh, because you've worked with, with a lot of different kinds of people culturally, what's the difference between, uh, SpaceX or commercial type of efforts, NASA, and MIT?

    4. AEAriel Ekblaw1:17:10

       And academia? (laughs)

    5. LFLex Fridman1:17:11

       Academia.

    6. AEAriel Ekblaw1:17:12

       Yeah, so to the first part of your question, I am thrilled by all of the commercial activity in space. It has really empowered our program. So instead of me waiting for five years to get a grant and get the money from the grant and only then can you send a project to space, I go out and I fundraise, a lot like a startup founder, and I directly buy access to space on the International Space Station through SpaceX or Nanoracks, same with Blue Origin and their suborbital craft, same with Axiom now. Axiom's, uh, making plans for their own commercial space station. It's not out of the realm of possibility that in a few years, I will rent lab space in orbit. I will rent a module from the Axiom Space Station or the Orbital Reef, uh, which is the Blue Origin space station, or Nanoracks is thinking about, uh, Starlab Oasis. There's probably some other companies that I'm not even aware of yet that are doing commercial space habitats, so I think that's fabulous, um, and really empowering for our research.

Episode duration: 1:46:49